434 
RURAL HOURS. 
coast by scores of kegs; in short, the activity in the rural house- 
keepers's department is now at its height. But at this busy sea- 
son, during these Christmas preparations, the female Vatel is sup- 
ported and cheered by a sort of holiday feeling which pervades the 
whole house ; there is a dawn of the kindliness and good-will belong- 
ing to Christmas perceptible in kitchen and pantry ; the eggs are 
beaten more briskly, the sugar and butter are stirred more readily, 
the mince-meat is chopped more heartily than on any other oc- 
casion during the year. A pleasant reflection this, and one upon 
which it is sometimes necessary to fall back for consolation when 
the pies are a little burnt in the baking, and the turkey proves 
rafher tough after boiling. 
But the larder, though an important item, is very far from be- 
ing the only object of attention in these Christmas tasks. Greens 
are put up in some houses. Santa Claus must also be looked 
after. His pouch and pack must be well filled for the httle peo- 
ple. Hoary heads, wise and gray, are just now considering the 
merits of this or that nursery-book ; weighing sugar-plums and 
candies ; examining puppets and toys. Dolls are being dressed by 
the score, not only your wax and paste-board beauties, such as 
may be seen in every toy-shop window, but also other members 
of the doll family which are wholly of domestic manufacture, such 
as those huge babies of cotton and linen, almost as large as the 
live baby in the cradle, with pretty painted faces, and soft, supple 
limbs. These " rag-babies," as they are sometimes called in the 
nursery — Moppets, as we are instructed to name them by great 
dictionaries — are always pets with little mammas ; no other 
dolls are loved so dearly and so constantly as these. Look at some 
motherly little creature as she pets and fondles this her chief 
