would be out to welcome him, but he was disappointed. The street was deserted; pale rifts of smoke from slaked fires were creeping out of back chimneys; even the tavern doors were barred. "All gone to some Christmas gathering," Leonard explained.

The sleigh slid swiftly along the silent road, the winter landscape defined sharply and clearly under a gray covered sky. They came to the Kearns place at last, a snug home stead in the cove of a hill. There were fires within, shining through the windows; the carriage-road was beaten down; chickens were picking their way over the snow. All the little numberless signs of habitation caught Sim's eye as they drove within the gates. Leonard slackened the speed of the horse, and walked him slowly up the avenue. He fell, in some way, into the easy gossiping tone which he and Sim used to each other long ago. Both men settled themselves more comfortably in the seat as he did so.

"I have determined to leave Tarrytown," he said. "Judge Atwater advised me to go to a large Western city. There is quick practice and prompt pay there. In Tarrytown my mind would grow morbid and unhealthy. I wish that you should consent to let me play the part of the prodigal son, - 'take the portion of goods that belongs to me and go my way.'

"The portion, Leonard?"

Leonard colored. He turned his frank eyes full on his brother. "The Kearns property consists of this farm and bank stock, nearly equal portions. I propose to take the latter, and leave this home as yours."

"Leonard! "9

"For God's sake," broke out the young man, "do not refuse to take this thing from me. Suffer me to feel like a man again. I want to be able to look you in the face, and then I can go to work." He dropped the reins, in his eagerness, and leaned forward: · "Brother?"

Sim's eyes filled with tears. "It shall be as you wish," he said.

"It is my Christmas gift," said Len, and he whipped up the horses and broke into a cheery whistle.

Now before this Sim had kept silence. There was not a vulgar word or accent that escaped his lips which I did not drive this new-found love of his brother back from him, he fancied. But looking in Len's face now, the fancy seemed paltry and false. There was a kinship between them with which birth or education had nothing to do.

When they came to the house, Sim fancied he heard a buzzing sound of voices; but there was silence a moment after, and they alighted and came into the little living-room next to the parlor. A live room in truth, with the old home born into the new. There was the old brown clock over the mantel - shelf, Sim's chair before the fire, his knityarn sack on the back, his slippers in front, a cupboard identical with that which held the eye-wash at home, and on the hearth the big earthen pitcher steaming full of apple-toddy. Sim sat down, pulled on the green wamus and the slippers: Leonard had gone out to look after the horse, and he had a mind to humor the boy's whim of seeing him at home. The clock ticked away furiously; but what was this it said? Not the old words surely!

He put out his hand, and it fell on his green book. When he opened it, and his eye ran over the names of old friends and neighbors, living and dead, the old fancy came to him that it was a great family. He wondered if he belonged to it, if, in their homes on Christmas, anybody thought of old Sim. Why, there was not a man or boy in Tarrytown whom the poor, solitary old fellow had not tried to make a friend of, some time in his life!

There was a low rustle behind him, the stealthy opening of a door, and when he turned there they were! All of them, — from Squire Barker to Joe the hostler. Tarrytown was but a hamlet, after all; so that they could crowd into Sim's parlor easily enough; but there was as much rejoicing and hearty welcome and fun in the faces of these people as

a whole cityful could have held. Something else than fun and welcome, something in their looks made old Sim's head fall humbly on his breast as he stood up before them, and the words he would have spoken die in his throat. They all crowded about him then. Perhaps the best of it was that the feeling which had brought them there remained unexpressed. They spoke in low voices; they laughed easily, the women, as if tears were not far off, there were so many of them who could remember how the wasted hands they shook had been the last to touch their children who were dead. They took him here and there through the house; they joked; they told him the news; they brought him, with the touch of their strong hands and friendly faces, out of the valley of the shadow of death and set him fairly in the living world again. Beyond the different name they gave him, no one told him, in words, that they knew the secret of his life; yet there was not a face turned towards him on which he could not read the memory, never to be forgotten, of some kindness he had done them in old times. They had all brought some little present too; something towards the furnishing of the house; something durable, -keepsakes. It was the second great event of the winter they made a regular house warming of it. There was a committee of ladies who served up a supper, which was the wonder of the country-side for months, and cleared away the remnants afterwards. They buzzed everywhere, like flies. Sim, with little Thad, sat in the little livingroom, a quiet smile on his face. Leonard bustled to and fro, as handsome and thorough-going as ever, they said, only a little pompous when he spoke of "my brother." Thad sat quite still beside his old friend. Sim pressed his chubby hand now and then; but the two old-fashioned fellows were gravely silent. Sim saw little Hetty once in the crowd far off. In the evening, when they were all gone but Leonard

and Dr. Akers, she came where he sat in front of the fire, and stood before him, looking into his haggard face with. out speaking.

"You brought me no present, Hetty," he said. "Even Thad has knit me a wonderful pair of braces. You gave me nothing."

"No."

