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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Book for Christmas, by Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: A Little Book for Christmas
+
+Author: Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
+Release Date: March 12, 2005 [EBook #15343]
+[Most recently updated: July 31, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE BOOK FOR CHRISTMAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gene Smethers and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+A Little Book for Christmas
+
+[Illustration: The author making his book, as pictured by his friend,
+Will Crawford.]
+
+      Containing a Greeting, a Word of Advice, Some
+      Personal Adventures, a Carol, a Meditation, and Three Christmas
+      Stories for All Ages
+
+      By
+
+      Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
+      Author of “And Thus He Came, A Christmas
+      Fantasy,” “Christmas When the West Was Young,” etc., etc.
+
+      With Illustrations and Decorations by
+
+      Will Crawford
+
+      G.P. Putnam’s Sons
+      
+      New York and London
+
+      The Knickerbocker Press
+
+      1917
+
+
+      DEDICATED
+
+      TO
+
+      MRS. LEONARD L. HILL
+
+      AND HER CHARMING COMPANIONS
+
+      OF
+
+      THE AMERICAN CRITERION SOCIETY
+
+      OF NEW YORK
+
+      BY
+
+      THEIR CHAPLAIN
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+      Christmas is one of the great days of obligation and observance
+      in the Church of which I am a Priest; but it is much more than
+      that, it is one of the great days of obligation and observance in
+      the world. Furthermore it is one of the evidences of the power of
+      Him Whose birth we commemorate that its observation is not
+      limited by conditions of race and creed. Those who fail to see in
+      Him what we see nevertheless see something and even by imperfect
+      visions are moved to joy. The world transmutes that joy into
+      blessing, not merely by giving of its substance but of its soul
+      because men perceive that it is for the soul’s good and because
+      they hope to receive its benefits although they well know that
+      giving is far better than receiving, in the very words of Him Who
+      gave us the greatest of all gifts—Himself.
+
+      As a Priest of the Church, as a Missionary in the Far West, as
+      the Rector of large and important parishes I have been brought in
+      touch with varied life. Christmas in all its phases is familiar
+      to me. The author of many books and stories as well as the
+      preacher of many sermons, it is natural that Christmas should
+      have engaged a large part of my attention. Out of the abundance
+      of material which I have accumulated in the course of a long
+      ministry and a longer life I have gathered here a sheaf of things
+      I have written about Christmas; personal adventures, stories
+      suggested by the old yet ever-new theme; meditations, words of
+      advice which I am old enough to be entitled to give; and last but
+      not least good wishes and good will. I might even call this
+      little volume _A Book of Good Will toward Men_. And so fit it not
+      only for Christmas but for all other seasons as well.
+
+      If it shall add to your joy in Christmas, dear reader, and better
+      still, if it shall move you to add to the joy of some one else at
+      Christmas-tide or in any other season, I shall be well repaid for
+      my efforts and incidentally you will also be repaid for your
+      purchase.
+
+  Cyrus Townsend Brady. 
+
+ The Hemlocks, Park Hill,
+ Yonkers, N.Y.
+ 1917  
+
+
+
+
+      NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
+
+
+      The author is in debt to his long-time and greatly beloved friend
+      the Rev. Alsop Leffingwell for the beautiful musical setting of
+      the little carol which this book contains.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+ I.—A CHRISTMAS GREETING
+“_Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men_”
+
+ II.—FROM A FAR COUNTRY
+A story for grown-ups
+_Being a new variation of an ancient theme_
+
+ III.—ON CHRISTMAS GIVING
+_Being a word of much needed advice_
+
+ IV.—IT WAS THE SAME CHRISTMAS MORNING
+A story for girls
+_In which it is shown how different the same thing may be_
+
+ V.—A CHRISTMAS CAROL
+_To be sung to the music accompanying it_
+
+ VI.—THE LONE SCOUT’S CHRISTMAS
+A story for boys
+_Wherein is set forth the courage of youth_
+
+ VII.—LOOKING INTO THE MANGER
+_A Christmas meditation_
+
+ VIII.—CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOWS
+_Being some personal adventures in the Far West_
+
+ IX.— CHRISTMAS WISH
+_For everybody everywhere_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ The Author Making his Book
+ “I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,” said the younger of
+ the twain.
+ “I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry Christmas.”
+ “The Stars look down”
+ “Thrusting his toes into the straps he struck out boldly.”
+ “The world bows down to a Mother and her Child—and the Mother herself
+ is at the feet of the Child.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A CHRISTMAS GREETING
+
+      “_Good Will Toward Men”—St. Luke 11-14._
+
+
+      There was a time when the spirit of Christmas was of the present.
+      There is a period when most of it is of the past. There shall
+      come a day perhaps when all of it will be of the future. The
+      child time, the present; the middle years, the past; old age, the
+      future.
+
+      Come to my mind Christmas Days of long ago. As a boy again I
+      enter into the spirit of the Christmas stockings hanging before
+      my fire. I know what the children think to-day. I recall what
+      they feel.
+
+      Passes childhood, and I look down the nearer years. There rise
+      before me remembrances of Christmas Days on storm-tossed seas,
+      where waves beat upon the ice-bound ship. I recall again the
+      bitter touch of water-warping winter, of drifts of snow, of
+      wind-swept plains. In the gamut of my remembrance I am once more
+      in the poor, mean, lonely little sanctuary out on the prairie,
+      with a handful of Christians, mostly women, gathered together in
+      the freezing, draughty building. In later years I worship in the
+      great cathedral church, ablaze with lights, verdant and fragrant
+      with the evergreen pines, echoing with joyful carols and
+      celestial harmonies. My recollections are of contrasts like those
+      of life—joy and sadness, poverty and ease.
+
+      And the pictures are full of faces, many of which may be seen no
+      more by earthly vision. I miss the clasp of vanished hands, I
+      crave the sound of voices stilled. As we old and older grow,
+      there is a note of sadness in our glee. Whether we will or not we
+      must twine the cypress with the holly. The recollection of each
+      passing year brings deeper regret. How many have gone from those
+      circles that we recall when we were children? How many little
+      feet that pattered upon the stair on Christmas morning now tread
+      softer paths and walk in broader ways; sisters and brothers who
+      used to come back from the far countries to the old home—alas,
+      they cannot come from the farther country in which they now are,
+      and perhaps, saddest thought of all, we would not wish them to
+      come again. How many, with whom we joined hands around the
+      Christmas tree, have gone?
+
+      Circles are broken, families are separated, loved ones are lost,
+      but the old world sweeps on. Others come to take our places. As
+      we stood at the knee of some unforgotten mother, so other
+      children stand. As we listened to the story of the Christ Child
+      from the lips of some grey old father, so other children listen
+      and we ourselves perchance are fathers or mothers too. Other
+      groups come to us for the deathless story. Little heads which
+      recall vanished halcyon days of youth bend around another younger
+      mother. Smaller hands than ours write letters to Santa Claus and
+      hear the story, the sweetest story ever told, of the Baby who
+      came to Mary and through her to all the daughters and sons of
+      women on that winter night on the Bethlehem hills.
+
+      And we thank God for the children who take us out of the past,
+      out of ourselves, away from recollections that weigh us down; the
+      children that weave in the woof and warp of life when our own
+      youth has passed, some of the buoyancy, the joy, the happiness of
+      the present; the children in whose opening lives we turn
+      hopefully to the future. We thank God at this Christmas season
+      that it pleased Him to send His beloved Son to come to us as a
+      little child, like any other child. We thank God that in the
+      lesser sense we may see in every child who comes to-day another
+      incarnation of divinity. We thank God for the portion of His
+      Spirit with which He dowers every child of man, just as we thank
+      Him for pouring it all upon the Infant in the Manger.
+
+      There is no age that has not had its prophet. No country, no
+      people, but that has produced its leader. But did any of them
+      ever before come as a little child? Did any of them begin to lead
+      while yet in arms? Lodges there upon any other baby brow “the
+      round and top of sovereignty?” What distinguished Christ and His
+      Christian followers from all the world? Behold! no mighty
+      monarch, but “a little child shall lead them!”
