e Mary said, "They say I was married when I
was 17 years old. I know it was after freedom. I married a boy who
belonged to the Childs plantation. I had the finest kind of marrying
dress, my father bought it for me. It had great big grapes hanging down
from the sleeves and around the skirt." She sighed and a shadow passed
over her placid old face, as she added, "I wish't I had a kep' it for my
children to saw."

A slave from the Starling Freeman plantation in South Carolina said,
"When cullud people wus married, white people give a supper. A cullud
man whut lives on de place marries 'em."

"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 w