"Leon

The little body moved a step back; her great brown eyes wandered uneasily over his face. There was a look in them that drove the blood back to his heart. He got up and went out to his brother. When he came to him he put his hand on his shoulder. The wasted lips scarcely moved. ard," he said, " Hetty?" Leonard's eyes blanched. nothing of that, Sim, — nothing. Long ago, before Atwater came, I knew it was of no use: she cared no more for me than for a cur at her heels. She's too old a head for me,— Hetty Barr. There's a little girl at Wood Centre that I want to tell you about, who is worth twenty of her."

"There is

She put

There was a long silence. her little freckled hand in his, softly. "Nothing but what I gave you long ago," she said.

Later in the evening, while George Bedleon sat by his own home fire, with Hetty near him, the old Doctor talked a long time of life and its uses.

"Heaven I have never seen," he said, decisively; "but this world I have. And I know that an unselfish life never fails of its fruit; and it has its recompense here, great and enduring,—a recompense, as surely as God lives, here.

Then Leonard and Hetty looked with one consent at the poor little silversmith. But Sim heard the Doctor's words as a general theory, and thought how all the world was one great family, and how glad he was on this day, when their Elder Brother came among them, to be one of them again.

I

CAN stand it no longer, sir. I have been seething and boiling inwardly for a couple of years at this last and final insult which science has put upon human nature, and now I must speak, or, if you will, explode. And how is it, I want to know, that the duty of hurling imprecations at this infernal absurdity has devolved upon me? Don't we employ a professional class to look after the interests of the race? - fellows heavily feed to see to it that gorilla and chimpanzee keep their distance? - paid, sir, by me and you to proclaim that men-ay, and women too

are at the top of things in origin, as well as in nature and destiny? Why are these retained attorneys of humanity so confoundedly cool and philosophical, while humanity is thus outraged? What's the use of their asserting, Sunday after Sunday, that man was made a little lower than the angels, when right under their noses are a set of anatomical miscreants who contend that he is only a little higher than the monkeys? And the thing has now gone so far, that I'll be hanged if it is n't becoming a sign of a narrow and prejudiced mind to scout the idea that we are all descended from mindless beasts. You are a fossilized old fogy, in this day of scientific light, if you repudiate your relationship with any fossilized monstrosity which, from the glass case of a museum, mocks at you with a grin a thousand centuries old. To exalt a man's soul above his skeleton, is now to be behind the age. All questions of philosophy, sir, are fast declining into a question of bones, and blasted dry ones they are! The largest minds are now all absorbed in the ugliest brutes, and the ape has passed from being the butt of the menagerie to become the glory of the dissecting-room. And let me tell you, sir, that, if you make any pretensions to be a natural

ist, you will find those of your colaborers who defend the dominant theory as great masters of hard words as of big ones; and if you have the audacity to deny that man is derived from the monkey, it is ten chances to one they will forthwith proceed to treat you like one.

Now I go against the whole thing, sir. When the public mind first took its bent towards science, I, for one, foresaw that the Devil would soon be to pay with our cherished ideas. Under the plea of exercising some of the highest faculties of human nature, these scientific descendentalists have exclusively devoted themselves to the lowest objects of human concern. The meaner the creature, the more they think of it. You, sir, as a free and enlightened citizen of this great Republic, doubtless think something of yourself; but I can tell you there is n't one of these origin-of-species Solons who would n't pass you over as of no account in comparison with any anomalous rat which you would think it beneath your dignity to take the trouble of poisoning. There is n't a statesman, or philanthropist, or poet, or hero, or saint in the land, sir, that they would condescend to look at, when engaged in exploring the remains of some ignorant ass of the Stone Period. As for your ordinary Christian, he has no chance whatever. The only man they think worth the attention of scientific intelligence is pre-historic man, the man nearest the monkey. And this is called progress! This is the result of founding schools, colleges, and societies for the advancement of knowledge! No interest now in Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton,

in Leonidas, Epaminondas, Tell, and Washington,-in Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, and Napoleon. They, poor devils, were simply vertebrates; their structure is so well known that it is unworthy the attention of our modern

prowlers into the earth's crust in search of lower and obscurer specimens of the same great natural division. What do you think these resurrectionists on a great scale, these Jerry Crunchers of palæontology, care for you and me? Indeed, put Alfred Tennyson alive into one end of a museum, and one of those horrible monsters whose bones are being continually dug up into the other, and see which will be rated the more interesting object of the two by the "great minds" of the present day.

And now what is the consequence of thus inverting the proper objects of human concern? Why, if you estimate things according to their descent in the scale of dignity, and occupy your faculties exclusively with organized beings below man, you will tend to approach them. Evil communications corrupt good manners. You can't keep company with monkeys without insensibly getting be-monkeyed. Your mind feeds on them until its thoughts take their shape and nature. Into the "veins of your intellectual frame" monkey blood is injected. The monkey thus put into you naturally thinks that monkeydom is belied; and self-esteem, even, is not revolted by the idea of an ape genealogy. In this way the new theory of the origin of man originated. Huxley must have pretty thoroughly assimilated monkey before he recognized his ancestor in one. The poor beast himself may have made no pretensions to the honor, until he was mentally transformed into Huxley, entered into the substance of Huxley's mind, became inflamed with Huxley's arrogance. This is the true explanation, not perhaps of the origin of species, but of the origin of the theory of the origin; and I should like to thunder the great truth into the ears of all the scientific societies now talking monkey with the self-satisfied air of great discoverers. Yes, sir, and I should also be delighted to insinuate that this progress of monkey into man was not so great an example of "progressive development" as they seem inclined to suppose, and did n't require the long reaches of prehistoric time they consider necessary

to account for the phenomenon. Twenty years would be enough, in all conscience, to effect that development.

