On Christmas morning we all brought out our purchases and arranged them on a table. Merton was almost wild when he found a bright single-barrelled gun with accoutrements standing¹ in the corner. Even Mousie exclaimed with delight at the bright-colored papers of flower-seeds on her plate. To Winnie were given half a dozen china eggs with which to lure² the prospective³ biddies to lay in nests easily reached, and she tried to cackle over them in absurd imitation. Little Bobsey had to have some toys and candy, but they all presented to his eyes the natural inmates⁴ of the barn-yard. In the number of domestic animals he swallowed that day he equalled the little boy in Hawthorne's story of "The House of the Seven Gables," who devoured⁵ a ginger-bread caravan⁶ of camels and elephants purchased at Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon's shop.  
Our Christmas dinner consisted almost wholly of such vegetables as we proposed to raise in the coming summer. Never before were such connoisseurs⁷ of carrots, beets⁸, onions, parsnips, and so on through almost the entire list of such winter stock as was to be obtained at our nearest green-grocery. We celebrated⁹ the day by nearly a dozen dishes which the children aided my wife in preparing. Then I had Merton figure the cost of each, and we were surprised at the cheapness of much of country fare, even when retailed¹⁰ in very small quantities.
 
This brought up another phase of the problem. In many respects I was like the children, having almost as much to learn as they—with the advantage, however, of being able to correct impressions by experience. In other words, I had more judgment¹¹; and while I should certainly make mistakes, not many of them would be absurd or often repeated. I was aware that most of the homely¹² kitchen vegetables cost comparatively little, even though (having in our flat no good place for storage) we had found it better to buy what we needed from day to day. It was therefore certain that, at wholesale¹³ in the country, they would often be exceedingly cheap. This fact would work both ways: little money would purchase much food of certain kinds, and if we produced these articles of food they would bring us little money.
 
I will pass briefly¹⁴ over the period that elapsed before it was time for us to depart, assured that the little people who are following this simple history are as eager to get away from the dusty city flat to the sunlight, breezy fields, brooks¹⁵, and woods as were the children in my story. It is enough to say that, during all my waking hours not devoted¹⁶ to business, I read, thought, and stu............