indifference to poetic effusion, had slipped away during my "twinkle
little star" and was playing "paterroller" with the colored children and
the bloodhounds, and my elders began to talk of the man for whom he was
named, a victim of the Nat Turner insurrection. I was not usually
permitted to hear such gruesome stories, but if they thought of me at
all they must have supposed that I was too young to understand or too
sleepy to notice. So they told some of the painful incidents connected
with the startling episode of 1832, while I leaned back in my chair and
drooped my little head. Judge Mason's sister, Mrs. Boykin, my
grandmother's friend at Old Point Comfort, had come near being killed in
the insurrection. She was saved by her maid, who hid her in a woodpile
till the danger was over.
Thus the simple-hearted, modest, unassuming old man sat with his long
fig-stem Powhatan clay pipe in his mouth, smoking and talking and making
history for a little child who never forgot the stories he told. Judge
Mason was given all the honors of his State--ten years a Member of the
Virginia Assembly, six years her Representative in Congress, a Judge of
the United States Court for Virginia, Secretary of the Navy under
President Tyler, Attorney-General and Secretary of the Navy under
President Polk, Minister to France in the Pierce administration, one of
the three who drew up the Ostend Manifesto--all these he was to the
world.
To me he has always remained the gentle-mannered man with sweet face and
soft voice who told the old-time stories in my plantation home while
all, from the master to the humblest servant and the smallest child,
listened with eager attention and delighted hearts. Two years before the
opening of the war between the States my grandmother's heart was
saddened by the news from Paris of the death of this old friend.
VIII
YULETIDE
It was Christmas Eve at Holiday's Point and, in accordance with the
custom of generations, the children and grandchildren were gathered in
an unbroken circle around the old hearthstone.
In my grandfather's day the neighbors called the old home Holiday's
Point because of the numerous holidays given to the servants. The
community held that if my grandfather had framed the almanac he would
have put into it twice as many days as did the Arabs and Romans, that he
might have more holidays to bestow upon his slaves.
The old-fashioned house on the Nansemond River, between Suffolk to the
right and Norfolk to the left, was built of brick imported from England.
In shape like an L, the four rooms on the first floor were divided by a
passage fifteen feet wide; dining-room and library on one side, parlor
and chamber on the other. Four large open fireplaces gave warmth and
cheerfulness to the corridor. On the first floor of the L was the
nursery and above it the children's room, the name of which was never
changed because, in relation to the household, its occupants remained
children to the end of the chapter, however the years might age them in
the view of the outside world.
The house fronted the river, which was concealed by a heavy growth of
trees until the door was reached through long lanes of cypress lined
with rows of cedar, when a full view of the water for miles was
presented. Hidden in the woods was one of the stables, in which old
Starlight had her home near enough to the cabin to answer "Ung' Bosun's"
whistle.
My mother, as usual, had permitted me to come to Holiday's Point the day
before Christmas, the lighting of the Yule Log being one of my greatest
joys. Away back in the early dawn of my infantile mind lurked a hazy
memory of the time when my little hand had held the candle that lit the
old log at the back of the great fireplace. That privilege was no longer
mine. Other children had since entered the family circle, and the
youngest child on the plantation, whether white or black, was the one
always selected to touch off the Yule Log.
Another delightful sensation preliminary to Christmas day at Holiday's
Point was the sight of "Uncle Charles" driving up from the river waving
a paper above the load of Christmas things and warning us that it
contained instructions from Santa Claus that all the contents of the
cart should be put away in the storehouse until he should come on
Christmas eve, and if anyone should touch any of the boxes or ask
questions about what was inside of them all the good things would turn
to ashes and sawdust and there would be nothing left when Christmas
came, adding, "'Member what Santa Claus did to Miss Cinderelly when she
didn't mind him, stayin' out late at night."
Though the awesome paper was only a bill of lading, which Uncle Charles
knew very well, believing him we shrank before it in terror. I watched
the unloading curiously, and the colored children, huddled together on
the quarter-kitchen doorsteps, pulled down each other's heads and
whispered mysteriously as the boxes and barrels were taken out and their
contents announced. There was the hogshead of New Orleans molasses, with
its thick layer of sugar at the bottom, the long peaked loaves of white
sugar under their thin blue "fool's-caps," the cases of raisins, dates,
figs and tamarinds, barrels of nuts, oranges and crackers, boxes of
cheese and, slyly pushed behind them, hampers mysteriously marked
"sundries," which we at once associated with the coming visit of Santa
Claus himself.
When the rays of the sun were long in the west the cheerful note of the
Yule Log was heard. The great hickory log, which had lain on its forked
branch support through months of golden sunshine and mellowing rain, was
carried in on the shoulder of the strongest negro on the plantation,
followed by a rollicking troop of Christmas revelers, white and black,
and next year's log was put on the Yule Log fork, which was never left
empty.
The Yule Log was laid at the back of the great fireplace and in front of
it were piled cobs, chips and kindling wood, known to the plantation
servants as "light 'ood," a contraction for "light wood," which was the
heart of the pine. It was lit with a wax candle made in the home kitchen
by Aunt Dilsey, a candle in which I felt a proprietary interest, having
watched with fascinated eyes the process of its manufacture. Aunt Dilsey
had let me draw one of the doubled and twisted cotton strands through a
tube in the tin mould to form the wick, and I felt like a conquering
hero when the end of the string emerged from the point of the tube.
There were six of these tubes in Aunt Dilsey's mould, and when they were
all provided with wicks she allowed me to thrust through the loops at
the top of the mould the little sticks which rested on the frames and
held the strands in place. Then she tied the wicks very tightly at the
ends. I watched the melted white wax poured into the tubes, feeling as
if I were assisting at a magic incantation. The time of greatest
excitement was when, after the carefully built structure had stood all
night in a cool place to harden, Aunt Dilsey would cut off the knots at
the bottom of the tube, take hold of the cross-sticks and pull till six
long, beautiful white waxen cylinders would come out, each with a tuft
of soft white cotton at the end. Every time I saw them emerge from their
cells a separate and distinct miracle seemed to have been wrought. I
have yet a pair of these moulds.
One of the candles was lighted and placed in the hand of my little
brother, the youngest of the family group. My father guided the tiny
hand until the flame formed a cross around which the tongues of fire
leaped and caught the log, embracing it lovingly, climbing upward and
turning blue and crimson and golden and white and then mingling in a
glorified web of color. Myriads of sparkles shot up the old chimney,
like Christmas prayers flying heavenward. The crackling of the wood and
the fluttering of the flames joined in a Christmas carol for all the
world.
Not the smallest fragment of the log must be left over after the
twelve-day feast. It had lain seasoning in the sunshine and the
starshine, in the rain and in the wind, in the frost and in the dew, in
winter cold and summer heat, that it might be well prepared to give
itself wholly to the sacrifice. Had a remnant remained in the ashes,
disaster would have marked the year until the next Yule Log had removed
the ban by entirely disappearing. Virginia had not received, with the
traditional heritage, the Old World custom of preserving a fragment of
one Yule Log to serve as a lighting torch for the next and to ward off
evil demons until Christmas came again. The servants were to have
holiday while there was a scrap of it left.
The ashes of the Yule Log were carefully saved apart from the others, as
they were of peculiar sacredness. Lye made from them was of magic
efficacy in the manufacture of soap, bringing it to a much-desired
degree of hardness and excellence. The negroes used the lye to kill evil
spirits and free themselves from the sins they had committed during the
year.
Old Santa Claus's rack, the "chimbly rack," made of black walnut and
handsomely decorated, with nails driven into it on which the stockings
were to be hung, was brought in by Uncle Charles and placed above the
marble mantelpiece. Over each nail was printed the name of the one for
whom it was intended. Aunt Serena brought in the basket of stockings
that she had knit of the finest spun cotton or wool and hung them on the
nails, singing her Christmas incantation, "Christmas comes but once't a
yeah, En ebby las' niggah has his sheah." The loved ones who had gone
before were remembered and stockings for them were hung upon the rack.
_Their_ gifts were of money to be used in providing Christmas cheer for
the unfortunate, the bereaved and the lonely. Thus was the memory of
those who had passed beyond kept in grateful hearts.
