We have to go to evening

parties among our friends, or

seem stuck up. We hate to go,

and wish there were none. We

had rather come here.

The increasing

worthlessness of the franchise.

With these papers they gathered all in the study just

as the clock struck nine, and, in good old Boston

fashion, Silas was bringing in some hot oysters. They

ate the oysters, which were good--trust Anna for that--

and then the women read the papers, while the smoking men

smoked and pondered.

They all recognized the gravity of the situation.

Still, as Julia said, they felt better already. It was

like having the doctor come: you knew the worst, and

could make ready for it.

They did not discuss the statements much. They had

discussed them too much in severalty. They did agree

that they should be left to Felix to report upon the next

evening. He was, so to speak, to post them, to strike

out from each side the quantities which could be

eliminated, and leave the equations so simplified that

the eight might determine what they should do about it--

indeed, what they could do about it.

The visitors put on their "things"--how strange that

that word should once have meant "parliaments!"--kissed

good-by so far as they were womanly, and went home.

George Haliburton screwed down the gas, and they went to bed.

CHAPTER II

STRIKING THE BALANCE

The next night they went to see Warren at the Museum.

That probably helped them. After the play they met by

appointment at the Carters'. Felix read his

REPORT.

1. NUMBER.--There are twenty-one reasons for

congratulation, twenty-four for regret. But of the

twenty-four, four are the same; namely, the cursed

political prospect of the country. Counting that as one

only, there are twenty-one on each side.

2. EVIL.--The twenty-one evils may be classified

thus: political, 1; social, 12; physical, 5; terrors, 3.

All the physical evils would be relieved by living in

a temperate climate, instead of this abomination, which

is not a climate, to which our ancestors were sold by the

cupidity of the Dutch.

The political evil would be ended by leaving the

jurisdiction of the United States.

The social evils, which are a majority of all, would

be reduced by residence in any place where there were not

so many people.

The terrors properly belong to all the classes. In

a decent climate, in a country not governed by its vices,

and a community not crowded, the three terrors would be

materially abated, if not put to an end.

Respectfully submitted,

FELIX CARTER.

How they discussed it now! Talk? I think so! They

all talked awhile, and no one listened. But they had to

stop when Phenice brought in the Welsh rare-bit (good

before bed, but a little indigestible, unless your

conscience is stainless), and Felix then put in a word.

"Now I tell you, this is not nonsense. Why not do

what Winslow and Standish and those fellows thought they

were doing when they sailed? Why not go to a climate

like France, with milder winters and cooler summers than

here? You want some winter, you want some summer."

"I hate centipedes and scorpions," said Anna.

"There's no need of them. There's a place in Mexico,

not a hundred miles from the sea, where you can have your

temperature just as you like."

"Stuff!"

"No, it is not stuff at all," said poor Felix,

eagerly. "I do not mean just one spot. But you live in

this valley, you know. If you find it is growing hot,

you move about a quarter of a mile to another place

higher up. If you find that hot, why you have another

house a little higher. Don't you see? Then, when winter

comes, you move down."

"Are there many people there?" asked Haliburton; "and

do they make many calls?"

"There are a good many people, but they are a gentle

set. They never quarrel. They are a little too high up

for the revolutions, and there is something

tranquillizing about the place; they seldom die,

none are sick, need no aguardiente, do what the head of

the village tells them to do--only he never has any

occasion to tell them. They never make calls."

"I like that," said Ingham. That patriarchal system

is the true system of government."

"Where is this place?" said Anna, incredulously.

"I have been trying to remember all day, but I can't.

It is in Mexico, I know. It is on this side of Mexico.

It tells all about it in an old `Harper'--oh, a good many

years ago--but I never bound mine; there are always one

or two missing every year. I asked Fausta to look for

it, but she was busy. I thought," continued poor Felix,

a little crestfallen, "one of you might remember."

No, nobody remembered; and nobody felt much like

going to the public library to look, on Carter's rather

vague indications. In fact, it was a suggestion of

Haliburton's that proved more popular.

Haliburton said he had not laid in his coal. They

all said the same. "Now," said he, "the coal of this

crowd for this winter will cost a thousand dollars, if

you add in the kindling and the matches, and patching the

furnace pots and sweeping the chimneys."

To this they agreed.

"It is now Wednesday. Let us start Saturday for

Memphis, take a cheap boat to New Orleans, go thence to

Vera Cruz by steamer, explore the ground, buy the houses

if we like, and return by the time we can do without

fires next spring. Our board will cost less than it

would here, for it is there the beef comes from. And the

thousand dollars will pay the fares both ways."

The women, with one voice, cried, "And the children?"

"Oh yes," cried the eager adventurer. "I had

forgotten the children. Well, they are all well, are

they not?"

Yes; all were well.

"Then we will take them with us as far as Yellow

Springs, in Ohio, and leave them for the fall and winter

terms at Antioch College. They will be enough better

taught than they are at the Kydd School, and they will

get no scarlet fever. Nobody is ever sick there. They

will be better cared for than my children are when they

are left to me, and they will be seven hundred miles

nearer to us than if they were here. The little ones can

go to the Model School, the middling ones to the Academy,

and the oldest can go to college. How many are there,

Felix?"

Felix said there were twenty-nine.

"Well," said the arithmetical George, "it is the

cheapest place I ever knew. Why, their Seniors get along

for three hundred dollars a year, and squeeze more out of

life than I do out of twenty thousand. The little ones

won't cost at that rate. A hundred and fifty dollars for

twenty-nine children; how much is that, Polly?"

"Forty-three hundred and fifty dollars, of course,"

said she.

"I thought so. Well, don't you see, we shall save

that in wages to these servants we are boarding here, of

whom there are eleven, who cost us, say, six dollars a

week; that is, sixty-six dollars for twenty weeks is

thirteen hundred and twenty dollars. We won't buy any

clothes, but live on the old ones, and make the children

wear their big brothers' and sisters'. There's a saving

of thirty-seven hundred dollars for thirty-seven of us.

Why, we shall make money! I tell you what, if you'll do

it, I'll pay all the bills till we come home. If you

like, you shall then each pay me three-quarters of your

last winter's accounts, and I'll charge any difference

to profit and loss. But I shall make by the bargain."

The women doubted if they could be ready. But it

proved they could. Still they did not start Saturday;

they started Monday, in two palace-cars. They left the

children, all delighted with the change, at Antioch on

Wednesday--a little tempted to spend the winter there

themselves; but, this temptation well resisted, they sped

on to Mexico.

CHAPTER III

FULFILMENT

Such a tranquil three days on the Mississippi, which

was as an autumn flood, and revealed himself as indeed

King of Waters! Such delightful three days in

hospitable New Orleans! Might it not be possible to

tarry even here? "No," cried the inexorable George.

"We have put our hand to the plough. Who will turn

back?" Two days of abject wretchedness on the Gulf of

Mexico. "Why were we born? Why did we not die before

we left solid land?" And then the light-house at Vera Cruz.

"Lo, land! and all was well."

What a splendid city! Why had nobody told them of

this queen on the sea-shore? Red and white towers,

cupolas, battlements! It was all like a story-book.

When they landed, to be sure, it was not quite so big a

place as they had fancied from all this show; but for

this they did not care. To land--that was enough. Had

they landed on a sand-spit, they would have been in

heaven. No more swaying to and fro as they lay in bed,

no more stumbling to and fro as they walked. They

refused the amazed Mexicans who wanted them to ride to

the hotel. To walk steadily was in itself a luxury.

And then it was not long before the men had selected

the little caravan of horses and mules which were to

carry them on their expedition of discovery. Some valley

of paradise, where a man could change his climate from

midwinter to midsummer by a journey of a mile. Did the

consul happen to have heard of any such valley?

Had he heard of them? He had heard of fifty.

He had not, indeed, heard of much else. How could

he help hearing of them?

Could the consul, then, recommend one or two valleys

which might be for sale? Or was it, perhaps, impossible

to buy a foothold in such an Eden?

For sale! There was nothing in the country, so far

as the friend knew to whom the consul presented them,

which was not for sale. Anywhere in Queretaro; or why

should they not go to the Baxio? No; that was too flat

and too far off. There were pretty places round Xalapa.

Oh, plenty of plantations for sale. But they need not go

so far. Anywhere on the rise of Chiquihiti.

Was the friend quite sure that there were no plumbers

in the regions he named?

"Never a plumber in Mexico."

Any life-insurance men?

"Not one." The prudent friend did not add, "Risk too high."

Were the public schools graded schools or district schools?

"Not a public school in six provinces."

Would the neighbors be offended if we do not call?

"Cut your throats if you did."

Did the friend think there would be many tramps?

The friend seemed more doubtful here, but suggested

that the occasional use of a six-shooter reduced the

number, and gave a certain reputation to the premises

where it was employed which diminished much tramping

afterward, and said that the law did not object to this

method.

They returned to a dinner of fish, for which Vera

Cruz is celebrated. "If what the man says be true," said

Ingham, "we must be very near heaven."

It was now in November. Oh, the glory of that ride,

as they left Vera Cruz and through a wilderness of color

jogged slowly on to their new paradise!

"Through Eden four glad couples took their way."

Higher and higher. This wonder and that. Not a blade

of grass such as they ever saw before, not a chirping

cricket such as they ever heard before; a hundred

bright-winged birds, and not one that they had ever

seen before. Higher and higher. Trees, skies, clouds,

flowers, beasts, birds, insects, all new and all

lovely.

