st birthday, Jerome Edwards
went to Cyrus Robinson's store on an errand.

When he entered he found a large company assembled, swinging booted
legs over the counters, perched upon barrels and kegs, or tilting
back in the old scooping arm-chairs around the red-hot stove. These
last were the seats devoted to honor and age, when present, and they
were worthily filled that night. Men who seldom joined the lounging,
gossiping circle in the village store were there: Lawyer Means, John
Jennings, Colonel Lamson, Squire Merritt, even Doctor Seth Prescott,
and the minister, Solomon Wells.

The recent town-meeting, the elections and appropriations, accounted
in some measure for this unusual company, though the bitter weather
might have had something to do with it. Hard it was for any man that
night to pass windows glowing with firelight, and the inward swing of
hospitable doors; harder it was, when once within the radius of
warmth and human cheer, to leave it and plunge again into that
darkness of winter and death, which seemed like the very outer
desolation of souls.

The Squire's three cronies had been on their way to cards and punch
with him, but the winking radiance of the store windows had lured
them inside to warm themselves a bit before another half-mile down
the frozen road; and once there, sunken into the battered hollows of
the arm-chairs, within the swimming warmth from the stove, they had
remained. Their prospective host, Squire Eben Merritt, also had
shortly arrived, in quest of lemons for the brewing of his famous
punch, and had been nothing loath to await the pleasure of his
guests.

The minister had come in giddy, as if with strong drink, being
unable, even with the steady gravity of his mind, to control the
chilly trembling of his thin old shanks in their worn black
broadcloth. His cloak was thin; his daughter had tied a little black
silk shawl of her own around his neck for further protection; his
mildly ascetic old face peered over it, fairly mouthing and
chattering with the cold. He could scarcely salute the company in his
customary reverend and dignified manner.

Squire Eben sprang up and place his own chair in a warmer corner for
him, and the minister was not averse to settling therein and
postponing for a season the purchase of a quarter pound of tea, and
his shivering homeward pilgrimage.

Doctor Seth Prescott, who lived nearly across the way, had come over
after supper to prescribe for the storekee