Volume XXIV 
December, 1913 
Number 6 
A SOUTHERN CHRISTMAS GATHERING OF THE OLD-TIME KIND, AND WHAT CAME 
OF IT — THE PREPARATIONS, INDOOR AND OUT, FOR THE GREAT OCCASION 
by Martha McCulloc h-W i l l i a m s 
Author of “Dishes and Beverages of the Old South,” “Far Farings,” etc., etc. 
Editor’s Note: Much of the success of Christmas merrymaking comes from the successful setting of the Yuletide stage. In Grass Country, Christmas was the festival 
•of the year, and they were past masters in the art of decking out the house to receive the Merry Saint. But they did not buy their decorations ready made, they found the 
wherewithal from the largess of nature — much richer in sentiment. How these Southern hosts prepared in advance for the holiday season was told by Mrs. Williams last month. 
In this story of Grasslands she gives a blending of practical advice and subtle suggestion of the way to attain the true Christmas spirit. 
F INE land means commonly fine land-masters. Major Talbot, 
for example, smiled at the wisdom of book farmers. He 
had no need of them to tell him secrets of soil and sunshine-—what 
tilth kept land in good heart, what crops throve best following 
•one on the other. He had, you see, grown up on Grassways, under 
his father's tutelage, so had absorbed the wise knowledge handed 
down by a long land-loving line. Talbots only had held Grass- 
ways, since one of them, sometime a Continental captain, had 
•chosen it out of a virgin wilderness, in right of a patent given 
instead of pay. It would be kept in the name, albeit the Major 
himself was childless. His sister, married to a distant Talbot 
•cousin, had a flock of sons to inherit this favored bit of the earth. 
The house was an accretion. Originally squarely Colonial it 
had a wing here, an ell there, a porch jutted by whim had become 
a screened passage to new rooms, standing end-on to the drive. 
Notwithstanding, the effect was harmonious, not jumbled—chiefly 
perhaps because of a wholesome and delightful simplicity. The 
‘big lion-headed brass knocker upon the front door was, indeed, 
almost the sole thing touched avowedly with ornament. This out¬ 
wardly — inside there was quite another condition. A hundred 
years of waxing and rubbing had turned wainscot of native black 
walnut into an approach to ebony. Likewise the ashen floors 
had been brought to mirror surfaces, whereon one needed to 
walk warily. 1. he hall had a big stone fireplace with a mantel 
reaching more than half way to the high ceiling. There was just 
room above it, indeed, for a deer’s bead, a ten-pointer, the first 
and only buck the Major had ever brought down. Across the 
tines lay a rifle that had barked across the cotton ramparts at 
Pakenham s redcoats, with bullet-pouch and powder horn slung 
beneath it. Below, the mantel shelf showed tall silver ewers, 
trophies won by famous fliers for a sporting Talbot long 
since dead. In be¬ 
tween lay the sword 
drawn last at York- 
town. Flanking the 
chimney-place either 
side were frames of 
deal, rudely hand- 
( 355 > 
