The stage drove off, after depositing cousin Jehoiakim and a Noah's-ark of a trunk.
"Wall, Cousin Clarry!" exclaimed he, springing toward me with one of his own peculiar bear-like bounds. "How du you du? I guess you didn't expect me this time, no how."
"I can't say that I did," said I; "but do come in, this air is enough to freeze one."
"Wall, here I am again," said he, rubbing his great hands together before the blazing hickory. "But if that wasn't a tarnel cold drive; and if this isn't a nation good fire, then I don't know. But how are uncle and aunt, and Cousin Anna, and Dick, and little Harry?"
"All quite well. Where have you been since you left here, cousin?"
"Why I went right to Cousin Hezekiah's; but I did not stay there quite two months, because little Prudence caught the brain fever, and I was obliged to keep so still that it was very unpleasant. I went from there to Cousin Ebenezer's. Wall, I stayed to Cousin Eb's four months or so; then I went to stay a couple of months with Cousin Pildash and Axy, (Achsa.) So this morning I came from Uncle Abimelech's. I only stayed there a few weeks, because—But, Cousin Clarry, du look! if there isn't a sleigh-load of folks coming."
I did look, and saw coming through the great open gate, and up the avenue, a sleigh, all covered with gold and brown, glittering in the sun's setting rays. I saw the long, white manes of the ponies, and the heavy plumes of my beautiful friend, Jane, streaming far in the wind; and then I saw little Fanny's bright, happy face, and the fierce moustache of Anna's lieutenant; and then I saw a pair of dark, earnest eyes, full of devotion, gazing into mine as though at the shrine of their soul's ideal. Never shall I forget the look they wore, so inexpressibly full of affection was it.
What a pity stars should set. What a pity that eyes, once overflowing with the light of wildest, truest love, should grow cold and dim. A pity, too, that love cannot always be love—that it should find its grave so often in hate, or indifference, or in sober friendship. Still that it does not always, let us bless Love, and think that the fault lies in us, and not in Love, that we are grown so like the clay of which our bodies are made, that Love, the spirit, cannot find an abiding-place within us; and, as years come over us, we are content more and more to harden our hearts, and bask, like butterflies, in the external sunshine of this beautiful world, until the world within—the world of thought and feeling—is a weary one, gladdened only with a few flowers of transcendent sweetness and brightness—rewards of merit from this work-day, lesson-learning earth.
Meantime were those warm eyes looking love upon me; and meantime, from out a world of buffalo-robes and furs, were our merry friends emerging; and then a fervent pressure of a soft, warm hand sent the bright blood burning to my very temples. Then came numerous other shakes of the hand, and question sounded upon question, and laugh pealed upon laugh; a gayer, merrier, madder party never met together. Sister Anna, and Brother Dick's little love of a Fanny, were a host of mirth in themselves. The accession of so many merry faces seemed to act on the uncouth spirits of my Cousin Jehoiakim like so much exhilarating gas; for scarcely were we housed, when he suddenly caught me up in his windmill arms, and twirling me around as though I had been a feather, exclaimed, "Bless us! Cousin Clarry, I have scarcely had a chance to say how du you du, and to tell you how glad I am to be here once more. Arn't you tickled to death to see me?"
Indignant and breathless, I sprang from him, saying, "Really, Cousin Jehoiakim, I should be much more delighted to see you if you would be kind enough to manifest a less rude way of expressing your joy."