neighbor.  “Mr. Wilkinson,” said he, “it is bad enough that you and I should quarrel in law, but let us be friends in the gospel.  As I looked at your little boy, and held him up in my arms, and found out whose son he was, I felt ashamed that I had ever quarreled with his father.  Here is my hand, if you think fit to take it.”  “With all my heart,” said Wilkinson.  “I fear I was more to blame than you.  But we can’t help the past; let us make amends for the future.  I hope we shall have many a merry Christmas together in this world and the next.  Perhaps Uncle Nathan can settle our land-quarrel better than any jury in Worcester county.”

Mr. Smith, the Know-nothing representative, was struck with the bright face of one of the little girls who wore a school-medal, and asked her name.  “Bridget O’Brien, your honor,” was the answer.  “Well, well,” said he, “I guess Uncle Nathan is half right; ‘it’s all prejudice.’  I don’t like the Irish, politically.  But after all, the Pope will have to make a pretty long arm to reach round Aunt Kindly, and clear through the Union School-house and spoil Miss Bridget,—­a pretty long arm to do all that.”

So it went on all round the room.  “That is what I call the Christian Sacrament,” said Deacon Jackson to Captain Weldon.  “Ah, yes,” replied the blacksmith; “it is a feast of love.  Look there; Colonel Stearns and John Wilkinson have not spoken for years.  Now it is all made up.  Both have forgotten that little strip of Beaver-gray meadow, which has cost them so much money and hard words and in itself is not worth the lawyer’s fees.”

How the children played! how they all did dance!  And of the whole sportive company not one footed the measure so neat as little Hattie Tidy, the black man’s daughter.  “What a shame to enslave a race of such persons,” said Mr. Stovepipe.  “Yet I went in for the Fugitive Slave Bill, and was one of Marshal Tukey’s ’fifteen hundred gentlemen of property and standing.’  My God forgive me!” “Amen,” said Mr. Broadside, a great, stout, robust farmer; “I stood by till the Nebraska Bill put slavery into Kansas, then I went right square over to the anti-slavery side.  I shall stick there forever.  Dr Lord may try and excuse slavery just as much as he likes.  I know what all that means.  He don’t catch old birds with chaff.”

Uncle Nathan went about the room talking with the men and women; they all knew him, and felt well acquainted with such a good-natured face; while Aunt Kindly, with the nicer tact of a good woman, introduced the right persons to each other, and so promoted happiness among those too awkward to obtain it alone or unhelped.  Besides this, she took special care of the boys and girls from the poor-house.