sgiving. 'Tis a day of perfect bliss to him, when he sleeps
long, and after his morning's work is done goes to skate in his best
clothes on a very glary pond where a crowd of other boys are skating. He
skates until he is tired and hungry, and comes home late, stopping on
the way to climb the fences of the orchards in search of frozen apples,
delicious food to his famished lips. When he reaches home the turkey
smells away out to the gate, and in the kitchen everything is all
cluttered up and "t'other end to," and dinner is nowhere near ready yet.
'Tis a joyous hour for the boy when it is ready, and for the hired man
too. The hired man's pleasure is somewhat damped by hearing the hired
girl remark that his mouth is like a barn-door with a load of hay in it.
"I declare for it if 'taint," says she. He informs her that she is
always "bellerin'" about something, and she requests him not to be so
"putchy;" nor does that end the matter. Guests like the Melvines of
Melvine Farm, the Bligh boys of Bligh's Corners, the Plunkett girls and
Deacon Buckingham's hired girl, and Yem Finny and Sam Bab's folks, are
the kind to invite to a party. They are the kind to keep up a rumble of
talk in the parlor, and in the other rooms a rush of games--Hide the
Handkerchief, Hunt the Slipper, and so on: Achilles's troops did not
play Whirl the Platter on the sands of Troy with a greater gusto.

Very hospitable people are not particular as to who comes to see them,
if only some one comes: therefore, pack-peddlers, stove-peddlers,
drovers, the old crazy man and the old crazy woman, and other wanderers,
are welcome at the hill farmhouse. These vagabonds come from all
directions--up the Red Mill road, down from Windy Row, over from the
Huddle and the Hollow, and across from Ranger's Field Centre, sometimes
meeting two or three together. The boy is glad to see them, particularly
the peddlers, they bring such an uproar of talk with them. The brown
Bohemian or Hungarian receives a bombardment of questions at the
farmhouse that breaks all bounds to his loquacity: he tells everything
he knows of foreign lands, as well as news of what is going on in ten
counties round. Two only of the vagrant tribe the boy dislikes, the
colporteur and the travelling Spiritualist--two cold, shabby, sniffling
beings, each wrapped in a shawl and each driving an old horse afflicted
with poll-evil. Whenever the boy goes to put up one of these men's
horses he wants to break his w