But it was not only in the “great house” that there was Christmas cheer. Every cabin was full of it, and in the wash-house or the carpenter-shop there was preparation for a plantation supper.
At this time, too, there were the negro parties, where the ladies and gentlemen went to look on, the supper having been superintended by the mistresses, and the tables being decorated by their own white hands. There was almost sure to be a negro wedding during the holidays. The ceremony might be performed in the dining-room or in the hall by the master, or in one of the quarters by a colored preacher; but it was a gay occasion, and the dusky bride’s trousseau had been arranged by her young mistress, and the family was on hand to get fun out of the entertainment, and to recognize by their presence the solemnity of the tie.
Other weddings there were, too, sometimes following these Christmas gayeties, and sometimes occurring “just so,” because the girls were the loveliest in the world, and the men were lovers almost from their boyhood. How beautiful our mothers must have been in their youth to have been so beautiful in their age!
There were no long journeys for the young married folk in those times; the travelling was usually done before marriage. When a wedding took place, however, the entire neighborhood entertained the young couple.
Truly it was a charming life. There was a vast waste; but it was not loss. Every one had food, every one had raiment, every one had peace. There was not wealth in the base sense in which we know it and strive for it and trample down others for it now. But there was wealth in the good old sense in which the litany of our fathers used it. There was weal. There was the best of all wealth; there was content, and “a quiet mind is richer than a crown.”
We have gained something by the change. The South under her new conditions will in time grow rich, will wax fat; nevertheless we have lost much. How much only those who knew it can estimate; to them it was inestimable.
That the social life of the Old South had its faults I am far from denying. What civilization has not? But its virtues far outweighed them; its graces were never equalled. For all its faults, it was, I believe, the purest, sweetest life ever lived. It has been claimed that it was non-productive, that it fostered sterility. Only ignorance or folly could make the assertion. It largely contributed to produce this nation; it led its armies and its navies; it established this government so firmly that not even it could overthrow it; it opened up the great West; it added Louisiana and Texas, and more than trebled our territory; it christianized the negro race in a little over two centuries, impressed upon it regard for order, and gave it the only civilization it has ever possessed since the dawn of history. It has maintained the supremacy of the Caucasian race, upon which all civilization seems now to depend. It produced a people whose heroic fight against the forces of the world has enriched the annals of the human race,--a people whose fortitude in defeat has been even more splendid than their valor in war. It made men noble, gentle, and brave, and women tender and pure and true. It may have fallen short in material development in its narrower sense, but it abounded in spiritual development; it made the domestic virtues as common as light and air, and filled homes with purity and peace.