No doubt the dinner was all which the domestic celebration of the festival imports, for the farm was well stocked with every description of creature, and with most other things needful for the purpose; but I may be excused if I remember none of the particulars, now that so many years have intervened. I know that Uncle Richard always prided himself upon his excellent cider, and there is little question that there was a due allowance of spirits, which most persons of fair means kept, in those days, in decanters openly ranged upon the parlor sideboard. Indeed, about the same period, while I was a student at a famous Academy not many miles distant from our own home, the English teacher, an orthodox clergyman of high repute, who cultivated a few acres of land at the place where he lived on the outskirts of the town, invited a few of the pupils, myself in the number, to assist him in making hay, one play-afternoon. The boys had a good frolic, and, after work was ended, our master treated us to milk-punch, a highly agreeable, but rather exhilarating beverage. Our uncle's house was of the old-fashioned New England description, pleasantly facing the south, with a high-peaked roof, which descended, in the opposite quarter, to not much more than a man's stature from the ground. In front was a spacious green yard, leading on one side to the garden for vegetables and trees of the choicer kinds of fruit, and sprinkled here and there with bunches of gay flowers; and at the entrance gate by the road two magnificent elms, of an age and height which denoted that they must have given shade to several past generations from the summer heat, flung out drooping branches which extended a very great distance from the parent trunks. After dinner, our host entertained us with a narrative of his recent visit to the capital town of Boston, to testify, in company with a former neighbor, now resident there, in behalf of his hired man, Jasper Towne, of English birth, who having, duly and at a long term beforehand, declared his intention, in proper form, was at length, after a continuous residence of fourteen years in the United States, admitted by the Federal Court to all the rights and privileges which free citizenship could confer upon him. The scene in court my uncle thought peculiarly solemn and impressive. The candidate for the franchise was strictly questioned by the presiding justice, in open court, with regard to his origin and his past life. The witnesses were subjected to a similar scrutiny as to his character and habits, and their judgment of his fitness for the responsible position and the new duties he was about to assume. When this part of the transaction was completed, the oaths of renunciation of allegiance to every foreign power, prince, or potentate whatsoever, and the oath to support the Constitution of the United States were administered to him by the clerk in a manner to fix it in his mind