The Loafer pushed himself off the counter onto an empty crate that stood below him. He leaned forward and almost embraced the stove in his effort to toast his hands. “This, I’ve heard tell,” he said, “is the one night in all the year ’hen the cattle talks jest like men.” “Some sais it’s Holly E’en,” ventured the Miller. “No, it ain’t. It’s Chrisermas,” the Loafer replied emphatically. He leaned back, placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat and glared about the circle in defiance. The brief silence that followed was broken by the School Teacher. “Superstition! Mere superstition!” “That’s what I sais,” cried the Storekeeper. He was leaning over the counter munching a candy lion. “What ’ud a mule talk about ’hen he only had a chancet oncet a year?” A thin, meaning smile crept over the Loafer’s face and he bent forward, thrusting his long chin in the direction of the venturesome merchant. “In my time,” he drawled, “I’ve met some mules pullin’ plows that hed they ben able to talk ’ud ’a’ sayd sensibler things then some ez is engaged in easier an’ more money-makin’ ockypations.” The Store was usually loath to accord recognition to the Loafer, but this was the season of good-will to all, and it lifted up its voice in one mighty guffaw. Even the Teacher joined in, and the G. A. R. Man slapped his knee and cried, “Good shot!” The victim hid his burning face in the recesses of the sugar barrel, and under pretense of hunting for the scoop finished the candy toy. “My father-in-law was a superstitious man and always believed in them fool things,” said the pedagogue. “I never give them any credit myself, for they say that education is as great an enemy to superstition as light is to darkness. In other words, learnin’ illumines a man’s mind and drives out all them black, unholy beliefs that are bred in ignorance.” He paused to give effect to his words, but the Loafer seized the opportunity, thus unintentionally offered, to remark, “Then it ’ud seem like most men’s brains is like cellars. They is allus some hole or corner in a cellar that ye can’t light lest ye put a special lantern in it, an’ ye hev trouble keepin’ that burnin’.” “But the brain’s perfectly round,” interposed the Miller, shaking his head sagely. The Teacher sighed. “It’s no use talking to you men in figures----” “Go on. Let’s hev figgers,” cried the Storekeeper, eagerly. The pedagogue leaned back on two legs of his chair and pillowed his head on a cheese box that stood on the counter. After having carefully extinguished the flame in his cigar, blown out the smoke and placed the stump in his pocket, he began: