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	Buchanan County.	Fo1k1or~J
pagel.

.	SL~AV~ & NEGRO LOR.~

	The wonderful meteoric display known as the “star shower“ or “the time when the stars fell,“ occured in 1833. It was on the night of the 12th and 13th of November. Many ignorant persons concluded that the Judgernent day had come, or that the end of the world was at hand. Negroes e8peCially were very iriuch frightened. A dance was in progrese on a Buchanan County farm, attended exclusively by slaves from the neighborhood. Nhen ‘the star shower began the negroes ~were first made aware of the fact by a messenger who ran frantically into the c~biri. ~and shouted, “If you all wants to git to hebin, you‘d better ‘gin to say yo‘ pra‘rs mighty sudden, case the Lawd is acomin‘ wi‘de fire an‘ de glory an‘ de wuld‘l]. be burnt up like a eracklin‘ ‘fo ino‘nin.“

	Th~ dancers ran out, féll on their krieew and cried for mercy. Not for many days did they recover from their fright. One old negro declared that if the world and his life

~ were spared he would agree to break eighty pounds of hemp every day instead of fifty, as he had been‘ accuston~d to do.

	The Negro was a part of the early Buchanan County f&mily. They were black s34ves and happy.

	The negro Maffßny had her proper place in the scheme of things. She was no fiction of a later day novelist, but genuine, ~ntle, untiring, and faithful.. The Negro mammy merits s prominent place in the picture an artist might paint, for on her broad should— ers was carried the generation which made the early history of Missouri fascinating and great . ~

	When once a week came “Johnny Seldom“—~as t~ie hot biscuits node of wheat flour were called in Old Mis8ouri——all other kinds of breed faded into nothingness. Two kinds af bi~cuit~ were.typically Missourian«the large, fluffy, high biscuits-- which looked

lIke an undersized sofa pillow--and beaten biscuits, Small, crisp, delicious—-the grand— ‚~ father of all afternoon tea refreshment8. No “P0‘ white t rash“ can xr~ke beaten bieclits.
  ~ ‚		ci
Indeed, much of the finest flavor of all cookery belonged intuitively to the Negro.	How


~	Negro cook m~na~ed to get biscuits steaming hot from the cook~room. a quarter of a ~x
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