University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

THE FULL CORN-CRIB.

Tell me nothing of the crops! Suppose they don't
grow—suppose there is a failure, and the corn falls
short, and the cotton sheds, and the army-worm appears
and the caterpillar, and there is an early frost,
and half the bolls never blow! These things will
happen! We must look to lose our crops now and
then, no matter what we plant. It can't be that we
shall have things always as we wish them. We can't
be always wise or always fortunate. But we can, if
we please, be always good and good-natured, and loving
and cheerful, and thankful for what we do get,
and for the things in which we are prosperous. There's

no reason because of the drought that our hearts should
be dry also. There's no reason because we make
short crops that we should be short to our friends,
and because the winter comes on sooner than usual
that we should be colder than usual to our neighbors
—that our charities should freeze up with the weather,
and our gratitude fail us because the sunshine fails us.
We must only make the hearth-fire brighter; we must
only make sunshine for ourselves, and gather our
friends about the warming, and make merry within
while all is melancholy without; and show to one another
how cheerful everything may be, though the
tempest blows never so angrily against the shutter.
A man may soon learn to make his sunshine wherever
and whenever he pleases, and to carry a happy heart
under a thin jacket. He must be a man without regard
to the seasons. His affections must not alter
with the weather. He mustn't blow hot and cold because
the wind does so. He must keep his soul firm
and his sympathies steadfast, and his charities must
be as quick to warm as his anger is quick to cool.
His log must be kindled at Christmas, though he may
have never another left in his wood-yard. There
must be a fire, you know, at Yule, and why shouldn't
his hands kindle it as well as another's? The log
was cut to burn!

But he is unfortunate, you say. Well, is that any
good reason why he shouldn't warm his fingers in a
cold season? But then he makes blaze enough to
warm a dozen! Exactly so; and this only proves
that even the unfortunate man is never so wholly unfortunate

that he does not possess the happy privilege,
under God, of making others happy. There's no
waste if, when he sets his log ablaze, he calls in his
neighbors to enjoy it. I tell you the log must burn
for some one's comfort in the cold, bleak days of December,
and it is something of a blessing in the poor
man's cup that he is permitted to raise the blaze. But
then, say you, it is his last log! Who shall say that?
Who shall dare to say that God's charity must have
a limit?—that this man, who knew so well how to
warm his hearth for the blessing of his neighbors,
shall be permitted to make no more pleasant fires?
I tell you, short-sighted mortal, that, even beside that
last log, you may yet see some celestial visitant in
fustian habit. It is thus that an unquestioning hospitality
is sometimes permitted to entertain an angel!
With the smoke of that last log, around which the
unlucky man, obedient to a custom which he learned in
his better days, has gathered in his humble neighbors,
there goes up to heaven a rare incense which makes
acceptable, and may make profitable also, that last sacrifice
of wealth. Let the log burn, then! Wouldst thou
throw water on the cheerful gleams which light up all
these ruddy faces? Wouldst thou silence the merry
crackling of that flaming pile? Wouldst thou put out
those pleasant charities which thus, if only once a
year, are kindled to make one's fellow warm? Out
upon thee, for a doubter of God's providence! Get
thee to thy own home, and put thy only stick upon
the fire, and call in him who passes, that thou mayest
not selfishly and sadly sit alone to see it burn! Then
will the Father of those who gladden at the blaze, so
gladden thee as that thou shalt never lack thy log at
Yule.

Now, if thou wilt believe me, brother, there is a
purpose in this long preamble. Just such was the
tenor of that shrill but lively crow which issued from
the capacious lungs of that famous old cock of St.
Matthews, who held in fee the extensive domains of
“Maize-in-milk.”[1] The master of “Maize-in-milk”
was a sovereign in his way, whose power was known
only by its bounty. His was one of the finest plantations
for peas, potatoes, Indian corn, and short cottons,
in Carolina—not a very great one, it is true; not so
large nor so thickly settled as an hundred others in
the same and other districts, but just such a snug,
productive interest as enabled the proprietor to do the
handsome thing by his neighbor, and to entertain his
guest like a gentleman. Colonel Openheart was one
of those generous and frank planters whom men smiled
to name, with pleasant recollections of the warmest
welcome and the finest cheer. And even now, with
his feathers somewhat ruffled by resistance and unexpected
provocation, it was delightful to behold the
bland visage and the good-humored smile which took
all anger from his aspect. Anger, indeed! It was
rare enough to see him angry. We tell you, he was
only ruffled, not roused, and just enough touched by
opposition, to show how animated he could become
even in his benevolence. There he sits at the ample

