How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Years | Page 2

little joke.
"A happy New Year to everybody," cried the deacon, as he thrust his
foot into his stocking, for the floor of the good man's chamber was
carpetless and so cleanly white that its cleanliness itself was enough to
freeze one. "Yes, a happy New Year to everybody, high, low, rich, poor,
south, north, east and west, where'er they are, the world over, at home
and abroad--Amen!" And the deacon, partly at the sweeping character
of his benediction and partly because he was feeling so jolly inside he
couldn't help it, laughed merrily, as he seized a boot and thrust his foot
vigorously into it.
"What's this? what's this?" cried the deacon, as he tugged away at the
straps until he was red in the face. "This boot never went on hard
before. What's the matter with the pesky thing?" And he arose from his
chair, and, standing on one foot, turned and twisted about, tugging all
the while at the straps.
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the deacon, disgusted with its strange
behavior, "what is the matter with the pesky boot?"
[Illustration: "_What's the matter with the pesky thing?_"]
Then he sat down upon the chair again, wrenched his foot out of the
offending article and held it up between both hands in front of him and
shook it violently, when, with a bump and a bound, out rattled a
package upon the floor and rolled half way across the room. The
deacon was after it in a jiffy and, seizing it in his little fat hands, held it
up before his eyes and read: "A New Year's gift from Miranda."
Now Miranda was the deacon's housekeeper,--Mrs. Tubman having
peacefully departed this life some years before,--and, speaking
appreciatively of the sex, a more prim, prudent, particular member of it
never existed. She had been initiated, some ten years before, into that
amiable sisterhood commonly known as spinsters, and was, it might be
added, a typical representative. Industrious? You may well say so. Her
floors, stoves, dishes, linen,--- well, if they weren't clean, nowhere on
earth might you find clean ones. She hated dirt as she did original sin,

and I've no doubt but that in her own mind considered its existence in
the world as the one certain, damning and conclusive evidence of the
Fall. It was really an entertainment to see her looking about the house
for a speck of dirt; and the cold-blooded manner in which she would
seize upon it, bear it away in the dust pan, and, removing the lid of the
stove, consign it to the flames, was--well,--what should I say,--yes,
that's it--was most edifying.
Amiable! Yes,--after her way. And a very noiseless sort of way it was,
too. For, though she had lived with the deacon for nearly a dozen years,
he had never known her to so far forget her propriety as to indulge in
anything more hearty and hilarious than the most decorous of smiles,
which smile was such a kind of illumination to her face as a star of
inconceivably small magnitude makes to the sky in trailing across it.
[Illustration: "_Miranda belonged to that sisterhood commonly known
as spinsters._"]
Of her personal appearance I will say--nothing. Sacred let it be to
memory! If you ever saw her, or one like her, whether full front or
profile, whether sideways or edgewise, the vision, I am ready to swear,
remains with you vividly still. Let it suffice, then, when I observe that
Miss Miranda was not physically stout, and that the deacon's standing
joke was by no means a bad one when he described her as "not actually
burdened with fat." Yes, she was a very cleanly, very thin, very prudent,
very particular person, that never joined in any sports or amusements;
never joked or participated in any happy events in a happy, joyous
fashion, but lived unobtrusively, and, I may say, coldly, in her own
prim, cold, bloodless, little world.
"Gracious me!" exclaimed the deacon, as he looked at the package.
"Gracious me! what has got into Mirandy?" And he looked
scrutinizingly at the little, fine, thin, faintly-traced inscription on the
package, as if the writer had begrudged the ink that must be expended
on the letters, or from a subtle and mystic self-sympathy had made the
chirography faint, delicate, and attenuated as her own self.
"Gracious me!" reiterated Deacon Tubman, as he proceeded to untie the

knot in the pale blue ribbon smoothly bound around the package. "Who
ever knew Mirandy to make a present before?" and the deacon was so
surprised at what had taken place that, for a moment, he doubted the
evidence of his own senses. "And put it in my boot, too, ha, ha!" And
the deacon stopped undoing the parcel, and, lying back in the chair,