If we stayed at home, we were not without company.

Neighbors dropped in for a glass of tea.
Uncles and cousins came, and perhaps my brother's rebbe, to examine his pupil in the hearing of the family.

And wherever we spent the day, the talk was pleasant, the faces were cheerful, and the joy of Sabbath pervaded everything.
The festivals were observed with all due pomp and circumstance in our house.

Passover was beautiful with shining new things all through the house; _Purim_ was gay with feasting and presents and the jolly mummers; _Succoth_ was a poem lived in a green arbor; New-Year thrilled our hearts with its symbols and promises; and the Day of Atonement moved even the laughing children to a longing for consecration.

The year, in our pious house, was an endless song in many cantos of joy, lamentation, aspiration, and rhapsody.
We children, while we regretted the passing of a festival, found plenty to content us in the common days of the week.