CHAPTER XXIII.
It was just one week before Christmas,—that of 1860, the last Christmas of the olden time,—that Elmington—that Virginia—forever and forever—was to see—. But no matter; we did not know it then. The guests from Richmond were to arrive that evening. Everything was in readiness.
The hickory logs, which alone my grandfather—and his father before him, for that matter—would burn during the holidays,—lighting the first noble pile on Christmas Eve,—the hickory logs were banked up, high and dry, in the wood-house. The stall-fed ox nodded over his trough; the broad-backed Southdowns, clustered together in a corner of their shed, basked in the sun and awaited a return of appetite; a remnant of sturdy porkers, left over from the November killing, that blinked at you from out their warm beds, and grunted when requested to rise, suggested sausage; while over on Charley’s farm, and under Aunt Sucky’s able management, aldermanic turkeys, and sleek, plump pullets, and ducks, quacking low from very fatness, and geese that had ceased to wrangle,—all thought themselves, like man before Copernicus, the centre of the universe. Then, in the little creek, too, which ebbed and flowed hard by, there lay bushels and bushels of oysters freshly taken from The River in front. These, too, were ready; while, in the cellar, suspended from hooks, there dangled, thanks to the industry of Charley and the Don, daily swelling bunches of partridges and rabbits, of woodcock and of wild fowl.
And can you not detect the odor of apples issuing even from that locked door? There are great piles of them stowed away there; and cider, I suspect, is not lacking. And above, the storeroom showed shelves weighed down, since the arrival of the last steamer, with such things as Elmington could not supply. Boxes and bags and bundles gave forth the mellow fragrance of raisins, the cheerful rattle of nuts, the pungent savor of spices,—the promise of all things dear to the heart of the Virginia housewife. On every whiff floated mince-pie,—mince-pie embryonic, uncompounded; with every sniff there rose, like an exhalation before the imagination, visions of Plum-Pudding—of the Plum-Pudding of Old England,—twin-sister of Roast Beef,—and, with Roast Beef, inseparable attendant and indispensable bulwark of Constitutional Liberty.
It was well.
Nor in stuffed larder alone were discernible the signs of the approaching festival. Christmas was in the very air. Old Dick’s mien grew hourly more imposing; his eye, beneath which now trembled no longer Zip alone, but Zip reinforced by double his own strength, hourly more severe. Aunt Phœbe, her head gorgeous in a new bandanna (a present from Mrs. Carter last Christmas, but which had lain folded in her “chist” for the past year),—Aunt Phœbe, chief of the female cohort, and champion pastry-cook of the county, waddled from room to room,—serene, kindly, and puffing,—voluminous with her two hundred pounds, inspecting the work of her subordinates, and giving a finishing touch here and there. Polly, the cook, and her scullion, alone of the household, had no leisure for putting on the Christmas look, busy as they were getting dinner for the coming guests; cooks being, in point of fact, among the few people, white or black, that ever did a full day’s work in Virginia in the olden time. But we have changed all that,—so let it pass.
“Dey comin’!” eagerly cried an urchin of color, who, with twenty companions of both sexes, had had for the past hour their eyes fixed on the lane-gate.
The gate was swinging on its hinges.
With one accord they all assumed the attitude of runners awaiting the signal to start. With feet planted firmly,—shall I say widely?—but no, they are men and brothers now,—with eyes bent upon the gate, but bodies leaning towards the house, they stood for a moment expectant.
The noses of a pair of horses appeared between the gate-posts.