forth. Its First Cause was commonly political--the old south loved
oratory even better than the new. Newspapers were none so plenty--withal
of scant circulation. Besides, reading them was work--also tedious and
tasteless. So the great and the would-be great, rode up and down, and
roundabout, mixing with the sovereigns, and enlightening the world. Each
party felt honor bound to gather the sovereigns so they might listen in
comfort. Besides--they wanted amusement--a real big barbecue was a sort
of social exchange, drawing together half of three counties, and letting
you hear and tell, things new, strange, and startling. Furthermore, it
was no trouble to get carcasses--fifty to a hundred was not uncommon.
Men, women, children, everybody, indeed, came. The women brought bread
and tablecloths, and commonly much beside. There was a speaker's stand,
flag draped--my infant eyes first saw the Stars and Stripes floating
above portraits--alleged--of Filmore and Buchanan, in the campaign of
'56. That meant the barbecue was a joint affair--Whigs and Democrats
getting it up, and both eagerly ready to whoop it up for their own
speakers. Naturally in that latitude, Fremont was not even named. No
court costume with a tail three yards long, could to-day make me feel
one-half so fine as the white jaconet, and green sash then sported.
It was said there were a thousand at the barbecue. The cheering, at its
loudest, was heard two miles away. To me it seemed as though all the
folk in the world had gathered in that shady grove--I remember wondering
if there could possibly be so many watermelons, some would be left for
the children. Four big wagon loads lay bobbing in the coolth of the
spring branch. It was a very cold spring with mint growing beside it, as
is common with springs thereabout. Early settlers planted it thus hard
by the water--they built their houses high, and water got warm in
carrying it up hill. Lacking ice houses, to have cool juleps, they had
to be mixed right at the well-head. Sugar, spoons, goblets, and the jug,
were easily carried down there.
Juleps were not mixed openly that day--but the speakers had pitchers
full of something that seemed to refresh their eloquence, no less than
themselves. They hammered each other lustily, cheered to the echo by
uproarious partisans, from nine in the morning until six in the
afternoon. Luckily for them, there were four of them, thus they could
"spell" each other--and the audience. I did not mind them--not in the
least. How should I--when right in front of me sat a lady with the most
gorgeous flowers upon her white chip bonnet, and one beside me, who
insisted upon my wearing, until time to go home, her watch and chain?
The watermelons held out--we took two big ones home to Mother, also a
lot of splendid Indian peaches, and a fore-quarter of lamb. Mother
rarely went out, being an invalid--so folk vied with each other in
sending her things. I mention it, only by way of showing there were
things to be sent, even after feeding the multitude. The black people
went away full fed, and full handed--nobody who carried a basket had
much relish for taking home again any part of its contents.
Our countryside's cooking came to its full flower for the
bran-dances--which came into being, I think, because the pioneers liked
to shake limber heels, but had not floors big enough for the shaking. So
in green shade, at some springside they built an arbor of green boughs,
leveled the earth underneath, pounded it hard and smooth, then covered
it an inch deep with clean wheat bran, put up seats roundabout it, also
a fiddlers' stand, got the fiddlers, printed invitations which went far
and wide to women young and old, saw to a sufficiency of barbecue,
depended on the Lord and the ladies for other things--and prepared to
dance, dance from nine in the morning until two next morning. Men were
not specifically invited--anybody in good standing with a clean shirt,
dancing shoes, a good horse and a pedigree, was heartily welcome. The
solid men, whose names appeared as managers, paid scot for
everything--they left the actual arrangements to the lads. But they came
in shoals to the bran-dances, and were audacious enough often to take
away from some youth fathoms deep in love, his favorite partner.
Sometimes, too, a lot of them pre-empted all the prettiest girls, and
danced a special set with them. Thus were they delivered into the hands
of the oppressed--the lads made treaty with the fiddlers and prompter to
play fast and furious--to call figures that kept the oldsters wheeling
and whirling. It was an endurance contest--but victory did not always
perch with the youths. Plenty of pursy gentlemen were still light enough
on their feet, clear enough in their wind, to dance through Money Musk
double, Chicken in the Bread Tray, and the Arkansaw Traveller, no matter
what the time.
