My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if
I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set
the chimbly afire as not!"
There was something overflowing and heady in her enjoyment. It
exhilarated the schoolmaster, and he lavished stick after stick on the
ravening flames. The maple hardened into coals brighter than its own
panoply of autumn; the delicate bark of the birch flared up and
perished.
"Miss Susan," said he, "don't you want to see all the people in the
world?"
"Oh, I dunno! I'd full as lieves set here an' think about 'em. I can
fix 'em up full as well in my mind, an' perhaps they suit me better 'n
if I could see 'em. Sometimes I set 'em walkin' through this kitchen,
kings an' queens an' all. My! how they do shine, all over precious
stones. I never see a di'mond, but I guess I know pretty well how't
would look."
"Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,--what should we have?"
"We'd have oxen roasted whole, an' honey--an'--but that's as fur as I
can git."
The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he
said musically:--
... "'a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.
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