In addition to the regular distribution of clothing, the household supplied to the servants in rapid succession everything worn by master, mistress, son or daughter. Knowing that their clothes were being watched and guarded by longing eyes, they never wore them very long. Mary Lee was distributing a dozen dresses now to the girls. They had been made within the past year.
Phil observed Sam arrayed in a swallowtail coat of immaculate cut stroll by with his best girl. She was dressed in silk with full hoop-skirts, ruffles, ribbons and flowers.
Sid annoyed Sam by calling loudly:
"Doan yer stay too late ter dat party. Ef ye do I'll hatter sing fur ye—
"Run, nigger, run, de patterole ketch you.
Nigger run, de nigger flew,
De nigger loss his best ole shoe!
Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run."
Sam waved his arm in a long laugh.
"Dey won't git me, chile. I'se er conjur man, I is!"
Phil had supposed the patrol of the mysterious mounted police of the South—the men who rode at night—were to the slave always a tragic terror.
It seemed a thing for joke and ribald song.
After lunch, the negroes entered on the afternoon's fun or work. The industrious ones plied their trades to earn money for luxuries. The boys who loved to fish and hunt rabbits hurried to the river and the fields. There was always a hound at their service for a rabbit hunt on Saturday afternoons. Some were pitching horse shoes. Two groups began to play marbles.