d of the log
to the other and then died out, while the smoke from the kindling wood
rose in the huge chimney.

"There's never a New-year's eve that I don't think o' that
watch-meetin'," Aunt Jane continued, "and I set here and laugh to
myself over the times we used to have in the old Goshen church. Jest
hand me my knittin', child, and I'll tell you about that meetin'. It's
jest as easy to talk as it is to think."

The room was lighted only by the faint glow from the fireplace, but
Aunt Jane needed no lamp or candle to guide her through the maze of
stitches in the heel of the gray stocking. I sat with folded hands and
wondered at the deft fingers that wove the yarn into the web of the
stocking, and at the deft brain that, from the thread of old memories,
could weave the web of a story in which was caught and held the
spirit of an older day.

"The night o' that watch-meetin'," began Aunt Jane, "was jest such a
night as this, cold and clear and still; and if you're wrapped up well
and have a good warm quilt over your knees, why, it's nothin' but a
pleasure to ride a mile or so to the church. A watch-meetin' is
different from any other church-meetin'. It generally comes on a
week-day, it ain't preachin' and it ain't prayer-meetin', and you
don't have to remember to keep the day holy; so you can laugh and talk
goin' and comin' and before the meetin' begins. Next to a May-meetin'
a watch-meetin's about the pleasantest sort of a church-meetin' there
is.

"Now, as you didn't know what a watch-meetin' is, it ain't likely you
know what a May-meetin' is, either. There, now! I knew you wouldn't.
Well, child, that all comes o' livin' in town. Town's a fine place to
go to once in a while, but there's a heap o' disadvantages about
livin' there all the time. A May-meetin' is the first Sunday in May,
when we all take big baskets o' dinner to the church and eat outdoors
under the trees after preachin's over. And now let me git back to my
story or, the first thing you know, I'll be tellin' about a
May-meetin' instead of a watch-meetin'. But I thought I'd better
explain it to you right now, honey, so's you won't be mortified this
way again. There's some things everybody's expected to know, and this
is one of 'em.

"I ricollect jest how the old church looked the night o' that
watch-meetin'. It was soon after we'd got the new organ, and the shine
hadn't wore off the new cyarpet yet, and the lamps was burning bright
on the stands each