y applying a turkey-wing to
the purpose, as he knelt on the hearth, his spare, lean figure glowing
in the blaze of the firelight, and getting quite flushed with exertion.

"There, now!" he said, when he had brushed over and under and between
the fire-irons, and pursued the retreating ashes so far into the red,
fiery citadel, that his finger-ends were burning and tingling, "that
are's done now as well as Hepsy herself could 'a' done it. I allers
sweeps up the haarth: I think it's part o' the man's bisness when he
makes the fire. But Hepsy's so used to seein' me a-doin' on't, that she
don't see no kind o' merit in't. It's just as Parson Lothrop said in his
sermon,--folks allers overlook their common marcies"--

"But come, Sam, that story," said Harry and I coaxingly, pressing upon
him, and pulling him down into his seat in the corner.

"Lordy massy, these 'ere young uns!" said Sam. "There's never no
contentin' on 'em: ye tell 'em one story, and they jest swallows it as
a dog does a gob o' meat; and they're all ready for another. What do ye
want to hear now?"

Now, the fact was, that Sam's stories had been told us so often, that
they were all arranged and ticketed in our minds. We knew every word in
them, and could set him right if he varied a hair from the usual track;
and still the interest in them was unabated. Still we shivered, and
clung to his knee, at the mysterious parts, and felt gentle, cold chills
run down our spines at appropriate places. We were always in the most
receptive and sympathetic condition. To-night, in particular, was one
of those thundering stormy ones, when the winds appeared to be holding
a perfect mad carnival over my grandfather's house. They yelled and
squealed round the corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling
and roaring down chimney; they shook and tattled the buttery-door and
the sinkroom-door and the cellar-door and the chamber-door, with a
constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at every door were a
cold, discontented spirit, tired of the chill outside, and longing for
the warmth and comfort within.

"Wal, boys," said Sam confidentially, "what'll ye have?"

"Tell us 'Come down, come down!'" we both shouted with one voice. This
was, in our mind, an "A No. 1" among Sam's stories.

"Ye mus'n't be frightened now," said Sam paternally.

"Oh, no! we ar'n't frightened ever," said we both in one breath.

"Not when ye go down the cellar arler cider?" said Sam with sev