‚	69

page-3


the negro burial ground, a white preacher conducting the last rites. When a negro couple wanted to marry the consent of the owners was cere~ny enough and they set up. a hoz~e as ~n and wife and lived on „ ‚ thout all di s ‚ vn‘ lak dey has terday.“

	Chria~as was a big time with three or four days holiday on the plantations • Santa Claus found his way to the quarters and left the little negroes sti ok candy and “rel sens“ ‚ and “dar wuz er plenty of pound cake ter everybody. „ POUIU1 Of ~uly was a big holiday and all the little boys white and- blaflk went a- fishing together that day .

	Sundays were . kept holy ~ no work was done on the Sabbath. On “ineetin‘ days“ everybody attended the neighborhood Church, white and black worshiped together, the darkies in the gallery built for the~i. On ail other Sundays they went to Church and everybody sat in one big Bible Class. Wheeler said his Uiatess called up all the little negroes on the plantation on Sunday afternoons and taught thea the catechism and told thea Bible stories.

	There was plezrty of fun for the darkles in the Greshem ant Booker community. They bad dances, cornehuckings, picnics and. all kinds of old time affairs. These were attended by slaves for soiae distance around, but they had to have passes or “de patter poilera would aho‘ git ‘em. Us litt3s niggers wuz feared to go ‘bout imich ‘kase we hearst so much. erbout de patter rollers.“ Wheeler enfoyed the cornehuckings mors than anything elsa, or