the original building became mixed up, and, as it were, lost in the crowd of additions.

In cold weather the house was often miserably uncomfortable, but at all other times it was simply glorious. There was, of course, a large hall or passage, a parlor and dining-room, "the chamber" proper for the old lady and for everybody, and a fine old-time staircase leading to the guest-chambers, but the rest of the house ran mostly into nondescript apartments, access to which was not always easy. For the floors were on different levels, as they ought to be in an old country house. Fail to step up or down at the proper time, and you were sure to bump your head or bruise your shins. Then there were dark closets, cuddies, and big old chests that came mayhap from England, say nothing of the garret, full of mystery, that stretched the whole length of the house. Here was romance for childhood-plenty of it. These irregular rooms, two steps up and three down before you fairly got into them, teemed with poetry; but your modern houses, with square rooms on a dead level, are prosaic as dry-goods boxes.

A fine old house it was to play hide-and-seek in, to romp with the girls, to cut all sorts of capers without disturbing the old folks. Then these dark passages, these cuddies and closets, that big garret, never failed to harbor some good-natured old hip-shot fool of a family

ghost, who was evidently "projicking" around at night, after the girls had quit their talk, making the floors crack, the doors creak, and whispering his nonsense through the keyhole, as if he could scare you or anybody else!

The heavy, dark furniture; the huge sideboard; the quaint old chairs; the more common article, with spraddled legs, scooped seats, and stick backs; the diamondpaned book-case; the long horse-hair sofas, with round tasselled pillows, hard as logs of ebony, with nooks to hide them in; the graceful candle-stand; the gilt mirror, with its three compartments; the carved mantel, so high you could hardly reach the silver candlesticks on its narrow top; the bureaus, with swinging brass handles; the dressing-tables; the high-post bedsteads, with valance and tester; the massive dinner table, never big enough to hold all the dishes, some of which had to go on the hearth to be kept warm; the old-time silver, the heavy cut glassware, the glass pitcher for the thick, rich milkhow it foamed when they "poured it high!"—the Canton china, thin as thin biscuit; the plainer blue dinner set, for every-day use, with the big apples on the little trees, the blue islands in a white sea, the man or woman that was always going over that short bridge, but stopped and stood provokingly in the middle-how they all come back to you!

When you were a boy, did you sleep in a low-pitched,

dormer-windowed room, with two little gable windows that looked out upon a narrow-necked chimney, just where the neck ended and the shoulder began? You didn't? Then I pity you; you must have had a poor sort of boyhood.

Surely, you haven't forgotten the rainy days at the old country house? How the drops kept dropping, dropping from the eaves, and popping, popping up from the little trough worn into the earth below the eaves; how draggled and miserable the rooster looked, as you watched him from your seat in the deep window-sill; and how, tired of playing in-doors, you wondered if it would never, never stop raining? How you wandered from room to room, all over the house, up stairs and down stairs, eating cakes and apples, or buttered bread and raspberry jam; how at last you settled down in the old lady's chamber and held a hank till your arms ached, and you longed for bedtime to come?

If you have never known such days, never seen the reel the hanks were placed on, nor the flax-wheels that clacked when the time came to stop winding, then you have neither seen nor known anything. You don't know how to "skin the cat," or to play "Ant'ny over"; you don't know how to drop a live coal in a little puddle of water, and explode it with an axe-you have never been a Virginia boy.

THE OLD SOUTH

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

The great fête of the people was Christmas. Spring had its special delights: horseback rides through the budding woods, with the birds singing; fishing parties down on the little rivers, with out-of-doors lunches and love-making; parties of various kinds from house to house. Summer had its pleasures: handsome dinners, and teas with moonlight strolls and rides to follow; visits to or from relations, or even to the White Sulphur Springs, called simply "the White." The Fall had its pleasures. But all times and seasons paled and dimmed before the festive joys of Christmas. It had been handed down for generations; it belonged to the race. It had come over with their forefathers. It had a peculiar significance. It was a title. Religion had given it its benediction. It was the time to "Shout the glad tidings." It was The Holidays. There were other holidays for the slaves, such as Easter and Whit-Monday; but Christmas was distinctively "The Holidays."

Then the boys came home from school or college with their friends; the members of the family who had moved away returned; pretty cousins came for the festivities; the neighborhood grew merry; the negroes were all to

have a holiday, the house-servants taking turn and turn about, and the plantation made ready for Christmas cheer. It was by all the younger population looked back to half the year, looked forward to the other half. Time was measured by it; it was either so long "since Christmas," or so long "before Christmas." The affairs of the plantation were set in order against it. The corn was got in; the hogs were killed; the lard "tried"; sausage-meat made; mince-meat prepared; the turkeys fattened, with "the old big gobbler" specially devoted to the "Christmas dinner"; the servants' new shoes and winter clothes stored away ready for distribution; and the plantation began to be ready to prepare for Christmas.

In the first place, there was generally a cold spell which froze up everything and enabled the ice-houses to be filled. This spell was the harbinger; and great fun it was at the ice-pond, where the big rafts of ice were floated along, with the boys on them. The rusty skates with their curled runners and stiff straps were got out, and maybe tried for a day. Then the stir began. The wagons all were put to hauling wood-hickory; nothing but hickory now; other wood might do for other times, but at Christmas only hickory was used; and the woodpile was heaped high with the logs; while to the ordinary wood-cutters "for the house" were added three, four, a half-dozen more, whose shining axes rang around