Christmas was also distinguished by apples, oranges, raisins (on stems), almonds, walnuts, pecans, and a coconut or two. We ate some of the coconut as broken out of the shells, but its main function was to be grated and mixed with sliced oranges and sugar into ambrosia--as inevitable for Christmas dinner as turkey is for Thanksgiving. Nobody then dreamed of having fruit every morning for breakfast. Oranges, apples, raisins, and nuts were put into stockings and hung on Christmas trees. They were a rare treat. These fruits and nuts left a stronger impression on my mind than all other gifts associated with childhood Christmases except books, firecrackers, Roman candles--and my first new saddle. There were tin bugles, toy trains, and dolls for the girls, but we--the boys, at least--had so much fun making our own toys that no bought toy has left any impression on my memory. Christmas was the time for new pocket knives, and very useful they were. My father taught us to whittle water-wheels, which could be run only when an occasional rain made Long Hollow run. The axle for the wheel might be a piece of wood or a section of dried cornstalk, less durable but much more easily fitted with paddles than hard wood. The toy bugles would not split the air as brightly as cane whistles whittled out of an old fishing pole. We may have had colored balloons at some Christmas, but I recollect only the ones made from bladders. Hog-killing time is cold weather. The chief prize for us from every hog and every calf, cow, or steer butchered was the bladder. A human mouth was the only air-pump for blowing up this home-contrived balloon. Held, air-expanded, near a fire, it would keep on expanding until the material was very thin and dry. Then came the climax--an explosion. Nobody wanted to part with his bladder-balloon, but that grand explosion could not be resisted. I never heard of Fourth of July fireworks until I was nearly grown. Firecrackers and Roman candles were as much a part of Christmas as ambrosia. The firecrackers could be set off by day, but the Roman candles were for darkness, when everybody watched the pyrotechnics. They vanished all too quickly, like most other beautiful things--but not from the great reality called memory. [Illustration] There were toy pistols and airguns, but a new pair of rubbers for a nigger-shooter gave just as much satisfaction. At one time we got more satisfaction from lead bullets gouged out of live oak trees than from any other form of shooting. Our house was on the edge of a grove of scores of live oak trees, some of them very large and old. When Uncle Ed Dubose, my mother’s half brother, came in the fall to hunt and again at Christmas time with all the family, he freely spent ammunition perfecting his marksmanship. His targets were tree trunks. He was an indefatigable treasure-hunter also, but he never found a bonanza comparable to that he left us children in the form of lead.