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The customary social gatherings were at horse-racings, at corn-shuckings, at political speech-makings, at weddings, whereat the coarse proceedings would not nowadays bear recital; at log-rollings, where the neighbors gathered to collect the logs of a newly cleared lot for burning; and at house-raisings, where they kindly aided to set up the frame of a cabin for a new-comer; at camp-meetings, where the hysterical excitement of a community whose religion was more than half superstition found clamorous and painful vent; or perchance at a hanging, which, if it met public approbation, would be sanctioned by the gathering of the neighbors within a day's journey of the scene.
Sometimes they have a shucking, which is a great affair, even among the little farmers in Upper Georgia, where, only, corn-shuckings are kept up with all the spice of old custom, and invitations are extended to those at a distance of ten or fifteen miles, who repay the compliment with their presence, and join in the revelry.
Remember that she could hear of the outside world daily from the passing chattels of the plantations, farms, families; the green fields, Sunday woods, running streams; the camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; the baptisms, marriages, funerals, prayer-meetings; the holidays and holy days.
Log-rollings, house-raisings, house-warmings, corn-shuckings, quiltings, and the like were occasions when all the neighbors came together to do what the family itself could hardly accomplish alone.
Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties. "Does anybody round here play the banjo?" "None o' my boys," said the old woman, "but Tom Green's son down the creek he follers pickin' the banjo a leetle." "Follows pickin' " the Blight did not miss that phrase. "What do you foller fer a livin'?" the old man asked me suddenly.
On Christmas and New Years day we would go up to the house and they would give us candy and fruit and fire-crackers. We were given some of all the food that the white folks had, even turkey. Would have heaps of corn-shuckings, the neighbors would come in and then we'd have big dances and old Marse would always have a "jug of licker". If a cat crossed our path we would turn backwards for a while.
He struck communities where the medium of exchange was still barter, and he found mountaineers drinking metheglin still as well as moonshine. Moreover, there were still log-rollings, house-warmings, corn-shuckings, and quilting parties, and sports were the same as in pioneer days wrestling, racing, jumping, and lifting barrels.
"Yes, me and Dick Wrinkle was both after her in a neck-and-neck race, taking her to parties, corn-shuckings, and anything that was got up. Hettie never was, you know, exactly pretty, but she had a sort o' queer, say-little way about her that caught my eye. I was a gawky boy, as green as a gourd, and never had been about with women.
Corn-shuckings, apple-parings, log-rollings, sugaring-off all these tasks even down to "hog-killings" were made the excuse for social gatherings. The idea of helping one another in the heavier tasks of their existence on the frontier was likewise combined in this.
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