fireside, in which great logs of oak and hickory are
yielding themselves up in flake and flash, and hiss and
sparkle, his face glowing like the fire, warm, bright,
capacious; cheeks smooth as a woman's, a beard carefully
kept down by a persuasive razor, and his flowing
locks just beginning to whiten at the ends, and slightly
showing their snows against the warmer colors of his
neck and cheek. And how his great blue eyes dilate
under the high, broad forehead, as he looks around
him with a mixed expression of amazement and satisfaction,
taking in at the same glance the gentle and
matron-like lady who presides at the evening board,
from around which the chairs have already been withdrawn;
and the tall and graceful damsel of fifteen,
who, standing at her side, plies deftly the snow-white
napkin over the dripping teacup. I am not sure that
the comprehensive glance of Colonel Openheart fails to
notice the nice little juvenile episode which escapes
the eyes of the ladies, and which presents itself upon
the great and antique sofa gracing the opposite end
of the apartment. There, but scarcely enough in the
foreground to constitute a portion of the picture, you
may see Tom Openheart, a stout lad of nine or ten
years, exhausted by a long day's squrrel hunt, with
his own rifle and on his own pony, drowsing into
gradual obliviousness of life and all its excitements,
his arms thrown above his head, one of his legs secure
on the sofa with his trunk, while the other wanders
off, quietly conducting to a neighboring chair, to the
leg of which Dick Openheart, a mischievous urchin of
seven or eight, busily fastens it by the aid of his sister's
handkerchief. The father's and mother's have
already been disposed of in making secure the other
equally pliant members of Tom Openheart; and anon,
when the fastenings are all complete, you may look
for some cunning explosion by which the Gulliver will
be made to start from his slumbers in terror, only to
be taught the strangeness of his captivity.

I will not pretend to say that our excellent colonel
sees this episode. The pleasant twinkle which lights
the corner of his eye, and which is somewhat at variance
with the words of his mouth, may be due to
other influences; but it must be admitted, for the sake
of history, that even were he to see the practice of
Dick in this transaction, it is still not unlikely that
he would suffer it to pass unchallenged. The good
man would ascribe it to the season—to a natural levity
—to any but a heinous and evil nature, which called
for rebuke and punishment. He had a queer notion
that children were—only children, and that play
was as necessary to their hearts, their growth, nay,
their morals, as birch, logic, and religion—doctrines
which, in this era of juvenile progress, cannot be supposed
likely to diffuse themselves greatly, and of
which we venture, therefore, to speak without emotion.
It is probable that Colonel Openheart's attention
was wholly given to his good lady and his lovely
daughter. They at least were his only listeners.
There was an air of sadness upon the features of the
excellent matron, which, however, were not wholly
unlighted by a smile; while, on the other hand, the
lips of the damsel were parted with an undisguised

expression of merriment—positively on the verge of
open laughter—the pearls of her mouth showing
the white tips through their crimson setting, with a
good-humor and an arch delight that were clearly
quite irresistible. Very sweet and very pretty was
this expression of the face of Bessy Openheart, and
the jade knew it. She was a blonde, and with features
of wondrous regularity. Full of life and vivacity,
there was yet a rich fountain of gushing waters at
her heart, and her large blue eyes had learned how to
fill with tears even before the happy smile could make
its escape from her pretty little mouth. But we must
not speak of her too soon. She is a mere child as
yet—scarcely fifteen—just at that age when girlhood
begins to falter with its own gaze, and when we begin
to look upon it with as much trepidation as delight.
But Colonel Openheart is about to resume.