All dances were square--quadrilles and cotillions. The Basket Cotillion
was indeed, looked upon as rather daring. You see, at the last, the ring
of men linked by hand-hold outside a ring of their partners, lifted
locked arms over their partners' heads, and thus interwoven, the circle
balanced before breaking up. Other times, other dances--ours is now the
day of the trot and the tango. But they lack the life, the verve of the
old dances, the old tunes. To this day when I hear them, my feet patter
in spite of me. You could not dance to them steadily, with soft airs
blowing all about, leaves flittering in sunshine, and water rippling
near, without getting an appetite commensurate to the feasts in wait for
you.
One basket from a plantation sufficed for bran-dances ending at
sundown--those running on past midnight demanded two. It would never do
to offer snippets and fragments for supper. Barbecue, if there were
barbecue--was merely a concomitant of the feeding, not the whole thing.
Part of it was left untouched to help out with supper. So were part of
the melons, and much of the fruit. Apples, pears and peaches were plenty
in good years--the near plantations sent them by wagon loads--as they
also sent ice cream by freezerfuls, and boilers to make coffee. These
were dispensed more than generously--but nobody would have helped
himself to them uninvited, any more readily than he would have helped
himself to money in the pocket. All that was in the baskets was spread
on the general tables, but no man thought of eating thereof, until all
women and children had been served. Old men came next--the women
generally forcing upon them the best of everything.
Such a best! Broiled chicken, fried chicken, in quantity, whole hams
simply entreating to be sliced, barbecue, pickle in great variety,
drained and sliced for eating, beaten biscuit, soda biscuit, egg bread,
salt-rising bread, or rolls raised with hop-yeast--only a few attempted
them--every manner of pie, tart, and tartlet that did not drip and mess
things, all the cakes in the calendar of good housewifery--with, now and
then, new ones specially invented. Even more than a wedding, a
bran-dance showed and proved your quality as a cake-maker. Cakes were
looked at in broad daylight, eaten not with cloyed finicky appetites,
but with true zest. Woe and double woe to you if a loaf of pride showed
at cutting a "sad" streak, not quite done. Joy untold if you were a raw
young housekeeper, to have your cake acclaimed by eaters and critics.
Mammy, and other Mammies, moved proudly about, each a sort of oracle to
the friends of her household. They kept sharp eyes on things
returnable--plates, platters, knives, spoons, and tablecloths--in any
doubtful case, arising from the fact of similarity in pattern, they were
the court of last resort. Spoons and so on are unmistakable--but one
sprigged saucer is very like other saucers sprigged the same. It was the
Mammies rather than the masters and mistresses, who ordered carriage
drivers and horse boys imperiously about. But nobody minded the
imperiousness--it was no day for quarrelling or unwisdom. And it would
surely have been unwise to fret those who were the Keepers of the
Baskets, at the very last.
After dinner one went to the dressing-room, a wide roofless space
enclosed with green boughs massed on end, and furnished plentifully with
water in buckets, towels, basins, pin cushions, combs and brushes, face
powder, even needles and thread. Thence one emerged after half an hour
quite fresh--to dance on and on, till the fiddlers played a fast finale,
and went to their supper. Then came an interval of talk and laughing,
of making new friends or stabbing delicately old enemies. Also and
further much primping in the dressing-room. Dancing steadily through a
temperature of 98 in the shade plays hob with some sorts of prettiness.
But as dew fell and lighted lanterns went up about the arbor and
throughout the grove, supper was very welcome. There was hot coffee for
everybody, likewise milk, likewise lemonade, with buttered biscuit,
chicken, ham, and barbecue. Chicken-loaf was particularly good for such
uses. To make it, several plump, tender, full-grown pullets were
simmered in water to barely cover them, with a few pepper corns, half a
dozen cloves, and a blade of mace, until very, very tender. Then the
meat was picked from the bones, cut up while still hot, packed down in
something deep, seasoning it to taste with salt, as it was packed, and
dusting in more pepper if needed, then the liquor which had been kept at
a brisk boil was poured over, and left to cool. No bother about skimming
off fat--we liked our loaf rich as well as high-flavored. It came out a
fine mottled solid that could be sliced thin, and eaten delicately
between the halves of a buttered biscuit. Sandwiches were known--but
only in books. Which was well--they would have dried out so badly, for
this was before the era of wax paper. Since everything was packed in the
baskets whole, there was much work for mothers and Mammies at the
unpacking and table-setting.
