Christmas!  An’ a boy!  An’ she doin’ well!

No wonder that ol’ turkey-gobbler sets up on them rafters blinkin’ at me so peaceful!  He knows he’s done passed a critical time o’ life.

You’ve done crossed another bridge safe-t, ol’ gobbly, an’ you can afford to blink—­an’ to set out in the clair moonlight, ‘stid o’ roostin’ back in the shadders, same ez you been doin’.

You was to ‘ve died by ax-ident las’ night, but the new visitor thet’s dropped in on us ain’t cut ‘is turkey teeth yet, an’ his mother—­

Lord, how that name sounds!  Mother!  I hardly know ’er by it, long ez I been tryin’ to fit it to ‘er—­an’ fearin’ to, too, less’n somethin’ might go wrong with either one.

I even been callin’ him “it” to myself all along, so ’feerd thet ef I set my min’ on either the “he” or the “she” the other one might take a notion to come—­an’ I didn’t want any disappointment mixed in with the arrival.

But now he’s come,—­an’ registered, ez they say at the polls,—­I know I sort o’ counted on the boy, some way.

Lordy! but he’s little!  Ef he hadn’t ‘a’ showed up so many of his functions spontaneous, I’d be oneasy less’n he mightn’t have ’em; but they’re there!  Bless goodness, they’re there!

An’ he snez prezac’ly, for all the world, like my po’ ol’ pap—­a reg’lar little cat sneeze, thess like all the Joneses.

Well, Mr. Turkey, befo’ I go back into the house, I’m a-goin’ to make you a solemn promise.

You go free till about this time next year, anyhow.  You an’ me’ll celebrate the birthday between ourselves with that contrac’.  You needn’t git oneasy Thanksgivin’, or picnic-time, or Easter, or no other time ‘twixt this an’ nex’ Christmas—­less’n, of co’se, you stray off an’ git stole.

An’ this here reprieve, I want you to understand, is a present from the junior member of this firm.

Lord! but I’m that tickled!  This here wood ain’t much needed in the house,—­the wood-boxes ’re all full,—­but I can’t devise no other excuse for vacatin’—­thess at this time.

S’pose I might gether up some eggs out ’n the nestes, but it’d look sort o’ flighty to go egg-huntin’ here at midnight—­an’ he not two hours ol’.

I dunno, either, come to think; she might need a new-laid egg—­sof b’iled.  Reckon I’ll take a couple in my hands—­an’ one or two sticks o’ wood—­an’ I’ll draw a bucket o’ water too—­an’ tote that in.

Goodness! but this back yard is bright ez day!  Goin’ to be a clair, cool night—­moon out, full an’ white.  Ef this ain’t the stillest stillness!

Thess sech a night, for all the world, I reckon, ez the first Christmas, when He come—­

  When shepherds watched their flocks by night,
    All seated on the ground,
  The angel o’ the Lord come down,
    An’ glory shone around—­

thess like the hymn says.