Chapter 12 - Stories For The Christmas Season

Three Young Kings By George Sumner Albee

The town of Cardenas, a hundred miles to the east of Havana on the north coast of Cuba, is an old dog a small, taffy-colored dog that is learning new tricks. Three times a week, nowadays, a ferry from Key West brings Cardenas a boatload of American tourists, and these Americans, all of whom have such white faces that they appear to have been sick, seem strange and wondrous to the people of the town. Small boys follow them on the sidewalks and, when they speak, race around in front in order to watch their lips form the mysterious, incomprehensible foreign words.

As for the small girls, they clap their hands over their mouths and giggle, for the American women often wear hats, and, as everybody knows, a hat is a garment worn solely by men. But the little girls' mothers shriek at them and snatch them indoors, for the Americans are bringing money into Cardenas and so they must be treated with the courtesy money deserves.

But this is the story of something that took place in Cardenas in the days before there were tourists or a ferry. At that time the young men sat all day on the iron rocking chairs in the park under the royal palms, talking excitedly about the day when they would go to work and make vast fortunes and buy fast automobiles. The shopkeepers opened at ten in the morning, strolled home at noon for heavy dinners of rice and black beans, took two-hour siestas and returned to their stores to play dominoes until suppertime, setting their prices sky-high so that would-be customers would not interrupt them. The women mopped their white tile floors, cooked, gossiped and, at dusk, locked themselves into the houses behind their heavy hardwood doors. And the children, when they had fathers who could pay the tuition, went to school. The boys, in white shirts and neckties of the soft blue that is the Virgin's own color, attended the Escuela Pia. The girls, in blue pinafores with white stripes around the hems of the skirts, went to the Escuela de las Madres Escolapias.

Which brings us to three boys of the Escuela Pias: Eduardo, Ramoncito and Lazaro.

Eduardo was sixteen, while Ramoncito and Lazaro were a few months younger. They were the oldest boys at the colegio and the biggest. In fact, Eduardo amounted to a giant in Cuba, where the horses are the size of large dogs and the dogs are not much larger than rabbits; his nickname was Elephant. He had a flat, snub-nosed face and a cubical skull on which his hair looked like a coat of glossy black lacquer because he soaked it daily in scented brilliantine. Ramoncito was finely made, with a headful of tight little curls and eyelashes half an inch long over eyes the color of clear green sea-water. Lazaro was the shortest of the three, but that did not keep him from being the heaviest. He was so fat that he exploded his clothes two and three times a day, popping shirt buttons and the seams of his knickerbockers or the buckles that fastened them at his plump knock-knees. Lazaro ate three huge meals a day, treated himself to custard eclairs on the way to school and fresh coconut macaroons on the way home, and devoted the recess periods to eating candy. Ramoncito's nickname was Monkey. Lazaro's was Macaroon.

The fact that they happened to be the three oldest students laid quite a few responsibilities on Eduardo, Ramoncito and Lazaro. When the school's forty-seven boys scrambled into the bus for the annual picnic at St. Michael of the Baths it was Eduardo, Ramoncito and Lazaro who served as monitors umpiring ball games, arbitrating quarrels, seeing to it that appearances and decorum were maintained in general. And at Christmastime, because they were the oldest, it was their duty to play the parts of the Three Kings of Orient.

Jesus' birthday in Cuba is a day to go to church, not a day for gifts. Gifts are distributed later, on the sixth of January, not by Santa Claus but by the Three Kings who carried gifts to the newborn Christ child in the manger at Bethlehem. On the second of January, therefore, Father Miguel called Eduardo, Ramoncito and Lazaro into his office.

"Seat thyselves," he directed them.

Father Miguel, who was eighty-two, was so frail that his white linen cassock appeared more often than not to be unoccupied. There was very little of him still in residence on earth. He had a small, poetically modeled head and a voice, and that was about all. His voice, after all the years away from home, still had the lisp of his native Asturian mountains, and it too was fragile a faint, musical buzz, like that made by a small but energetic fly in the schoolroom on a hot afternoon.

"Children," he said for he was so aged that he could no longer perceive the difference between sixteen and six, "I have done this many times, but it is new to you, so I must explain the procedure of the Three Kings. All of the gifts your schoolmates will receive from their families and friends are upstairs in the janitor's room. The gifts for the girls are here as well; Mother Superior brought them over to me from Madres Escolapias. I want you here two hours before dusk on Day Five to load the mules, saddle the horses and disguise yourselves in your robes and turbans. The robes will fit; they always do. Do you ride well?"

"Yes, Father," murmured the boys. All Cuban boys ride well, using neither saddle nor bridle but only a length of rope looped at one end around the horse's muzzle.

"Bueno; you will be handsomely mounted. Don Alfredo de la Torre is sending me three cream-colored mares from his farm, with silver-mounted Mexican saddles and packsaddles for the mules. You will set out at dusk. It will take you three hours or so to deliver the presents; then you will return here and hand back the animals to Don Alfredo's foreman and hang away your robes. Understood?"

"Understood, Father," replied Eduardo when neither Ramoncito nor Lazaro spoke. He did not ask for leadership. It annoyed him, actually. But it was always thrust on him.

"Now go along to your homes," concluded the old priest, "and do not reveal to anyone that you are the Three Kings, We would not wish to sadden the hearts of any of the little ones."

During the next couple of days, as they discussed the roles they were to play, Ramoncito grew somewhat bitter about the "little ones." "What do we care if they find out the Kings aren't real?" he exclaimed resentfully. "We found out."

"That's no way to talk," replied Eduardo brusquely in his deep voice. "Before we knew the Kings did not exist, we thought they were marvels. We nearly went out of our heads waiting for them to come to our houses and bang the knockers. True?"

Fat little Lazaro offered no opinion one way or the other. Instead, he made a street map and planned the route they would take, so that they would be able to visit the houses on their list with the least possible amount of backtracking. Lazaro was efficient. Either that or he was lazy. Or it may be that efficiency and laziness are merely different names for the same thing.

With the school empty for the holidays, the playground seemed strange to the boys when they met there late on the afternoon of the fifth, a lonely square of red, grainy earth over which dry leaves skated. Land crabs had dug comfortable homes for themselves in the basketball court.

They loaded the four pack mules one at a time, with Eduardo carrying out the heavier toys the tricycles and the miniature automobiles because he was the strongest, Lazaro arranging the boxes and parcels in accordance with his map and Ramoncito, who was a passionate fisherman and good at tying knots, filling the large burlap sacks that would serve as their saddlebags and lashing them to the mahogany packsaddles. The mules, more intelligent than the horses, understood at once that they were being invited to join in some kind of game. They behaved well, neither balking nor biting. With the mules loaded, the boys saddled the three small, beautiful mares, who would have looked to an American as if they had pranced right off a merry-go-round. Then the boys put on their costumes.

The school had had the costumes for so many years that nobody remembered any longer who had made them originally somebody's mother, probably. Whoever she was, she had used the same rich materials she would have used in embroidering an altar cloth for the church. Ed-uardo's robe was of turquoise satin belted with a gold cord and on his head he wore a multicolored turban. Lazaro's robe was of heavy silver brocade and his turban was of purple velvet. Ramoncito wore a mandarinlike coat of blue silk, ornately embroidered, and a wine-colored turban. They wore their ordinary shoes, because the belled Mexican stirrups would hide them when they were on horseback and the long robes would cover them when they got down to enter the houses. Last of all, they attached their long white beards with liquid adhesive and, using an eyebrow pencil, drew the wrinkles of old age on their brown young faces.

Then, the horses ready, the mules waiting eagerly in single file on their lead ropes, the boys watched the sun go down behind the palm groves to the west. It sank, a giant illuminated peach sending up a spray of golden searchlights through the massed clouds. After it was below the horizon, the sky was filled with dazzling lime-green light, and then, with no interval, it was dusk. It had been a fruit punch of a sunset, complete with maraschino cherries and lemon sherbet, but the boys had seen it every night of their lives, and they supposed that the sun behaved as extravagantly in all countries. To them it was merely a signal that the time had come for them to start.

"Mount," ordered Eduardo, and they swung themselves into the highbacked, embossed saddles. The lead mule brayed gaily in a spirit of adventure. Off they trotted.

"The top end of Princess Street," directed Lazaro. "The Montoros live there at Number 17."

"I believe thee," replied Ramoncito, whose secret intention it was one day to marry the middle Montoro girl, Gladys.

The houses of Cardenas, like the houses in most Latin cities, are invisible. That is, you see nothing of them from the street except the front wall, which joins the front walls of the residences on either side and is plastered over with the same golden stucco. Inside the wall, from front to back, each house is divided into two long, narrow strips, side by side. One of these strips, which has no roof over it, is a tiled garden with a fountain, stone flower boxes, lime and mango and papaya trees and an array of outdoor furniture. Here the family lives three hundred days in the year. The long strip on the other side, roofed over with faded vermilion tiles, contains the formal living room with its crystal chandelier and cumbersome mahogany furniture; the bedrooms, each of which has its own door opening into the garden; the dining room, with another chandelier and a big electric refrigerator from the United States standing in a corner; and the kitchen, where the food is cooked over square cast-iron baskets of fragrant, glowing charcoal. Behind the kitchen live the servants, and all their relatives who are able to think up convincing hard-luck stories.

But there is something about the houses of Cardenas that is stranger still, and this is that the richest man in the block may live next door to the poorest. There are poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods, but often a banker lives in the poor one and a shrimp peddler in the rich one. For this reason, as the boys dismounted at the Montoro house the could not help but see the nine barefoot children of Emil-io, the shoemaker, dressed in ragged shirts and nothing else, who stared at them hopefully as they took down the saddlebag containing the Montoro youngsters' gifts. Eduardo, whose voice was already so much deeper than many a man's, thudded on the door with the brass knocker and bellowed: "Do the good young ones of the Senores Montoro live here?"

Senor Montoro swung open the tall door, elegant in his starched white jacket of pleated linen. "Yes, sir, we have good young ones in this house," he replied. "May I ask who you are, gentlemen?"

"We are the Three Kings of Orient," boomed Eduardo.

"Enter, then. This is thy house."

The Montoro children, jabbering with excitement, accepted the presents that had their names on them as Eduardo and Ramoncito took them from the opened burlap sack. Hasty goodbyes were said, the Kings explaining that they had a great distance to travel before morning, and they mounted and rode on.

"The shoemaker's kids are all crying," said Lazaro over the clip-clop of the hooves. "I can hear them. They thought we'd leave something for them when we came out of the Montoros'."

"Maybe Jaime Montoro will give them his express wagon after he smashes it," said Ramoncito. "I'll bet there won't be a wheel left by noon tomorrow."

At the Cabrera house on Shell Street they delivered a fifty-dollar French doll to Myriam Cabrera, along with a dozen other packages. Mounting again, they turned into Anglona Street. By now it was dark, the only light on the street falling from unshaded bulbs at the intersections. They were conscious as they rode along of people, grownups as well as children, watching them from the sidewalks. Everybody was out for an evening stroll in the cool bay breeze. Now and again somebody called out "Look, the Three Kings!" and each time the voice was thrilled and reverent. There was mystery in the night. The mules felt it, pricking up their ears, and the horses, catching the mur-m is of admiration tossed their manes and lifted their forefeet higher than they really needed to, showing off. A group of men around the white pushcart of a tamalero cheered and waved. One of them, a farmer in high-laced boots with his sugarcane knife at his belt, ran into the street and tried to feed his tamale to Eduardo's horse.

On Saint John of God Street the horses shied at the peanut seller who was chanting, "Peanuts a little hot, peanuts a little hot," and again there were watchers in the darkness under the rustling palms. Distinctly the boys heard a little girl ask in a trembling voice: "Mama, will they come to us?" And they heard the mother's patient, desperate answer: "Who knows, soul of my soul? But if they do not come tonight you must be valiant, for surely they will come next year."

On the lead mare Eduardo, who knew a number of words which did not meet with Father Miguel's approval, muttered a particularly bad one.

"Now she's crying," exclaimed Lazaro, "because we've passed her house."

"If you think this is bad," said Ramoncito, "wait till we get down by the market. My brother Pepe told me when he was a King he rode through four blocks of bawling beggar kids there."

"The poor are always with us," replied Ed-uardo gruffly. "Jesus says so in the Bible."

"He means they are always with us to remind us to do something about them, Elephant," said Lazaro. "That's what He means."

"What do you want?" Eduardo shouted back. "Am I to blame because there are families that can't earn a living? The cane crop is poor this year."

Eduardo's anger was something to be quenched promptly; it was well known. "No, Elephant, dear, you are not to blame," said Ramoncito. "We don't say you are."

"Then shut up, the two of you!"

"I just think," said Lazaro in the clear, sweet voice that permitted him, at fifteen, still to sing in the choir, "it's a shame to take gifts to rich kids like us when it's the poor kids that need them."

"Me, too. My father is giving me a bicycle," added Ramoncito. "What do I want with a domino set and a silly card game that's supposed to teach me how to spell?"

"Father Miguel told us what to do," said Eduardo grimly, "and we're going to do it."

But not a hundred yards farther on a small boy of seven or eight, in a shirt made of secondhand cheesecloth washed white for the holiday, ran hysterically into the street crying, "Oh, Kings, Kings! We live here, senores, at Number 22!"

Eduardo reined in so sharply that he hurt his mare's dainty mouth. Leaning down from his saddle, he bellowed in a voice that frightened the boy nearly out of his senses: "What's your name? Is there light in your house so we can see? Then take us there. Monkey, gallop back and get that girl that was howling!"

In the one-room house at Number 22, where an entire family slept on the clay floor and the only light was that from the candle blinking in its ruby cup at the feet of the Virgin, they handed out half a dozen packages, Eduardo glowering, Ramoncito scared but resolute, and Lazaro struggling to control the giggle that always assailed him at the wrong moment. The gratitude of the little boy and girl embarrassed them so terribly that they got away quickly, shutting the rickety door behind them with a slam. They gathered around the horses.

"Well, anyhow," said Eduardo, "those two won't bawl all night. But now what? You know we ought to obey the father."

"Tu eves jefe," answered Ramoncito with a shrug. "You're the boss."

"I'm not the boss," roared Eduardo. "You always make me the boss, and then I get into trouble. Do you realize the scandal it will be if we go down to the market and give all this stuff to the beggar kids?"

"Clearly it will be a scandal," responded Ramoncito. "It has never been done."

"We're wearing eleven-yard shirts now," protested Eduardo as we might say: "We're in hot water now." He turned to Lazaro. "What do you say, Macaroon?"

When a person of Spanish blood does not know what other answer to give, he answers with a proverb. "That which does not kill us," quoted Lazaro, "will make us fat." The saying did not fit the situation especially well, but it conveyed his meaning.

"All right," said Eduardo, "but you're both in this with me. Don't you forget it, either!"

"For an elephant," said Ramoncito, "you do a lot of talking."

Dramatically Lazaro crumpled his map and flung it into the gutter. They turned the horses' heads and trotted toward the market. In the street approaching it, Colonel Hangman Street, with its reek of fish heads and rotten cabbage, they drew rein. Somebody had smashed the street light with a cabbage or a pebble from a slingshot, but there was light enough from the stars to see by; the stars hung just over the rooftops like green and red Christmas tree ornaments lowered from Heaven on wires. Eduardo stood erect in his stirrups. "Hear me," he shouted. "Is this the town of Cardenas, in Cuba?" That was a fine imaginative touch. "Are there good young ones on this street who have behaved well this year? If there are, come you all to the market!"

The market, a maze of heavy stone archways, was brilliantly lighted. Curious, laughing butchers and vegetable sellers at once gathered a-round the Three Kings as they entered, dragging their bulky saddlebags. Even as the crowd formed a ring, dirty, barefoot children with uncombed hair and noses that badly needed wiping were pushing and wriggling and, where it was necessary, kicking their way to its center. Recklessly Eduardo, Ramoncito and Lazaro tore away tissue paper and ribbons, so that they could see what the gifts were, and passed them out. Arguments broke out in the crowd, but not among the children. They snatched their dolls and painting sets, their toy fire engines and scooters and raced away shrieking, carrying the greatest news of their lives to brothers, sisters and deserving friends.

In twenty minutes the saddlebags were empty. Not an all-day sucker was left. Even Ra-moncito's white beard was gone, for it had fallen to the concrete floor and a youngster had snatched it in the belief that it was a toy. Streaming perspiration, and as hoarse as crows, the three boys thrust their way through the chattering, mystified, admiring crowd that jammed the sidewalk for a block, mounted and trotted back to the school under the late moon. The moon could not manage anything quite as spectacular as the sun, but it was doing its best. It turned the massed clouds over the sea into great clusters of white camellias, wrapping each cluster in shining aluminum foil.

Scientists say nothing travels more swiftly than light. This is not true; in a small town good news, bad news, any kind of news at all travels faster. By the time the boys had hung up their costumes and turned over the animals to Don Alfredo's foreman, furious, gesticulating parents were already haranguing the boys' fathers. And by morning the anger had solidified into a demand that all three of them be expelled at once from school. The movement was headed by Triunfo Anilina, who had made a large fortune out of a small drugstore by selling medicines for much more than they were worth to people too sick to argue over price.

The druggist, sending around notes to everybody's house by messenger, demanded that all parents of boys attending the colegio meet there and put the matter to a vote at four o'clock.

At four that afternoon the outraged parents were at the school not two hours late, nor even one hour late, as was the custom, but on the dot. Plump fathers with cigars, plump mothers with small, exquisite feet in high-heeled, patent leather shoes, they followed Triunfo Anilina into the large, cool room in which arithmetic was taught. There they squeezed themselves into the seats behind the students' small desks while the burly druggist arrogantly preempted the mathematics teacher's desk on the dais. As for the boys themselves, without anybody's ordering them to do so, Eduardo, Ramoncito and Lazaro ranged themselves before the blackboard, standing with their backs to it. In their own minds they were guilty, convicted and ready for the firing squad.

"We are here," stated Triunfo Anilina curtly. "Let us begin."

He presented a detailed account o£ the crime that had been committed, using a number of large and impressive words he had picked up from his brother, a lawyer. It took him half an hour.

After this the fathers of the culprits spoke for the defense, Eduardo's father offering to repay the cost of all the gifts, Ramoncito's father pleading that boys would be boys, and Lazaro's father volunteering to pitch Triunfo and all the other male members of the Anilina family, to whom he referred as cockroaches, through the window.
But Triunfo Anilina shouted down the defense, pounding the desk with his hairy fist and upsetting the inkwell.

"The thieves must be punished!" he cried.

"Then the truth of the matter," said Eduardo's handsome father, getting once more to his feet, "is that nothing will satisfy you not honorable apology, not repayment, nothing. What you want is revenge."

"Yes, revenge!" gasped Triunfo Anilina, his linen jacket dark with perspiration. "What a scandal! It is the first time in the history of our colegio that this thing has happened!"

"Ah, Anilina," came a faint, musical buzz of a voice from the rear of the room, "you have a point there."

Every head turned as Father Miguel, pausing several times to gather strength along the way, came up the aisle in his long, tallow-colored gown. All the mothers and fathers had forgotten him.

Triunfo Anilina scrambled clumsily to his feet. "Take my seat. Father," he said.

"It is not your seat," replied Father Miguel. Standing on tlie dais, steadying himself with one small, dry hand on the edge of the desk, his bald skull reflecting the white light from the windows, he faced the parents. "Dear friends," he whispered, "it is so. For fifty years I have sent into the town, on the eve of Three Kings' Day, the three oldest boys of the school. And always they have distributed the gifts as I bade them, because they were good boys. Not until last night have they ever disobeyed me."

Behind the desk Triunfo Anilina jerked his head sharply in agreement.

"But these three boys are good boys also, since all boys are good boys," continued Father Miguel, "so, in fairness to them, we must examine their misdeed very closely. Exactly what, we must ask ourselves, did they do? They took rich gifts, provided by the bounty of our beloved island, and carried them to babes who sleep on straw pallets, if they are lucky enough to find any straw in the streets around the market. Does the straw remind you of anything, senores and senoras? It reminds me of another Babe, swaddled in coarse cloth, who slept on straw in a manger because there was no room for Him in an inn. And with this in mind it becomes clear beyond doubt that these are not good boys. No, they are something more than ordinary good boys. In the generosity of their hearts, the sweetness of their spirit, the courage of their will they are, indeed, Three Young Kings."
At the blackboard, arms stiff at his sides, Eduardo spoke out of the corner of his mouth to fat little Lazaro. "Giggle one time," he said, "and I advise thee that it will be thy last giggle."

In the schoolroom there was silence. Then Ramoncito's mother began to cry and Lazaro's father burst into boisterous laughter.

Father Miguel raised a hand.

"Now," he said, "if you will kindly help me to my house next door, a delegation from the neighborhood of the market is waiting. They wish to thank you for your sympathy and kindliness, which have so deeply touched them. They wish also to know the identities of the three noble Kings, in order that they may kiss their hands."

As Ye Sow By Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Casually, not that she was especially interested, just to say something, she asked as she handed out the four o'clock pieces of bread and peanut butter, "Well, what Christmas songs are you learning in your room this year?"

There was a moment's pause. Then the three little boys, her own and the usual two of his playmates, told her soberly, first one speaking, then another. "We're not going to be let to sing." "Teacher don't want us in the Christmas entertainment." Their round, eight-year-old faces were grave.

"Well !" said the mother. "For goodness' sakes, why not?"

Looking down at his feet, her own small David answered sadly, "Teacher says we can't sing good enough."

"Well enough," corrected his mother mechanically.

"Well enough," he repeated as mechanically.

One of the others said in a low tone, "She says we can't carry a tune. She's only going to let kids sing in the entertainment that can carry a tune."

David, still hanging his head humbly, murmured, "She says we'd spoil the piece our class is going to sing."

Inwardly the mother broke into a mother's rage at a teacher. "So that's what she says, does she? What's she for, anyhow, if not to teach children what they don't know. The idea! As if she'd say she would teach arithmetic only to those who are good at it already."

The downcast children stood silent. She yearned over their shame at failing to come up to the standards of their group. "Teachers are callous, that's what they are, insensitively callous. She is deliberately planting an inferiority feeling in them. It's a shame to keep them from going up on the platform and standing in the footlights. Not to let them have their share of being applauded! It's cruel."

She drew in a deep breath, and put the loaf of bread away. Then she said quietly, "Well, lots of kids your age can't carry a tune. Not till they've learned. How'd you like to practice your song with me? I could play the air on the piano afternoons, after school. You'd get the hang of it that way."

They brightened, they bit off great chunks of their snacks, and said, thickly, that that would be swell. They did not say they would be grateful to her, or regretted being a bother to her, busy as she always was. She did not expect them to. In fact it would have startled her if they had. She was the mother of four.

So while the after-school bread-and-butter was being eaten, washed down with gulps of milk, while the November-muddy rubbers were taken off, the mother pushed to the back of the stove the interrupted rice pudding, washed her hands at the sink, looked into the dining room where her youngest, Janey, was waking her dolls up from naps taken in the dining-room chairs, and took off her apron. Together the four went into the living room to the piano.

"What song is it, your room is to sing?"

"It came upon the midnight " said the three little boys, speaking at once.

"That's a nice one," she commented, reaching for the battered songbook on top of the piano. "This is the way it goes." She played the air, and sang the first two lines. "That'll be enough to start on," she told them. "Now " she gave them the signal to start.

They started. She had given them food for body and heart. Refreshed, heartened, with unquestioning confidence in a grown-up's ability to achieve whatever she planned, they opened their mouths happily and sang out.

"It came upon the midnight clear That glorious song of old."

They had evidently learned the words by heart from hearing them.

At the end of that phrase she stopped abruptly, and for an instant bowed her head over the keys. Her feeling about Teacher made a rightabout turn. There was a pause.