From the wall above the portrait of my grandfather Underwood, with long
hair and velvet-flowered vest and rolls of cravat, looked seriously
down. I had never seen him, but my grandmother said that "he believed in
God, woman and blood; was proud but not haughty, hospitable, generous,
firm and unchangeable in his opinions, quiet and commanding,
affectionate, courting responsibilities instead of shirking them."
For weeks all had been busy with preparations. The wood had been cut and
piled, the corn gathered, the pigs killed, the mince-meat and souse and
fruit cake prepared, the sausage chopped and the hominy beaten, the
winter clothes all spun, woven and made. We sat by the fire with rest,
peace and wonder in our hearts, cracking nuts and roasting apples, the
old silver punch-bowl of apple-toddy steaming on the table, while we
listened to stories of olden times and of times that never were. My
uncle in his cadet uniform, home for the holidays on furlough from the
Virginia Military Institute, told us fascinating tales of soldier-boy
life, sending delicious thrills of joy and terror through every nerve.
Presently my black mammy took me in her motherly arms and carried me
along the hall through the middle of the house, flanked by doors opening
into the living rooms, up the wide stairway into another long corridor
bounded by the same number of doors leading into bedrooms all in their
Christmas dress of arbor-vitæ, holly and mistletoe. In each of the
fireplaces were wood and kindling to be lit when the guests should
arrive on the morrow. Into the prettiest and smallest room she carried
me and put me into my little eider-downy trundle bed.
The next morning I was awakened by the music of the Christmas horns and
the popping of firecrackers. When I had been dressed I was taken to the
dining-room, where my grandmother stood by a table whereon was a large
bowl of egg-nog from which, with a silver ladle, she was filling glasses
for us all, for even the babies in old Virginia were given a taste of
egg-nog on Christmas morning.
After breakfast my grandmother went to service and would return with
guests who were to come to us after the Christmas sermon in the lavishly
decorated village church.
Soon the first carriage rolled into the yard, the coachman proudly
flourishing the whip, which he used merely as an insignia of his office.
"Dar dey come! Dar dey come! Dar dey come!" We all ran out to welcome
the visitors. The carriage doors were opened, the steps folded up on the
inside were let down, and the servants called out "Christmus gif',
Marse, Christmus gif', Missus," all holding out their hands and
clamoring as my uncle emerged from the coach, "I cotch him firs'! I
cotch him firs'! I cotch Miss firs', didn' I, Marse?" each claiming the
reward, regardless of actual priority in time.
My uncle was immaculate in frock coat and trousers of black broadcloth,
new boots, snowy linen front trimmed profusely with ruffles, high collar
and stock and shining silk hat. He turned with courtly grace and helped
Auntie from the carriage.
Auntie was the wonder of my childhood. I fancied that if I should be
very good and learn my lessons perfectly and avoid giving trouble to my
elders, and say my prayers and read my Bible at the rate of one chapter
every day and five on Sunday maybe the Lord would let me grow up as
proper and as smart, but never as religious, as Auntie. In the meantime
I liked to stand in remote corners unobserved and imagine that I was
forming myself upon her. Her speckless, wrinkleless, swishing new black
brocaded silk frock looked as if it had been moulded around her. Her
crinoline stood out in a perfectly balanced symmetrical balloon of
unapproachable beauty. Her oval face held just the right proportion of
pink and white and her mouth was bowed at the temperance curve. Her
sharp gray eyes looked into the center of things. She was a strict
Methodist, a fierce Whig, an uncompromising moralist.
A little boy was handed out and then a screaming bundle which turned out
to be a baby girl.
The carriage was laden with boxes and packages of Christmas gifts--a
present for each servant and other articles to be put with our Christmas
stockings still hanging on the rack.
From the next carriage my father and mother alighted--my father, always
my ideal, tall, stately, erect as an Indian, seemed to me more than
usually handsome as he lifted me up to a level with his classic face.
His holiday attire, snowy ruffles, rigid stock, black broadcloth and,
above all, the flowers of his brocaded vest, were to me an inexhaustible
source of delight. My beautiful mother's coal-black hair, without wave
or crinkle, was carried plainly from her face and wound in a plaited
coil. She was very fair and her cheeks looked as if they had stolen two
of the pink roses from the garden of May. Her eyes were like sparkling
sapphires. Her black moire-antique dress had wide bishop sleeves, and
she wore a white crêpe shawl that, falling back, revealed the square of
fine embroidered white thread cambric around her neck, crossing in front
to form a V.
