University of Virginia Library

WINTER IN DANBURY.

THE LITTLE MIGGSES' CHRISTMAS.

THIS is rather late for a Christmas story; which is one reason why we write it. The names are fictitious, of course. However much we may desire to cut and slash our fellow-men, and bruise their hearts, and wrench their feelings, we succeed in overcoming it now, because of this glad holiday week; and with the influence of peace on earth, and good-will toward men, we call him Miggs, and call them Miggs. So their name is Miggs, and they live on Nelson Street.

Nelson Street! What a world of pictures the very name calls up to us! We close our eyes, and the quaint avenue appears before us. We see two long lines of houses, in all conceivable colors for houses, with all kinds of fences in front of them. And from the doors of these houses come broken-legged men, and bandaged men, and bad men; and from the windows peer women,—comical women, serious women, grotesque women, homely

women, women with brooms, and women with herbs, and women with advice; but all of them, however they may differ in appearance, united in screaming after the men. And down the street fly hens, followed by coal clinkers; and dogs dragging tinware after them; and half-crazed cows swinging both hind-legs in the air (as cows do when excited); and cats with backs like the rainbow, spitting and yowling, and distressing themselves.

The house of the Miggses is a brown building, void of shutters or blinds. It is one of several brown buildings, equally bereft, on that street. It is protected at the front with a slat fence, where the slats are not gone; and the yard at the front and sides is strewn with a little of such refuse matter as is customary to a tenement-yard. One would think the Miggses had taken a coal-mine for debt, from the many bits of wood scattered over the premises, and fast losing their individuality in the mud.

The Miggses occupied the first floor, which gave them a front-room (which was also a sitting and dining room, and kitchen), two bed-rooms, and a pantry. The front-room was the family room. Here were a greasy stove and mantle ornaments, a dining-table, a red chest, several odd chairs which looked as if time could never quite obliterate their animosity toward each other, a chromo of angels, and a startling novelty in the shape of a steel

engraving of the Declaration of Independence. There were other things of minor importance in the room; but these we have enumerated strike the observer most prominently. It is now five o'clock the evening before Christmas. Mrs. Miggs, sitting in a rocker, and looking absently at her foot is holding the youngest Miggs, whose head is buried in her bosom. The two boy Miggs, hand in hand, are on the street, staring with all their might at the hurrying people, and anon pausing before a well-filled and brightly-lighted window, and devouring the sight. When we find them, they are in front of the leading toy and confectionery store. Their hands do not now hold each, other, but are pressed on their breasts, as if they would keep down a cry that could not otherwise be suppressed. They were common enough children. Robbie, the elder, a boy of eight years, had a white face, with big watery blue eyes. Jakey, the younger, aged seven, had a white face, with big watery blue eyes. Both of them had light, tawny hair. Here all semblance ceased.

Robbie wore a soft wool hat with a broken brim. Jakey's head was surmounted with a soldier's cap, with a formidable forepiece; and, because of the prominence of this ornament, Jakey was obliged to crowd the cap down on the back of his head, or suffer a complete eclipse. Robbie wore a gray jacket with black patches; and was further attired

with a dingy yellow comforter coiled about his neck like an overfed boa-constrictor, and a pair of his mother's cast-off gaiters securely fastened to his feet. Jakey's jacket was a rusty plaid without any patches, but contemplating them; and his pants—very little pants they were in the legs, but quite obese in the seat—were gray, and had been ingeniously darned at the knees with black thread. Jakey's little feet were incased in low shoes with copper tips,—the only jewelry the child wore,—and about his neck was a flaming red comforter, whose many folds threatened to smother him.

The store-window was very brilliant. There were candies of every conceivable design, stored in vases, piled on plates, and heaped in pyramids. There were suspended candy canes, and dangling baskets of sugar fruit, and festoons of cornucopias. And while they stood there, and stared through the window, and lost their breath and caught it, and then lost it again, there was a sudden invasion of shouts and steps; and a troop of wild boys, hooting and struggling, crowded up to the window, and fell to work establishing their claims by such brief and hurried notices as, "I dubs this pile!" "I dubs the cornucopias!" "I dubs the gum-drops!" &c. One of the gaiters was very rudely stepped upon; and the military cap was knocked down in front to such a degree, that the stiff forepiece threatened to cut off the copper toes. The two Miggses immediately

kicked themselves free of the crowd, and stopped on the outskirts to look at the struggling mass. Then bells and whistles sounded the hour of six; and the two children clasped hands once more, and hurried home, one of them smarting from the pressure on his foot, and the other from the vulgar familiarity which had been taken with his cap. Supper was ready on their arrival; but they had to wait until the coming of their father. The room had changed wonderfully under the influence of the lamp and the singing kettle. The two little boys, after taking the precaution to make a careful survey of the table, unwrapped themselves from their superfluous clothing, which they deposited on the floor, and, until the arrival of their father, treated their mother to snatches of information of what they had seen, and contradicted each other, and exchanged glances of mystery, and wondered what they were going to get for Christmas. The whole of which they interspersed with such observations as, "Oh, my!" "I guess not!" "Oh, no!" and the like, being calculated to express, although in a very feeble manner, the great wonders they had seen, and the great gratification they now experienced in reviewing them. On the arrival of senior Miggs a great uproar ensued, coming mainly from the two junior Miggses; although the very diminutive Miggs in arms gave substantial aid by partly swallowing a button, and recovering it again.