But she was a mother, not a teacher. She lifted her head, turned a smiling face on the three bellowing children. "I tell you what," she said. "The way, really, to learn a tune, is just one note after another. The reason why a teacher can't get everybody in her room up to singing in tune, is because she'd have to teach each person separately unless they happen to be naturally good at singing. That would take too much time, you see. A teacher has such a lot of children to see to."

They did not listen closely to this. They were not particularly interested in having justice done to Teacher, since they had not shared the mother's brief excursion into indignation. But they tolerated her with silent courtesy. They were used to parents, teachers, and other adults, and had learned how to take with patience and self-control their constantly recurring prosy explanations of things that did not matter.

"Listen," said the mother, "I'll strike just the two first notes on the piano 'It came ' " She struck the notes, she sang them clearly. Full of good will the little boys sang with her. She stopped. Breathed hard.

"Not quite," she said, with a false smile, "pret-t-ty good. Close to it. But not quite, yet. I think we'd better take it one note at a time. Bill, you try it."

They had been in and out of her house all their lives, they were all used to her, none of them had reached the age of self-consciousness. Without hesitation, Bill sang, "I-i-it " loudly.

After he had, the mother, as if fascinated, kept her eyes fixed on his still open mouth. Finally, "Try again," she said. "But first, listen." Oracularly she told them, "Half of carrying a tune is listening first."

She played the note again. And again. And again. Then, rather faintly, she said, "Peter, you sing it now."

At the note emitted by Peter, she let out her breath, as if she had been under water and just come up. "Fine!" she said. "Now we're getting somewhere! David, your turn." David was her own. "Just that one note. No, not quite. A little higher. Not quite so high." She was in a panic. What could she do? "Wait," she told David. "Try just breathing it out, not loud at all. Maybe you can get it better."

The boys had come in a little after four. It was five when the telephone rang Bill's mother asking her to send Bill home because his Aunt Emma was there. The mother turned from the telephone to say, "Don't you boys want to go along with Bill a ways, and play around for a while outdoors ? I've got to get supper ready." Cheerful, sure that she, like all adults, knew just what to do, relieved to see a door opening before them that had been slammed shut in their faces, and very tired of that one note, they put on their muddy rubbers and thudded out.

That evening when she told Her husband about it, after the children had gone to bed, she ended her story with a vehement "You never heard anything like it in your life, Harry, Never. It was appalling! You can't imagine what it was!"

"Oh, yes I can too," he said over his temporarily lowered newspaper. "I've heard plenty of tone-deaf kids hollering. I know what they sound like. There are people, you know, who really can't carry a tune. You probably never could teach them. Why don't you give it up?"

Seeing, perhaps, in her face, the mulish mother-stubbornness, he said, with a little exasperation, "What's the use of trying to do what you can't do?"

That was reasonable, after all, thought the mother. Yes, that was the sensible thing to do. She would be sensible, for once, and give it up. With everything she had to do, she would just be reasonable and sensible about this.

So the next morning, when she was downtown doing her marketing, she turned in at the public library and asked for books about teaching music to children. Rather young children, about eight years old, she explained.

The librarian, enchanted with someone who did not ask for a light, easy-reading novel, brought her two books, which she took away with her.

At lunch she told her husband (There were just the two of them with little Janey; the older children had their lunch at school.), "Musical experts say there really is no such thing as a tone-deaf person. If anybody seems so, it is only because he has not had a chance to be carefully enough trained."

Her husband looked at her quickly. "Oh, all right," he said, "all right! Have it your own way." But he leaned to pat her hand. "You're swell," he told her. "I don't see how you ever keep it up as you do. Gosh, it's one o'clock already."

During the weeks between then and the Christmas entertainment, she saw no more than he how she could ever keep it up. The little boys had no difficulty in keeping it up. They had nothing else to do at four o'clock. They were in the indestructible age, between the frailness of infancy and the taut nervous tensions of adolescence. Wherever she led they followed her cheerfully. In that period of incessant pushing against barriers which did not give way, she was the one whose flag hung limp.

Assiduous reading of those two reference books on teaching music taught her that there were other approaches than a frontal attack on the tune they wanted to sing. She tried out ear-experiments with them, of which she would never have dreamed, without her library books. She discovered to her dismay that sure enough, just as the authors of the books said, the little boys were musically so far below scratch that, without seeing which piano keys she struck, they had no idea whether a note was higher or lower than the one before it. She adapted and invented musical "games" to train their ear for this. The boys standing in a row, their backs to the piano, listening to hear whether the second note was "up hill or down hill" from the first note, thought it as good a game as any other, rather funnier than most because so new to them. They laughed raucously over each other's mistakes, kidded and joshed each other, ran a contest to see who came out best, while the mother, aprons  for cooking, her eye on the clock, got up and down for hurried forays into the kitchen where she was trying to get supper.

David's older brother and sister had naturally good ears for music. That was one reason why the mother had not dreamed that David had none. When the two older children came in from school, they listened incredulously, laughed scoffingly, and went off to skate, or to rehearse a play. Little Janey, absorbed in her family of dolls, paid no attention to these male creatures of an age so far from hers that they were as negligible as grown-ups. The mother toiled alone, in a vacuum, with nobody's sympathy to help her, her great stone rolling down hill as fast as she toilsome pushed it up.

Not quite in a vacuum. Not even in a vacuum. Occasionally the others made a comment, "Gee, Mom, those kids are fierce. You can't do anything with them." "Say, Helen, an insurance man is coming to the house this afternoon. For heaven's sake keep those boys from screeching while he is here. A person can't hear himself think."

So, she thought, with silent resentment, her task was not only to give up her own work, to invent and adapt methods of instruction in an hour she could not spare, but also to avoid bothering the rest. After all, the home was for the whole family. They had the right to have it the background of what they wanted to do, needed to do. Only not she. Not the mother, Of course.

She faltered. Many times. She saw the ironing heaped high, or Janey was in bed with a cold, and as four o'clock drew near, she said to herself, "Now today I'll just tell the boys that I can not go on with this. We're not getting anywhere, anyhow."

So when they came storming in, hungry and cheerful and full of unquestioning certainty that she would not close that door she had half-opened for them, she laid everything aside and went to the piano.

As a matter of fact, they were getting somewhere. She had been so beaten down that she was genuinely surprised at the success of the exercises ingeniously devised by the authors of those books. Even with their backs to the piano, the boys could now tell, infallibly, whether a second note was above or below the first one. Sure. They even thought it distinctly queer that they had not been able to, at first. "Never paid any attention to it, before," was their own accurate surmise as to the reason.

They paid attention now, their interest aroused by their first success, by the incessant practicing of the others in their classroom, by the Christmas-entertainment thrill which filled the schoolhouse with suspense. Although they were allowed no part in it, they also paid close attention to the drill given the others, and sitting in their seats, exiled from the happy throng of singers, they watched how to march along the aisle of the Assembly Hall, decorously, not too fast, not too slow, and when the great moment came for climbing to the platform how not to knock their toes against the steps. They fully expected wasn't a grown-up teaching them? to climb those steps to the platform with the others, come the evening of the entertainment.

It was now not on the clock that the mother kept her eye during those daily sessions at the piano, it was on the calendar. She nervously intensified her drill, but she remembered carefully not to yell at them when they went wrong, not to screw her face into the grimace which she felt, not to clap her hands over her ears and scream, "Oh, horrible! Why can't you get it right!" She reminded herself that if they knew how to get it right, they would of course sing it that way. She knew (she had been a mother for sixteen years) that she must keep them cheerful and hopeful, or the tenuous thread of their interest and attention would snap. She smiled. She did not allow herself even once to assume the blighting look of patience.

Just in time, along about the second week of December, they did begin to get somewhere. They could all sound if they remembered to sing softly and to "listen to themselves" a note, any note, within their range, she struck on the piano. Little Peter turned out, to his surprise and hers, to have a sweet clear soprano. The others were well, all right, good enough.

They started again, very cautiously, to sing that tune, to begin with "It ca-ame " having drawn a deep breath, and letting it out carefully. It was right- They were singing true.

She clapped her hands like a girl. They did not share her overjoyed surprise. That was where they had been going all the time. They had got there, that was all. What was there to be surprised about?

After that it went fast; the practicing of the air, their repeating it for the first skeptical, and then thoroughly astonished Teacher, their triumphant report at home, "She says we can sing it good enough. She says we can sing with the others. We practiced going up on the platform this afternoon."

Then the Christmas entertainment. The tramping of class after class up the aisle to the moment of foot-lighted glory; the big eighth graders' Christmas pantomime, the first graders' wavering performance of a Christmas dance as fairies or were they snowflakes? Or perhaps angels? It was not clear. They were tremendously applauded, whatever they were. The swelling hearts of their parents burst into wild hand-clapping as the first grade began to file down the steps from the platform. Little Janey, sitting on her mother's lap, beat her hands together too, excited by the thought that next year she would be draped in white cheesecloth, would wear a tinsel crown and wave a star-tipped wand.

Then it was the turn of the third grade, the eight- and nine-year-olds, the boys clumping up the aisle, the girls switching their short skirts proudly. The careful tiptoeing up the steps to the platform, remembering not to knock their toes on the stair-treads, the two lines of round faces facing the audience, bland and blank in their ignorance of oh, of everything! thought David's mother, her hand clutching her handbag tensely.

The crash from the piano giving them the tone, all the mouths open,

"It came upo-on the midnight clear That glorious song of old."

The thin pregnant woman sitting in front of the mother, leaned to the shabbily dressed man next to her, with a long breath of relief. "They do real good, don't they?" she whispered proudly.

They did do real good. Teacher's long drill and hers had been successful. It was not howling, it was singing. It had cost the heart's blood, thought the mother, of two women, but it was singing. It would never again be howling, not from those children.

It was even singing with expression some. There were swelling crescendos, and at the lines "The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing." the child-voices were hushed in a diminuendo. Part of the mother's very life had been spent in securing her part of that diminuendo. She ached at the thought of the effort that had gone into teaching that hushed tone, of the patience and self-control and endlessly repeated persistence in molding into something shapely the boys' puppy-like inability to think of anything but aimless play. It had taken hours out of her life, crammed as it was far beyond what was possible with work that must be done. Done for other people. Not for her. Not for the mother. This had been one of the things that must be done. And she had done it. There he stood, her little David, a fully accredited part of his corner of society, as good as anybody, the threat of the inferiority-feeling averted for this time, ready to face the future with enough self-confidence to cope with what would come next. The door had been slammed in his face. She had pushed it open, and he had gone through.

The hymn ended. The burst of parental applause began clamorously. Little Janey, carried away by the festival excitement, clapped with all her might "learning the customs of her corner of society," thought her mother, smiling tenderly at the petal-soft noiselessness of the tiny hands.

The third grade filed down the steps from the platform and began to march back along the aisle. For a moment, the mother forgot that she was no longer a girl, who expected recognition when she had done something creditable. David's class clumped down the aisle. Surely, she thought, David would turn his head to where she sat and thank her with a look. Just this once.

He did turn his head as he filed by. He looked full at his family, at his father, his mother, his kid sister, his big brother and sister from high school. He gave them a formal, small nod to show that he knew they were there, to acknowledge publicly that they were his family. He even smiled, a very little, stiffly, fleetingly. But his look was not for her. It was just as much for those of his family who had been bored and impatient spectators of her struggle to help him, as for her who had given part of her life to roll that stone up hill, a part of her life she never could get back.

She shifted Janey's weight a little on her knees. Of course. Did mothers ever expect to be thanked? They were to accept what they received, without bitterness, without resentment. After all, that was what mothers worked for not for thanks, but to do their job. The sharp chisel of life, driven home by experience, flaked off expertly another flint-hard chip from her blithe, selfish girlhood. It fell away from the woman she was growing to be, and dropped soundlessly into the abyss of time.

After all, she thought, hearing vaguely the seventh-graders now on the platform (none of her four was in the seventh grade), David was only eight. At that age they were, in personality, completely cocoons, as in their babyhood they had been physical cocoons. The time had not come yet for the inner spirit to stir, to waken, to give a sign that it lived.

It certainly did not stir in young David that winter. There was no sign that it lived. The snowy weeks came and went. He rose, ravenously hungry, ate an enormous breakfast with the family, and clumped off to school with his own third-graders. The usual three stormed back after school, flinging around a cloud of overshoes, caps, mittens, windbreakers. For their own good, for the sake of their wives-to-be, for the sake of the homes which would be dependent on them, they must be called back with the hard-won, equable reasonableness of the mother, and reminded to pick up and put away. David's special two friends came to his house at four to eat her cookies, or went to each other's houses to eat other cookies. They giggled, laughed raucously, kidded and joshed each other, pushed each other around. They made snow-forts in their front yards, they skated with awkward energy on the place where the brook overflowed the meadow, took their sleds out to Hingham Hill for coasting, made plans for a shack in the woods next summer.

In the evening, if the homework had been finished in time, they were allowed to visit each other for an hour, to make things with Meccano, things which were a source of enormous pride to the eight-year-olds, things which the next morning fell over, at the lightest touch of the mother's broom.

At that age, thought the mother, their souls, if any, were certainly no more than seeds, deep inside their hard, muscular, little-boy flesh. How do souls develop, she wondered occasionally, as she washed dishes, made beds, selected carrots at the market, answered the telephone. How do souls develop out of those rough-and-ready little males? If they do develop?

David and Peter, living close to each other, shared the evening play-hour more often than the third boy who lived across the tracks. They were allowed to go by themselves, to each other's house, even though it was winter-black at seven o'clock. Peter lived on the street above theirs, up the hill. There was a short-cut down across a vacant lot, which was in sight of one or the other house, all the way. It was safe enough, even for youngsters, even at night. The little boys loved that downhill short-cut. Its steep slope invited their feet to fury. Never using the path, they raced down in a spray of snow kicked up by their flying overshoes, arriving at the house, their cheeks flaming, flinging themselves like cannonballs  against the kitchen door, tasting a little the heady physical fascination of speed, on which later, as ski-runners, they would become wildly drunken.

"Sh! David! Not so loud!" his mother often said, springing up from her mending at the crash of the banged-open door. "Father's trying to do some accounts," or "Sister has company in the living room."

Incessant acrobatic feat to keep five people of different ages and personalities, all living under the same roof, from stepping on each other's feet. Talk about keeping five balls in the air at the same time! That was nothing compared to keeping five people satisfied to live with each other, to provide each one with approximately what he needed and wanted without taking away something needed by one of the others. (Arithmetically considered, there were of course six people living under that roof. But she did not count. She was the mother. She took what she got, what was left. . . .)

That winter, as the orbits of the older children lay more outside the house, she found herself acquiring a new psychological skill that was almost eerie. She could be in places where she was not, at all. She had an astral body which could go anywhere. Anywhere, that is, where one of her five was, She was with her honey-sweet big daughter in the living room, playing games with high-school friends (was there butter enough, she suddenly asked herself, for the popcorn the young people would inevitably want, later?). She was upstairs where her husband sat, leaning over the desk, frowning in attentiveness at a page of figures that desk-light was not strong enough. Better put the flood-light up there tomorrow. She was in the sun-porch of the neighbor's house, where her little son was bolting Meccano-strips together with his square, strong, not-very-clean hands his soul, if any, dormant far within his sturdy body. She floated above the scrimmage in the high-school gym, where her firstborn played basketball with ferocity, pouring out through that channel the rage of maleness constantly gathering in his big frame which grew that year with such fantastic rapidity that he seemed taller at breakfast than he had been when he went to bed. She sent her astral body upstairs to where her little daughter, her baby, her darling, slept with one doll in her arms, and three others on the pillow beside her. That blanket was not warm enough for Janey. When she went to bed, she would put on another one.

She was all of them. First one, then another. When was she herself? When did her soul have time to stretch its wings?

One evening this question tried to push itself into her mind, but was swept aside by her suddenly knowing, as definitely as if she had heard a clock strike, or the doorbell ring , that the time had passed for David's return from his evening play-hour with Peter. She looked at her watch. But she did not need to. A sixth sense told her heart, as with a blow, that he should before this have come pelting down the hill, plowing the deep snow aside in clouds, hurling himself against the kitchen door. He was late. Her astral self, annihilating time and space, fled out to look for him. He must have left the other house some time ago. Peter's mother always sent him home promptly.

She laid down the stocking she was darning, stepped into the dark kitchen, and put her face close to the window to look out. It was a cloudless cold night. Every detail of the backyard world was visible, almost transparent, in the pale radiance that fell from the stars. Not a breath of wind. She could see everything: the garbage pail at the woodshed door, the trampled snow of the driveway, the clothes she had washed that morning and left on the line, the deep unbroken snow beyond the yard, the path leading up the hill.

Then she saw David. He was standing half way down, as still as the frozen night around him.

But David never stood still.

Knee-deep in the snow he stood, looking all around him. She saw him slowly turn his head to one side, to the other. He lifted his face toward the sky. It was almost frightening to see David stand so still. What could he be looking at? What was there he could be seeing? Or hearing? For as she watched him, the notion crossed her mind that he seemed to be listening. But there was nothing to hear. Nothing.

She did not know what was happening to her little son. Nor what to do. So she did nothing. She stood as still as he, her face at the window, lost in wonder.

She saw him, finally, stir and start slowly, slowly down the path. But David never moved slowly. Had he perhaps had a quarrel with Peter? Had Peter's mother been unkind to him?

It could do no harm now to go to meet him, she thought, and by that time, she could not, anxious as she was, not go to meet him. She opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the dark, under the stars.

He saw her, he came quickly to her, he put his arms around her waist. With every fiber of her body which had borne his, she felt a difference in him.

She did not know what to say, so she said nothing.
It was her son who spoke. "It's so still," he said quietly in a hushed voice, a voice she had never heard before. "It's so still!"

He pressed his cheek against her breast as he tipped his head back to look up. "All those stars," he murmured dreamily, "they shine so. But they don't make a sound. They they're nice, aren't they?"

He stood a little away from her to look up into her face. "Do you remember in the song 'the world in solemn stillness lay'?" he asked her, but he knew she remembered.

The starlight showed him clear, his honest, little-boy eyes wide, fixed trustingly on his mother's. He was deeply moved. But calm. This had come to him while he was still so young that he could be calmed by his mother's being with him. He had not known that he had an inner sanctuary. Now he stood in it, awe-struck at his first sight of beauty. And opened the door to his mother.

As naturally as he breathed, he put into his mother's hands the pure rounded pearl of a shared joy. "I thought I heard them singing sort of," he told her.

The Festival Of Saint Nicholas By Mary Mapes Dodge

We all know how, before the Christmas tree began to flourish in the home life of our country, a certain "right jolly old elf," with "eight tiny reindeer," used to drive his sleigh-load of toys up to our housetops, and then bound down the chimney to fill the stockings so hopefully hung by the fireplace. His friends called him Santa Claus; and those who were most intimate ventured to say, "Old Nick." It was said that he originally came from Holland. Doubtless he did; but, if so, he certainly, like many other foreigners, changed his ways very much after landing upon our shores. In Holland, Saint Nicholas is a veritable saint, and often appears in full costume, with his embroidered robes glittering with gems and gold, his mitre, his crosier, and his jewelled gloves. Here Santa Claus comes rollicking along on the 25th of December, our holy Christmas morn; but in Holland, Saint Nicholas visits earth on the 5th, a time especially appropriated to him. Early on the morning of the 6th, he distributes his candies, toys, and treasures, and then vanishes for a year.

Christmas Day is devoted by the Hollanders to church-rites and pleasant family visiting. It is on Saint Nicholas Eve that their young people become half wild with joy and expectation. To some of them it is a sorry time; for the saint is very candid, and, if any of them have been bad during the past year, he is quite sure to tell them so. Sometimes he carries a birch-rod under his arm, and advises the parents to give them scolding in place of confections, and floggings instead of toys.

It was well that the boys hastened to their abodes on that bright winter evening; for, in less than an hour afterwards, the saint made his appearance in half the homes of Holland. He visited the king's palace, and in the selfsame moment appeared in Annie Bouman's comfortable home. Probably one of our silver half-dollars would have purchased all that his saint-ship left at the peasant Bouman's. But a half-dollar's worth will sometimes do for the poor what hundreds of dollars may fail to do for the rich: it makes them happy and grateful, fills them with new peace and love.

Hilda van Gleck's little brothers and sisters were in a high state of excitement that night. They had been admitted into the grand parlor: they were dressed in their best, and had been given two cakes apiece at supper. Hilda was as joyous as any. Why not? Saint Nicholas would never cross a girl of fourteen from his list, just because she was tall and looked almost like a woman. On the contrary, he would probably exert himself to do honor to such an august-looking damsel. Who could tell? So she sported and laughed and danced as gayly as the youngest, and was the soul of all their merry games. Father, mother, and grandmother looked on approvingly; so did grandfather, before he spread his large red handkerchief over his face, leaving only the top of his skullcap visible. This kerchief was his ensign of sleep.

Earlier in the evening, all had joined in the fun. In the general hilarity, there had seemed to be a difference only in bulk between grandfather and the baby. Indeed, a shade of solemn expectation, now and then flitting across the faces of the younger members, had made them seem rather more thoughtful than their elders.

Now the spirit of fun reigned supreme. The very flames danced and capered in the polished grate. A pair of prim candles, that had been staring at the astral lamp, began to wink at other candles far away in the mirrors. There was a long bell-rope suspended from the ceiling in the corner, made of glass beads, netted over a cord nearly as thick as your wrist. It generally hung in the shadow,'and made no sign; but tonight it twinkled from end to end. Its handle of crimson glass sent reckless dashes of red at the papered wall, turning its dainty blue stripes into purple. Passers-by halted to catch the merry laughter floating through curtain and sash into the street, then skipped on their way with the startled consciousness that the village was wide awake. At last matters grew so uproarious that the grandsire's red kerchief came down from his face with a jerk. What decent old gentleman could sleep in such a racket! Mynheer van Gleck regarded his children with astonishment. The baby even showed symptoms of hysterics. It was high time to attend to business. Madame suggested that, if they wished to see the good Saint Nicholas, they should sing the same loving invitation that had brought him the year before.

The baby stared, and thrust his fist into his mouth, as Mynheer put him down upon the floor. Soon he sat erect, and looked with a sweet scowl at the company. With his lace and embroideries, and his crown of blue ribbon and whalebone (for he was not quite past the tumbling age), he looked like the king of the babies.

The other children, each holding a pretty willow basket, formed at once in a ring, and moved slowly around the little fellow, lifting their eyes meanwhile; for the saint to whom they were about to address themselves was yet in mysterious quarters.

Madame commenced playing softly upon the piano; soon the voices rose gentle, youthful voices, rendered all the sweeter for their tremor

"Welcome, friend! Saint Nicholas, welcome!

Bring no rod for us tonight! While our voices bid thee welcome,

Every heart with joy is light.

"Tell us every fault and failing; We will hear thy keenest railing So we sing, so we sing: Thou shalt tell us everything!

"Welcome, friend! Saint Nicholas, welcome!

Welcome to this merry bandl Happy children greet thee, welcome!

Thou are gladdening all the land.

"Fill each empty hand and basket; Tis thy little ones who ask it. So we sing, so we sing: Thou wilt bring us everything!"

During the chorus, sundry glances, half in eagerness, half in dread, had been cast towards the polished folding-doors. Now a loud knocking was heard. The circle was broken in an instant. Some of the little ones, with a strange mixture of fear and delight, pressed against their mother's knee. Grandfather bent forward, with his chin resting upon his hand; grandmother lifted her spectacles; Mynheer van Gleck, seated by the fireplace, slowly drew his meerschaum from his mouth; while Hilda and the other children settled themselves beside him in an expectant group.

The knocking was heard again.

"Come in," said Madame, softly.

The door slowly opened; and Saint Nicholas, in full array, stood before them. You could have heard a pin drop. Soon he spoke. What a mysterious majesty in his voice! What kindliness in his tones!

