New Year, anyway. Perhaps I can get him out for a ride to make some calls on the people and see the young folks at their fun. It'll do him good and them good and me good, and do everybody good." Saying which the deacon got inside his warm fur coat and started towards the barn to harness Jack into the worn, old-fashioned sleigh; which sleigh was built high in the back and had a curved dasher of monstrous proportions, ornamented with a prancing horse in an impossible attitude, done in bright vermilion on a blue-black ground.

II

"Happy New Year to you, Parson Whitney; happy New Year to you," cried the deacon, from his sleigh to the parson, who stood curled up and shivering in the doorway of the parsonage, "and may you live to enjoy a hundred."

"Come in; come in," cried Parson Whitney, in response, "I'm glad you've come; I'm glad you've come. I've been wanting to see you all the morning," and in the cordiality of his greeting, he literally pulled the little man through the doorway into the hall and hurried him up the stairway to his study in the chamber overhead.

"Thinking of me! Well, now, I never," exclaimed the deacon, as, assisted by the parson, he twisted and wriggled himself out of the coat that he a little too snugly filled for an easy exit. "Thinking of me, and among all these books, too; bibles, catechisms, tracts, theologies, sermons; well, well, that's funny! What made you think of me?"

"Deacon Tubman," responded the parson, as he seated himself in his arm-chair, "I want to talk with you about the church."

"I want to talk with you about the church."

"The church!" ejaculated the deacon, in response, "nothing going wrong, I hope?"

"Yes, things are going wrong, deacon," responded the parson; "the congregation is growing smaller and smaller, and yet I preach good, strong, biblical, soul-satisfying sermons, I think."

"Good ones! good ones!" answered the deacon, promptly; "never better; never better in the world."

"And yet the people are deserting the sanctuary," rejoined the parson, solemnly, "and the young people won't come to the sociables and the little children seem actually afraid of me. What shall I do, deacon?" and the good man put the question with pathetic emphasis.

"You have hit the nail on the head, square's a hatchet, parson," responded the deacon. "The congregation is thinning; the young people don't come to the meetings, and the little children are afraid of you."

"What's the matter, deacon?" cried the parson, in return. "What is it?" he repeated, earnestly; "speak it right out; don't try to spare my feelings. I will listen to—I will do anything to win back my people's love," and the strong, old-fashioned, Calvinistic preacher said it in a voice that actually trembled.

"You can do it; you can do it in a week!" exclaimed the deacon, encouragingly. "Don't worry about it, parson, it'll be all right; it'll be all right. Your books are the trouble."

"Eh? eh? books?" ejaculated the parson. "What have they to do with it?"

"Everything," replied the beacon, stoutly; "you pore over them day in and day out; they keep you in this room here, when you should be out among the people. Not making pastoral visits, I don't mean that, but going around among them, chatting and joking and having a good time. They would like it, and you would like it, and as for the young folks,—how old are you, parson?"

"Sixty, next month," answered the parson, solemnly, "sixty next month."

"Thirty! thirty! that's all you are, parson, or all you ought to be," cried the deacon. "Thirty, twenty, sixteen. Let the figures slide down and up, according to circumstances, but never let them go higher than thirty, when you are dealing with young folks. I'm sixty myself, counting years, but I'm only sixteen; sixteen this morning, that's all, parson," and he rubbed his little, round, plump hands together, looked at the parson and winked.

"Bless my soul, Deacon Tubman, I don't know but that you are right!" answered the parson. "Sixty? I don't know as I am sixty." And he began to rub his own hands, and came within an ace of executing a wink at the deacon himself.

"Not a day over twenty, if I am any judge of age," responded the deacon, deliberately, as he looked the white-headed old minister over with a most comic imitation of seriousness. "Not a day over twenty, on my honor," and the deacon leaned forward toward the parson and gave him a punch with his thumb, as one boy might deliver a punch at another, and then he lay back in his chair and laughed so heartily that the parson caught the infectious mirth and roared away as heartily as the deacon.

Yes, it was impossible to sit hobnobbing with the jolly little deacon on that bright New Year's morning and not be affected by the happiness of his mood, for he was actually bubbling over with fun and as full of frolic as if the finger on the dial had, in truth, gone back forty years and he was only sixteen. "Only sixteen, parson, on my honor."

"But what can I do," queried the good man, sobering down. "I make my pastoral visits"—

"Pastoral visits!" responded Deacon Tubman, "oh, yes, and they are all well enough for the old folks, but they ar'n't the kind of biscuit the young folks like—too heavy in the centre, and over-hard in the crust, for young teeth, eh, parson?"

"But what shall I do? what shall I do?" reiterated the parson, somewhat despondently.

"Oh, put on your hat and gloves and warmest coat and come along with me. We will see what the young folks are doing and will make a day of it. Come, come; let the old books and catechisms and sermons and tracts have a respite for once, and we'll spend the day out of doors with the boys and girls and the people."

"I'll do it!" exclaimed the parson. "Deacon Tubman, you are right. I keep to my study too closely. I don't see enough of the world and what's going on in it. I was reading the Testament this morning and I was impressed with the Master's manner of living and teaching. It is not certain that he ever preached more than twice in a church during all his ministry on the earth. And the children! how much he loved the children and how the little ones loved him! And why shouldn't they love me, too? Why shouldn't they? I'll make them do it. The lambs of my flock shall love me." And with these brave words, Parson Whitney bundled himself up in his warmest garment and followed the deacon down stairs.

"Tell the folks that you won't be back till night."

"Tell the folks that you won't be back till night," called the deacon from the sleigh, "for this is New Year's and we're going to make a day of it." And he laughed away as heartily as might be—so heartily, indeed, that the parson joined in the laughter himself as he came shuffling down the icy path toward him.

"Bless me, how much younger I feel already," said the good man, as he stood up in the sleigh, and with a long, strong breath, breathed the cool, pure air into his lungs. "Bless me, how much younger I feel already," he repeated, as he settled down into the roomy seat of the old sleigh. "Only sixteen to-day, eh, deacon," and he nudged him with his elbow.

"That's all; that's all, parson," answered the deacon, gayly, as he nudged him vigorously back, "that's all we are, either of us," and, laughing as merrily as boys, the two glided away in the sleigh.