The two Miggs boys, who had been up street for the express although concealed purpose of catching a glimpse of Santa Claus, now fell to bombarding their father about him, and were gratified to learn that he had seen him, and, furthermore, had been able, at an infinite cost of effort, to glean the gratifying information that he was coming, and that (which was much more to the point) he had things in his bag for Robbie and Jakey.

"And Georgy?" shouted Robbie, indicating that party by pinching his fat nose.

"And Georgy, too," said Mr. Miggs, nodding to the baby.

"Good!" shrieked Robbie.

"Ki yi!" responded Jakey.

And the two little boys, having now finished their supper, got down back of the stove, and speedily fell into an animated discussion as to what they would have, and as to what they should do with it, and which would have the most, and which would keep it the longest; and pretty soon they suddenly appeared to view with their hands in each other's hair, and immediately rolled under the table in a desperate endeavor to kick off each other's legs.

The fond but somewhat astonished father at once swooped down on them, and, by helping himself to their hair, soon imparted to them something of his own feelings of peace and good-will, and for

the next twenty minutes kept himself between them, and thus secured quiet.

With a view to conforming themselves to this sudden and rather unexpected change, the young men slyly shook their fists at each other, and, when their father was very busily engaged in his conversation, found time to whisper under his chair the plans they entertained for each other's future. By degrees, they finally worked together again; but forgetting their past difficulty in the shadowing of the holiday, and by the close approach of that hour when the tread of many feet would sound on the roof, they nestled closely together by the side of the stove, and kept their large watery eyes on their father.

Thus they sat until both parents grew nervous, and consulted the clock as frequently as if it were an oracle, and the only oracle within sixty miles. Sundry observations on the remarkable safety of going to bed early had no other effect upon the two little Miggses than to make their eyes snap. Finally it was suggested, as something entirely original, that Santa Claus would never think of putting things in the stockings of boys who did not go to bed at nine o'clock. There was a decided evidence of uneasiness back of the stove. "Santa Claus," Mr. Miggs went on to explain to Mrs, Miggs, "knew a good boy when he saw him; and he knew the very first and last thing a good boy

would persist in doing would be in going to bed early." (The uneasiness back of the stove visibly increased.) "However," continued Mr. Miggs, still addressing himself to Mrs. Miggs, "there are boys who think they are smart, and will find out what Santa Claus is going to put in their stockings before he has taken it out of his bag; but boys like that are not so keen as they think, which they find to their cost when morning comes, and there is nothing whatever in their stockings." Mr. Miggs was very much depressed by the disappointment of the smart boys, and had all he could do to restrain a tear; but the sudden movement of the two little Miggses to bed diverted his mind.

Once in bed, they lay conversing in whispers, and staring apprehensively at the ray of light coming through the door. The all-absorbing topic of their thoughts being the weird Dutchman and his countless treasures, they compared notes of their conception of his character, and, having exhausted the fertility of their brain in giving him shape and qualities, finally vowed to stay awake, and verify their own predictions with their own eyes. And after that they fell asleep.

And, while they slept, the wonderful Santa Claus took down the little patched stockings, and put candies in them, and molasses cookies, and jumping-jacks, and little primers, and peanuts, and sugar kisses, and handled the little stockings as

tenderly as if they were the richest the market afforded, and their contents the grandest the world could contribute. Angels, unless they were the spirits of grocers and clothiers troubled by the memory of bad accounts, must have smiled on this Santa Claus and his gracious work of love.

And, when the first flush of Christmas Day lighted up the world, the little Miggs boys were out of bed, and on the floor of the big room, feeling their way to the mantle with the most affectionate regard for the chairs and stoves in the way.

And when their little fingers closed spasmodically on the stockings, and learned their plumpness by the sense of feeling, the glad shout that went up made the old timbers resound with a thousand echoes. They flew to the bedside of their parents, and filled the ears of those guardians with the horrid din of proud exultation.

Then the lamp was lighted, because there could be no more sleep in that house, and the contents of the stockings were carefully poured out on the table; and at every advent of a package there was another scream by the party producing it, set off by a look of quick apprehension by the party observing it.

Then there was a great time getting their pa and ma to taste the candy, and play the monkey-jacks; and, when they had done this to the satisfaction of all, the little Miggses tore out of the house in

search of the other boys in the neighborhood, to see what they got, and to compare trophies.

Some of the boys thus sought had, we regret to say, a better variety and superior toys to what the Miggses got; but then there were other boys who fared worse, and so the matter was balanced.