"Karel van Gleck, I am pleased to greet thee, and thy honored vrouw, Kathrine, and thy son, and his good vrouw, Annie.

"Children, I greet ye all Hendrick, Hilda, Broom, Katy, Huygens, and Lucretia. And thy cousins Wolfert, Diedrich, Mayken, Voost, and Katrina. Good children ye have been, in the main, since I last accosted ye. Diedrich was rude at the Haarlem fair last fall; but he has tried to atone for it since. Mayken has failed, of late, in her lessons; and too many sweets and trifles have gone to her lips, and too few stivers to her charity-box. Diedrich, I trust, will be a polite, manly boy for the future; and Mayken will endeavor to shine as a student. Let her remember, too, that economy and thrift are needed in the foundation of a worthy and generous life. Little Katy has been cruel to the cat more than once. Saint Nicholas can hear the cat cry when its tail is pulled. I will forgive her, if she will remember from this hour that the smallest dumb creatures have feeling, and must not be abused."

As Katy burst into a frightened cry, the saint graciously remained silent until she was soothed.

"Master Broom," he resumed, "I warn thee that boys who are in the habit of putting snuff upon the foot-stove of the school-mistress may one day be discovered, and receive a flogging "

(Master Broom colored, and stared in great astonishment.)

"But, thou art such an excellent scholar, I shall make thee no further reproof.

"Thou, Hendrick, didst distinguish thyself in the archery match last Spring, and hit the bulls-eye, though the bird was swung before it to unsteady thine eye. I give thee credit for excelling in manly sport and exercise though I must not unduly countenance thy boat-racing since it leaves thee too little time for thy proper studies.

"Lucretia and Hilda shall have a blessed sleep tonight. The consciousness of kindness to the poor, devotion in their souls, and cheerful, hearty obedience to household rule will render them happy.

"With one and all I avow myself well content. Goodness, industry, benevolence and thrift have prevailed in your midst. Therefore, my blessing upon you and may the New Year find all treading the paths of obedience, wisdom and love. Tomorrow you shall find more substantial proofs that I have been in your midst. Farewell!"

With these words came a great shower of sugar-plums, upon a linen sheet spread out in front of the doors. A general scramble followed. The children fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to fill their baskets. Madame cautiously held the baby down in their midst, till the chubby little fists were filled. Then the bravest of the youngsters sprang up and burst open the closed doors in vain they peered into the mysterious apartment Saint Nicholas was nowhere to be seen.

Soon there was a general rush to another room, where stood a table, covered with the finest and whitest of linen damask. Each child, in a flutter of excitement, laid a shoe upon it. The door was then carefully locked, and its key hidden in the mother's bedroom. Next followed good-night kisses, a grand family-procession to the upper floor, merry farewells at bedroom doors and silence, at last, reigned in the Van Gleck mansion.

Early the next morning the door was solemnly unlocked and opened in the presence of the assembled household, when lo! a sight appeared proving Saint Nicholas to be a saint of his word!

Every shoe was filled to overflowing, and beside each stood many a colored pile. The table was heavy with its load of presents candies, toys, trinkets, books and other articles. Everyone had gifts, from grandfather down to the baby.

Little Katy clapped her hands with glee, and vowed, inwardly, that the cat should never know another moment's grief.

Hendrick capered about the room, flourishing a superb bow and arrows over his head. Hilda laughed with delight as she opened a crimson box and drew forth its glittering contents. The rest chuckled and said "Oh!" and "Ah!" over their treasures, very much as we did here in America on last Christmas day.

The Mouse That Didn't Believe In Santa Claus By Eugene Field

The clock stood, of course, in the corner; a moonbeam floated idly on the floor, and a little mauve mouse came from the hole in the chimney corner and frisked and scampered in the light of the moonbeam upon the floor. The little mauve mouse was particularly merry; sometimes she danced upon two legs and sometimes upon four legs, but always very daintily and always very merrily.

"Ah, me," sighed the old clock, "how different mice are nowadays from the mice we used to have in the old times! Now there was your grandma, Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your grandpa, Master Sniff whisker how grave and dignified they were! Many a night have I seen them dancing upon the carpet below me, but always that stately minuet and never that crazy frisking which you are executing now, to my surprise yes, and to my horror, too!"

"But why shouldn't I be merry?" asked the little mauve mouse. "Tomorrow is Christmas, and this is Christmas Eve."

"So it is," said the old clock. "I had really forgotten all about it. But, tell me, what is Christmas to you, little Miss Mauve Mouse?"

"A great deal to me!" cried the little mauve mouse. "I have been very good for a very long time; I have not used any bad words, nor have I gnawed any holes, nor have I stolen any canary seed, nor have I worried my mother by running behind the flour barrel where that horrid trap is set. In fact, I have been so good that I'm very sure Santa Claus will bring me something very pretty."

This seemed to amuse the old clock mightily; in fact, the old clock fell to laughing so heartily that in an unguarded moment she struck twelve instead of ten, which was exceedingly careless.

"Why, you silly little mauve mouse," said the old clock, "you don't believe in Santa Claus, do you?"

"Of course I do," answered the mauve mouse. "Believe in Santa Claus? Why shouldn't I? Didn't Santa Claus bring me a beautiful butter cracker last Christmas, and a lovely gingersnap, and a delicious rind of cheese, and lots of things? I should be very ungrateful if I did not believe in Santa Claus, and I certainly shall not disbelieve in him at the very moment when 1 am expecting him to arrive with a bundle of goodies for me.

"I once had a little sister," continued the little mauve mouse, "who did not believe in Santa Claus, and the very thought of the fate that befell her makes my blood run cold and my whiskers stand on end. She died before I was born, but my mother has told me all about her. Her name was Squeak nibble, and she was in stature one of those long, low, rangy mice that are seldom found in well-stocked pantries. Mother says that Squeak nibble took after our ancestors who came from New England, and seemed to inherit many ancestral traits, the most conspicuous of which was a disposition to sneer at some of the most respected dogmas in mousedom. From her very infancy she doubted, for example, the widely accepted theory that the moon was composed of green cheese; and this heresy was the first intimation her parents had of her skeptical turn of mind. Of course, her parents were vastly annoyed, for they saw that this youthful skepticism would lead to serious, if not fatal, consequences. Yet all in vain did they reason and plead with their headstrong and heretical child.

"For a long time Squeak nibble would not believe that there was any such archfiend as a cat; but she came to be convinced one memorable night, on which occasion she lost two inches of her beautiful tail, and received so terrible a fright that for fully an hour afterward her little heart beat so violently as to lift her off her feet and bump her head against the top of our domestic hole. The cat that deprived my sister of so large a percentage of her tail was the same ogress that nowadays steals into this room, crouches treacherously behind the sofa, and feigns to be asleep, hoping, forsooth, that some of us, heedless of her hated presence, will venture within reach of her claws. So enraged was this ferocious monster at the escape of my sister that she ground her fangs viciously together, and vowed to take no pleasure in life until she held in her devouring jaws the innocent little mouse which belonged to the mangled bit of tail she even then clutched in her remorseless claws."

"Yes," said the old clock, "now that you recall the incident, I recollect it well. I was here then, and I remember that I laughed at the cat and chided her for her awkwardness. My reproaches irritated her; she told me that a clock's duty was to run itself down, not to be depreciating the merits of others! Yes, I recall the time; that cat's tongue is fully as sharp as her claws."

"Be that as it may," said the little mauve mouse, "it is a matter of history, and therefore beyond dispute, that from that very moment the cat pined for Squeak nibble’s life; it seemed as if that one little two-inch taste of Squeaknibble's tail had filled that cat with a consuming appetite for the rest of Squeak nibble. So the cat waited and watched and hunted and schemed and devised and did everything possible for a cat a cruel cat to do in order to gain her murderous ends.

"One night one fatal Christmas Eve our mother had undressed the children for bed, and was urging them all to go to sleep earlier than usual, since she fully expected that Santa Claus would bring each of them something very nice before morning. Thereupon the little dears whisked their cunning tails, pricked up their beautiful ears, and began telling one another what they hoped Santa Claus would bring. One asked for a slice of Roquefort, another for Swiss, another for Brick, and a fourth for Edam; one expressed a preference for Cream cheese, while another hoped for Camembert. There were fourteen little ones then, and consequently there were diverse opinions as to the kind of gift which Santa Claus should best bring; still there was, as you can readily understand, an enthusiastic agreement upon this point, namely, that the gift should be cheese of some brand or other.

" "My dears,' said our mother, 'we should be content with whatsoever Santa Claus bestows, so long as it is cheese, disjoined from all traps whatsoever, unmixed with Paris green, and free from glass, strychnine, and other harmful ingredients. As for myself, I shall be satisfied with a cut of nice, fresh American cheese. So run away to your dreams now, that Santa may find you sleeping.'

"The children obeyed all but Squeak nibble. 'Let the others think what they please,' said she, 'but I don't believe in Santa Claus. I'm not going to bed, either. I'm going to creep out of this dark hole and have a quiet romp, all by myself, in the moonlight.' Oh, what a vain, foolish, wicked little mouse was Squeak nibble! But I will not reproach the dead; her punishment came all too swiftly. Now listen: who do you suppose overheard her talking so disrespectfully of Santa Claus?"

"Why, Santa Claus himself," said the old clock.
 
"Oh, no," answered the little mauve mouse. "It was that wicked, murderous cat! Just as Satan lurks and lies in wait for bad children, so does the cruel cat lurk and lie in wait for naughty little mice. And you can depend upon it that, when that awful cat heard Squeak nibble speak so disrespectfully of Santa Claus, her wicked eyes glowed with joy, her sharp teeth watered, and her bristling fur emitted electric sparks as big as peas. Then what did that bloody monster do but scuttle as fast as she could into Dear-my-Soul's room, leap up into Dear-my-Soul's crib, and walk off with the pretty little white muff which Dear-my-Soul used to wear when she went for a visit to the little girl in the next block! What upon earth did the horrid old cat want with Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff? Ah, the ingenuity of that cat! Listen.

"In the first place," resumed the little mauve mouse, after a pause that showed the depth of her emotion, "in the first place, that wretched cat dressed herself up in that pretty little white muff, by which you are to understand that she crawled through the muff just so far as to leave her four cruel legs at liberty."

"Yes, I understand," said the old clock.

"Then she put on the boy doll's cap," said the little mauve mouse, "and when she was arrayed in the boy doll's fur cap and Dear-my-Soul's pretty little white muff, of course she didn't look like a cruel cat at all. But whom did she look like?"

"Like the boy doll," suggested the old clock.

"No, no!" cried the little mauve mouse.

"Like Dear-my-Soul?" asked the old clock.

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed the little mauve mouse. "Why, she looked like Santa Claus, of course!"

"Oh, yes; I see," said the old clock. "Now I begin to be interested; go on."

"Alas!" sighed the little mauve mouse, "not much remains to be told; but there is more of my story left than there was of Squeak nibble when that horrid cat crawled out of that miserable disguise. You are to understand that, contrary to her mother's warning, Squeak nibble issued from the friendly hole in the chimney corner, and gamboled about over this very carpet, and, I dare say, in this very moonlight.

"Right merrily was Squeak nibble gamboling," continued the little mauve mouse, "and she had just turned a double somersault without the use of what remained of her tail, when, all of a sudden, she beheld, looming up like a monster ghost, a figure all in white fur! Oh, how frightened she was, and how her little heart did beat! 'Purr, purr-r-r,' said the ghost in white fur. 'Oh, please don't hurt me!' pleaded Squeak nibble. 'No, I'll not hurt you/ said the ghost in white fur; 'I'm Santa Claus, and I've brought you a beautiful piece o£ savory old cheese, you dear little mousie, you.' Poor Squeak nibble was deceived; a sceptic all her life, she was at last befooled by the most fatal of frauds. 'How good of you!' said Squeak nibble. 'I didn't believe there was a Santa Claus, and ' but before she could say more she was seized by two sharp, cruel claws that conveyed her crushed body to the murderous mouth of the cat. I can dwell no longer upon this harrowing scene. Before the morrow's sun rose upon the spot where that tragedy had been enacted, poor Squeak nibble passed to that bourne to which two inches of her beautiful tail had preceded her by the space of three weeks to a day. As for Santa Claus, when he came that Christmas Eve, bringing cheese and goodies for the other little mice, he heard with sorrow of Squeak-nibble's fate; and ere he departed he said that in all his experience he had never known of a mouse or a child that had prospered after once saying he didn't believe in Santa Claus."

Do You Believe In Miracles? By Lois T. Henderson

The Reverend Paul Edwards stood at the back of the auditorium of the church and looked at the Christmas decorations. The decorating committee had just gone home, and he was alone in the dim sanctuary, alone with the glittering tree and the fragile silver star that hung above the altar.

But, for all the beauty, he was not stirred or moved, and a minister ought not to feel like that, he knew, not when he was only thirty and fairly new to the ministry. He ought to be filled with a fire. Especially when it was Christmas Eve.

But that was the whole trouble. He couldn't get excited about Christmas. He only knew he was tired and let down and maybe even a little disillusioned. He remembered Christmases when he was a theological student, and it had seemed as though all the air were filled with a sense of the miraculous. But now the air was just air, and misery engulfed him to think that it was so.

He sat in one of the pews and slid down on the end of his spine to stare at the artificial star against the darkened windows. That's just it, he thought, everything is artificial. The decorations, the very hearts of people. And mine too.

Suddenly he was frightened. He didn't want to feel the weariness, the artificiality. He wanted to feel as he had once felt, that miracles did happen on Christmas Eve, that animals could talk at midnight, that flowers did bloom out of the snow as gifts for the Christ child. He wanted the feeling so badly that it was like an aching in him.

I'll go home, he decided. Jeannie will cheer me up. He thought of his wife, small and merry and wise, and some of the panic dissolved in him. Jeannie will know what to say, he thought again, and pulled on his coat to go out into the night.

The darkness and the wind struck at him as he opened the church door. The snow drifted against his face to melt into little spots of wetness on his cheeks and lips. Boyishly, he stuck out his tongue to the snow, and it tasted cool and wet. The street lights made little pools of yellow in the dark, and the snow seemed to swirl in miniature whirlwinds under each light.

It looks like Christmas, he admitted to himself, but it doesn't feel like Christmas. And for a minister, it has to. It absolutely has to.

He walked swiftly to his house and came in out of the night and the cold to find light and fragrance and warmth. Jeannie met him in the hall, and her kiss was sweeter than usual.

"Cookie dough," she explained, and rubbed at her mouth.

Her eyes were soft and shining. She gets more beautiful every day, Paul felt, especially with the baby on the way. Her body was large and awkward with the weight of the child she carried but her face was tender and lovely.

As he looked at her standing there, he knew he couldn't tell her. Not on Christmas Eve. He couldn't tell her he was tired and frightened and not so sure of miracles any more. He couldn't transmit his fear to her. She believed in all the magic of Christmas you could see it in her eyes and he just couldn't spoil it for her.

So he attempted lightness instead. "How's the little mother?" he asked. "Not you. You're only making promises so far. I mean the real one."

Jeannie laughed with indulgent scorn. "That Hildy!" she said. "You'd think she was the only dog in all the world who ever had puppies. Honestly, she polishes them."

"It's her German heritage," Paul pronounced. "All dachshunds are abnormally clean."

"She's just fussy," Jeannie said, starting for the kitchen. "I hope I'll be a little more casual with our baby."

She leaned over heavily to take a tray of cookies from the oven.

"You're not baking cookies again?" he said. "Not at the last minute?"

She looked apologetic. "Not many. Just some gingerbread men. And these are the scraps. I remembered about six o'clock that I hadn't fixed a single thing for Penny Ellis, and I just had to do something."

Paul thought of Penny with sorrow. Poor little six-year-old Penny who had been desperately ill from polio in the summer and who was just now home from the hospital, facing the long difficult time of learning to walk again if she ever did.

"Maybe we could have bought her something," he said.

"No, she'll get plenty of dolls and fancy things. But I thought she'd love a gingerbread boy. With lots of icing."

"You!" he said. "You always think of the right things. Every single time."

"I did when I picked you," she said.

And he wondered what she would say if she knew of the thoughts that had tormented him lately. Not doubt it wasn't that. He still believed in God and in God's plan for him. It wasn't that at all. It was just that all the shine had worn off and he had begun to wonder if even the ministry, which he had thought would always be a thing of wonder and glory, had gotten drab and had lost much of its meaning. He wondered if cynicism, the greatest thief of all, had come into his life and heart.

"You take them over to her," Jeannie said, interrupting his thoughts. "She'll be extra thrilled if the minister comes on Christmas Eve."

"I don't think her Dad will be very thrilled," Paul said.

"Poor Guy," Jeannie murmured. "I feel so sorry for him."

"I feel sorrier for Penny," Paul said.

"No, because Penny still has faith in life. Guy doesn't. He's so bitter and resentful. Can't you help him, Paul?"

Paul's heart cried: How can I help him when I'm so mixed up myself! "I don't know," he answered guardedly. "He's pretty touchy right now, isn't much interested in preaching."

Jeannie laughed. "Oh, heavens, I don't mean preach at him. I mean just show him somehow, some way you'll know how, Paul that life is still wonderful. I think he thinks God has a special, personal grudge against him,"

"He isn't the only man whose child ever had to surfer," Paul said.

"But he feels Penny's suffering so intensely," Jeannie answered. "And I'm afraid his bitterness will hurt her. I'm afraid it'll break down her confidence. Aren't you?"
"Yes, I am," Paul admitted. "Well, I'll get along. Want to go along?"

"I'd love to, but I'm going to clean up the kitchen and then lie down on the couch for an hour or two so I'll be rested for the midnight service. This son of yours has been pretty active today," she said smugly.

"Daughter, you mean," Paul corrected her.

He took her in his arms. It seemed he had never loved her more than now. Her face still bore a faint trace of cookie dough, there was flour on her cheek, and her mouth looked tired. He held her gently, sensing the movements of their unborn child. Jeannie, he thought silently, pray for me, help me regain what I've lost.

"I love you," he said, kissing her.

"I love you too," she answered. "Come on now and take the cookies. I don't want you to be out too late."

He took the cookies wrapped in bright paper and went out again in the snow and the wind. In his present frame of mind, he really dreaded going to the Ellises'.

He loved Penny, and his heart ached for her, but it seemed to him that he almost bruised himself on the bitterness of Guy Ellis. It was really more than bitterness with Guy, Paul felt; it was lack of belief and faith and hope. It was a sullen sort of despair.

In a few minutes Paul knocked at the door of the Ellis home, and Nancy, Penny's mother, came to let him in.

"Why, Reverend Edwards," she cried. "How nice to see you. Guy, here's Reverend Edwards."

Guy Ellis came to greet the young minister, and his handclasp was cordial enough. Only his eyes showed the defeat and the despair.

"Merry Christmas," Paul said smiling. "I came to see Penny."

Nancy looked pleased. "She's not asleep yet. I was just going to read her a story. She'll be so tickled to see you."

Paul followed Nancy down the hall to the bedroom that had the high plain hospital bed in the center of it. Lying on the bed was a very thin little girl with quick-moving hands and too-still legs. Her light hair was pulled into braids, and her eyes were large from recent suffering.

"Reverend Edwards," she said, and the small pointed face grew bright. "I was just thinking about you."

"Were you?" Paul said. "And I was thinking about you."

"I'll let you talk to Penny," Nancy said, "and I'll go and tend to some secrets."

She winked at Paul and he marveled at her courage in the face of such odds,

"I'm glad she's gone," Penny confided as soon as her mother had left. "I was just layin' here wishin' you'd come, and you did. So now I know the other thing will happen, too."

Paul felt a faint prickle at the nape of his neck. "How just wishing I'd come?" he said cautiously.

Penny smiled. "I just said a while ago in a little whisper, you know, so nobody'd hear I just said, 'Dear God, please let Reverend Edwards come to see me 'cause I just have to tell somebody my secret.' And you came."

Paul's lips felt a little dry. Coincidence, said the cynical part of his heart, and he listened to it,

"So you have a secret?" he said and he tried to sound gay.

But she was very serious. "This is a very important secret," she said. "Very terrible important. I wasn't going to tell anybody. Just God, you know. But then I felt the secret would just bust out of me if I didn't tell someone."

She put her thin little hands on her chest as though the secret were lodged there.

"Then I thought about you," she went on, "and how well you know God, so I knew it would be all right to tell you."

Paul stared at the child. "How well I know God?" he asked, shaken.

She nodded. "You talk to Him in church like well, kind of like He lived next door to you."

Paul couldn't say anything. There were just no words to say to the child.

"The secret's something I asked God for," Penny said. "For Christmas. Lean down so I can whisper."
Paul felt an agony in him. She has asked God to make her walk, he thought. And she believes it will happen, like a miracle. And I can't stand to see her hurt.

"What did you ask for?" he whispered and bent close to her.

He was so amazed when her soft answer came that for a second he only looked at her blankly. "What?"

"A dog," she repeated. And Paul's heart soared. I have it in my power to work a miracle for her, he exulted to himself. I can bring over one of Hildy's pups and the prayer will be answered.

But then Penny went on solemnly, "A little gold-colored dog with long curly ears. And I'll call him Star. Wouldn't it be beautiful to get a real live golden Star on Christmas?"

Paul stared at the child, feeling utterly cast down. Hildy's pups would never do, for who could possibly explain to Penny that God could make a mistake and send a dark red-brown sleek little dachshund when a gold fluffy-eared cocker spaniel had been requested. No, I won't be able to work a miracle, after all, he thought. It was foolish to believe I could.

"Did you tell your Mommy?" he asked. "Or your Daddy?"

She shook her head against the pillow. "No, just God. And now you. But I know God will give me the dog."

There was such confidence and faith in her eyes that Paul thought he could not bear it. Because where would such a dog come from if her parents didn't know she wanted one? Why hadn't she written it in a letter to Santa like other kids did and then her father could have read the letter? Why had she prayed about it? And in secret? And then, suddenly, Paul knew as plainly as though someone had told him. Penny was testing God. That was it. She was testing the strength and power of God. If He could get her this dog for Christmas, He could make her walk again. Paul felt sick at the pit of his stomach.

Penny smiled placidly. "I feel better now I've told you," she said. "Secrets get too big sometimes, don't they?"

"Yes," he said, "they do." And his mind was filled with whirling thoughts. Where could you get a gold-colored dog with curly ears that could be called Star, especially at nine o'clock on Christmas Eve?
He got up and tried to smile at Penny. "I'm glad you told me," he said. "But I'm going to have to leave, Penny, I've got so much to do. Merry Christmas, sweetheart."

"Merry Christmas," she answered, and her voice sounded relaxed and sleepy.

Paul hurried from the room and went to the living room. Guy and Nancy Ellis looked up from the packages they were wrapping.

"Finished talking so soon?" Nancy said.

Paul nodded. "I've got to talk to you," he whispered, "where Penny won't hear."

Guy regarded him with something like suspicion and Nancy spoke quickly.

"I'll just run in and cover her up," she said, "Then we can go into the kitchen to talk where she can't hear."

Paul and Guy waited without speaking until Nancy came back, and then they went together down the hall to the kitchen.

"Is something wrong?" Nancy asked.

"I'll say something is wrong," Paul said. "That poor little kid has got her heart completely set on something for Christmas that she hasn't told either one of you about."

"Oh, no!" Nancy's hand went to her mouth.

"What is it?" Guy asked. "I'll get her anything. She's had enough of a rotten deal. What is it?"

"She prayed about it," Paul explained. "She asked God to give it to her. It's a dog she wants and from the description I'd say she wants a gold cocker spaniel and she wants to name it Star because it came on Christmas."

Nancy and Guy stared at him without speaking. He knew they were thinking, as he had, that it would be impossible to find a dog like that now, at this hour, on Christmas Eve.

