She said they kill them when the persimmons get ripe."
"Well, they're killed and you eat them Christmas. They put a little
one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the
fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the
smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters
come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where
she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and
plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she
was a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some of the
Christmas cake to bake in egg-shells. I wish I could see somebody
make a cake. And Christmas Eve they make egg-nog, and Uncle Bushrod
makes the apple toddy two weeks before." She turned to her uncle.
"Why don't you go down there, Uncle Winthrop? I bet you'd get
Christmas in your bones if you did."
"I am very sure of it." Laine fixed Dorothea more firmly on his lap.
"There is only one reason in the world why I don't go."
"What's that? We're going away, and you will be all alone if you
don't. Can't he come, Cousin Claudia? He'd love it. I know he
would."
"I don't." Claudia moved her chair farther from the firelight.
"Christmas at Elmwood would be punishment for a city man.
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