"A happy New Year to you, old Jack," he called out to his horse, as he entered the barn, and Jack neighed a happy return, more expectant, perhaps, of his breakfast of oats than appreciative of the greeting. "And a happy New Year to you, you youngster," he shouted to the colt, who, being at liberty to roam at will, had already appropriated a section of the hay-mow to his own satisfaction. "Ha, none of that, you woolly-coated rogue, you," he cried, as he jumped aside to escape a kick that the bunch of equine mischief anticly snapped at him. "None of that, you little unconverted sinner, you. I verily believe the parson is right, and that
'In Adam's fall
We sinned all—'
men and beasts, colts and children, all in one lot."
And so, talking to himself and his cattle, the jolly little man, whose good-heartedness represented more genuine orthodoxy than the whole Westminster catechism, bustled merrily about the barn and did his chores, while the cockerels crowed noisily from their perches overhead, the fat white pigs grunted in lazy contentment from their warm beds of straw, and the oxen, with their large, luminous eyes, gazed benevolently at him as he crammed their mangers generously full with the fragrant hay that smelled sweetly of the flowers and odorous meadow lands, where in the warm summer sunshine it had ripened for the welcome scythe.
How happy is life, in whatever part of this great fragrant world of ours it is lived, when men live it happily; and how gloomy seems its sunshine, even, when seen through the shadows and darkness of our surly moods.
What happy-hearted fairy was it that possessed the deacon's heart and home, on this bright New Year's morn, I wonder? Surely, some angel of fun and frolic had flown into the deacon's house with the opening of the year and was filling it, and the hearts within it, too, with mirthful moods. For the deacon laughed and joked as he buttered his cakes and fired off his funny sayings at Miranda, as he had never joked and laughed before, until Miranda herself smiled and giggled; yes, actually giggled, behind the coffee-urn, at his merry squibs, as if the little imp above mentioned was mischievously tickling her—yes, I will say it,—her spinster ribs.
"Mirandy, I'm going up to see the parson," exclaimed the deacon, when the morning devotions were over, "and see if I can thaw him out a little. I've heard there used to be a lot of fun in him in his younger days, but he's sort of frozen all up latterly, and I can see that the young folks are afraid of him and the church, too, but that won't do—no, that won't do," repeated the good man emphatically, "for the minister ought to be loved by young and old, rich and poor, and everybody; and a church without young folks in it is like a family with no children in it. Yes, I'll go up and wish him a happy New Year, anyway. Perhaps I can get him out for a ride to make some calls on the people and see the young folks at their fun. It'll do him good and them good and me good, and do everybody good." Saying which the deacon got inside his warm fur coat and started towards the barn to harness Jack into the worn, old-fashioned sleigh; which sleigh was built high in the back and had a curved dasher of monstrous proportions, ornamented with a prancing horse in an impossible attitude, done in bright vermilion on a blue-black ground.
II
"Happy New Year to you, Parson Whitney; happy New Year to you," cried the deacon, from his sleigh to the parson, who stood curled up and shivering in the doorway of the parsonage, "and may you live to enjoy a hundred."
"Come in; come in," cried Parson Whitney, in response, "I'm glad you've come; I'm glad you've come. I've been wanting to see you all the morning," and in the cordiality of his greeting, he literally pulled the little man through the doorway into the hall and hurried him up the stairway to his study in the chamber overhead.