Wrought Iron

migrate and leave behind the old customs . I was asked to present the "Story of Old Christmas" at Furman University, where it has since become a tradition in years when it and the end of winter break coincide. Students and faculty revere the peaceful, uncluttered relevance of this unspoiled date. A singing of ballads and hymns from the period, decorations of native flora, traditional refreshments of apple grog and gingerbread , and, most of all, good fellowship create a holiday to cherish and remember . And, in my home life, "Old Christmas " has again become a private, precious family time. When a light snow falls on the green-and-gold and cherry blooming, as tradition says it should, in our mountain pasture, and Stony the pinto mare kneels dreaming in her stall, it seems that Great-Grandmother's wishes have come to pass. In the twelve days following, of "Old Epiphany," I study, like her, the weather, and dream of the garden, the spring, the year to come. "Old Christmas" in Appalachia At midnight January 6 all the farm beasts kneel and winter blooms unfurl green-and-gold and cherry as Great-Grandmother prays the Christ Child's name aloud on this His true birth day and after counts the fogs upon her mountain land trie icestorms winds and rains twelve days into new year for all foretells to come according to her plan her rugged Baptist teaching of this most precious day the calendar neglects and holds it sacred yet exhorting us to wish that false day quickly past false animals and blossoms replaced by those which labor going down upon the straw the meekest native flower a gift upon the snow. Gentle Men I often wonder what makes a man gentle. One of my uncles was that way. Quiet spoken, patient, eyes that laughed but always seemed sad. He gave me hope. No one else I knew was that way. He taught me to draw things. Look for the lines, he said, and it worked. Lines are always there, he said. Sometimes around things you want to draw, other times around men. My grandmother told me once, bending over and down into the oven, striking a large sulfur match on a bright box, "He came home from the war that way. He wasn't that way when he left." Wrought Iron He burned the chestnut rail fence his grandfather built and erected wrought iron around the family cemetery plot. The sharp spikes stabbed the old man's heart. Whippoorwill vespers were barred from the marble slabs. The sun didn't warm the wood; sleet coated the iron. Workfolks say the old man's ghost clangs his broadax on the iron fence. -Deborah Hale Spears -Edward C. Lynskey 10 ...