But there is a sort of feeling, bred from the occasion itself, we think, which pervades the atmosphere, mellowing the hearts of all children, and making them, unless they are brothers, perfectly contented with what they have received, as compared with what others, more favored, have received.

The little Miggses did not see any thing among the neighbors that made their possessions appear any the less comforting. They chewed their candy, and cracked their peanuts, and jumped their jacks, and thumbed their primers, in a mild insanity. And, when they were tired of this, they went out into the yard, and slid on some green-and-white ice made by suds. And, when their own eatables were dissolved, they generously turned in of one accord, and helped the baby-brother to eat his.

And when these, too, were gone, and the Christmas-dinner eaten, they wrapped their threadbare garments about their little forms, and stoned the neighboring hens until dark.

A FEMALE CAUCUS.

THEY were going to get up a Lady Washington tea-party for the benefit of their society. It was to come off on the night of the 22d; and, of an afternoon a few days before, several ladies met at the house of one of the number to perfect the arrangements. It was determined to give a grand affair,—something especially designed to transcend the tea-party by a rival organization last year. To this purpose it became necessary to devote the most careful thought to all the details; and this was done. In fact, it would be difficult to find a more conscientious committee in a hamlet the size of Danbury. When all the particulars were arranged, and the various stands and minor offices assigned to the ordinary members of the society,—who were not present,—the important question as to who should take the leading character was brought up. With a view to doing without the delay and feeling of balloting, the president kindly offered to do Lady Washington herself. She said that she felt it was not a favorable selection; but she was willing to take it, so that there need be no discussion or ill-feeling. If she thought she had not placed a sufficiently modest estimate upon her qualification for the post, she was presently set at rest on that head. Her offer was received with silence.

"What do you think?" she asked. "I'm willing to do it."

"Lady Washington never weighed two hundred and fifty pounds," ominously hinted a thin lady with very light eyes.

"She had fat enough on her to grease a griddle, which is more'n some folks can claim," retorted the president, with any thing but a dreamy expression to her face. The tall lady's eyes grew a shade darker, and her lips shaped themselves as if they were saying "Hussy!" but it is probable they were not.

"As our two friends are so little likely to agree," observed a lady whose face showed that she was about to metamorphose herself into a barrel of prime oil, and precipitate herself on to the troubled waters, "I would suggest that I take the character."

"Humph!" ejaculated the president.

"Is there any objection to my being Lady Washington?" said the new party, facing abruptly the president, and emptying out the oil, and filling up the barrel immediately with a superior grade of vinegar.

"I don't know of any, if some one will demonstrate that Lady Washington had a wart on her nose," replied the president with unblemished serenity.

"Am I to be insulted?" hotly demanded the proprietor of the wart.

"The truth ought not to be insulting," replied the president.

"I s'pose our president thinks she would be a perfect Lady Washington," ironically suggested a weak-faced woman, who saw her chances for taking the character dejectedly emerge from the small end of the horn.

"I don't know as I would be perfect in that role," replied the president; "but, as there will be strangers present at the party, I shouldn't want them to think that the nearest approach Danbury could make to the dignity of '76 was a toothless woman down with the jaundice." And the head officer smiled serenely at the ceiling,

"What do you mean, you insinuating thing?" hoarsely demanded the victim of the jaundice.

"Keep your mouth shut until you are spoken to, then," severely advised the president.

"I'm not to be dictated to by a mountain of tallow," hissed the chromatic delegate, flouncing out of the room.

"I think we'd better get another president before we go any farther," said a sharp-faced woman, very much depressed by the outlook for herself.

"It isn't hardly time for you yet," observed the president, with a significant look at the sharp-faced woman, "We have to arrange for Lady Washington and George Washington before we need the hatchet."

The sharp-faced lady snatched up her muff without the faintest hesitation, and rushed out doors

to get her breath. She was immediately followed by the proprietor of the wart, the thin lady disastrously connected with a griddle, and the toothless case of jaundice. This left but the president and a little woman who had yet said nothing.

"Has it occurred to you that you would like to be Lady Washington?" asked the president, concentrating both of her eyes on a wen just under the small woman's left ear.

"Oh, no!" gasped the small woman, impulsively covering up the excrescence with her hand.

"Then I guess we'll adjourn sine die," said the president; and, pulling on her gloves; she composedly took her departure.

And the tea-party became the fragment of a gloomy memory.

SWEARING OFF.

THE day after New-Year's, Mr. Whiting came home to dinner, and electrified his wife with—

"I have sworn off drinking, Matilda."

"You have?" said his wife, hardly believing her senses.

"Yes, sir-ee!" he animatedly replied. "I've sworn off,—sworn off this very day; and that's the last of it, by hokey!"