+
+      You may see through the glass darkly, you may not know or
+      understand the blessedness of faith in Him as He would have you
+      know it, but there is nothing that can dim the light that
+      radiates from that birth in the rude cave back of the inn. Ah, it
+      pierces through the darkness of that shrouding night. It shines
+      to-day. Still sparkles the Star in the East. He is that Star.
+
+      There is nothing that can take from mankind—even doubting
+      mankind—the spirit of Christ and the Christmas season. Our
+      celebrations do not rest upon the conclusions of logic, or the
+      demonstrations of philosophy; I would not even argue that they
+      depend inevitably or absolutely upon the possession of a certain
+      faith in Jesus, but we accept Christmas, nevertheless; we
+      endeavour to apply the Christmas spirit, for just once in the
+      year; it may be because we cannot, try as we may, crush out
+      utterly and entirely the divinity that is in us that makes for
+      God. The stories and tales for Christmas which have for their
+      theme the hard heart softened are not mere fictions of the
+      imagination. They rest upon an instinctive consciousness of a
+      profound philosophic truth.
+
+      What is the unpardonable sin, I wonder? Is it to be persistently
+      and forever unkind? Does it mean perhaps the absolute refusal to
+      accept the principle of love which is indeed creation’s final
+      law? The lessons of the Christmastide are so many; the appeals
+      that now may be made to humanity crowd to the lips from full
+      minds and fuller hearts. Might we not reduce them all to the
+      explication of the underlying principle of God’s purpose to us,
+      as expressed in those themic words of love with which angels and
+      men greeted the advent of the Child on the first Christmas
+      morning, “Good will toward men?”
+
+      Let us then show our good will toward men by doing good and
+      bringing happiness to someone—if not to everyone—at this
+      Christmas season. Put aside the memories of disappointments, of
+      sorrows that have not vanished, of cares that still burden, and
+      do good in spite of them because you would not dim the brightness
+      of the present for any human heart with the shadows of old
+      regrets. Do good because of a future which opens possibilities
+      before you, for others, if not for yourselves.
+
+      Brethren, friends, all, let us make up our minds that we will be
+      kindly affectioned one to another in our homes and out of them,
+      on this approaching Christmas day. That the old debate, the
+      ancient strife, the rankling recollection, the sharp contention,
+      shall be put aside, that “envy, hatred, and malice, and all
+      uncharitableness” shall be done away with. Let us forgive and
+      forget; but if we cannot forget let us at least forgive. And so
+      let there be peace between man and man at Christmas—a truce of
+      God.
+
+      Let us pray that Love shall come as a little child to our
+      households. That He shall be in our hearts and shall find His
+      expression in all that we do or say on this birthday of goodness
+      and cheer for the world. Then let us resolve that the spirit of
+      the day shall be carried out through our lives, that as Christ
+      did not come for an hour, but for a lifetime, we would fain
+      become as little children on this day of days that we may begin a
+      new life of good will to men.
+
+      Let us make this a new birthday of kindness and love that shall
+      endure. That is a Christmas hope, a Christmas wish. Let us give
+      to it the gracious expression of life among men.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FROM A FAR COUNTRY
+
+      _Being a New Variation of an Ancient Theme_
+
+      A STORY FOR GROWN-UPS
+
+
+      I
+
+      “_A certain man had two sons_”—so begins the best and most famous
+      story in the world’s literature. Use of the absolute superlative
+      is always dangerous, but none will gainsay that statement, I am
+      sure. This story, which follows that familiar tale afar off,
+      indeed, begins in the same way. And the parallelism between the
+      two is exact up to a certain point. What difference a little
+      point doth make; like the little fire, behold, how great a matter
+      it kindleth! Indeed, lacking that one detail the older story
+      would have had no value; it would not have been told; without its
+      addition this would have been a repetition of the other.
+
+      When the modern young prodigal came to himself, when he found
+      himself no longer able to endure the husks of the swine like his
+      ancient exemplar, when he rose and returned to his father because
+      of that distaste, he found no father watching and waiting for him
+      at the end of the road! Upon that change the action of this story
+      hangs. It was a pity, too, because the elder brother was there
+      and in a mood not unlike that of his famous prototype.
+
+      Indeed, there was added to that elder brother’s natural
+      resentment at the younger’s course the blinding power of a great
+      sorrow, for the father of the two sons was dead. He had died of a
+      broken heart. Possessed of no omniscience of mind or vision, he
+      had been unable to foresee the long delayed turning point in the
+      career of his younger son and death came too swiftly to enable
+      them to meet again. So long as he had strength, that father had
+      stood, as it were, at the top of the hill looking down the road
+      watching and hoping.
+
+      And but the day before the tardy prodigal’s return he had been
+      laid away with his own fathers in the God’s acre around the
+      village church in the Pennsylvania hills. Therefore there was no
+      fatted calf ready for the disillusioned youth whose waywardness
+      had killed his father. It will be remembered that the original
+      elder brother objected seriously to fatted calves on such
+      occasions. Indeed, the funeral baked meats would coldly furnish
+      forth a welcoming meal if any such were called for.
+
+      For all his waywardness, for all his self-will, the younger son
+      had loved his father well, and it was a terrible shock to him
+      (having come to his senses) to find that he had returned too
+      late. And for all his hardness and narrowness the eldest son also
+      had loved his father well—strong tribute to the quality of the
+      dead parent—and when he found himself bereft he naturally visited
+      wrath upon the head of him who he believed rightly was the cause
+      of the untimely death of the old man.
+
+      As he sat in the study, if such it might be called, of the
+      departed, before the old-fashioned desk with its household and
+      farm and business accounts, which in their order and method and
+      long use were eloquent of his provident and farseeing father, his
+      heart was hot within his breast. Grief and resentment alike
+      gnawed at his vitals. They had received vivid reports, even in
+      the little town in which they dwelt, of the wild doings of the
+      wanderer, but they had enjoyed no direct communication with him.
+      After a while even rumour ceased to busy itself with the doings
+      of the youth. He had dropped out of their lives utterly after he
+      passed over the hills and far away.
+
+      The father had failed slowly for a time, only to break suddenly
+      and swiftly in the end. And the hurried frantic search for the
+      missing had brought no results. Ironically the god of chance had
+      led the young man’s repentant footsteps to the door too late.
+
+      “Where’s father?” cried John Carstairs to the startled woman who
+      stared at him as if she had seen a ghost as, at his knock, she
+      opened the door which he had found locked, not against him, but
+      the hour was late and it was the usual nightly precaution:
+
+      “Your brother is in your father’s study, sir,” faltered the
+      servant at last.
+
+      “Umph! Will,” said the man, his face changing. “I’d rather see
+      father first.”
+
+      “I think you had better see Mr. William, sir.”
+
+      “What’s the matter, Janet?” asked young Carstairs anxiously. “Is
+      father ill?”
+
+      “Yes, sir! indeed I think you had bettor see Mr. William at once,
+      Mr. John.”
+
+      Strangely moved by the obvious agitation of the ancient servitor
+      of the house who had known him from childhood, John Carstairs
+      hurried down the long hall to the door of his father’s study.
+      Always a scapegrace, generally in difficulties, full of mischief,
+      he had approached that door many times in fear of well merited
+      punishment which was sure to be meted out to him. And he came to
+      it with the old familiar apprehension that night, if from a
+      different cause. He never dreamed that his father was anything
+      but ill. He must see his brother. He stood in no little awe of
+      that brother, who was his exact antithesis in almost everything.
+      They had not got along particularly well. If his father had been
+      inside the door he would have hesitated with his hand on the
+      knob. If his father had not been ill he would not have attempted
+      to face his brother. But his anxiety, which was increased by a
+      sudden foreboding, for Janet, the maid, had looked at him so
+      strangely, moved him to quick action. He threw the door open
+      instantly. What he saw did not reassure him. William was clad in
+      funeral black. He wore a long frock coat instead of the usual
+      knockabout suit he affected on the farm. His face was white and
+      haggard. There was an instant interchange of names.
+
+      “John!”
+
+      “William!”
+
+      And then—
+
+      “Is father ill?” burst out the younger.
