[Illustration: "'Dearly beloved brethren,' says I."]
"'How Oggsouash and I come together is neither here nor there,
although I could find it in my heart to wish it was,' I says. 'But
now that the worst has happened, let us meet the consequences like
men--you, like men raised and prostrated by such things as
cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and hay, washed down by the water
which flows in all its glistening uselessness among the hop-toads
and mud-turtles of Oggsouash Creek; and me, like men that pick the
hindleg of an ox at a sittin' and make the spirits in Peg-leg's
place go down like the approach of Arctic breezes.
"'To resume,' says I. 'It may be that there ain't a man drifted
further from what the standards of this here place is than I be,
but I'm willin' to put my hand to an affydavit statin' it never
crossed my mind to draft a set of rules as an improvement on the
Almighty's. There's where you put it all over me. I have held up
a train to hear what the passengers would say, but lackin' the
advantages that has doubtless been yours, I duck when it comes to
reformin' Heaven.
"'It struck me with the force of a revelation when I arrived at
your glowin' mertroppollus this afternoon that to make any human
bein', particlerly children, forget for a time that they lived in
Oggsouash was a religious duty. I have therefore furnished a few
trifles for the purpose. I move you, ladies and gentlemen, that we
turn this Christmas Eve into a Pagan festival.
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