"Fo times is changed, an' de change ain' fo de better. Looka de Bury-league. De plantation ain' de same since it come here."
"You right, Cousin?"
Andrew drew a deep sigh. Friends used to look after one another on the plantation. If you got sick your friends came and sat up with you and rubbed you; Daddy Cudjoe made root tea and dosed you and got you well. If you died they closed your eyes and shrouded you and nailed clean new boards into a box to hold you. When they dug your grave they let the sun set in it before they laid you away in the earth.
If sickness seizes a person now, unless he belongs to a Bury-league society, he is not counted for a thing. He can die and get buried the best way hecan. He may be a member of the church, in good standing, or even a deacon or a deacon's wife, but unless he joins the Bury-league and keeps his dues all paid up, he gets no attention. The Bury-league sisters and brothers sit up with the worst sinners now and pray over them and listen to all their last words, the same as if they were Christian people. When sinners drop off into their last sleep, they have a store-bought shroud and lie in a fine store-bought box varnished up and painted like a bureau with a glass window in it to show their wicked faces. The