The final purchase was of one small plantation, with

a house large enough for a little army, yet without a

stair. Oranges, lemons, pomegranates, mangoes, bananas,

pine-apples, coffee, sugar--what did not ripen in those

perennial gardens? Half a mile above there were two

smaller houses belonging to the same estate; half a mile

above, another was purchased easily. This was too cold

to stay in in November, but in June and July and August

the temperature would be sixty-six, without change.

They sent back the mules. A telegram from Vera Cruz

brought from Boston, in fifteen days, the best books

in the world, the best piano in the world, a few boxes of

colors for the artists, a few reams of paper, and a few

dozen of pencils for the men. And then began four months

of blessed life. Never a gas-bill nor a water-leak,

never a crack in the furnace nor a man to put in coal,

never a request to speak for the benefit of the Fenians,

never the necessity of attending at a primary meeting.

The ladies found in their walks these gentle Mexican

children, simple, happy, civil, and with the strange idea

that the object for which life is given is that men may

live. They came home with new wealth untold every day--

of ipomoea, convolvulus, passion-flowers, and orchids.

The gentlemen brought back every day a new species, even

a new genus,--a new illustration of evolution, or a new

mystery to be accounted for by the law of natural

selection. Night was all sleep; day was all life.

Digestion waited upon appetite; appetite waited upon

exercise; exercise waited upon study; study waited upon

conversation; conversation waited upon love. Could it be

that November was over? Can life run by so fast? Can it

be that Christmas has come? Can we let life go by so

fast? Is it possible that it is the end of January? We

cannot let life go so fast. Really, is this St.

Valentine's Day! When ever did life go so fast?

And with the 1st of March the mules were ordered, and

they moved to the next higher level. The men and women

walked. And there, on the grade of a new climate,

they began on a new botany, on new discoveries, and happy

life found new forms as they began again.

So sped April and so sped May. Life had its

battles,--oh yes, because it was life. But they were not

the pettiest of battles. They were not the battles of

prisoners shut up, to keep out the weather, in cells

fifteen feet square. They fought, if they fought, with

God's air in their veins, and God's warm sunshine around

them, and God's blue sky above them. So they did what

they could, as they wrote and read and drew and painted,

as they walked and ran and swam and rode and drove, as

they encouraged this peon boy and taught that peon girl,

smoothed this old woman's pillow and listened to that old

man's story, as they analyzed these wonderful flowers, as

they tasted these wonderful fruits, as they climbed these

wonderful mountains, or, at night, as they pointed the

telescope through this cloudless and stainless sky.

With all their might they lived. And they were so

many, and there were so many round them to whom their

coming was a new life, that they lived in love, and every

day drank in of the infinite elixir.

But June came. The mules are sent for again. Again

they walked a quarter of a mile. And here in the little

whitewashed cottage, with only a selection from the books

below, with two guitars and a flute in place of the

piano,--here they made ready for three weeks of June.

Only three weeks; for on the 29th was the

Commencement at Antioch, and Jane and Walter and Florence

were to take their degrees. There would need five days

from Vera Cruz to reach them. And so this summer was to

be spent in the North with them, before October should

bring all the children and the parents to the land of the

open sky. Three busy weeks between the 1st and the 22d,

in which all the pictures must be finished, Ingham's

novel must be revised, Haliburton's articles completed,

the new invention for measuring power must be gauged and

tested, the dried flowers must be mounted and packed, the

preserved fruits must be divided for the Northern

friends. Three happy weeks of life eventful, but life

without crowding, and, above all, without interruption.

"Think of it," cried Felix, as they took their last walk

among the lava crags, the door-bell has not rung all this

last winter.'"

"`This happy old king

On his gate he did swing,

Because there was never a door-bell to ring.'"

This was Julia's impromptu reply.

CHAPTER IV

HOME AGAIN

So came one more journey. Why can we not go and come

without this musty steamer, these odious smells, this

food for dogs, and this surge--ah, how remorseless!--of

the cruel sea?

But even this will end. Once more the Stars and

Stripes! A land of furnaces and of waterpipes, a land of

beggars and of caucuses, a land of gas-meters and of

liars, a land of pasteboard and of cards, a land of

etiquettes and of bad spelling, but still their country!

A land of telegraphs, which told in an instant, as they

landed on the levee, that all the twenty-nine were well,

and begged them to be at the college on Tuesday evening,

so as to see "Much Ado about Nothing." For at Antioch

they act a play the night before Commencement. A land of

Pullman's palace-cars. And lo! they secured sections 5

and 6, 7 and 8, in the "Mayflower." Just time to kiss

the baby of one friend, and to give a basket of guavas to

another, and then whir for Cincinnati and Xenia and

Yellow Springs!

How beautiful were the live-oaks and the magnolias!

How fresh the green of the cotton! How black the faces

of the little negroes, and how beyond dispute the perfume

of the baked peanuts at the stations where sometimes they

had to stop for wood and water! Even the heavy pile of

smoke above Cincinnati was golden with the hopes of a

new-born day as they rushed up to the Ohio River, and as

they crossed it. And then, the land of happy homes! It

was Kapnist who said to me that the most favored places

in the world were the larger villages in Ohio. He had

gone everywhere, too. Xenia, and a perfect breakfast at

the station, then the towers of Antioch, then the

twenty-nine children waving their handkerchiefs as

the train rushes in!

How much there was to tell, to show, to ask for, and

to see! How much pleasure they gave with their

cochineal, their mangoes, their bananas, their hat-bands

for the boys, and their fans for the girls! Yes; and how

much more they took from nutbrown faces, from smiles

beaming from ear to ear, from the boy so tall that he

looked down upon his father, from the girl so womanly

that you asked if her mother were not masquerading. "You

rascal Ozro, you do not pretend that those trousers were

made for you? Why, my boy, you disgrace the family." "I

hope not, papa; I had ninety-eight in the botany

examination, passed with honors in Greek, and we beat the

Buckeye Club to nothing in the return match yesterday."

"You did, you little beggar?" the proud papa replied.

"You ran all the better, I suppose, because you had

nothing to trip you." And so on, and so on. The

children did not live in paradise, perhaps, but this

seems very like the kingdom come!

And after commencements and the president's party, up

to the Yellow Springs platform came two unusual palaces,

specially engaged. And one was named the "Valparaiso,"

and the other, as it happened, the "Bethlehem." And they

took all the children, and by good luck Mrs. Tucker was

going also, and three or four of the college girls, and

they took them. So there were forty-two in all. And

they sped and sped, without change of cars, save as

Bethlehem visited Paradise and Paradise visited

Bethlehem, till they came to New Salem, which is the

station men buy tickets for when they would go to the

beach below Quonochontaug, where the eight and the

twenty-nine were to make their summer home before the

final emigration.

They do not live at Quonochontaug, but to that post-

office are their letters sent. They live in a hamlet of

their own, known to the neighbors as the Little Gau.

Four large houses, whitewashed without and within, with

deep piazzas all around, the roofs of which join the

roofs of the houses themselves, and run up on all sides

to one point above the centre. In each house a hall some

twenty feet by fifty, and in the hall,--what is not in

the hall?--maybe a piano, maybe a fish-rod, maybe a rifle

or a telescope, a volume of sermons or a volume of songs,

a spinning-wheel, or a guitar, or a battledore. You

might ask widely for what you needed, for study or for

play, and you would find it, though it were a deep divan

of Osiat or a chibouque from Stamboul--you would find it

in one of these simple whitewashed halls.

Little Gau is so near the sea-shore that every day

they go down to the beach to bathe, and the beach is so

near the Gulf Stream that the swim is--well, perfection.

Still, the first day the ladies would not swim. They had

the trunks to open, they said, and the closets to

arrange. And the four men and the fourteen boys went to

that bath of baths alone. And as Felix, the cynic

grumbler, ran races naked on the beach with his boy

and the boy beat him, even Felix was heard to say, "How

little man needs here below to be perfectly happy!"

And at the Little Gau they spent the months from the

Fourth of July to the 13th of October--two great days in

history--getting ready for Mexico. New sewing-machines

were bought, and the fall of the stream from the lake was

taught to run the treadles. No end of clothing was got

ready for a country which needs none; no end of memoranda

made for the last purchases; no end of lists of books

prepared, which they could read in that land of leisure.

And on the 14th of October, with a passing sigh, they

bade good-by to boats and dogs and cows and horses and

neighbors and beaches--almost to sun and moon, which had

smiled on so much happiness, and went back to Boston to

make the last bargains, to pay the last bills, and to say

the last good-byes.

After one day of bill-paying and house-advertising

and farewelling, they met at Ingham's to "tell their

times." And Julia told of her farewell call on dear Mrs.

Blake.

"The saint!" said she; "she does not see as well as

she did. But it was just lovely there. There was the

great bronze Japanese stork, which seemed so friendly,

and the great vases, and her flowers as fresh as ever,

and her books everywhere. She found something for Tom

and Maud to play with, just as she used to for Ben and

Horace. And we sat and talked of Mexico and Antioch and

everything. I asked her if her eyes troubled her,

and I was delighted because it seems they do not trouble

her at all. She told all about Swampscott and her

grandchildren. I asked her if the dust never troubled

them on Gladstone Street, but she says it does not at

all; and she told all about her son's family in Hong-

Kong. I asked her if the failure of Rupee & Lac annoyed

them, and she said not at all, and I was so glad, for I

had been so afraid for them; and then she told about how

much they were enjoying Macaulay. Then I asked her if

the new anvil factory on the other side of the street did

not trouble her, and she said not at all. And when I

said, `How can that be?' she said, `Why, Julia dear, we

do not let these things trouble us, don't you see. If I

were you, I would not let such things trouble me.'"