“Not keep Christmas, Mrs. Openheart—not keep
Christmas? Why, what in the world should I do
with myself, my dear, or with you, or Bessy there, or
Tom, Dick, Harry, and the rest, from Christmas eve
till New Year's? And what should we do with the
neighbors—with Whitfield, and Jones, and Whipple,
and Bond, and poor old Kinsale, and all their wives
and little ones, all of whom have spent Christmas
and New Year's with us for the last hundred years or
more. Some of them certainly did with my grandfather.
Old Kinsale can tell you of the first dinner
he ever took on this estate in the time of Grandfather
Openheart, and that was a Christmas dinner. He
can tell you every dish upon the table. There were

ham and turkey just as now—there was roast and
boiled—there was a round of beef—there were sausages
and pillau—there were sundry pairs of ducks,
cabbage and turnips, and potatoes; and for dessert,
nuts, apples, mince-pies, plum-puddings, and more
preserves than you could shake a stick at. More
than thirty persons sat down to table; and to speak
of the old man's Madeira, brings tears of pleasure
into the eyes of Daddy Kinsale to this moment. I
tell you, old Billy Openheart is venerated to this day
on account of his Christmas cheer. Not keep Christmas!
Why, how would you avoid it, I'd like to
know? They'd be here, all of them, fresh and fasting,
I may say, before you could roll the Christmas
log behind the dogs, and dress up your windows with
the holly and cacina. They'd be here to help you, as
they have been for the last fifty years. Bond and
Whipple always came early for that purpose, and I
think I have heard you say that little Susan Bond
was the cleverest little creature in the world at dressing
up the windows, and glasses, and flower-pots, with
the green leaves and the scarlet-berries. To think
of the windows of “Maize-in-milk” looking bare at
Christmas! Think of “Maize-in-milk” having no
visitors at Christmas—no fun, no frolic, no dancing,
no—! By the pipers, Mrs. Openheart, I don't
know how to understand you. Talk of not keeping
Christmas! Why, what in the name of blazes would
you do with me, with yourself, with Bessy, Clinton
there, and dear little Rose, and Tom, and Dick, and
Harry, and the rest, from Christmas eve till New
Year's?”

“Well, to say the truth, dear husband, I did not
think of spending Christmas at home at all, this
season.”

“Not spend Christmas at home!” cried the colonel,
with renewed amazement. “And where, in Heaven's
name, would you think to spend it?”

“Why, down in the parishes with Uncle Thomas.
He's often asked us, you know—”

“With Uncle Thomas in the parishes! Go from
home to spend Christmas! After that, I should not
be astonished at any of your notions. But, pray,
Mrs. Openheart, when did you know your Uncle
Thomas to spend his Christmas away from home?”

There was a pause, when the good dame, finding
that her husband really waited her answer, meekly
admitted that such an event had certainly never taken
place within her remembrance.

“No—no! You may well say that. Well, only
go to him and talk of spending Christmas away from
home. Try him, Mrs. Openheart, by an affectionate
invitation to come and stay with us Christmas week,
and you'll get an answer that will astonish you. You
will certainly astonish him by the invitation. No—
no; he's too much a gentleman of the old school—
one of the good old Carolina stock, who knows what
his duties are at Christmas—who knows what is
due to his neighbors and to hospitality, and who
knows—”

“But, my dear, considering what our expenses are,

and how greatly they have been increased of late,
Edward in Europe, and the sending of John and William
to college—the purchase of the old Salem tract
—the—”

“Poh! poh! poh! Positively, Emily, I am ashamed
of you. This is only too ridiculous. You are for
letting in at the spigot and letting out at the bung.
As for the Salem tract, it needs but one good crop, at
good prices, and I pay for that; and that I should
give up the acquaintance of my old neighbors, Tom
Whipple, Elias Bond, and Daddy Kinsale, because
my eldest son is frolicking on the continent, and two
others have just had an introduction to those gray-beards,
Cicero and Homer—”

“Now, husband, you know I don't mean that you
should give up the acquaintance of anybody—”

“You do, Emily, if you mean anything. It would
amount to the same thing. Not to have my house
full of my old friends, as usual at Christmas, would
be such a strangeness as would make them all feel
strange. They'd look upon me as a broken man, or
as a changed one, and in either case they'd become
changed also; and then, in place of the cheerful
household and pleasant neighborhood that we have
had all along, there would be doubt, and coldness,
and restraint—and all for what? Really, Emily, I
can't see what you'd be driving at.”

