Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-12-24
0aurtrster Qailp SPY.
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
nv MY rHroDoRE PARKER,

town of SoitgeeS in w forester county, Mass, |
Amt Kindly and Uncle Nathan were sitting
in their comfortable parlcr before bright
wood fire 1t was about eight o clock, a stormy
o;ght now it snowed a little, then it rained
then showed again, seeming as if the weather
was determined on some kind of a storm, put
had not vet made up its mind for snow, ram,
or hail Now the wind roared III the chimney,
and started out of her sleep a great tortoise
shel eat. that Law on the rug which Aunt
Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her
yellow eyes suddenly, and erected her s@etierS,
but finding it was only the wind and not a
mouse that made the noise, she stretched out
a great paw and yawned, and then cuddled her
head down so as to show her white throat, and
went to sleep again.
Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly were BROTH
er and sister He was a little more than sixty,
a fine, hale, earty-looking, handsome man as
YOU could find in summers day, with white
hair and thoughtful, benevolent face, adorn-
ed with a white beard as white as his venera-
BILE head. Aunt Kindly was five-and-torty or
Whereabouts; her face little sad when you
looked at it carelessly in its repose, but COM
monty it seemed cheerful, full of thought and
generosity, and thoughtful withal; for, as her
brother told her, Good administered TO you
the sacrament of beauty in your childhood
and you will walk all your life in the loneliness
thereof"
Uncle Nathan had been an India merchant
from his twenty fifth to about his tiftieth year,
and had now, for some years, been living with
his sister in his fine, large house,-rich and
well educated, devoting his life to study,
works of benevolence, to general reform and
progress 1t was he who had the first anti
slavery lecture delivered in the town, and ac
tually persuaded Mr. Homer, the old minister,
to let Mr. Garrison stand in the pllpit on a
Wednesday night and preach deverance unto
all the captives; but it could be done only
once, for the clergymen of the neighborhood
thought ant-slavery dissertation OF their new
wooden meeting-houses. 1t was he, too, who
asked Lucy Stone to lecture on women's
rights, but the communicates thought it would
not do to let woman speak in the church,
and so lie gave it up. All the country knew
and loved him, for he was natural oyerseer
of the poor, and guardian of the widow and
the orphan How many girl i'll the Normal
School every night put up prayer OF thanks
giving for him how many a bright boy in
Hanover and Cambridge was equally indebted
for the means of high culture, and If not so
thankful why, Uncle Nathan knew that graft
tude is too nice and delicate plant to grow on
common soil. Once when he was twenty two
or three he was engaged to young woman
of Boston, while he was clerk in commits
sion store But her father skipper from
Beverly or Cape Cod, who continued vulgar
while he became rich did not like the match.
''It won't do, said he, 'for poor Dung man
to marry into one of our fust. families what
is the use of aristocracy if no distinction is to
be made, and our daughters are to marry
Tom, Dick, and Harry?" But Amelia took
the matter sorely to heart; she kept her love,
yet fell into a consumption, and SO wasted
away; or, as one of the neighb0rs said, ''she
was executed on the scatfold of an upstart's
vulgarity." Nathan loved no woman in like
manner afterwards, but after her death went
to India and remained years long. When he
returned and established his business in Bos-
ton, he looked after her relations, who had
fallen into poverty Nay out of the mre of
infamy he picked up what might have been
his nephews and neces, and, by generous
breeding, wiped off from them the stain of
their illicit birth. He never spoke of poor
Amelia; but he kept little locket in one end
of his purse; none ever saw it but his sister,
who often observed him sitting with it in his
hand, and hour by hour looking into the fire
of a winters night, seeming to think on dis
tant things. She never spoke to him then, but
left him alone with his recollections and his
dreams. Some of the neighbors said he ''wor
shipped it !" Others called it "a tasman y
So indeed it was, and by its enchantmen. he
became young man once more, and walked
through the moonlight to meet an angel, and
with her enter their kingdom Of heaven. Tru-
ly twas a talisman; yet if you had looked at
it, you would have seen nothing in it but a lit
tie twist of golden hairs tied together with
blue silken thread.
Aunt Kindly had never been married yet
once in her life, also, the right man seemed to
offer, and the blossom Of love opened with a
dear prophetic fragrance in her heart But as
her father was soon after struck with palsy
Tor thpvD tct w a xyi iio
for her first duty must be to the feeble old man.
But the impatient swain went off and pinned
himself to the flightiest little humming-brd in
all Soitgoes, and in month was married, hav-
ing long life before him for bitterness and re-
pentance. After the father died, Kindly re-.
manned at home and when Nathan returned,
years after, they made one brotherly and Sis
terly household out OF what might else have
gladdened two connubial homes. "Not every
bud becomes flower"
Uncle Nathan sat there, his locket in his
hand, looking into the fire and as the wind
roared in the chimney, and the brands cracked
and snapped, he thought he saw faces In the
IRE; and when the sparks rose up in Il little
cloud, which the country children call ''the
people coming out of the Westinghouse, he
thought he saw faces in the fire; they seemed
to take the form of the boys and girls as he
had lately seen them rushing out of the Union
School-house, which held all the children in
the village; and as he recognized one after the
other, he began 10 wonder and conjecture
what would be the history of this or that par
ticuar child. While he sat thus in his waking
dream, he looked tixedly at the locket and the
blue thread which tied together those golden
rays OF summer sun, now all set and vanish
ed and gone, but which was once the morning
light Of all his promised days and as his eyes,
full OF waking dreams, fell on the fire again, a
handsome young woman seemed to come forth
from between the brands, and the locks of her
hair hoated out and turned into boys and girls,
of various ages, from babyhood to youth; all
looking somewhat like him and also like the
fair young woman. But the brand rolled over
and they all vanished in little puff of smoke
Aunt Kindly sat at the table reading the BIZ
BILE. don't know why she read the Gospels,
for she knew them all four by heart, and could
repeat them from end to end But Sunday
night, when none of the neighbors were there
and she and Nathan were all alone, she took
her mothers great square Bible and ROAD there
In. This night she had been reading in chap
ter XXI. of Proverbs, the character of noble
woman; and finishing the account, turned and
read the 18th verse second tlme,--
Her children rise up and call her blessed"
ldon't know why she read that verse, nor
what she thought of it; but she repeated it to
herself three or four times,--
Her children rise up and call her blessed"
AS she was taking up the venerable old vol.
ume to lay it away for the night, it opened by
accident at Luke xiv, and her eye fell on YER
ses H. 13,-
but when thou makest dinner or a sun
per, call not thy friends nor thy brethren, nei-
ther thy kinsnen nor thy rich neighbor, lest
they also call thee again, and recompense be
made thee. But when thou makest a feast,