ng his slaves, with dinner and dancing to follow.[2] On the whole, the
fiddle, the banjo and the bones were not seldom in requisition.

[Footnote 2: _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), April 20, 1858.]

It was a matter of discomfort that in the evangelical churches dancing
and religion were held to be incompatible. At one time on Thomas Dabney's
plantation in Mississippi, for instance, the whole negro force fell captive
in a Baptist "revival" and forswore the double shuffle. "I done buss' my
fiddle an' my banjo, and done fling 'em away," the most music-loving
fellow on the place said to the preacher when asked for his religious
experiences.[3] Such a condition might be tolerable so long as it was
voluntary; but the planters were likely to take precautions against its
becoming coercive. James H. Hammond, for instance, penciled a memorandum
in his plantation manual: "Church members are privileged to dance on all
holyday occasions; and the class-leader or deacon who may report them shall
be reprimanded or punished at the discretion of the master."[4] The logic
with which sin and sanctity were often reconciled is illustrated in Irwin
Russell's remarkably faithful "Christmas in the Quarters." "Brudder Brown"
has advanced upon the crowded floor to "beg a blessin' on dis dance:"

[Footnote 3: S.D. Smedes. _Memorials of a Southern Planter_, pp. 161, 162.]

[Footnote 4: MS. among the Hammond papers in the Library of Congress.]

O Mashr! let dis gath'rin' fin' a blessin' in yo' sight!
Don't jedge us hard fur what we does--you knows it's Chrismus night;
An' all de balunce ob de yeah we does as right's we kin.
Ef dancin's wrong, O Mashr! let de time excuse de sin!

We labors in de vineya'd, wukin' hard and wukin' true;
Now, shorely you won't notus, ef we eats a grape or two,
An' takes a leetle holiday,--a leetle restin' spell,--
Bekase, nex' week we'll start in fresh, an' labor twicet as well.

Remember, Mashr,--min' dis, now,--de sinfulness ob sin
Is 'pendin' 'pon de sperrit what we goes an' does it in;
An' in a righchis frame ob min' we's gwine to dance an' sing,
A-feelin' like King David, when he cut de pigeon-wing.

It seems to me--indeed it do--I mebbe mout be wrong--
That people raly _ought_ to dance, when Chrismus comes along;
Des dance bekase dey's happy--like de birds hops in de trees,
De pine-top fiddle soundin' to de blowin' ob de breeze.

We has no ark to dance afore, like Isr