“But you could still see your neighbors.”

“Not as before, Emily. A people so sparsely settled
as our own, so very unsophisticated, and with
that fierce sort of pride which distinguishes a life of

comparative seclusion, are very easily made suspicious.
They are, in particular, exceedingly jealous of any
eccentricities on the part of the wealthy. Change your
habit toward them in any respect—let your demeanor
change in however slight degree, and they resent
it as a something sinister, which is always personal
to themselves. It wouldn't do to go out and see them
at the fence; I must ask them in—and once in, the
horse must be put up. And I can't say, `Well, Bond'
—or Whipple, or Jones, or Daddy Kinsale, as the
case may be—`very glad to see you always, but sorry
I can offer you nothing. Truth is, times are very
hard, and that lark of mine in Europe, and those two
dogs, Jack and Will, they cost me a pretty penny
nowadays. Have to haul in my horns, lest the
sheriff pulls them off.'”

“Now, husband, you know I allude to nothing of
this sort. It's only the usual waste that I'd have you
avoid until you've got out of debt.”

“Debt! Why, Mrs. Openheart, you speak as if I
were over head and ears! What do I owe, that I
can't pay off with a single good crop?”

“You said the same thing last year.”

The brave colonel seemed to wince at this suggestion.

“And as for waste—what waste? Do I waste anything
at Christmas, or any other time? Is not all
consumed that we cook? Is anything thrown away?
Are there not mouths for all? What we and our
guests do not consume, does it not go to the negroes?
What they don't want, does it not go to the dogs and

hogs, and ducks and chickens? I never see anything
wasted. Really, Mrs. Openheart, I can't understand
you. If you mean anything, it is that we are to kill
no beef at Christmas, have no sausages, drink no eggnog,
and, I suppose, for the first time since we've been
married, now going on fifty years —”

“Oh, husband—fifty years!”

“Yes, fifty years, more or less.”

“Less by half—only twenty-six last November.”

“Is it possible! And I said sixty! Well, it's certain
I've counted the years by their pleasures.”

A sweet, comical smile went round the circle. He
continued: “Well, as I was saying, here then, for
the first time since our marriage, some forty-two
years, as you yourself admit, we are to have no
mince-pies—”

“Nay, my dear; I didn't mean that we were to go
without them. As you have bought the raisins, the
citron, and the currants, and as the hogs are already
killed—”

“Oh! your only anxiety, then, is to keep these
things from being wasted; but if that was your prudent
intention, what do you propose to do with these
nice things, after you have made them up, if we are
to spend our Christmas with your Uncle Thomas?”

“Why, I thought of taking them down with us.”

“Indeed! and precious little would Uncle Thomas,
in his abundance, thank you for your pies. But,
pray, in what respect should we be more wasteful in
consuming them at home here, among our own poor
neighbors, than down in the parishes, with the rich

ones of Uncle Thomas? Really, Emily, I thought
you were a better reasoner.”

“Well, Edward, you do, indeed, make out a case
against me, and if the mince-pies were the whole of
our consumption in staying at home, as they will be
in going down to the parishes, then your reproach
would be conclusive; but you know, Edward, that
these would form but a small part of our expense.
They would not be alone; your Madeira, and Sherry,
and Champagne—your beeves, your hogs, your turkies,
and the horses of a dozen idle and worthless
people eating at your corn-crib, and that not the fullest
in the world—”

“It is full, Emily;—but I must stop you before
you go too far. We can't always say who are the
worthless in this world. I am sometimes disposed to
think that the most worthless have their uses, and to
suspect that the most worthy are not always of the
value we put upon them. When I recollect how little
I do myself in the way of work, and of how little real
service I am to myself or to anybody else, in comparison
with what I might be, I feel as if some malicious
devil was jerking at my elbow in mockery, at those
moments when I suffer myself to talk of the little
worth or value of my neighbors. I tell you, Emily,
I can't any longer bring myself to feel contempt for
any human being, though I may sicken at the viciousness
of some, and sorrow over the idleness of others.”

“Now, really, Edward, you shall not speak so
slightingly of yourself. Are you not always busy?
Do you not manage your own plantation?”

“After a fashion; but I'm not sure that my management
is at all creditable to me, or serviceable to
my interests.”

