CHAPTER II

 Christmas on the old plantation

Christmas morning, 1853, dawned cold and rainy, and scarcely had the first gray streak appeared when the bolt of the nursery was quietly turned, and Dilsey’s little black head peered in through the half-open door.

“Chris’mus gif’, chil’en!” she called out, and in a twinkling Diddie, Dumps and Tot were all wide awake, and climbing over the side of the bed.  Then the three little sisters and Dilsey tip-toed all around to everybody’s rooms, catching “Chris’mus gif’;” but just as they were creeping down-stairs to papa and mamma two little forms jumped from behind the hall door, and Riar and Chris called out, “Chris’mus gif’!” and laughed and danced to think they had “cotch de white chil’en.”

As soon as everybody had been caught they all went into the sitting-room to see what Santa Clause had brought, and there were eight stockings all stuffed full!  Three long, white stockings, that looked as if they might be mamma’s, were for the little girls, and three coarse woolen stockings were for the little nigs; and now whom do you suppose the others were for?  Why, for Mammy and Aunt Milly, to be sure!  Oh, such lots of things—­ candies and nuts, and raisins and fruits in every stocking; then there was a doll baby for each of the children.  Diddie’s was a big china doll, with kid feet and hands, and dressed in a red frock trimmed with black velvet.  Dumps’s was a wax baby with eyes that would open and shut; and it had on a long white dress, just like a sure-enough baby, and a little yellow sack, all worked around with white.

Tot was so little, and treated her dollies so badly, that “Old Santa” had brought her an India-rubber baby, dressed in pink tarlatan, with a white sash.

Dilsey, Chris, and Riar each had an alabaster baby, dressed in white Swiss, and they were all just alike, except that they had different colored sashes on.

And Diddie had a book full of beautiful stories, and Dumps had a slate and pencil, and Tot had a “Noah’s ark,” and Mammy and Aunt Milly had red and yellow head “handkerchiefs,” and Mammy had a new pair of “specs” and a nice warm hood, and Aunt Milly had a delaine dress; and ’way down in the toes of their stockings they each found a five-dollar gold piece, for Old Santa had seen how patient and good the two dear old women were to the children, and so he had “thrown in” these gold pieces.

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,