WHAT JEDD PALLFRY FOUND IN THE COFFIN.

A CHRISTMAS STORY, BY Ꭲ . B. ALDRIOH.

I.

CHIMES OF MEMORY.

MERRY Christmas?

Ah! but it used to be. It used to be, before the dreamy mood of boyhood melted away like a silvery mist. Merry, merry Christmas, then! The very words tinkled musically. I can hear them trembling yet, in memory, like that faint jingling of sleigh-bells which steals up from the street and in through the snow-muffled casement.

It was fine, then, to loiter in the crowded streets, gazing in the shopwindows the El Dorados of fancy articles,' the Australian lands of bon-bons and rock-candy! What stereotyped visions I had of kind St. Nick, with his reindeer equipage on the house-top, and his huge pack filled with trumpets that would n't blow well, and carts that would n't go well, and dear old Hans Christian Andersen's story-books, which never failed of being Arcadies of delight. Then at home, when the apples and nuts were disposed of, my grand-sire, GOD love his white hairs would take me on his knee, and read about CHRIST in the Manger,' with such quaint pronunciation!

Touched with these memories, and sitting once more, as it were, in the happy sun-rise of life, I am moved to write a Christmas story for Ida Maye, and little Carrie, and tiny-fingered Mabel, who are sleeping in the next room. I will put it in the most diminutive of the three mimic stockings—it is all the poor author can give to the little dreamy angels! And some of these days, when this weary pen is quite tired out, when there is nothing left of me but two or three volumes in some out-of-the-way book-case, their mother, some Christmas eve may-hap, will call the darlings to her side, and read the time-worn, yellowed manuscript to them. And Ida Maye will listen thoughtfully, with the long ebon lashes resting on her cheeks; and Carrie's roguish eyes will laugh out-right, though the story is a sad one, and Mabel will clap her little hands together like two white rose-leaves !

All this may be.

But before I write, I will steal softly into the next room and look at their sweet young faces. Oh! but they are newly from Heaven, their tiny mouths are made up for prayer! An infantile glory is only half shrouded by the drooping eye-lids, and those sweet faces light up the shadowy room as the tulips do some shady nook of the summer woods. I shall be better for looking at them. I will kneel at the bed-side - perhaps I shall be weeping, for to-morrow night, when the children dance round the Christmas-tree, a little boy, with wonderful blue eyes, will not be there! and in all the presents hung upon the emerald branches, in among the red and blue candles, there will be none found

6

for Charlie!' And when we think of the little boy who died,' our lips will quiver, though laugh and jest go round, and the music be as gay and wild as the melody of Shelley's Queen Mab!

OLD Jedd Pallfry turned down the gas a little, glanced nervously at the sombre row of coffins on each side of him, locked the shop-door and stood in the street.

It was Christmas-eve, and the snow-flakes, like tiny white birds from Paradise, were lighting on the chimney-tops and roofs, and in the long streets of the city.

Every night at that same hour, eight o'clock, for ten years, the undertaker had turned down the gas, locked the door, and placed the same key under the same mat, and stood in the same position for a moment by the window before turning into the narrow zig-zag street which, to him, ended at his supper-table.

But this time he was not going home. The antique Mr. Hans Spuyten Duyvel, whose death his amiable relatives had been impatiently awaiting for the last quarter of a century, had died that day; and old Jedd had been sent for to put the habiliments of the grave on Mr. Spuyten Duyvel's body, and two bright half-dollars on his eyes, the which small-change was afterward transferred to the pocket of the ancient undertaker.

Now old Pallfry had made coffins ever since his youth, and for thirty years really had more intimacy with the dead than dealings with the living. There was nothing in the whole world so beautiful to him as a coffin unless it was an order for one. He had worked at his trade at all hours of the night: he had made little coffins - O such touching little coffins!- and fat ones, and slim ones; and by the ghastly flickerings of a lamp at mid-night, he had laid the cold white dead in the varnished boxes without feeling one throb of sympathy in that old iron-bound heart of his.

But that Christmas-eve he shuddered as he turned down the gas, and the long wooden tenements, with their covers off, seemed like so many satin-lined gate-ways leading to perdition. He felt as if a thousand strong currents of air were blowing him toward them! He could hardly keep from stepping into one; and it required all his strength to reach the door and lock it. Jedd drew a long breath.

It's always so - every Christmas-eve: she does it !'

As old Jedd Pallfry muttered this between his thin, bloodless lips, he flattened and whitened his nose on the window-glass, and looked into the gloomy shop suspiciously. He saw nothing at first but the accustomed number of coffins, and the velvet pall folded on the counter, and those two slim black stools which we all have seen in our homes, GoD pity us! But as he looked, his dim almond-shaped eyes grew suddenly to orbs. A strip or the flooring had commenced swelling, and bulging, and warping! Little by little it grew into the shape of a mound: tiny emerald spears of grass shot out of it in every direction: then it was dot

ted all over with yellow-eyed daisies, and a rose-bush, with a single white bud, sprung up from the centre. Jedd Pallfry's sight became so acute that he could see the perfume of the rose floating up in beautiful soft folds like the fumes from a censer !

When he looked again he then this took miraculous

Jedd rubbed his eyes, as well he might. saw the shadow, then the skeleton of a tree: form, and a willow trailed its green lengths over the mound. And he saw the moted sun-shine falling upon the place, and heard the robins singing singing in his shop!

Jedd looked and looked; but when the grass and the daisies grew tremulous as in a sudden wind, and the grave begun to open, Jedd could look no longer; and he shut out the strange sight by placing two lank, bony hands over his eyes.

Merry Christmas, Sir !' said a hesitating voice at his side.
Jedd started.

Merry Christmas, Sir!' repeated the voice dolefully.

And then Jedd turned his eyes on the speaker. It was a very shabbily-dressed lad. He had on a felt hat of no color whatever, a roundabout jacket, and a pair of white duck trowsers, much too well ventilated for the season. His physique was as delicate as a girl's; and if it had not been so dark, Jedd could have seen a face in which there was a strange mixture of the Madonna and the devil the expression of boyhood and manhood contending, and a sad experience written all over it.

But the snow was falling heavily, and he only saw a very little fellow surmounted by a very shocking hat.

If you please, Sir,' said the boy pleadingly.

'Humph!'

And Jedd was about to bid him go his way, when it struck Jedd that after what he had seen, not even the love of his charming coffins could tempt him to turn on the gas again in his shop; and to leave it burning until morning was a bit of extravagance not to be thought of. It occurred to him to hire this promiscuous wisher of merry Christmases to sit in the shop till he should have returned from the Spuyten Duyvel's : then he could turn on the gas and turn off the boy at the same time. So he changed his brusque manner, and inquired, in a tone which was intended to be extremely conciliatory:

'What's your name, bub?'

'The last one, Sir?' asked bub, looking up.

The last one, Sir?' repeated Jedd, mimicking the lad. How many have you?'

A good many, Sir. In Nantucket they used to call me poor Tommy, and orphan Tom, and Tomtit. But on board ship the sailors called me Nantuck- and they called Nantuck very often, and made him work a good deal.' And the boy shivered with cold, as the keen north wind swept around the corner with evident predatory designs on his tattered jacket.

'Nantuck?' said his interrogator, turning up his pinched nose with disapprobation, as if the name filled his venerable nostrils with a 'very ancient and fish-like smell.'