"When folkses on our plantation died Marster allus let many of us as wanted to go, lay offen wuk twel atter the buryin'. Sometimes it were two or three months atter the buryin' befo' the funeral sermon was preached. Right now I can't rekelleck no song we sung at funerals cep'n 'Hark from the tombs a doleful sound.'"
The reedy old voice carried the funeral hymn for a few minutes and then trailed off. James was thinking back into the past again.
"Spring plowin' and hoein' times we wukked all day Saddays, but mos'en generally we laid off wuk at twelve o'clock Sadday. That was dinnertime. Sadday nights we played and danced. Sometimes in the cabins, sometimes in the yards. Effen we didn' have a big stack of fat kindling wood lit up to dance by, sometimes the mens and 'omans would carry torches of kindling wood whils't they danced and it sho' was a sight to see! We danced the 'Turkey Trot' and 'Buzzard Lope', and how we did love to dance the 'Mary Jane!' We would git in a ring and when the music started we would begin wukkin' our footses while we sang 'You steal my true love and I steal your'n!'
"Atter supper we used to gether round and knock tin buckets and pans, we beat 'em like drums. Some used they fingers and some used sticks for to make the drum sounds and somebody allus blowed on quills. Quills was a row of whistles made outen reeds, or sometimes they made 'em outen bark. Every whistle in the row was a different tone and you could play any kind of tune you wants effen you had a good row of quills. They sho' did sound sweet!
"'Bout the most fun we had was at corn shuckin's whar they put the corn in long piles and called in the folkses from the plantations nigh round to shuck it. Sometimes four or five hunnert head of niggers 'ud be shuckin' corn at one time. When the corn all done been shucked they'd drink the likker the marsters give 'em and then frolic and dance from sundown to sunup. We started shuckin' corn 'bout dinnertime and tried to finish by sundown so we could have the whole night for frolic. Some years we 'ud go to ten or twelve corn shuckin's in one year!
"We would sing and pray Easter Sunday and on Easter Monday we frolicked and danced all day long! Christmas we allus had plenty good sumpin' to eat and we all got togedder and had lots of fun. We runned up to the big 'ouse early Christmas mornin' and holler out: 'Mornin', Christmas Gif'!' Then they'd give us plenty of Sandy Claus and we would go back to our cabins to have fun twel New Year's day. We knowed Christmas was over and gone when New Year's day come, kazen we got back to wuk that day atter frolickin' all Christmas week.
"We didn' know nuttin' 'bout games to play. We played with the white folkses chilluns and watched atter 'em but most of the time we played in the crick what runned through the pastur'. Nigger chilluns was allus skeered to go in the woods atter dark. Folkses done told us Raw-Head-and-Bloody Bones lived in the woods and git little chilluns and eat 'em up effen they got out in the woods atter dark!
"'Rockabye baby in the tree trops' was the onliest song I heard my maw sing to git her babies to sleep. Slave folkses sung most all the time but we didn' think of what we sang much. We jus' got happy and started singin'. Sometimes we 'ud sing effen we felt sad and lowdown, but soon as we could, we 'ud go off whar we could go to sleep and forgit all 'bout trouble!" James nodded his gray head with a wise look in his bright eyes. "When you hear a nigger singin' sad songs hit's jus' kazen he can't stop what he is doin' long enough to go to sleep!"
The laughter that greeted this sally brought an answering grin to the wrinkled old face. Asked about marriage customs, James said:
"Folkses didn' make no big to-do over weddings like they do now. When slaves got married they jus' laid down the broom on the floor and the couple jined hands and jumped back-uds over the broomstick. I done seed 'em married that way many a time. Sometimes my marster would fetch Mistess down to the slave quarters to see a weddin'. Effen the slaves gittin' married was house servants, sometimes they married on the back porch or in the back yard at the big 'ouse but plantation niggers what was field hands married in they own cabins. The bride and groom jus' wore plain clothes kazen they didn' have no more.