Mr. Whiting sat down to the table with a self-satisfied air, and rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way, and briskly continued:—

"I've been thinking over this thing all the morning; and I've come to the conclusion that I've made a fool of myself just long enough. Why! the money I spend in liquor would very soon get me a house. I've figured it up. Take fifty or sixty cents a day, an' I tell you it counts up mighty fast. It costs me about a hundred and sixty-five dollars a year; an' in eight years that would get me a comfortable place, to say nothing of the adornments and comforts generally which such a sum would bring."

"Are you sure you can stick to it?" inquired his wife with some anxiety.

"Sure of it! Gracious! I guess I am sure of it. I ain't been figuring this thing for nothing. Oh! I shall do it, I'm like a flint, I am, when I get started. I've got a will like a perary-fire: there's no fighting against it. Yes, sir: I've figured this thing up from bottom to top, and from top to bottom; and I'm bound to do it. I know when I figure; and I've figured this thing right down to a fine pint, you bet!"

Mr. Whiting continued his dinner, his face shining, and his heart warmed with the greatness of his purpose. When he got on his coat, and started for work, he observed to his wife,—

"I'll get you a pair of vases in a few days, Matilda, an' a set of furs; an' I'm going to have a French clock as big as a cook-stove, an' a conservatory

with the biggest smelling flowers in the land. An' I guess I'll get a pianny, and a horse, an' perhaps a couple of dogs, an' I don't know but a cow. I've figured this thing up, an' there's no use talking: money is to be saved. It makes me mad enough to kick my shoulder out of joint when I think what a fool I've been all these years. Why, hang it all! we might 'av' had an ice-house of our own, and been living in a hotel. This is the solemn truth, or I am a tattooed galoot from some archipelago, by hokey!"

And Mr. Whiting glowed all over with the great excitement.

"Dear, dear Tom!" cried his delighted wife as she threw her arms about his neck and sobbed aloud.

"Don't cry, Tildy!" he hastily exclaimed, while he vainly strove to keep back the tears from his own eyes. "It's all right, you know," he went on in an assuring voice, and gently stroking her hair. "I've figured it up, an' I'm going to do it. Don't cry, Tildy: it's all right. I've figured it up, an' you can depend on me." And, disengaging her arms, he departed to his work, his heart lighter and gladder than it had been for some years.

"By George!" he said to himself, suddenly pausing, and slapping his leg. "This is what may be called living." And he went on again, looking happier than before.

He came home to tea. There was not that hopeful, buoyant expression in his face that was there at noon. He looked distrustfully about the room as he pulled off his coat.

"Ain't that supper ready yet?" he gruffly inquired.

"It will be in a minute," replied Mrs. Whiting.

He threw his coat on one chair, and his hat in another, and heavily sank into a third. For a moment he sat there contemplating the fire. Then he arose, and wanted to know what in thunder was the matter with that stove: the house was as cold as a barn. Mrs. Whiting looked at him in astonishment. But, if she was amazed now, she was more than dumfounded before bed-time; He said the biscuits were heavy as lead, that the tea was slop, and that the preserves were worse than chopped-up oil-cloth. The room was either too hot or too cold. Every thing belonging to him had been misplaced. He picked up nothing: he snatched it up. He lay down nothing: he threw it down. He growled when he spoke, and he spoke but little. The poor woman was in an agony of apprehension. In all the years of their wedded life she had never seen him act like this. He grew worse as the hours advanced, and finally wound up by emphatically declaring that he "might as well be in a lunatic-asylum, a-fittin' spectacles to pink-eyed taters for his board, as to live in such a house."

Then he went to bed.

At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Whiting quietly observed,—

"Tom, you figured it all out yesterday, didn't you?"

He made no reply.

"Well, I've been figuring too; and I—I think we can get along without the vases, and the piano, and the French clock, and the other things; and as for living in a hotel, and owning an ice-house, I haven't the faintest desire."

And they are doing without those things for the present.

A GHASTLY JOY.

THERE being a great plenty of snow, there is an abundance of sleighing, and, consequently, an abundance of misery. There is nothing in which our people so persistently labor to deceive themselves as in the matter of sleighing. The opera is nothing to it. If there is not much snow, everybody is sorry; if there is plenty, everybody is glad. And yet it is safe to say, that not one in twenty who go sleighing enjoy it. We deceive each other; we deceive ourselves. A young man hires a horse and sleigh, and gives his girl a ride. It is a pleasure-trip, without doubt: in fact, it is useless to dispute it. His mother wants him to wear a cap which