+
+      “Janet said—”
+
+      “Dead!” interposed William harshly, all his indignation flaming
+      into speech and action as he confronted the cause of the
+      disaster.
+
+      “Dead! Good God!”
+
+      “God had nothing to do with it.”
+
+      “You mean?”
+
+      “You did it.”
+
+      “I?”
+
+      “Yes. Your drunken revelry, your reckless extravagance, your
+      dissipation with women, your unfeeling silence, your—”
+
+      “Stop!” cried the younger. “I have come to my senses, I can’t
+      bear it.”
+
+      “I’ll say it if it kills you. You did it, I repeat. He longed and
+      prayed and waited and you didn’t come. You didn’t write. We could
+      hear nothing. The best father on earth.”
+
+      The younger man sank down in a chair and covered his face with
+      his hands.
+
+      “When?” he gasped out finally.
+
+      “Three days ago.”
+
+      “And have you—”
+
+      “He is buried beside mother in the churchyard yonder. Now that
+      you are here I thank God that he didn’t live to see what you have
+      become.”
+
+      The respectable elder brother’s glance took in the disreputable
+      younger, his once handsome face marred—one doesn’t foregather
+      with swine in the sty without acquiring marks of the
+      association—his clothing in rags. Thus errant youth, that was
+      youth no longer, came back from that far country. Under such
+      circumstances one generally has to walk most of the way. He had
+      often heard the chimes at midnight, sleeping coldly in the straw
+      stack of the fields, and the dust of the road clung to his
+      person. Through his broken shoes his bare feet showed, and he
+      trembled visibly as the other confronted him, partly from hunger
+      and weakness and shattered nerves, and partly from shame and
+      horror and for what reason God only knew.
+
+      The tall, handsome man in the long black coat, who towered over
+      him so grimly stern, was two years older than he, yet to the
+      casual observer the balance of time was against the prodigal by
+      at least a dozen years. However, he was but faintly conscious of
+      his older brother. One word and one sentence rang in his ear.
+      Indeed, they beat upon his consciousness until he blanched and
+      quivered beneath their onslaught.
+
+      “Dead—you did it!”
+
+      Yes, it was just. No mercy seasoned that justice in the heart of
+      either man. The weaker, self-accusing, sat silent with bowed
+      head, his conscience seconding the words of the stronger. The
+      voice of the elder ran on with growing, terrifying intensity.
+
+      “Please stop,” interposed the younger. He rose to his feet. “You
+      are right, Will. You were always right and I was always wrong. I
+      did kill him. But you need not have told me with such bitterness.
+      I realized it the minute you said he was dead. It’s true. And yet
+      I was honestly sorry. I came back to tell him so, to ask his
+      forgiveness.”
+
+      “When your money was gone.”
+
+      “You can say that, too,” answered the other, wincing under the
+      savage thrust. “It’s as true as the rest probably, but sometimes
+      a man has to get down very low before he looks up. It was that
+      way with me. Well, I’ve had my share and I’ve had my fling. I’ve
+      no business here. Good-bye.” He turned abruptly away.
+
+      “Don’t add more folly to what you have already done,” returned
+      William Carstairs, and with the beginnings of a belated pity, he
+      added, “stay here with me, there will be enough for us both and—”
+
+      “I can’t.”
+
+      “Well, then,” he drew out of his pocket a roll of bills, “take
+      these and when you want more—”
+
+      “Damn your money,” burst out John Carstairs, passionately. He
+      struck the other’s outstretched hand, and in his surprise,
+      William Carstairs let the bills scatter upon the floor. “I don’t
+      want it—blood money. Father is dead. I’ve had mine. I’ll trouble
+      you no more.”
+
+      He turned and staggered out of the room. Now William Carstairs
+      was a proud man and John Carstairs had offended him deeply. He
+      believed all that he had said to his brother, yet there had been
+      developing a feeling of pity for him in his heart, and in his
+      cold way he had sought to express it. His magnanimity had been
+      rejected with scorn. He looked down at the scattered bills on the
+      floor. Characteristically—for he inherited his father’s business
+      ability without his heart—he stooped over and picked them slowly
+      up, thinking hard the while. He finally decided that he would
+      give his brother yet another chance for his father’s sake. After
+      all, they were brethren. But the decision came too late. John
+      Carstairs had stood not on the order of his going, but had gone
+      at once, none staying him.
+
+      William Carstairs stood in the outer door, the light from the
+      hall behind him streaming out into the night. He could see
+      nothing. He called aloud, but there was no answer. He had no idea
+      where his younger brother had gone. If he had been a man of finer
+      feeling or quicker perception, perhaps if the positions of the
+      two had been reversed and he had been his younger brother, he
+      might have guessed that John might have been found beside the
+      newest mound in the churchyard, had one sought him there. But
+      that idea did not come to William, and after staring into the
+      blackness for a long time, he reluctantly closed the door.
+      Perhaps the vagrant could be found in the morning.
+
+      No, there had been no father waiting for the prodigal at the end
+      of the road, and what a difference it had made to that wanderer
+      and vagabond!
+
+
+      II
+
+      We leave a blank line on the page and denote thereby that ten
+      years have passed. It was Christmas Eve, that is, it had been
+      Christmas Eve when the little children had gone to bed. Now
+      midnight had passed and it was already Christmas morning. In one
+      of the greatest and most splendid houses on the avenue two little
+      children were nestled all snug in their beds in a nursery. In an
+      adjoining room sound sleep had quieted the nerves of the usually
+      vigilant and watchful nurse. But the little children were
+      wakeful. As always, visions of Santa Claus danced in their heads.
+
+      They were fearless children by nature and had been trained
+      without the use of bugaboos to keep them in the paths wherein
+      they should go. On this night of nights they had left the doors
+      of their nursery open. The older, a little girl of six, was
+      startled, but not alarmed, as she lay watchfully waiting, by a
+      creaking sound as of an opened door in the library below. She
+      listened with a beating heart under the coverlet; cause of
+      agitation not fear, but hope. It might be, it must be Santa
+      Claus, she decided. Brother, aged four, was close at hand in his
+      own small crib. She got out of her bed softly so as not to
+      disturb Santa Claus, or—more important at the time—the nurse. She
+      had an idea that Saint Nicholas might not welcome a nurse, but
+      she had no fear at all that he would not be glad to see her.
+
+      Need for a decision confronted her. Should she reserve the
+      pleasure she expected to derive from the interview for herself or
+      should she share it with little brother? There was a certain risk
+      in arousing brother. He was apt to awaken clamant, vociferous.
+      Still, she resolved to try it. For one thing, it seemed so
+      selfish to see Santa Claus alone, and for another the adventure
+      would be a little less timorous taken together.
+
+      Slipping her feet into her bedroom slippers and covering her
+      nightgown with a little blanket wrap, she tip-toed over to
+      brother’s bed. Fortunately, he too was sleeping lightly, and for
+      a like reason. For a wonder she succeeded in arousing him without
+      any outcry on his part. He was instantly keenly, if quietly,
+      alive to the situation and its fascinating possibilities.
+
+      “You must be very quiet, John,” she whispered. “But I think Santa
+      Claus is down in the library. We’ll go down and catch him.”
+
+      Brother, as became the hardier male, disdained further protection
+      of his small but valiant person. Clad only in his pajamas and his
+      slippers, he followed sister out the door and down the stair.
+      They went hand in hand, greatly excited by the desperate
+      adventure.
+
+      What proportion of the millions who dwelt in the great city were
+      children of tender years only statisticians can say, but
+      doubtless there were thousands of little hearts beating with
+      anticipation as the hearts of those children beat, and perhaps
+      there may have been others who were softly creeping downstairs to
+      catch Santa Claus unawares at that very moment.
+
+      One man at least was keenly conscious of one little soul who,
+      with absolutely nothing to warrant the expectation, nothing
+      reasonable on which to base joyous anticipation, had gone to bed
+      thinking of Santa Claus and hoping that, amidst equally deserving
+      hundreds of thousands of obscure children, this little mite in
+      her cold, cheerless garret might not be overlooked by the
+      generous dispenser of joy. With the sublime trust of childhood
+      she had insisted upon hanging up her ragged stocking. Santa Claus
+      would have to be very careful indeed lest things should drop
+      through and clatter upon the floor. Her heart had beaten, too,
+      although she descended no stair in the great house. She, too, lay
+      wakeful, uneasy, watching, sleeping, drowsing, hoping. We may
+      have some doubts about the eternal springing of hope in the human
+      breast save in the case of childhood—thank God it is always
+      verdant there!
