"I used to sing good myself," continued Susannah, "you could hear the echo of my voice way out yonder, but I can't sing no more." Here Susannah stuck out her legs, covered with long-ribbed pink stockings. "My legs got de misery in 'em now, and my voice gone. In my mother's house dey never trained us to sing things like the mos' o' people. We sung the good old hymns, like, 'A Charge to Keep I have, a God to Glorify.'"
Old Tim, who used to live on a plantation in Virginia, said in speaking of good times before the war, "Sho', we had plenty o' banjo pickers! They was 'lowed to play banjos and guitars at night, if de Patterolas didn' interfere. At home de owners wouldn' 'low de Patterolas to tech their folks. We used to run mighty fast to git home after de frolics! Patterolas wus a club of men who'd go around and catch slaves on strange plantations and break up frolics, and whip 'em sometimes."
We asked Aunt Ellen Campbell, who was a slave on the Eve plantation in Richmond County, about good times in slavery days. She laughed delightedly and said, "When anybody gwine be married dey tell de boss and he have a cake fix. Den when Sunday come, after dey be married she put on de white dress she be married in and dey go up to town so de boss can see de young couple."
She was thoughtful a moment, then continued, "Den sometimes on Sadday night we have a big frolic. De nigger fum Hammond's place and Phinizy place, Eve place, Clayton place, D'Laigle place, all git together fer a big dance and frolic. A lot o' de young sports used to come dere and push de young nigger bucks aside and dance wid de wenches."
"We used to have big parties sometime," said Fannie Fulcher, a former slave on Dr. Miller's plantation in Burke County. "No white folks—jus' de overseer come round to see how dey git erlong. I 'member dey have a fiddle. I had a cousin who played fer frolics, and fer de white folks, too."
According to Melinda Mitchell, who lived on the plantation of Rev. Allen Dozier in Edgefield County, South Carolina, the field hands and house servants forgot cares in merriment and dancing after the day's work was over. When asked about her master, a Baptist preacher, condoning dancing Melinda replied with the simple statement, "He wasn't only a preacher, he was a religious man. De slaves danced at de house of a man who 'tended de stack, way off in de fiel' away fum de big house." They danced to the tunes of banjos and a homemade instrument termed, "Quill", evidently some kind of reed. It was fairly certain that the noise of merriment must have been heard at the big house, but the slaves were not interrupted in their frolic.
"My mammy wus de bes' dancer on de plantachun," Melinda said proudly. "She could dance so sturdy she could balance a glass o' water on her head an never spill a drop." She recalls watching the dancers late into the night until she fell asleep.
She could tell of dances and good times in the big house as well as in the quarters. The young ladies were belles. They were constantly entertaining. One day a wandering fortune-teller came on the piazza where a crowd of young people were gathered, and asked to tell the young ladies' fortunes. Everything was satisfactory until he told Miss Nettie she would marry a one-armed man. At this the young belle was so indignant that the man was driven off and the dogs set on him. "But de fortune teller told true-true," Melinda said. A faint ominous note crept into her voice and her eyes seemed to be seeing events that had transpired almost three-quarters of a century ago. "After de war Miss Nettie did marry a one-arm man, like de fortune-teller said, a Confederate officer, Captain Shelton, who had come back wid his sleeve empty."