can be drawn down over his ears, and to tie a comforter about his neck, and put on two pairs of pants, and a small shawl under his coat, and a pair of mittens over his gloves; but he does not do it. He even feels offended at the suggestion, and becomes a trifle irritable under the advice. She is a good mother; but she is well along in years, and doesn't understand the proprieties of things. He understands them. He is not going after a load of wood: he is going on a pleasure-excursion with one who is very dear to him; and, if he should appear comfortable rather than stylish, he might lose her favor forever. This is a serious reflection. So he dons a silk hat and a pair of light gloves, and trusts the entire protection of his throat to a stand-up shirt-collar. And she—how does she prepare for the ride? She, too, has a mother,—a thoughtful old body, but so far, so very far, behind the age! And this mother takes a hearty interest in the ride. She suggests a quilted hood for her daughter's head, and a pair of warm home-made mitts for her hands, and a wealth of tippets for her neck and body. She even persists in these things, and is honestly horrified at what she calls the temerity of going without them. But her daughter is not going to do it. She is not going to appear to him like a mummy. How it would look! So she puts on her Sunday bonnet with its bright colors, and some lace around the neck, and a pair of kids on her hands. And so they start off, leaving the mother half paralyzed with horror on the door-step, with her arms full of comfortable woollens. But they present a fine appearance: there is no doubt of that. The horse dashes along at a rapid pace; the bells sound merrily; and the handsome sleigh and the bright-colored robes combine to make a pleasant picture to outsiders. The couple are out for a sleigh-ride, and they must enjoy it. He is very happy. His fingers feel like stove-legs; his feet ache with the cold; his nose and ears are batteries of sharp, tingling sensations; the play of his mouth has been crippled by the action of the biting air; and his spine appears to have been turned into a race-course for the special purpose of displaying the speed in a polar wave.

Everybody goes sleigh-riding. There is a peculiar fascination in it. She feels this as they glide along. It makes her very happy. Her new hat sits on the back of her head, displaying her crimps to the very best advantage, and exposing one-half of her head to the action of the weather. Her nose has become a deep carmine at the tip; her lips are livid, her eyes set, her cheeks icy; the kidded hands are stiff with the cold, and the kidded feet are benumbed beyond all recovery. Chills chase wildly along the nerve-centres of their bodies; and their faces are peppered with hardened snow and other things thrown up by the flying heels of the

horse. Such happiness! such joy! such exhilaration! People moving along on the walks observe them with envious eyes, while the keen air through which they are rushing is perforating them with a million sharp darts. They don't talk much now: their joy is too great for utterance, perhaps. At any rate, a silence falls upon them; and he is aware, when he attempts to say any thing, that his mouth threatens to slop all over his face, and stay there; and, when she attempts to laugh, it seems as if the lower half of her head was about to come off, and slip into the bottom of the sleigh, and be lost among the robes. This is an unhappy thought: but-sleigh-riding seems to be the right thing to do; and they are doing it. And then—and this is really the cream of the fun—they both appear well; that is, there is nothing bungling or awkward in their appearance: they look stylish. And so they ride, and ride, and ride; and when they get back, and she stumbles into the house, and he reels into the stable and hands over the five dollars with his petrified fingers, there is something so massive about their joy, that it seems as if they never would be able to fully comprehend it.

Then there is the alligator, who owns a horse and sleigh of his own, and who, to get the worth of his money, has faced all kinds of weather with them, until his skin has become impervious, his nerves solidified, and his sensibilities deadened beyond all

recall. The only one sentiment he is capable of is revenge; and, to gratify that, he is constantly prowling about in search of unsuspecting people, whom he beguiles into his sleigh. His chief victim is the man of sedentary pursuits, who, being always shut up, is the more easily seduced into the ride; and, being always shut up, is the more susceptible to the cold. And so this unhappy wretch is caught up, and whirled through the cold air until every tooth in his head is loosened, and every drop of blood in his body is congealed, and every nerve strung to its highest tension of suffering; until his heart stands still in pain, his brain becomes locked in a sea of ice, and his limbs have lost their power of motion. Then he is dumped out, and crawls back to his place of business a shattered wreck of his former self. Snow may come and go, flowers bloom and fall again, and thus the years creep on; but that man will never be as he was before,—never, never again.

AN EXTREMELY PRACTICAL BOY.

"TOMMY," observed a Nelson-street mother to her son, a youth of thirteen years, "you must cut some wood for the front-room stove. Mr. Crawford comes to-night."

Mr. Crawford is a young man who is "keeping

company" with Fanny, Tommy's sister. The time was a Wednesday evening. Tommy had been skating since school, and was now anxiously awaiting his supper. The announcement came upon him with disagreeable force.

"Is that old rooster comin' around here to-night?" he impetuously inquired.

"Thomas!" cried his mother in a voice of horror.

Thomas, having eased his mind somewhat of the burden, proceeded to the wood-pile without further remark.

He was not in good humor as he looked around for the axe, and articles foreign to the search were moved with graceless haste.

"This is a reg'lar dog's life," he moodily ejaculated. "First it's Sunday night, an' then it is Wednesday night, an' then it's Friday night, an' every little while an extra night thrown in. I don't see what's the use of a girl about the house. If I've got to cut wood every time that feller comes, I'll know the reason why. I won't be put on like this. I ain't goin' to be made a pack-mule of, by George! for all the Crawfords and Fannys on earth. It's all nice enough for them to be in there toasting their shins, an' actin' sickish; but I notice that I have got to do all the work. It's played out, by Jinks! I ain't that kind of hair-pin. I'd just like to have somebody tell me," he added, looking

around for the person in question, "how much of the candy an' oranges an' other stuff that Fanny gets, I get. Not one whiff, by gracious!—not one single, solitary whiff! An' here I chop wood for her an' him night after night; an', if it wasn't for me, they'd shake all the teeth outen their heads. Oh, they are a sweet-scented pair, they are!"

