Trifles for the Christmas Holidays

Trifles for the Christmas Holidays

Project Gutenberg's Trifles for the Christmas Holidays, by H. S. Armstrong This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Trifles for the Christmas Holidays
Author: H. S. Armstrong
Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #17562]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TRIFLES
FOR THE
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.
BY
H.S. ARMSTRONG.
PHILADELPHIA: J.B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1869.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
HENRY S. ARMSTRONG,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.
TO
JAS. DAVIDSON HILL,
OF NEW ORLEANS,
A CHOSEN SCHOOL-FELLOW, A STANCH COMRADE IN ARMS, AND THE TRUE FRIEND OF LATER YEARS,
THESE
"Trifles"
ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

CONTENTS.
THE OVERTURE 9
A CHRISTMAS MELODY 15
STORY OF A BEAST 29
LEAVES IN THE LIFE OF AN IDLER 45
MR. BUTTERBY RECORDS HIS CASE 71
DIAMONDS AND HEARTS 98

TRIFLES
FOR
THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.

THE OVERTURE.
Christmas! What worldly care could ever lessen the joy of that eventful day? At your first waking in the morning, when you lie gazing in drowsy listlessness at the brass ornament on your bed-tester, when the ring of the milkman is like a dream, and the cries of the bread-man and newspaper-boy sound far off in the distance, it peals at you in the laughter and gay greetings of the servants in the yard. Your senses are aroused by a promiscuous discharging of pistols, and you are filled with a vague thought that the whole city has been formed into a line of skirmishers. You are startled by a noise on the front pavement, which sounds like an energetic drummer beating the long roll on a barrel-head; and you have an indistinct idea that some improvident urchin (up since the dawn) has just expended his last fire-cracker.
At length there is a stir in the room near you. You hear the patter of little feet on the stairs, and the sound of childish voices in the drawing-room. What transports of admiration, what peals of joyous clamor, fall on your sleepy ears! The patter on the stairs sounds louder and louder, the ringing voices come nearer and nearer; you hear the little hands on your door-knob, and you hurry on your dressing-gown; for it is Christmas morning.
What a wonderful time you have at breakfast! There are a half-dozen silver forks for ma, a new napkin-ring for you, and what astonishing hay-wagons and crying dolls for the children! Jane, the house-maid, is beaming with happiness in a new collar and black silk apron; and Bridget will persist in wearing her silver thimble and carrying her new work-basket, though they threaten utter destruction to the beefsteak-plate.
You sit an unusually long time over your coffee that morning, and say an unusual number of facetious things to everybody. You cover Jane with confusion, and throw Bridget into an explosion of mirth, by slyly alluding to a blue-eyed young dray-man you one evening noticed seated on the kitchen steps. Perhaps you venture a prediction on the miserable existence he is some day destined to experience,--when a look from the little lady in the merino morning-wrapper checks you, and you confess to yourself that you are feeling uncommonly happy.
At last the breakfast ends, and the children go out for a romp. Perhaps you are a little taken aback when you are informed your easy-chair has been removed to the library; but you see Bridget, still in secure possession of her thimble and work-basket, with a huge china bowl in one hand and an egg-beater in the other, looking very warm and very much confused, and you take your departure to your own domain, to con over the morning papers.
You hear an indistinct sound of the drawing of corks and beating of eggs; of a great many dishes being taken out of the china-closet, and a good many orders being given in an undertone,--why is it women always will speak in a whisper when there is a man about the house?--and you lose yourself in the "leader," or the prices current.
The skirmishers have evidently suffered disaster; for the firing becomes more and more distant, and at length dies from your hearing. You are favored with a call from the improvident little boy, who requests you to grant him the privilege of collecting such of his unexploded fire-crackers as may be in your front yard, giving you, at the same time, the interesting information that they are to be made into "spit-devils." You are overwhelmed by a profound bow from the grocer's lad