At Easter, kids would hide eggs. Go around to hen nests and get a egg or two every day and hide them so you’d have some for Easter. Well, Papa had about twelve or fourteen old Rhode Island Red hens. And Papa said, “I know good and well them hens ain’t laying.” Well, I’d go around every evening late before Mama and them would come home from work. And I’d steal me two or three eggs. And we had an old barn with a big old loft to it, and he had it full of hay.
Well, I’d steal two or three eggs every day and I’d carry them up to the loft and hide them up under that hay. Well, Easter come and Mama said, “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Said, “I ain’t got too many eggs for Easter.” I said, “I got some, Mama.” She said, “How’d you get any eggs?” I said, “I hid me some.” Said, “Well, go get them.”
And I went down there and got to pulling in that hay, and she had a little old basket—it was about that big around and about that high with a handle on it. I took that little old basket and went down there. I said, “I’ve got a few eggs.” When I got down there and got to pulling that hay back, I had that basket piled plumb full of eggs. You never seen so many eggs in your life as I had. And I carried them back home, and I thought I’d done something good, you know.
Papa got that old razor strop down, he said, “If you ever do anything like that again, I’ll beat you good.” Said, “Me a-worrying about my hens and you hiding the eggs!” I said, “Well, I thought I was doing something good. I thought it would be good. And I was a-hiding…” “—not no more you won’t!” He didn’t see the humor in it.
Eula Durham (b. early 1900’s)
North Carolina new Oral History Interview with Eula and Vernon Durham, 1978 November 29. Interview H-64. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)