Mericans; and
we'll have no Disserlutions of the Union, and no Popish ceremonies like
a Christmas Tree. If you begin so, you'll have the Pope here next, and
the fulfilment of the seventeenth chapter of Revelations."

Hon. Jeduthan Stovepipe also opposed it. He was a rich hatter from
Boston, and a "great Democrat;" who, as he said, had lately "purchased
grounds in Soitgoes, intending to establish a family." He "would not
like to have Cinderella Jane and Edith Zuleima mix themselves up with
widow Wheeler's children,--whose father was killed on the railroad five
or six years before,--for their mother takes in washing. No, Sir," said
he; "it will not do. You have no daughters to marry, no sons to provide
for. It will do well enough for you to talk about 'equality,' about
'meeting the whole neighborhood,' and that sort of thing; but I intend
to establish a family; and I set my face against all promiscuous
assemblages of different classes of society. It is bad enough on
Sundays, when each man can sit buttoned up in his own pew; but a
festival for all sorts and conditions of children,--its is contrary
to the genius of our republican institutions." His wife thought quite
differently; but the poor thing did not dare say her soul was her own
in his presence. Aunt Kindly went off with rather a heavy heart,
remembering that Jeduthan was the son of a man sent to the State Prison
for horse stealing, and born in the almshouse at Bankton Four Corners,
and had been bound out as apprentice by the selectmen of the town.

At the next house, Miss Robinson liked it; but hoped she "would not ask
that family o'niggers,--that would make it so vulgar;" and she took a
large pinch of Scotch snuff, and waddled off to finish her ironing.
Mrs. Deacon Jackson--she was a second wife, with no children--hoped that
"Sally Bright would not be asked, because her father was in the State
Prison for passing counterfeit money; and the example would be bad, not
friendly to law and order." But as Aunt Kindly went out, she met the old
Deacon himself,--one of those dear, good, kind souls, who were born
to be deacons of the Christian religion, looking like one of the eight
beatitudes; and as you stopped to consider which of that holy family he
most resembled, you found he looked like all of them. "Well!" said he,
"now ma'am, I like that. That will be a _Christian_ Christmas,--not a
Heathen Christmas. Of course you'll ask all the children of 'respectable
people;' bu