of collecting such of his unexploded
fire-crackers as may be in your front yard, giving you, at the same
time, the interesting information that they are to be made into
"spit-devils." You are overwhelmed by a profound bow from the grocer's
lad as he passes your window, and you invite him in and beg that he will
honor you by accepting half a dollar and a handful of doughnuts:--the
lady in the merino morning-wrapper has provided a cake-basket full for
the occasion. You are also waited on by the milkman, who, you are glad
to see, is really flesh and blood, and not, as you have sometimes
supposed, an unearthly bell-ringer who visited this sublunary sphere
only at five A.M., and then for the sole purpose of disturbing
your morning nap. You are also complimented by the wood-man and
wood-sawyer, an English sailor with a wooden leg, who once nearly
swamped you in a tornado of nautical interjections, on your presenting
him a new pea-jacket. And then comes the German fruit-woman, whose first
customer you have the distinguished honor to be, and who, in
consequence, has taken breakfast in your kitchen for the last ten years.
You remember that on one occasion she spoke of her little boy, named
Heinderich, who was suffering with his teeth; and when you hope that
Heinderich is better, you are surprised to learn that he is quite a
large boy, going to the public school, and that the lady in the merino
morning-wrapper has just sent him a new cap.

The heaping pile of doughnuts gradually lessens, until finally there is
not one left. The last dish is evidently taken from the china-closet,
and the whole house is filled with that portentous stillness which
causes the mothers of mischievous offspring so much trepidation.

You expect to see the merino morning-wrapper reconnoitering the
movements of your own sweet pledges of affection; but she doesn't: you
can only hear the ticking of the little French clock on the
mantle-piece, and the spluttering of the coal as it bursts into a gassy
flame between the bars of the grate, and you almost imagine Christmas
has passed. You are deceived; for by-and-by you hear your children's
footsteps as they skip over the garden-walk, and the sound of their
ringing laughter as they rush in out of the cold, and their clamor rises
louder and gladder and more jubilant than ever. Grandpa! Who does not
know him, with his joyous face and hearty morning greeting? How
resplendent he looks in his broadcloth suit, his go