Christmas Eve was the gayest in years, for the crops had been good, the price of cotton high and money more plentiful than usual. All day the sky had been overcast, but at sunset a keen wind rose from the west and brought out the stars and swept the crisp brown leaves from the cotton stalks down the long straight rows of the field to mix with the leaves that were falling from the trees in the Quarters. Some of them skipped gaily about on pointed tips until they found quiet spots to rest, while others joined small whirling groups and kept going from place to place.
All the doors and windows on the north side of the Quarter houses were shut tight to keep out the cold, but every cabin was brightened by a great fire roaring up its chimney. At one end of the street where a great bonfire gleamed, crowds of little children dressed up in their Sunday clothes were playing, munching apples, suck ing sticks of red and white peppermint candy, pulling roasted sweet potatoes out of the hot ashes and slyly slipping in fire-crackers to see
