skin jus' roll up and lay down on de
groun', and den de Mistis disappear. De driver wus too skeered to move.
In a little while he yeared her voice sayin', 'Skinny, Skinny, don't you
know me? Den de skin jump up and dere she wus again, ez big as life. He
watch her like dat for a lot o' nights, and den he went and tole de
Marster. De Marster wus so skeered o' her he run away frum de plantation
and quit her."

Laura Stewart, who was born a slave in Virginia, gives this verson of
the same story:

"Dey always tole me de story 'bout de ole witch who git out her skin. I
ain't know it all. In dem days I guess dose kinder things went on. Dey
said while she was out ridin' wid de ole witch she lef' her skin behind
her, and when she come back, de other woman had put salt and pepper on
it; and whan she say, 'Skinny, Skinny, don't you know me?' de ole skin
wouldn't jump up, so she ain't had no skin a-tall."

"Granny," Laura's granddaughter called to her, "tell the ladies about
the Mistis what got bury."

"Oh yes," Laura recalled, "dey didn' bury her so far. A bad man went
dere to git her gold ring off her finger. She make a sound like 'Shs'
like her bref comin' out, and de man got skeered. He run off. She got up
direckly and come to de house. Dey was skeered o' dat Mistis de res' o'
her life and say she were a hant."

INTERESTING CUSTOMS

On one southern plantation soap was made at a certain time of the year
and left in the hollowed-out trough of a big log.

Indigo was planted for blueing. Starch was made out of wheat bran put in
soak. The bran was squeezed out and used to feed the hogs, and the
starch was saved for clothes.

A hollow stump was filled with apples when cider was to be made. A hole
was bored in the middle, and a lever put inside, which would crush the
apples. As Mary put it, "you put the apples in the top, pressed the
lever, the cider come out the spout, and my, it was good!"

DRESS

Most of the old ex-slave women interviewed wore long full skirts, and
flat loose shoes. In spite of what tradition and story claim, few of the
older negroes of this district wear head clothes. Most of them wear
their wooly hair "wropped" with string. The women often wear men's
discarded slouch hats. Though many of the old woman were interviewed in
mid-summer, they wore several waists and seemed absolutely unaware of
the heat.

One man, wearing the typical dress of the poverty-stricken old person of
this district, is Tim