The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1870-12-22
VOLUME XVI.

! taken his little wife to an old friend for
many years; old friend very hastily and
improperly died just 6.fore Christmas; he
had nowhere to go to- Mr.. Brownjohn
had for years invited the two partners,
Crabb and Catchitt, to bis house, but they
had quarrelled and both had refused. Miss
Parkyns had saved herself up for Lady
Jollup's gathering; but Lady Jollup had a
gathering, Ill the shape of carbuncle that
could cot be worn in brooch, ON the back
of her right ear, and was a figure And
so all the little party were without an asy-
lum for Christmas, and most of them felt
very miserable about the fact, although
they all said that it was jolly.
= You shall all come to my party-ladies,
| invite you ALL
90, how NICE cried Miss Parkyns,
with gush of sentiment-she lcds senti-
mental. Where is it to be-"
I" In the school-room; it's finished now
beautifully-all varnish, open timber roof,
eighty feet by thirty; get i'll the forms for
/ rOut seats, and the desks that can be put at
any angle for card-tables, and we shall be
rs right as trivet."
The words of the Rev Hubert Jobson,
B.A., the Perpetual Curate of this dis
trict church, which he had created out of
a bad neighborhood and the Ecclesiastical
/ commissioners, were prOphetically true.
/ Everything went right us that domestic I'M
| plement spoken of by most people as the
very symbol of rectitude.
10 the party there came not only Miss
Brownjohn-a most beautiful girl she was,
blooming with health and good nature
but Benjamin Brownjohn, of Princess gate,
| Esq, one of the richest men out. Mrs.
Benjamin Brownjohn was there, too; for
the worthy couple would have done any
thing to please their daughter Katie And
wonderful to relate, there, tOO-surely by
an accident or trick, of which Septimus
! Symes, &C, was grievously suspected
there was found, scowling each at the
other, Corney Crabb and Carter Catchitt
| both esquires when out of business, one
residing at llavcrstock and the other at
Iulse hill, which each persisted in calling
tic hill, as If it belonged solely and exclu,
/ sively 10 hihe Catchitt had been to this
wild party with the strict understanding
that Cra6b had gone down to Brighton to
/ a bachelors jolly making, there 10 escape
/ the eternal Christmas children.
There seems to be more children about
at Christmas than at any other period of
the year, said Crabb; and did he not see
/ enough there
SeptmuS SymeS, a very studiOus man,
! who had written about Roman law, and
was supposed TO be editing Justinian'S In
St5tutes Tor the direct purpose of showing
that they We're based entirely on the law OF
! Moses, vas one of those men who, when
they &C; sc working at their eternal mental
grind, become transformed, as it were to
boys. lie was quite as young, mentally
as his daughter Maggie Symes land she and
her two friends, MIR. and Mrs. BOlderO-
two merry, blackeyed, red checked people,
/ who looked rather more like brother and
sister than husband and wife, and who adj
mired all the pretty children and pitied all
the SlcklY OncS-WeTe ;lS full of real enjoy
ment as they could he. AS for Mr. Job
son, he was ii his his own right, as host
and as clergyman, the chief OF the party.
Everybody expected him to be so, and be-
ing IN his own ground, he did not disap-
point them. Katie Brownjohn looked at
him with real admiration when she saw
that he made no difference between rich
and poor, and ordered about her august
father and the Objectionable Crabb and
Catchitt as if they had been footmen.
Tie party began at five. The rich guests
welcomed by Jobson in his high bred
way-for he was Enthusiastically a gentle
man-were delighted with his pretty new
school room, decorated with notices, holly
with red berries, and bright laurel leaves.
There were many religious notices, but
not one that was not appropriate, manly
and beautiful. In the centre of the end
wall, over the centre table and three long
tables stretched down the room, there
shOne the words, Peace on earth :" at the
sides were, :" BE of good cheer" " Try to
be good; and in acOnspicuous place there
biazed, ~ red and green letters, Mr.. job
sons own motto, DoN'T woRRIT YOUR
SELF" Half the evil among his poor peo-
pie, he said, arose, according to the lat.ieS
of the humble families he visited, from
worriting" themselves. And this vigor-
GUS man addressed himself only to one
thing, and threw old troubles off his mind
as duck throws water from her back.
- Pom my word, Mr. Jobson, your room
looks admirably set-out; / anticipate much
pleasure, I'm shaw" said Mr.. Brownjohn
IN patronlZing accents.
And much hard work before it is over"
said the Curate, squaring his shoulders,
and pointing to a motto, Work while it
! is day" underneath which was another,
and a comment, Nothing like hard work"
- Pom my word" said the merchant to
himself, didn't know there had been so
much good sense among the clergy: there
Is nothing like hard work"
Please, ladies and gentlemen, will you
draw up in line behind me Mr.. Symes,
you are sergeant in the Inns of Court,
just put them in order"
Symes brought himself up stiff, saluted
the Captain, and drilled his little troop,
placing Crabb and Catchitt as pivot-men
at each end of the line Then Jobson
struck a bell, and the large door was open
ed, and in marched about sixty children,
of all ages, singing, Onward, Christian
Soldiers so prettily and sweetly and so
softly, till their parents and friends-at
least sixty mOre-came in: and then,
when they had been led by their monitors
up and down the room, and placed in due
order, the whole hundred and twenty
voices and the twenty or thirty guests took
up the chorus, and finished the HYMN in
fine style; Catchitt, who sang bass, throw
ing the whole power of his lungs into the
song and Crabb, who had a fine falsetto,
which he cultivated at the Tulse-hill Sofia
Union, creating quite sensation.
Then JObson, in the silence which en-
sued, took pin out of the band of his
cassock, and said, Children and brethren,
want to hear pin drop" And he did
hear it drop: and so did Crabb, and Cat
Chit, and Symes, &C, who was looking
down his line like drill sergeant, won
/ derfully amused with the scene.
After the silence, Jobson wished all his
/ guests merry Christmas, and explained
how it was-but this was "a pious fiction
that the ladies and gentlemen present had
provided the feast, and how they did so in
name of the holy Founder of a greater
( feast, and that he wanted to- show how or
derly "we" Che never once said "they,"
making himself entirely one of them)
could be; and then he knelt revercntly
down, and all followed his example, Ser
geant Symes' troop going down like one
man; and then the good Curate offered up
prayer, so true, SO full of feeling, and SC
beautiful, that more than one eye-and
Katie Brownjohn's two eyes in particular
filled with tears. Then, after deer