George Haliburton laid down his knife as Julia told

the story. "Do you remember Rabia at Mecca? Yes, they

all remembered Rabia at Mecca:--

"Oh heart, weak follower of the weak,

That thou shouldst traverse land and sea;

In this far place that God to seek

Who long ago had come to thee!"

"Why should we not stay here, and not let these

things trouble us?"

Why not, indeed?

And they stayed.

ONE CENT

A CHRISTMAS STORY

DOWN

Mr. Starr rose very early that day. The sun was not

up. Yet, certainly, it was too light to strike a match.

Ah, Mr. Starr, a match may be an economy!

So it was that when, as always, the keys jingled out

from his trousers pockets upon the floor, and the money

as well, one cent rolled under the bureau unseen by Mr.

Starr. He went down to his work now, after he had

gathered up the rest of the money and the keys, and

answered yesterday's letters.

Then, of course, he could loiter over his breakfast.

But not too long. Clara, his wife, was in good

spirits, and the boys were very jolly, but Mr. Starr, all

the same, did the duty next his hand. He "kissed her

good-by," and started down-town. Edgar stopped, him to

ask for fifty cents for his lunch; the postman wanted

fifteen for an underpaid parcel; Susan, the maid, asked

for ten for some extra milk; and then he kissed his hand

to the parlor window, and was off.

No! He was not off.

For Clara threw up the window and waved her lily

hand. Mr. Starr ran back to the door. She flung it

open.

"My dear John, here is your best coat. That coat you

have on has a frayed button. I saw it yesterday, and I

cannot bear to have you wear it at the Board."

"Dear Clara, what a saint you are!" One more kiss,

and Mr. Starr departed.

And loyally he did the duty next his hand. He

stopped and signed the sewerage petition; he looked in on

poor Colt and said a cheerful word to him; he bade

Woolley, the fruit man, send a barrel of Nonesuches to

old Mrs. Cowen; he was on time at the Board meeting, took

the chair, and they changed the constitution. He looked

in at the office and told Mr. Freemantle he should be

late, but that he would look at the letters when he came

back, and then, ho! for East Boston!

If only you knew, dear readers, that to East Boston

you must go by a ferry-boat, as if it were named

Greenbush, or Brooklyn, or Camden.

As Mr. Starr took the street car after he had crossed

the ferry, to go into the unknown parts of East Boston,

he did notice that he gave the conductor his last ticket.

But what of that? "End of the route" came, and he girded

his loins, trudged over to the pottery he was in search

of, found it at last, found the foreman and gave his

orders, and then, through mud unspeakable, waded

back to the street car. He was the only passenger.

No wonder! The only wonder was that there was a car.

"Ticket, sir," said the conductor, after half a mile.

MR. STARR (SMILING). I have no ticket, but you

may sell me a dollar's worth. (FEELS FOR POCKETBOOK.)

Hello! I have not my pocketbook; changed my coat.

CONDUCTOR (SAVAGELY). They generally has changed

their coats.

MR. STARR (WITH DIGNITY, OFFERING A FIVE-CENT

NICKEL). There's your fare, man.

CONDUCTOR. That won't do, mud-hopper. Fare's

six cents.

MR. STARR (WELL REMEMBERING THE CENT, WHICH IS,

ALAS UNDER THE BUREAU, AND GROVELLING FOR IT IN BOTH

POCKETS). I have a cent somewhere.

CONDUCTOR (STOPPING CAR AND RETURNING FIVE-CENT

PIECE). We've had enough of you tramps who change your

coats and cannot find your pennies. You step off--and

step off mighty quick.

Mr. Starr declines; when they come to Maverick Square

he will report the man to the superintendent, who knows

him well. Slight scuffle. Mr. Starr resists. Conductor

calls driver. Mr. Starr is ejected. Coat torn badly and

hat thrown into mud. Car departs.

TABLEAU.

SCENE II

UP

(MUDDY STREET IN EAST BOSTON. Mr. STARR, WIPING

HIS HAT WITH HIS HANDKERCHIEF, SOLUS.)

MR. STARR. If only Clara had not been so anxious

about the Board meeting! (EYES FIVE-CENT PIECE.)

Where can that penny be? (SEARCHES IN POCKETS, IS

SEARCHING WHEN--)

(ENTER R. H. U. E. SPAN OF WILD HORSES, SWIFTLY

DRAGGING A CARRYALL. IN THE CARRYALL TWO CHILDREN

SCREAMING. SPEED OF HORSES, 2.41.)

MR. STARR. Under the present circumstances life

is worthless, or nearly so. Let me bravely throw it

away!

(RUSHES UPON THE SPAN. CATCHES EACH HORSE BY THE BIT,

AND BY SHEER WEIGHT CONTROLS THEM. HORSES ON THEIR

METTLE; Mr. Starr ON HIS. ENTER, RUNNING, JOHN

CRADOCK.)

JOHN CRADOCK. Whoa, whoa! Ha! they stop. How

can I thank you, my man? You have saved my children's

lives.

MR. STARR (STILL HOLDING BITS). You had better

take the reins.

John Cradock mounts the seat, seizes reins, but is

eager to reward the poor, tattered wretch at their heads.

Passes reins to right hand, and with left feels for a

half eagle, which he throws, with grateful words, to Mr.

Starr. Mr. Starr leaves the plunging horses, and

they rush toward Prescott Street. (EXEUNT JOHN

CRADOCK, HORSES AND CHILDREN.)

Half amused, half ashamed, Mr. Starr picks up the

coin, which he also supposes to be half an eagle.

It proves to be a bright penny, just from the mint.

Mr. Starr lays it with delight upon the five-cent

nickel.

(ENTER A STREET CAR, L. H. L. E. Mr. STARR WAVES

HIS HAND WITH DIGNITY, AND ENTERS CAR. PAYS HIS FARE,

SIX CENTS, AS HE PASSES CONDUCTOR.)

In fifteen minutes they are at Maverick Square. Mr.

Starr stops the car at the office of Siemens & Bessemer,

and enters. Meets his friend Fothergill.

FOTHERGILL. Bless me, Starr, you are covered

with mud! Pottery, eh? Runaway horse, eh? No matter;

we are just in time to see Wendell off. William, take

Mr. Starr's hat to be pressed. Put on this light

overcoat, Starr. Here is my tweed cap. Now, jump in,

and we will go to the "Samaria" to bid Wendell good-by.

And indeed they both found Wendell. Mr. Starr bade

him good-by, and advised him a little about the man be

was to see in Dresden. He met Herr Birnebaum, and talked

with him a little about the chemistry of enamels. Oddly

enough, Fonseca was there, the attache, the same whom

Clara had taken to drive at Bethlehem. Mr. Starr talked

a little Spanish with him. Then they were all rung

onshore.

TABLEAU: DEPARTING STEAMER. CROWD WAVES

HANDKERCHIEFS.

SCENE III

CHRISTMAS--THE END

At Mr. Starr's Christmas dinner, beside their cousins

from Harvard College and their second cousins from

Wellesley College and their third cousins from Bradford

Academy, they had young Clifford, the head book-keeper.

As he came in, joining the party on their way home from

church, he showed Mr. Starr a large parcel.

"It's the `Alaska's' mail, and I thought you might

like to see it."

"Ah, well!" said Mr. Starr, "it is Christmas, and I

think the letters can wait, at least till after dinner."

And a jolly dinner it was. Turkey for those who

wished, and goose for those who chose goose. And when

the Washington pie and the Marlborough pudding came, the

squash, the mince, the cranberry-tart, and the blazing

plum-pudding, then the children were put through their

genealogical catechism.

"Will, who is your mother's father's mother's father?"

"Lucy Pico, sir!" and then great shouting. Then was

it that Mr. Starr told the story which the reader has

read in scene one,--of the perils which may come when a

man has not a penny. He did not speak hastily, nor cast

reproach on Clara for her care of the button. Over

that part of the story he threw a cautious veil. But to

boys and girls he pointed a terrible lesson of the value

of one penny.

"How dangerous, papa, to drop it into a box for the

heathen!"

But little Tom found this talk tiresome, and asked

leave to slip away, teasing Clifford as he went about

some postage-stamps Clifford had promised him.

"Go bring the parcel I left on the hall table, and

your papa will give you some Spanish stamps."

So the boy brought the mail.

"What in the world is this?" cried Mr. Starr, as he

cut open the great envelope; and more and more amazed he

was as he ran down the lines:--

"`Much Esteemed and Respected Senor, Don JOHN STARR,

Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece:

"`SENOR,--It is with true yet inexpressible

satisfaction that I write this private note, that I may

be the first of your friends in Madrid to say to you that

the order for your creation as a Knight Companion of the

much esteemed and truly venerable Order of the Golden

Fleece passed the seals of the Chancellerie yesterday.

His Majesty is pleased to say that your views on the

pacification of Porto Rico coincide precisely with his

own; that the hands of the government will be

strengthened as with the force of giants when he

communicates them to the very excellent and much

honored governor of the island, and that, as a mark of

his confidence, he has the pleasure of sending to you the

cordon of the order, and of asking your acceptance.'

"My dear Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, that is what came

to you when that Cradock man threw a cent into the mud

for me."

"But, papa, what are the other letters?"

