k cricket, outdid himself on this occasion in singing _counter_,
in that high, weird voice that he must have learned from the wintry
winds that usually piped around the corners of the old house. But any
one who looked at him, as he sat with his eyes closed, beating time
with head and hand, and, in short, with every limb of his body, must
have perceived the exquisite satisfaction which he derived from this
mode of expressing himself. I much regret to be obliged to state that
my graceless Uncle Bill, taking advantage of the fact that the eyes of
all his elders were devotionally closed, stationing himself a little
in the rear of my Uncle Fliakim, performed an exact imitation of his
_counter_ with such a killing facility that all the younger part of
the audience were nearly dead with suppressed laughter. Aunt Lois, who
never shut her eyes a moment on any occasion, discerned this from a
distant part of the room, and in vain endeavoured to stop it by
vigorously shaking her head at the offender. She might as well have
shaken it at a bobolink tilting on a clover top. In fact, Uncle Bill
was Aunt Lois's weak point, and the corners of her own mouth were
observed to twitch in such a suspicious manner that the whole moral
force of her admonition was destroyed.

And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters, already excited
to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best room, under the
supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves with a game of
"blindman's bluff," while the elderly women washed up the dishes and
got the house in order, and the men folks went out to the barn to look
at the cattle, and walked over the farm and talked of the crops.

In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best of
tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial care
for this illumination. It was understood that we were to have a dance,
and black Caesar, full of turkey and pumpkin pie, and giggling in the
very jollity of his heart, had that afternoon rosined his bow, and
tuned his fiddle, and practised jigs and Virginia reels, in a way that
made us children think him a perfect Orpheus....

You may imagine the astounding wassail among the young people.... My
Uncle Bill related the story of "the Wry-mouth Family," with such
twists and contortions and killing extremes of the ludicrous as
perfectly overcame even the minister; and he was to be seen, at one
period of the evening, with a face purple with laughter a