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carved, and unstained, en¬ 
closing Captain Talbot’s com¬ 
mission, and the original 
grant to Grassways. Major 
Talbot’s father had whiled 
away leaden hours as a pris¬ 
oner of war bv carving the 
frames with a rather dull 
pocket-knife. 
Grassways kept open 
house every day in the year, 
but its hospitality came to 
full and finest flowering at 
Christmas. Then the Major 
and Nancy his wife gathered 
chosen companies, varying from year 
to year, made them eat the fat, drink 
the sweet, rejoice and be merry from 
Christmas Eve to Old Christmas — 
otherwise Twelfth Night. What made 
such gatherings unique was — they gave 
Christmas only; other giving was 
strictly barred. Tenants, hireling, all 
sorts of dependants, got money — gold 
and silver, in tiny new purses, each 
wrapped in white paper whereon Nancy 
had scrawled boldly “Christmas Gift.” 
These were distributed a week ahead, 
so the recipients might, if it pleased 
them, turn the gifts into other things 
exactly to their minds. 
Mid-month, upon a mild December 
morning, toward ten o’clock, the Major 
looked up from a weather forecast to 
say: “’Fraid we are in for a green 
Christmas. Not that it really matters 
much — nothing matters except to have 
a Christmas heart - ” 
“I say a Christmas house.” Nancy 
interrupted. She was short and round, 
so rosily fair and unwrinkled; her 
thick white hair seemed almost freakish, 
especially by contrast with dark brows 
and lashes. Her tall husband, portly 
and ruddily weatherbeaten, had a 
silvered thatch to add to his distinc¬ 
tion. He loved his wife even better 
than his land — next to them, he loved 
humankind. Now he leaned across to 
pat her hand softly, saying with a 
twinkle: “You make any house a 
Christmas house, old lady. I know — 
haven’t I lived with you thirty-odd 
years ?” 
“Thank goodness — the fruit cake is 
out of the way.” Nancy purred re¬ 
flectively : “Seems to me somehow it’s always better made in 
October. But — everything else - ” 
“Need any help?” the Major interrupted. Nancy looked at 
him pityingly. “You ought to know by this, I’ve got help,” she 
said; “too much help—that’s what’s worrying me. Sis Lucy 
comes to-morrow, with three of the boys, and Tex-” 
“Lucy’s a host in herself, and the boys pretty handy - ” the 
Major began. Nancy put her foot down impatiently—it had been 
crossed on the other. “Indeed she is!” she said heartily. “But — • 
Mary March wants to come the next day, and fetch along Diana 
and Susan. So there’ll be even more to watch out for.” 
“We can’t have that! Flat!” the Major said, with a deep breath. 
“Why, those boys and girls will be either engaged—or not on 
speaking terms before Christmas Day.” 
“Yes—and I do loathe engagements and fallings out and quar¬ 
rels,” Nancy sighed. Suddenly she brightened, saying, with a 
crafty smile, “I won't let them quarrel, nor make love. I’ll keep 
them so busy they won’t have breath for it.” 
Such a prologue betokens happenings. Nancy carried it out to 
the letter. Result, a transformed Grassways when a laggard 
sun struggling through heavy clouds ushered in the day before 
Christmas. A muggy day—moist and unseasonably mild. Diana 
and Susan, who had been appointed to help Sis Lucy and Tex 
with the cake and candy making, were devoutly glad they had 
finished their labors at dusk yesterday. It had been rather 
aggravating to 
stand whisking eggs, 
creaming butter, 
measuring liquors 
and flavors under 
Mrs. Talbot’s vigi¬ 
lant eyes, what time 
the Talbot boys 
trooped in and out 
and round about, 
their arms full of 
greenery, pausing 
now and then at the 
door of the big 
kitchen to chant 
mockingly: 
“Sugar and spice, and 
everything nice, 
That’s what little girls are 
made of, made of! 
That’s what little girls 
are made of.” 
Notwithstand¬ 
ing, the boys had 
come in handy. 
Without them it 
might have been im¬ 
possible to scour the 
swamps for cat- 
brier, the bottoms 
for cross vine, not 
to name getting the 
plentiful misletoe. 
Negroes had a su- 
persition against 
climbing for it—the 
same as they had 
against stripping 
berried branches 
from the rare hol¬ 
lies. Native pine 
the grasslands 
hardly know—but 
here at Grassways there was a lusty row of them, planted by the 
first settler in memory of Old Virginia. Hence their tassels were 
cut but sparingly—and so high up the ravagings would not show. 
The Talbot boys had adventured recklessly up the tall trunks, un¬ 
der counsel of Mary March, who, with money and beauty to spare, 
had come to forty single—and loving trees rather better than men. 
Nancy had given over the greens and their gatherers into her capa¬ 
ble hands, and every day since had chuckled over her own wisdom. 
There had been merry nights in the big dining-room, tying 
rope of cedar and pine. Arborvihe cut from trees on an 
In the midst of the snow the birds' Christmas tree stood like a white tent, its laden 
branches bent to the ground 
( 356 ) 
