The Two Christmas Celebrations, A.D. I. and MDCCCLV | Page 6

by its enchantment he became a young man once more, and walked through the moonlight to meet an angel, and with her enter their kingdom of heaven. Truly it was a talisman; yet if you had looked at it, you would have seen nothing in it but a little twist of golden hairs tied together with a blue silken thread.
Aunt Kindly had never been married; yet once in her life, also, the right man seemed to offer, and the blossom of love opened with a dear prophetic fragrance in her heart. But as her father was soon after struck with palsy, she told her lover they must wait a little while, for her first duty must be to the feeble old man. But the impatient swain went off and pinned himself to the flightiest little humming-bird in all Soitgoes, and in a month was married, having a long life before him for bitterness and repentance. After the father died, Kindly remained at home; and when Nathan returned, years after, they made one brotherly and sisterly household out of what might else have gladdened two connubial homes. "Not every bud becomes a flower."
Uncle Nathan sat there, his locket in his hand, looking into the fire; and as the wind roared in the chimney, and the brands crackled and snapped, he thought he saw faces in the fire; and when the sparks rose up in a little cloud, which the country children call "the people coming out of the meeting-house," he thought he saw faces in the fire; they seemed to take the form of the boys and girls as he had lately seen them rushing out of the Union School-house, which held all the children in the village; and as he recognized one after the other, he began to wonder and conjecture what would be the history of this or that particular child. While he sat thus in his waking dream, he looked fixedly at the locket and the blue thread which tied together those golden rays of a summer sun, now all set and vanished and gone, but which was once the morning light of all his promised days; and as his eyes, full of waking dreams, fell on the fire again, a handsome young woman seemed to come forth from between the brands, and the locks of her hair floated out and turned into boys and girls, of various ages, from babyhood to youth; all looking somewhat like him and also like the fair young woman. But the brand rolled over, and they all vanished in a little puff of smoke.
Aunt Kindly sat at the table reading the Bible. I don't know why she read the Gospels, for she knew them all four by heart, and could repeat them from end to end. But Sunday night, when none of the neighbors were there, and she and Nathan were all alone, she took her mother's great squared Bible and read therein. This night she had been reading, in chapter xxxi. of Proverbs, the character of a noble woman; and, finishing the account, turned and read the 28th verse a second time,--
_"Her children rise up and call her blessed."_
I do not know why she read that verse, nor what she thought of it; but she repeated it to herself three or four times,--
_"Her children rise up and call her blessed."_
As she was taking up the venerable old volume to lay it away for the night, it opened by accident at Luke xiv., and her eye fell on verses 12, 13--
_"But when thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends not thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbor, lest they also call thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee."_
She sat a moment recollecting that Jesus said,--
_"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;"_ and had also denounced woe on all such as cause these little ones to offend, and declared that in heaven their angels continually behold the face of the Father.
After a few minutes she turned to Nathan, who had replaced the brands in hopes to bring back the vision by his "faculty divine," and said,--"Brother, I wonder if it would not be better to make a little change in our way of keeping Christmas. It is a good thing to call together the family once a year,--our brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces,--we all of us love the children so much, and have a good time. I would not give that up. The dinner is very well; but the evening goes off a little heavy; that whist