Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War/The Baby’s Christmas

THE BABY'S CHRISTMASI
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. ​When the editor of the "Vade Mecum" wished to impress on his subscribers the necessity of settling their accounts, he prefaced his remarks with this statement: "We are a homogeneous people. We are united. What is the interest of one is the interest of all. We must continue to preserve our harmony."
But envy knows no race or clime, and it had taken up its abode amo

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