Closing his remarks with this gloomy observation on his sister and her company, he worked away at the wood until the amount necessary was prepared. About seven o'clock, Mr. Crawford's knock sounded at the door. Fanny's mother was to have let him in; but Tommy volunteered his service. He escorted the young gentleman into the front-room; and then, backing himself against the door, he pointed to the stove, which was throwing out a most welcome heat, and sternly inquired,—

"Is that what you'd call a good fire?"

"Yes, indeed!" said Mr. Crawford, rubbing his hands gratefully.

"Ah!" observed Tommy in a tone of relief, although his face scarcely relaxed the severity of its expression. "You couldn't very well get along in here without a fire, could you?"

"Hardly."

"I s'pose not. Now, who do you s'pose made that fire?"

"Why—I—I suppose—why, I don't know,"

said Mr. Crawford, apparently embarrassed by the question.

"No! Well, I can tell you. I made that fire. I cut the wood for it. I cut the wood, and make every fire you have here. I've been doing it all the while you've come here; and you and Fan have set by it, and toasted yourselves, and ate candy, and sucked oranges. You an' Fan have had all the comfort of it; an' I've done all the work, every bit of it. An' not one smell of them candies an' oranges have I had,—not a living smell." The unhappy boy knit his eyebrows, and instinctively clinched his hands. Scarcely less disturbed, appeared Fanny's young man. He glanced uneasily from the fireman to the stove. But he made no reply. He waited apprehensively for what was to follow.

"I'll bet you've got a pound of assorted candies in your clothes this minute for Fan!"

This came so directly in the form of an interrogation, that Mr. Crawford unhesitatingly nodded.

"So I thought," pursued Fanny's brother. "Now, I want to tell you, that, if this fire-business is to be carried on by me, there's got to be a different arrangement of awards: if not, you can come up here and cut your own wood. Will you divy on them candies?"

"Why—why—I—I hardly would like to do that, Tommy. I got these for Fanny, you know."

"Yes, I know," said Tommy grimly. "When I see you come up here again, I shall expect to see you lugging an axe over your shoulder."

Mr. Crawford looked aghast.

"But, Tommy," he expostulated. "You won't come back on me like that? I'll pay you for doing it."

"Oh! What will you pay"

"I'll give you fifty cents a week."

"Hope to die?"

"Yes," said Mr. Crawford eagerly.

"Then I am just your cheese," said the youth, the hard lines melting entirely out of his face. "There's nothing mean about me; but I don't want to go along in the dark. This thing had to be settled some way or another; for it was eating the life out of me. But, now that it is fixed, you'll find me up to the mark every time; and, if I don't make that stove rare right up on its hind-legs, I am a bald-headed leper without a pedigree."

And, with a flourish expressive of the deepest earnestness, he stalked out of the room.

LITTLE BOB'S GREAT GRIEF.

POOR little Bob! Bob had planned to go skating after school that day: but Bob's mother was afraid of the texture of the ice; and, when he came

home for his skates, she told him he could not go. Bob whined, and she told him to shut up, This caused him to whine again; when she slipped off her shoe, with the intimation she would give him something to cry for; and she did. Outraged in body and mind, Bob had betaken himself to his own room, and sullenly squatted on the side of the bed. His face had settled down into hard ridges, and his hands were clinched tight together. There was a strong rebellion in Bob's heart. He knew the ice was strong enough to bear an elephant; and he knew his mother knew it, and that her action was purely tyrannical. He had looked impartially over her conduct, and there could be no other explanation. If she had loved him, she would have done differently. They were hard thoughts that passed through Bob's mind as he sullenly sat there, and clinched his fingers into the palms of his hands. The shadows were gathering outside his window, and darkness was forming the night; but Bob did not notice it. His eyes were bent on the window; but he saw nothing through it: he saw only the tumultuous darkness of the storm in his little heart. Every once in a while, signs of the tempest inside appeared on the surface in long-drawn sobs. Bob wished he was dead; wished that the golden cord could snap right there and then. If he were dead, his mother's heart would be touched. She would bend over him in wild grief and bitter upbraidings; and be would lay there white and dead, and enjoy it. Bob's idea of death was comforting, but hardly orthodox. Bob did not want to be an angel; but Bob did crave revenge. He hungered to get even with his mother. In the tumult of his heart, this unsightly object was constantly being tossed to the top; and at every appearance it looked better and brighter to him. Open rebellion was out of the question, and Bob realized it. Bob's mother is one of those unhappy women who will be obeyed. What would Bob do? The look in his eyes grew harder, the fingers increased their pressure, and the lines in his face—the hard, cruel lines—became more marked. Death would not come at the beck of a boy with tear-stained cheeks. But Bob would have his revenge without the aid of the dread messenger. Had his mother loved him, she could not have been so cruel. But he would test that love now, however great or little it might be. His own heart was numb with pain: why should not she suffer? She should! He brought his hands together with sharp nervous force, and uttered this determination aloud. He was in pain: so should she be. He could not defy her, but he could grieve her; and he would. He would lacerate her feelings; he would wring her heart; he would crush her soul. How? It doesn't seem possible that a heart so young could conceive such a cruel purpose. Bob determined to eat no supper! He could hear the dishes rattle in the dining-room; but every sound only strengthened him in his determination. He would go without food, and gloat over the agony in his conscience-stricken mother's face as he faded slowly away before her eyes. How happy Bob was now!—so maliciously, so cruelly happy! Pretty soon there was a step in the hall. It was his mother coming to call him to supper. She opened the door.