"Why didn't she tell me?" Guy said, and his voice was savage. "Why did she have to pray about it?"
Paul felt sure the other man's thoughts were bitter ones, that he was thinking he could give to his child the things God would not or could not give. Paul tried to speak gently. "I think she's sort of testing God," he said. "I think she feels if He can get her a dog, He can do anything." He paused. "Even make her walk," he said.

There were tears on Nancy's face.

"The doctors say she might walk," she whispered. "But she'll have to believe it herself."

"How can she believe it when I don't believe it?" Guy said, and the hopelessness was evident in his voice. "She'll never walk again. Never."

Nancy turned on him. "If it weren't for you," she said, but she kept her voice pitched low, "Penny wouldn't have felt it necessary to try God out. It's your lack of faith that has made her afraid."

Guy stared at his wife, and Paul's heart ached for both of them.

"I can't help it," Guy said. "I just can't help it."

"You don't try," Nancy sobbed. "You don't even try. And now, what's going to happen to her? We can't get the dog. You know we can't."

"We can try," Paul interposed. "Come on, Guy. I've got two hours till church service. Let's get going."

While Guy went for his wraps, Paul spoke to Nancy. "Did you know Penny prayed much?" he asked. "I mean, had she ever told you?"

Nancy wiped at tears with her hands. "Yes," she said shakily. "Sometimes I go in and her eyes are shut and her lips are moving, and when I speak to her she looks very reproachful and says she's talking to God. I thought it was all right."

"It is all right," Paul said. "You know it is." In the midst of all his troubled thoughts he remembered Jeannie's voice saying, "I remembered about six o'clock I hadn't fixed a thing for Penny Ellis,"

I'm being foolish, Paul thought, this is crazy. But he stilled the cynicism and forced himself to ask the question. "Nancy," he said, "did you notice Penny praying tonight?"

She thought for a minute. "Why, yes," she answered, "when I took in her supper, about six o'clock. Why?"
"Nothing," Paul said, but he felt a great stirring in his heart, a great trembling.

"Where'11 we start?" Guy said.

"My house," Paul decided. "We can use the phone without Penny hearing, We'll call the owner of every pet store we can find."

"There's only two," Guy reminded him. "It isn't as if we were in a big city."

"We'll call the police," Paul went on. "Maybe they've picked up a stray."

"I don't think it'll do any good," Guy said.

Paul felt a touch of impatience. "Well, at least we can try before we give up."

Guy hunched his chin into his collar. "I guess it's pretty easy for a preacher to have faith," he said, and his voice was filled with mockery, "when he's never had trouble or sorrow."

Paul's impatience died away. "No," he said. "It's not even easy then."

Guy's face jerked toward the minister, "You mean you have doubts, too?"

"I think everyone has doubts," Paul said, "only some of mine are going away." And, on sudden impulse, he told Guy of Penny's praying for him to come to her and of Jeannie's decision to make the gingerbread boy.

"Coincidence," Guy said. "You know it if you're an educated man."

"Maybe," said Paul, because part of him felt that Guy was right and he was weary from the warring in his soul.

An hour and a half later, Guy and Paul were riding hopelessly and almost aimlessly through the snow-filled streets. They had spent half an hour on the telephone and an hour driving around in the cold, but they had been completely unsuccessful.

"Now talk about prayer," Guy said bitterly. "Or haven't you prayed about this dog? Is that too little a thing to bother God about?"

"Of course I've prayed," Paul said. "Because it isn't little. Because I think if Penny could get this dog it would give her all the faith she'd need to walk again."
"I believe that too," Guy admitted, and his words sounded ragged. "Only there isn't any dog."

"Maybe if you prayed too?" Paul suggested, and he knew that Jeannie and Nancy were adding their prayers to his.

"Me?" Guy said. "Why should I? Do you think a God who would let a little kid get crippled would help us find a dog?"

Paul realized the man was crying and he thought, I wish I knew what to say. I wish I had confidence to give him. I wish I could say that it's bound to happen just because it's Christmas. But I can't say that.

The motor coughed and Paul glanced swiftly at the dashboard. He was out of gas, and at this hour! But when he glanced up again, he saw that he was within a block of a gas station and the owner, Dick Hayson, who lived next door to the station, was one of his parishioners. I'm in luck, Paul thought, and let the car drift coughing to the driveway of the station. He stopped by one of the tanks and went to ask Hayson for some gas.

Hayson was obliging and, while he filled the tank, Paul looked at his watch. Only 25 minutes until he had to be in church for the midnight service. And no dog for Penny. And no comfort or peace to offer to the unhappy man in his car. Paul silently pounded one clenched fist into the other hand.

At that moment a sound came through the night, a soft hesitant sound. The whimper of a small dog. Paul looked up, dazed and unbelieving, to see a gold cocker spaniel come toward him across the snow-covered drive. The puppy stopped in front of Paul, and, staring down at the dog, Paul felt himself possessed of the urge to shout with exultation. And at the same instant, he felt a great compulsion to stand in silence and reverence as though this were a holy place.

Dick Hayson looked up to see the dog at Paul's feet. "Well, I'll be darned," he said. "How'd that pup get out? He must have squeezed out right past my feet."

It was almost too much for Paul. His hopes had soared and fallen too many times, and he felt battered from it all.

He wet his lips with his tongue and managed to speak at last. "You mean it's yours?" And what did you think, a tired, bitter voice said in his heart that God would fashion a cocker puppy out of snow?

Hayson smiled. "Got it for my boy for Christmas. Cute, isn't he?"
Paul nodded humbly. He wanted to weep but he managed to say courteously, "Yes! I hope it will be a happy surprise for your boy "

Hayson laughed, and his laughter had a rueful sound. "It'll be a surprise all right but I don't know how happy. He wants another kind of dog altogether."

Paul stood very still but he felt a trembling in his body. Again he licked his lips and when he spoke his voice came in a husky whisper, "\¥hat kind of a dog?" he asked, but he knew what the answer would be.

"A dachshund. But we couldn't find one anywhere."

The night was suddenly starred with serenity. This was right, Paul knew, not an ethereal, impossible-to-understand miracle, but a practical thing. Coincidence? questioned his heart once more, but his faith was stronger, all at once, than any questioning. This wasn't coincidence, but a Plan conceived in love and executed with mercy.

In a few brief words, he explained the situation to Hayson and promised to come back immediately after the midnight service with a dachshund puppy if he could take the gold cocker spaniel to Penny. Hayson was delighted, handed the little dog to Paul, and went back to his house shaking his head in wonderment at his "luck."

Paul walked to the car, and when Guy Ellis looked up and saw the dog, his face seemed to sag. "Whose is it?" he managed to ask.

"Penny's," Paul said.

"But where'd it come from?"

Paul looked into the other man's eyes. "I think God sent it," he said.

"I don't see it couldn't can you explain " Guy began, stammering.

Paul put the dog into the other man's arms and explained what had happened as he drove along the snowy street.

"It's a coincidence," Guy said at last, but his voice was not steady.

"But a God-given coincidence," Paul said.

"But God didn't just send him through the air," Guy insisted. "If we had just stayed home praying, the dog wouldn't have come floating through a window."
"Probably not. Maybe we have to help miracles happen." And it was a moment of discovery for Paul, too. "But God did answer Penny's prayer, Guy. Somehow, He did."

"Maybe I guess you're right," Guy said at last, and Paul heard the faint warmth of hope in Guy's voice. Maybe with hope would come faith, the young minister exulted silently, all the faith Penny would need in the days ahead.

After he delivered Guy and the dog, he hurried home to get Jeannie. He was filled with a recurring sense of wonder as he told her about the dog, and she accepted the news with gladness, but he knew somehow that she had never doubted it would happen.

They walked together to the church, and just before they reached the door, Paul turned to Jeannie.

"I didn't believe it would happen," he confessed. "I needed the the miracle too, Jeannie. Why can't my faith stay strong?"

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "Peter had to have the walking on the water," she said. "Everyone needs something like that once in a while to help him."

"But not you," he protested.

"I have a miracle growing in me," she said. "And I have you. That's all I need."

They walked into the church together, and the night was bright with candles and the sound of the organ and the glimmering of the fragile star above the altar. Paul looked at it and thought of the light that would be in Penny's eyes when she saw her golden Christmas Star the next morning.

A great happiness filled him and his eyes clung to Jeannie's face as he sang with his people, "Joy to the World, the Lord Is Come."

When Father Christmas Was Young By Coningsby Dawson

Someone had hinted that there wasn't a Santa Claus. If there wasn't, who brought Christmas presents? For weeks, when Mac had been put to bed and was supposed to be asleep, he had Iain awake puzzling. He had reached the point at which suspense ached like a guilty conscience. He simply had to share his secret with a wiser person.

He had postponed and postponed till at last it was Christmas Eve. All day Daddy had been finishing a story. Daddy could be so inconvenient. When he was finishing a story, he turned the key in his lock and everybody went on tiptoe.

Mac had returned from his afternoon's walk with Nannie. Streets and stores had been gay with excited preparations. To make things perfect, snow was falling. Mac had prayed for snow. He'd set himself a task, which was nothing less than to prove that Santa Claus existed. If there was snow on housetops, it would be impossible for old Santa to tether his reindeer to chimneys without leaving tracks.

And now to take Daddy into his confidence. Having escaped from the nursery, he twisted the handle of the study door. It wasn't locked. An instant later a jolly voice invited him to enter. Across the threshold he halted, his fat legs astride, a worried expression on his cherubic countenance.

"I've been thinking, Daddy."

"You don't say, old son! Climb on my knee and tell me."

The red lacquer room with the fire shining afforded a friendly setting. Yet Mac couldn't blurt out the wicked heresy he had overheard. Instead he cuddled against the smoky jacket and asked:

"Who was Santa when he was young? He's terribly old now, but he must have been little as me once. Who taught him to be fond of reindeer and to come down chimbleys and to leave presents? Was he the first to do things like that or did he have a mummy and daddy who did them before him?"

His father filled and lit a pipe. He was playing for time. He hated to disappoint his son; he hated still more to deceive him. He said:

"I'm afraid you'll consider me a most ignorant parent. I don't know the answer to a single one of your questions. I ought to. I've no excuse. With your help, I propose to educate myself. Do you see all those books the tall ones? They're books of reference, which means that they can answer anything. All you have to do is to open them and turn to the word 'potato/ for instance; every fact about a potato is recorded. Let's make a game of it and go on a hunt. . . . What shall we look for?" Daddy prompted.

"Santa Claus."

Daddy ran his eyes along the shelves.

" 'Who's Who in America.' We shan't find him mentioned there; he's international. Let's try the encyclopedia."

But the encyclopedia proved stodgy. As soon as you'd hit on what you thought you wanted, it referred you to another volume. Having looked up Santa Claus, you were at once informed that you ought to have looked up Saint Nicholas. When you looked up Saint Nicholas you were told that he had lived in a funny place called Myra in Lycia. In fact he'd been a bishop who had been tortured to death. He had gained the reputation of being fond of children. In England alone four hundred churches had been dedicated to his memory, each of them containing a stained-glass window representing him pulling three little boys out of a tub.

"That's silly, Daddy. Why a tub?"

"Goodness knows. But listen, Doodles; this is interesting. He's the Russian Santa Claus and the greatest saint in Russia; that brings him close to reindeer. Reindeer live up north in Lapland. And here's something else; after he'd been dead for hundreds of years, some people from another city stole his bones, made a huge procession and built an enormous church over him. After which all the world started to make pilgrimages to his sepulcher. He worked miracles, especially for children."

"Go on, Daddy. Read more."

"It ends there." Daddy frowned. "Darn the idiots; they always dry up when you're hoping to learn something. Tell you what the last volume is an index; we'll look up Christmas."

The items recorded about Christmas were even more confusing. The origin of the yule log was traced and the prerogatives of the Lord of Misrule. In olden days, it appeared, the Lord of Misrule a sort of clown was appointed to direct the Christmas festivities. He was king for a day, who did whatever he pleased while the season lasted. In still older days he'd been the king of the Roman Saturnalia and had been killed at the end of the revels for having made himself a nuisance.

"Very enlightening!" Daddy banged the volume back on its shelf. "That helps a lot."

Taking down another volume he struck luck and grew good-humored. He had run across the name Befana.

"By Jove, that's a new one!"

The little boy peered above his shoulder. The words were too long for him to spell.

"Is it about reindeer, Daddy?"

"It isn't. It's about stockings. According to what's printed here, this Befana was a fairy. The Three Wise Men on their journey to Bethlehem passed by her cottage. She was too busy or too disagreeable to look out of her window said she'd see them when they came back. Of course they didn't come back, on account of Herod. Her punishment was to gaze in vain from her window for them always."

"Is she still gazing, Dad?"

"I expect so. But that's not all. She was given a second punishment; on the anniversary of the night when she'd been too busy to see the Wise Men pass, she was ordered to fill children's stockings. But the angel who ordered her punishment was careless. What he'd meant was that she must fill children's stockings with presents. He didn't say with presents; he forgot. As she was spiteful, what do you suppose she did? She filled the children's stockings with ashes."

"She doesn't now. I never found no ashes in my stocking," Mac objected.

"Neither did I," Daddy agreed. "Something that these stupid books don't relate must have happened."

"Then look up stockings," Mac suggested. "We'll find the rest of the story."

"Afraid not." Daddy shoved the books back on the shelves disgustedly. "The trouble with the fellows who write all this learned rot is that they aren't poets. If we're going to discover the truth about when Father Christmas was young, we'll have to make it up."

"Are we poets?" The little boy blushed at the compliment.

"You bet at least you are. All children are poets they're much wiser than these encyclopedia fellows. We believe in Santa Claus, you and I, Doodles; they don't and didn't. They were like Befana, who might have ridden with the Wise Men to Bethlehem if only she hadn't been too busy to have faith."

"Can't one be busy if one has faith?" the little boy inquired.

"Not often. Being busy kills faith, as a rule. I've been busy lately too busy. That's why I'm appealing to you. You're not busy because you're young. That's the reason you ought to believe in almost everything. If you try, I'm certain you can tell me about Santa's boyhood,"

They shifted the lamp, so that it spilled a pool of illumination over the deep armchair. Minutes ticked by. They sat as though merged into one.

"I'm waiting," Daddy urged.

"Don't know where to start."

"That's obvious with Befana. She lived in a forest so dark that she hardly ever saw the sun. A highroad ran through it along which camels plodded with their tinkling bells. You see, even I know that."

"I know more." Mac wagged a finger, imitating one of his father's gestures.

"Then, for the love of Mike, prove it."

"Befana was like you, Daddy, when you're finishing a story; she was cross, but she wasn't bad."

"Is that so?" Daddy chuckled. "Thanks for your frankness."

"Yes, that's so, Daddy. If she wasn't finishing something, she was hurrying to begin something."

"What sort of things, Doodles?"

"Don't 'zactly know. But yet, I do," Mac corrected himself. "She was a writer of fairy stories. She lived in the dark forest 'cause she simply had to be quiet, same as you lock your door. She never could find time to do her housework, so she was very glad one morning when she opened her door and saw Santa on her step."

"What on earth was he doing there?"

"He wasn't doing miffing; he'd been left. Someone passing with the camels had dropped him. He was as tiny as a doll. He couldn't even talk and the bottle beside him was empty. Be-fana took him in and stared. She twiddled his toes, and he laughed. She thought, 'He's an orphling. I can keep him. I'll learn him to do my housework.' "

"Teach, Mackie not learn."

"All right, teach," Mac conceded, "but it don't make no difference. Not till evening, when she was putting him to bed, did she learn what he was called. A piece of paper had been pinned to his frock with 'Nick' written on it. That was what he was called first; the Santa name came after."

"Did he have a beard?" Daddy questioned.

"Course not; nor no hair. He was a baby." Mac cuddled closer. "Befana washed his bottles and pushed his pram through the forest. She was sorry for him, but he was an awful bother,"

"I'm surprised to hear that she was sorry for him," Daddy attempted to guide the story. "A fairy who could be so cruel as to put ashes into children's stockings "

"But listen," Mac seized his father's chin. "She wasn't married. She didn't know about chilling; she spoiled him and upset his stomach. She let him sit up late, the way you let me on Christmas. She did it every night and she gave him candies before breakfast."

"Extremely foolish!" Daddy looked shocked. "Why did she?"

"To keep him quiet so she could do her fairy stories. As he growed bigger, he learned to talk. She couldn't write when people talked. To get rid of him, she ordered him to do all the housework, which was hard for a little boy. And he cooked the meals and he swept and dusted."

"Befana must have been a great lazy lump," Daddy interrupted. "Didn't she help him?"

"She was always writing. Jack-and-the-Bean-stalk was one of hers. So was Cinderella. Oh, almost all of them."

"I believe you are inventing." Daddy squinted down his nose.

"Trufe and honor I'm not," Mac asserted. "Her fingers was inky. Nick would call to her to come and play. She would shake her head. He was most awful lonely. When he'd dusted the cottage, he'd go out and sit by the road to watch the camels pass. He would wonder where the camels were going and wish he could follow them. Sometimes he'd wonder whether they was driven by people what had dropped him. He was about as big as me, when one day coming terrible fast "

"How fast would you say, Mackie?"

"As fast as when we ride in a taxi. They was three racing camels, each with a man sitting on him. The men wore crowns and was all dressed up. He knowed they must be kings. A great white star floated over them just above the branches. It made the forest, which was always dark, quite bright. Nacherly he guessed something wonderful was going to happen."

"Naturally," Daddy nodded.

"Well, little Nick, who was no bigger than me, thought they were going to rush past him. But they saw him in time and they pulled up.

" "Little boy,' one of them asked, 'where is Bethlehem?' "

"He said more than that." Daddy wished to be helpful. "He said, 'Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and are come to worship Him.'"

"P'raps he did," Mac grudgingly agreed. "Nick was so little he'd never heard of Bethlehem. He asked the Wise Men to wait a minute while he runned in and asked Aunt Befana. He was breathless with climbing the stairs to her study. The door was locked. When he tapped, she didn't answer. Then he started to explain, the way I do to you, Daddy, through the keyhole.

" 'Go 'way,' she grunted.

"The Wise Men was in a hurry, so Nick didn't dare stop longer. He had to go back and say that Aunt Befana was too busy even to answer their question.

"They rode away very sad, the star sailing over them. Soon the forest grew dark, like it always was.

"That night at supper Nick told Aunt Befana how they'd rode on racing camels, wearing crowns, so that he was sure they was kings.

" 'Kings don't wear crowns when they ride camels. You're fibbing,' she said.

"She didn't want to believe that he was telling the trufe, so she spanked him.

"Next day she couldn't write fairy tales for fancying what she'd missed. She'd never seen three kings all together. She made Nick come to her study and promised not to spank him if he'd tell her over again what had happened."

"But you're forgetting, Mackie." Daddy caressed the bare knees. "I didn't halt you before because I hoped you might remember. Two of the kings were old; but the third was young. The young one had told Nick why they were in such a hurry to reach Bethlehem. A baby was to be born who would be King of all the world. When He grew up He would be King, especially of children. He would take them in His arms and play with them. Nick had never been properly loved and he'd never been played with at all. He wished he'd been born later, so he could have played with the King of children. As it was, he'd be a man by the time the King was grown up, so he'd be too big for the King to take him in His arms. Most of this he said to Befana. The more he talked about the
 
Wise Men, the more sorry she became that she hadn't taken the time off to see them.

" 'But I haven't missed much,' she pretended; 'they'll be coming back.'

"As you know, Doodles, they didn't."

" 'Cause of Herod."

"Precisely. They were warned in a dream that Herod would seek the child to slay Him, so they went back to the East secretly by a different route."

"But Befana didn't know they'd been warned." Mac seized the telling of the story. "Every day she sat by her study window watching. She hid behind her curtains ashamed, so Nick wouldn't see her and would think she was writing. And, Daddy, I forgot to tell you. She kept the table spread for five instead of two. You see why, don't you?"

"So as to be ready to invite the Three Kings to eat a meal with her, whatever hour they returned," Daddy conjectured. "Do you know that's very interesting? People still do it in Russia. They bake King's Cake and put it outside the door on Christmas Eve to let the Three Kings know they're welcome."

"Befana did the same," Mac nodded like a turtle. "She called it King's Cake, too. But don't you think, Daddy, that you could tell a little of the story?"

"With pleasure," Daddy stroked the narrow shoulders. "As the news began to spread about the wonder-child who had been born at Bethlehem she regretted everything most dreadfully. One day when she was watching the road she saw a man who looked like a man yet wasn't, approaching through the forest. She saw him stop little Nick to pat his head, the next moment he was tapping at her cottage,"

"He wore wings, didn't he, Daddy?"

"He may have."

"But if he wore wings, Daddy, even though his coat was over them, they'd be humpy."

"I expect they were; but the humps aren't important. The important thing is that he'd been sent to punish her, Long after the angel had gone away, she stayed locked up in her study. When she came down to supper, little Nick could see by the redness of her eyes that she'd been crying. Of course you and I know what the angel had told her: that she must watch forever for the Wise Men and that once a year she must fill children's stockings."

"But why had she been crying, Daddy?"

"Because as long as she lived she'd never have time to write any more fairy stories. Don't forget, Mackie, that till now she'd been a most distinguished authoress. Little Nick didn't know why she'd been crying and he didn't dare ask. The first hint he got was next morning. Having swept out the fireplace, he was throwing away the ashes.

" 'Don't do that,' she snapped. 'Take them back. We're going to save them.'

"Overnight she'd been thinking hard with what she was to fill the children's stockings; she'd decided on ashes. According to you, when first she saw Nick on her doorstep she was rather sorry for him. She wasn't any longer. She grew crankier and crankier. Because of her punishment, she grew to hate children. Little Nick was the child who came handiest; she was perfectly horrid to him. She kept him always working at dirty jobs. She complained of the meals he prepared for her, and, because he was dirty, refused to sit down with him."

"As it came near Christmas," Mac took up the running, "she growed nervouser and ner-vouser. She'd been counting her ashes and was certain there wasn't enough to fill all the stockings. So what did she do? She thought of soot. There wasn't much difference between soot and ashes. She made poor Nick climb her chimbley to shake the soot down."

"You're probably correct," Daddy said, "but it doesn't sound sensible."

"It wasn't." Mac clapped his hands gleefully. "It wasn't his fault. Befana made him. That was how he learned the habit. When he was young he climbed up them; now he's old he climbs down them."

"I see," Daddy smiled, "at what you're driving."

"When the first Christmas Eve came round after the Wise Men had passed," Mac continued, "Nick was awful tired. All day he'd been tying up ashes in sacks. About four o'clock in the afternoon Befana surprised him. She said she'd be gone for the whole night and he must hang up his stocking. He asked why his stocking; she told him that next morning if he looked in it, he'd find something. So he went to bed early and closed his eyes tight. He was so 'cited he wanted morning to come quicker. He thought his Aunt Befana had gone to town to buy a wonderful present."

"And instead, when he woke and looked in his stocking, Doodles, we know what he found. It was cruel of her."

"And there she was back for breakfast, as though nothing had happened, Daddy, and all the sacks was disappeared."

"How had she carried them?"

"She was a fairy. By magic. Every Christmas after that she always did the same and Nick was always hoping that instead of ashes he'd find a present."

"He never did, of course?"

Mac shook his head dolefully.

"That's why he's kind to boys and girls. He remembers how sad he was. When he growed up, he ran away from Befana and became a saint for chillen. He washed them."

Again his father was astounded.

"Washed them! Who told you that?"

"Those tall books, they said there was hundreds of churches with picture windows, showing Santa pulling three little boys out of a tub. He was washing them, 'cause when he was young, he'd hated to be dirty. That was how he got killed and became a saint, 'cause people was so angry with him for washing their chillen. He never asked if he might; he just did it."

