Polly: A Christmas Recollection

A nostalgic first-person recollection of a Christmas Eve on a Southern plantation focuses on Polly, a beloved child idolized by an imperious colonel, and the household figures who orbit her: the drunken but indispensable servant Drinkwater Torm and his wife Charity, and the youthful companion Bob. Through episodic scenes—mischief at the table, threats to sell Torm, domestic routines, and schooling arrangements—the narrator sketches family dynamics, social hierarchies, and affectionate dependencies amid genteel rituals and plantation life. The tone blends humor, sentiment, and understated critique as memory preserves small rituals and tensions of that household.