Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/248

 240 the luxuries now), the fruit in summer, the roaring fires and the 'hog-killings' in winter, and those delicious sweet potatoes!

"I remember how often we danced in the hall in summer, but I have no recollection of any music. We must have needed some. Your father was always ready to take his place with us, and I can see him now as he walked around the card-table, looking into the band of each one, drawing his red silk handkerchief through his fingers as a bad play was made, regarding it as a serious business, and being by far too honorable to 'tell.' He never seemed to think we were doing it for fun, and enjoyed a bad play as much as a good one.*

"The first time I saw the white beard was on the day of the memorable barbecue at Terry. I recall so well your father's appearance that day, as he took his place on the stand among the Democrats. His bearing was a compromise between the respect he felt for 'these gentlemen' individually, and a protest against that vile thing known as Democracy. The red silk handkerchief was often brought into requisition that day, like a Whig banner flaunted in the face of Democracy,—as if to say, 'We two old Whigs are as stanch and true as ever, although we allow you Democrats to approach us today on terms of familiarity. We make no concession, nor do we propose to make any.'

"You remember the introductions we had to pass through? A group of us (myself included) would be presented as 'my daughters;' then, out would spring the old 'bandanna,' and after a clearing of his throat, he would give a little sketch of each, as we were

.* "I should not have said that everybody laughed, for my grandfather did not even smile. . . . He was totally absorbed in contemplation of the enormity of playing out one's ace of trumps second in hand. And that Charley,—Charley, whom he had trained from a boy to the rigor of the game according to Hoyle,—that he should seem to defend such—so—so horrible a solecism! It was too much. He was a picture to look at, as he stood erect, the nostrils of his patrician nose dilated with a noble indignation, his snowy hair contrasting with his dark and glowing eyes, that swept from group to group of mirthful faces, and back again, sternly wondering at their untimely merriment."—Don Miff, page 239.