"Perhaps there's another mystery you can clear up," Daddy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Being a saint through having been martyred, he went straight to Heaven. On earth for many years he was forgotten. Then the people from another town stole his body, honored him by building a huge church over him and were rewarded by finding that his tomb worked miracles. According to the encyclopedia, the miracles started pilgrimages. Sick little children were brought to touch his tomb and were instantly cured. Now, as everybody knows, the sickness children usually have is the tummy-ache. Why should he have been so good at curing that?"

The reply came promptly.

" 'Cause he'd always had a tummy-ache himself. He sat up too late I've told you that and Befana, knowing nuffin' about chillen, allowed him to eat candy before breakfast."

"Your explanation sounds reasonable, Doodles. But for the life of me I don't see how our story goes on."

"It's only begun, Daddy. Santa wasn't happy in Heaven. 'Cause why? 'Cause he kept on thinking how Befana was still filling chillen's stockings with ashes. He went to God and told him how miser'ble he'd been every Christmas morning when he'd been little. He said:' 'Tisn't right to be miser'ble Christmas morning. Chillen will always be miser'ble so long as they find ashes. If no one else wants to do it, I'm going to give them presents.'"

"And God thought the idea splendid." Daddy's tone was delighted. "In order that Santa might get to all the stockings before Befana filled them with ashes, he lent him the Three Wise Men's camels. They were racing camels."

"But he uses reindeer, Daddy."

"So he does." Daddy hung his head.

"You're right." The little boy took compassion on his father. "At first he did use camels. On earth he'd lived in hot countries. Everyone did in those days. It was nacheral for him to choose camels. But presently the world growed larger. People went to live in cold places like Russia. The camels weren't so good on snow."

"Excuse my interrupting." Daddy's recent blunder had made him humble. "It's a fact this that you're telling me. Russian children still believe that Christmas presents are brought on camels. They believe that the Three Wise Men ride out from the East every Christmas Eve just as they did when they sought the Christ child -"

"They don't now," the little boy broke in hurriedly. "Santa doesn't deliver presents that way any longer. Camels wasn't quick on ice. One Christmas in Lapland he got stuck. 'Never again,' he said, and changed to reindeer."

"I think he was very wise," Daddy nodded gravely. "A camel's such a big animal to go prancing over roofs and chimneys."

"And that was why, too, Daddy. So now we know, don't we?"

"You know everything, Doodles. Poets do. You're a poet."

Suddenly Mackie hugged his father, crushing his face against the smoky jacket.

"Somebody told me," he almost sobbed; "somebody said there wasn't no Santa Claus."

"But there is. That's ridiculous. If there isn't a Santa Claus, how did he get into the encyclopedia? Encyclopedias print nothing but facts. They do really, I assure you, Doodles. Everything we've found out about Santa Claus' boyhood is set down there in those large volumes. All about Befana. All about the ashes in stockings. All about "

A tear-stained face glanced up.

"Then tomorrow let's prove it. Promise?"

"If you know how to prove it, Doodles, I promise."

A tap fell on the study door. Nannie's voice was heard announcing that Mac's bath was ready.

"Don't come in. One minute," Daddy implored. He bent over his little boy. "I promise. But how to prove it?"

The child's voice sank to a whisper.

"It's snowing. Tomorrow we'll go on the roof. If Santa truly is, we'll find marks of reindeer and sleigh runners."

Daddy had promised and a promise is a promise.

Next morning after breakfast Christmas morning having evaded Mummy and Nannie, father and son climbed the stairs to the attic, placed a ladder against the trap door solemnly and peered out. Not a sign of a reindeer's hoof or a sleigh runner.

"But he's been, 'cause he's left the presents," Mackie whispered. For a moment he looked worried; then his expression cleared. "How silly of us, Daddy! They wouldn't be here. We'll have to wait till next Christmas. A new lot of snow has fallen."

So it had. Even in the many streets, which could be seen from so high up, there was scarcely a track noticeable.

Mummy's voice calling:

"What on earth are you two lunatics doing, catching cold up there?"

Daddy closed the trap hurriedly. As they scuttled down the ladder he whispered, "You're right again, Doodles. The new snow has fooled us. If you're still a poet, we'll try again next Christmas."

The State Versus Santa Claus By Arthur Stringer

The shy old man in Turkey red trimmed with rabbit skin began to look worried. He wasn't used to crowds. And the courtroom was warm. And he didn't like the way people kept staring at him. It made him feel a good deal like a polar bear in a zoo.

He was almost glad when he heard a crack-voiced court attendant shout: "Everybody rise!" For that meant, of course, that the Judge was coming out of his chamber and seating himself in the big black chair under the solemn crossed flags.

But the prisoner at the bar, as he mopped a broad red face with his foolish rabbit-fringed sleeve, was a trifle disappointed about the Judge, whom the Prosecutor addressed as Father Time. For that Judge seemed a bit too old for his job. He looked as though he hadn't known a good meal or cracked a smile for half a century. His glance, it's true, was as sharp as a weasel's, but his shoulders sagged and his face looked tired, as though he had heard too many cases and reviewed too many crimes and seen too many prisoners pass out the side door with the iron grille and never come back.

Nor did the portly figure in Turkey red altogether like the appearance of the Prosecuting Attorney. He too was an old man, hard-eyed and gaunt and lean, with a nutcracker profile and an eye that told you he'd be as quick and merciless as a steel trap. His narrow face, in fact, had worn an acid smile of contempt as he glanced about at the rubicund old figure in red, a smile which said as plain as day: "Well, Old Boy, it won't take me long to finish you up!"

Santa Claus, as he shifted in his seat, wished there had been a few children about. He seemed to get along better with children. His earlier suspicion that he wasn't among friends even deepened to a conviction as he turned and studied the Jury, He had really hoped for a different sort of Jury, one that could give a chuckle now and then and whisper behind their hands and nudge neighboring ribs and perhaps make a spitball or two and wonder how you would build up Exhibit A on the Prosecutor's table and whether the red paint on Exhibit B actually had the adorable painty smell that all Noah's arks ought to have. But the twelve good men and true on this Jury impressed him as twelve dried-up old prunes who wouldn't know anything more about putting a toy airplane together than they'd know about spinning a musical top. And it wasn't only their age he objected to. It was no crime, after all, being old. What lie didn't like was the enmity in their rheumy old eyes when they blinked down at the Christmas Tree, marked Exhibit X, on the Prosecutor's table. And Santa Claus wasn't used to enmity. He didn't thrive on it. Those twelve old Jurors, in fact, looked so much like twelve old owls blinking solemnly down on a blighted world that he was glad to turn away and let his eyes rest on the Counsel who'd been assigned to defend him.

But even then the prisoner didn't perceptibly brighten. That lawyer, the Big Policeman downstairs had said, was just the man for him. He'd never lost a case. On the other hand, he'd never won a case, for the simple reason that he always got them so mixed up they never came to an end. He was invariably addressed as "Mr. Folly," being a senior member of the old and established firm of Folly & Youth, But he, too, was plainly too old for his job. When the prisoner had pointed out that they were giving him a decrepit octogenarian in his second childhood, the Big Policeman had sagely wagged his head up and down and said: "That's why you're getting him!" And this thought began to disturb Santa Claus. It disturbed him almost as much as did an inspection of his learned Counsel, who, instead of paying attention to the court procedure, occupied himself by counting his waistcoat buttons and drawing little pictures on his brief case and trying to balance three pencils at once on the inkwell.

And those court proceedings obviously ought to be paid some attention to, the rotund prisoner suddenly realized, for the Prosecuting Attorney was already on his feet. He was not only on his feet but he was talking about the prisoner, and talking about him in a way which very promptly gave that prisoner gooseflesh. And that prisoner's lawyer, as the tirade went on, merely sat back laughing at the way the Prosecutor's Adam's-apple went up and down with a three-inch plunge as he discoursed. It was no wonder Santa Claus's face lost a little of its ruddiness. Things certainly weren't looking any too well for him. And cases certainly weren't won by laughing at your adversary's Adam's-apple.

"This prisoner," the Prosecutor was proclaiming, "is an impostor. He's more than an impostor; he's an absurdity. And for the good of the People I want him abolished. I want him done away with, just as we did away with Fairy Tales in this state last year, just as we did away with Music the year before. I speak, sir, for Science and Truth. And before we can progress into perfect statehood we must abolish these foolish old myths that are an affront to reason and a confusion to the mind of youth."

"Objection," casually announced the prisoner's attorney as he succeeded in balancing his third pencil on the inkwell cover.

"Objection denied," barked back the stooping old graybeard on the bench.

"This old scoundrel," proceeded the Prosecutor, directing a long and bony finger towards the cowering Santa Claus, "has not only outlived his usefulness if he ever had any but has also blocked the highway of progress. He is pagan in ancestry and pagan in spirit. We know, gentlemen, that in this enlightened age we never get anything for nothing. We know that life is struggle and combat, and that to the strong belong the spoils. Yet this old deceiver claims to give us things for nothing. He seeks to delude our children and our children's children with the contention that for one day in the year the ironclad laws of commerce and competition can be dispensed with. He keeps youth credulous and soft-hearted when they should be practical-minded and satisfied with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. On that one irrational and irresponsible day in a year of reason, he says, the laws of give-and-take can be abrogated and things can come to us unearned. He claims, in other words, that miracles can still be brought about in this workaday world of ours. That claim is not only fraudulent, but this ruddy prisoner is fraudulent in the way in which he presents it. Even his place of abode is fraudulent. He contended, I understand, that his home was in the once conveniently vague neighborhood of the North Pole. But that Pole has now been found and explored, and those explorations have failed to disclose any such home. This is an age of steel and stone, of skyscrapers and towering cities. Yet today, in this age of elevators and steam-heated apartments, this old impostor claims to travel by sled and reindeer and "

"Objection," said the attorney for the defense, looking up from a locomotive he was drawing on a brief back.

"Objection noted," proclaimed the Bench, rousing himself from what looked suspiciously like forty winks.

"And even here," pursued the blandly smiling Prosecutor, "I shall not only anticipate but I shall elucidate my opponent's objection. Why that sled and reindeer, I ask? Simply because, in the medieval era of his origin, sled and reindeer stood for the fastest means of locomotion known to semicivilized man. But we live in a new age, an age of progress. And any self-appointed peddler of unsolicited charities who can't today travel one-tenth as fast as one of our mail planes is no longer entitled to his job!"

The Prosecutor, on ending that peroration, took a drink of ice water and smiled icily at the murmur of approval that swept through the courtroom. Then he once more directed a lean and accusatory finger at the prisoner.

"There's something else that this old impostor lays claim to. He contends that while on his brief but incredibly active annual pilgrimage of debauching and pauperizing our rising generation he enters their midnight homes by way of the chimney. By the chimney, mark you, by the chimney and under cover of darkness. And that, gentlemen, is as far as I need to go. We may not be versed in Norse mythology; but we all know modern architecture. So I merely ask you, gentlemen of the jury, to take one good look at this old impostor. Study him closely, gentlemen. Note his ample proportions, his potbelly, his obesity doubtlessly due to a life of overindulgence. All I ask of you, gentlemen, is to give him the once-over and then decide for yourselves whether or not a figure of those dimensions could get down a modern chimney flue!"

Again the Prosecutor took a drink of ice water, a murmur of approval swept through the courtroom, and a far-from-happy prisoner mopped his forehead with the rabbit-fringed tail of his Turkey-red surtout.

"But that, gentlemen, is not all," resumed the gaunt and grim-eyed Prosecutor. "This crafty old impostor not only succeeds in deluding youth, he triumphs as well in depraving parenthood itself. He beguiles careless-minded mothers and fathers into a communion of deception. He makes them passive agents in his nefarious enterprises. He prompts them to perpetuate a tradition  that is a blot on this nation of truth lovers. And above and before everything, we must have Truth!"

"That's right," suddenly cackled our Juror Number Nine. "Sixty-eight years ago I lied to my step-mother about shovelin' the snow off our well platform, and all I got that Christmas was a stockin' full o' coal. And I've hated Christmas ever since."

It was the infirm Mr. Folly who at this juncture restored the picture puzzle he'd been working over to the table of exhibits and rose blandly to his feet.

"If Your Honor will permit me," he casually observed, "I am prompted to move for a mistrial."

The Judge who looked so disconcertingly like Father Time sat back on the bench, blinking at a window which a court attendant had opened to cool off the overheated room.

"On what grounds?" he finally demanded.

"On the grounds," said Mr. Folly with an unexpectedly stern glance toward the jury box, "that my client is not being tried before a body of his peers."

"That looks like a pretty intelligent jury to me," ventured the Judge, "even though Number Nine didn't know enough to keep his mouth shut."

"I'm not attacking their intelligence," pursued the quiet-toned Mr. Folly. "What I'm criticizing is their age."

"Fiddlesticks," retorted the Judge, "every man in this courtroom is an old man, and you know it, sir!"

"All except one, Your Honor," contended the unabashed Mr. Folly.

"What one?" demanded the Bench.

"My client, Your Honor," replied the wizened counsel for the man in red, whose color deepened as the eyes of the courtroom were once more directed on his uncomfortable person.

"I can't say that he looks much like a spring chicken," said the Man on the Bench, with a throaty cackle that was unctuously re-echoed by the crowd.

"Appearances, Your Honor, are sometimes deceptive," said Mr. Folly.

"How about those white whiskers?" demanded the irate Prosecutor.

"Your Honor," said Mr. Folly, hobbling closer to the Judge's bench, "I wouldn't care to have it generally known, but this client of mine is a trifle off in the upper story. He's quite child-minded, in fact. And those whiskers are only a disguise. Under them, he's merely a child, a child who refused to grow up. For the foolish old fellow still has a forlorn craving for happiness. He keeps on believing in good-will and kindliness and all that sort of thing. It's a very sad case. And instead of cluttering up the Calendar this way, he really ought to be handed over to the care of his friends."

"Has he any friends?" demanded the Judge.

"Not here," said the astute Mr. Folly.

"Then how are we to know he has any?"

Mr. Folly scratched his bald head in perplexity. "That's not an easy question to answer, Your Honor. But I'd suggest, in the circumstances, that we let the children decide it."

"But there are no children about," demurred the Court.

"Then we might take a ballot," suggested Mr. Folly.

"A ballot? What kind of ballot?" demanded the Judge. But that question remained unanswered. For the woebegone prisoner himself, who had got unsteadily up from his chair, was crossing to the open window. Through that open window he thrust his two fat arms encased in Turkey red. And a tear ran down his plump but wrinkled cheek as he stared out at the wintry sky that had darkened as the afternoon wore away.

"Children," he cried in a voice tremulous with emotion. "Children, do you want me?"

A hush fell over the courtroom. And in that hush three hundred straining ears heard only the sighing of the wind. But as that wind increased in force two objects of white fluttered down and rested on the outstretched and unsteady hands of the wistful old figure in Turkey red. Some people said they were slips of paper; and some people always claimed that they were only especially large snowflakes. But they came in a stream, and then in a cloud. They came so thick the Big Policeman had to pull down the window to keep them from covering the courtroom floor. But even then they flattened themselves against the panes, and piled up about the outside walls, and grew deeper and deeper, until the room darkened and the hushed watchers looked at one another with childish wonder in their eyes.

"Dear me," said the decrepit old court attendant as he turned on the lights, "if it isn't one of those old-fashioned blizzards again!"

"Looks to me," observed the Big Policeman, blinking up at the gray oblong that had once been a window, "like it's goin' to be worse than that blizzard of 1888!"

Why Santa Claus Chose The Reindeer By Estella Hitchcock Lane

This is a story about the very first Christmas Eve that Santa Claus ever made his trip around the world. He was quite a young man then, and he had found it rather dreary at the North Pole, with nothing to do but slide down icebergs and play with the Polar Bears, One day, some of the Snow Birds that come north for the summer told him about many children living in the rest of the world, who were sad because they had no toys. That gave Santa Claus an idea. He built a great big work shop and called together the Elves and Brownies and Fairies, who were his good friends. All the year long, they worked together, making dolls and sleds and games and books.

The animals wanted to help. They, too, were Santa Claus' friends. He let them into the shop, but it just didn't work very well. The Polar Bears, who insisted on playing with the dolls, were so clumsy they were always dropping and breaking them. The Seals would stand up on their tails and dance to the tunes of the music boxes, and were in everybody's way. The Arctic Dogs just couldn't resist shaking up all the stuffed cats and bunnies. The Reindeer suddenly became quite frivolous when they saw all the gay balloons. They tossed them into the air with their noses, but the balloons caught on their antlers and broke with a bang.

Santa Claus finally just had to put out the animals and lock the door. They stood in the snow, looked longingly into the windows, and felt hurt because Santa Claus didn't come out to play with them any more. In fact, they grumbled a good deal.

Finally, the toys were all completed. The shop was overflowing.

Santa Claus drew a long breath and sat down to rest, while all the Elves and Brownies and Fairies curled up and went to sleep, they were so tired.

"Now," said Santa Claus, "the next question is how to get all these things to the children!
 
Here are the toys and there is my sleigh waiting to take them, but who will pull it?"

"We will," cried the Polar Bears, delighted at a chance to have a share in things again.

"We will!" cried the Reindeer.

"Oh, please let us!" exclaimed the Seals, flopping up to Santa and crowding around him.
"The idea!" cried the Dogs. "The very idea of Seals drawing a sleigh! They're so slow they wouldn't get there for a year. We are the ones to do it, of course."

This hurt the Seals' feelings. They were very sensitive about being slow on land. When Santa Claus saw big tears rolling down from their eyes and dropping onto their flippers, he just couldn't stand it, for he was very tender-hearted.

"Of course the Seals shall do it," he said. "What if they are a little slow? If they keep at it, they'll get there all right."

He hitched the Seals up to the sleigh, and away they went, flopping along over the ice. It was a little slow, but Santa Claus was very patient. When, however, they were about 15 degrees from the North Pole and Santa Claus told them to head first for Alaska, one Seal said:

"Oh, no! Let's go to Greenland first. I have a third cousin who lives in Greenland, and I've always wanted to see that country. This is a great chance!" And he set out for Greenland.

"I should say not!" said the second Seal. "I've always heard that the fish in the waters of Australia are the most delicious in the world. We'll go to Australia first." And he set out for Australia.

Each Seal wanted to go in a different direction. Santa Claus tried to reason with them.

"But the main thing is to get these gifts to the children. We can see every one of these countries in the end, if only you will all pull together and follow my directions."

But the Seals were very stubborn; and Santa Claus had to give up and go back to the North Pole.

"I'll let the Dogs do it," he said to himself. "After all, they are the ones best fitted to draw the sleigh."

He hitched up the Dogs and set out again.
 
But before they had reached Alaska the Dogs began to quarrel with each other.

"You've got to pull your share of the load or I won't pull mine," said the first Dog.

"I am pulling my share. You're the one that's holding back," snarled the second Dog.

"I think you're all leaving most of it to me!" whined another Dog.

"Come! Come!" said Santa, "this is no way to do. Let's stop trying to see who's not doing his share. Let's all try to pull as hard as we can ourselves and never mind what the other Dog does. After all, the main thing is to get these gifts to the children, isn't it?"

The Dogs agreed that it was. They all wanted to get the gifts to the children, but each one was so afraid he was doing more than his share.

Finally, the first Dog stopped short. That stopped the rest of them. It stopped Santa Claus and the sleigh, too,

"I'm not going any further unless the rest will do their share," said the first Dog.

Then Santa Claus almost lost his patience.

"If you can't all forget yourselves and work together, we'll never get there," he said, and he took them back to the North Pole.

Both the Reindeer and the Polar Bears wanted very much to help, but the Reindeer, being always unselfish, gave in to the Polar Bears, and off they went.

"Now we'll surely get there," said Santa Claus to himself, for the Polar Bears were always very good natured and obliging. They trotted along merrily, Santa Claus singing lustily as they went, until they came down to the timber line.

"Oh, just wait a minute while I go and climb that tree!" said the first Polar Bear, and before Santa Claus could stop him, he was off, taking most of the team with him.

"No! No!" shouted the second Bear, "I want to explore that cave." And he set out in the other direction.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Santa Claus, very much discouraged. "I had forgotten how curious these Bears always are. We'll never get this job done, if they have to investigate everything they see."

He got out of the sleigh and made them all sit down in the snow, while he talked to them very seriously.
"Don't you see," he said, "that the main thing is to get these gifts to the children? We must do that whether or not we do all these other things."

The Polar Bears agreed, and promised to be good, and they went on again. But every time they came to something new, they forgot all about the children and the toys and started to investigate.

Santa Claus was pretty discouraged, when he had to turn back for the third time. As he finally set out with the Reindeer harnessed to the sleigh, he wondered if he'd have to give up the whole thing.

Before they went far, the first Reindeer said to the others, "Remember, we all want one thing more than anything else to get these gifts to the children. So let's forget everything else we might like to do and all pull together until the job is done." And away they went like the wind.

The other animals were very cross. The Seals went and banged their heads against an iceberg. The Dogs crowded into a corner of the work shop and sulked. The Polar Bears spent their time teasing the Brownies. They tickled the Fairies and woke them up.

But because they forgot themselves and all pulled together the Reindeer carried Santa's sleigh safely and swiftly around the world. And that's why they have been doing it ever since.

Christmas With Mr. Pickwick By Charles Dickens

It was a very pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick in the centre of the group, now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles, and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick blinded shortly afterwards with a silk-handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man's buff, with the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations; and then-had to evade the blind-man himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught just the people whom they thought would like it; and when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When they were all tired of blindman's buff, there was a great game at snap-dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and the raisins gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly irresistible. . . . Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred, and the deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.

A Christmas Carol* By Charles Dickens In Four Staves

*( EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the shortened version of the Carol, made by Dickens himself for use in his public readings.)

Stave One: Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, his sole mourner.

Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name, however. There it yet stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley. He answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! External heat and cold had little influence on him. No warmth could warm, no cold could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect they often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him, and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eyes at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked, To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas eve old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting, foggy weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

"Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation Scrooge had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge; "humbug!"

"Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do. Out upon Merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!"

"Nephew, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it! But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around apart from the veneration due to its sacred origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-travelers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning *o his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"

"Why did you get married?"

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"

"Good afternoon."

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"
"Good afternoon,"

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last, So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good afternoon!"

"And A Happy New-Year!"

"Good afternoon!"

His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. The clerk, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years. He died seven years ago, this very night."

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?"

"Plenty of prisons. But under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the unoffending multitude, a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!"

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the prisons and the workhouses they cost enough and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge, dismounting from his stool, tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

"You want all day to-morrow, I suppose?"

"If quite convenient, sir."

"It's not convenient, and it's not fair. If I was to stop half a crown for it, you'd think yourself mightily ill-used, I'll be bound?"

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."

"It's only once a year, sir."

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December! But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.''

The clerk promised that he would, and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no greatcoat ), went down a slide, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honor of its being Christmas eve, and then ran home as hard as he could pelt, to play at blind man’s buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard. The building was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.

Now it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door of the house, except that it was very large; also, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also, that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London. And yet Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face, with a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but it looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. He said, "Pooh, pooh!" and closed the door with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs. Slowly too, trimming his candle as he went.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for its being very dark. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room, all as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in the dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat, put on his dressing-gown and slippers and his nightcap, and sat down before the very low fire to take his gruel.

As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. Soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This was succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar.

Then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

It came on through the heavy door, and a specter passed into the room before his eyes. And upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him! Marley's ghost!"

The same face, the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he. believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him, though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and noticed the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, he was still incredulous.

"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. "What do you want with me?"

"Much!" Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was."

"Who were you then?"

"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."

"Can you can you sit down?"

"I can."

"Do it, then."

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

"You don't believe in me."

"I don't."

"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?"

"I don't know."

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his horror.

But how much greater was his horror when, the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

"Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should, walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. I cannot tell you all I would. A very little more is permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house mark me! in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"

"Seven years dead. And traveling all the time? You travel fast?"

