Well, one rainy Sunday evening, in 1855, just twelve days before
Christmas, in the little town of Soitgoes, in Worcester County, Mass.,
Aunt Kindly and Uncle Nathan were sitting in their comfortable parlor
before a bright wood-fire. It was about eight o'clock, a stormy night;
now it snowed a little, then it rained, then snowed again, seeming as if
the weather was determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made
up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney,
and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on
the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes
suddenly, and erected her _smellers_, but finding it was only the wind
and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and
yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat,
and went to sleep again.
Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly were brother and sister. He was a little
more than sixty, a fine, hale, hearty-looking, handsome man as you could
find in a summer's day, with white hair and a thoughtful, benevolent
face, adorned with a full beard as white as his venerable head.
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