mistletoe and cedar were being put about the rooms of the big house to
welcome home the boys and girls from school. Secret councils were held
as to the Xmas gifts to be given to everyone, white and black. The
woodpile was loaded with oak and hickory logs to make bright and warm
the Christmas nights. The negro seamstresses were busy making: new suits
for all the servants." The King was in the parlor counting out his
money--to pay out for gifts of the season--and the queen was in the
kitchen dealing bread and honey--to paraphrase Mother Goose. Into the
stately plantation home, with its lofty white columns, its big rooms,
and its great fireplaces, poured the sons and daughters, grandchildren,
uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces. Assembled around the groaning
board, the patriarch asked the divine blessing and the twin spirits of
christianity were rife in the land. There was only a fitful sleep for
the small boys and girls, who were up at peep of day, stealing: from
room to room crying "Christmas Gift!" Out on the back porches waited the
negroes in grinning rows to follow the example. All week the cabin fires
burned brightly and constant was the rejoicing over their treasures, not
forgetting the grand eatables and the big bowl of egg-nogg.

Negroes are a religious as well as a superstitious race. At midnight
Saturday it was their custom to ring the great plantation bell, and
spend the next several hours in exhorting, praying and singing their
curious, doleful hymns. The whites gave them instruction and training
along these lines. Heart and conscious were alike cultivated--not alone
the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Statistics show that there were
466,000 slaves belonging to churches in the South: Methodist, Baptist,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and other sects. So the owners of these
christianized people thought that they were doing missionary work
in saving them from the cannibalism of heathen Africa. Both men and
women were taught trades and useful occupations. There were tanners,