"Oh, yes, what are they? Here is English; it's from

Wendell. H'm--h'm--h'm. Shortpassage. Worcestershire--

h'm--Wedgewood--h'm--Staffordshire--h'm. Why, Clara,

George, listen:

"`I suppose you will not be surprised when I say that

your suggestion made on the deck of the `Samaria,' as to

oxalate of strontium, was received with surprise by Herr

Fernow and Herr Klee. But such is the respect in which

suggestions from America are now held, that they ordered

a trial at once in the Royal kilns, the result of which

are memoranda A and B, enclosed. They are so much

delighted with these results that they have formed a

syndicate with the Winkels, of Potsdam, and the

Schonhoffs, of Berlin, to undertake the manufacture in

Germany; and I am instructed to ask you whether you will

accept a round sum, say 150,000 marks, for the German

patent, or join them, say as a partner, with twenty per

cent of stock in their adventure.'

"I think so," said Mr. Starr. "That is what the

bright penny comes to at compound interest. Let us try

Birnebaum's letter."

"`GOTTFRIEED BIRNEBAUM to JOHN STARR:

"`MY HONORED SIR,--I am at a loss to express to you

the satisfaction with which I write. The eminently

practical suggestions which you made to me so kindly and

freely, as we parted, have, indeed, also proved

themselves undoubtedly to be of even the first import.

It has to me been also, indeed, of the very first

pleasure to communicate them, as I said indeed, to the

first director in charge at the works at Sevres, as I

passed through Paris, and now yet again, with equal

precision also and readiness, to the Herr first fabricant

at Dresden. Your statement regarding the action of the

oxides of gold, in combination with the tungstate of

bdellium, has more than in practice verified itself. I

am requested by the authorities at Dresden to ask the

acceptance, by your accomplished and highly respected

lady, of a dinner-set of their recent manufacture, in

token small of their appreciation, renewed daily, of your

contribution so valuable to the resources of tint and

color in their rooms of design; and M. Foudroyant, of

Sevres, tells me also, by telegraph of to-day, that to

the same much esteemed and highly distinguished lady he

has shipped by the `San Laurent' a tea-service, made to

the order of the Empress of China, and delayed only by

the untoward state of hostilities, greatly to be

regretted, on the Annamite frontier.'"

Mr. Starr read this long-winded letter with

astonishment.

"Well, Dulcinea, you will be able to give a dinner-

party to the King of Spain when he comes to visit you at

Toboso.

"So much for Brother Cradock's penny."

"Dear John, till I die I will never be afraid to call

you back when your buttons are tattered."

"And for me," said little Jack, "I will go now and

look under the bureau for the lost cent, and will have it

for my own."

(ENTER SERVANTS, R. H. L. E., I WITH THE DRESDEN

CHINA.

THEY MEET OTHER SERVANTS, L. H. L. E., WITH THE

SEVRES CHINA.)

TABLEAU.

CURTAIN.

THANKSGIVING AT THE POLLS

A THANKSGIVING STORY

I

Frederick Dane was on his way towards what he called

his home. His home, alas, was but an indifferent attic

in one of the southern suburbs of Boston. He had been

walking; but he was now standing still, at the well-known

corner of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues.

As often happens, Frederick Dane had an opportunity

to wait at this corner a quarter of an hour. As he

looked around him on the silent houses, he could not but

observe the polling-booth, which a watchful city

government had placed in the street, a few days before,

in preparation for the election which was to take place

three weeks afterward. Dane is of an inquiring temper,

and seeing that the polling-booth had a door and the door

had a keyhole, he tried in the keyhole a steel key which

he had picked up in Dock Square the day before. Almost

to his surprise, the key governed the lock at once, and

he found himself able to walk in.

He left the door wide open, and the gaslight

streaming in revealed to him the aspect of the cells

arranged for Australian voting. The rails were all in

their places, and the election might take place the very

next day. It instantly occurred to Dane that he might

save the five cents which otherwise he would have given

to his masters of the street railway, and be the next

morning three miles nearer his work, if he spent the

night in the polling-cabin. He looked around for a

minute or two, and found some large rolls of street

posters, which had been left there by some disappointed

canvasser the year before, and which had accompanied one

cell of the cabin in its travels. Dane is a prompt man,

and, in a minute more, he had locked the door behind him,

had struck a wax taper which he had in his cigar-box, had

rolled the paper roll out on the floor, to serve as a

pillow. In five minutes more, covered with his heavy

coat, he lay on the floor, sleeping as soundly as he had

slept the year before, when he found himself on the lee

side of an iceberg under Peary's command.

This is perhaps unnecessary detail, by way of saying

that this is the beginning of the arrangement which a

city, not very intelligent, will make in the next century

for unsettled people, whose own houses are not agreeable

to them. There exist in Boston at this moment three or

four hundred of the polling-booths,--nice little houses,

enough better than most of the peasantry of most of

Europe ever lived in. They are, alas, generally packed

up in lavender and laid away for ten months of the

year. But in the twentieth century we shall send them

down to the shores of islands and other places where

people like to spend the summer, and we shall utilize

them, not for the few hours of an election only, but all

the year round. This will not then be called

"Nationalism," it will be called "Democracy;" and that is

a very good name when it is applied to a very good thing.

Dane was an old soldier and an old seaman. He was

not troubled by disagreeable dreams, and in the morning,

when the street-cars began to travel, he was awaked a

little after sunrise, by their clatter on the corner. He

felt well satisfied with the success of his experiment,

and began on a forecast, which the reader shall follow

for a few weeks, which he thought, and thought rightly,

would tend to his own convenience, possibly to that of

his friends.

Dane telegraphed down to the office that he should be

detained an hour that morning, went out to his home of

the day before at Ashmont, paid his landlady her scot,

brought in with him his little possessions in a valise to

the office, and did not appear at his new home until

after nightfall.

He was then able to establish himself on the basis

which proved convenient afterwards, and which it is worth

while to explain to a world which is not too well housed.

The city had provided three or four chairs there, a

stove, and two tables. Dane had little literature, but,

as he was in the literary line himself, he did not

care for this so much; men who write books are not

commonly eager to read books which are worse than their

own. At a nine-cent window of a neighboring tinman's he

was able to buy himself the few little necessities which

he wanted for housekeeping. And not to detain the reader

too long upon merely fleshly arrangements, in the course

of a couple of hours of Tuesday evening and Wednesday

evening, he had fitted up his convenient if not pretty

bower with all that man requires. It was easy to buy a

mince pie or a cream cake, or a bit of boiled ham or

roast chicken, according as payday was near or distant.

One is glad to have a tablecloth. But if one have a

large poster warning people, a year before, that they

should vote the Prohibition ticket, one's conscience is

not wounded if this poster, ink down, takes the place

which a tablecloth would have taken under other

circumstances. If there is not much crockery to use,

there is but little to wash. And, in short, as well

trained a man of the world as Dane had made himself

thoroughly comfortable in his new quarters before the

week was over.

II

At the beginning Frederick's views were purely

personal, or, as the preachers say, selfish. Here was

an empty house, three miles nearer his work than his

hired attic was, and he had taken possession. But

conscience always asserts itself, and it was not long

before he felt that he ought to extend the benefits of

this new discovery of his somewhat further. It really

was a satisfaction to what the pulpits call a "felt

want" when as he came through Massachusetts Avenue on

Thursday evening, he met a boy and a girl, neither of

them more than ten years old, crying on the sidewalk.

Dane is sympathetic and fond of children. He stopped

the little brats, and satisfied himself that neither

had had any supper. He could not understand a word of

the language in which they spoke, nor could they

understand him. But kindness needs little spoken

language; and accordingly Frederick led them along to

his cabin, and after waiting, as he always did, a

minute or two, to be sure that no one was in sight, he

unlocked the door, and brought in his little

companions.

It was clear enough that the children were such waifs

and strays that nothing surprised them, and they readily

accepted the modest hospitalities of the position. Like

all masculine housekeepers, Frederick had provided three

times as much food as he needed for his own physical

wants, so that it was not difficult to make these

children happy with the pieces of mince pie and lemon pie

and cream cake and eclairs which were left from his

unknown festivals of the day before. Poor little things,

they were both cold and tired, and, before half an hour

was over, they were snugly asleep on and under a pile of

Prohibition posters.

III

Fortunately for Frederick Dane, for the nine years

before he joined Peary, he had lived in the city of

Bagdad. He had there served as the English interpreter

for the Caliph of that city. The Caliph did most of

his business at night, and was in the habit of taking

Mr. Dane with him on his evening excursions. In this

way Mr. Dane had made the somewhat intimate

acquaintance of Mr. Jaffrey, the private secretary of

the Caliph; and he had indeed in his own employment for

some time, a wide-awake black man, of the name of

Mezrour, who, for his "other place," was engaged as a

servant in the Caliph's household. Dane was thus not

unfamiliar with the methods of unexpected evening

visits; and it was fortunate for him that he was so.

The little children whom he had picked up, explained to

him, by pantomime which would have made the fortune of

a ballet-girl, that they were much more comfortable in

their new home than they had been in any other, and

that they had no wish to leave it. But by various

temptations addressed to them, in the form of barley

horses and dogs, and sticks of barber's candy, Dane,

who was of a romantic and enterprising disposition,

persuaded them to take him to some of their former

haunts.

