“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 generation of Bayneses!  The old popple tree had thrown off its tinkling cymbals and now the winter wind hissed and whistled in its stark branches.  Then the deep, sweet sleep of youth from which it is a joy and a regret to come back to the world again.  I wish that I could know it once more.

“Ye can’t look at yer stockin’ yit,” said Aunt Deel when I came down-stairs about eight o’clock, having slept through chore time.  I remember it was the delicious aroma of frying ham and buckwheat cakes which awoke me, and who wouldn’t rise and shake off the cloak of slumber on a bright, cold winter morning with such provocation?

“This ain’t no common Chris’mas—­I tell ye,” Aunt Deel went on.  “Santa Claus won’t git here short o’ noon I wouldn’t wonder—­ayes!”

“By thunder!” exclaimed Uncle Peabody as he sat down at the table.  “This is goin’ to be a day o’ pure fun—­genuwine an’ uncommon.  Take some griddlers,” he added as three or four of them fell on my plate.  “Put on plenty o’ ham gravy an’ molasses.  This ain’t no Jackman tavern.  I got hold o’ somethin’ down there that tasted so I had to swaller twice on it.”