f down
there in the village. They made fun o' ye--didn't they, Bart?"

"I don't care about that," I assured them. "'The mind's the measure of
the man,'" I quoted, remembering the lines the Senator had repeated to
me.

"That's sound!" Uncle Peabody exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Aunt Deel took my hand in hers and surveyed it thoughtfully for a moment
without speaking.

"You ain't goin' to have to suffer that way no more," she said in a low
tone.

I rose and went to the parlor door.

"Ye mustn't go in there," she warned me.

Delightful suspicions came out of the warning and their smiles.

"We're goin' to be more comf'table--ayes," said Aunt Deel as I resumed
my chair. "Yer uncle thought we better go west, but I couldn't bear to
go off so fur an' leave mother an' father an' sister Susan an' all the
folks we loved layin' here in the ground alone--I want to lay down with
'em by an' by an' wait for the sound o' the trumpet--ayes!--mebbe it'll
be for thousands o' years--ayes!"

"You don't suppose their souls are a-sleepin' there--do ye?" my uncle
asked.

"That's what the Bible says," Aunt Deel answered.

"Wal the Bible--?" Uncle Peabody stopped. What was in his mind we may
only imagine.

To our astonishment the clock struck twelve.

"Hurrah! It's merry Christmas!" said Uncle Peabody as he jumped to his
feet and began to sing of the little Lord Jesus.

We joined him while he stood beating time with his right hand after the
fashion of a singing master.

"Off with yer boots, friend!" he exclaimed when the stanza was finished.
"We don't have to set up and watch like the shepherds."

We drew our boots on the chair round with hands clasped over the
knee--how familiar is the process, and yet I haven't seen it in more
than half a century! I lighted a candle and scampered up-stairs in my
stocking feet, Uncle Peabody following close and slapping my thigh as if
my pace were not fast enough for him. In the midst of our skylarking the
candle tumbled to the floor and I had to go back to the stove and
relight it.

How good it seemed to be back in the old room under the shingles! The
heat of the stove-pipe had warmed its hospitality.

"It's been kind o' lonesome here," said Uncle Peabody as he opened the
window. "I always let the wind come in to keep me company--it gits so
warm."

I lay down between flannel sheets on the old feather bed. What a stage
of dreams and slumbers it had been, for it was now serving the third