tmas-tide of the North and West, but
Christmas of the Southern South. It was not the festival of the Christ
Child, but a time of noise and frolic and license, the great Pay-Day of
the year when black men lifted their heads from a year's toiling in the
earth, and, hat in hand, asked anxiously: "Master, what have I earned?
Have I paid my old debts to you? Have I made my clothes and food? Have I
got a little of the year's wage coming to me?" Or, more carelessly and
cringingly: "Master, gimme a Christmas gift."

The lords of the soil stood round, gauging their cotton, measuring their
men. Their stores were crowded, their scales groaned, their gins sang.
In the long run public opinion determines all wage, but in more
primitive times and places, private opinion, personal judgment of some
man in power, determines. The Black Belt is primitive and the landlord
wields the power.

"What about Johnson?" calls the head clerk.

"Well, he's a faithful nigger and needs encouragement; cancel his debt
and give him ten dollars for Christmas." Colonel Cresswell glowed, as if
he were full of the season's spirit.

"And Sanders?"

"How's his cotton?"

"Good, and a lot of it."

"He's trying to get away. Keep him in debt, but let him draw what he
wants."

"Aunt Rachel?"

"H'm, they're way behind, aren't they? Give her a couple of dollars--not
a cent more."

"Jim Sykes?"

"Say, Harry, how about that darky, Sykes?" called out the Colonel.

Excusing himself from his guests, Harry Cresswell came into the office.

To them this peculiar spectacle of the market place was of unusual
interest. They saw its humor and its crowding, its bizarre effects and
unwonted pageantry. Black giants and pigmies were there; kerchiefed
aunties, giggling black girls, saffron beauties, and loafing white men.
There were mules and horses and oxen, wagons and buggies and carts; but
above all and in all, rushing through, piled and flying, bound and
baled--was cotton. Cotton was currency; cotton was merchandise; cotton
was conversation.

All this was "beautiful" to Mrs. Grey and "unusually interesting" to
Mrs. Vanderpool. To Mary Taylor it had the fascination of a puzzle whose
other side she had already been partially studying. She was particularly
impressed with the joy and abandon of the scene--light laughter, huge
guffaws, handshakes, and gossipings.

"At all events," she concluded, "this is no oppressed people." And
sauntering away from the rest she n