imes they made 'em outen bark.
Every whistle in the row was a different tone and you could play any
kind of tune you wants effen you had a good row of quills. They sho' did
sound sweet!

"'Bout the most fun we had was at corn shuckin's whar they put the corn
in long piles and called in the folkses from the plantations nigh round
to shuck it. Sometimes four or five hunnert head of niggers 'ud be
shuckin' corn at one time. When the corn all done been shucked they'd
drink the likker the marsters give 'em and then frolic and dance from
sundown to sunup. We started shuckin' corn 'bout dinnertime and tried to
finish by sundown so we could have the whole night for frolic. Some
years we 'ud go to ten or twelve corn shuckin's in one year!

"We would sing and pray Easter Sunday and on Easter Monday we frolicked
and danced all day long! Christmas we allus had plenty good sumpin' to
eat and we all got togedder and had lots of fun. We runned up to the big
'ouse early Christmas mornin' and holler out: 'Mornin', Christmas Gif'!'
Then they'd give us plenty of Sandy Claus and we would go back to our
cabins to have fun twel New Year's day. We knowed Christmas was over and
gone when New Year's day come, kazen we got back to wuk that day atter
frolickin' all Christmas week.

"We didn' know nuttin' 'bout games to play. We played with the white
folkses chilluns and watched atter 'em but most of the time we played in
the crick what runned through the pastur'. Nigger chilluns was allus
skeered to go in the woods atter dark. Folkses done told us
Raw-Head-and-Bloody Bones lived in the woods and git little chilluns and
eat 'em up effen they got out in the woods atter dark!

"'Rockabye baby in the tree trops' was the onliest song I heard my maw
sing to git her babies to sleep. Slave folkses sung most all the time
but we didn' think of what we sang much. We jus' got happy and started
singin'. Sometimes we 'ud sing effen we felt sad and lowdown, but soon
as we could, we 'ud go off whar we could go to sleep and forgit all
'bout trouble!" James nodded his gray head with a wise look in his
bright eyes. "When you hear a nigger singin' sad songs hit's jus' kazen
he can't stop what he is doin' long enough to go to sleep!"

The laughter that greeted this sally brought an answering grin to the
wrinkled old face. Asked about marriage customs, James said:

"Folkses didn' make no big to-do over weddings like they do now. When
slaves got married they jus'