What Happened to Me

by La Salle Corbell Pickett

The Yule Log was laid at the back of the great fireplace and in front of it were piled cobs, chips and kindling wood, known to the plantation servants as "light 'ood," a contraction for "light wood," which was the heart of the pine. It was lit with a wax candle made in the home kitchen by Aunt Dilsey, a candle in which I felt a proprietary interest, having watched with fascinated eyes the process of its manufacture. Aunt Dilsey had let me draw one of the doubled and twisted cotton strands through a tube in the tin mould to form the wick, and I felt like a conquering hero when the end of the string emerged from the point of the tube. There were six of these tubes in Aunt Dilsey's mould, and when they were all provided with wicks she allowed me to thrust through the loops at the top of the mould the little sticks which rested on the frames and held the strands in place. Then she tied the wicks very tightly at the ends. I watched the melted white wax poured into the tubes, feeling as if I were assisting at a magic incantation. The time of greatest excitement was when, after the carefully built structure had stood all night in a cool place to harden, Aunt Dilsey would cut off the knots at the bottom of the tube, take hold of the cross-sticks and pull till six long, beautiful white waxen cylinders would come out, each with a tuft of soft white cotton at the end. Every time I saw them emerge from their cells a separate and distinct miracle seemed to have been wrought. I have yet a pair of these moulds.

One of the candles was lighted and placed in the hand of my little brother, the youngest of the family group. My father guided the tiny hand until the flame formed a cross around which the tongues of fire leaped and caught the log, embracing it lovingly, climbing upward and turning blue and crimson and golden and white and then mingling in a glorified web of color. Myriads of sparkles shot up the old chimney, like Christmas prayers flying heavenward. The crackling of the wood and the fluttering of the flames joined in a Christmas carol for all the world.

Not the smallest fragment of the log must be left over after the twelve-day feast. It had lain seasoning in the sunshine and the starshine, in the rain and in the wind, in the frost and in the dew, in winter cold and summer heat, that it might be well prepared to give itself wholly to the sacrifice. Had a remnant remained in the ashes, disaster would have marked the year until the next Yule Log had removed the ban by entirely disappearing. Virginia had not received, with the traditional heritage, the Old World custom of preserving a fragment of one Yule Log to serve as a lighting torch for the next and to ward off evil demons until Christmas came again. The servants were to have holiday while there was a scrap of it left.

The ashes of the Yule Log were carefully saved apart from the others, as they were of peculiar sacredness. Lye made from them was of magic efficacy in the manufacture of soap, bringing it to a much-desired degree of hardness and excellence. The negroes used the lye to kill evil spirits and free themselves from the sins they had committed during the year.

Old Santa Claus's rack, the "chimbly rack," made of black walnut and handsomely decorated, with nails driven into it on which the stockings were to be hung, was brought in by Uncle Charles and placed above the marble mantelpiece. Over each nail was printed the name of the one for whom it was intended. Aunt Serena brought in the basket of stockings that she had knit of the finest spun cotton or wool and hung them on the nails, singing her Christmas incantation, "Christmas comes but once't a yeah, En ebby las' niggah has his sheah." The loved ones who had gone before were remembered and stockings for them were hung upon the rack. Their gifts were of money to be used in providing Christmas cheer for the unfortunate, the bereaved and the lonely. Thus was the memory of those who had passed beyond kept in grateful hearts.

From the wall above the portrait of my grandfather Underwood, with long hair and velvet-flowered vest and rolls of cravat, looked seriously down. I had never seen him, but my grandmother said that "he believed in God, woman and blood; was proud but not haughty, hospitable, generous, firm and unchangeable in his opinions, quiet and commanding, affectionate, courting responsibilities instead of shirking them."

For weeks all had been busy with preparations. The wood had been cut and piled, the corn gathered, the pigs killed, the mince-meat and souse and fruit cake prepared, the sausage chopped and the hominy beaten, the winter clothes all spun, woven and made. We sat by the fire with rest, peace and wonder in our hearts, cracking nuts and roasting apples, the old silver punch-bowl of apple-toddy steaming on the table, while we listened to stories of olden times and of times that never were. My uncle in his cadet uniform, home for the holidays on furlough from the Virginia Military Institute, told us fascinating tales of soldier-boy life, sending delicious thrills of joy and terror through every nerve.

Presently my black mammy took me in her motherly arms and carried me along the hall through the middle of the house, flanked by doors opening into the living rooms, up the wide stairway into another long corridor bounded by the same number of doors leading into bedrooms all in their Christmas dress of arbor-vitæ, holly and mistletoe. In each of the fireplaces were wood and kindling to be lit when the guests should arrive on the morrow. Into the prettiest and smallest room she carried me and put me into my little eider-downy trundle bed.

The next morning I was awakened by the music of the Christmas horns and the popping of firecrackers. When I had been dressed I was taken to the dining-room, where my grandmother stood by a table whereon was a large bowl of egg-nog from which, with a silver ladle, she was filling glasses for us all, for even the babies in old Virginia were given a taste of egg-nog on Christmas morning.

After breakfast my grandmother went to service and would return with guests who were to come to us after the Christmas sermon in the lavishly decorated village church.