These were mostly at the North End of Boston,

and he soon found that he needed all his

recollections of Bagdad for the purpose of conducting any

conversation with any of the people they knew best. In

a way, however, with a little broken Arabic, a little

broken Hebrew, a great deal of broken China, and many

gesticulations, he made acquaintance with two of their

compatriots, who had, as it seemed, crossed the ocean

with them in the same steerage. That is to say, they

either had or had not; but for many months Mr. Dane was

unable to discover which. Such as they were, however,

they had been sleeping on the outside of the upper attic

of the house in Salutation Alley where these children had

lodged, or not lodged, as the case might be, during the

last few days. When Mr. Dane saw what were called their

lodgings, he did not wonder that they had accepted pot-

luck with him.

It is necessary to explain all this, that the reader

may understand why, on the first night after the arrival

of these two children, the population of the polling-

booth was enlarged by the presence of these two Hebrew

compatriots. And, without further mystery, it may be as

well to state that all four were from a village about

nine hundred and twenty-three miles north of Odessa, in

the southern part of Russia. They had emigrated in a

compulsory manner from that province, first on account of

the utter failure of anything to eat there; second, on

account of a prejudice which the natives of that country

had contracted against the Hebrew race.

The two North End friends of little Ezra and Sarah

readily accepted the invitation of the two children to

join in the College Settlement at the corner of the two

avenues. The rules of the institution proved attractive,

and before a second week was well advanced ten light

excelsior mattresses were regularly rolled up every

morning as the different inmates went to their duties;

while, as evening closed in, eight cheerful companions

told stories around the hospitable board.

IV

It is no part of this little tale to follow, with Mr.

Stevenson's magic, or with that of the Arabian Nights,

the fortunes from day to day of the little circle.

Enough that men of Hebrew race do not prove lazy

anywhere. Dane, certainly, gave them no bad example.

The children were at once entered in a neighboring

school, where they showed the quickness of their race.

They had the advantage, when the week closed and began,

that they could attend the Sabbath school provided for

them by the Hebrews on Saturday and the several Sunday-

schools of the Parker Memorial, the Berkeley Temple,

and the other churches of the neighborhood. The day

before the election, Frederick Dane asked Oleg and

Vladimir to help him in bringing up some short boards,

which they laid on the trusses in the roof above them.

On the little attic thus prepared, they stored

their mattresses and other personal effects before the

great election of that year began. They had no

intention of interfering, even by a cup of cold coffee,

with the great wave of righteous indignation which, on

that particular day of that particular year, "swept

away, as by a great cosmic tidal flood, the pretences

and ambitions, etc., etc., etc." These words are cited

from Frederick Dane's editorial of the next morning, and

were in fact used by him or by some of his friends,

without variations, in all the cosmic changes of the

elections of the next six years.

V

But so soon as this election was well over, the country

and the city settled down, with what Ransom used to

call "amazin'" readiness to the new order, such as it

was. Only the people who "take up the streets"

detached more men than ever to spoil the pavement. For

now a city election was approaching. And it might be

that the pavers and ditchers and shovellers and

curbstone men and asphalt makers should vote wrong.

Dane and his settlement were well aware that after this

election they would all have to move out from their

comfortable quarters. But, while they were in, they

determined to prepare for a fit Thanksgiving to God,

and the country which makes provision so generous for

those in need. It is not every country, indeed,

which provides four hundred empty houses, every autumn,

for the convenience of any unlodged night-editor with a

skeleton key, who comes along.

He explained to his companions that a great festival

was near. They heard this with joy. He explained that

no work would be done that day,--not in any cigar-shop or

sweating-room. This also pleased them. He then, at some

length, explained the necessity of the sacrifice of

turkeys on the occasion. He told briefly how Josselyn

and the fathers shot them as they passed through the sky.

But he explained that now we shoot them, as one makes

money, not directly but indirectly. We shoot our

turkeys, say, at shooting-galleries. All this proved

intelligible, and Frederick had no fear for turkeys.

As for Sarah and Ezra, he found that at Ezra's boys'

club and at Sarah's girls' club, and each of her Sabbath-

school classes and Sunday-school classes, and at each of

his, it had been explained that on the day before

Thanksgiving they must come with baskets to places named,

and carry home a Thanksgiving dinner.

These announcements were hailed with satisfaction by

all to whom Dane addressed them. Everything in the

country was as strange to them as it would have been to

an old friend of mine, an inhabitant of the planet Mars.

And they accepted the custom of this holiday among the

rest. Oddly enough, it proved that one or two of them

were first-rate shots, and, by attendance at

different shooting-galleries, they brought in more than

a turkey apiece, as Governor Bradford's men did in 1621.

Many of them were at work in large factories, where it

was the custom of the house to give a roasted turkey and

a pan of cranberry sauce to each person who had been on

the pay-list for three months. One or two of them were

errand men in the market, and it was the practice of the

wholesale dealers there, who at this season become to a

certain extent retailers, to encourage these errand men

by presenting to each of them a turkey, which was

promised in advance. As for Dane himself, the

proprietors of his journal always presented a turkey to

each man on their staff. And in looking forward to his

Thanksgiving at the polls, he had expected to provide a

twenty-two pound gobbler which a friend in Vermont was

keeping for him. It may readily be imagined, then, that,

when the day before Thanksgiving came, he was more

oppressed by an embarrassment of riches than by any

difficulty on the debtor side of his account. He had

twelve people to feed, himself included. There were the

two children, their eight friends, and a young Frenchman

from Paris who, like all persons of that nationality who

are six months in this country, had found many enemies

here. Dane had invited him to dinner. He had arranged

that there should be plates or saucers enough for each

person to have two. And now there was to be a chicken-

pie from Obed Shalom, some mince pies and

Marlborough pies from the Union for Christian Work, a

turkey at each end of the board; and he found he should

have left over, after the largest computation for the

appetites of the visitors, twenty-three pies of different

structure, five dishes of cranberry sauce, three or four

boxes of raisins, two or three drums of figs, two roasted

geese and eleven turkeys. He counted all the turkeys as

roasted, because he had the promise of the keeper of the

Montgomery House that he would roast for him all the

birds that were brought in to him before nine o'clock on

Thanksgiving morning.

VI

Having stated all this on a list carefully written,

first in the English language and second in the

language of the Hebrews, Frederick called his fellow-

lodgers together earlier than usual on the evening

before Thanksgiving Day. He explained to them, in the

patois which they used together, that it would be

indecent for them to carry this supply of food farther

than next Monday for their own purposes. He told them

that the occasion was one of exuberant thanksgiving to

the God of heaven. He showed them that they all had

great reason for thanksgiving. And, in short, he made

three heads of a discourse which might have been

expanded by the most eloquent preacher in Boston

the next day, and would have well covered the twenty-

five minutes which the regulation would have required

for a sermon. He then said that, as they had been

favored with much more than they could use for their own

appetites, they must look up those who were not so well

off as themselves.

He was well pleased by finding that he was

understood, and what he said was received with applause

in the various forms in which Southern Russia applauds on

such occasions. As for the two children, their eyes were

wide open, and their mouths, and they looked their

wonder.

Frederick then proposed that two of their number

should volunteer to open a rival establishment at the

polling-booth at the corner of Gates Street and Burgoyne

Street, and that the company should on the next day

invite guests enough to make another table of twelve. He

proposed that the same course should be taken at the

corner of Shapleigh and Bowditch Streets, and yet again

at the booth which is at the corner of Curtis Avenue and

Quincy Street. And he said that, as time would press

upon them, they had better arrange to carry a part at

least of the stores to these places that evening. To

this there was a general assent. The company sat down to

a hasty tea, administered much as the Israelites took

their last meal in Egypt; for every man had on his long

frieze coat and his heavy boots, and they were eager for

the active work of Thanksgiving. For each the

stewards packed two turkeys in a basket, filled in

as far as they could with other stores, and Frederick

headed his procession.

It was then that he was to learn, for the first time,

that he was not the only person in Boston.

It was then that he found out that the revelation

made to one man is frequently made to many.

He found out that he was as wise as the next fellow,

but was no wiser; was as good as the next fellow, but was

no better; and that, in short, he had no special patent

upon his own undertaking,

The little procession soon arrived at the corner of

Shapleigh and Bowditch Streets. Whoever had made the

locks on the doors of the houses had been content to use

the same pattern for all. It proved, therefore, that the

key of No. 237 answered for No. 238, and it was not

necessary to open the door with the "Jimmy" which Simeon

had under his ulster.

But on the other hand, to Frederick's amazement, as

he threw the door open, he found a lighted room and a

long table around which sat twelve men, guised or

disguised in much the same way as those whom he had

brought with him. A few moments showed that another

leader of the people had discovered this vacant home a

few weeks before, and had established there another

settlement of the un-homed. As it proved, this gentleman

was a Mashpee Indian. He was, in fact, the member of the

House of Representatives from the town of Mashpee for the

next winter. Arriving in Boston to look for

lodgings, he, not unnaturally, met with a Mohawk, two

Dacotahs, and a Cherokee, who, for various errands, had

come north and east. A similarity of color, not to say

of racial relations, had established a warm friendship

among the five, and they had brought together gradually

twelve gentlemen of copper color, who had been residing

in this polling-booth since the second day after the

general election. Their fortune had not been unlike that

of Frederick and his friends, and at this moment they

were discussing the methods by which they might

distribute several brace of ducks which had been sent up

from Mashpee, a haunch of venison which had come down

from above Machias, and some wild turkeys which had

arrived by express from the St. Regis Indians of Northern

New York. At the moment of the arrival of our friends,

they were sending out two of their number to find how

they might best distribute thus their extra provender.

