"I am sure I can't tell; I am not acquainted with thy fairy folks." "Why, she shook her sides, and, said she, 'Sing a song o' sixpence.'" "That was as sensible a speech as thee could expect from that quarter." "O, grandma, you don't care anything about my dream, or I could go on and describe the wedding-cake; how she put sage in it, and pepper, and mustard, and baked it on top of one of our registers. What do you suppose made me dream such a queer thing?" "Thee was probably thinking of thy mother's wedding." "O, Christmas is going to be splendided than ever, this year," said Dotty; "isn't it grandma? Did you have any Christmases when you were young?" "O, yes; but we didn't make much account of Christmas in those days." "Why, grandma! I knew you lived on bean porridge, but I s'posed you had something to eat Christmas!" "O, sometimes I had a little saucer-pie, sweetened with molasses, and the crust made of raised dough." "Poor, dear grandma!" "I remember my father used to put a great backlog on the fire Christmas morning, as large as the fireplace would hold; and that was all the celebration we ever had." "Didn't you have Christmas presents?" "No, Alice; not so much as a brass thimble." "Poor grandma! I shouldn't think you would have wanted to live! Didn't anybody love you?" said Dotty, putting her fingers under Mrs. Read's cap, and smoothing her soft gray hair; "why, I love every hair of your head." "I am glad thee does, child; but that doesn't take much love, for thee knows I haven't a great deal of hair." "But, grandma, how could you live without Christmas trees and things?" "I was happy enough, Alice." "But you'd have been a great deal happier, grandma, if you'd had a Santa Claus! It's so nice to believe what isn't true!" "Ah! does thee think so? There was one thing I believed when I was a very little girl, and it was not true. I believed the cattle knelt at midnight on Christmas eve." "Knelt, grandma? For what?" "Because our blessed Lord was born in a manger." "But they didn't know that. Cows can't read the Bible." "It was an idle story, of course, like the one about Mother Knowles. A man who worked at our house, Israel Grossman, told it to me, and I thought it was true." Here grandma gazed into the coals again. She could see Israel Grossman sitting on a stump, whittling a stick and puffing away at a short pipe. "Well, children," said she, "I have talked to you long enough about things that are past and gone. On the whole, I don't say they were good old times, for the times now are a great deal better." "Yes, indeed," said Prudy. "Except one thing," added grandma, looking at Dotty, who was snapping the tongs together. "Children had more to do in my day than they have now." Dotty blushed. "Grandma," said she, "I'm having a playtime, you know, 'cause there can't anybody stop to fix my work. But mother says after the holidays I'm going to have a stint every day."