How the little folks laughed and chatted as they pulled the things out
of their stockings! But pretty soon Mammy made them put them all away,
to get ready for breakfast.

After breakfast the big plantation bell was rung, and the negroes all
came up to the house. And then a great box that had been in the
store-room ever since the wagons got back from the river, three weeks
before, was brought in and opened, and Mrs. Waldron took from it dresses
and hats, and bonnets and coats, and vests and all sorts of things,
until every pair of black hands had received a present, and every pair
of thick lips exclaimed,

"Thankee, mistis! thankee, honey; an' God bless yer!"

And then Chris, who had been looking anxiously every moment or two
towards the quarters, cried out,

"Yon' dey is! I see um! Yon' dey come!"

And down the long avenue appeared the funniest sort of a procession.
First came Aunt Nancy, the "tender," with her head handkerchief tied in
a sharp point that stuck straight up from her head; and behind her, two
and two, came the little quarter negroes, dressed in their brightest and
newest clothes. All were there--from the boys and girls of fourteen down
to the little wee toddlers of two or three, and some even younger than
that; for in the arms of several of the larger girls were little bits of
black babies, looking all around in their queer kind of way, and
wondering what all this was about.

The procession drew up in front of the house, and Diddie, Dumps, and