+
+
+      III
+
+      Now few people get so low that they do not love somebody, and I
+      dare say that no people get so low that somebody does not love
+      them.
+
+      “Crackerjack,” so called because of his super-excellence in his
+      chosen profession, was, or had been, a burglar and thief; a very
+      ancient and highly placed calling indeed. You doubtless remember
+      that two thieves comprised the sole companions and attendants of
+      the Greatest King upon the most famous throne in history. His
+      sole court at the culmination of His career. “Crackerjack” was no
+      exception to the general rule about loving and being beloved set
+      forth above.
+
+      He loved the little lady whose tattered stocking swung in the
+      breeze from the cracked window. Also he loved the wretched woman
+      who with himself shared the honours of parentage to the poor but
+      hopeful mite who was also dreaming of Christmas and the morning.
+      And his love inspired him to action. Singular into what devious
+      courses, utterly unjustifiable, even so exalted and holy an
+      emotion may lead fallible man. Love—burglary! They do not belong
+      naturally in association, yet slip cold, need, and hunger in
+      between and we may have explanation even if there be no
+      justification. Oh, Love, how many crimes are committed in thy
+      name!
+
+      “Crackerjack” would hardly have chosen Christmas eve for a
+      thieving expedition if there had been any other recourse.
+      Unfortunately there was none. The burglar’s profession, so far as
+      he had practised it, was undergoing a timely eclipse. Time was
+      when it had been lucrative, its rewards great. Then the law,
+      which is no respecter of professions of that kind, had got him.
+      “Crackerjack” had but recently returned from a protracted sojourn
+      at an institution arranged by the State in its paternalism for
+      the reception and harbouring of such as he. The pitiful dole with
+      which the discharged prisoner had been unloaded upon a world
+      which had no welcome for him had been soon spent; even the
+      hideous prison-made clothes had been pawned, and some rags, which
+      were yet the rags of a free man, which had been preserved through
+      the long period of separation by his wife, gave him a poor
+      shelter from the winter’s cold.
+
+      That wife had been faithful to him. She had done the best she
+      could for herself and baby during the five years of the absence
+      of the bread winner, or in his case the bread taker would be the
+      better phrase. She had eagerly waited the hour of his release;
+      her joy had been soon turned to bitterness. The fact that he had
+      been in prison had shut every door against him and even closed
+      the few that had been open to her. The three pieces of human
+      flotsam had been driven by the wind of adversity and tossed. They
+      knew not where to turn when jettisoned by society.
+
+      Came Christmas Eve. They had no money and no food and no fire.
+      Stop! The fire of love burned in the woman’s heart, the fire of
+      hate in the man’s. Prison life usually completes the education in
+      shame of the unfortunate men who are thrust there. This was
+      before the days in which humane men interested themselves in
+      prisons and prisoners and strove to awaken the world to its
+      responsibilities to, as well as the possibilities of, the
+      convict.
+
+      But “Crackerjack” was a man of unusual character. Poverty,
+      remorse, drink, all the things that go to wreck men by forcing
+      them into evil courses had laid him low, and because he was a man
+      originally of education and ability, he had shone as a criminal.
+      The same force of character which made him super-burglar could
+      change him from criminal to man if by chance they could be
+      enlisted in the endeavour.
+
+      He had involved the wife he had married in his misfortunes. She
+      had been a good woman, weaker than he, yet she stuck to him. God
+      chose the weak thing to rejuvenate the strong. In the prison he
+      had enjoyed abundant leisure for reflection. After he learned of
+      the birth of his daughter he determined to do differently when he
+      was freed. Many men determine, especially in the case of an
+      ex-convict, but society usually determines better—no, not better,
+      but more strongly. Society had different ideas. It was
+      Brahministic in its religion. Caste? Yes, once a criminal always
+      a criminal.
+
+      “Old girl,” said the broken man, “it’s no use. I’ve tried to be
+      decent for your sake and the kid’s, but it can’t be done. I can’t
+      get honest work. They’ve put the mark of Cain on me. They can
+      take the consequences. The kid’s got to have some Christmas;
+      you’ve got to have food and drink and clothes and fire. God, how
+      cold it is! I’ll go out and get some.”
+
+      “Isn’t there something else we can pawn?”
+
+      “Nothing.”
+
+      “Isn’t there any work?”
+
+      “Work?” laughed the man bitterly. “I’ve tramped the city over
+      seeking it, and you, too. Now, I’m going to get money—elsewhere.”
+
+      “Where?”
+
+      “Where it’s to be had.”
+
+      “Oh, Jack, think.”
+
+      “If I thought, I’d kill you and the kid and myself.”
+
+      “Perhaps that would be better,” said the woman simply. “There
+      doesn’t seem to be any place left for us.”
+
+      “We haven’t come to that yet,” said the man. “Society owes me a
+      living and, by God, it’s got to pay it to me.”
+
+      It was an oft-repeated, widely held assertion, whether fallacious
+      or not each may determine for himself.
+
+      “I’m afraid,” said the woman.
+
+      “You needn’t be; nothing can be worse than this hell.”
+
+      He kissed her fiercely. Albeit she was thin and haggard she was
+      beautiful to him. Then he bent over his little girl. He had not
+      yet had sufficient time since his release to get very well
+      acquainted with her. She had been born while he was in prison,
+      but it had not taken any time at all for him to learn to love
+      her. He stared at her a moment. He bent to kiss her and then
+      stopped. He might awaken her. It is always best for the children
+      of the very poor to sleep. He who sleeps dines, runs the Spanish
+      proverb. He turned and kissed the little ragged stockings
+      instead, and then he went out. He was going to play—was it Santa
+      Claus, indeed?
+
+
+      IV
+
+      The strange, illogical, ironical god of chance, or was it
+      Providence acting through some careless maid, had left an area
+      window unlocked in the biggest and newest house on the avenue.
+      Any house would have been easy for “Crackerjack” if he had
+      possessed the open sesame of his kit of burglar’s tools, but he
+      had not had a jimmy in his hand since he was caught with one and
+      sent to Sing Sing. He had examined house after house, trusting to
+      luck as he wandered on, and, lo! fortune favoured him.
+
+      The clock in a nearby church struck the hour of two. The areaway
+      was dark. No one was abroad. He plunged down the steps, opened
+      the window and disappeared. No man could move more noiselessly
+      than he. In the still night he knew how the slightest sounds are
+      magnified. He had made none as he groped his way through the back
+      of the house, arriving at last in a room which he judged to be
+      the library. Then, after listening and hearing nothing, he
+      ventured to turn the button of a side light in a far corner of
+      the room.
+
+      He was in a large apartment, beautifully furnished. Books and
+      pictures abounded, but these did not interest him, although if he
+      had made further examination he might have found things worthy of
+      his attention even there. It so happened that the light bracket
+      to which he had blundered, or had been led, was immediately over
+      a large wall safe. Evidently it had been placed there for the
+      purpose of illuminating the safe door. His eyes told him that
+      instantly. This was greater fortune than he expected. A wall safe
+      in a house like that must contain things of value.
+
+      Marking the position of the combination knob, he turned out the
+      light and waited again. The quiet of the night continued
+      unbroken. A swift inspection convinced him that the lock was only
+      an ordinary combination. With proper—or improper—tools he could
+      have opened it easily. Even without tools, such were his
+      delicately trained ear and his wonderfully trained fingers that
+      he thought he could feel and hear the combination. He knelt down
+      by the knob and began to turn it slowly, listening and feeling
+      for the fall of the tumblers. Several times he almost got it,
+      only to fail at the end, but by repeated trials and unexampled
+      patience, his heart beating like a trip-hammer the while, he
+      finally mastered the combination and opened the safe door.