"On the wings of the wind."

"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years."

"O blind man, blind man! not to know that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet I was like this man; I once was like this man!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

"Hear me! My time is nearly gone."

"I will. But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"

"I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Eben-ezer."

"You were always a good friend to me. Thank'ee!"

"You will be haunted by Three Spirits."

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob? I I think I'd rather not."

"Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow night, when the bell tolls One. Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night, when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"

It walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the apparition reached it, it was wide open.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. Scrooge tried to say, "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, he went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep on the instant.

Stave Two: The First of the Three Spirits

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber, until suddenly the church clock tolled a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.

Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn aside by a strange figure, like a child; yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave Kim the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet o£ light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?"

"I am!"

"Who and what are you?"

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past?"

"No. Your past. The things that you will see with me are shadows of the things that have been; they will have no consciousness of us."

Scrooge then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

"Your welfare. Rise and walk with me!"

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose; but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication.

"I am a mortal, and liable to fall."

"Bear but a touch of my hand there" said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more than this!"

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood in the busy thoroughfares of a city. It was made plain enough by the dressing of the shops that here, too, it was Christmas time. The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

"Know it\ I was apprenticed here!"

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk that, if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement: "Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig, alive again I"

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: "Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

A living and moving picture of Scrooge's former self, a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-apprentice.

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. "My old fellow-prentice, bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. Christmas eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up, before a man can say Jack Robinson! Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and bright a ballroom as you would desire to see on a winter's night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In they all came one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and every how. Away they all went, twenty couples at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done"; and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter especially provided for that purpose.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many four times old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of 'em next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance, advance and retire, turn your partner, bow and courtesy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again to your place, Fezziwig "cut," cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs.

When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter in the back shop.

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude. He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money, three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"
"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self, "it isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing particular."

"Something, I think?"

"No, no. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again he saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a black dress, in whose eyes there were tears.

"It matters little," she said softly to Scrooge's former self. "To you very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"What idol has displaced you?"

"A golden one. You fear the world too much. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?

"What then? Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you. Have I ever sought release from our engagement?"

"In words, no. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. If you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl; or, choosing her, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."

"Spirit! Remove me from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it! Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

As he struggled with the Spirit he was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep.

Stave Three: The Second of the Three Spirits

Scrooge awoke in his own bedroom. There was no doubt about that. But it and his own adjoining sitting-room, into which he shuffled in his slippers, attracted by a great light there, had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove. The leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and great bowls of punch. In easy state upon this couch there sat a Giant glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and who raised it high to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

"Come in, come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before."

"Never."

"Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?" pursued the Phantom.

"I don't think I have, I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"

"More than eighteen hundred."

"A tremendous family to provide for! Spirit, conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it."

"Touch my robe!"

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

The room and its contents all vanished instantly, and they stood in the city streets upon a snowy Christmas morning.

Scrooge and the Ghost passed on, invisible, straight to Scrooge's clerk's; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "bob" a week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas day by half an hour!"

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"

"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Crat-chit, looking around.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant, "not coming upon Christmas day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs, as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby, compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the applesauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried, Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish) they hadn't ate it all at lastl Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone, too nervous to bear witnesses, to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose, a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered, flushed but smiling proudly, with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire.

Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass, two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire spluttered and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

Scrooge raised his head speedily, on hearing his own name.

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!"
"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it."

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas day."

"It should be Christmas day, I am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the day's," said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring him, if obtained, full five and sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to be abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round, and by and by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, as this scene vanished, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed, Scrooge's niece by marriage laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit behind-hand, laughed out lustily.

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece, indignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth that seemed made to be kissed, as no doubt it was, all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well, I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?"

Topper clearly had his eye on one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister the plump one with the lace tucker; not the one with the roses blushed.

After tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you, especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. There was first a game at blindman's buff though. And I no more believe Topper was really blinded than I believe he had eyes in his boots. Because the way in which he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did, and stood there, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half-hour, Spirit, only one!"

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every new question put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister cried out:

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!"

"What is it?" cried Fred.

"It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes."

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have drank to the unconscious company in an inaudible speech. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. Suddenly, as they stood together in an open place, the bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it no more. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him.

Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come? Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

"Lead on! Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!"

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them. But there they were in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants.
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin. "I don't know much about it either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him? I thought he'd never die."

"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin. "Company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know. By, by."

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversation apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that it must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. It could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future.

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself amongst the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and he thought and hoped he saw his newborn resolutions carried out in this.

They left this busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, to a low shop where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. A grey-haired rascal, of great age, sat smoking his pipe. Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!"

"You couldn't have met in a better place. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two ain't strangers. What have you got to sell? What have you got to sell?"

"Half a minute's patience, Joe, and you shall see."

"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did! Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."

Mrs. Dilber, whose manner was remarkable for general propitiation, said, "No, indeed, ma'am."

"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw, why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."

It's the truest word that ever was spoke,, it's a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment, and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first nor afraid for them to see it."

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening the bundle, and dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

"What do you call this? Bed-curtains!"

"Ah! Bed-curtains! Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now."

"His blankets?"

"Whose else's do you think? He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say. Ah! You may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it by dressing him up in it, if it hadn't been for me."

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror.

"Spirit! I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!"

The scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bare, uncurtained bed. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon this bed; and on it, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this plundered unknown man.

"Spirit, let me see some tenderness connected with a death, or this dark chamber, Spirit, will be for ever present to me."

The Ghost conducted him to poor Bob Crat-chit's house, the dwelling he had visited before, and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in needlework. But surely they were very quiet!

"'And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'"

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face. "The colour hurts my eyes," she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

"They're better now again. It makes them weak by candlelight; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time."

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother."

"I have known him walk with I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."

"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often,"

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.

"But he was very light to carry, and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble, no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter he had need of it, poor fellow came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!"

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?"

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child! My little child!"

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were.

"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was, with the covered face, whom we saw lying dead?"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him to a dismal, wretched, ruinous churchyard.

The Spirit stood amongst the graves, and pointed down to One.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name EBENEZEB SCROOGE.

"Am / that man who lay upon the bed? No, Spirit! Oh no, no! Spirit! hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope? Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life."

For the first time the kind hand faltered.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, .and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

Holding up his hands in one last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

Yes, and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard.

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist, no night; clear, bright, stirring, golden day.

"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

"Eh?"

"What's to-day, my fine fellow?"

"To-day! Why Christmas day."

"It's Christmas day! I haven't missed it. Hallo, my fine fellow!"

"Hallo!"

"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner?"

"I should hope I did."
"An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey, the big one?"

"What, the one as big as me?"

"What a delightful boy! It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"

"It's hanging there now."

"Is it? Go and buy it."

"Walk-cr/" exclaimed the boy.

"No, no, I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and I'll give you half a crown!"

The boy was off like a shot.

"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's! He sha'n't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!"

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man.

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

Scrooge dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and, walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humored fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And Scrooge said often afterwards, that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

In the afternoon, he turned his steps towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it.
"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he, my love?"

"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress."

"He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."

"Fred!"

"Why, bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"

"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?"

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-derful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon,

And he did it. The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. Bob was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the tank.
 
Bob's hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"

"I am very sorry, sir. I am behind my time."

"You are? Yes. I think you are. Step this way if you please."

"It's only once a year, sir. It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir."
"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend. I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," Scrooge continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again, "and therefore I am about to raise your salary!"

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler.

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy a second coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him; but his own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived in that respect upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

A Merry, Scary Christmas By Dick Ashbaugh

To those ingenious gentlemen, the American toy manufacturers, I bow low. Their crusade for realism has been relentless, unflagging and mildly terrifying. They have given us dolls that walk, talk and cry, and mechanical cowboys that shoot from the hip.

Still, I do not think the toy designers have gone far enough. In training the little ones for future parenthood, I believe a number of other realities could be scaled down to tot-size. The following list is tentative, but I believe it has possibilities. FOR JUNIOR:

The Little Family Man. A kit of toy unpaid bills just like daddy's. Printed on sturdy bond paper, these bills are the last word in realism. Several are marked: "Final Notice." The kit also includes toy bankbook showing balance of $4.61.

Young Handy Man. Set of two full-scale leaky faucets plus repair parts. Parts are machined slightly out of line so faucets continue to leak after hours of work. A provocative toy for the junior mechanic.

The Little Soldier. Highly colored plastic set containing mailbox with toy draft card, bite sized samples of Army food and complete equipment for permanent rank of master sergeant. (Officer material slightly higher.)

The Young Statesman. Toy convention stage with fireproof bunting in full color. Scale-model Senate Chamber includes harmless, electrically operated filibuster. AC or DC. Specify party. FOR SISTER:

Toy Baking Failure. Exact model of three-layer cake. Falls in middle when placed in oven. Ideal for the young hostess.

Dinner Party. Complete equipment for party of eight. Includes tough steak from butcher, and instructions for borrowing extra silver from the neighbors. Choice of underdone vegetables, Plastic and inedible for protection of smaller guests.

Budget-wise. The thrifty young mother will love this miniature play budget. Handsomely bound, it shows a deficit at the end of the month. Just like mummy's.

Joy Baby. The perfect doll for the Little Mother. A simple control causes doll to cry for bottle at three A.M. Nineteen inches high, with a gorgeous permanent that uncurls in damp weather.

Let Nothing You Dismay By Ruth Harnden

She had spent the afternoon trimming the tree. She had trimmed it after the fashion of her native land, with bright red polished apples hanging, for balance and for beauty, under each pure-white candle. The old customs, her distant youth, were sharp to her memory. Sometimes they were sharper than the events of her present life in this New England village where she had come so many years ago and raised her American family. Sometimes, and more often of late, she would find herself forgetting things that had happened only the week before. She would make confusing mistakes, answer letters she had answered already, or else forget to answer them at all. It surprised her very much. She could remember so brilliantly every tree in her mother's garden, every street in the small Swedish town where she had grown up, every face and name of her early playmates and neighbors. It was very puzzling.

She sat now in the dark room, in the fragrance from the balsam tree, and watched the year's first snow falling beyond the window. She would not light the candles yet. She was saving them for the children. If the snow kept up, she knew, it would make the walking bad. But she hoped that it would keep up. She found it beautiful and more than that. She had never lost, or perhaps she had found again, a childlike sense of magic in the presence of the first snowfall.

How strange it must be, she thought, to live where there is always snow, There was Hilda in the mountains of Oregon Hilda who had cooked for her so faithfully until she married that crazy miner and went to live in some shack in the wilds. So cold, she would write in her letters. Always so cold it is, I think J never be warm again.

Rocking gently in the warm room, smelling the Christmas tree, watching the quick, feathered air outside, she thought with satisfaction of the socks she had knit for Hilda. Six pairs, extra heavy. Hilda's feet, at least, would be warm.

She had mailed them in plenty of time. Last week, wasn't it? And there was still a week to go before Christmas. But then, she asked herself abruptly, what was it that she had mailed this morning? Something to Hilda, she was sure. She remembered thinking of her at the post office this morning, and she had written on the wide, flat box But that was impossible! That was the box from Martins. That was the nightie for Janie who was getting married right after Christmas.

Her granddaughter getting married! Only think. It was hard to realize. And it was the loveliest nightie she could find, the color of honeysuckle and trimmed with real lace. "Extravagant," she told herself dutifully now, but it didn't prevent her from smiling. It was so beautiful, and so was Janie and she was getting married. Nineteen. Janie was nineteen. It didn't seem possible. And she had sent the nightie this morning to ...

She stopped the gently rocking chair and sat straighter, trying to stop her thoughts until she could straighten them.

She had stood at the table in the post office, under the placard listing the states and their mailing  dates For Florida, For Oregon and she had thought of Hilda. "Oh, dear!" she said aloud, because now she could remember very clearly writing Mrs. Hilda Borge, writing the Oregon address. "And the socks?" she asked herself. Had she sent the socks to Janie in Florida? But she could write to Janie. She could explain. It was of Hilda that she needed to think.

For a moment she was seeing the plain and practical Hilda with an awful clarity, because she was seeing her in relation to the bridal nightie, the gleaming satin, the cobweb lace. It was a picture so incongruous as to be almost indecent. And no one would be quicker to know that than Hilda herself. How she scorned all softness, all luxury and beauty, out of the protective shell she had built around her own poverty and plainness. "Such nonsense!" she could hear Hilda saying. "When so many are hungry, and cold." But it was really the beauty that Hilda feared, as though she had to deny its existence or she would have to admit her own deprivation her small, middle-aged, shapeless body, her homely work-scarred hands, the hopeless plainness of her face. She was unredeemed by a single beauty, and the only wonder was that even the thickheaded, bowlegged miner had wanted to marry her.

Would Hilda ever understand that it was only an old woman's fumbling mistake and not an insult, not a mockery to send that exquisite gossamer nightie into her poor stark shack where, in all likelihood, she slept in her long woolen underwear? Or would it break her heart with its terrible contrast to her own ugliness, its terrible reminder of all the luxury and loveliness that had no place in her own life? "How could I?" she asked herself. "And for Christmas, too?" The happiest time of the year, the time for remembering old friends with love and with loving gifts. Even now in the distance, but still distinctly, she could hear the carol singers lifting their voices on the sharp and snow-filled air. "God rest you merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay..." How ironic the words seemed to her now, like a rebuke to her shameful stupidity, her cruel blunder.

It was only the day after Christmas that she had Janie's wire from Miami Janie who was so young and impatient, and too busy with her wedding plans to sit down and write a letter. Marvelous ski socks, the wire read. How did you guess where we were spending our honeymoon? So that, at least, was all right, even though she had forgotten, after all, to write an explanation to Janie. Now she was glad that she hadn't written. Ski socks, indeed! It made her think of her own youth in Sweden, and it was a number of minutes before her mind returned to the present. But then she had sent the nightie to Hilda! For a little while, for a few happy Christmas days she had forgotten.

It was another week before Hilda's letter came. Old Hilda, it began (in the middle of her own thought, after the habit of her simplicity ). For a second she thought her worst fears had been realized and her heart shook. But her eyes moved rapidly on. Old Hilda, they think, there is only to keep her warm. So they send the sweaters, the mittens, the socks. What could make her pretty, such a one, eh? But you, my lovely friend, you have the other heart, the other eyes, and I am beautiful now! I open up the tight-air stove so the room is full of heat, and 1 put on my so beautiful dress made for dancing, and what you think? 1 dance! Old Hilda dance, can you think of it? And my Tim he come and dance with me. Ha, I think my Tim he fall in love with me all over again.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, first published in 1907, is probably the most famous story that O. Henry ever wrote. When we consider that at the time it was written $20 a week was thought to be a decent salary, this tender story becomes all the more touching.

The Gift Of The Magi By O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Delia counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Delia did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Delia. Which is all very good.

Delia finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Delia, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs, in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Delia's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Delia would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Delia's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Delia ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Delia.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Delia.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Delia reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Cone y Island chorus girl. But what could I do oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Delia doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair way down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Delia, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Delia wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas,' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Delia. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Delia. "It's sold, I tell you sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Delia. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo  that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting power of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs the set of combs, side and back, that Delia had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And then Delia leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men  wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Christmas Every Day By W. D. Howells

The little girl came into her papa's study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began:

"Well, once there was a little pig " She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word. She said she had heard little pig stories till she was perfectly sick of them. "Well, what kind of story shall I tell, then?" "About Christmas. It's getting to be the season. It's past Thanksgiving already."

"It seems to me," argued her papa, "that I've told as often about Christmas as I have about little pigs."

"No difference! Christmas is more interesting."

"Well!" Her papa roused himself from his writing by a great effort. "Well, then, I'll tell you about the little girl that wanted it Christmas every day in the year. How would you like that?"

"First-rate!" said the little girl; and she nestled into comfortable shape in his lap, ready for listening.

"Very well, then, this little pig Oh, what are you pounding me for?"

"Because you said little pig instead of little girl."

"I should like to know what's the difference between a little pig and a little girl that wanted it Christmas every day!"

"Papa," said the little girl, warningly, "if you don't go on, I'll give it to you!" And at this her papa darted off like lightning, and began to tell the story as fast as he could.

Well, once there was a little girl who liked Christmas so much that she wanted it to be Christmas every day in the year; and as soon as Thanksgiving was over she began to send postal cards  to the old Christmas Fairy to ask if she mightn't have it. But the old Fairy never answered any of the postals; and, after a while, the little girl found out that the Fairy was pretty particular, and wouldn't notice anything but letters, not even correspondence cards in envelopes; but real letters on sheets of paper, and sealed outside with a monogram or your initial, any way. So, then, she began to send her letters; and in about three weeks or just the day before Christmas, it was she got a letter from the Fairy, saying she might have it Christmas every day for a year, and then they would see about having it longer.

The little girl was a good deal excited already, preparing for the old-fashioned, once-a-year Christmas that was coming the next day, and perhaps the Fairy's promise didn't make such an impression on her as it would have made at some other time. She just resolved to keep it to herself, and surprise everybody with it as it kept coming true; and then it slipped out of her mind altogether.

She had a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early, so as to let Santa Claus have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was up the first of anybody and went and felt them, and found hers all lumpy with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes and pocket-books and rubber balls and all kinds of small presents and her big brother's with nothing but the tongs in them, and her young lady sister's with a new silk umbrella, and her papa's and mamma's with potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue paper, just as they always had every Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest of the family were up, and she was the first to burst into the library, when the doors were opened, and look at the large presents laid out on the library-table books, and portfolios and boxes of stationery, and breastpins, and dolls, and little stoves and dozens of handkerchiefs, and ink-stands, and skates, and snow-shovels, and photograph-frames, and little easels, and boxes of water-colors, and Turkish paste, and nougat, and candied cherries, and dolls' houses, and waterproofs and the big Christmas-tree, lighted and standing in a waste-basket in the middle.

She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she did not want any breakfast; and the whole forenoon the presents kept pouring in that the expressman had not had time to deliver the night before; and she went 'round giving the presents she had got for other people, and came home and ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and plum-pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges and more candy, and then went out and coasted and came in with a stomach-ache, crying; and her papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of fool's paradise another year; and they had a light supper, and pretty early everybody went to bed cross.

Here the little girl pounded her papa in the back, again.

"Well, what now? Did I say pigs?"

"You made them act like pigs."

"Well, didn't they?"
"No matter; you oughtn't to put it into a story."

"Very well, then, I'll take it all out."

Her father went on:

The little girl slept very heavily, and she slept very late, but she was wakened at last by the other children dancing 'round her bed with their stockings full of presents in their hands.

"What is it?" said the little girl, and she rubbed her eyes and tried to rise up in bed.

"Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!" they all shouted, and waved their stockings.

"Nonsense! It was Christmas yesterday,"

Her brothers and sisters just laughed. "We don't know about that. It's Christmas to-day, any way. You come into the library and see."

Then all at once it flashed on the little girl that the Fairy was keeping her promise, and her year of Christmases was beginning. She was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up like a lark a lark that had overeaten itself and gone to bed cross and darted into the library. There it was again! Books, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and breast-pins

"You needn't go over it all, Papa; I guess I can remember just what was there," said the little girl.

Well, and there was the Christmas-tree blazing away, and the family picking out their presents, but looking pretty sleepy, and her father perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. "I'm sure I don't see how I'm to dispose of all these things," said her mother, and her father said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the little girl as a kind of a joke; and so she ate so much candy she didn't want any breakfast, and went 'round carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a

"Papa!"

"Well, what now?"

"What did you promise, you forgetful thing?"

"Oh! oh, yes!"

Well, the next day, it was just the same thing over again, but everybody getting crosser; and at the end of a week's time so many people had lost their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers everywhere; they perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to recover their tempers they usually got somebody else's, and it made the most dreadful mix.

The little girl began to get frightened, keeping the secret all to herself; she wanted to tell her mother, but she didn't dare to; and she was ashamed to ask the Fairy to take back her gift, it seemed ungrateful and ill-bred, and she thought she would try to stand it, but she hardly knew how she could, for a whole year. So it went on and on, and it was Christmas on St. Valentine's Day, and Washington's Birthday just the same as any day, and it didn't skip even the First of April, though everything was counterfeit that day, and that was some little relief.

After a while, coal and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many had been wrapped up in tissue paper to fool papas and mammas with. Turkeys got to be a thousand dollars apiece

"Papa!"

"Well, what?"

"You're beginning to fib."

"Well, two thousand, then."

And they got to passing off almost anything for turkeys, half-grown humming-birds, and even rocs out of the Arabian Nights the real turkeys were so scarce. And cranberries well, they asked a diamond apiece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for Christmas-trees, and where the woods and orchards used to be, it looked just like a stubble-field, with the stumps. After a while they had to make Christmas-trees out of rags, and stuff them with bran, like old-fashioned dolls; but there were plenty of rags, because people got so poor, buying presents for one another, that they couldn't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones to tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poor-house, except the confectioners, and the fancy storekeepers, and the picture-booksellers, and the expressmen; and they all got so rich and proud that they would hardly wait upon a person when he came to buy; it was perfectly shameful!

Well, after it had gone on about three or four months, the little girl, whenever she came into the room in the morning and saw those great ugly lumpy stockings dangling at the fire-place, and the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to just sit down and burst out crying. In six months she was perfectly exhausted; she couldn't even cry any more; she just lay on the lounge and rolled her eyes and panted. About the beginning of October she took to sitting down on dolls, wherever she found them French dolls, or any kind she hated the sight of them so; and by Thanksgiving she was crazy, and just slammed her presents across the room. By that time people didn't carry presents around nicely any more. They flung them over the fence, or through the window, or anything; and, instead of running their tongues out and taking great pains to write "For dear Papa," or "Mamma," or "Brother," or "Sister," or "Susie," or "Sammie," or "Billie," or "Bobby," or "Jim-mie," or "Jennie," or whoever it was, and troubling to get the spelling right, and then signing their names, and "Xmas, 188," they used to write in the gift-books, "Take it, you horrid old thing!" and then go and bang it against the front door . Nearly everybody had built barns to hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed, and then they used to let them lie out in the rain, or anywhere. Sometimes the police used to come and tell them to shovel their presents off the sidewalk, or they would arrest them.

"I thought you said everybody had gone to the poor-house," interrupted the little girl.

"They did go, at first," said her papa; "but after a while the poor-houses got so full that they had to send the people back to their own houses. They tried to cry, when they got back, but they couldn't make the least sound."

"Why couldn't they?"

"Because they had lost their voices, saying 'Merry Christmas' so much. Did I tell you how it was on the Fourth of July?"

"No; how was it?" And the little girl nestled closer, in expectation of something uncommon.

Well, the night before, the boys stayed up to celebrate, as they always do, and fell asleep before twelve o'clock, as usual, expecting to be wakened by the bells and cannon, But it was nearly eight o'clock before the first boy in the United States woke up, and then he found out what the trouble was. As soon as he could get his clothes on, he ran out of the house and smashed a big cannon-torpedo down on the pavement; but it didn't make any more noise than a damp wad of paper, and, after he tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick them up and look at them. Every single torpedo was a big raisin! Then he just streaked it upstairs, and examined his fire-crackers and toy-pistol and two-dollar collection of fireworks, and found that they were nothing but sugar and candy painted up to look like fireworks! Before ten o'clock, every boy in the United States found out that his Fourth of July things had turned into Christmas things; and then they just sat down and cried they were so mad. There are about twenty million boys in the United States, and so you can imagine what a noise they made. Some men got together before night, with a little powder that hadn't turned into purple sugar yet, and they said they would fire off one cannon, any way. But the cannon burst into a thousand pieces, for it was nothing but rock-candy, and some of the men nearly got killed, The Fourth of July orations all turned into Christmas carols , and when anybody tried to read the Declaration, instead of saying, "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary," he was sure to sing, "God rest you merry, gentlemen." It was perfectly awful.

