Four chops, four omelettes, and
four small oval dishes of fried potatoes had been
ordered, and now appeared. Immense shouting, immense
kissing among those who had that privilege, general
wondering, and great congratulating that our wives were
there. Solid resolution that we would advance no
farther. Here, and here only, in Springfield itself,
would we celebrate our Christmas Day.
It may be remarked in parenthesis that we had learned
already that no train had entered the town since eleven
and a quarter; and it was known by telegraph that none
was within thirty-four miles and a half of the spot, at
the moment the vow was made.
We waded and ploughed our way through the snow to
church. I think Mr. Rumfry, if that is the gentleman's
name who preached an admirable Christmas sermon in a
beautiful church there, will remember the platoon of four
men and four women who made perhaps a fifth of his
congregation in that storm,--a storm which shut off most
church-going. Home again: a jolly fire in the parlor,
dry stockings, and dry slippers. Turkeys, and all things
fitting for the dinner; and then a general assembly, not
in a caravansary, not in a coffee-room, but in the
regular guests' parlor of a New England second-class
hotel, where, as it was ordered, there were no
"transients" but ourselves that day; and whence all the
"boarders" had gone either to their own rooms or to other
homes.
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