In Old Plantation Days
Ash-Cake Hannah and Her Ben
Christmas Eve had come, and the cold, keen air with just a hint of dampness in it gave promise of the blessing of a white Christmas. It was not long before the sound of grinding axes was heard and the dogs barked a chorus to the grindstones’ song, for they, wise fellows that they were, knew what the bright glint of the steel meant. They knew, too, why Jake and Ike and Joe whistled so merrily, and looked over at the distant woods with half-shut eyes and smiled.
Already the overseers were relaxing their vigilance, the quarters were falling into indolence, and the master was guarding the key of a well-filled closet.
Negro Tom was tuning up his fiddle in the barn, and Blophus, with his banjo, was getting the chords from him, while Alec was away out in the woods with his face turned up to the gray sky, letting the kinks out of his tenor voice. All this because the night was coming on. Christmas Eve night was the beginning of a week of joy. The wind freshened and the snow fell faster. The walks were covered. Old gnarled logs that had lain about, black and forbidding, became things of beauty. The world was a white glory. In fireplaces great and small the hickory crackled, and the savory smell of cooking arose, tempting, persistent. The lights at the big house winked at the cabin, and the cabin windows winked back again. Laughter trickled down the night and good cheer was everywhere. Everywhere, save in one room, where Hannah Ash-Cake Hannah, they called her sat alone by her smouldering hearth, brush ing the cinders from her fresh-baked cake, mumbling to herself.
For her there was no Christmas cheer. There were only her dim, lonely cabin and the ash-covered hearth. While the others rejoiced she moaned, for she had taken as a husband a slave on a distant plantation, whose master was a hard man, and on many a Christmas he had refused permission to Ben to go and see his wife. So each year, as soon as Christmas Eve came, Hannah began to mope and fast, eating nothing but ash-cake until she knew whether or not Ben was coming. If he came, she turned to and laughed and made merry with the rest. If he did not, her sorrow and meagre fare lasted the week out, and she went back to her work with a heavy heart and no store of brightness for the coming year. To-day she sat, as usual, mumbling and moaning, for the night was drawing down, and no sign of Ben.
Outside the negroes from the quarters, dressed in their best, were gathering into line, two by two, to march to the big house, where every Christmas they received their presents. There was much pushing and giggling, with ever and anon an admonitory word from one of the older heads, as they caught some fellow’s arm making free with a girl’s waist. Finally, when darkness had completely come, they started briskly away to the tune of a marching song. As they neared and passed Hannah’s cabin they lowered their voices out of respect to the sorrow they knew she was underg