The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-12-18
MID-CENTURY CHRISTMAS.

Few - simple ROspitabIe Merry
markings in the Days of the Cir
cult Riders "A Memory of the
Times when Social Equality Was
Not Myth.
This is the story of his first Christ
mas, as related by a certain WE'LL
placed citizen of to-day whose memory
reaches back into the middle of the
last century.
1t was a different world then. The
Civil War was yet to be fought. Bar
ring it's use on the telegraph wire, cleo
tricity was still 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 be necessaries now by everyone
were luxuries to all but the unduly
rich.
Humanity, its emotions and the eter-
nal verities, are the same to-day as
they were on that mfd-century Christ
mas, but in the outward forms and
observances that go to make UP the
visible life of the people--in the new
world at leaSt-there has been a reVo-
luton so great since then that only
those who have seen it can appreciate
it even vaguely.
The we'll placed citizen was then of
the age that delighted in -copper-toed
bOots--unkown to boys of to-day-and
he wore mittens on his hands and a
knitted comforter about his neck in
cold weather. His father was a Meth
ooIst 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
steeple, at in the afternoon in the
round schoolhouse in Bunker's Hollow,
and at early candle light in the stone
schoolhouse at Nelson's Settlement
driving some thirty-two miles weekly
to make the circuit.
The day before that first Christmas
was day of the liveliest anticipations,
since the minister and his family had
been asked to eat the Christmas din
ner 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 what that
meant he didn't understand very clear
ly. In the community to which his
father fninistered-it had been trans
planteds almost bodily from Puritan
New England-the observance of
Christmas was only beginning, and the
children who had heard about Santa
Claus We're few.
The winter was severe that year,
and the outlines of the hills and val
leys were softened by a two-foot COW
ering of snow. Brother Nelson's house
was a good fifteen miles away from the
story nd-a -haIf parsonage, and the
boy and his father and mother started
on their journey. over the Shining
white roads soon after the sun. began
its DESCENT of the Western sky
-, do he
boys cheeks tingIe. Before the three
took their seats In the sleigh fiat
marble slab had been we'll heated in
the oven for them to rest their feet on
so that they shouldn't freeze. About
them they wrapped a great hairy buff
falo robe, the like of which couldn't be
bought anywhere to-day, no matter
how much money was offered for it.
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 spow
into drifts which made the roads near
ly impossible and almost froze the
boys eyes shut, so keen was it.
This made the arrival at Brother
Nelson's so late that the big CAM
phene amp which graced the Nelson
parlor was already lighted. Like the
buffalo robe, the camphene lamp it
now a thing of the past; no 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 re-
members only that the boy fell asleep
soon after the meal of bread and
butter, honey, preserves, cold ham and
so on, called tea" to the accompani-
ment of a spirited discussion between
his father and Brother Nelson as to
whether there was likely to be war
over the negro slaves, and that some
one vainly tried to waken him so that
he might hang up his stocking.
He was wide awake early the next
morning though. He had slept in
trundle bed in the attic along with
two Of the Nelson boys, and with
them in the gray dawn, he scrambled
out of bed to find what "Sindy Clos"
had put in the stockings.
OF the contents of his stocking the
boy recalls only one thing--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 had ever
seen. 1t was of the most delicious
flavor, he found, later in the day when
he was allowed to eat it. and he still
remena bers the awe with which the
statement was received that every one
of the three dozen oranges which
Brother Nelson had bought at the
county seat the day before for the
Christmas dinner had cost a dime, and
that it had been hard to get so many
Specimens of the precious fruit at all.
From this and other circumstances
which the citizen remembers of that
mid-century Christmas, 1t is clear in
his mind that Brother Nelson was the
rich man of all that region. Indeed
the settlement had been named for
him. He had a big farm, which Kept
himself and his three or four hired
men busy all summer and fall and he
also owned a saw mill, the running
of which occupied their time and at
tention in the winter.
The pond which furnished the pow
er to run the mill was the source OF
great sport that Christmas day for
the young Nelson's and their guests.
II was covered with ice,a foot or more
thick. with a surface as glairy as
glass. and the bigger Nelson boys,
the three or four mill hands ana lot
or the neighbors, spent the morning
skating upon II, while the children
made slide at one side, which they
enjoyed immensely. Some OF the boys
had sleds on which they rode down
hilT-nobody "coasted" then In that
MISUNDERSTANDING up their rides
on the ice, each one striving win
much screaming and laughter 70 make
MS sled go farthest over its Level sur
face Few ~ fha .vQmen and girls