+
+      In his excitement when he felt the door move he swung it outward
+      sharply. It had not been used for some time evidently and the
+      hinges creaked. He checked the door and listened again. Was he to
+      be balked after so much success? He was greatly relieved at the
+      absence of sound. It was quite dark in the room. He could see
+      nothing but the safe. He reached his hand in and discovered it
+      was filled with bulky articles covered with some kind of cloth,
+      silver evidently.
+
+      He decided that he must have a look and again he switched on the
+      light. Yes, his surmise had been correct. The safe was filled
+      with silver. There was a small steel drawer in the middle of it.
+      He had a broad bladed jack-knife in his pocket and at the risk of
+      snapping the blade he forced the lock and drew out the drawer. It
+      was filled with papers. He lifted the first one and stood staring
+      at it in astonishment, for it was an envelope which bore his
+      name, written by a hand which had long since mouldered away in
+      the dust of a grave.
+
+
+      V
+
+      Before he could open the envelope, there broke on his ear a still
+      small voice, not that of conscience, not that of God; the voice
+      of a child—but does not God speak perhaps as often through the
+      lips of childhood as in any other way—and conscience, too?
+
+      “Are you Santa Claus?” the voice whispered in his ear.
+
+      “Crackerjack” dropped the paper and turned like a flash, knife
+      upraised in his clenched hand, to confront a very little girl and
+      a still smaller boy staring at him in open-eyed astonishment, an
+      astonishment which was without any vestige of alarm. He looked
+      down at the two and they looked up at him, equal bewilderment on
+      both sides.
+
+      “I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,” said the younger
+      of the twain, whose pajamas bespoke the nascent man.
+
+      “In all the books he has a long white beard. Where’s yours?”
+      asked the coming woman.
+
+      This innocent question no less than the unaffected simplicity and
+      sincerity of the questioner overpowered “Crackerjack.” He sank
+      back into a convenient chair and stared at the imperturbable
+      pair. There was a strange and wonderful likeness in the
+      sweet-faced golden-haired little girl before him to the worn,
+      haggard, and ill-clad little girl who lay shivering in the mean
+      bed in the upper room where God was not—or so he fancied.
+
+      “You’re a little girl, aren’t you?” he whispered.
+
+      No voice had been or was raised above a whisper. It was a
+      witching hour and its spell was upon them all.
+
+      “Yes.”
+
+      “What is your name?”
+
+      “Helen.”
+
+      Now Helen had been “Crackerjack’s” mother’s name and it was the
+      name of his own little girl, and although everybody else called
+      her Nell, to him she was always Helen.
+
+      “And my name’s John,” volunteered the other child.
+
+      “John!” That was extraordinary!
+
+      “What’s your other name?”
+
+      “John William.”
+
+      The man stared again. Could this be coincidence merely? John was
+      his own name and William that of his brother.
+
+      “I mean what is your last name?”
+
+      “Carstairs,” answered the little girl. “Now you tell us who you
+      are. You aren’t Santa Claus, are you? I don’t hear any reindeers
+      outside, or bells, and you haven’t any pack, and you’re not by
+      the fireplace where our stockings are.”
+
+[Illustration: I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,” said the
+younger of the twain.] “I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,”
+said the younger of the twain.
+
+      “No,” said the man, “I’m not exactly Santa Claus, I’m his
+      friend—I—”
+
+      What should he say to these children? In his bewilderment for the
+      moment he actually forgot the letter which he still held tightly
+      in his hand.
+
+      “Dat’s muvver’s safe,” continued the little boy. “She keeps lots
+      o’ things in it. It’s all hers but dat drawer. Dat’s papa’s and—”
+
+      “I think I hear some one on the stairs,” broke in the little girl
+      suddenly in great excitement. “Maybe that’s Santa Claus.”
+
+      “Perhaps it is,” said the man, who had also heard. “You wait and
+      watch for him. I’ll go outside and attend to his reindeer.”
+
+      He made a movement to withdraw, but the girl caught him tightly
+      by the hand.
+
+      “If you are his friend,” she said, “you can introduce us. You
+      know our names and—”
+
+      The golden opportunity was gone.
+
+      “Don’t say a word,” whispered the man quickly. “We’ll surprise
+      him. Be very still.”
+
+      He reached his hand up and turned out the light. He half hoped he
+      might be mistaken, or that in the darkness they would not be
+      seen, but no. They all heard the footsteps on the stair. They
+      came down slowly, and it was evident that whoever was approaching
+      was using every precaution not to be heard. “Crackerjack” was in
+      a frightful situation. He did not know whether to jerk himself
+      away from the two children, for the boy had clasped him around
+      the leg and the girl still held his hand, or whether to wait.
+
+      The power of decision suddenly left him, for the steps stopped
+      before the door. There was a little click as a hand pressed a
+      button on the wall and the whole room was flooded with light from
+      the great electrolier in the centre. Well, the game was up.
+      “Crackerjack” had been crouching low with the children. He rose
+      to his feet and looked straightly enough into the barrel of a
+      pistol held by a tall, severe looking man in a rich silk dressing
+      robe, who confronted him in the doorway. Two words broke from the
+      lips of the two men, the same words that had fallen from their
+      lips when they met ten years before.
+
+      “John!” cried the elder man, laying the weapon on a nearby table.
+
+      “Will!” answered “Crackerjack” in the same breath.
+
+      As if to mark the eternal difference as before, the one was
+      clothed in habiliments of wealth and luxury, the other in the
+      rags and tatters of poverty and shame.
+
+      “Why, that isn’t Santa Claus,” instantly burst out the little
+      girl, “that’s papa.”
+
+      “Dis is Santy Claus’s friend, papa,” said the little boy. “We
+      were doin’ to su’prise him. He said be very still and we minded.”
+
+      “So this is what you have come to, John,” said the elder man, but
+      there was an unwonted gentleness in his voice.
+
+      “I swear to God I didn’t know it was your house. I just came in
+      here because the window was open.”
+
+      The other pointed to the safe.
+
+      “But you were—”
+
+      “Of course I was. You don’t suppose I wandered in for fun, do
+      you? I’ve got a little girl of my own, and her name’s Helen, too;
+      our mother’s name.”
+
+      The other brother nodded.
+
+      “She’s hungry and cold and there’s no Christmas for her or her
+      mother.”
+
+      “Oh, Santy has been here already,” cried Master John Williams,
+      running toward the great fireplace, having just that moment
+      discovered the bulging stockings and piles of gifts. His sister
+      made a move in the same direction, for at the other corner hung
+      her stocking and beneath it her pile, but the man’s hand
+      unconsciously tightened upon her hand and she stopped.
+
+      “I’ll stay with you,” she said, after a moment of hesitation.
+      “Tell me more about your Helen.”
+
+      “There’s nothing to tell.” He released her hand roughly. “You
+      musn’t touch me,” he added harshly. “Go.”
+
+      “You needn’t go, my dear,” said her father quickly. “Indeed, I
+      think, perhaps—”
+
+      “Is your Helen very poor?” quietly asked the little girl,
+      possessing herself of his hand again, “because if she is she can
+      have”—she looked over at the pile of toys—“Well, I’ll see. I’ll
+      give her lots of things, and—”
+
+      “What’s this?” broke out the younger man harshly, extending his
+      hand with the letter in it toward the other.
+
+      “It is a letter to you from our father.”
+
+      “And you kept it from me?” cried the other.
+
+      “Read it,” said William Carstairs.
+
+      With trembling hands “Crackerjack” tore it open. It was a message
+      of love and forgiveness penned by a dying hand.
+
+      “If I had had this then I might have been a different man,” said
+      the poor wretch.
+
+      “There is another paper under it, or there should be, in the same
+      drawer,” went on William Carstairs, imperturbably. “Perhaps you
+      would better read that.”
+
+      John Carstairs needed no second invitation. He turned to the open
+      drawer and took out the next paper. It was a copy of a will. The
+      farm and business had been left to William, but one half of it
+      was to be held in trust for his brother. The man read it and then
+      he crushed the paper in his hand.
