rth from the low porch of the homestead, the ground lightly covered with
snow, stretches off to a not distant horizon, broken irregularly with
hills, clothed in spots with evergreens, but oftener with bare woods. The
distant and infrequent sleigh-bells, with the smart crack of the rifle
from the shooting match in the hollow, strike percussively upon the ear.
Vast piles of fuel, part neatly corded, part lying in huge logs, with
heaps of brush, barricade the brown, paintless farmhouses. Swine, hanging
by the ham-strings in the neighboring shed; the barn-yard speckled with
the ruffled poultry, some sedate with recent bereavement, others cackling
with a dim sense of temporary reprieve; the rough-coated steer butting in
the fold, where the timid sheep huddle together in the corner; little boys
on a single skate improving the newly frozen horse-pond--these furnish the
foreground of the picture during the earlier hours of the morning. Later
in the day, without, the sound of church bells, the farmers' pungs, or the
double sleighs, with incredible numbers stowed in their strawed bottoms,
drive up to the meeting-house door. An occasional wagon from the hills,
from which the snow has blown, with the crunching, whistling sound of
wheels upon snow, sets the teeth of the crowd in the porch on edge, as it
grinds its way to the stone steps to deposit its load. Great white coats,
with seven or eight capes apiece, dismount, and muffs and moccasins--each
a whole bearskin--follow. Long stoves, with live coals got at the
neighboring houses, occasionally join the procession. Few come afoot; for
our pious ancestors seemed to think it as much a part of their religion to
fill the family horse-shed as the family pew; and in good weather would
send a mile to pasture for the horses to drive a half mile to meeting.
But, meeting out, the parson's prayer and sermon said, the choir's
ambitious anthem lustily sung, the politics of the prayer, and the
politics of the sermon, both summarily criticised, approved, condemned,
partly with looks and winks, and partly with loud words in the porch,
there is now a little space for kind inquiries after the absent, the sick,
and the poor; a few solitary spinsters, and one old soldier, lame and
indigent, are seized on and carried off to homes, where certain blessed
Mothers in Israel, are wont to keep a vacant chair for a poor soul that
might feel desolate if left alone on this sociable day. Some full-handed
visits are