# The practical joke, or, The Christmas story of Uncle Ned

* related portals: Children's literature.
* sister projects: Commons category, Wikidata item.
Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of old Santa Claus and sugar-plums—with bright visions of a cheerful fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and delightful anticipation—all wondering and guessing what they shall find in their stockings next morning; while the eldest sister, with looks of mystery and of importance, shares her ​mother's councils, and helps to distribute the precious stores. Soon they are in bed, anxious to sleep off the long hours, dreaming of rocking-horses and doll-babies, tea-sets, wooden soldiers, and all the other delights of the toy-shop.
I never heard of a lazy child on a Christmas morning. The idle and the industrious are all up, "bright and early." The well-filled stockings are eagerly inspected, good wishes and pretty or useful presents given and received, and various plans proposed for the day's amusement. Night comes too soon for the tireless lovers of fun, who go unwillingly to bed, consoling themselves that one week more will bring New-Year.
Kind little Girls relieving the Poor.
One Christmas night we were all gathered around a cheerful fire in the old-fashioned parlor. Father, mother, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, and cousins, were all there. The blazing pine knots sent a cheerful light into every nook and corner of the big room; the ponderous presses, and quaint old desk and bookcase, reflecting the warm glow from their polished surfaces.
The straight, high-backed, mahogany ​chairs had been sadly knocked about in a game of blind-man's-buff, and looked as much out of place as a prim old maiden aunt in a game of romps. Nutshells and apple-parings, kiss-papers and mottoes, strewed the broad hearth, and gave pretty good token of the evening's cheer. The clock had just struck ten, and we youngsters were warned that it was bedtime, when there arose a loud call for a story. A story from Uncle Ned! We might all sit up to hear a story, if Uncle Ned would tell one.
Portrait of Uncle Ned.
UNCLE NED'S STORY.
"Many years ago, when I was a slip of a lad like Tom there"—"Why, uncle," cried little Willy in amazement, "did you say you were no bigger than Tom? Were you ever as little as Tom, uncle?"—"Hush, Willy," said Tom, a well-grown boy of fourteen, "I 'm sure you need not make such a wonderment at that; I am not so very small, and I expect to be as big as Uncle Ned when I'm a man. How naughty of you to interrupt the story!"
Ned and his Companions at the Pond.
Ned rescuing Jack from drowning.
The Physician and Aunt Dorothy.
J.S. REDFIELD, PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER,
137 Nassau Street,
CORNER OF NASSAU AND BEEKMAN STS.,
NEW YORK, KEEPS ON HAND A GOOD SUPPLY OF
TOY BOOKS,
SCHOOL, MEDICAL, AND MISCELLANEOUS
BOOKS, AND STATIONERY.
Country Merchants supplied at the Lowest Price.
JUST PUBLISHED, REDFIELD'S TOY BOOKS,
FOUR SERIES of Twelve Books each,
BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED,
PRICE, ONE, TWO, FOUR, AND SIX CENTS.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse