long on trips to wait on them. Bless your life! That
was one time when the ones that could read and write had the advantage.
They were usually chosen to go along so if anything happened to the
Marster on the trip, they could write back home. I never saw patrollers,
but I heard that they used to beat up Negroes who were caught away from
home without a pass. Marse John kept his slaves supplied with passes at
all necessary times.

"Not all the slaves had to work on Saturday afternoons. This was their
time of the week to get together and have a little fun around their
quarters. Sunday mornings they went to church, as a rule, and on Sunday
nights they visited each other and held prayer meetings in their homes.
Don't get me wrong. They had to have passes to go visiting and attend
those prayer meetings.

"Christmas time was a holiday season for slaves, and they had everything
good you could want to eat. Listen, Child, I am telling you the truth.
They even had pumpkin pie. Oh, yes! Santa Claus came to see slave
children. Once I got too smart for my own good. Miss Fannie and Miss Ann
had told us to go to bed early. They said if we weren't asleep when
Santa Claus got there, he would go away and never come back. Well, that
night I made up my mind to stay awake and see Santa Claus. Miss Fannie
and Miss Ann slipped into our quarters right easy and quiet and were
filling up stockings with candy, dolls, and everything you can imagine.
While they were doing that, they turned around and saw me with my eyes
wide open. Right there my Santa Claus ended. We didn't have any special
observance of New Year's Day. It was the same as any other day.

"Mother said they had cornshuckings, quiltings, and cotton pickings on
the plantation. She told me a good deal about the cornshuckings: about
how they selected a general, whose job was to get up on top of the corn
pile and holler at the top of his voice, leading the cornshucking song,
while the others all shucked the corn and sang. After the corn was all
shucked there were always fine eats. I can remember the quiltings
myself. The women went from one house to another and quilted as many as
12 quilts in one night sometimes. After the quilts were all finished
they had a big spread of good food too. Now it takes a whole month to
quilt one quilt and nothing to eat.

"What games did we play? Let me see. Oh! yes, one of them was played to
the rhyme:

'Chickimy, chickimy, Craney Crow
I went to th