Give us thy hand, Old WINTER! Thou art welcome! Thou awakenest visions of other days, when HANS, in the simplicity of his childhood, believed that 'Thanksgiving' and 'Christmas,' some how or other, came into town in an old-fashioned double-seated sleigh, with racing gray horses and cracking whip, wielded by an invisible Jehu. How the idea got into his head, is more than he can tell. Exquisitely happy were those days of uncareful childhood; when the winter school called scores of rosy-cheeked urchins, hallooing on the morning air, through the snow to the old red school-house in the village of HANS'S nativity. The larger boys all with their sleds, on which sat their sisters, with the 'dinner-basket' in their laps; and their smaller brothers floundering through the drifts which they sought, contrary to the last injunctions of their mothers, along the fences. The huge box-stove roared a 'good morning' to them, as the boys stamped off the ice from their shoes, and the girls untied the strings which kept down their pantalettes. As there were no unlucky flies to inter and imprison in transparent quills, nor coke-berries wherewith to paint the sides of their noses farthest from the master's eye, the boys, perforce, studied their tasks; and the girls, as _girls_ always are, were equally the objects of pedagogical favor. Was the day 'thawy,' the noon-time witnessed magic castles erected; and the numberless streaks of bare turf showed where the huge balls of snow of which they were constructed had been rolled into unwieldy masses; and the wet mittens under the stove in the afternoon amply compensated for the want of water in the iron basin on the top of it. Shouting when four o'clock released them, they hurried home, only to prepare for the evening's sport of 'riding down hill.' HANS would give worlds to be a boy again, and for one single moonlight evening slide down 'Furnace-hill,' as of yore! * * * When a few winters had passed over your boyish head, beloved reader, and you first knew that magnetic feeling which told you what gave the charm to rosy lips, and you _guessed_ what kissing was, did you not feel all ecstasy while the bell-bedizzened horses and the belle-enlivened sleigh scoured with half a score of you over hill and through dale; the thick hood of the maiden next you being excuse unquestionable for telling her pretty lips what her ear could not so well apprehend? You needn't be ashamed to confess it; for those were, let HANS tell you, the golden days of your life. Before the wide fire-place of thy father's kitchen, thou hast, days long gone by, arranged the pippins just outside the andirons, and placed the gallon-pitcher of good brisk October on the coals, and cracked hickory nuts, (yes, and the more _accessible_ butternut,) for thy semi-circle of smiling, grown-up sisters and sweet blooming cousins, until the apples were roasted and the cider warmed. Then, when nine o'clock came, and thy spectacled and pious grandmother had read a chapter in the Holy Book, and thy father had knelt in prayer, didst thou not, as HANS does now, while thou laidst thy head upon thy pillow, and heard the whistling wind shaking thy window, bless Old Winter for making you so happy? * * * Courteous reader, HANS, while he draweth up the bed-clothes, biddeth thee 'Good Night!'