In the first place, there was generally a cold spell which froze up everything and enabled the ice-houses to be filled. (The seasons, like a good many other things, appear to have changed since that old time before the war.) This spell was the harbinger; and great fun it was at the ice-pond, where the big rafts of ice were floated along, with the boys on them. The rusty skates with their curled runners and stiff straps were gotten out, and maybe tried for a day. Then the stir began. The wagons all were put to hauling wood--hickory. Nothing but hickory now; other wood might do for other times. But at Christmas only hickory was used; and the wood-pile was heaped high with the logs; while to the ordinary wood-cutters “for the house” were added three, four, a half-dozen more, whose shining axes rang around the wood-pile all day long. With what a vim they cut, and how telling was that earnest “Ha’nh!” as they drove the ringing axes into the hard wood, sending the big white chips flying in all directions! It was always the envy of the boys, that simultaneous, ostentatious expulsion of the breath, and they used to try vainly to imitate it. In the midst of it all came the wagon or the ox-cart from “the depot,” with the big white boxes of Christmas things, the black driver feigning hypocritical indifference as he drove through the choppers to the storeroom. Then came the rush of all the cutters to help him unload; the jokes among themselves, as they pretended to strain in lifting, of what “master” or “mistis” was going to give them out of those boxes, uttered just loud enough to reach their master’s or mistress’s ears where they stood looking on, whilst the driver took due advantage of his temporary prestige to give many pompous cautions and directions. The getting the evergreens and mistletoe was the sign that Christmas had come, was really here. There were the parlor and hall and dining-room to be “dressed,” and, above all, the old church. The last was the work of the neighborhood; all united in it, and it was one of the events of the year. Young men rode thirty and forty miles to “help” dress that church. They did not go home again till after Christmas. The return from the church was the beginning of the festivities.