"Sho!" said Calvin. "You don't mean that. I know it's a mite late, but we'll get there, and you're sure of a good supper, whatever I be. But we've had us a great day, little hossy! we've had us a great day. Them two poor old mis'able lobster-claws is j'ined together, and betwixt the two they'll make a pretty fair lobster, take and humor 'em, and kind of ease 'em along till they get used to each other again. And they ain't the only ones that's feelin' good, little hossy; no siree and the bob-cat's tail! You take them four good-lookin' legs of your'n round the Lord's earth, and if you find a happier man than little Calvin is to-night, I'll give you a straw bunnet for Easter. Put that in your--well, not exactly pipe and smoke it--say nose-bag and smell it! Gitty up, you little hossy!" He flourished the whip round the head of the brown horse, who, catching the holiday spirit, flung up his heels incontinent, and broke into a canter even as his master broke into song. "Now Renzo had a feedle, That's what Renzo had, tiddy hi! 'Twas humped up in the meedle, So haul the bowline, haul! He played a tune, and the old cow died, And the skipper and crew jumped over the side, And swum away on the slack of the tide, So haul the bowline, haul!" The moon came up over the great snow-fields, and the world from ghostly white flashed into silver and ebony. The "orbed maiden" seemed to smile on Calvin Parks as he jogged along the white road; perhaps in all her sweep of vision she may have seen few things pleasanter than this middle-aged lover. "Looks real friendly, don't she?" said Calvin. "And no wonder! Christmas night, and a prospect like this; it's what _I_ call sightly! I wish't I had my little woman along to see it with me; don't you, hossy? What say? You speak up now, when I talk to you about a lady! Where's your manners?" The whip cracked like a pistol shot, and the brown horse flung up his heels again from sheer good will, and whinnied his excuses. "Now you're talkin'!" said Calvin Parks. "And you'd better, little hossy. I want you to understand right now that if you warn't the hossy you are--and if two-three other things were as they ain't--summer instead of winter, for one of 'em--it ain't ridin' I'd be takin' that little woman, no sir! I'd get her aboard the Mary Sands, and we'd go slippin' down along shore, coastwise, seein' the country slidin' past, and hear the water lip-lappin', and the wind singin' in the riggin,'--what? I tell you! there'd be a pair of vessels if ever the Lord made one and man the other.