THE BABY'S CHRISTMAS
I
Rockville ought to have been a harmonious community if there ever was one. The same families had been living there for generations, and they had intermarried until everybody was everybody else's cousin. Those who were no kin at all called one another cousin in public,—such is the force of example and habit. Little children playing with other children would hear them call one another cousin, and so the habit grew until even the few newcomers who took up their abode in Rockville speedily became cousins.
There were different degrees of prosperity in the village before and during the war, but everybody was comfortably well off, so that there was no necessity for drawing social distinctions. Those who were comparatively poor boasted of good blood, and they made as nice cousins as those who were richer.
