and school-boy striplings pursue their holiday sports, and gray-haired men who have traversed the wide world over, tell how in all their wanderings they have never passed a Christmas from home; he will turn his thoughts with a melancholy pleasure to the distant fireside beyond the sea, and to the friends who are gathered there, and wonder where the wanderer is spending his Christmas.
With all respect for the ancient and honorable class of ‘old bachelors,’ whose sympathy and good fellowship we most earnestly desire, be it said, that if to any it is allowed to be miserable at Christmas, it surely is to them. We would not for the world say aught to heighten the sad picture of their social desolation, by dwelling on the thousand tender endearments of home, the ten thousand cords of love, of which they know nothing. Certain it is, that to many of them ‘merrie Christmas’ brings only pangs of remorse; and we have known more than one crusty member of the fraternity, who on such occasions would rush incontinently from the scene and the sound of merriment, and shut themselves under lock and key, until the storm was passed, and people have recovered their lost senses.
Such an one, however, we are proud to say, was not Tom Hardesty, though bachelor he was, in the superlative degree. Every body wondered how he managed to preserve his good-humor and vivacity under the frosts of three-score winters. At the period of this authentic history, Tom was the village grocer; a station he had filled to his own profit and the town’s convenience until he had become a piece of village furniture, necessary to its existence as a corporation. His little store, with its great variety of commodities, adapted to every human want, was in itself a perfect ‘curiosity-shop.’ Odd-looking boxes, kegs, chests, casks, barrels and hogsheads, contained his groceries, drugs and dye-stuffs. A few remnants of domestic prints and muslins, together with stray fragments of broadcloth, constituted his stock of dry-goods. Then there was a modicum of hardware and cutlery; a few spelling-books and new testaments for a book store; and sundry jars and bottles filled with fancy-colored powders and liquids, for an apothecary shop. His remaining list of commodities was made up of hats, caps and bonnets, boots and shoes, tin-pans and looking-glasses, slate-pencils and sifters; and as his standing advertisement in the village newspaper duly notified the public, ‘other articles too numerous to mention—call and see for yourselves.’ If any body desired an article nobody ever heard of before, he could find a large lot thereof at Tom Hardesty’s; and if any lucky or ingenious wight had found or made any thing that nobody else would have as a gracious gift, let him call on Mr. Hardesty, and it was the very thing he wanted. In a word, his shop was a grand dépôt for every article the ingenuity of man could devise, or his necessities require.
What a blessed convenience was Tom Hardesty! How could we have gotten along without him? How honest and affable! What long ells and heavy pounds he gave! And then his tea! how it inspired the village gossip on long winter nights in a chimney corner! All the matrons of the village were quite in love with Tom, or his tea; and many an old crone, as she sat inhaling cup after cup of the divine beverage, has been known to pause in the midst of her inspirations, and exclaim with uplifted hands, ‘God bless Tom Hardesty!’
And yet Tom Hardesty was a bachelor, and kept ‘bachelor’s hall.’ The only members of his mess were an orphan boy of his adoption, who waited in the store, and a brindle cat which the master had honored with his own name. This point, however, is still wrapt in obscurity, for Tom and ‘Tom’ were both so venerable that nobody could swear whether the cat had been named after the master, or the master after the cat. It had been rumored by those who should know, that Mr. Hardesty should not be held strictly accountable for this sin of celibacy, since he had offered his hand, his heart, and a partnership in his worldly goods, to more than one village beauty, each of whom had found it impossible to ‘love for antiquity’s sake,’ and rejected his matrimonial offers accordingly. Still Tom never repined. His daily experience behind the counter had taught him the useful lesson, that each applicant does not necessarily always drive a trade, and the commodity which one rejects may be eagerly sought by another; and acting on the faith of this philosophy, he lived cheerfully on, cherishing the hope that even yet some fond heart would beat responsive to his own, and promise before the competent authority, to ‘love, honor and obey’ him, Tom Hardesty.
On a memorable Christmas-eve we enter his little counting-room. A cheerful fire blazes on the hearth; and at the moment grimalkin is purring on the rug. Master John, the adopted, is poring over a picture-book, probably an early edition of Peter Parley’s Travels, and Mr. Hardesty is standing before a broken fragment of looking-glass, diligently brushing his scanty locks.
‘John!’ said Mr. Hardesty, turning from the mirror, and looking full at the boy, ‘do I look very old to-night?’
The boy turned up his innocent face, gazed steadily on his master from top to toe, and answered, ‘Sir!’
‘Do I look very old to-night, John?’
John scratched his head. ‘Not much older than you did this time last night, Sir.’
‘Humph!’ said Mr. Hardesty, appealing to the glass, and renewing his efforts with the brush, while John resumed his reading.
‘But, John,’ resumed Mr. Hardesty, seating himself beside the boy, ‘do you really think that a middle-aged lady, of right comfortable property, would have, could have, any rational objection to be called Mrs. Hardesty?’
‘I think not, Sir,’ replied John, taking up the cat; ‘I’m sure you have been very kind to me and old Tom here, and I know you would be so to her.’
‘Very true, John,’ said Mr. Hardesty, whose feelings were touched by this expression of the boy’s gratitude; ‘but I wish to extend the sphere of my usefulness; and I may venture to hope—but don’t mention it—that in the course of three or four years, or may-be a little longer, there’ll be a little boy at our house for you to play with; and if it’s a girl, John, you shall marry her when you get old enough. Eh, John! how would you like that?’ And the old gentleman chuckled himself into a fit of coughing that seemed to threaten his longevity, and prevented John’s reply to a suggestion that had never occurred to him as being within the bounds of the most remote possibility.
Having amused himself sufficiently with these flights of his fancy, Mr. Hardesty rose from his seat, gave John eighteen-pence for Christmas-money, stroked his namesake’s back, put on his cloak and cap, and after bidding John be a good boy, and not to mention it, and to take care of the fire till he came back, left the house on his errand of love.
Christmas eve! Surely the village streets were never so gay before! You may know there is a moon, for though the sky is darkened with clouds, and the snow is falling as it never fell before, there is a glow of light above and around, that would burst on the eye like dim revealings of fairy-land, but for the mist that floats through the dim upper air, and seems striving to bind the earth as with a mantle.
What a merry, merry Christmas! Gust after gust comes whirling on, full-freighted with the virgin snow. There are shouts of revelry that rise and fall with the sound of the blast. There are hurried footsteps that glide over the crackling snow. There are merry hearts within those bounding sleighs, and hands that clasp the hands they love, though wrapped in countless furs and muffs. Gay steeds dash on with steaming nostrils, as if their toil were sport; and their bells, as they ring cheerily out in the sombre night, give promise of marriage-bells to come.
Through all this busy scene Tom Hardesty pressed on, turning neither to the right nor left, except when he turned a corner. As the wind dashed the driving snow in his face, he drew his cloak more closely around him, and, shivering, passed on with cheerful thoughts of love and matrimony. Sometimes the boys pelted him with their snowy artillery, or old acquaintances inquired after his health, but he glided on like a dim shadow, heedless alike of all. By degrees the holiday din of the village waxed faint in his ears, and as he approached the suburbs, his heart beat fast while his steps were slow with indecision, for he was approaching the end of his pilgrimage—the dwelling of Miss Peggy Sidebottom.
While Mr. Hardesty is pausing at the door, stamping the snow from his feet, and making the accustomed use of his pocket-handkerchief, we will take advantage of his delay to state, briefly, that Miss Sidebottom, beside being sole proprietress of the cottage-like mansion aforesaid, claimed also among her chattels sundry shares in bank, and certain notes of hand, yielding