CRAVEX COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. I 35 



Start, the Fourth of July would be celebrated by a 

 ball. This first taste would be followed by a desire 

 for more. During the heat of summer, parties, 

 simple and of short duration, would be arranged by 

 the gentlemen — a certain number, in turn, bearing 

 the moderate expense and acting as managers, so as 

 to have one every fortnight. At these parties the 

 company would assemble early, and by midnight all 

 would be quiet. As summer would wane the pas- 

 sion would increase. The public assemblies were 

 found to be of too rare occurrence, and all sorts of 

 expedients would be resorted to for the purpose of 

 getting up a dance. If a lady should put her patch- 

 work quilt in the quilting frame, the young ladies 

 would go in the evening to assist in the interesting 

 occupation of quilting, and the young gentlemen 

 would go to assist the latter in threading their nee- 

 dles. The rest may easily be guessed. In a short 

 time the quilting frame would disappear, and the 

 young people would be found threading the mazes 

 of the dance. Benevolent ladies, too, would be im- 

 portuned, and not in vain, to throw open their 

 rooms to the young people. Private parties would 

 multiply, and the season would close with the Jockey 

 Club ball ; and now, all courtships being brought 

 to a conclusion, and frost having opened the doors 

 of the prison-house, the village would pour out its 

 inhabitants and become, during the winter months, 

 like a city of the dead. 



