The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-22
A PLANTATION CHRISTMAS.
Catching" Gifts Began Before Daylight
Christmas Guns.

-NhThstuhms Nuho
What Joy there was in the old plantation
Christmas" says Martha MoCulloch Williams
in Suburban Life. To-day, worse luck TO
the gift makers, there is no catching OF
Christmas gifts. In the era Of my child
hood it was the strict rule and letter of the
season.
Whoever met you at any time after
midnight of December "a and called out
Christmas gift before you had a chance
TO say the same thing was entitled TO ex-
pect something from you. either great or
small.
The black folk were past masters of
strategy in approaching the great house.
They slid, ghostlike, through the darkness
to cluster about the doors, or ambush
themselves in convenient ~shrubbery, whence
they might fall upon the unwary master
and mistress. OF course there had been
catching Of Christmas gifts among them
selves before they came.
THE catching, indeed, lasted throughout
Christmas week, il you were lucky enough
TO keep on meeting folks you had not seen
before. White people caught Christmas
gifts Just the same-impish youngsters
especially d~elighting to lay under tribute
their mothers. their black mammies. their
big sisters and, most particularly, their
big sisters beaux.
al, those Christmas gifts! They meant
no worry, only loving kindness. An orange,
a red apple, a stick Of candy, a ginger cake,
a bit of ribbon, or coveted silks for doll rags,
a handful of scaly banks, or COOLERS from
out Black Daddy's store, or a figure 4 trap
trigger of wagner Jimis w~hittling-hOw we
priced them each and several-and made
haste to return them MANIFOLD TO our black
friends. They were our friends, more
than our possessions, and though the elders
among them affected discontinue at being
caught, rather than catching, there is reason
to think that at heart they rejoiced.
mo need to touch upon the real gifts
master and mistress had something sub
stantial for their dependents, as is the habit
Of families everywhere. Stockings were
hung up; the cooks Oh ildren, who were
black mammy's grandchildren, hanging
theirs along with ours over the dining
room fireplace. TIL stockings made a
gorgeous row. All were home knit, Of
home dyed yarn, blue, red, yellow and
clouded. II was a point Of honor to hang
up only ones Sunday stockings; hence the
-gorgeousness.
There was keen rivalry in the matter Of
Christmas guns. not merely between neigh
boring plantations but between the house
negroes nd those at the quarter. Slaves
not thus divided, but housed in clustered
cabins within hail Of the masters dwelling,
TAJneT gave luctIrtlNcS ANS.
Even though much more a half Of
them were field hands, the presence of the
house servants seemed to leaven the whole
lump with a naive and ingenious pride. Or
proud OF simple minded, the blacks came.
usually to Christmas with money in pocket
sometimes in both pockets. And OF all
it bought they got more satisfaction from
powder.
christmas then and there had the joyous,
noise which attaches in more urban regions
a. NhA EpaUwfh Of -Intlty EiraCrnnEaHu
none so observation-disclosures the cost was
out of all proportion to the noise. SO the
powder in pounds and two pounds, was
plugged tightly within stout hollow logs
and touched OF with fuses Of waxed and
greasy string, running inside through
gimlet holes bored in the plugs. Thus the
making Of a gun, to say nothing of setting
it of, was an affair Of nice judgment.
"The logs were chosen and made ready
lays beforehand, but charging them ha
10 be lone but an instant before firing.
They were commonly left lying in the woods,
OF elso rolled 10 the edge of a clearing,
whence the sound could spread better.
The booming Of them began about second
cockcrow and kept up intermittentlY until
there was the faintest possible tightening
in the east.
mas guns could guess shrewdly at what
manner OF log mad been chosen. A clean.
sharp rolling, waking r~everbeTant echoes,
meant "A log with a sound, hard she'll, free of
cracks and bark Contrariwise, a muflled. half
muttering boom showed a log dry rotted-
in countryside phrase 'doated.' 'Doated' is
of aristocratic descent, coming straight
from doidrd, the forester's classification Of
timber beginning to de at the top or UNI
sound at the root.
There was no need Of sylvan artillery
10 wake the plantation. Nobody slept on
Christmas eve who could possibly keep
awake. There was constant running to
and fro between plantations. The runners
were just then free from all fear-of either
ghosts or p~atTOhers.
They inherited, OF else had been taught,
the superstition which Shakespeare voices
the cock was supposed TO have routed all
haunts. witches. hobgoblins and evil spirits,
sending them safe underground. 80 the night
runners went in safety. And the ratrollers.
II they went about at all, were civil. even
jolly, in their accostings. Moreover. every
master gave his slaves each a separate pass,
| good from. Christmas eve till Old Christmas
= AA--a- ~ ATa-AA