66 I N A G U A 



Suddenly the morning quiet was broken by a frightful din. 

 From the seemingly deserted streets came the crashing of 

 metal, a tremendous blowing of horns and clanging of bells. 

 Louder it grew in volume, appeared to be moving up one 

 street and then another. Coleman and I sat bolt upright. 



"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Coleman. "What's going on 

 here?" 



As he spoke the noise blared in sudden crescendo and burst 

 from the street by the building with red shutters. Along with 

 the noise there issued into view a motley group of people, a mix- 

 ture of black and tan, a singing, cheering crowd that was wav- 

 ing flags, pounding on drums and kettles, rattling huge cow- 

 bells, strumming an assortment of stringed instruments and 

 yelling its lungs out. The crowd turned into a street near the 

 beach, marched for a block or two and turned inland. 



"What is it," we asked Daxon, "a revolution?" 



"No, suh," he grinned, "dey is serenading Christmas." 



"Christmas!" gasped Coleman. "My gosh, I had forgotten 

 all about it." 



And I laughed to think of other Christmases; of long gray 

 days in more northern lands, where the snow was drifted deep 

 and where somber green pines stood dark against the white; or 

 roaring fires and family gatherings. I thought of another Christ- 

 mastide, several years past, when in a lonely little Haitian town 

 a single white man and I had trudged miles up the mountain- 

 sides, past the area of royal palms and into the cool heights 

 above that we might find a pine tree to decorate with finery 

 for this man's children. I smiled again to think of how he had 

 substituted painted gourds and alligator pears for Christmas 

 balls and had cut tin foil from cigarette cartons for tinsel. And 

 again, of the wonderment of these tropic-born children at this 

 marvel of a tree brought from the heights three thousand feet 

 above. From far and wide the Haitian peasantry had come to 



