Aunt Liza's an' play with the children?"

It was a clever ruse of Uncle Peabody, for Aunt Deel was softened by his
interpretation of the dog's heart and she proposed:

"Le's take him along with us--poor dog! ayes!"

Then Uncle Peabody shouted:

"Jump right into the sleigh--you ol' skeezucks!--an' I'll cover ye up
with a hoss blanket. Git in here. We ain't goin' to leave nobody alone
on Chris'mas day that loves us--not by a jug full--no, sir! I wouldn't
wonder if Jesus died for dogs an' hosses as well as for men."

Shep had jumped in the back of the sleigh at the first invitation and
lay quietly under his blanket as we hurried along in the well-trod snow
and the bells jingled. It was a joyful day and old Shep was as merry and
well fed as the rest of us.

How cold and sad and still the house seemed when we got back to it in
the evening! We had to drive to a neighbor's and borrow fire and bring
it home with us in a pail of ashes as we were out of tinder. I held the
lantern for my uncle while he did the chores and when we had gone to bed
I fell asleep hearing him tell of Joseph and Mary going to pay their
taxes.

In the spring my uncle hired a man to work for us--a noisy, brawny,
sharp-featured fellow with keen gray eyes, of the name of Dug Draper.
Aunt Deel hated him. I feared him but regarded him with great hope
because he had a funny way of winking at me with one eye across the
table and, further, because he could sing and did sing while he
worked--songs that rattled from his lips in a way that amused me
greatly. Then, too, he could rip out words that had a new and wonderful
sound in them. I made up my mind that he was likely to become a valuable
asset when I heard Aunt Deel say to my Uncle Peabody:

"You'll have to send that loafer away, right now, ayes I guess you
will."

"Why?"

"Because this boy has learnt to swear like a pirate--ayes--he has!"

Uncle Peabody didn't know it but I myself had begun to suspect it, and
that hour the man was sent away, and I remember that he left in anger
with a number of those new words flying from his lips. A forced march to
the upper room followed that event. Uncle Peabody explained that it was
wicked to swear--that boys who did it had very bad luck, and mine came
in a moment. I never had more of it come along in the same length of
time.

One day in the spring when the frogs were chanting in the swamp land,
they seemed to be saying, "Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg,