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THE PRACTICAL JOKE;

OR THE CHRISTMAS STORY OF UNCLE NED.

[Illustration]

          NEW YORK:
          PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD,
          CLINTON HALL.




THE PRACTICAL JOKE.


Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all
other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of
old Santa Claus and sugar-plums--with bright visions of a cheerful
fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First
comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and
delightful anticipation--all wondering and guessing what they shall find
in their stockings next morning; while the eldest sister, with looks of
mystery and of importance, shares her mother's councils, and helps to
distribute the precious stores. Soon they are in bed, anxious to sleep
off the long hours, dreaming of rocking-horses and doll-babies,
tea-sets, wooden soldiers, and all the other delights of the toy-shop.

I never heard of a lazy child on a Christmas morning. The idle and the
industrious are all up, "bright and early." The well-filled stockings
are eagerly inspected, good wishes and pretty or useful presents given
and received, and various plans proposed for the day's amusement. Night
comes too soon for the tireless lovers of fun, who go unwillingly to
bed, consoling themselves that one week more will bring New-Year.

[Illustration: Kind little Girls relieving the Poor.]

Dear children, long may such innocent delights crown the year; and, in
the midst of all, forget not the children of the famishing poor, who
have no Christmas pleasures to look forward to; whose parents toil for
their daily bread and scanty apparel all the year, and have no time
nor means to provide themselves or their children with the comforts and
luxuries you enjoy. Each one can spare a little to minister to the
enjoyment of those poor suffering children, many of whom, perhaps, have
no fathers to provide for them, some of them not even a home to shelter
them. Share with them your abundance, and the blessings of the poor
shall rest upon you. And now, my patient little readers, for the story.

One Christmas night we were all gathered around a cheerful fire in the
old-fashioned parlor. Father, mother, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts,
and cousins, were all there. The blazing pine knots sent a cheerful
light into every nook and corner of the big room; the ponderous presses,
and quaint old desk and bookcase, reflecting the warm glow from their
polished surfaces.

The straight, high-backed, mahogany chairs had been sadly knocked about
in a game of blind-man's-buff, and looked as much out of place as a prim
old maiden aunt in a game of romps. Nut-shells and apple-parings,
kiss-papers and mottoes, strewed the broad hearth, and gave pretty good
token of the evening's cheer. The clock had just struck ten, and we
youngsters were warned that it was bedtime, when there arose a loud call
for a story. A story from Uncle Ned! We might all sit up to hear a
story, if Uncle Ned would tell one.

He, good soul, never refused a kind request in his life, and we felt
quite safe for the next half hour. I think I see him now, with his trim
leg encased in a fine home-knit stocking--his bright shoe-buckles, and
neat drab small-clothes--his queer-looking continental hat, with his
gray locks appearing beneath it, and his hands resting upon the head of
his silver-mounted cane.

[Illustration: Portrait of Uncle Ned.]

The chairs were set in their places, stragglers called in, and all were
seated in silence to hear.

[Illustration]


UNCLE NED'S STORY.

"Many years ago, when I was a slip of a lad like Tom there"--"Why,
uncle," cried little Willy in amazement, "did you say you were no bigger
than Tom? Were you ever as little as Tom, uncle?"--"Hush, Willy," said
Tom, a well-grown boy of fourteen, "I'm sure you need not make such a
wonderment at that; I am not so very small, and I expect to be as big as
Uncle Ned when I'm a man. How naughty of you to interrupt the story