These two gladly joined in the little procession, and

all went together to the corner of Quincy Street and

Curtis Avenue. There a similar revelation was made, only

there was some difficulty at first in any real mutual

understanding. For here they met a dozen, more or less,

of French Canadians. These gentlemen had left their

wives and their children in the province of Quebec, and,

finding themselves in Boston, had taken possession of the

polling-booth, where they were living much more

comfortably than they would have lived at home.

They too had been well provided for Thanksgiving, both by

their friends at home and by their employers, and had

been questioning as to the distribution which they could

make of their supplies. Reinforced by four of their

number, the delegation in search of hungry people was

increased to fourteen in number, and with a certain

curiosity, it must be confessed, they went together to

try their respective keys on No. 311.

Opening this without so much as knocking at the door

to know if here they might not provide the "annex" or

"tender" which they wished to establish, they found, it

must be confessed without any amazement or amusement, a

company of Italians under the charge of one Antonio Fero,

who had also worked out the problem of cheap lodgings,

and had established themselves for some weeks here.

These men also had been touched, either by some priest's

voice or other divine word, with a sense of the duties of

the occasion, and were just looking round to know where

they might spread their second table. Five of them

joined the fourteen, and the whole company, after a rapid

conversation, agreed that they would try No. 277 on the

other side of the Avenue. And here their fortunes

changed.

For here it proved that the "cops" on that beat,

finding nights growing somewhat cold, and that there was

no provision made by the police commissioners for a club-

room for gentlemen of their profession, had themselves

arranged in the polling-booth a convenient place for

the reading of the evening newspapers and for conference

on their mutual affairs. These "cops" were unmarried

men, and did not much know where was the home in which

the governor requested them to spend their Thanksgiving.

They had therefore determined to spread their own table

in their club-room, and this evening had been making

preparations for a picnic feast there at midnight on

Thanksgiving Day, when they should be relieved from their

more pressing duties. They also had found the liberality

of each member of the force had brought in more than

would be requisite, and were considering the same subject

which had oppressed the consciences of the leaders of the

other bands.

No one ever knew who made the great suggestion, but

it is probable that it was one of these officials, well

acquainted with the charter of the city of Boston and

with its constitution and by-laws, who offered the

proposal which was adopted. In the jealousy of the

fierce democracy of Boston in the year 1820, when the

present city charter was made, it reserved for itself

permission to open Faneuil Hall at any time for a public

meeting. It proves now that whenever fifty citizens

unite to ask for the use of the hall for such a meeting,

it must be given to them. At the time of which we are

reading the mayor had to preside at every such meeting.

At the "Cops'" club it was highly determined that the

names of fifty citizens should at once be obtained,

and that the Cradle of Liberty should be secured for the

general Thanksgiving.

It was wisely resolved that no public notice should

be given of this in the journals. It was well known that

that many-eyed Argus called the press is very apt not to

interfere with that which is none of its business.

VII

And thus it happened that, when Thanksgiving Day came,

the worthy janitor of Faneuil Hall sent down his

assistant to open it, and that the assistant, who meant

to dine at home, found a good-natured friend from the

country who took the keys and lighted the gas in his

place. Before the sun had set, Frederick Dane and

Antonio Fero and Michael Chevalier and the Honorable

Mr. Walk-in-the-Water and Eben Kartschoff arrived with

an express-wagon driven by a stepson of P. Nolan.

There is no difficulty at Faneuil Hall in bringing out

a few trestles and as many boards as one wants for

tables, for Faneuil Hall is a place given to

hospitality. And so, before six o'clock, the hour

assigned for the extemporized dinner, the tables were

set with turkeys, with geese, with venison, with mallards

and plover, with quail and partridges, with cranberry and

squash, and with dishes of Russia and Italy and Greece

and Bohemia, such as have no names. The Greeks brought

fruits, the Indians brought venison, the Italians

brought red wine, the French brought walnuts and

chestnuts, and the good God sent a blessing. Almost

every man found up either a wife or a sweetheart or a

daughter or a niece to come with him, and the feast went

on to the small hours of Friday. The Mayor came down on

time, and being an accomplished man, addressed them in

English, in Latin, in Greek, in Hebrew, and in Tuscan.

And it is to be hoped that they understood him.

But no record has ever been made of the feast in any

account-book on this side the line. Yet there are those

who have seen it, or something like it, with the eye of

faith. And when, a hundred years hence, some antiquary

reads this story in a number of the "Omaha

Intelligencer," which has escaped the detrition of the

thirty-six thousand days and nights, he will say,--

"Why, this was the beginning of what we do now! Only

these people seem to have taken care of strangers only

one month in the twelve. Why did they not welcome all

strangers in like manner, until they had made them feel

at home? These people, once a year, seem to have fed the

hungry. Would it not have been simpler for them to

provide that no man should ever be hungry? These people

certainly thanked God to some purpose once a year; how

happy is the nation which has learned to thank Him always!"

THE SURVIVOR'S STORY

Fortunately we were with our wives.

It is in general an excellent custom, as I will

explain if opportunity is given.

First, you are thus sure of good company.

For four mortal hours we had ground along, and

stopped and waited and started again, in the drifts

between Westfield and Springfield. We had shrieked out

our woes by the voices of five engines. Brave men had

dug. Patient men had sat inside and waited for the

results of the digging. At last, in triumph, at eleven

and three quarters, as they say in "Cinderella," we

entered the Springfield station.

It was Christmas Eve!

Leaving the train to its devices, Blatchford and his

wife (her name was Sarah), and I with mine (her name was

Phebe), walked quickly with our little sacks out of the

station, ploughed and waded along the white street, not

to the Massasoit--no, but to the old Eagle and Star,

which was still standing, and was a favorite with us

youngsters. Good waffles, maple syrup ad lib., such

fixings of other sorts as we preferred, and some liberty.

The amount of liberty in absolutely first-class

hotels is but small. A drowsy boy waked, and turned up

the gas. Blatchford entered our names on the register,

and cried at once, "By George, Wolfgang is here, and

Dick! What luck!" for Dick and Wolfgang also travel with

their wives. The boy explained that they had come up the

river in the New Haven train, were only nine hours behind

time, had arrived at ten, and had just finished supper

and gone to bed. We ordered rare beefsteak, waffles,

dip-toast, omelettes with kidneys, and omelettes without;

we toasted our feet at the open fire in the parlor; we

ate the supper when it was ready; and we also went to

bed; rejoicing that we had home with us, having travelled

with our wives; and that we could keep our Merry

Christmas here. If only Wolfgang and Dick and their

wives would join us, all would be well. (Wolfgang's wife

was named Bertha, and Dick's was named Hosanna,--a name

I have never met with elsewhere.)

Bed followed; and I am a graceless dog that I do not

write a sonnet here on the unbroken slumber that

followed. Breakfast, by arrangement of us four, at nine.

At 9.30, to us enter Bertha, Dick, Hosanna, and Wolfgang,

to name them in alphabetical order. Four chairs had been

turned down for them. Four chops, four omelettes, and

four small oval dishes of fried potatoes had been

ordered, and now appeared. Immense shouting, immense

kissing among those who had that privilege, general

wondering, and great congratulating that our wives were

there. Solid resolution that we would advance no

farther. Here, and here only, in Springfield itself,

would we celebrate our Christmas Day.

It may be remarked in parenthesis that we had learned

already that no train had entered the town since eleven

and a quarter; and it was known by telegraph that none

was within thirty-four miles and a half of the spot, at

the moment the vow was made.

We waded and ploughed our way through the snow to

church. I think Mr. Rumfry, if that is the gentleman's

name who preached an admirable Christmas sermon in a

beautiful church there, will remember the platoon of four

men and four women who made perhaps a fifth of his

congregation in that storm,--a storm which shut off most

church-going. Home again: a jolly fire in the parlor,

dry stockings, and dry slippers. Turkeys, and all things

fitting for the dinner; and then a general assembly, not

in a caravansary, not in a coffee-room, but in the

regular guests' parlor of a New England second-class

hotel, where, as it was ordered, there were no

"transients" but ourselves that day; and whence all the

"boarders" had gone either to their own rooms or to other

homes.

For people who have their wives with them, it is not

difficult to provide entertainment on such an occasion.

"Bertha," said Wolfgang, "could you not entertain us

with one of your native dances?"

"Ho! slave," said Dick to Hosanna, "play upon the

virginals." And Hosanna played a lively Arab air on the

tavern piano, while the fair Bertha danced with a spirit

unusual. Was it indeed in memory of the Christmas of her

own dear home in Circassia?

All that, from "Bertha" to "Circassia," is not so.

We did not do this at all. That was all a slip of the

pen. What we did was this. John Blatchford pulled the

bell-cord till it broke (they always break in novels, and

sometimes they do in taverns). This bell-cord broke.

The sleepy boy came; and John said, "Caitiff, is there

never a barber in the house?" The frightened boy said

there was; and John bade him send him. In a minute the

barber appeared--black, as was expected--with a shining

face, and white teeth, and in shirt-sleeves, and broad

inquiry.

"Do you tell me, Caesar," said John, "that in your

country they do not wear their coats on Christmas Day?"

"Sartin, they do, sah, when they go outdoors."

"Do you tell me, Caesar," said Dick, "that they have

doors in your country?"

"Sartin, they do," said poor Caesar, flurried.

"Boy," said I, "the gentlemen are making fun of you.

They want to know if you ever keep Christmas in your

country without a dance."

"Never, sah," said poor Caesar.

"Do they dance without music?"

"No, sah; never."