The little girl drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.

"And how was it at Thanksgiving?" she asked.

Her papa hesitated. "Well, I'm almost afraid to tell you. I'm afraid you'll think it's wicked."

"Well, tell any way," said the little girl.

Well, before it came Thanksgiving, it had leaked out who had caused all these Christ-mases. The little girl had suffered so much that she had talked about it in her sleep; and after that, hardly anybody would play with her. People just perfectly despised her, because if it had not been for her greediness, it wouldn't have happened, and now, when it came Thanksgiving, and she wanted them to go to church, and have a squash pie and turkey, and show their gratitude, they said that all the turkeys had been eaten up for her old Christmas dinners, and if she would stop the Christmases, they would see about the gratitude. Wasn't it dreadful? And the very next day the little girl began to send letters to the Christmas Fairy, and then telegrams, to stop it. But it didn't do any good; and then she got to calling at the Fairy's house, but the girl that came to the door always said "Not at home," or "Engaged," or "At dinner," or something like that; and so it went on till it came to the old once-a-year Christmas Eve. The little girl fell asleep, and when she woke up in the morning

"She found it was all nothing but a dream," suggested the little girl.

"No, indeed!" said her papa. "It was all every bit true!"

"Well, what did she find out then?"

"Why, that it wasn't Christmas at last, and wasn't ever going to be, any more. Now it's time for breakfast."

The little girl held her papa fast around the neck.

"You shan't go if you're going to leave it so!"

"How do you want it left?"

"Christmas once a year."

"All right," said her papa; and he went on again.

Well, there was the greatest rejoicing all over the country, and it extended clear up into Canada. The people met together everywhere, and kissed and cried for joy. The city carts went around and gathered up all the candy and raisins and nuts, and dumped them into the river; and it made the fish perfectly sick; and the whole United States, as far out as Alaska, was one blaze of bonfires, where the children were burning up their gift-books and presents of all kinds. They had the greatest time!

The little girl went to thank the old Fairy because she had stopped its being Christmas, and she said she hoped she would keep her promise, and see that Christmas never, never came again. Then the Fairy frowned, and asked her if she was sure she knew what she meant; and the little girl asked her, why not? and the old Fairy said that now she was behaving just as greedily as ever, and she'd better look out. This made the little girl think it all over carefully again, and she said she would be willing to have it Christmas about once in a thousand years; and then she said a hundred, and then she said ten, and at last she got down to one. Then the Fairy said that was the good old way that had pleased people ever since Christmas began, and she was agreed. Then the little girl said, "What're your shoes made of?" And the Fairy said, "Leather." And the little girl said, "Bargain's done forever," and skipped off, and hippity-hopped the whole way home, she was so glad.

"How will that do?" asked the papa.

"First-rate!" said the little girl; but she hated to have the story stop, and was rather sober. However, her mamma put her head in at the door, and asked her papa:

"Are you never coming to breakfast? What have you been telling that child?"
"Oh, just a moral tale."

The little girl caught him around the neck again.

"We know! Don't you tell what, Papa! Don't you tell what!"

Perfume Is A Man's Best Friend By Harrison Kinney

The Christmas season, which seems to arrive every three months in our household, found me this year without a profitable idea regarding an "original" gift for my wife. Then a short newspaper article, describing perfume as "a blending of art and chemistry," caught my eye and sent my thoughts galloping off in that direction. "Many stores," the article read, "report far more perfume sales to men than to women, perfume being a suggestive and telling gift."

It was all the encouragement I needed and the next day found me nudging up to the perfume bar of a Fifth Avenue department store trying to look as if I didn't mean to stay more than a minute. An alert-looking blonde woman behind the counter raised her head and nailed me to the spot with an inquiring look.

"I understand," I said foolishly, "that perfume is a clever blending of art and chemistry."

The salesgirl looked alarmed and seemed about to call a floor manager when I quickly added, "I'd like some perfume for my wife."

Her face at once dissolved into the most winning of smiles. "Of course," she purred. "And may I ask what your wife is like?"

I hesitated. "Well," I began, "she tends to be a little grouchy in the morning before she's had her coffee, but generally speaking . . ."

"No, no, no, no, no!" said the girl in exasperation. "I mean, is she conservative, sophisticated or the simple . . ."

"Complicated," I replied at once. I gathered from the scowl on the girl's face that that was another wrong answer. We didn't seem to be getting along at all, and I began to wonder if maybe I shouldn't get my wife another wool scarf with matching mittens.

"Perfume," said the girl in the tone of voice I use with my two-year-old child, "is an intimate gift. It should either reflect the woman's actual personality or her desired personality, A woman of any sensibility can be very unhappy with the wrong scent."

She stopped to get an assortment of perfume bottles from beneath the counter and I was immediately jostled aside by a well-dressed, middle-aged woman who quickly seized a sample bottle of cologne water equipped with an atomizer, doused her neck and bosom with it, replaced the bottle on the counter and departed. The salesgirl looked after the woman sadly, "We lose gallons that way," she said.

I sniffed the lingering cologne scent and raised my eyebrows quizzically at the salesgirl. "You wouldn't want that for your wife," she assured me at once. "That's one of our oriental blends.

"I just mean," the girl said, "it isn't your wife's type."

"What type is it for?" I persisted, continuing to sniff the scented air.

The girl leaned across the counter top in a confidential pose. "The sultry type," she whispered. "Now don't tell me your wife is the kind who lies about on leopard-skin rugs!"

I felt the woman was being much too arbitrary. "Maybe lying on leopard-skin rugs is part of my wife's desired personality," I said defiantly.

"Still," said the girl just as defiantly, "I would urge, in your case, that we just shop among the bouquets and fruity blends."

In no time at all I was sniffing at bottle stoppers, atomizer nozzles and scented spots the girl sprayed on her arms. To my consternation I decided that I liked them all, although I still found the suggestiveness and secret hints implicit in the sultry perfume somewhat irresistible.

"Of course," the girl said uneasily, as I returned again to the forbidden bottle, "perhaps your wife . . ."

It was too late. I was intoxicated with the sense of power that comes from knowing one is in a position to condition, in some little way, his wife's personality. "I want this," I said giddily, holding the sultry perfume aloft. "I'll take my chances."

A mustached gentleman, wearing a Hom-burg, stepped into the cloud of perfumed mist that by now enshrouded our immediate vicinity, and sneezed. He looked contemptuously at the litter of perfume bottles before me and crisply ordered another perfume I had sniffed in a spirit of ad venturous ness. The choice seemed to me reckless and ill-considered.

"Pardon me," I said, "how can you be so definite in your choice?"

He widened his eyes at me. "It's for my wife," he said shortly. "I like it and she likes it."

"In that order?" I continued. For although I had purchased from selfish and power-mad motives, it saddened me to see a fellow human being follow along the same path of ruthless gift-giving. "We men should remember that perfume is a personal thing," I told him. "It should reflect either the woman's actual personality or her desired personality."

His response was reassuring enough to brighten my holiday season. "Relax, Buster," he said, writing a check. "It's my experience that women are glad to get any kind of perfume."

How I Spent My Million By Edgar J. Park

rubbed my eyes and looked at the letter a second time. Yes, I was not asleep, the thing had happened. There was my cup of coffee and the half-eaten doughnut just as I had left them when I went to the door for the mail. There was the other letter that had come, still unopened, and here was this one from a firm of lawyers I had never heard of before. And the sum and substance of it was this: my old neighbor, John Doby, whose funeral I had just attended two days before, had made me the sole legatee of his entire estate, which, to quote the letter before me, "runs considerably over one million dollars."

My first act was to pour the whole pitcher of cream half of which I intended keeping for supper into my coffee, what did it matter? I was a millionaire.

"Well," I said to myself, "I can have anything I want now. I'm a millionaire." Then I thought to myself: "What in the world were those things I wanted so much? I remember thinking of them lately and wishing I could have them but knowing I couldn't have them. I shall be able to have them now. What in the world were they?" One by one they began to come back to me: I had wished many a time that Mary's, my old housekeeper's nose, might be about an eighth of an inch shorter than it was. Perhaps that was the thing that had irritated me most in life. Then the other thing was the way my brother's wife was always praising up her children and the way she used the phrase, "though I say it as shouldn't," when she was relating some particularly extravagant judgment upon the miraculous endowments of her progeny. Oh, yes, I remember another thing I had often said to myself I desired more than anything else in the world. That was that my sister Jane might have a sense of humor. The way she always tried to explain my jokes to the rest of the company had always been one of my most exacting crosses.

Well, I was a millionaire now and could have anything I wanted so, of course, I would have these things attended to right off. Suddenly it struck me with a cold shock that after all, I was no better off than I was before. Even a million would not go any way at all towards reducing Mary's nose or changing the vulgar trait in

Maria, or giving Jane a sense of humor no nor in winning the other thing which, if the truth be told, I desired more than any of these no, I sadly thought, even the possession of a million would not make me appear a whit more attractive or desirable in the eyes of someone who seemed to regard me now, as far as I could ascertain, as a mere object in her landscape. The fact was the million did not seem to help me to get the things I wanted most after all. Money tends to cushion you up among things and it was people I was most interested in. I took a drink of water to get the taste of the coffee out of my mouth. There had been too much cream in it. After all what did I want with a million?

One thing was clear. I'd give that million away and get done with it the first opportunity I could get. I said this to myself as I took up and opened the second letter which was lying unopened beside my plate.

"Ah, yes," I said, as I read it over quickly, "here is a chance right off to do some good with it." This was the other letter:

National Society for the Redemption of Christmas 23 Wail Street, New York

Dear Sir:

A number of public-spirited citizens have banded together for the purpose of redeeming Christmas from the many wasteful and useless features which cluster around it and of transforming it into an annual event which will be of real economic and moral value to the community. In the past the untrue legend of Santa Claus has made many young children liars; the destruction of thousands of young trees has robbed the future of many hundred dollars' worth of white pine and spruce lumber, a great amount of money is expended on absolutely useless illuminated cards, Christmas tree ornaments, candles, fancy wrapping paper, ribbon and house decorations, holly, mistletoe and other such extravagant and useless vanities.
If the money which runs to waste in these useless channels were only saved and put in the savings bank we calculate that every man, woman and child in the United States would have 53½ cents to his name in his bank book on January first.

Still more serious is this matter when we regard it from the point of view of what this money would do in providing strictly useful gifts for those who need them this year. It has actually been calculated that the amount thus wasted on fal-de-ral would purchase one warm, winter, flannel petticoat, two mittens and a chest protector for every worthy widow in the United States, and enough would be left over to provide l¾ pairs of stout boots for each orphan in public institutions throughout the country.

In view of these facts we ask you to sign and send to us the enclosed pledge that you will spend this year an entirely rational and utilitarian Christmas, spending money only on useful and rational objects. We also ask you to enclose ten dollars as a membership fee to pay salary of secretary, treasurer, office expenses, etc., of this new organization. Larger donations are requested from those interested.

(signed) Bartimaeus Tintoes, President

"What wonderful luck!" I said to myself, "to get a million and directions for the most useful method of spending it both in the same mail."

The street door bell rang, and in a moment Mary's nose appeared at the door, followed after the lapse of a moment by Mary to say Miss Helene Gracie wished to see me just for a moment. What a morning I was having! All the best things in the world were pouring in upon me: money, directions for spending it, and now the very beatific vision herself, who although the reader may not be aware of it has already been referred to in this narrative, was at my door to see me.

She came in and sat down in the brown plush armchair by the fire. She had never been to see me before, but somehow as she sat there I remembered having seen her in that very chair thousands of times in my daydreams.

"Won't you have a doughnut?" I said, handing her the plate.

She took one, saying she was quite hungry, as she had been out skating for an hour since an early breakfast.

"Take a lot," said I; "take two! Don't mind the expense. I'm a millionaire."

"I'm so glad to hear that," she said, "because I have called to ask you for a subscription."
Immediately I assumed that stony, abstracted appearance so necessary a part of a rich man's defense against suggestion of attack by humanitarian bandits.

"I am sorry," I said, "but you could not have struck me at a worse time. I refer not merely to the shrinkage in my holdings which makes me feel rather poor this morning but also I have just arranged to give liberally to this cause," and I handed her the letter of Mr. Bartimaeus Tintoes.

"Oh, I am sorry," she said, as she took it, "I wanted you to give a half a dollar to help us buy old Mrs. Gulpins a dicky-bird and a cage."

I gasped in amazement, but said nothing till she read the letter through. She read it without a word or sign, folded it carefully up into a very small size and then suddenly leaning forward stuck it into the reddest part of the fire, where it was burned in a moment.

"Oh, I have the address on the envelope all right," I said. "You're mad because you know it's perfectly true.

"Mrs, Gulpins a dicky-bird " I said in derision. "You know perfectly she has not enough to eat. She needs potatoes and mittens, instead of a dicky-bird. Now, it is quite true, Miss Gracie, what you took for a joke. Mr. Doby has made me his heir," and I handed her the lawyer's letter.

She read that through and returned it to me with these cabalistic words: "Well, that spoils you! No, I won't ask you even for fifty cents. You can't afford it, you poor man. They've robbed you of all the riches of life and given you instead another man's cast-ofF clothes." She rose to go. "It's all nonsense," she said. "It's all nonsense, this practical business. Mrs. Gulpins wants a dicky-bird in a gold cage. She has been dreaming of having one in her sunny bay window for the last forty years. You and I think she ought to have potatoes and mittens. Well, perhaps she ought to have them. If so, we ought to see she gets them some other time. But not at Christmas. For all the potatoes and mittens in the world would not make her one-millionth time so happy as this canary she has set her heart upon. Christmas is the time for giving people happiness, instead of giving them the things you think they need. Look at my small brother Tommy. Now, what I think he needs most of all is a sound spanking, but Christmas is not the time for giving him that. I'm going to give him the most useless toy telescope you ever saw because he wants it."

I sighed deeply, a safe-deposit vault sigh, and saw her into the hall. At the street door I said:

"Miss Gracie, I made two vows just before you came in this morning. One was to get rid of this entire million before Christmas Day, so as to be able to enjoy myself then. And the second was to spend it all on things that may be as frivolous and useless as they like, provided they give real pleasure to the people who get them. I want to blow it all in into a great bac-chanalia of joy to other folk of the most unexpected and yet longed-for luxuries and happinesses, and I want you and your mother to help me to plan the "whole thing out. Will you help me if I come round this evening?"

"Show me you are in earnest," she said, "by giving me that fifty cents."

I handed it to her, saying, "Now I have only $999,999.50 to spend, the burden is lightening."

"You have more sense than I thought," said she. "Come this evening."

In the evening I rang the bell at Mrs. Gracie's door. I found them both sitting at the dining-room table, which had been cleared. Each of them had a blank sheet of paper in front of her, and a pencil in her hand. As I came into the room the face of each was as blank as the paper. Miss Helene looked up as I entered. "Oh, I had no idea it was going to be such work," she said. "Mother and I sat down here after dinner gaily to spend your million for you as foolishly as we could and we can't think of a single useless way to make away with it that won't do more harm than good. Before I had one I mean before you had one to dispose of I knew lots of ways to spend it, but now I can't think of one."

We all sat round the table, appalled at the situation, blank paper, blank faces, hearts beating regularly, blank, blank, blank

Sadly I began to be convinced of the impossibility of doing any real good with my million. I could take away the self-respect of the students at the State University by paying their fees for them or I could increase the bricks and mortar of a score of schools, but what those schools needed was more inspirational personalities in the teaching chairs and more ambitious students in the learners' desks, and that my money was powerless to give. I wanted something that would give at least a moment of glorious life to people that had never had the chance to feel that way before.

At last Helene broke the silence. "This won't do," she said. "Who are the people who most deserve to have the fun out of this million? We must all have the answer to that question on our papers before the clock strikes nine."
I looked up and saw it was five minutes to. The wheels in my brain began to buzz. Something must be thought, and thought immediately. Helene had her hands over her eyes, and the room seemed darkened thereby. Her mother's head was on the table. Three minutes, four minutes passed, and just as the clock gave that whir, its warning that it was just getting up steam to strike, we all simultaneously took up our pencils and wrote something on our papers.

Now, you may believe in magic or not, as you please, but the fact remains that the word each of us had written was the same. The word we had all written down was this, the word "Mothers." At last we had something to start on. We were all agreed that the mothers of the world were those who denied themselves the things they wanted in order that they should give to others the things those others thought they needed.

"I have the whole scheme ready now," she said in a minute. "You get in touch with the teachers of the schools in the East Side wards and have them set this subject for a theme, that all the children are to write and bring this coming Monday, 'What Would Mother Like for Christmas.' You make the regulations, explain that it is not what Mother needs, but what Mother would like, and that it is not what Mother would like others to have, but what she would like for herself; and have it explained in each school that there are chances that a certain Santa Claus will do his best to help the child who writes the simplest and sincerest theme to give Mother just what she wants for Christmas."

"And," said I, "let's appoint ourselves the judges."

It seemed only a few days before we gathered together around the same table with a pile of themes in front of us, several hundred in number. In addition, there was a list of several thousand articles costing less than one hundred dollars each, of none of which Mr. Bartimaeus Tintoes would have approved, but which the larger board of judges thought would bring genuine joy to the mothers whose children had suggested them.

Miss Helene had been granted a week's leave of absence from the school where she taught in order to go over the returns thoroughly. What a wonderful study they had been! First, there were a great many rejected suggestions in which our fallen human nature had played a great part, of which this is a specimen:

"I think the thing which would give my mother the greatest pleasure would be to see me riding round on one of those little cycles which are in the window of Tontine's store. She has often said that she would enjoy that more than anything else."

Some had to be rejected because they suggested things that no money could buy: that little children who had gone to the better land might come back into the mother's empty arms if it were only for a moment; that coarse, cruel, dissolute husbands might be transformed into the Sir Galahads they once seemed in the eyes of loving maidens Oh, the pathos of that suggestion! "the thing my mother would like most would be that my father should be the way he used to be."

The list of articles suggested included very many pieces of jewelry, and silk dresses, new hats, "stylish" baby carriages, pictures of all kinds, chiefly enlarged family photographs, rocking chairs for the parlor. One mother wanted enough to print a little book of poems she had written that she might give copies of it to her friends. Another wanted to be able to pay for prayers for the rest of the soul of her dead son. Another's longing was for a rosebud paper with ribbons on the parlor wall. Several dreamed of a season ticket to the winter's series of concerts; and for a great many the idea of being able to have some big yellow chrysanthemums on the table once in a while was perfectly intoxicating. Furs of various forms and shapes attracted many and Helene, who knew some of them, said they were those whom you would least expect to care for such finery. I chuckled as I thought how enraged Mr. Bartimaeus Tin-toes would be to see me writing an order for a set of expensive furs for an Italian woman who supported her family by washing floors. But that was what little Angelina Maria said her mother wanted most of all, and I calculated it would give Mrs. Ferrari more of pleasure than anything anyone could dream of giving the wife of the man upon whose kitchen floor she worked Tuesday and Saturday. She probably would put them in a box and keep them there till the moths ate them, but in the meantime every morning she woke up she would feel the beatitude of the possession of those furs as a kind of glory in the back of her mind, and maybe take a glance at them in their box before she slipped out in the dark to wash floors till it grew dark again. It was great fun going over the pile of themes upon the table. "My mother would like most of all to see her old home in Sweden again and her old mother, who lives there still, but she cannot get anyone to look after us children when she's away." Helene knew how that could be arranged and I wrote out an order for the Swedish trip.

Gold-rimmed eyeglasses instead of steel spectacles attracted the soul of one Mrs. Moriarty, and a "piano to put ornaments on" was provided for Mrs. Stevaniski. Forty-two mothers were given orders for holidays at various longed-for summer resorts from Atlantic City to Coney Island, with free passes to all the shows, and provisions made for a trained helper to look after their homes in the meantime. The way one of these suggestions was worded was very realistic. "Mother says what she would like most of all would be to get away from the sound of a baby or any of us children for about a week, so as she could sleep mornings and sit down once in a while daytimes."

We really spent a series of most delightful evenings together till at last the week before Christmas I began, with the aid of some experts, to total up just how much I had spent. Hard to spend a million? Why, it was the easiest thing in the world. How the figures did mount up! We were in the tens of thousands almost before we had started, and when yoi* have spent $450,000 on the little things, with all the larger trips to Europe and such things before you, well, you begin to appreciate how small a sum of money a million really is.

Another happy afternoon we spent together, Helene, her mother and I, sorting out the labels which the children had written to accompany the presents. On the evening of the day before Christmas they were all distributed.

Never since the day when the voice was heard in Rama of Rachel weeping for her children was there ever heard so great a swelling of the voices of mothers, this time weeping for joy, singing for gladness, but most of all lost in transport at the thought that it was their little Alfredo, that it was their little Michael, that it was their own little Mary or Priscilla who had brought to them by their own skill at school these great gifts.

Early on that Christmas eve, Helene and I went out to bring Mrs. Gulpins the bird and cage she had contented herself to expect in heaven. As we walked home, house after house was illuminated and the sounds of greatest joy came often out of the smallest houses. "Things taste so much better and seem so much more heavenly in little houses," said Helene, as we stood outside one and heard the screams of delight and enraptured hugging and kissing of some little mortal who was crying out at the top of her shrill voice, "I knew it all the time. It's a present from Me. Mamma, it's from Me."

There were tears in both our eyes and we went on down street after street we could hardly tear ourselves away. "Well," I said, "I don't think a million ever gave such pleasure before, do you?"

"No," she said, "it has given at least one moment of crowded glorious life to the very mothers who thought their life was doomed to be drab for the rest of time, drabber every year. Only one thing I regret," she said; "you've gone and spent $50 more than your million and you haven't bought yourself a thing out of it. I wish I'd asked Mary, your housekeeper, what useless luxury you'd have liked and I could easily have lipped it into the accounts somehow without /our knowing."
"I'll tell you exactly what I do want," I said, "it comes into our contract perfectly, because it is something absolutely useless and ornamental only."

We were coming in under the shade of the trees that fronted on her house and I took my life in my hand and told her just exactly what it was I wanted more than anything else in the world.

The clock struck nine as I came to her door and began to say good night; at ten-thirty she rang the bell in spite of me.

"Mother," she cried, as we got into the hall, "we forgot that you were a mother, too, and have come to ask you what you wanted for Christmas."

Her mother looked at us both, then, kissing me, she said, "My little girl told you, didn't she? that I wanted a son more than anything else in the world."

"No," I said, "I told her."

"A merry Christmas!" she said, kissing us both again.

Merry Christmas In Ten Pieces By Robert M. Yoder

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he has a home near the North Pole, where it is colder than a bathroom floor. But don't believe that story about his having a lot of little dwarfs who put toys together for him, singing as they hammer. Nobody puts toys together, until Christmas Eve. Toys come in sixteen pieces, with one missing, and are put together by a large band of Involuntary Elves who call ourselves Santa's Press-Gang Helpers. We don't exactly sing, either, although a certain low, ominous murmur can be heard rising from a million homes on Christmas Eve. Put it this way, kid: That ain't no dwarf; that's your old man, beaten down. The luckless peon bought the toys; now he is learning that he has to finish manufacturing them, too, and by one A. M. his mood will make Scrooge seem like Sunny Eb-enezer.

The first thing your frightened eye lights on, in the store, is a nice little red wagon, and you think, in your fatuous adult way, that this is just the thing to brighten the young heart. If you weren't partially paralyzed by the fear that you are shopping too late, you would realize that if the kid wants a wagon at all, it isn't this chaste little model. He would want one twice this size, with demountable tires, a ram-jet engine, electric lights, an overdrive and a windshield wiper, at $79.75. The kid next door has had one like that for two years and uses it only to haul his good toys in. Then you see the rocket-firing antiaircraft gun and realize that this is the answer. While it will not do bodily harm, and is therefore a partial bust to start with, it is a realistic-looking little number, and you buy it, at an exceedingly realistic price.