+
+      “And that, too, might have saved me. My God!” he cried, “I’ve
+      been a drunken blackguard. I’ve gone down to the very depths. I
+      have been in State’s prison. I was, I am, a thief, but I never
+      would have withheld a dying man’s forgiveness from his son. I
+      never would have kept a poor wretch who was crazy with shame and
+      who drank himself into crime out of his share of the property.”
+
+      Animated by a certain fell purpose, he leaped across the room and
+      seized the pistol.
+
+      “Yes, and I have you now!” he cried. “I’ll make you pay.”
+
+      He levelled the weapon at his brother with a steady hand.
+
+      “What are you doin’ to do wif that pistol?” said young John
+      William, curiously looking up from his stocking, while Helen
+      cried out. The little woman acted the better part. With rare
+      intuition she came quickly and took the left hand of the man and
+      patted it gently. For one thing, her father was not afraid, and
+      that reassured her. John Carstairs threw the pistol down again.
+      William Carstairs had never moved.
+
+      “Now,” he said, “let me explain.”
+
+      “Can you explain away this?”
+
+      “I can. Father’s will was not opened until the day after you
+      left. As God is my judge I did not know he had written to you. I
+      did not know he had left anything to you. I left no stone
+      unturned in an endeavour to find you. I employed the best
+      detectives in the land, but we found no trace of you whatever.
+      Why, John, I have only been sorry once that I let you go that
+      night, that I spoke those words to you, and that has been all the
+      time.”
+
+      “And where does this come from?” said the man, flinging his arm
+      up and confronting the magnificent room.
+
+      “It came from the old farm. There was oil on it and I sold it for
+      a great price. I was happily married. I came here and have been
+      successful in business. Half of it all is yours.”
+
+      “I won’t take it.”
+
+      “John,” said William Carstairs, “I offered you money once and you
+      struck it out of my hand. You remember?”
+
+      “Yes.”
+
+      “What I am offering you now is your own. You can’t strike it out
+      of my hand. It is not mine, but yours.”
+
+      “I won’t have it,” protested the man. “It’s too late. You don’t
+      know what I’ve been, a common thief. ‘Crackerjack’ is my name.
+      Every policeman and detective in New York knows me.”
+
+      “But you’ve got a little Helen, too, haven’t you?” interposed the
+      little girl with wisdom and tact beyond her years.
+
+      “Yes.”
+
+      “And you said she was very poor and had no Christmas.”
+
+      “Yes.”
+
+      “For her sake, John,” said William Carstairs. “Indeed you must
+      not think you have been punished alone. I have been punished,
+      too. I’ll help you begin again. Here”—he stepped closer to his
+      brother—“is my hand.”
+
+      The other stared at it uncomprehendingly.
+
+      “There is nothing in it now but affection. Won’t you take it?”
+
+      Slowly John Carstairs lifted his hand. His palm met that of his
+      elder brother. He was so hungry and so weak and so overcome that
+      he swayed a little. His head bowed, his body shook and the elder
+      brother put his arm around him and drew him close.
+
+      Into the room came William Carstairs’ wife. She, too, had at last
+      been aroused by the conversation, and, missing her husband, she
+      had thrown a wrapper about her and had come down to seek him.
+
+      “We tame down to find Santy Claus,” burst out young John William,
+      at the sight of her, “and he’s been here, look muvver.”
+
+      Yes, Santa Claus had indeed been there. The boy spoke better than
+      he knew.
+
+      “And this,” said little Helen eagerly, pointing proudly to her
+      new acquaintance, “is a friend of his, and he knows papa and he’s
+      got a little Helen and we’re going to give her a Merry
+      Christmas.”
+
+      William Carstairs had no secrets from his wife. With a flash of
+      womanly intuition, although she could not understand how he came
+      to be there, she divined who this strange guest was who looked a
+      pale, weak picture of her strong and splendid husband, and yet
+      she must have final assurance.
+
+      “Who is this gentleman, William?” she asked quietly, and John
+      Carstairs was forever grateful to her for her word that night.
+
+      “This,” said William Carstairs, “is my father’s son, my brother,
+      who was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.”
+
+      And so, as it began with the beginning, this story ends with the
+      ending of the best and most famous of all the stories that were
+      ever told.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+ON CHRISTMAS GIVING
+
+      _Being a Word of Much Needed Advice_
+
+
+      Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate
+      God’s ineffable gift of Himself to His children. No human soul
+      has ever been able to realize the full significance of that gift,
+      no heart has ever been glad enough to contain the joy of it, and
+      no mind has ever been wise enough to express it. Nevertheless we
+      powerfully appreciate the blessing and would fain convey it
+      fitly. Therefore to commemorate that great gift the custom of
+      exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has grown until it has
+      become well nigh universal. This is a day in which we ourselves
+      crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for those
+      we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic
+      message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on
+      Christmas day however we may feel before or after.
+
+      But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many
+      instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method
+      of exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is
+      not a time for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display,
+      it is possible to purchase pleasure for someone else at too high
+      a price to ourselves. To paraphrase Polonius, “Costly thy gift as
+      thy purse can buy, rich but not expressed in fancy, for the gift
+      oft proclaims the man.” In making presents observe three
+      principal facts; the length of your purse, the character of your
+      friend, and the universal rule of good taste. Do not plunge into
+      extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in
+      months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle. On the
+      other hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not
+      that; avoid selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather
+      no gift at all than a grudging one. Let your offerings represent
+      yourselves and your affections. Indeed if they do not represent
+      you, they are not gifts at all. “The gift without the giver is
+      bare.”
+
+      And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity.
+      The _lex talionis_ has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think
+      or feel that you must give to someone because someone gave to
+      you. There is no barter about it. You give because you love and
+      without a thought of return. Credit others with the same feeling
+      and be governed thereby. I know one upon whose Christmas list
+      there are over one hundred and fifty people, rich and poor, high
+      and low, able and not able. That man would be dismayed beyond
+      measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to make a return
+      for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.
+
+      In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day.
+      Let your gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your
+      gentle consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous
+      gratitude, your abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men.
+      Hunt up somebody who needs and who without you may lack and
+      suffer heart hunger, loneliness, and disappointment.
+
+      Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To
+      gorge one’s self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is
+      not the noblest method of commemorating the day. The rules and
+      laws of digestion are not abrogated upon the Holy day. These are
+      material cautions, the day has a spiritual significance of which
+      material manifestations are, or ought to be, outward and visible
+      expressions only.
+
+      Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church
+      year, then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should
+      gather around the table of the Lord, kneeling before God’s altar
+      in the ministering of that Holy Communion which unites them with
+      the past, the present, and the future—the communion of the saints
+      of God’s Holy Church with His Beloved Son. Then and thus in body,
+      soul, and spirit we do truly participate in the privilege and
+      blessing of the Incarnation, then and there we receive that
+      strength which enables everyone of us to become factors in the
+      great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout the ages
+      and throughout the world.
+
+      Let us therefore on this Holy Natal Day, from which the whole
+      world dates its time, begin on our knees before that altar which
+      is at once manger, cross, throne. Let us join thereafter in holy
+      cheer of praise and prayer and exhortation and Christmas carol,
+      and then let us go forth with a Christmas spirit in our hearts
+      resolved to communicate it to the children of men, and not merely
+      for the day but for the future. To make the right use of these
+      our privileges, this it is to save the world.
+
+      In this spirit, therefore, so far as poor, fallible human nature
+      permits him to realize it and exhibit it, the author wishes all
+      his readers which at present comprise his only flock—
+
+      A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IT WAS THE SAME CHRISTMAS MORNING
+
+      _In Which it is Shown how Different the Same Things may Be_
+
+      _A Story for Girls_
+
+
+      In Philadelphia the rich and the poor live cheek by jowl—or
+      rather, back to back. Between the streets of the rich and
+      parallel to them, run the alleys of the poor. The rich man’s
+      garage jostles elbows with the poor man’s dwelling.
+
+      In a big house fronting on one of the most fashionable streets
+      lived a little girl named Ethel. Other people lived in the big
+      house also, a father, a mother, a butler, a French maid, and a
+      host of other servants. Back of the big house was the garage.
