How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Years | Page 3

roared at the thought of the prim, modest, particular Miranda
perpetrating such a joke. And when the wrapping of the package was at
last undone, for every corner and crease of it was as carefully turned
and as sharply edged as if the smoothing iron had passed over
them,--will wonders ever cease in this startling world of ours?--out
dropped a night-cap! Yes, a night-cap, delicately and deftly crocheted
in warm, woolen stuff of a rich cardinal color.
"Ha, ha," laughed the deacon, as he held the cap between his thumb and
forefinger of one hand up before his eyes, while he rubbed his bald
crown with the other. "Good for Mirandy." And then, as a small slip of
white paper fluttered to the floor, he seized it, and read:
[Handwritten: A happy New Year to Deacon Tubman from Miranda.]
"A good girl, a good girl," said the deacon, "not overburdened with fat,
but a good girl!" and with this rather equivocal compliment to the
donor, with his boot in one hand and the cap in the other, he rushed
impulsively to the stairway and shouted:
"A happy New Year to you, Mirandy. God bless you; God bless you,"
and he swung the boot, instead of the cap, vigorously over his head,
while his round, rosy face beamed down the stairway into the cold hall
below, like a warm harvest moon over the autumnal stubble.
In response to the deacon's hearty, and, I may say, somewhat
uproarious greeting, the kitchen door timidly opened, and Miranda,
who had been astir for nearly an hour and had the table already laid for
breakfast, stepped into view, and, with a smile on her face that actually
broadened its thinness dangerously near to the proportions of a genial
and happy reciprocation of the jovial greeting, dropped a courtesy, and
said:

"Thank you, Deacon Tubman, I hope you may have many happy
returns."
"A thousand to you, Mirandy," shouted the deacon in response, "a
thousand to you and your--children!" and the little man swung his boot
vehemently over his head and laughed like a boy at his own joke, while
poor, frightened, scandalized Miranda turned and scudded, like a patch
of thin vapor blown by an unexpected gust of wind, through the door
into the kitchen, with a face colored scarlet from an actual,
unmistakable blush, though whence the blood came that reddened the
clean cold-white of her thin face is a physiological mystery.
In a moment the deacon was fully dressed and he scuttled as merrily
and noisily down the resounding stairway as a gust of autumn wind
running through a patch of russet leaves. Through the hall and kitchen
he bustled and out into the woodshed, where he ran against old Towser,
the big Newfoundland watch-dog, who stood in the passage expectantly
watching his coming.
[Illustration: "_Ha, none of that, you woolly-coated rogue, you._"]
"A happy New Year to you, Towser, old boy," he cried, and, seizing
the huge dog by his shaggy coat, he wrestled with him like a
merry-hearted boy. "A happy New Year to you, old fellow," he
repeated, as the dog broke into a series of joyful barks; "speak it right
out, Towser. God made you as full of fun as he has the rest of us, and a
good deal fuller than many of your kind, and mine, too," and with this
backhanded hit at the vinegar-visaged and acidulous-hearted of his own
species, the deacon shuffled along the crisp, icy path toward the barn,
while Towser gamboled through the deep snow and plunged into the
huge, fleecy drifts in as merry a mood as his merry master.
"A happy New Year to you, old Jack," he called out to his horse, as he
entered the barn, and Jack neighed a happy return, more expectant,
perhaps, of his breakfast of oats than appreciative of the greeting. "And
a happy New Year to you, you youngster," he shouted to the colt, who,
being at liberty to roam at will, had already appropriated a section of
the hay-mow to his own satisfaction. "Ha, none of that, you

woolly-coated rogue, you," he cried, as he jumped aside to escape a
kick that the bunch of equine mischief anticly snapped at him. "None of
that, you little unconverted sinner, you. I verily believe the parson is
right, and that
'In Adam's fall We sinned all--'
men and beasts, colts and children, all in one lot."
And so, talking to himself and his cattle, the jolly little man, whose
good-heartedness represented more genuine orthodoxy than the whole
Westminster catechism, bustled merrily about the barn and did his
chores, while the cockerels crowed noisily from their perches overhead,
the fat white pigs grunted in lazy contentment from their warm beds of
straw, and the oxen, with their large,