About the hour on Christmas Eve when you are in mild shock for fear the thing won't arrive, the delivery man stumbles in with a large package that can't be anything else. Will you put it under the tree that way? Or will you have it out in the open, so the child may see this splendid sight first thing in the morning? Full of Christmas sentiment, you decide to expose the gun to full, gladsome view. So you tear off the wrapping. Here is a dial, here is a leg, here is a muzzle. You thought it would look like the model in the store, did you? Well, Santa has a little surprise for you. It's in pieces, and you are going to have to put it together. Merry Christmas, in at least ten pieces.

There is a sheet or folder of directions which could not get under your skin worse if they were in Spanish. They are written in the special language of directions, a mechanical gobble-degook achieved by writing the directions first in Ruthenian and then allowing the translation to curdle. A stop sign from the same mumbling pen would take 200 words. In the language of directions, "close the door" would read like this: "Grasp door-opening device with right knob-grasper and exert pressure outward until Panel A fills Aperture B. If scream is heard, other hand may be caught in opening." Along with being as turgid as possible, the directions are printed in a miniature type face known as Myopia Old Style, which is two sizes smaller than pearl and is otherwise used only to print the Declaration of Independence on souvenir pennies.

Well, lying there in pieces, the gun looks like nothing at all; it's got to be assembled. The first line you encounter in the directions says: "Using ring grasper from Assembly Kit, grasp collector ring near tube spar tightening guide rod" . . . but, thank heaven, that goes with some other toy. Your own directions start out more simply: "Connect round opening at end of Feeder Spring A with hooked end of trigger lock restraining bar by placing round opening over hook and pressing." What'd he think you'd do spot-weld it? (The answer, unfortunately, is that he expects more than that, but not just yet.) Now the guy begins getting esoteric.

"If retaining mechanism fails to admit trigger, horizontal opening of drum impeding stopper should be widened horizontally." He means if the damned trigger won't go into the guard, you got to cut more room, and sure enough, it won't. This is going to be the only gun in the neighborhood with a demountable (falling out) trigger, unless you fix it. If retaining mechanism fails to admit what it's supposed to retain, then it should never have left the factory, but it's too late for that kind of recrimination now. Getting a hammer from the basement, a good paring knife and a screwdriver, you manage to make the trigger go where it should, with one very bad moment when you think you've split the thing.

Well, the barrel, H, slides into place nicely; maybe things are beginning to go your way. The next step is to fit Firing Platform Z on Tripod, the Tripod being made by inserting Metal-tipped Ends of Legs into Sockets, which is child's play. Now all it takes is two bolts, L and M, which you slip into place with great efficiency. They must be firmly in place, the directions say, or gun will not swivel on Platform Z; you might say, it won't swivel on any platform. A neat little bag contained the bolts, and in it you find the nut for Bolt L. But half an hour later you are still rummaging through wrapping paper in a grim search for the other nut, the crucial nut, the nut without which, as the Latins say, nothing. You may have 128 nuts of assorted sizes in a jar in the basement, but you will not have one that fits Bolt M. That is a freak size used nowhere else in the whole panoply of American industry. It is part of a shipment the toy manufacturer bought up from the Uruguayan War Assets Administration.

It is 11:45 by the time you manage to make the bolt hold with a piece of wire wrapped around it, and if the kid looks at that part, he will feel sure this toy is something the fireman repainted for the poor. Meanwhile the house has grown cold, three of the Christmas-tree lights have winked at you by burning out, and your cigarette has fallen out of the ash tray and burned a six-dollar hole in the carpet. But the gun is starting to look like a weapon, and there can't be much more only a couple of odd-looking metal pieces are left and a cardboard circle marked "Cosmic Ray Computer Dial."

One of the pieces of metal is easy enough to use. It's the missing plug, for lack of which the barrel has had that tendency to point to the floor like the tail of a whipped hound. The other is the crank with which the young gunner moves the barrel to keep on his target. You tackle the easiest job first the computer is nothing more than two sections of light cardboard. "Bending Tabs A, C, E and G," the directions say, "fit them into Slots B, D, F and H." The cardboard is a special kind which is as stiff as metal for a minute and then relaxes completely as you push, so that in twenty minutes you have four dog-eared tabs holding one crumpled dial marked with a little blood from the finger you cut trying to enlarge the slots.

Now you reach the part of the directions that tell you to fix on the telescopic sight. The diagram shows a handsome metal gadget coming to a square end, fitted into a ring fastened neatly around the end of the barrel. The only piece of metal you have left, outside of the crank, is a cotter pin. Even if you had missing part R, you still would have nothing like missing part Q which fits into it. You ransack the wrapping paper again, in what the novelists call cold fury, but with no luck. Finally, with great self-control you smooth the wrinkled directions and read that jargon over again out loud. It is then that you come across Step 2. "In assembling Model A-100 Junior, our second-rate cheaper model for piker, Step 1 may be disregarded," the directions say. "No sight comes with this model. There is, however, a cotter pin. You can stick it on the barrel with adhesive tape and play like it's a sight. It ain't much, but neither are you."

There is one final step mounting the crank. "Slip Directional Crank 16 through Arm Y into Slot EE," the directions say. "When in position, give crank one quarter turn counterclockwise. Trigger should then fall sharply back into firing position." This is simplicity itself, and the only trouble is that if the crank goes through Arm Y, it misses Slot EE by a good quarter of an inch. The bitter thoughts that arise on Christmas Eve about the sleepwalker who bored that slot must visibly affect the temperature.

But the direction writer thought about this impasse, forehanded soul that he is. "It may be necessary, for best results" meaning, to make the thing work at all " to enlarge aperture in Arm Y. This can be done quickly and easily by using a 16.3 metal file without tang, a 13-oz. dinging hammer, and some Australian-canoe-builders' flux." This is equipment the ordinary household would be just as likely to have as a Javanese blowgun and a guroo bird, and you know, as your thoughts profane the early Christmas air, that the only 16.3 file in the world is one resting in the manufacturer's plant 850.3 miles away across the snowy landscape. So you gouge out a new Slot EE four times the proper size, the crank falls into place, wobbling foolishly, and the task is done. If it holds together until Christmas afternoon, you will be agreeably surprised, and a glance at the clock tells you that won't be long.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. If there weren't, ugly mobs of maddened parents would rove the streets Christmas Day armed with bolts, pins, wheels and axles, and some toy manufacturer would end up assembled on Movable Rail A wearing Feathers B and Tar C, after a slight going-over with No. 16 emery paper and a common hydraulic half-knurled center punch.

The Little Match Girl By Hans Christian Andersen

It was late on a bitterly cold, snowy, New Year's Eve. A poor little girl was wandering in the dark cold streets; she was bareheaded and barefooted. She certainly had had shoes on when she left home, but they were not much good, for they were so huge. They had last been worn by her mother, and they fell off the poor little girl's feet when she was running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling rapidly by. One of the shoes could not be found at all; and the other was picked up by a boy, who ran off with it, saying that it would do for a cradle when he had children of his own. So the poor little girl had to go on with her little bare feet, which were blue with the cold. She carried a quantity of matches in her old apron, and held a packet of them in her hand. Nobody had bought any from her during all the long day; nobody had even given her a copper.

The poor little creature was hungry and perishing with cold, and she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell upon her long yellow hair, which curled so prettily round her face, but she paid no attention to that. Lights were shining from every window, and there was a most delicious odour of roast goose in the streets, for it was New Year's Eve she could not forget that. She found a protected place where one house projected a little beyond the next one, and here she crouched, drawing up her feet under her, but she was colder than ever. She did not dare to go home, for she had not sold any matches and had not earned a single penny. Her father would beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as it was here. They lived in a house where the wind whistled through every crack, although they tried to stuff up the biggest ones with rags and straw. Her tiny hands were almost paralyzed with cold. Oh, if she could only find some way to warm them! Dared she pull one match out of the bundle and strike it on the wall to warm her fingers? She pulled one out. "Ritsch!" How it spluttered, how it blazed! It burnt with a bright clear flame, just like a little candle when she held her hand round it. It was a very curious candle, too. The little girl fancied that she was sitting in front of a big stove with polished brass feet and handles. There was a splendid fire blazing in it and warming her so beautifully, but what happened? Just as she was stretching out her feet to warm them, the blaze went out, the stove vanished, and she was left sitting with the end of the burnt-out match in her hand. She struck a new one, it burnt, it blazed up, and where the light fell upon the wall against which she lay, it became transparent like gauze, and she could see right through it into the room inside. There was a table spread with a snowy cloth and pretty china; a roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes was steaming on it. And what was even better, the goose hopped from the dish with the carving knife and fork sticking in his back, and it waddled across the floor. It came right up to the poor child, and then the match went out and there was nothing to be seen but the thick black wall.

She lit another match. This time she was sitting under a lovely Christmas tree. It was much bigger and more beautifully decorated than the one she had seen when she had peeped through the glass doors at the rich merchant's house this Christmas day. Thousands of lighted candles gleamed upon its branches, and colored pictures such as she had seen in the shop windows looked down upon her. The little girl stretched out both her hands towards them then out went the match. All the Christmas candles rose higher and higher, till she saw that they were only the twinkling stars. One of them fell and made a bright streak of light across the sky. "Some one is dying," thought the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person who had ever been kind to her, used to say, "When a star falls a soul is going up to God."

Now she struck another match against the wall, and this time it was her grandmother who appeared in the circle of flame. She saw her quite clearly and distinctly, looking so gentle and happy.

"Grandmother!" cried the little creature. "Oh, do take me with you! I know you will vanish when the match goes out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the delicious goose, and the beautiful Christmas tree!"

She hastily struck a whole bundle of matches, because she did so want to keep her grandmother with her. The light of the matches made it as bright as day. Grandmother had never before looked so big or so beautiful. She lifted the little girl up in her arms, and they soared in a halo of light and joy, far, far above the earth, where there was no more cold, no hunger, no pain, for they were with God.

The Fir Tree By Hans Christian Andersen

Out in the forest stood a pretty little Fir Tree. It had a good place; it could have sunlight, air there was in plenty, and all around grew many larger comrades pines as well as firs. But the little Fir Tree wished ardently to become greater. It did not care for the warm sun and the fresh air; it took

no notice of the peasant children, who went about talking together, when they had come out to look for strawberries and raspberries. Often they came with a whole pot-ful, or had strung berries on a straw; then they would sit down by the little Fir Tree and say, "How pretty and small that one is!" and the Fir Tree did not like to hear that at all.

Next year he had grown a great joint, and the following year he was longer still, for in fir trees one can always tell by the number of rings they have how many years they have been growing.

"Oh, if I were only as great a tree as the others!" sighed the little Fir, "then I would spread my branches far around and look out from my crown into the wide world. The birds would then build nests in my boughs, and when the wind blew I could nod just as grandly as the others yonder."

He took no pleasure in the sunshine, in the birds, and in the red clouds that went sailing over him morning and evening.

When it was winter, the snow lay all around, white and sparkling, a hare would often come jumping along, and spring right over the little Fir Tree. Oh! this made him so angry. But two winters went by, and when the third came the little Tree had grown so tall that the hare was obliged to run around it.

"Oh! to grow, to grow, and become old; that's the only fine thing in the world," thought the Tree.

In the autumn woodcutters always came and felled a few of the largest trees; that was done this year too, and the little Fir Tree, that was now quite well grown, shuddered with fear, for the great stately trees fell to the ground with a crash, and their branches were cut off, so that the trees looked quite naked, long, and slender they could hardly be recognized. But then they were laid upon wagons, and horses dragged them away out of the wood. Where were they going? What destiny awaited them?

In the spring when the Swallows and the Stork came, the tree asked them, "Do you know where they were taken? Did you not meet them?"

The Swallows knew nothing about it, but the Stork looked thoughtful, nodded his head, and said:

"Yes, I think so. I met many new ships when I flew out of Egypt; on the ships were stately masts; I fancy these were the trees. They smelled like fir. I can assure you they're stately very stately."

"Oh that I were only big enough to go over the sea! What kind of thing is this sea, and how does it look?"
"It would take too long to explain all that," said the Stork, and he went away.

"Rejoice in thy youth," said the Sunbeams; "rejoice in thy fresh growth, and in the young life that is within thee."

And the wind kissed the Tree, and the dew wept tears upon it; but the Fir Tree did not understand about that.

When Christmas time approached, quite young trees were felled, sometimes trees which were neither so old nor so large as this Fir Tree, that never rested, but always wanted to go away. These young trees, which were always the most beautiful, kept all their branches; they were put upon wagons, and the horses dragged them away out of the wood.

"Where are they all going?" asked the Fir Tree. "They are not greater than I indeed, one of them was much smaller. Why do they keep all their branches? Whither are they taken?"

"We know that! We know that!" chirped the Sparrows. "Yonder in the town we looked in at the windows. We know where they go. Oh! they are dressed up in the greatest pomp and splendor that can be imagined. We have looked in at the windows, and have perceived that they are planted in the middle of a warm room, and adorned with the most beautiful things gilt apples, honey cakes, playthings, and many hundreds of candles."

"And then?" asked the Fir Tree, and trembled through all its branches. "And then? What happens then?"

"Why, we have not seen anything more. But it is incomparable."

"Perhaps I may be destined to tread this glorious path one day!" cried the Fir Tree, rejoicingly. "That is even better than traveling across the sea. How painfully I long for it! If it were only Christmas now! Now I am great and grown up, like the rest who were led away last year. Oh, if I were only on the carriage! If I were only in the warm room, among all the pomp and splendor! And then? Yes, then something even better will come, something far more charming, or else why should they adorn me so? There must be something grander, something greater still to come; but what? Oh! I'm suffering. I'm longing! I don't know myself what is the matter with me!"

"Rejoice in us," said the Air and Sunshine. "Rejoice in thy fresh youth here in the woodland."

But the Fir tree did not rejoice at all, but it grew and grew; winter and summer it stood there, green, dark green. The people who saw it said, "That's a handsome tree!" and at Christmas time it was felled before any of the others. The ax cut deep into its marrow, and the tree fell to the ground with a sigh; it felt a pain, a sensation of faintness, and could not think at all of happiness, for it was sad at parting from its home, from the place where it had grown up;

it knew that it should never again see the dear old companions, the little bushes and flowers all around perhaps not even the birds. The parting was not at all agreeable.

The Tree only came to itself when it was unloaded in a yard, with other trees, and heard a man say:

"This one is famous; we want only this one!" Now two servants came in gay liveries, and carried the Fir Tree into a large, beautiful salon. All around the walls hung pictures, and by the great stove stood large Chinese vases with lions on the covers; there were rocking-chairs, silken sofas, great tables covered with picture-books, and toys worth a hundred times a hundred dollars, at least the children said so. And the Fir Tree was put into a great tub filled with sand; but no one could see that it was a tub, for it was hung round with green cloth, and stood on a large, many-colored carpet. Oh, how the Tree trembled! What was to happen now? The servants, and the young ladies also, decked it out. On one branch they hung little nets, cut out of colored paper; every net was filled with sweetmeats; golden apples and walnuts hung down, as if they grew there, and more than a hundred little candles, red, white, and blue, were fastened to the different boughs. Dolls that looked exactly like real people the tree had never seen such before swung among the foliage, and high on the summit of the Tree was fixed a tinsel star. It was splendid, particularly splendid.

"This evening," said all, "this evening it will shine."

"Oh," thought the Tree, "that it were evening already! Oh, that the lights may soon be lit up! When may that be done? Will the sparrows fly against the panes? Shall I grow fast here, and stand adorned in summer and winter?"

Yes, he did not guess badly. But he had a complete backache from mere longing, and backache is just as bad for a tree as a headache for a person.

At last the candles were lighted. What a brilliance, what a splendor! The Tree trembled so in all its branches that one of the candles set fire to a green twig, and it was scorched.

"Heaven preserve us!" cried the young ladies; and they hastily put the fire out.

Now the Tree might not even tremble. Oh, that was terrible! It was so afraid of setting fire to some of its ornaments, and it was quite bewildered with all the brilliance. And now the folding doors were thrown wide open, and a number of children rushed in as if they would have overturned the whole Tree; the older people followed more deliberately. The little ones stood quite silent, but only for a minute; then they shouted till the room rang; they danced gleefully round the Tree, and one present after another was plucked from it.

"What are they about?" thought the Tree. "What's going to be done?"

And the candles burned down to the twigs, and as they burned down they were extinguished, and then the children received permission to plunder the Tree. Oh! they rushed in upon it, so that every branch cracked again: if it had not been fastened by the top and by the golden star to the ceiling, it would have fallen down.

The children danced about with their pretty toys. No one looked at the Tree except one old man, who came up and peeped among the branches, but only to see if a fig or an apple had not been forgotten.

"A story! A story!" shouted the children; and they drew a little fat man toward the tree; and he sat down just beneath it "for then we shall be in the green wood," said he, "and the tree may have the advantage of listening to my tale. But I can only tell one. Will you hear the story of Ivede-Avede, or of Klumpey-Dumpey, who fell downstairs, and still was raised up to honor and married the Princess?"

"Ivede-Avede!" cried some, "Klumpey-Dumpey!" cried others, and there was a great crying and shouting. Only the Fir Tree was quite silent, and thought, "Shall I not be in it? Shall I have nothing to do in it?" But he had been in the evening's amusement, and had done what was required of him.

And the fat man told about Klumpey-Dumpey who fell downstairs and yet was raised to honor and married a Princess, And the children clapped their hands and cried, "Tell another! tell another!" and they wanted to hear about Ivede-Avede; but they only got the story of Klumpey-Dumpey. The Fir Tree stood quite silent and thoughtful; never had the birds in the wood told such a story as that. Klumpey-Dumpey fell downstairs, and yet came to honor and married a Princess!

"Yes, so it happens in the world!" thought the Fir Tree, and believed it must be true, because that was such a nice man who told it.

"Well, who can know? Perhaps I shall fall downstairs, too, and marry a Princess!" And it looked forward with pleasure to being adorned again, the next evening, with candles and toys, gold and fruit. "Tomorrow I shall not tremble," it thought.

"I shall rejoice in all my splendor. Tomorrow I shall hear the story of Klumpey-Dumpey again, and perhaps that of Ivede-Avede, too."

And the Tree stood all night quiet and thoughtful.

In the morning the servants and the chambermaid came in.

"Now my splendor will begin afresh," thought the Tree. But they dragged him out of the room, and upstairs to the garret, and here they put him in a dark corner where no daylight shone.

"What's the meaning of this?" thought the Tree. "What am I to do here? What is to happen?"

And he leaned against the wall, and thought, and thought. And he had time enough, for days and nights went by, and nobody came up; and when at length some one came, it was only to put some great boxes in a corner. Now the Tree stood quite hidden away, and the supposition is that it was quite forgotten.

"Now it's winter outside," thought the Tree. "The earth is hard and covered with snow, and people cannot plant me; therefore I suppose I'm to be sheltered here until Spring comes. How considerate that is! How good people are! If it were only not so dark here, and so terribly solitary! not even a little hare? That was pretty out there in the wood, when the snow lay thick and the hare sprang past; yes, even when he jumped over me; but then I did not like it. It is terribly lonely up here!"

"Piep! piep!" said a little Mouse, and crept forward, and then came another little one. They smelled at the Fir Tree, and then slipped among the branches.

"It's horribly cold," said the two little Mice, "or else it would be comfortable here. Don't you think so, old Fir Tree?"

"I'm not old at all," said the Fir Tree. "There are many much older than I."

"Where do you come from?" asked the Mice. "And what do you know?" They were dreadfully inquisitive. "Tell us about the most beautiful spot on earth. Have you been there? Have you been in the storeroom, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from the ceiling, where one dances on tallow candles, and goes in thin and comes out fat?"

"I don't know that," replied the Tree; "but I know the wood, where the sun shines and the birds sing."

And then it told all about its youth.

And the little Mice had never heard anything of the kind; and they listened and said:

"What a number of things you have seen! How happy you must have been!"

"I?" replied the Fir Tree; and it thought about what it had told. "Yes, those were really quite happy times." But then he told of the Christmas Eve, when he had been hung with sweetmeats and candles.

"Oh!" said the little Mice, "how happy you have been, you old Fir Tree!"

"I'm not old at all," said the Tree. "I only came out of the wood this winter. I'm only rather backward in my growth."

"What splendid stories you can tell!" said the little Mice.

And the next night they came with four other little Mice, to hear what the Tree had to relate; and the more it said, the more clearly did it remember everything, and thought. "Those were quite merry days! But they may come again. Klumpey-Dumpey fell downstairs, and yet he married a Princess. Perhaps I shall marry a Princess, too!" And the Fir Tree thought of a pretty little Birch Tree that grew out in the forest; for the Fir Tree, that Birch was a real Princess.

"Who's Klumpey-Dumpey?" asked the little Mice.

And then the Fir Tree told the whole story. It could remember every single word; and the little Mice were ready to leap to the very top of the Tree with pleasure. Next night a great many more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats even appeared; but these thought the story was not pretty, and the little Mice were sorry for that, for now they also did not like it so much as before.

"Do you know only one story?" asked the Rats.

"Only that one," replied the Tree. "I heard that on the happiest evening of my life; I did not think then how happy I was."

"That's a very miserable story. Don't yovi know any about bacon and tallow candles a storeroom story?"

"No," said the Tree.

"Then we'd rather not hear you," said the Rats.

And they went back to their own people. The little Mice at last stayed away also; and then the Tree sighed and said:

"It was very nice when they sat round me, the merry little Mice, and listened when I spoke to them. Now that's past too. But I shall remember to be pleased when they take me out."

But when did that happen? Why, it was one morning that people came and rummaged in the garret; the boxes were put away, and the Tree brought out; they certainly threw him rather roughly on the floor, but a servant dragged him away at once to the stairs, where the daylight shone.

"Now life is beginning again!" thought the Tree.

It felt the fresh air and the first sunbeam, and now it was out in the courtyard. Everything passed so quickly that the Tree quite forgot to look at itself, there was so much to look at all round. The courtyard was close to a garden, and here everything was blooming; the roses hung fresh over the paling, the linden trees were in blossom, and the swallows cried, "Quin-ze-wit! quinze-wit! my husband's come!" But it was not the Fir Tree they meant.

"Now I shall live!" said the Tree, rejoicing, and spread its branches far out; but, alas! they were all withered and yellow; and it lay in the corner among nettles and weeds. The tinsel star was still upon it, and shone in the bright sunshine.

In the courtyard a couple of the merry children were playing who had danced round the tree at Christmas time, and had rejoiced over it. One of the youngest ran up and tore off the golden star.

"Look what is sticking to the ugly old fir tree!" said the child, and he trod upon the branches till they cracked again under his boots.

And the Tree looked at all the blooming flowers and the splendor of the garden, and then looked at itself, and wished it had remained in the dark corner of the garret; it thought of its fresh youth in the wood, of the merry Christmas Eve, and of the little Mice which had listened so pleasantly to the story of Klumpey-Dumpey.

"Past! past!" said the old Tree. "Had I but rejoiced when I could have done so! Past! past!"

And the servant came and chopped the Tree into little pieces; a whole bundle lay there; it blazed brightly under the great brewing copper, and it sighed deeply, and each sigh was like a little shot; and the children who were at play there ran up and seated themselves at the fire, looked into it, and cried "Puff! puff!" But at each explosion, which was a deep sigh, the Tree thought of a summer day in the woods, or of a winter night there, when the stars beamed; he thought of Christmas Eve and of Klum-pey-Dumpey, the only story he had ever heard or knew how to tell; and then the Tree was burned.

The boys played in the garden, and the youngest had on his breast a golden star, which the Tree had worn on its happiest evening. Now that was past, and the Tree's life was past, and the story is past too: past! past! and that's the way with all stories.

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