Omaha daily bee., 1902-12-14
CHRISTMAS IN BYCONE DAYS
How the Years Great Holiday Was oels-
brated Before the War"
OBSERVANCE IN MORE PRIMITIVE TIMES
Many Things NOW Necessitiea Were
: LuHuries to All but the Few
Memory of Times when Social
Equality was Not n Myth.

This Is the story OF his first Cbristmas
As related by a certain well placed citizen
OF today whose memory reaches back into
Z the middle Of the last century.
IL was a different world then. The civil
war was yet to be fought. Barring its use
on the telegraph wire. electricity was stlll
untamed. There were extensive stretches
OF country now criss-crossed by railroads
where the locomotive whistle had never
been heard. Many Of the things held TO
De necessaries now by everyone we're luxu-
'ries TO all but the unduly rich.
Humanity, its emotions and the eternal
verities, are the same today as they we're
on that mid-century Christmas, but in the
outward forms and observances that 20 to
make up the visible life OF the people-in
The new world at least-there has been a
revolution so great since then that only
those who have seen 1t can appreciate IL
even vaguely.
The w~ell-placed citizen was then OF the
age tina delighted IN copper-toed boots
unknown to boys Of today-and he wore
mittens on his hands and a knitted COM
torter about his neck in cold weather. His
father was a Methodist circuit rider in one
OF the middle Atlantic states, who preached
three times on every Sunday-at 10 in the
morning in a little church without a steeple,
az ~ oAN1AAAOOh III Lhb IOunu bGuUOl
house in Bunker's Hollow, and at early
candlelight in the stone school house at
Nelson's settlement-driving some thirty
two miles weekly to make the circuit.
JOYS of Anticipation.
The day before that hrst Christmas was
a day Of the ~liveliest anticipations, since
the minister and his family had been asked
20 eat the Christmas dinner at Brother
Nelson's, and to come the night before, so
that the boy could hang up his stocking
with the half-dozen young Nelson's. Just
that meant he didn't understand
very clearly. In the community to which
his father ministered-it had been trans
planted almost bodily from Puritan New
England-the observance Of Christmas was
only beginning, and the children who had
heard about Santa Claus were few.
The winter was severe that year, and the
outlines of the hills and valleys were
.softened by n two-foot covering OF snow.
Brother Nelson's house was a good fifteen
miles away from the story-and-a-half par
sonage. and the boy and his father and
mother started on their journey over the
shining white roads soon after the sun be-
gan its descent OF the western sky.
The air was so crisp that It made the
boys cheeks tingle. Before the three took
their seats In the sleigh a fiat marble
slab had been well heated in the oven
for them TO rest their feet on so that
they shouldn't freeze. About them they
wrapped a great hairy buffalo robe, the
Xix Of which couldn't be bought anywhere
today, no matter how much money was Of
fered for 1t.
Primitive Travelling.
The drive to Brother Nelson's was
through narrow valleys where the air was
SO still that the cold was hardly noticed,
and over steep hills on the tops OF which
the wind piled the snow into drifts which
made the roads nearly impossible and al
most froze the boys eyes shut, so keen
was II.
This made the arrival at Brother Nelson's
80 late that the big camphene lamp which
gfaced the Nelson parlor was already
lighted. Like the buffalo robe, the cam
phene lamp is now a thing of the past; nc
one in all that region boosted such a luxury
but the Nelson's. and they never lighted
theirs save on festive occasions.
OF the evening, the solid citizen remem.
bers only that the boy fell asleep soon after
the meal of bread and butter, honey, pre-.
serves, cold ham and so on. called tea
to the accompaniment of a spirited discus.
nlou DolWSeu uib ldtueI anu bIOlneT NelSOI
as to whether there was likely to be a wal
over the negro slaves. and that someon,
Svainly tried to wake him so that he might
hang up his stocking.
He was wide awake early the next morn.
ing, though. He had slept in a trundle BEE
in the attic along with two OF the Nelson
boys. and with them, in the gray dawn. h,
scrambled out Of bed to find what "Sindy
Clos" had put in the stockings.
Contents of the Stocking.
OF the contents OF his stocking the boz
recalls only one thlng-a globe-shaped fruit
of a rich reddish yellow, which the Nelson
boys said was an "orange'-the first orange
In point of fact, that the minister's son haC
ever seen. It was Of the most deliciou.
flavor, he found, later in the day when h,
was allowed to eat Il, and he still remem'
bers the awe will which the statement wal
received that every one of the three dozeI
oranges which Brother Nelson had boughI
at the county seat the day before for thu
Christmas dinner had cost a dime, and tha
---- $500 "