When all the family carriages had come a stranger might have wondered if
grandmother's house could hold the many who claimed her Yuletide
hospitality. We knew that her home was measured by her heart.
My father, the oldest son-in-law, was the first to take down his
Christmas stocking from Santa's rack. He was always sure of a knife, a
black stock and a silk bandanna, whatever else old Santa might have left
for him. His last year's knife was then given to the foreman. We who
could not reach so high were held up to take down our stockings.
The plantation servants never failed to offer their tributes of
affection to the Master and his family and to receive gifts from them.
Among their numerous presents were always a plug of tobacco, a pipe and
a bandanna handkerchief for each. All the servants who had been working
away from home came back at Christmas and added their gifts to those
"w'at Marse Santa had done fotch down de chimbly." Many of my
grandmother's servants had been away from the home plantation, being
allowed to choose their places of service and to return if they did not
find them satisfactory.
Dinner was the great event that followed. Every leaf had been put into
the old mahogany table, and another table added at each end. A turkey
which had been penned up for weeks to fatten and become tender, stuffed
with pecan nuts, lay in delicious brownness on a china platter. Opposite
was a roast pig with an orange in its mouth, "kase pigs kin have apples
every day, but come Christmus 'course even pigs must have sump'n extra,"
my mammy explained. On one side of the table was a huge dish of fried
oysters, on the other an old Smithfield ham, baked as it could be only
by one born to the art. Sweet and sour pickles and preserves, for which
Aunt Dilsey was famous, were scattered about among all the vegetables
known to a Virginia plantation. On a side table were a saddle of mutton,
a round of beef and a bowl of chicken salad. On another table was the
dessert--sillibub, tipsy-cake, charlotte-russe, mince-pies, plain cake
and fruit cake, to be followed by the plum pudding, flaming with magic
fires which must be left to burn out of themselves, lest some of the
glow they held in their fiery hearts should fail to be diffused
throughout our lives in the coming year. The sideboard glistened with
decanters and glasses and great bowls of apple-toddy and egg-nog.
All the good things left were sent to supplement the feast of the
servants which they had spent days in preparing. It was spread in the
wide old weaving-room, the loom being hidden by decorations of holly and
mistletoe. We went in to see their table with its beautiful
ornamentations, loaded with goodies, 'possum and sweet potatoes at each
end. The 'possums had been caught early and fed in a lavishly hospitable
manner, that they might wax fat and juicy for the feast.
After dinner papa and the uncles, followed by the boy friends and
cousins, went out to the office in the yard a short distance from the
mansion house and soon such mirthful peals issued therefrom that
curiosity called us all out and the house was deserted while we sat
listening to such stories and jokes as we shall never enjoy again. Then
they talked of fox hunts, of the prancing gray and the good old red that
had carried them to victory, the music of the horns, the baying of the
hounds, the laughing girls, all eager for the brush. Crouched by my
grandmother's side, I heard about last year's crops, the condition of
the roads, the neighborhood news, the latest styles in collars and
stocks, politics, bits of history and appreciations of literature.
At night "Fiddling Jim" was called in, and in the room where the
Yule-fire burned there was a dance, opening with the minuet and winding
up with the Virginia reel. In all the dances my grandmother joined with
a lightness and grace that would have done honor to sixteen. Youth no
more than age served as a bar to pleasure, and I danced the Highland
fling and other fancy dances.
Then the sandman came by and mammy took me up to my little trundle bed.
Half lost between waking and sleeping, I heard the crunching of the snow
beneath the tread of horses and the roll of wheels and knew that some of
the guests who lived near were returning to their homes. Melodies,
dance-songs and the shuffling and pattering of feet, mingled with the
thrum of the banjo, bones and fiddle, floated from the negro quarters.
Soon old mammy and her turban, the black faces, the hand-fed lamb, the
goats and dogs, the coons and the rabbits, the peacocks' gorgeous
big-eyed tails, and long-whiskered Santa Claus, my grandmother, my
mothers lovely eyes and the Blessed Babe in the manger, all got mixed up
in a tangle of shadows and came sliding between the peeping, twinkling
stars on a moonbeam into the room and danced around my trundle bed.