"Go, then," I said, in my sternest accents,--"go

fetch a zithern, or a banjo, or a kit, or a hurdy-gurdy,

or a fiddle."

The black boy went, and returned with his violin.

And as the light grew gray, and crept into the darkness,

and as the darkness gathered more thick and more, he

played for us, and he played for us, tune after tune; and

we danced--first with precision, then in sport, then in

wild holiday frenzy. We began with waltzes--so great is

the convenience of travelling with your wives--where

should we have been, had we been all sole alone, four

men? Probably playing whist or euchre. And now we began

with waltzes, which passed into polkas, which subsided

into other round dances; and then in very exhaustion we

fell back in a grave quadrille. I danced with Hosanna;

Wolfgang and Sarah were our vis-a-vis. We went

through the same set that Noah and his three boys danced

in the ark with their four wives, and which has been

danced ever since, in every moment, on one or another

spot of the dry earth, going round it with the sun, like

the drum-beat of England--right and left, first two

forward, right hand across, pastorale--the whole

series of them; we did them with as much spirit as if it

had been on a flat on the side of Ararat, ground yet too

muddy for croquet. Then Blatchford called for

"Virginia Reel," and we raced and chased through that.

Poor Caesar began to get exhausted, but a little flip

from downstairs helped him amazingly. And after the flip

Dick cried, "Can you not dance `Money-Musk'?" And in one

wild frenzy of delight we danced "Money-Musk" and "Hull's

Victory" and "Dusty Miller" and "Youth's Companion," and

"Irish jigs" on the closet-door lifted off for the

occasion, till the men lay on the floor screaming with

the fun, and the women fell back on the sofas, fairly

faint with laughing.

All this last, since the sentence after "Circassia,"

is a mistake. There was not any bell, nor any barber,

and we did not dance at all. This was all a slip of my

memory.

What we really did was this:

John Blatchford said, "Let us all tell stories." It

was growing dark and he put more logs on the fire.

Bertha said,--

"Heap on more wood, the wind is chill;

But let it whistle as it will,

We'll keep our merry Christmas still."

She said that because it was in "Bertha's Visit,"--a

very stupid book, which she remembered.

Then Wolfgang told

THE PENNY-A-LINER'S STORY

[Wolfgang is a reporter, or was then, on the staff of

the "Star."]

When I was on the "Tribune" [he never was on the

"Tribune" an hour, unless he calls selling the "Tribune"

at Fort Plains being on the "Tribune." But I tell the

story as he told it. He said:] When I was on the

"Tribune," I was despatched to report Mr. Webster's great

reply to Hayne. This was in the days of stages. We had

to ride from Baltimore to Washington early in the morning

to get there in time. I found my boots were gone from my

room when the stage-man called me, and I reported that

speech in worsted slippers my wife had given me the week

before. As we came into Bladensburg, it grew light, and

I recognized my boots on the feet of my fellow-

passenger,--there was but one other man in the stage. I

turned to claim them, but stopped in a moment, for it was

Webster himself. How serene his face looked as he slept

there! He woke soon, passed the time of day, offered me

a part of a sandwich, for we were old friends,--I was

counsel against him in the Ogden case. Said Webster to

me, "Steele, I am bothered about this speech; I have a

paragraph in it which I cannot word up to my mind;" and

he repeated it to me. "How would this do?" said he.

"`Let us hope that the sense of unrestricted freedom may

be so intertwined with the desire to preserve a

connection of the several parts of the body politic, that

some arrangement, more or less lasting, may prove in a

measure satisfactory.' How would that do?"

I said I liked the idea, but the expression seemed

involved.

"And it is involved," said Webster; "but I can't

improve it."

"How would this do?" said I.

"`LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND

INSEPARABLE!'"

"Capital!" he said, "capital! write that down for

me." At that moment we arrived at the Capitol steps. I

wrote down the words for him, and from my notes he read

them, when that place in the speech came along.

All of us applauded the story.

Phebe then told

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS'S STORY

You remind me of the impression that very speech made

on me, as I heard Henry Chapin deliver it at an

exhibition at Leicester Academy. I resolved then that I

would free the slave, or perish in the attempt. But how?

I, a woman--disfranchised by the law? Ha! I saw!

I went to Arkansas. I opened a "Normal College, or

Academy for Teachers." We had balls every second

night, to make it popular. Immense numbers came. Half

the teachers of the Southern States were trained there.

I had admirable instructors in oil painting and music--

the most essential studies. The arithmetic I taught

myself. I taught it well. I achieved fame. I achieved

wealth; invested in Arkansas five per cents. Only one

secret device I persevered in. To all--old and young,

innocent girls and sturdy men--I so taught the

multiplication table that one fatal error was hidden in

its array of facts. The nine line is the difficult one.

I buried the error there. "Nine times six," I taught

them, "is fifty-six." The rhyme made it easy. The

gilded falsehood passed from lip to lip, from State to

State,--one little speck in a chain of golden verity. I

retired from teaching. Slowly I watched the growth of

the rebellion. At last the aloe blossom shot up--after

its hundred years of waiting. The Southern heart was

fired. I brooded over my revenge. I repaired to

Richmond. I opened a first-class boarding-house, where

all the Cabinet and most of the Senate came for their

meals; and I had eight permanents. Soon their brows

clouded. The first flush of victory passed away. Night

after night they sat over their calculations, which all

came wrong. I smiled--and was a villain! None of their

sums would prove. None of their estimates matched the

performance! Never a muster-roll that fitted as it

should do! And I--the despised boarding-mistress--I

alone knew why! Often and often, when Memminger has

said to me, with an oath, "Why this discordancy in our

totals?" have my lips burned to tell the secret! But no!

I hid it in my bosom. And when at last I saw a black

regiment march into Richmond, singing "John Brown," I

cried, for the first time in twenty years, "Six times

nine is fifty-four," and gloated in my sweet revenge.

Then was hushed the harp of Phebe, and Dick told his story.

THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY

Mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. It

is well-nigh thirty years since I was walking by the

Owego and Ithaca Railroad,--a crooked road, not then

adapted to high speed. Of a sudden I saw that a long

cross timber, on a trestle, high above a swamp, had

sprung up from its ties. I looked for a spike with which

to secure it. I found a stone with which to hammer the

spike. But at this moment a train approached, down hill.

I screamed. They heard! But the engine had no power to

stop the heavy train. With the presence of mind of a

poet, and the courage of a hero, I flung my own weight on

the fatal timber. I would hold it down, or perish. The

engine came. The elasticity of the pine timber whirled

me in the air! But I held on. The tender crossed.

Again I was flung in wild gyrations. But I held on.

"It is no bed of roses," I said; "but what act of

Parliament was there that I should be happy?" Three

passenger cars and ten freight cars, as was then the

vicious custom of that road, passed me. But I held on,

repeating to myself texts of Scripture to give me

courage. As the last car passed, I was whirled into the

air by the rebound of the rafter. "Heavens!" I said, "if

my orbit is a hyperbola, I shall never return to earth."

Hastily I estimated its ordinates, and calculated the

curve. What bliss! It was a parabola! After a flight

of a hundred and seventeen cubits, I landed, head down,

in a soft mud-hole!

In that train was the young U. S. Grant, on his way

to West Point for examination. But for me the armies of

the Republic would have had no leader.

I pressed my claim, when I asked to be appointed

Minister to England. Although no one else wished to go,

I alone was forgotten. Such is gratitude with republics!

He ceased. Then Sarah Blatchford told

THE WHEELER AND WILSON'S OPERATIVE'S STORY

My father had left the anchorage of Sorrento for a

short voyage, if voyage it may be called. Life was

young, and this world seemed heaven. The yacht bowled on

under tight-reefed staysails, and all was happy.

Suddenly the corsairs seized us; all were slain in my

defence; but I--this fatal gift of beauty bade them spare

my life!

Why linger on my tale? In the Zenana of the Shah of

Persia I found my home. "How escape his eye?" I said;

and, fortunately, I remembered that in my reticule I

carried one box of F. Kidder's indelible ink. Instantly

I applied the liquid in the large bottle to one cheek.

Soon as it was dry, I applied that in the small bottle,

and sat in the sun one hour. My head ached with the

sunlight, but what of that? I was a fright, and I knew

all would be well.

I was consigned, so soon as my hideous deficiencies

were known, to the sewing-room. Then how I sighed for my

machine! Alas! it was not there; but I constructed an

imitation from a cannon-wheel, a coffee-mill, and two

nut-crackers. And with this I made the underclothing for

the palace and the Zenana.

I also vowed revenge. Nor did I doubt one instant

how; for in my youth I had read Lucretia Borgia's

memoirs, and I had a certain rule for slowly slaying a

tyrant at a distance. I was in charge of the Shah's own

linen. Every week I set back the buttons on his shirt

collars by the width of one thread; or, by arts known to

me, I shrunk the binding of the collar by a like

proportion. Tighter and tighter with each week did the

vice close around his larynx. Week by week, at the

high religious festivals, I could see his face was

blacker and blacker. At length the hated tyrant died.

The leeches called it apoplexy. I did not undeceive

them. His guards sacked the palace. I bagged the

diamonds, fled with them to Trebizond, and sailed thence

in a caique to South Boston. No more! such memories

oppress me.

Her voice was hushed. I told my tale in turn.

THE CONDUCTOR'S STORY

I was poor. Let this be my excuse, or rather my

apology. I entered a Third Avenue car at Thirty-sixth

Street, and saw the conductor sleeping. Satan tempted

me, and I took from him his badge, 213. I see the hated

figures now. When he woke, he knew not he had lost it.

