So it went on all round the room. "That is what I call the Christian Sacrament," said Deacon Jackson to Captain Weldon. "Ah, yes," replied the blacksmith; "it is a feast of love. Look there; Colonel Stearns and John Wilkinson have not spoken for years. Now it is all made up. Both have forgotten that little strip of Beaver-gray meadow, which has cost them so much money and hard words and in itself is not worth the lawyer's fees."
How the children played! how they all did dance! And of the whole sportive company not one footed the measure so neat as little Hattie Tidy, the black man's daughter. "What a shame to enslave a race of such persons," said Mr. Stovepipe. "Yet I went in for the Fugitive Slave Bill, and was one of Marshal Tukey's 'fifteen hundred gentlemen of property and standing.' My God forgive me!" "Amen," said Mr. Broadside, a great, stout, robust farmer; "I stood by till the Nebraska Bill put slavery into Kansas, then I went right square over to the anti-slavery side. I shall stick there forever. Dr Lord may try and excuse slavery just as much as he likes. I know what all that means. He don't catch old birds with chaff."
Uncle Nathan went about the room talking with the men and women; they all knew him, and felt well acquainted with such a good-natured face; while Aunt Kindly, with the nicer tact of a good woman, introduced the right persons to each other, and so promoted happiness among those too awkward to obtain it alone or unhelped. Besides this, she took special care of the boys and girls from the poor-house.
What an appetite the little folks had for the good things! How the old ones helped them dispose of these creature comforts! while such as were half way between, were too busy with other matters to think much of the eatables. Solomon Jenkins and Katie Edmunds had had a falling out. He was the miller at Stony Brook; but the "course of true love never did run smooth" with him; he could not coax Katie's to brook into his stream; it would turn off some other way. But that night Katie herself broke down the hindrance, and the two little brooks became one great stream of love, and flowed on together, inseparable; now dimpling, deepening, and whirling away full of beauty towards the great ocean of eternity.
Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly, how happy they were, seeing the joy of all the company! they looked like two new Redeemers,—which indeed they were. The minister said,—"Well, I have been preaching charity and forgiveness and a cheerful happiness all my life, now I see signs of the 'good time coming.' There's forgiveness of injuries," pointing to Colonel Stearns and Mr. Wilkinson; "old enemies reconciled. All my sermons don't seem to accomplish so much as your Christmas Festival, Mr. Robinson," said he, addressing Uncle Nathan. "We only watered the ground," said Aunt Kindly, "where the seed was long since sown by other hands; only it does seem to come up abundantly, and all at once." Then the minister told the people a new Christmas story; and before they went home they all joined together and sung this hymn to the good tune of Old Hundred:
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
Blessings abound where'er he reigns;
The prisoner leaps to loose his chains;
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are bless'd."
End of Project Gutenberg's Two Christmas Celebrations, by Theodore Parker