With my tender little heart full of child love and unwavering faith, my
wee soul borne on the higher sentiments of adoration, faith and
spiritual sympathy, my Christmas dolly clasped close in my arms, my lips
wreathed in mysterious smiles, I laughed and--a-n-d--a-n--Christmas was
over.
IX
GREENBRIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS
Only twice had I seen my Soldier since with tearful eyes I watched the
United States transport, _St. Louis_, bear him away to join in the
frontier warfare, and later to play his important part in holding San
Juan and other Pacific Islands against the British. Occasionally letters
came from that far-off sunset shore in answer to my little printed notes
before I had learned to write well.
The last time I had seen him was at the Greenbrier White Sulphur
Springs, where, though still a child, I held that he was pledged to me
and resented his attentions to the belles nearer his own age. Amused and
pleased by this, he humored me by devoting most of his mornings to
joining in my games and assisting me in sketching, and by dancing in the
evening with no one but me until the children's bed-time came, when the
ballroom was reluctantly given up to the grown people. One Baltimore
beauty took my Soldier to task for his bad taste in dancing with a
child, thereby cancelling the little friendship which had existed
between them.
White Sulphur Springs, situated in a valley surrounded by hills and
mountains, was the most celebrated watering-place in Virginia. It was
known to the Indians as the most important lick of the deer and elk. Its
medicinal qualities first became known in 1772, when an Indian maiden,
suffering from a disease which baffled the skill of the "medicine men,"
was healed by its waters. It is a beautiful and enchanting spot, the
valley opening half a mile in breadth, winding in graceful undulations
from east to west beyond the line of vision. The fountain issues from
the foot of a gentle slope which ends in the low interval of a beautiful
river. The ground ascends from the spring eastward, spreading into a
lawn covering fifty acres. Over the fountain was a stately Doric dome,
supported by twelve large pillars and surmounted by a statue of Hygeia
looking toward the rising sun. A short distance from the spring were the
hotel, dining-hall and ballroom. The rest of the ground was occupied by
cottages, some of brick, some of wood, and a few of logs, whitewashed.
The cabins were all painted white.
The winding roads, leading away into an enchanted world of greenery,
were veritable Cupid's paths, opening sometimes into the springtime
vales of gay flirtation, sometimes into the warm, deep dells of love.
Many were the belles and beaux who met their fate amid the leaf-walled
environment of Greenbrier and more matches were made there than in
heaven.
My Soldier's furlough soon came to a close and he left, by chance, the
day we did. I shall never forget the ride on the top of the old
stagecoach, the wonderful red and gold foliage, the birds that sang in
the autumn trees, the good dinner at the hotel, the stories told me by
my Soldier, who knew everything, I thought. Of the name Greenbrier he
said:
"Old Colonel John Lewis, whose grandson you danced with this summer,
named this river in 1751 because of its thick growth of green-briers in
which his son, Andrew, was once entangled. It had been owned by the
French. In 1749 a hunter, wandering through the woods, came to the
river-bank and observed that the water ran in a direction opposite from
the usual course and reported it, exciting the curiosity of two New
Englanders, Jacob Martin and Stephen Sewall. They took up land there,
living together in a little cabin until one day they quarreled and
separated. One made his home in a hollow tree, the other keeping the
cabin in which they had formerly dwelt in peace with the world,
themselves and each other. They agreed never to say anything to each
other but 'Good morning, Mr. Martin,' 'Good morning, Mr. Sewall,'
confining themselves to this limited conversation for the remainder of
their years."
My Soldier told me of the Indian wars after peace had been confirmed
between England and France, the Dunmore wars, the massacre at Muddy
Creek where, under the guise of friendship, the Indians had descended
upon the settlers and destroyed their village, the attack of two hundred
Indians upon Donnally Fort, and the bravery of the old negro, Dick
Pointer, whose freedom was purchased by the State of Virginia in reward
for his services. In his helpless old age an unsuccessful effort was
made to secure a pension for him. Comparing his fate with that of
alleged soldiers of later years who volunteered to do guard duty around
their homes for three days, receiving pensions for their courageous
efforts, one might wish that he had lived in a later period and served a
more appreciative government.