Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 21. MILK, EGGS AND BROWN SUGAR (Pp 36-37) We had plenty of nourishing food
when I was growing up and we raised most of what we ate right on the farm. Good old biscuits, eggs and home-made butter was some of the best food that could be found for growing boys. Most families had a cow in their hack lot or bought milk from a neighbor that had more than they could use. A milk cow was an essential part of a homestead, especially if there were children in the family for dairy trucks didn't come to Folkston. We usually had two or
three milk cows and had more milk and butter and buttermilk than we could use, so Mama sold butter to the boarding house in Folkston. Laura Gowen's two old-maid aunts ran the boarding house which was about where Rodgers Department Store is now and Mama had a standing order with them for her home-made butter. I took it to the boarding house twice a week, Mama shaped it by using a little wooden mold which held a half pound of butter. It had a decoration carved in the top and when the butter was
taken from the mold the design was printed on the top of it. I took two or three pounds a week to the boarding house and I believe we got thirty cents a pound for it. If we couldn't have eggs for breakfast, we felt like we hadn't had a real meal. I and about a half dozen of young men about my age were working on the St. Marys River bridge near St. George, renting a little two-story house there, and once found ourselves without eggs for a Sunday breakfast. L. E. Mallard, county school superintendent, had come to visit the schools in the St. George area and instead of driving on home, he had spent the night with us. He knew that John Harris, in addition to teaching school, also had a chicken farm, so he suggested we get the eggs for our breakfast from him. The place we were renting was pretty close to Mr. Harris' house so we walked down there and told, him we wanted to buy some eggs. But he didn't want to sell them to us because
it was Sunday. We told him we really wanted them for our breakfast and he said "Well, boys, I see you are stranded and need the eggs," so he sold us two dozen. They were cooked and eaten before the hour was up. We used store-bought white sugar, however Papa would occasionally make a barrel of brown sugar from the juice of the cane we grew, and we ate it like it was candy. We would just dig out a lump of whatever size we wanted and pop it in our mouth. The
children really liked that. We were all partial to cornbread and biscuits and didn't have much use for lightbread at all. One time Bob Jones, Harry Snowden and Jim Jones were buying something to eat so they decided on cheese and crackers. One of them said "Let's get a loaf of that lightbread." And Jim made the others laugh when he said "No! That's too much like eating cotton!" | 