The car started, and he walked to the rear. With the

badge on my coat I collected eight fares within, stepped

forward, and sprang into the street. Poverty is my only

apology for the crime. I concealed myself in a cellar

where men were playing with props. Fear is my only

excuse. Lest they should suspect me, I joined their

game, and my forty cents were soon three dollars and

seventy. With these ill-gotten gains I visited the gold

exchange, then open evenings. My superior intelligence

enabled me to place well my modest means, and at

midnight I had a competence. Let me be a warning to all

young men. Since that night I have never gambled more.

I threw the hated badge into the river. I bought a

palace on Murray Hill, and led an upright and honorable

life. But since that night of terror the sound of the

horse-cars oppresses me. Always since, to go up town or

down, I order my own coupe, with George to drive me; and

never have I entered the cleanly, sweet, and airy

carriage provided for the public. I cannot; conscience

is too much for me. You see in me a monument of crime.

I said no more. A moment's pause, a few natural

tears, and a single sigh hushed the assembly; then

Bertha, with her siren voice, told

THE WIFE OF BIDDEFORD'S STORY

At the time you speak of I was the private governess

of two lovely boys, Julius and Pompey--Pompey the senior

of the two. The black-eyed darling! I see him now. I

also see, hanging to his neck, his blue-eyed brother, who

had given Pompey his black eye the day before. Pompey

was generous to a fault; Julius parsimonious beyond

virtue. I, therefore, instructed them in two different

rooms. To Pompey I read the story of "Waste not, want

not." To Julius, on the other hand, I spoke of the

All-love of his great Mother Nature, and her profuse

gifts to her children. Leaving him with grapes and

oranges, I stepped back to Pompey, and taught him how to

untie parcels so as to save the string. Leaving him

winding the string neatly, I went back to Julius, and

gave him ginger-cakes. The dear boys grew from year to

year. They outgrew their knickerbockers, and had

trousers. They outgrew their jackets, and became men;

and I felt that I had not lived in vain. I had conquered

nature. Pompey, the little spendthrift, was the honored

cashier of a savings-bank, till he ran away with the

capital. Julius, the miser, became the chief croupier at

the New Crockford's. One of those boys is now in Botany

Bay, and the other is in Sierra Leone!

"I thought you were going to say in a hotter place,"

said John Blatchford; and he told his story.

THE STOKER'S STORY

We were crossing the Atlantic in a Cunarder. I was

second stoker on the starboard watch. In that horrible

gale we spoke of before dinner, the coal was exhausted,

and I, as the best-dressed man, was sent up to the

captain to ask him what we should do. I found him

himself at the wheel. He almost cursed me, and bade me

say nothing of coal, at a moment when he must keep

her head to the wind with her full power, or we were

lost. He bade me slide my hand into his pocket, and take

out the key of the after freight-room, open that, and use

the contents for fuel. I returned hastily to the engine-

room, and we did as we were bid. The room contained

nothing but old account books, which made a hot and

effective fire.

On the third day the captain came down himself into

the engine-room, where I had never seen him before,

called me aside, and told me that by mistake he had given

me the wrong key; asking me if I had used it. I pointed

to him the empty room; not a leaf was left. He turned

pale with fright. As I saw his emotion, he confided to

me the truth. The books were the evidences or accounts

of the British national debt; of what is familiarly known

as the Consolidated Fund, or the "Consols." They had

been secretly sent to New York for the examination of

James Fiske, who had been asked to advance a few millions

on this security to the English Exchequer, and now all

evidence of indebtedness was gone!

The captain was about to leap into the sea. But I

dissuaded him. I told him to say nothing; I would keep

his secret; no man else knew it. The government would

never utter it. It was safe in our hands. He

reconsidered his purpose. We came safe to port and did--

nothing.

Only on the first quarter-day which followed, I

obtained leave of absence, and visited the Bank of

England, to see what happened. At the door was this

placard, "Applicants for dividends will file a written

application, with name and amount, at desk A, and proceed

in turn to the Paying Teller's Office." I saw their

ingenuity. They were making out new books, certain that

none would apply but those who were accustomed to. So

skilfully do men of government study human nature.

I stepped lightly to one of the public desks. I took

one of the blanks. I filled it out, "John Blatchford,

L1747 6s. 8d." and handed it in at the open trap. I

took my place in the queue in the teller's room. After

an agreeable hour, a pile, not thick, of Bank of England

notes was given to me; and since that day I have

quarterly drawn that amount from the maternal government

of that country. As I left the teller's room, I observed

the captain in the queue. He was the seventh man from

the window, and I have never seen him more.

We then asked Hosanna for her story.

THE N. E. HISTORICAL GENEALOGIST'S STORY

"My story," said she, "will take us far back into the

past. It will be necessary for me to dwell on some

incidents in the first settlement of this country, and I

propose that we first prepare and enjoy the Christmas

tree. After this, if your courage holds, you shall hear

an over-true tale." Pretty creature, how little she

knew what was before us!

As we had sat listening to the stories, we had been

preparing for the tree. Shopping being out of the

question, we were fain from our own stores to make up our

presents, while the women were arranging nuts, and blown

egg-shells, and popcorn strings from the stores of the

Eagle and Star. The popping of corn in two corn-poppers

had gone on through the whole of the story-telling. All

being so nearly ready, I called the drowsy boy again,

and, showing him a very large stick in the wood-box,

asked him to bring me a hatchet. To my great joy he

brought the axe of the establishment, and I bade him

farewell. How little did he think what was before him!

So soon as he had gone I went stealthily down the stairs,

and stepping out into the deep snow, in front of the

hotel, looked up into the lovely night. The storm had

ceased, and I could see far back into the heavens. In

the still evening my strokes might have been heard far

and wide, as I cut down one of the two pretty Norways

that shaded Mr. Pynchon's front walk, next the hotel. I

dragged it over the snow. Blatchford and Steele lowered

sheets to me from the large parlor window, which I

attached to the larger end of the tree. With infinite

difficulty they hauled it in. I joined them in the

parlor, and soon we had as stately a tree growing there

as was in any home of joy that night in the river

counties.

With swift fingers did our wives adorn it. I should

have said above, that we travelled with our wives, and

that I would recommend that custom to others. It was

impossible, under the circumstances, to maintain much

secrecy; but it had been agreed that all who wished to

turn their backs to the circle, in the preparation of

presents, might do so without offence to the others. As

the presents were wrapped, one by one, in paper of

different colors, they were marked with the names of

giver and receiver, and placed in a large clothes-basket.

At last all was done. I had wrapped up my knife, my

pencil-case, my lettercase, for Steele, Blatchford, and

Dick. To my wife I gave my gold watch-key, which

fortunately fits her watch; to Hosanna, a mere trifle, a

seal ring I wore; to Bertha, my gold chain; and to Sarah

Blatchford, the watch which generally hung from it. For

a few moments we retired to our rooms while the pretty

Hosanna arranged the forty-nine presents on the tree.

Then she clapped her hands, and we rushed in. What a

wondrous sight! What a shout of infantine laughter and

charming prattle! for in that happy moment were we not

all children again?

I see my story hurries to its close. Dick, who is

the tallest, mounted a step-ladder, and called us by name

to receive our presents. I had a nice gold watch-key

from Hosanna, a knife from Steele, a letter-case from

Phebe, and a pretty pencil-case from Bertha. Dick had

given me his watch-chain, which he knew I fancied;

Sarah Blatchford, a little toy of a Geneva watch she

wore; and her husband, a handsome seal ring,--a present

to him from the Czar, I believe; Phebe, that is my

wife,--for we were travelling with our wives,--had a

pencil-case from Steele, a pretty little letter-case from

Dick, a watch-key from me, and a French repeater from

Blatchford; Sarah Blatchford gave her the knife she

carried, with some bright verses, saying that it was not

to cut love; Bertha, a watch-chain; and Hosanna, a ring

of turquoise and amethysts. The other presents were

similar articles, and were received, as they were given,

with much tender feeling. But at this moment, as Dick

was on the top of the flight of steps, handing down a red

apple from the tree, a slight catastrophe occurred.

The first thing I was conscious of was the angry hiss

of steam. In a moment I perceived that the steam-boiler,

from which the tavern was warmed, had exploded. The

floor beneath us rose, and we were driven with it through

the ceiling and the rooms above,--through an opening in

the roof into the still night. Around us in the air were

flying all the other contents and occupants of the Star

and Eagle. How bitterly was I reminded of Dick's flight

from the railroad track of the Ithaca and Owego Railroad!

But I could not hope such an escape as his. Still my

flight was in a parabola; and, in a period not longer

than it has taken to describe it, I was thrown senseless,

at last, into a deep snow-bank near the United

States Arsenal.

Tender hands lifted me and assuaged me. Tender teams

carried me to the City Hospital. Tender eyes brooded

over me. Tender science cared for me. It proved

necessary, before I recovered, to amputate my two legs at

the hips. My right arm was wholly removed, by a delicate

and curious operation, from the socket. We saved the

stump of my left arm, which was amputated just below the

shoulder. I am still in the hospital to recruit my

strength. The doctor does not like to have me occupy my

mind at all; but he says there is no harm in my compiling

my memoirs, or writing magazine stories. My faithful

nurse has laid me on my breast on a pillow, has put a

camel's-hair pencil in my mouth, and, feeling almost

personally acquainted with John Carter, the artist, I

have written out for you, in his method, the story of my

last Christmas.

I am sorry to say that the others have never been found.