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diff --git a/32430.txt b/32430.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dadff40 --- /dev/null +++ b/32430.txt @@ -0,0 +1,566 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Practical Joke, by Anonymous + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Practical Joke + The Christmas Story of Uncle Ned + +Author: Anonymous + +Illustrator: W. Howland + +Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32430] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRACTICAL JOKE *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + + + +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!" + +[Illustration: Ned and his Companions at the Pond.] + +"Well, Willy," said Uncle Ned, "I don't suppose I look much now as if I +had once been a slender lad, with a soft fair brow, and rosy cheeks; but +I was as full of fun and frolic as the best of you. I will tell you how +I once came near losing my own life and that of a friend and playmate, +by my love of mischief. It was a Christmas night. We were gathered round +the fire just as we now are, cracking nuts, eating apples, and telling +stories, when I proposed to Jack Thornton, and his little brother, that +we should go for a skating frolic to 'the pond,' a beautiful sheet of +water about a quarter of a mile distant. Instantly we were in motion, +looking up our skates and mittens. Off we started, in high glee, +promising ourselves fine fun on the ice. The moon shone +brilliantly--every object could be seen with perfect distinctness. The +little pond, which was supplied with the purest spring water, looked +like a sheet of silver, sparkling in the moonlight. I well remember +looking down through the clear and beautifully transparent ice, and +seeing the pond-lilies, with their broad leaves of tender green, +mingled with rushes and long grass, while the little fish danced like +beams of silver-light in the clear water. The pond was of no great +extent, but toward the middle it was quite deep, and formed a fine broad +sheet of ice for skating. + +[Illustration: Ned rescuing Jack from drowning.] + +"I remembered having seen the day before an air-hole near a rock on the +opposite shore. I had tried the ice near it, and found it strong enough +to bear my weight; and concluding that by this time it was quite thick +enough to bear two or three, I determined to play a trick upon Jack, who +was exceedingly good natured, but a great brag. Nobody could outwit him, +he thought. 'Come, Jack,' said I, 'follow me, and I will take you where +you are afraid to go.'--'I afraid!' said he, 'catch me afraid--I can go +anywhere you can--go ahead!' Away we shot, like swallows, toward the +fatal air-hole. 'Follow me,' I cried; 'keep up with me if you can.' +Thus stimulated, Jack kept close in my rear. My object was to avoid the +air-hole myself, and just give one of Jack's legs a ducking, without +doing him any further injury. We wheeled in circles round and round, +until, making a quick sweep, and calling upon him to keep close, I +dexterously made a slight curve so as to avoid the hole, but down went +poor Jack, one leg and foot quite buried in the freezing element. It was +a favorite trick with the knowing ones, and was never taken amiss. But +in this case the joke was carried too far. Jack pulled and struggled to +draw out his foot, when suddenly the ice gave way, and down he sank into +the deep water. I knew he could not swim--neither could I. I was aware +it would not do to attempt to get him out by going near him on the ice, +as our efforts would only crack the ice and throw me in too. But, as +quick as thought, I ran on shore, threw off my skates, went to the edge +of the rock, where fortunately he was within my reach, and, after many +unsuccessful attempts, I succeeded in drawing him out. Poor Jack was +almost exhausted; but I got him home, and he was undressed and put to +bed. A severe fit of sickness followed from the cold he took that night. +Aunt Dorothy always insisted that his sickness might have been +prevented, if she had been permitted to give him a dose of her +hot-drops, which she always kept by her--a specific for all complaints. +But the physician who was called positively forbade it. Physicians do +not like to have persons who are ignorant of the nature of diseases, and +their proper remedies, tampering with the human frame. Although in some +instances they may relieve in mild attacks, they often do a great deal +of harm by giving favorite quack medicines, indiscriminately, for all +complaints. However, by good nursing, Jack soon got well; and we +received a good lesson, which I have never forgotten, in the almost +fatal termination of the 'PRACTICAL JOKE.'" + +[Illustration: The Physician and Aunt Dorothy.] + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Practical Joke, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRACTICAL JOKE *** + +***** This file should be named 32430.txt or 32430.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/3/32430/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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