I cannot dismiss this passing glance at the social life of the Old South without a sense of abiding regret that it is gone forever. My last personal contact with it was the Christmas just preceding the war. Though the air was thick with rumors of impending strife, no gun as yet had broken the quiet of a land so full of peace and prosperity. I think the merriment of those last holidays of ’61 was greater than ever before. I recall it all the more vividly because it was the last old-fashioned Christmas that came to my boyhood, as it was the last that came to the Old South. For weeks preceding it everything on the old plantation was full of stir and preparation. Holly and mistletoe and cedar were being put about the rooms of the big house to welcome home the boys and girls from school. Secret councils were being held as to the Christmas gifts that were to be given religiously to every one, white and black. The back yard was piled up with loads of oak and hickory to make bright and warm the Christmas nights. The negro seamstresses were busy making new suits and dresses for all the servants. The master of the plantation was figuring up the accounts of the year and making ready for generous drafts upon his ready money. There was an increasing rustle of excitement and happiness that ran from the gray-haired grandfather and mother down to the smallest pickaninny in the remotest negro cabin. The peace and goodness of God seemed to brood over it all. The stately plantation home, with its lofty white columns, its big rooms, its great fireplaces, opened wide to all sons and daughters and grandchildren, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces. We poured into it; and if ever heaven came close to earth and mingled with it, I think it was that Christmas Eve when the last wanderer and exile had come and the grace was said at the great table by a gray-haired patriarch of the Old South. There was little sleep for small boys and girls, and long before daylight of Christmas shone in upon us we were scurrying from room to room crying, “Christmas gift!” to which, whenever first spoken by child or dependent, there could be but the one gracious response. Out on the back porches the negroes were waiting in grinning rows to follow our example, and many were the dusky faces that beamed with delight over their never-failing Christmas remembrances. Down in the cabins and up in the big halls of the mansion the lights and fires burned the entire week, and there was nothing that could eat that was not surfeited with the world of eatables made ready. I must beg pardon of the W. C. T. U., which had not then begun its beneficent prohibitory career, if I recall the big flowing bowl of eggnog, renewed daily and served generously to all. I know that this old-time Christmas beverage is growing into disrepute, for which I am sincerely glad, but I confess to a sort of carnal delight of memory when I recall how good it tasted to the average small boy on an early Christmas morning.