Part 26

The grave house was a crude structure of rough planks supported by four short posts, erected at the time of the burial to shelter the dead from rain and snow and scorching wind.

Many a one, having warning of approaching death, named the preacher he wished to preach his funeral, even naming the text and selecting the hymns to be sung.

As the service moved along after the singing of a doleful hymn, the sobbing and wailing increased. The preacher eulogized the departed, praising his many good deeds while on earth, and urged his hearers on to added hysteria with, "Sing Brother Tom's favorite hymn, Oh, Brother, Will You Meet Me!"

Sobs changed to wailing as old and young joined in the doleful dirge:

Oh, brother, will you meet me, Meet me, meet me? Oh, brother, will you meet me On Canaan's far-off shore.

It was a family song; so not until each member had been exhorted to meet on Canaan's shore did the hymn end--each verse followed of course with the answer:

Oh, yes, we will meet you On Canaan's far-off shore.

By this time the mourners were greatly stirred up, whereupon the preacher in a trembling, tearful voice averred, "When I hear this promising hymn it moves deep the spirit in me, it makes my heart glad. Why, my good friends, I could shout! I just nearly see Brother Tom over yonder a-beckoning to me and to you. He ain't on this here old troubled world no more and he won't be. Will Brother Tom be here when the peach tree is in full blowth in the spring?"

"No!" wailed the flock.

"Will Brother Tom be here when the leaves begin to drap in the falling weather?" again he wailed.

"No!"

"Will Brother Tom be up thar? Up thar?"--the swift arm of the preacher shot upward--"when Gabriel blows his trump?"

"Eh, Lord, Brother Tom will be up thar!" shouted an old woman.

"Amen!" boomed from the throat of everyone.

As it often happened, Tom's widow had long since re-wed, but neither she nor her second mate were in the least dismayed. They wept and wailed with fervor, "He'll be thar! He'll be thar!"

"Yes," boomed the preacher once more, "Brother Tom will be thar when Gabriel blows his trump!"

Then abruptly in a very calm voice, not at all like that in which he had shouted, the preacher lined the hymn:

Arise, my soul, and spread thy wings, A better portion trace.

Having intoned the two lines the flock took up the doleful dirge.

So they went on until the hymns were finished.

After a general handshaking and repeated farewells and the avowed hope of meeting again come the second Sunday in May next year, the funeralizing ended.

OLD CHRISTMAS

Though in some isolated sections of the Blue Ridge, say in parts of the Unakas, the Cumberlands, the Dug Down Mountains of Georgia, there are people who may never have heard of the Gregorian or Julian calendar, yet in keeping Old Christmas as they do on January 6th, they cling unwittingly to the Julian calendar of 46 B.C., introduced in this country in the earliest years. To them December 25th is New Christmas, according to the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1752.

They celebrate the two occasions in a very different way. The old with prayer and carol-singing, the new with gaiety and feasting.

To these people there are twelve days of Christmas beginning with December 25th and ending with January 6th. In some parts of these southern mountain regions, if their forbears were of Pennsylvania German stock, they call Old Christmas Little Christmas as the Indians do. But such instances are rare rather than commonplace.

Throughout the twelve days of Christmas there are frolic and fireside play-games and feasting, for which every family makes abundant preparation. There is even an ancient English accumulative song called Twelve Days of Christmas which is sung during the celebrations, in which the true love brings a different gift for each day of the twelve. The young folks of the community go from home to home, bursting in with a cheery "Christmas gift!" Those who have been taken unaware, though it happens the same way each year, forgetting, in the pleasant excitement of the occasion, to cry the greeting first, must pay a forfeit of something good to eat--cake, homemade taffy, popcorn, apples, nuts.

After the feast the father of the household passes the wassail cup, which is sweet cider drunk from a gourd dipper. Each in turn drinks to the health of the master of the house and his family.

Throughout the glad season some of the young bloods are inclined to take their Christmas with rounds of shooting into the quiet night. Some get gloriously drunk on hard cider and climbing high on the mountain side shout and shoot to their hearts' content.