+      Facing the garage on the other side of the alley was a little,
+      old one-story-and-a-half brick house. In this house dwelt a
+      little girl named Maggie. With her lived her father who was a
+      labourer; her mother, who took in washing; and half a dozen
+      brothers, four of whom worked at something or other, while the
+      two littlest went to school.
+
+      Ethel and Maggie never played together. Their acquaintance was
+      simply a bowing one—better perhaps, a smiling one. From one
+      window in the big playroom which was so far to one side of the
+      house that Ethel could see past the garage and get a glimpse of
+      the window of the living-room in Maggie’s house, the two little
+      girls at first stared at each other. One day Maggie nodded and
+      smiled, then Ethel, feeling very much frightened, for she had
+      been cautioned against playing with or noticing the children in
+      the alley, nodded and smiled back. Now neither of the children
+      felt happy unless they had held a pantomimic conversation from
+      window to window at some time during the day.
+
+      It was Christmas morning. Ethel awoke very early, as all properly
+      organized children do on that day at least. She had a beautiful
+      room in which she slept alone. Adjacent to it, in another room
+      almost as beautiful, slept Celeste, her mamma’s French maid.
+      Ethel had been exquisitely trained. She lay awake a long time
+      before making a sound or movement, wishing it were time to arise.
+      But Christmas was strong upon her, the infection of the season
+      was in her blood. Presently she slipped softly out of bed,
+      pattered across the room, paused at the door which gave entrance
+      to the hall which led to her mother’s apartments, then turned and
+      plumped down upon Celeste.
+
+      “Merry Christmas,” she cried shaking the maid.
+
+      To awaken Celeste was a task of some difficulty. Ordinarily the
+      French woman would have been indignant at being thus summarily
+      routed out before the appointed hour but something of the spirit
+      of Christmas had touched her as well. She answered the salutation
+      of the little girl kindly enough, but as she sat up in bed she
+      lifted a reproving finger.
+
+      “But,” she said, “you mus’ keep ze silence, Mademoiselle Ethel.
+      Madame, vôtre maman, she say she mus’ not be disturb’ in ze
+      morning. She haf been out ver’ late in ze night and she haf go to
+      ze bed ver’ early. She say you mus’ be ver’ quiet on ze Matin de
+      Noël!”
+
+      “I will be quiet, Celeste,” answered the little girl, her lip
+      quivering at the injunction.
+
+      It was so hard to be repressed all the time but especially on
+      Christmas Day of all others.
+
+      “Zen I will help you to dress immediatement, and zen Villiam, he
+      vill call us to see ze tree.”
+
+      Never had the captious little girl been more docile, more
+      obedient. Dressing Ethel that morning was a pleasure to Celeste.
+      Scarcely had she completed the task and put on her own clothing
+      when there was a tap on the door.
+
+      “Vat is it?”
+
+      “Mornin’, Miss Celeste,” spoke a heavy voice outside, a voice
+      subdued to a decorous softness of tone, “if you an’ Miss Ethel
+      are ready, the tree is lit, an’—”
+
+      “Ve air ready, Monsieur Villiam,” answered Celeste, throwing open
+      the door dramatically.
+
+      Ethel opened her mouth to welcome the butler—for if that solemn
+      and portentous individual ever unbent it was to Miss Ethel, whom
+      in his heart of hearts he adored—but he placed a warning finger
+      to his lip and whispered in an awestruck voice:
+
+      “The master, your father, came in late last night, Miss, an’ he
+      said there must be no noise or racket this morning.”
+
+      Ethel nodded sadly, her eyes filling at her disappointment;
+      William then marched down the hall with a stately magnificence
+      peculiar to butlers, and opened the door into the playroom. He
+      flung it wide and stood to one side like a grenadier, as Celeste
+      and Ethel entered. There was a gorgeous tree, beautifully
+      trimmed. William had bought the tree and Celeste’s French taste
+      had adorned it. It was a sight to delight any child’s eyes and
+      the things strewn around it on the floor were even more
+      attractive. Everything that money could buy, that Celeste and
+      William could think of was there. Ethel’s mother had given her
+      maid carte blanche to buy the child whatever she liked, and
+      Ethel’s father had done the same with William. The two had pooled
+      their issue and the result was a toyshop dream. Ethel looked at
+      the things in silence.
+
+      “How do you like it, Miss?” asked William at last rather
+      anxiously.
+
+      “Mademoiselle is not pleased?” questioned the French woman.
+
+      “It—it—is lovely,” faltered the little girl.
+
+      “We haf selected zem ourselves.”
+
+      “Yes, Miss.”
+
+      “Didn’t mamma—buy anything—or papa—or Santa?”
+
+      “Zey tell us to get vatever you vould like and nevair mind ze
+      money.”
+
+      “It was so good of you, I am sure,” said Ethel struggling
+      valiantly against disappointment almost too great to bear.
+      “Everything is beautiful but—I—wish mamma or papa had—I wish they
+      were here—I’d like them to wish me a Merry Christmas.”
+
+      The little lip trembled but the upper teeth came down on it
+      firmly. The child had courage. William looked at Celeste and
+      Celeste shrugged her shoulders, both knowing what was lacking.
+
+      “I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry Christmas,
+      an’”—the butler began bravely, but the situation was too much for
+      him. “There goes the master’s bell,” he said quickly and turned
+      and stalked out of the room gravely, although no bell had
+      summoned him.
+
+[Illustration: “I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry
+Christmas.”]
+
+      “You may go, Celeste,” said Ethel with a dignity not unlike her
+      mother’s manner.
+
+      The maid shrugged her shoulders again, left the room and closed
+      the door. Everything was lovely, everything was there except that
+      personal touch which means so much even to the littlest girl.
+      Ethel was used to being cared for by others than her parents but
+      it came especially hard on her this morning. She turned, leaving
+      the beautiful things as they were placed about the tree, and
+      walked to the end window whence she could get a view of the
+      little house beyond the garage over the back wall.
+
+      There was a Christmas tree in Maggie’s house too. It wouldn’t
+      have made a respectable branch for Ethel’s tree, and the
+      trimmings were so cheap and poor that Celeste would have thrown
+      them into the waste basket immediately. There were a few common,
+      cheap, perishable little toys around the tree on the floor but to
+      Maggie it was a glimpse of heaven. She stood in her little white
+      night-gown—no such thing as dressing for her on Christmas
+      morning—staring around her. The whole family was grouped about
+      her, even the littlest brothers, who went to school because they
+      were not big enough to work, forgot their own joy in watching
+      their little sister. Her father, her mother, the big boys all in
+      a state of more or less dishevelled undress stood around her,
+      pointing out first one thing and then another which they had been
+      able to get for her by denying themselves some of the necessities
+      of life. Maggie was so happy that her eyes brimmed, yet she did
+      not cry. She laughed, she clapped her hands, and kissed them all
+      round and finally found herself, a big orange in one hand, a tin
+      trumpet in the other, perched upon her father’s broad shoulders
+      leading a frantic march around the narrow confines of the
+      living-room. As she passed by the one window she caught a glimpse
+      of the alley. It had been snowing throughout the night and the
+      ground was white.
+
+      “Oh,” she screamed with delight, “let me see the snow on
+      Christmas morning.”
+
+      Her father walked over to the window, parted the cheap lace
+      curtains, while Maggie clapped her hands gleefully at the
+      prospect. Presently she lifted her eyes and looked toward the
+      other window high up in the air, where Ethel stood, a mournful
+      little figure. Maggie’s papa looked too. He knew how cheap and
+      poor were the little gifts he had bought for his daughter.
+
+      “I wish,” he thought, “that she could have some of the things
+      that child up there has.”
+
+      Maggie however was quite content. She smiled, flourished her
+      trumpet, waved her orange, but there was no answering smile on
+      Ethel’s face now. Finally the wistful little girl in the big
+      house languidly waved her hand, and then Maggie was taken away to
+      be dressed lest she should catch cold after the mischief was
+      done.
+
+      “I hope that she’s having a nice Christmas,” said Maggie,
+      referring to Ethel.
+
+      “I hope so too,” answered her mother, wishing that her little
+      girl might have some of the beautiful gifts she knew must be in
+      the great house.
