kitchen and the cabins, and the black ones were their playmates in the
shaded sandy yard the livelong day. Together they were regaled with
folklore in the quarters, with Bible and fairy stories in the "big house,"
with pastry in the kitchen, with grapes at the scuppernong arbor, with
melons at the spring house and with peaches in the orchard. The half-grown
boys were likewise almost as undiscriminating among themselves as the dogs
with which they chased rabbits by day and 'possums by night. Indeed, when
the fork in the road of life was reached, the white youths found something
to envy in the freedom of their fellows' feet from the cramping weight of
shoes and the freedom of their minds from the restraints of school. With
the approach of maturity came routine and responsibility for the whites,
routine alone for the generality of the blacks. Some of the males of each
race grew into ruffians, others into gentlemen in the literal sense, some
of the females into viragoes, others into gentlewomen; but most of
both races and sexes merely became plain, wholesome folk of a somewhat
distinctive plantation type.

In amusements and in religion the activities of the whites and blacks were
both mingled and separate. Fox hunts when occurring by day were as a rule
diversions only for the planters and their sons and guests, but when they
occurred by moonlight the chase was joined by the negroes on foot with
halloos which rivalled the music of the hounds. By night also the blacks,
with the whites occasionally joining in, sought the canny 'possum and the
embattled 'coon; in spare times by day they hied their curs after the
fleeing Brer Rabbit, or built and baited seductive traps for turkeys and
quail; and fishing was available both by day and by night. At the horse
races of the whites the jockeys and many of the spectators were negroes;
while from the cock fights and even the "crap" games of the blacks, white
men and boys were not always absent.

Festivities were somewhat more separate than sports, though by no means
wholly so. In the gayeties of Christmas the members of each race were
spectators of the dances and diversions of the other. Likewise marriage
merriment in the great house would have its echo in the quarters; and
sometimes marriages among the slaves were grouped so as to give occasion
for a general frolic. Thus Daniel R. Tucker in 1858 sent a general
invitation over the countryside in central Georgia to a sextuple wedding
amo