Milford chronicle., 1883-12-21

/
Drawing one of these pieces aside, the
boy bade his companion enter, adding /:
''Sit down, Sis, till 1 git the fire
a-going you're company, you know"
Obeying orders, Sis seated herself on
an upturned butter-tub and gazed in
quiringly around. The packing case
within which she sat stood lengthwise,
hole in its side being concealed by a
curtain of sail cloth, the other side wall
and part of front were composed of
pieces of tarpaulin, propped up by old
broom handles and one bent iron staple.
At the rear stood high brick wall.
Adjoining the packing cases sides were
a part of a circus poster, a Sunday
school card and colored ithograph.
By the time Sis had finished her in
spections the fire, which consisted of
charred coal and odds and ends of wood,
was lit. 1t was built upon the ground,
under a convenient air-hole, so the
smoke was not so bad as it might have
been. Then Sis produced a bundle that
she had hugged carefully under her arm
during the long walk. Unrolling the |
old apron that was wrapped around it,
she disclosed to view a small battered |
coffee-pot. about an ounce of coffee and
tiny package of brown sugar, observ-
ing, with little womanly gesture:
'I knowed very well that a boy
wouldn't never think of that; so I begged
Mrs. Dixie to give me the coffee pot.
Isn't it nice, Joe and she was a goiog
to throw it away and got the coffee of
woman, as minds her baby some
times instead of the penny, and real
nice grocery man let me scrape out a
sugar barrel"
Here, all out of breath at such long
speech for her, Sis made the coffee and
sat it triumphantly upon the fire to boil,
Joe exclaiming:
"Well, I'm blessed we're a doing it
right up to the handle"
While sis hovered round the fire, for s
fear of an unruly coal upsetting the
cherished coffee-pot, Joe drew from ,
some hidden resource a lemon and two !
Jumps of sugar. After slicing the {
lemon he dropped it along with the
sugar into tomato can full of water t
and having stirred the beverage with his a
pen-knife gravely licked the blade to see h
if it was all right. Then, as he turned c
the butter-tub into table, covering it
with piece of sacking marked in large S
black letters, ''This Side Up" he re-
marked:
"There isn't another feller as I'd in Il
7ite to this air Christmas Eve shindy a
out you, Sis. There's lots on 'em as 'ud a.
oe glad to come; it isn't every day as
hey gifts such treat" Y
"Oh, Joe, it's jess lovely" answered
Sis, with an admiring glance at the spread fl
hat nearly resulted in the collapse of 81
he coffee-pot, which took a notion just N
hen to execute n dip. p
And Joe himself began to feel rather p,
proud of his treat when everything was
ct forth. There was an apple cut into J,
our quarters and arranged upon a
,roken bit of blue china plate, whilst cl
n orange sliced into as many pieces as tb
'ossible graced half of a wooden butter m
latter. The chief features, however, NJ
yere a very small plum cake and ditto a6
lince pie. The cake, placed upon the 70
pturned bottom of a red collar box, oc-
upied the middle of the table, tiny IN
merican flag stuck in its centre. The he
fanked by two oyster shells, M
as for want of space consigned to the nc
oor, while the candle fickered itself fa,
ito little gullies down the sides of the m,
niger beer bottle that did duty as a
andlestick, perhaps in it's anxiety for -.
le feast to begin. =.
Whether it should be pie or a cake do
nd been the important question, and an
ley had at last split the difference by III,
lvesting five of the ten cents in a cake 90,
nd the other five in pie.
1t had been large sum for Joe to hi,
bend in Injuries, not many tens finding a !
leir way to his pocket; in fact, it was +b,
is last cent, but he was perfectly salts sr,
ed with the result and I do not believe ga,
lere were two happier children in New COZ
Ork that night than they, when the
,fee had been drunk to the last drop vo,
Id pronounced "elegant" IAN old oyster
N serving for cup), and the great we
'ent of the evening the cake was to be she
IL. Zen