Tarts, especially if filled with cheesecake or jelly custard, held high
place among the sweets. Especially with the men, young and old. One, a
manager, who had been here, there, everywhere, since eight o'clock in
the morning, asked Mammy at suppertime to: "Please save him one more
dozen of them little pies." In truth the little pies made no more than a
mouthful for noble appetites. Pies, full-grown, did not go begging--and
were seldom cut in less than quarters. Frosted cake--which the lads
denominated "white-washed," was commonly saved over for the supper
baskets. It kept moist, whereas without the frosting a long summer day
might make it hard.
After the supper elderly men drove home--unless they had daughters among
the dancers without other chaperons. Generally, some aunt or cousin
stood ready with such good offices. The chaperons themselves danced now
and then--youths specially anxious for favor with their charges, all but
forced them upon the floor. Set it to their credit, they footed it
almost as lightly as the youngest. Occasionally you might see, mother
and daughter, even a granddaughter of tender years, wheeling and
balancing in the same set. And so the fiddles played, the stars shone,
the waters babbled, until the lanterns flared and sputtered out, and the
banjo-picker held up fingers raw and bleeding. Then with a last final
swing and flourish, everybody scattered for homeward ways, glad of the
day's pleasure--and tired enough to be glad also it was ended.
The most special of occasions was a dining. Not upon any high day or
holiday, such as Christmas, New Year, Jackson's Day--the eighth of
January--Easter nor Whit-Monday, but as Mammy said: "A dinin' des, dry
so." Commonly pride of housewifery incited to it--therefore it must be a
triumph. The hour was two o'clock, but guests came around eleven or
twelve--and spent the day. They sat down to tables that well might have
groaned, even howled, such was the weight they carried. Twelve was a
favorite guest-number--few tables could be stretched to hold more than
twelve plates. There were but two courses--dinner and dessert--unless in
very cold weather, some person who would nowadays be said to be fond of
putting on frills, set before her guests, plates of steaming soup. It
had to smell very good, else it was no more than tasted--folk did not
care to dull the edge of appetite needlessly, with so much before them.
For the table was fully set--a stuffed ham at one end, a chicken or
partridge pie at the other, side dishes of smothered rabbit, or broiled
chicken, at least four kinds of sweet pickle, as many of jelly and sour
pickle, a castor full of catsups, tomato and walnut, plain vinegar,
pepper vinegar, red and black pepper, and made mustard, all the
vegetables in season--I have seen corn pudding, candied sweet potatoes,
Irish potatoes, mashed and baked, black-eyed peas, baked peaches, apples
baked in sugar and cloves, cabbage boiled with bacon, okra, stewed
tomatoes, sliced raw tomatoes, cucumbers cut up with young onions, beets
boiled and buttered, and string beans, otherwise snaps, all at one
spread.
Only epicures dressed their lettuce at table. One cranky old family
friend had it served to him in a water bucket, set beside him on the
floor. He shook it free of water, cut it, without bruising, to wide
ribbons, covered them thickly with hard-boiled egg-yolk mashed fine,
then poured upon it clear ham gravy, and strong vinegar, added salt and
pepper, black and red--then ate his fill. But, of course, he did not do
that at dinings. For then, if lettuce appeared, it was cut up, dressed
with vinegar, salt, sugar, and pepper, but guiltless of oil, garnished
with rings of hard-boiled egg--and very generally, and justly,
neglected. Still the hostess had the satisfaction of feeling she had
offered it--that she had indeed offered more than could have been
reasonably expected.
There was water to drink, also cider in season, also milk, sweet and
sour, and the very best of the homemade wine. Decanters of it sat up and
down the table--you could fill up and come again at pleasure. The one
drawback was--it was hard to eat properly, when you were so interrupted
by helpings to something else. If there was a fault in our old-time
cooking, it was its lack of selection. I think those who gave dinings
felt uneasy if there was unoccupied room for one more dish.
Dessert was likewise an embarrassment of riches. Cakes in variety, two
sorts of pie, with ice cream or sherbet, or fresh fruit, did not seem
too much to those dear Ladies Bountiful. There was no after-dinner
coffee. In cold weather coffee in big cups, with cream and sugar, often
went with the main dinner. Hot apple toddies preceded it at such times.
In hot weather the precursor was mint julep, ice cold. Yet we were not
a company of dyspeptics nor drunkards--by the free and full use of
earth's abounding mercies we learned not to abuse them.
_Birthday Barbecue_: (Dorothy Dix.) As refined gold can be gilded,
barbecue, common, or garden variety, can take on extra touches. As thus:
Kill and dress quickly a fine yearling wether, in prime condition but
not over-fat, sluice out with cool water, wipe dry inside and out with a
soft, damp cloth, then while still hot, fill the carcass cram-full of
fresh mint, the tenderer and more lush the better, close it, wrap tight
in a clean cloth wrung very dry from cold salt water, then pop all into
a clean, bright tin lard stand, with a tight-fitting top, put on top
securely, and sink the stand head over ears in cold water--a spring if
possible. Do this around dusk and leave in water until very early
morning. Build fire in trench of hard wood logs before two o'clock. Let
it burn to coals--have a log fire some little way off to supply fresh
coals at need. Lay a breadth of galvanized chicken-wire--large
mesh--over the trench. Take out carcass--split it half down back bone,
lay it flesh side down, on the wire grid, taking care coals are so
evenly spread there is no scorching. After an hour begin basting with
"the sop." It is made thus. Best butter melted, one pound, black pepper
ground, quarter pound, red pepper pods, freed of stalk and cut fine to
almost a paste, half a pint, strong vinegar, scant pint, brandy, peach
if possible though apple or grape will answer, half a pint. Cook all
together over very slow heat or in boiling water, for fifteen minutes.
The sop must not scorch, but the seasoning must be cooked through it.
Apply with a big soft swab made of clean old linen, but not old enough
to fray and string. Baste meat constantly. Put over around four in the
morning, the barbecue should be done, and well done, by a little after
noon. There should be enough sop left to serve as gravy on portions
after it is helped. The meat, turned once, has a fine crisped surface,
and is flavored all through with the mint, and seasoning.
[Illustration: _Soap and Candles_]
Dip-candles I never saw in common use--but Mammy showed me how they were
made back at Ole Marster's, in the days when candle-molds were not to be
had. Dipped or molded, the candles were of varying substance. Tallow was
the main reliance--mutton tallow as well as that from our beeves. It was
tried out fresh, and hardened with alum in the process. The alum was
dissolved in a little water, and put with the raw fat as it went over
the fire. By and by the water all cooked away, leaving the alum well
incorporated through the clear fat. Lacking it, a little clear lye went
in--Mammy thought and said, the lye ate up the oil in the tallow, making
it firmer and whiter. But lye and alum could not go in at the same time,
since being alkaline and acid, they would destroy each other.
Great pains were taken not to scorch the tallow--that meant smelly and
ill-colored candles. After straining it clear of cracklings, it was
caked in something deep, then turned out and laid on the highest shelf
in the lumber house to await molding time. Cakes of beeswax were kept in
the Jackson press, so children, white and black, could not take bites
for chewing. It ranked next to native sweet gum for such uses--but Mammy
felt it had much better be saved to mix with the tallow at melting time.
It made the candles much firmer, also bettered their light, and moreover
changed the tallow hue to an agreeable very pale yellow. Bee hives, like
much else, were to a degree primitive--the wax came from comb crushed in
the straining of honey. It was boiled in water to take away the remnant
sweetness, then allowed to cool on top the water, taken off, and
remelted over clean water, so manipulated as to free it from foreign
substances, then molded into cakes. One cake was always set apart for
the neighborhood cobbler, who melted it with tallow and rosin to make
shoemaker's wax. Another moiety was turned into grafting wax--by help of
it one orchard tree bore twelve manners of fruit. And still another, a
small, pretty cake from a scalloped patty pan, found place in the family
work basket--in sewing by hand with flax thread, unless you waxed it, it
lost strength, and quickly pulled to pieces.