“You are never idle.”

“I make chips enough, I grant you; but I am not
sure that I am always profitably busy.”

“Your negroes improve, increase, become more
honest, sober, industrious, happy, more human every
year.”

“Thank God, I can conscientiously believe all
that.”

“They love you, thank you, and go cheerfully to
their tasks.”

“Ay, ay; so they do, and so far— But what is
that fellow about? As usual, busy in tormenting his
brother. Ho there, you dog; get you to bed, and
wake up Tom, that he may go along with you! What
are you doing with the boy?”

“Only you call him up, papa,” was the sly response
of the dutiful urchin.

“Call him up yourself—push him—rout him up.”

The boy stooped over the elder brother, and, with
a closer eye, the worthy sire might have seen with
what delicate consideration he introduced a feather of
broom-straw into the ears and nostrils of the sleeper.
A scream followed, then a roar and scuffle. The leg
of Tom, as he started from his slumbers, was found
to be inextricably involved with that of the chair, and
both went over with a clatter that startled the good
mother in her chair, and shook the whole house from
its propriety.

“Why, what have you done?”

The victim was not yet sufficiently awake to know
well what was the matter with him, but struggled to
throw out his fettered hands as in the act of swimming.
The father saw his predicament, and as he
and Bessy Clinton stooped to undo the ties with
which the mischievous boy had fettered the lad, the
urchin clapped his hands in exultation, and flew away
to the door.

“To bed, sirrah!” said Colonel Openheart, with a
voice in which authority struggled hard with merriment;
“to bed, before I give you the strap.”

“No, no, papa! Don't I know it's Christmas time
—and what's the use of Christmas if there's to be no
fun, I want to know?”

“The boy has the right on't. What's the use of
Christmas if there's to be no fun? There shall be
fun, sirrah, but your share of it must cease for the
night. To bed, both of you.”

“But to-morrow, papa!” said both of the boys in
a breath.

“You shall have the ponies, and we'll go to the
river; and we'll take the dogs, and see if we can't put
up a wild-cat. There, enough for the night.”

And the boys were kissed and disappeared.

“And these are to lose their Christmas—and the
neighbors, and the negroes, and all, for no better
reason than to save the waste, as if there could be
any waste in making so many persons happy. And
you, Bessy Clinton, that you should side with your

mother for having Christmas away from home. You
deserve a whipping for it Bess.”

“Ah, papa, you never whipped me yet.”

“It's not too late to begin!” and he took the damsel
about the waist, and she turned in his embrace
and lifted her lips to his own, and he kissed her with
delight as he said: “Well, well, we'll put it off till
the New Year. I haven't the heart for whipping just
now. But then—”

“But Bessy Clinton did not join with me, husband.
She was quite opposed to it.”

“Ah, that alters the case. You shall have Christmas
at home. And Bessy Clinton, for your reward,
hear farther—”

“What, papa?”

“You shall have your old friend, Mary Butler,
to spend it with you.”

“Oh! will she come, papa? Can you get her?”

“Ay, will she. And more than that, mamma, I've
bought in all the Butler negroes—bought them in for
her benefit, to save them from that shark of a lawyer
who manages the estate.”

“Surely, Mr. Openheart, you haven't made such a
purchase?” anxiously inquired the mother.

“Ay, but I have.”

“What! bought in all the negroes?”

“All but a single family. Thirty-five workers,
seventy-one negroes in all—and gave a pretty good
price for them, too.”

“How much?” asked the matron, with increasing
concern.

“Two hundred and sixty dollars round.”

“Good heavens! And how are you to pay for
them?”

“I have three years to pay it in, Emily—first instalment
next December of five thousand dollars, and
the balance in equal parts the next two years. The
terms are quite easy.”

“But how are you to pay it, husband?”

“How? Why, surely, you don't suppose that I
shan't make a sufficient crop next season to pay five
thousand dollars!”

“Have you done so this?”

“No! Why do you ask, when you know that this
crop is a failure?”

“Ah—should the next be so?”

“'Pon my honor, Mrs. Openheart, you do contrive
to suggest the prettiest prospects.”

“But why did you buy these negroes, Mr. Openheart?
You have more than you want already, and
more than are profitable.”

