Neighbor Nelly Socks / Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series

OUR PARTY.
BEING
BY
THE AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE WHITE ANGEL. NEW YORK: LEAVITT & ALLEN, 21 & 23 MERCER ST. 1863.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by S. L. BARROW, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. JOHN T. TROW, Printer, Stereotyper and Electrotyper, 60 Greene Street, New York.
TO MY DEAR FATHER, TO WHOSE KINDLY AND CHARMING WAYS WITH THE LITTLE FOLK I OWE THE CHARACTER OF NEIGHBOR OLDBIRD, THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED.

In the city block where I live, there are just twenty-four houses on the other side of the street, and twenty-four on this side, six lamp posts, and eight ailanthus trees in green boxes. Oh, dear me, what a tiresome row! That's what I thought when I first came to lodge here; for, as I am an old bachelor, I don't want a whole house to myself; but now, when I sit at my window and look out at the street, I find no end of things to amuse and interest me; particularly when the gas is lighted of an evening, and I can see a little way into the parlors of the opposite neighbors. I suppose they know that an old bachelor like Josiah Oldbird can do no harm by looking on at their evening amusements; so they do not pull the blinds down if they chance to see me, sitting lonely at my window, and willing to accept such crumbs of their society and happiness as I can glean over the way.
First, then, is the family at No. 7, three maiden sisters and a bachelor brother. As I don't in the least know their names, I have dubbed them the Bluejays, because the three maiden sisters always wear blue merino gowns in winter, and blue muslin ones in summer; and because they are all so fond of singing that no family of birds could be more musical. They have a pet poodle and a pet squirrel, too. The poodle is very fat, and his hair sticks out so much all over him, that he looks perpetually astonished, as if he had just seen a spook. He always stands on the window sill, when the sash is raised of an afternoon, and glares into the street until he sees the bachelor brother coming. Then he achieves a series of frantic yells and bounces, until somebody comes to open the door and lets him out, when he waddles to the front steps to meet his master, wagging his tail to that tremendous extent, that it looks like the shuttle of a steam power loom.