Thus I tell you, sir, it is n't monkey that rises anatomically into man, but rather man that descends mentally into monkey. Why, nothing is more common than to apply to us human beings the names of animals, when we display weaknesses analogous to their habitual characters. But this is metaphor, not classification; poetry, not science. Thus I, Solomon Hardhack, was called a donkey the other day by an intimate friend. Thought it merely a jocose reference to my obstinacy, and did not knock him down. Called the same name yesterday by a comparative anatomist. Thought it an insulting reference to my understanding, and did. But suppose that, in respect both to obstinacy and understanding, I had established, to my own satisfaction, a similarity between myself and that animal, do you imagine that I would be donkey enough to take the beast for my progenitor? Do you suppose that I would go even further, and, having established with the donkey a relation of descent, be mean enough to generalize the whole human race into participation in my calamity? No, sir, I am not sufficiently a man of science to commit that breach of good manners. Well, then, my proposition is, that nobody who reasons himself into a development from the monkey has the right to take mankind with him in his induction. His argument covers but one individual, — himself. As for the Hardhacks, they at least beg to be excused from joining him in that logical excursion, and insist on striking the monkey altogether out from their genealogical tree.

And speaking of genealogical trees, do the adherents of this mad theory realize the disgrace they are bringing on the most respectable families! There is not an aristocracy in Europe or America that can stand it one moment, for aristocracy is based on the greatness of forefathers. In America, you know, nobody is aristocratic who cannot count back at least to his great

grandfather, who rode in a carriage, or drove one. As for the Hardhacks, I may be allowed to say, though I despise family pride as much as any man, that they came in with the Conqueror, and went out with the Puritans. But if this horrible Huxleian theory be true, the farther a person is from his origin, the better; antiquity of descent is no longer a title to honor; and a man must pride himself in looking forward to his descendants rather than back to his ancestors. And what comfort is this to me, an unmarried man? With a monkey in the background, how can even a Hapsburg or a Guelf put on airs of superiority? How must he hide his face in shame to think, that, as his line lengthens into an obscure antiquity, the foreheads of his house slope, and their jaws project; that he has literally been all his life aping aristocracy, instead of being the real thing; and that, when he has reached his true beginning, his only consolation must be found in the fact that his great skulking, hulking, gibbering baboon of an ancestor rejoices, like himself, in the possession of "the third lobe," "the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle," and "the hippocampus minor." Talk about radicalism, indeed! Why, I, who am considered an offence to my radical party for the extremes to which I run, cannot think of this swamping of all the families in the world without a thrill of horror and amazement! It makes my blood run cold to imagine this infernal Huxley pertly holding up the frontispiece of his book in the faces of the haughty nobility and gentry of his country, and saying, Here, my friends, are drawings of the skeletons of gibbon, orang, chimpanzee, gorilla; select your ancestors; you pays your money and has your choice." I don't pretend to know anything about the temper of the present nobility and gentry of England; but if the fellow should do this thing to me, I would blow out of his skull everything in it which allied him with the apes, - taking a specially grim vengeance on "the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle," as sure as my

name's Hardhack, and as sure as there 's any explosive power in gunpowder.

And in this connection, too, I should like to know how the champions of this man-monkey scheme get over a theological objection. Don't start, sir, and say I am unscientific. I am not going to introduce Christianity, or monotheism, or polytheism, or fetichism, but a religion which you know was before them all, and which consisted in the worship of ancestors. If you are in the custom of visiting in good society, you will find that that is a form of worship which has not yet altogether died out, but roots itself in the most orthodox creeds. Now you must admit that the people who worshipped their ancestors were the earliest people of whose religion we have any archæological record, and therefore a people who enjoyed the advantage of being nearer the ancestors of the race than any of the historical savages to whom you can appeal. I put it to you if this people, catching a glimpse of the monkey at the end of their line, if the monkey was really there, would have been such dolts as to worship it? A HE worship an IT! Don't you see, that, if this early people had nothing human but human conceit, that would alone have prevented them from doing this thing? Don't you see that they would have preserved a wise reticence in regard to such a shocking bar-sinister in their escutcheons? Worship ancestors, when ancestors are known to have been baboons! Why, you might as well tell me our fashionable friend Eglantine would worship his grandfather, if he knew his grandfather was a hodman. No, sir. That early people worshipped their ancestors, because they knew their ancestors were higher and nobler than themselves. To suppose the contrary would be a cruel imputation on the character of worthy antediluvians, who unfortunately have left no written account of themselves, and therefore present peculiar claims on the charitable judgment of every candid mind.

You have been a boy, sir, and doubtless had your full share in that amuse