But the long winter evenings had been very bad.  After supper, a meal which revolted every sense, there had been as many hours to be got through with as he found wakeful, an empty stomach often adding to the number of them, and the only resource for passing the time had been reading, which had often been well-nigh impossible for sheer physical discomfort.  As has been remarked, the winter climate of the middle portion of New York State is as bad as can be imagined.  His light was a kerosene lamp of half-candle power, and his appliance for warmth consisted of a small wood stove, which (as David would have expressed it) “took two men an’ a boy” to keep in action, and was either red hot or exhausted.

As from the depths of a spacious lounging chair he surveyed his new surroundings, and contrasted them with those from which he had been rescued out of pure kindness, his heart was full, and it can hardly be imputed to him as a weakness that for a moment his eyes filled with tears of gratitude and happiness—­no less.

Indeed, there were four happy people at David’s table that Christmas day.  Aunt Polly had “smartened up” Mrs. Cullom with collar and cuffs, and in various ways which the mind of man comprehendeth not in detail; and there had been some arranging of her hair as well, which altogether had so transformed and transfigured her that John thought that he should hardly have known her for the forlorn creature whom he had encountered in the morning.  And as he looked at the still fine eyes, large and brown, and shining for the first time in many a year with a soft light of happiness, he felt that he could understand how it was that Billy P. had married the village girl.

Mrs. Bixbee was grand in black silk and lace collar fastened with a shell-cameo pin not quite as large as a saucer, and John caught the sparkle of a diamond on her plump left hand—­David’s Christmas gift—­with regard to which she had spoken apologetically to Mrs. Cullom: 

“I told David that I was ever so much obliged to him, but I didn’t want a dimun’ more’n a cat wanted a flag, an’ I thought it was jest throwin’ away money.  But he would have it—­said I c’d sell it an’ keep out the poorhouse some day, mebbe.”

David had not made much change in his usual raiment, but he was shaved to the blood, and his round red face shone with soap and satisfaction.  As he tucked his napkin into his shirt collar, Sairy brought in the tureen of oyster soup, and he remarked, as he took his first spoonful of the stew, that he was “hungry ‘nough t’ eat a graven imidge,” a condition that John was able to sympathize with after his two days of fasting on crackers and such provisions as he could buy at Purse’s.  It was, on the whole, he reflected, the most enjoyable dinner that he ever ate.  Never was such a turkey; and to see it give way under David’s skillful knife—­wings, drumsticks, second joints, side bones, breast—­was an elevating and memorable experience.  And such potatoes, mashed in cream; such boiled onions, turnips, Hubbard squash, succotash, stewed tomatoes, celery, cranberries, “currant jell!” Oh! and to “top off” with, a mince pie to die for and a pudding (new to John, but just you try it some time) of steamed Indian meal and fruit, with a sauce of cream sweetened with shaved maple sugar.