"Robert!"

"'M."

"Come to your supper."

"I don't want no supper," he said in a constrained voice.

"Don't want any supper?"

"No," he mumbled.

"If you ain't down to your supper before we get through, the table will be cleared off, and you sha'n't have a mouthful," was the somewhat unexpected rejoinder.

"I don't care," he replied in a stifled voice.

Then the door was shut, and Bob was alone again,—a somewhat surprised and disappointed Bob. To his strained hearing every sound at the table was distinctly apparent. Then came the extra rattling of clearing away the things, and, shortly after, a silence. Poor Bob! He covered his hands over his head, and sobbed, and sobbed himself

to sleep. When Bob awoke, the darkness was intense, and he was chilled to the marrow. He raised his head, and listened. Not a sound was heard. He crept out of bed, and found his way to the door. The hall was as dark as the room. His parents had gone to bed, and had never come near to see him fade slowly away, and were now, without doubt, sound asleep, with no thought of little Bob. How long he had slept he could not tell; but, while he slept, a great transformation had gone on. The aching void in his heart had been transferred to his stomach. Shivering and quaking, he got out of his clothes and crept into bed, with a feeling that made him burrow his head out of sight beneath the covers. The next morning he did not have to be called to breakfast; but at the table, under a self-inflicted protest of a mild type, he buried his grief under a pyramid of buckwheat-cakes.

A WINTER IDYL.

WHAT a frightful sensation that is, when you have just got home of a cold Monday night, and pulled your boots off, to be told that the week's washing is out on the line, and must be brought in! Now, to do this of a dewy eve in the summer, with the delicate perfume of flowers filling the air, and a brass band on the next street, is not exactly a

hardship; but to do it in the dead of winter, with a chilling breeze blowing, and the clothes as stiff as a rolling-pin, is something no man can contemplate without quaking. We don't quite understand how it is that a man invariably gets his boots off before the dread summons comes; but the rest of it is plain enough. There is a sort of rebellious feeling in his heart which prompts him to try to entangle his wife in an argument; and, failing in this, he snatches up the basket and goes out in the yard with it, rapping it against the chairs, and knocking it against the sides of the door with as much vigor as if it was not purely accidental. If the fond wife is anyway attentive, she can hear his well-known voice consigning various objects to eternal suffering, long after he has disappeared. There is no levity in a line of frozen clothes. Every article is as frigid as the Cardiff giant; and the man who wrenches the pin off, and then holds the basket in expectation of seeing the piece drop off the line of its own accord, is too pure and simple for this world. But our man isn't of that nature. He catches hold of the garment with his chilled hands, and seeks to pull it off; but it doesn't come. Then he yanks it upwards, and then downwards, and then sideways; and, when it comes off, it maintains the shape it has been all the afternoon working into, which permits it just as readily to enter the basket as to be shoved through the key-hole of a valise. The first articles he doubles up with his hands, and there is a faint semblance of carefulness in packing them away; but, after that, he smashes them into the basket without any ceremony, and crowds them down with his foot. He uses the same care in taking down a fine cambric handkerchief that he does in capturing a sheet, and makes two handkerchiefs of every one. When he gets far from the basket, he allows the articles to multiply in his arms, so as to save steps; and, when he gets his arms full of the awkward and miserable things, whose sharp, icy corners job him in the neck and face, he comes to an article that refuses to give way on one end. He pulls and shakes desperately at it, howling and screaming in his rage, until he inadvertently steps on the dragging end of a sheet, and then he comes down flat on the frozen snow, but bounds up again, grating his teeth, and, hastily depositing the bundle in the basket, darts back to the refractory member, and, taking hold of it, fiercely tugs at it, while he fairly jumps up and down in the extremity of his anger and cold. Then it comes unexpectedly, and with it a part of the next article, and he goes over again, this time on his back, and with violence. With the clothes gathered, he takes the basket up in his livid hands, thus bringing the top articles against his already frozen chin, and, thus tortured, propels his lifeless limbs into the house. She stands ready to tell him to

[Description: A Winter Day. — 281.]

close the door, and is thoughtful enough to ask him if it's cold work. But, if he is a wise man, he will make no answer. If he is a wise man, he will silently plant himself in front of the stove, and, fling his frozen features into an implacable frown, will preserve that exterior, without the faintest modification, until bedtime.

