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It seemed but a minute before the quiet old plantation, in which the harvest, the corn-shucking, and the Christmas holidays alone marked the passage of the quiet seasons, and where a strange carriage or a single horseman coming down the big road was an event in life, was turned into a depot of war-supplies, and the neighborhood became a parade-ground.
What is said of the South Carolinians can be truthfully said of Georgians. People of the same blood, and kindred in all that makes them one, they could be with propriety one and the same people. The Georgians would charge a breastwork or storm a battery with the same light-heartedness as they went to their husking bees or corn-shucking, all in a frolick.
His voice was the loudest at the corn-shucking, his foot was the nimblest at the plantation frolics, his row was the straightest and the cleanest in the cotton-patch, his hand was the firmest on the carriage-seat, his arm was the strongest at the log-rolling. When his old mistress came to die, her wandering mind dwelt upon the negro who had served her so faithfully.
"Suppose we are delayed in reaching the Solomon until fall," said Dell to his brother; "that will put us into the settlements in time for corn-shucking. If you get six-bits a day, I'm surely worth fifty cents." "Suppose there is no corn to shuck," replied Joel. "Suppose this wounded man dies on our hands? What then?
The next night was a gala one, and a merrier set of negroes never sang at a corn-shucking, nor did a jollier leader than Wash ever tread the pile, while Mercy sat on a throne of shucks receiving Sambo's homage, and, unmolested by fear, coyly held a corncob between her teeth as she hung her head and bashfully consented that he should come next day to "ax Mas' Ned de liberty of de plantashun."
Flora led the way past the stables, and down a broad path which led to the negro quarters. The ponies went at a slow pace, as Flora wanted to be sure that Sylvia was not afraid, and that she was enjoying her first ride. "The corn-shucking will be here," she said, pointing with her pretty gold-mounted whip to a number of corn-cribs.
No, Hannah, nor never will. But as you and I are both poor, and faithful, and patient, and broken in like to bear things cheerful, no harm has come of our falling in love at that corn-shucking. But now, s'pose them there children fall in love long of each other by looking into each other's pretty eyes who's to hinder it? And that will be the end of it?
One Saturday in November there was a quilting-bee and a corn-shucking at farmer Trabue's. Early in the afternoon the matrons and maids of Cane Ridge each with thimble, needles and scissors in a long reticule dangling from her waist congregated in Mrs. Trabue's big upper room, where the quilt, already "swung," was awaiting them.
"What is a 'corn-shucking'?" questioned Sylvia; for she had always lived in a city and did not know much about farm or plantation affairs. "Shall I tell her, Flora?" questioned Ralph, laughingly. "No! No, indeed! Wait, Sylvia, then it will be a surprise after all," responded Flora. Sylvia smiled happily.
Perhaps I was much of both. But this is a digression. I did not pay any attention to women. I shunned them. I said that to be a great author and a philosophical thinker, one must not be a man of society. I never went to a wood-chopping, to an apple-peeling, to a corn-shucking, to a barn-raising, nor indeed to any of our rustic feasts.
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