y making myself known to him. "Mistis say as
how you might bring a trunk."

I at once saw my danger, and muttered something about "a short visit,"
but this only made matters worse.

"Dee don' nobody nuver pay short visits dyah," he said, decisively, and
I fell to other tactics.

"You couldn' spile Christmas den noways," he repeated, reflectingly,
while his little mules trudged knee-deep through the mud. "Twuz
Christmas den, sho' 'nough," he added, the fires of memory smouldering,
and then, as they blazed into sudden flame, he asserted, positively:
"Dese heah free-issue niggers don' know what Christmas is. Hawg meat
an' pop crackers don' meck Christmas. Hit tecks ole times to meck a
sho'-'nough, tyahin'-down Christmas. Gord! I's seen 'em! But de wuss
Christmas I ever seen tunned out de best in de een," he added, with
sudden warmth, "an' dat wuz de Christmas me an' Marse George an'
Reveller all got drownded down at Braxton's Creek. You's hearn 'bout
dat'?"

As he was sitting beside me in solid flesh and blood, and looked as
little ethereal in his old hat and patched clothes as an old oak stump
would have done, and as Colonel Staunton had made a world-wide
reputation when he led his regiment through the Chickahominy thickets
against McClellan's intrenchments, I was forced to confess that I had
never been so favored, but would like to hear about it now; and with a
hitch of the lap blanket under his outside knee, and a supererogatory
jerk of the reins, he began:

"Well, you know, Marse George was jes' eighteen when he went to
college. I went wid him, 'cause me an' him wuz de same age; I was born
like on a Sat'day in de Christmas, an' he wuz born in de new year on a
Chuesday, an' my mammy nussed us bofe at one breast. Dat's de reason
maybe huccome we took so to one nurr. He sutney set a heap o' sto' by
me; an' I ain' nuver see nobody yit wuz good to me as Marse George."

The old fellow, after a short reverie, went on:

"Well, we growed up togerr, jes as to say two stalks in one hill. We
cotch ole hyahs togerr, an' we hunted 'possums togerr, an' 'coons.
Lord! he wuz a climber! I 'member a fight he had one night up in de
ve'y top of a big poplar tree wid a coon, whar he done gone up after,
an' he flung he hat over he head; an' do' de varmint leetle mo' tyah
him all to pieces, he fotch him down dat tree 'live; an' me an' him had
him at Christmas. 'Coon meat mighty good when dee fat, you know?"

As this wa