University of Virginia Library

10. Chapter Tenth

Entertainments

As the colored people were not permitted to
share in the amusements of the whites except in
a manner to emphasize the fact of their
degradation we felt it incumbent upon us to have
some sort of entertainment of a moral and
educational character, which should serve both to
instruct and amuse; and the most available
plan at first was the School Exhibition in which
songs, recitations and dialogues formed the whole
of the program. These were all carefully selected
by ourselves, and each pupil given the part best
adapted to his ability.

Miss Gardner, as Principal
was the first to bring out her pupils in this way, and
the other schools followed in succession, so that the
School Exhibition came to be looked forward to
by the pupils as an agreeable change from the
ordinary routine of school work. Miss Gardner also
originated the idea of a Masquerade party, and
we selected all the characters and planned the costumes
for the maskers. In all these entertainments we

were greatly assisted by two of the most prominent
colored men in the town — Messrs Robert and James
Scott, brothers, who with the son of the former, Robert
Scott Jr. furnished us with the best music the town
afforded. The Scotts were noted musicians, and
their services were in demand in the most
aristocratic families of Charlottesville

After I became Principal of the school, I formed
among my pupils the "Jefferson Amateur Dramatic
Association." Our plays dealt largely with the
question of intemperance, as the drinking habit
was so common among both the white and colored
people of the place. If my memory serves me
rightly "Ten Nights in a Bar-room was the most
pretentious piece we put upon the boards. "Bakers
Temperance Dramas" furnished us several "The
Little Brown Jug" "The Last Loaf" "Man with
a Demijohn." "Seeing the Elephant." "We're all
Teetotallers" etc. I also remember one called
"Aunt Dinahs Pledge" which I picked up somewhere
and I also found plays on other subjects suited to our
needs. We usually charged an admission fee
of 15 cts and we always had a few white people

in the audience.

It would give a real
actor spasms to look over our stage properties.
For instance, in the scene in the wood or grove
in "Ten Nights in a Bar-room" small evergreen trees
were made to stand on the stage through which
the actors skulked in and out as necessary. For
the Bar Room a long wooden table was arranged
with glasses, bottles, etc. to resemble a bar. In "Seeing
the Elephant," the huge beast was made of two
boys, two paper cones, and a grey blanket. Where
money was required Confederate bills of which
plenty could be obtained at that time, were used

We also had entertainments consisting of tableaux
charades etc, and we occasionally consented to
the pupils holding a Fair for some special school
purpose. All the money r`aised through the different
entertainments was used for some special school
purpose

We also formed Societies for various
purposes. A "Freedmens Aid Society" as a branch to
the one in Boston, "A "Mutual Improvement Society"
A "Union League." The "Cheney Society" The "Equal
Rights Association" The "Gardner Society" etc. These did
not all exist at the same time, but were formed

when occasion for some new organization seemed
apparent and disbanded when the object was
attained or seemed no longer desirable. Sometimes
one organization became merged in another
of a different name but similar nature.

The colored people often prepared entertainments
for our especial benefit. Sometimes it was a
picnic or a barbecue — sometimes a feast at one
of their houses. When it became a matter of
preparing good things to eat, there was never any
lack either in quantity or quality. It was a matter
of regret to us that these poor people should so strain
the small means at their disposal to make a feast
for us, but, the cost incurred, there was nothing
for us to do but to show our appreciation of their
efforts by enjoying the same.

I have mentioned in a previous chapter that
we were frequently treated to a serenade in the
evening

At Christmas we usually had a tree with
gifts for all our pupils. These gifts were sent
to each school by the special branch society
actively interested in its welfare and consisted

of books, pictures, clothing, handkerchiefs and other
articles of use orfor ornament. I will describe one
Christmas festival which was a little out of the
ordinary. That year our branch society failed
to send articles suitable for a tree in sufficient
number to supply more than twenty or thirty
of my seventy odd pupils. I explained the matter
to them and asked if they were willing that the
contents of the box should be distributed among the
very poor to which they readily consented. I
then arranged a program for a little festival on
Christmas eve in which the exercises were to be
singing, reading etc.

A few days later Miss
Gardners society sent her an enormous box, with
special gifts marked for each of her pupils, besides
a vast number of other nice things: and she
generously offered me enough to put with the few
suitable articles I already had to make a nice
gift for each member of my school.

As they expected nothing I planned a little
surprise for them, and arranged with one of Miss
Gardners older boys to act the part of Santa Claus
itbeing difficult to procure a sledge, with the proper supply

of reindeer, I had a barrel filled with the gifts
neatly done up and marked. This was placed
on a wheelbarrow in the room back of the school
room, while we went through the exercises of
the evening as planned. When we were
all through with the exception of the
closing song, I made a little speech in
which I told them that without doubt Santa
Claus appreciated their unselfishness in
donating their Christmas gifts to those more
needy than themselves, and as he was probably
riding about that evening if we could hail
him in passing he might possibly be
induced to make us a call. Two of the
older girls were appointed to look for him.
By this time the interest and curiosity of
the pupils was at its height, and they watched
with eager eyes as one of the girls opened the
stove door, and called "Santa Claus! Santa
Claus!" There was no response and I told
them the stove pipe was probably too small
for him to come through with his pack so
they had better try the door. They opened
the door into the hall and repeated the call
but in vain. Then they went to the back door
and called. Immediately a figure with a long
white beard and clad in furs pushing a
wheel-barrow in front of him passed through
the aisle and stationed itself in the open
space before the platform.

What a moment
of excitement followed! They jumped up and
down and clapped their hands, and cheered
and shouted until it was a perfect pandemonium
and it took some time for them to subdue their
emotions sufficiently to enable us to proceed
with the distribution of the gifts. The surprise
was perfect, and the value of the simple gifts
correspondingly heightened.

As a rule our Christmas entertainments
consisted of recitations, singing, and a tree
and we usually had some kind of a celebration
on Jan.1st Emancipation Day and on several
occasions we combined the two, postponing our
Christmas festival a week. Christmas had
always been the greatest day of the year with
the colored people, whether bond or free, but we did

what we could to teach them, the importance
to themselves, of Emancipation Day.

On April 19th 1875we celebrated the day
by reading the story of the "Concord Fight" and
many other entertaining bits of history of
Revolutionary days, and the singing of patriotic
songs, with speeches by their friends who came to
witness the exercises etc so while Massachusetts towns
were rejoicing with elaborate festivities we had
our humble celebration six hundred miles
away.

There were other entertainments
as the dedication of a new school house
we had built — a festival of the "Equal
Rights Association" and many occasions of
a pleasant nature that are only vaguely
remembered now, but in every instance
whatever the occasion we always tried to
so manage the affair that it would instruct
as well as amuse.