for we put
them to sleep in the wreck, while the boys slept on the shore; squaw
picnics, the children called them.

My children, when young, went to the public school near us, the little
Cove School, as it is called. For nearly thirty years we have given
the Christmas tree to the school. Before the gifts are distributed I am
expected to make an address, which is always mercifully short, my own
children having impressed upon me with frank sincerity the attitude of
other children to addresses of this kind on such occasions. There are of
course performances by the children themselves, while all of us parents
look admiringly on, each sympathizing with his or her particular
offspring in the somewhat wooden recital of "Darius Green and his Flying
Machine" or "The Mountain and the Squirrel had a Quarrel." But the tree
and the gifts make up for all shortcomings.

We had a sleigh for winter; but if, when there was much snow, the whole
family desired to go somewhere, we would put the body of the farm wagon
on runners and all bundle in together. We always liked snow at Christmas
time, and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve. One
of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve festival begins, "It's
Christmas eve on the river, it's Christmas eve on the bay." All good
natives of the village firmly believe that this hymn was written here,
and with direct reference to Oyster Bay; although if such were the case
the word "river" would have to be taken in a hyperbolic sense, as the
nearest approach to a river is the village pond. I used to share this
belief myself, until my faith was shaken by a Denver lady who wrote that
she had sung that hymn when a child in Michigan, and that at the present
time her little Denver babies also loved it, although in their case the
river was not represented by even a village pond.

When we were in Washington, the children usually went with their mother
to the Episcopal church, while I went to the Dutch Reformed. But if any
child misbehaved itself, it was sometimes sent next Sunday to church
with me, on the theory that my companionship would have a sedative
effect--which it did, as I and the child walked along with rather
constrained politeness, each eying the other with watchful readiness
for the unexpected. On one occasion, when the child's conduct fell just
short of warranting such extreme measures, his mother, as they were on
the point of entering church, concluded a homily by a quota