We bought our flax thread in skeins, but Mammy loved to tell of spinning
it back in the days when she was young, and the best spinner on the old
plantation. She still spun shoe-thread for her friend the cobbler, who,
however, furnished her the raw flax, which he had grown, rotted and
hechtelled, in his bit of bottom land. There were still spinning and
weaving in plenty at our house--Mother had made, yearly, jeans, linsey,
carpets and so on--but the plantation was not wholly clothed with
homespun, as had been the case in her father's house.
Return we to our candle-making. It was work for the very coldest
weather--even though we had two sets of molds, needs must the candles
harden quickly if the making was to speed well. Molds could be filled at
the kitchen hearth, then set outside to cool. For dipping the tallow-pot
had to be set over an outside fire, and neighbored by a ladder, laid
flat on trestles with smooth boards laid underneath. Mammy spun the
candle wicks--from long-staple cotton, drawing it out thick, and
twisting it barely enough to hold together. It must not be too coarse,
as it had to be doubled over reeds at top, either for molding or
dipping.
The molds were of candle-shape, joined in batteries of six or twelve,
with a pert handle at one side, and tiny holes at the tips, through
which the wick-ends were thrust, by help of a long broom-straw. Well in
place they were drawn taut, the reeds so placed as to hold the wicks
centrally, then tallow melted with beeswax, in due proportion, was
poured around till the molds were brim full--after which they were
plunged instantly into a tub of cold water standing outside. This to
prevent oozings from the tip--hot grease is the most insidious of all
substances. Only in zero weather would the first oozings harden enough
to plug the orifice quickly. When the candles had hardened properly, the
mold was either held over the fire, or thrust in hot water half a
minute, then the candles withdrawn by help of the reeds. They were
cooled a bit, to save the softened outside, then nubbed of surplus wick,
and laid in a dish outside. Careless or witless molders, by laying
candles still soft upon the pile, often made themselves double work.
Tallow for dipping, was kept barely fluid, by setting it over embers a
little way off the fire. The pot had to be deep, so the wicks could be
sunk in it to full length. They were thus sunk by stickfuls, lifted up
quickly, and hung between the ladder rungs to drip. Half the tallow on
them dripped away--indeed, after the first dipping they looked little
more than clotted ghosts of themselves in their last estate. In very
cold weather three drippings sufficed--otherwise there must be four or
five. Since the dip was the result of cooled accretions, it was always
top-heavy--much bigger at the nose than the base. A quick and skilled
worker, though, could dip a hundred candles in the time required to mold
two dozen. They burned out so quickly that was a crowning mercy--half a
dozen was the average of a long winter evening. Further they ran down,
in great masses--hence the importance of saving up drippings. Even
molded candles made them plentiful enough to be worth re-molding. This
unless discolored with the brass of candlesticks--in that case their
last end was soap grease.
Rush lights were dips--this I state on information and belief, since I
never saw one. Also on information and belief, it is here set forth,
that folk in the back countries where wicking was not easily had, used
instead of wicks, splinters of fat pine, known as light wood. In proof,
take Candle Wood Mountain, whose name is said to have come from
furnishing such fat pine, and of a special excellence. The pine
splinters must, I think, have given a better light than real wicks--my
father, in Tennessee, never ceased sighing for the lightwood, which had
made such cheery illumination back in his boyhood, in a Carolina home.
Every sort of waste fat became at the last, soap grease. Bones even were
thrown into kettles of lye, which ate out all their richness, leaving
them crumbly, and fit for burying about the grapevines. Hence the
appositeness of the darkey saying, to express special contempt of a
suitor: "My Lawd! I wouldn't hab dat nigger, not eben for soap grease."
Which has always seemed to me, in a way, a classic of condemnation.
Soap making came twice a year--the main event in March, to get free of
things left over from hog killing, the supplement in September or
October, to use up summer savings. Each was preceded by dripping lye.
This necessitated wood ashes, of course--ashes from green wood. Oak or
hickory was best. They were kept dry until they went into hoppers, where
they were rotted by gentle wetting for a space of several days. Then
water was dripped through, coming out a dark brown caustic liquid,
clean-smelling, but ill to handle--it would eat a finger-tip carelessly
thrust in it to the raw.