THE MISSION OF A NIGHT.

AN exceedingly fine and stealthy rain stole upon Danbury late last night. It came so quietly, and froze so thoroughly, that not a soul knew of its presence on the walk and stoop. There was nothing to indicate its being there until it was stepped upon; and all Danbury came out doors as innocent and as unsuspecting as a babe in a spittoon. The general tableau was a back-stoop, with a hired girl frantically endeavoring to separate herself and a pail of slops, and to strike the ground on her feet; while at the front-door a sweet voice murmured "Good-by, dearest; come home early;" and a deep bass voice in response, "Yes, my precious, I'll—Whoop! Great heav—! Ouch!" At nine A.M., there wasn't a rheumatic person in town who knew where his liniment was.

WAS HE AFRAID?

THE trouble with the Danbury water-pipes in the past few days, although of a serious nature, has been productive of ludicrous incidents. One man on Division Street had his kitchen flooded by the bursting of a pipe late Friday night. Toward morning, he was taken with a sharp thirst; and getting up quietly, so as not to disturb his wife, or any one who might be in the house after plunder, he proceeded in the dark to the kitchen for a drink. That apartment is a step or two below the sitting-room; and, in descending to it, he planted one naked foot squarely in the water on the floor. With a promptness that is remarkable, considering the severe shock to his nervous system, he bounded back, and screamed, "Whoop! murder! let go of there, I tell ye!" Then a deep silence followed. "What's the matter?" asked his wife, who was awakened by his cry. There was no reply. "What's the matter?" he demanded in a louder voice, missing him from the bed. But still there was no answer. Now thoroughly frightened, she cried in a higher tone, "Reuben, Reuben! what is the matter?" and a suppressed voice within six inches of her head suddenly hissed, "Shut up your infernal clack, can't ye, ye old fool?" It is presumed Reuben knew what was the matter.

YOUNG COVILLE CATCHES ON BEHIND.

YOUNG COVILLE was out looking for a ride Friday afternoon. He had his sled with him, and wanted to fasten it to a horse-sleigh. An opportunity finally presented itself. It was a farmer who was driving; and he had two good horses. His son sat in the back of the sleigh, watching the various village boys. He was a pale boy, with a broad forehead and a soft brown eye. No one can read character so well as children; and, when Master Coville looked into the open countenance of the farmer-lad, he put after the sleigh with all his might, and, catching up to it, threw himself on the tail-board, keeping his eye firmly fixed on the farmer-boy. Then the farmer-boy suggested that young Coville get on his own sled, and he would hold the rope for a little way. The offer was accepted at once; and Master Coville mounted his own sled, where he rode in triumph, to the envy of every boy he passed. Getting towards the suburbs, the farmer, who was quite deaf, hurried forward his horses; and Master Coville tried to look ahead without smiling; but it was impossible, the speed was so exhilarating. When the party got by Granville Avenue, young Coville told the farmer-boy that he guessed he'd be going back, and, if he'd kindly drop the rope, he'd confer a favor. The farmer-boy smiled a rural smile, but didn't

relax his hold on the rope. Young Coville smiled too, but rather feebly, and again repeated his request. But the soft brown eye was musing, and the rope still remained in the owner's grasp. Young Coville began to look scared. It was after five o'clock, and would be dark in an hour; and here he was, sailing out into the country at the rate of eight miles an hour.

"Let go of there, why don't you?" he asked.

The farmer-boy smiled,—one of those blossoming smiles, which told of green dells and moss-fringed brooks.

"If you don't let go of that rope, I'll just get into that sleigh, and smash yer darned old snoot!" suggested young Coville; which was a very imprudent statement, in view of the fact that every muscle was engaged in keeping his seat.

But the farmer-lad did not let go. He kept his hold of the rope, and kept up the smiles,—the waving-grain and blooming-daisy smiles.

"Oh! I'll make you laugh on the other side of your mouth if you don't let go of that rope!" shouted young Coville as he saw the paved side-walks give way to foot-paths, and gardens dissolve into broad, snow-clad fields.

On they went, the farmer-lad smiling so beautifully, and young Coville grating his teeth, and shouting the awful things he would do in the future.

About four miles out of town, and as they were passing through a heavy wood, the farmer-boy smiled a broad smile, and let go of the rope; and, as the sleigh darted away, the rope passed under the sled, bringing it up so suddenly as to throw young Coville heels over head into the snow. When he got up, the sleigh was going over a hill, and his tormentor was throwing agricultural kisses at him.

It was late at night when Master Coville reached his home; but, when he went to bed, there were thirteen snowballs, soaked with water, freezing slowly but surely on a board in the back-yard.