“True bill, Emily.”

“You have scarcely any open land more than your
present force can work.”

“Go to clearing on the first of January. Plenty
to clear, thank God.”

“But that is fatal to your woodland; and really,
Mr. Openheart, the question comes up again—why did
you buy a property which you don't want, and which
you know to be so unprofitable? Besides, the Butler
negroes are particularly unserviceable. I don't know
where you will find so many gray-headed people.

Some of them haven't, to my knowledge, done a stitch
of work for ten years; and there's at least a dozen
old negroes, who can barely totter along with the
palsy.”

“To tell you the truth, Emily, it was these very
old negroes that caused me to buy—these, and the
dear child, Mary Butler, who sat weeping in the house
as the sale was going on, with these infirm old people
hanging about her. They had dandled the child on
their knee, and there wasn't one of them, from Daddy
Enoch to Maum Betty, the one-eyed, whom she didn't
regard as a personal relation. They wept and pleaded
with her, and her weeping was so much pleading with
me. Besides, I found that Skinflint, the man who
acts as lawyer for Ingelhart and Cripps, the executors,
was disposed to buy them at his own prices, and
nobody would bid against him. Indeed, there was
nobody willing to buy property just at this season—
you will say they were wiser than your husband.
Perhaps so. But they would have gone to Skinflint
for nothing. His first bid was a hundred all round,
and I at once doubled it. I was indignant at the fellow's
bid, and wasn't to be deceived by the whisper
that went about, intended to discourage others, that
he was bidding in for the heiress. I knew better,
and when he found I was in earnest, he run upon
me.”

“But why did you let him do it? Why not stop
at the two hundred?”

“Ask a man when his blood's up why he isn't cool.
I was a fool—I know it, Emily, and you may reproach

me as you will for it. I knew no more what
I was about than if I had lost my wits. The sight of
the dear, sweet little orphan in her sorrows, totally
unmanned me. I had always seen her so happy and
so bright before—and I could not help remembering
what a pet she was of the dear angel mother. And
poor Ben Butler was such a sterling fellow. Nobody
wanted a dollar if he had it. I thought of all these
things in a moment. I fancied I heard the father
whispering in my ears, and that I saw the mother
pleading with all her eyes, and my own grew to be
quite blinded by my tears. And, then, old Enoch tottered
to me in the piazza, staff in hand, and his gray
beard hanging on his chest, and his old eyes, half shut
up by age, were dripping too; and, taking my arm,
he said to me, `Mauss Openheart, you surely ain't
gwine to let us go off to strange people?'—only these
words, and they finished my struggles. Just then,
Skinflint said one hundred round, and I mounted him
with another. I knew his game, the moment I heard
his voice. And when he said to me, `Really, Mr.
Openheart, I had no idea that you wished to increase
your force,' I swore in my own mind that he at least
shouldn't have them. You've heard the whole story.
The negroes are to be here to-morrow, and Mary Butler,
and Skinflint himself, who is to bring the bonds
and bill of sale.”

“Well, Edward, I only hope that you may not
suffer by your benevolence.”

“Nay, never fear, Emily. I'm rash and head-strong,
I know, and have done many foolish things;

but I feel sure that I shan't suffer for this helping of
the orphan, and keeping these poor dependent creatures
from being scattered over the face of the earth.
The probability is that my bonds will scarcely be presented
for payment so long as the interest is regularly
paid. The executors, Ingelhart and Cripps, can make
no better investment of the money, and it will be a
very nice sum for her when she is of age—or I am
prepared to let her have the negroes back if she prefers
it then. The plantation was not sold.”

“And what will you do with these old negroes,
Edward?”

The answer was somewhat impatiently spoken.

“Feed them first, Emily; clothe them, give them
Christmas. We'll kill a beef for them to-morrow to
begin with, and pray God to-night for good times,
that we may be enabled to feed them always, from
Christmas to Christmas, as well as now. So now to
bed, and see that you rise before the sun, Bessy Clinton.
You have to see to the pies and pastries. It's
now one week to Christmas, and”—looking out from
the windows—“a bright starlight night, in the language
of the watchman. May we wake to a bright,
dry, and honest winter morning!”