CHAPTER XIII CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD

WHILE we were at boarding-school we had not gone into the country for the short Christmas holidays; but now we went a week before Christmas with all the household, and did not return till about the 10th of January. Oh, the joy of the Christmas on the plantation! We had to have presents for so many—fruit and candy and dolls and nuts and handkerchiefs and stockings and head-handkerchiefs. Rejoicing and festivities everywhere! All busy preparing and selecting Christmas presents, and decorating the house with holly. Christmas Eve, making egg-nog, and going round with little children helping them hang up stockings and, later, going round with grown-ups and filling stockings. Christmas morning very early, “Merry Christmas!” echoing all over the house; all the house-servants stealing in softly to “ketch yu,” that is, say the magic words “Merry Christmas!” before you did. Then joyful sounds, “I ketch yu!” and you must produce your gift, whereupon they bring{151} from the ample bosom or pocket, as the case may be, eggs tied in a handkerchief—two, three, six, perhaps a dozen, according to the worldly position of the donor. Such jolly, gay, laughing visitors, a stream coming all the time. As fast as one party left another came, always making great plans to walk softly so as to catch you, so that dressing was a prolonged and difficult matter, for you must respond and open the door when “Merry Christmas, I ketch yu!” sounded. Breakfast was apt to be late, because cook and all the servants had to creep up softly to each door and “ketch” each member and receive their presents, and open them, and exhibit them, and compare them, and see the children’s presents, and do an immense deal of unnecessary talking and joking. So that it was hard for them to settle down and come to prayers, which papa had always in the library, and then bring in the breakfast and resume the attitude of respectful and well-trained servants.

Such delicious breakfast—sausage, and hogshead cheese, and hominy, and buckwheat cakes, and honey and waffles, and marmalade, which mamma made from the oranges which grew all round the piazza. And before we got up from table, the dancing began in the piazza, a fiddle playing the{152} gayest jigs, with two heavy sticks knocking to mark the time, and a triangle and bones rattling in the most exciting syncopated time; and all the young negroes on the plantation, and many from the other plantations belonging to papa, dancing, dancing, dancing. Oh, it was gay! They never stopped from the time they began in the morning, except while we were at meals, until ten o’clock at night. The dancers would change, one set go home and get their dinner, while another took the floor. Fiddler, stick-knocker, all would change; but the dance went on with the new set just as gaily as with the first. And this went on more or less for three days, for not a stroke of work was done during that holiday except feeding the cattle, pigs, and sheep, and horses—just three days of pure enjoyment and fun. Christmas night papa always set off beautiful fireworks with Nelson’s help. This was a grand entertainment for all, white and black. There was much feasting at Christmas, for a beef and several hogs were always killed and extra rations of sugar, coffee, molasses, and flour were given out, and great quantities of sweet potatoes. Altogether, it was a joyful time.

There were three days at New Year too, and then the clothes were given out. Maum Mary{153} began early in the morning after New Year’s Day to bring out and pile in log-cabin fashion in the piazza rolls of red flannel, rolls of white homespun (unbleached muslin), and of thick homespun, and of calico for the women. Then, for the men, rolls of jeans, dark-colored, and rolls of white for shirts, and then rolls of the most beautiful white stuff like the material of which blankets are made. This was called plains, and with the jeans was imported from England, as being stronger and warmer than any to be got in this country. There were buttons and threads and needles in each roll of stuff, suitable for that thickness of material. All these little piles made of rolls filled up the very big piazza, and it took nearly all day for the long lists to be read out and each individual to come up and get their stuffs. Each woman had a red flannel roll, two white homespun rolls, two colored homespun, and two calico. The men had one red flannel, two white homespun, two jeans, and one white plains. Then came the blankets. Every year some one got new blankets, very strong, warm wool blankets. One year the men got them, the next the women, the next the children; so every household had some new ones every year.

The children’s clothing was given out the next{154} day. This took longer. Each child came up to Maum Mary where she sat surrounded by whole bales of stuff, and stood in front of her. She took the end of the homespun, held it on top of the child’s head and brought the material down to the floor and then up again to the head. This would make one full garment for the child, and was the way to assure there being enough, with no waste. The red flannel was handled the same way, and the colored homespun for every-day frocks, and the calico for Sunday frocks. It was an interesting thing to watch: a name was read out by mamma, papa, or my sister from the book, and up the step came the little girl, dropped a courtesy to each of us and then to Maum Mary, and stood before her to be measured. Maum Mary was sometimes inclined to be very impatient and cross, but she dared not give way to the inclination openly, with us all watching her. She would just jerk the timid ones around a little; but if papa was there he would say quite sternly: “Gently, Mary, gently.” The little girl, as she went out loaded with her things and the things of her little brothers and sisters, would drop another courtesy of thanks. The boys were taught to “Tech dey furud,” as Maum Mary called it; being really just what the{155} military salute is now; but they were generally very awkward about it.

