SEE
YOU CONVERTED'" " 40

"'I PROMISED HIM I'D PUT ON MO'NIN' FOR HER
SOON AS I MARRIED INTO DE FAMILY'" " 74

"SAYS SHE, 'OPEN YORE MOUTH!' AN' OF CO'SE
I OPENED IT" " 98

"I DES LETS 'EM LOOSE P'OMISKYUS, TELL
EV'YBODY SEE BLUE LIGHTNIN'" " 134

"SALVATION'S KYAR IS MOVIN'!" " 148

"'WON'T YER, PLEASE, SIR, SPELL DAT WORD
OUT FUR ME SLOW?'" " 168

MORIAH'S MOURNING

Moriah was a widow of a month, and when she announced her intention of
marrying again, the plantation held its breath. Then it roared with
laughter.

Not because of the short period of her mourning was the news so
incredible. But by a most exceptional mourning Moriah had put herself
upon record as the most inconsolable of widows.

So prompt a readjustment of life under similar conditions was by no
means unprecedented in colored circles.

The rules governing the wearing of the mourning garb are by no means
stringent in plantation communities, and the widow who for reasons of
economy or convenience sees fit to wear out her colored garments during
her working hours is not held to account for so doing if she appear at
all public functions clad in such weeds as she may find available. It is
not even needful, indeed, that her supreme effort should attain any
definite standard. Anybody can collect a few black things, and there is
often an added pathos in the very incongruity of some of the mourning
toilettes that pass up the aisles of the colored churches.

Was not the soul of artlessness expressed in the first mourning of a
certain young widow, for instance, who sewed upon her blue gown all the
black trimming she could collect, declaring that she "would 'a' dyed de
frock th'oo an' th'oo 'cep'n' it would 'a' swunked it up too much"? And
perhaps her sympathetic companions were quite as _naive_ as she, for,
as they aided her in these first hasty stitches, they poured upon her
wounded spirit the healing oil of full and sympathetic approval, as the
following remarks will testify.

"Dat frock mo'ns all right, now de black bows is on it."

"You kin put any colored frock in mo'nin' 'cep'n' a red one. Sew black
on red, an' it laughs in yo' face."

"I'm a-sewin' de black fringe on de josey, Sis Jones, 'case