The hardest thing of all was the shoes. Every man, woman, and child on the place, about a month before, was called on to give their measure—a nice, light strip of wood about an inch wide the length of their foot. Each was supposed to put the weight of the foot down on the piece of wood and have some one mark and cut it off the right length; then take it himself, so that there would be no mistake, to Mr. Belflowers, who wrote the full name upon it. These measures Mr. Belflowers brought to papa, all clearly and distinctly marked in pencil; and they were sent to the factor in Charleston, who took them to a reliable shoe dealer, and each measure was fitted into a pair of shoes. These shoes were all boxed up and sent up to the different plantations in time for distribution on the third day after New Year. Darkies have a very great dislike of big feet, so many of them were tempted to send too short a measure; and then what a disappointment and what suppressed groans and lamentations when the new shoes were tried on!

“Somebody change my meshur.” And often I was called on to examine the stick and read out{156} the name on it. No mistake there. But these victims of vanity were few, and were always much ridiculed by the others who had wisely given the full length of the foot.

“Ki, Breder, yu got small fut, yu kno’. Yu haf’ fu suffer. Me, I got big fut an I kin run een my new shu’.”

There was much visiting among the neighbors during this season. Every one had friends from the city to spend the holidays in the country. The plantations were large, so the neighbors were not near; but they all had an abundance of horses and vehicles, and the roads were excellent. An absolutely flat country, the dirt roads were kept in the best condition. There were Mr. and Mrs. Poinsett at the White House, eight miles south of Chicora at the point of land between the Pee Dee and the Black Rivers. Mr. Poinsett was a distinguished man, a great botanist. It was he who brought from Mexico the beautiful Flor del Buen Noche to the Department of Agriculture; and it was named Poinsettia in his honor. He was secretary of war under Van Buren and was largely instrumental in the establishment of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He married Mrs. John Julius Pringle, née Izard, a widow, and made a{157} most beautiful garden at her plantation, the White House—so named originally because it was a little white house in the midst of a field. Mr. and Mrs. Poinsett spent their summers at Newport and most of the winters in Washington.

Mr. and Mrs. Julius Izard Pringle (née Lynch) and their daughter Mary, afterward Countess Yvan des Francs, who was my sister’s dearest friend, being just her age—lived at Greenfield, eight miles southwest of us on the Black River in winter, and went to Newport in summer. Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard (née Pinckney) and their large family lived at Weymouth, six miles south of us on the Pee Dee. They spent their winters there and travelled abroad during the summers. Doctor Sparkman and his family were at Dirliton, five miles away, Doctor Stark Heriot four miles at Birdfield, Mr. and Mrs. Nat Barnwell (née Fraser) at Enfield, three miles away. These were all south of us.

To the north were Mr. and Mrs. Francis Weston (née Tucker) and their large family. The eldest daughter has been a most remarkable woman. I speak of her as Miss Penelope in “The Woman Rice Planter.” Mrs. Weston was the daughter of my father’s eldest sister, who married Mr. John{158} Tucker, had two daughters and died; when Mr. Tucker remarried twice and had a large number of children,—five sons, four of whom he educated in the most thorough manner as physicians, sending them to Paris for a final course, as he said the owner of a plantation with large numbers of slaves could best be fitted for the position by a good medical education. So there were three Doctor Tuckers owning plantations north of us on the Pee Dee River, and one Doctor Tucker owning plantations on the Waccamaw River. They did not practise their profession beyond their plantations, however, but were mighty hunters and good citizens.

Just north of the Weston’s historic plantation, Hasty Point, lived at Bel Rive Mr. and Mrs. J. Harleston Read (née Lance). This was entailed property, a part of the very large John Mann Taylor estate. The Reads, like the Westons, spent their summers in Charleston, where they owned beautiful houses. Mrs. Weston, once speaking to my mother of the terrible move to and from the city each spring and fall, said: “We have to take fifty individuals with us in the move, I mean children and all.”

My mother: “Why, Elizabeth, how is that possible?{159}”

She answered: “We cannot possibly separate husband and wife for six months; so Harry, the coachman, has to have his wife and children, and the same with the cook, and the butler, and the laundress, until we are actually moving an army every time we move.”

This shows some of the bondage of the old system not generally thought of.