+
+      “Whatever she has,” said Maggie, gleefully, “she can’t have any
+      nicer Christmas than I have, that you and papa and the boys gave
+      me. I’m just as happy as I can be.”
+
+      Over in the big house, Ethel was also wishing. She was so unhappy
+      since she had seen Maggie in the arms of her big, bearded father,
+      standing by the window, that she could control herself no longer.
+      She turned away and threw herself down on the floor in front of
+      the tree and buried her face in her hands bursting into tears.
+
+      It was Christmas morning and she was all alone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A CHRISTMAS CAROL
+
+“_Christmas Then and Now_”
+
+
+The Stars look down On David’s town, While angels sing in Winter night;
+The Shepherds pray, And far away The Wise Men follow guiding light.
+Little Christ Child By Mary Mild In Manger lies without the Inn;
+Of Man the Son, Yet God in One, To save the lost in World of Sin.
+Still stars look down
+On David’s town And still the Christ Child dwells with men,
+What thought give we To such as He, Or souls who live in Sin as then?
+Show we our love To Him above By offering others’ grief to share;
+And Christmas cheer For all the year Bestow to lighten pain and care.
+
+[Illustration: The Stars Look Down (music page one)]
+
+[Illustration: The Stars Look Down (music page two)]
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE LONE SCOUT’S CHRISTMAS
+
+      _Wherein is Set Forth the Courage and Resourcefulness of Youth_
+
+      _A Story for Boys_
+
+
+      Every boy likes snow on Christmas Day, but there is such a thing
+      as too much of it. Henry Ives, alone in the long railroad coach,
+      stared out of the clouded windows at the whirling mass of snow
+      with feelings of dismay. It was the day before Christmas, almost
+      Christmas Eve. Henry did not feel any too happy, indeed he had
+      hard work to keep down a sob. His mother had died but a few weeks
+      before and his father, the captain of a freighter on the Great
+      Lakes, had decided, very reluctantly, to send him to his brother
+      who had a big ranch in western Nebraska.
+
+      Henry had never seen his uncle or his aunt. He did not know what
+      kind of people they were. The loss of his mother had been a
+      terrible blow to him and to be separated from his father had
+      filled his cup of sorrow to the brim. His father’s work did not
+      end with the close of navigation on the lakes, and he could not
+      get away then although he promised to come and see Henry before
+      the ice broke and traffic was resumed in the spring.
+
+      The long journey from the little Ohio town on Lake Erie to
+      western Nebraska had been without mishap. His uncle’s ranch lay
+      far away from the main line of the railroad on the end of the
+      branch. There was but one train a day upon it, and that was a
+      mixed train. The coach in which Henry sat was attached to the end
+      of a long string of freight cars. Travel was infrequent in that
+      section of the country. On this day Henry was the only passenger.
+
+      The train had been going up-grade for many miles and had just
+      about reached the crest of the divide. Bucking the snow had
+      become more and more difficult; several times the train had
+      stopped. Sometimes the engine backed the train some distance to
+      get headway to burst through the drift. So Henry thought nothing
+      of it when the car came to a gentle stop.
+
+      The all-day storm blew from the west and the front windows of the
+      car were covered with snow so he could not see ahead. Some time
+      before the conductor and rear brakeman had gone forward to help
+      dig the engine out of the drift and they had not come back.
+
+      Henry sat in silence for some time watching the whirling snow. He
+      was sad; even the thought of the gifts of his father and friends
+      in his trunk which stood in the baggage compartment of the car
+      did not cheer him. More than all the Christmas gifts in the
+      world, he wanted at that time his mother and father and friends.
+
+      “It doesn’t look as though it was going to be a very merry
+      Christmas for me,” he said aloud at last, and then feeling a
+      little stiff from having sat still so long he got up and walked
+      to the front of the car.
+
+      It was warm and pleasant in the coach. The Baker heater was going
+      at full blast and Henry noticed that there was plenty of coal. He
+      tried to see out from the front door; but as he was too prudent
+      to open it and let in the snow and cold he could make out
+      nothing. The silence rather alarmed him. The train had never
+      waited so long before.
+
+      Then, suddenly, came the thought that something very unusual was
+      wrong. He must get a look at the train ahead. He ran back to the
+      rear door, opened it and standing on the leeward side, peered
+      forward. The engine and freight cars were not there! All he saw
+      was the deep cut filled nearly to the height of the car with
+      snow.
+
+      Henry was of a mechanical turn of mind and he realized that
+      doubtless the coupling had broken. That was what had happened.
+      The trainmen had not noticed it and the train had gone on and
+      left the coach. The break had occurred at the crest of the divide
+      and the train had gone rapidly down hill on the other side. The
+      amount of snow told the boy that it would not be possible for the
+      train to back up and pick up the car. He was alone in the
+      wilderness of rolling hills in far western Nebraska. And this was
+      Christmas Eve!
+
+      It was enough to bring despair to any boy’s heart. But Henry Ives
+      was made of good stuff, he was a first-class Boy Scout and on his
+      scout coat in the trunk were four Merit Badges. He had the spirit
+      of his father, who had often bucked the November storms on Lake
+      Superior in his great six-hundred-foot freighter, and danger
+      inspired him.
+
+      He went back into the car, closed the door, and sat down to think
+      it over. He had very vague ideas as to how long such a storm
+      would last and how long he might be kept prisoner. He did not
+      even know just where he was or how far it was to the end of the
+      road and the town where his uncle’s ranch lay.
+
+      It was growing dark so he lighted one of the lamps close to the
+      heater and had plenty of light. In doing so he noticed in the
+      baggage rack a dinner pail. He remembered that the conductor had
+      told him that his wife had packed that dinner pail and although
+      it did not belong to the boy he felt justified in appropriating
+      it in such circumstances. It was full of food—eggs, sandwiches,
+      and a bottle of coffee. He was not very hungry but he ate a
+      sandwich. He was even getting cheerful about the situation
+      because he had something to do. It was an adventure.
+
+      While he had been eating, the storm had died away. Now he
+      discovered that it had stopped snowing. All around him the
+      country was a hilly, rolling prairie. The cut ran through a hill
+      which seemed to be higher than others in the neighbourhood. If he
+      could get on top of it he might see where he was. Although day
+      was ending it was not yet dark and Henry decided upon an
+      exploration.
+
+      Now he could not walk on foot in that deep and drifted snow
+      without sinking over his head under ordinary conditions, but his
+      troop had done a great deal of winter work, and strapped
+      alongside of his big, telescope grip were a pair of snow-shoes
+      which he himself had made, and with the use of which he was
+      thoroughly familiar.
+
+      “I mustn’t spoil this new suit,” he told himself, so he ran to
+      the baggage-room of the car, opened his trunk, got out his Scout
+      uniform and slipped into it in a jiffy. “Glad I ran in that
+      ‘antelope dressing race,’” he muttered, “but I’ll beat my former
+      record now.” Over his khaki coat he put on his heavy sweater,
+      then donned his wool cap and gloves, and with his snow-shoes
+      under his arm hurried back to the rear platform. The snow was on
+      a level with the platform. It rose higher as the coach reached
+      into the cut. He saw that he would have to go down some distance
+      before he could turn and attempt the hill.
+
+      He had used his snow-shoes many times in play but this was the
+      first time they had ever been of real service to him. Thrusting
+      his toes into the straps he struck out boldly.
+
+[Illustration: “Thrusting his toes into the straps he struck out
+boldly.”]
+
+      To his delight he got along without the slightest difficulty
+      although he strode with great care. He gained the level and in
+      ten minutes found himself on the top of the hill, where he could
+      see miles and miles of rolling prairie. He turned himself slowly
+      about, to get a view of the country.
+
+      As his glance swept the horizon, at first it did not fall upon a
+      single, solitary thing except a vast expanse of snow. There was
+      not a tree even. The awful loneliness filled him with dismay. He
+      had about given up when, in the last quarter of the horizon he
+      saw, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, what looked like a fine
+      trickle of blackish smoke that appeared to rise from a shapeless
+      mound that bulged above the monotonous level.
+
+      “Smoke means fire, and fire means man,” he said, excitedly.
+
+      The sky was rapidly clearing. A few stars had already appeared.
+      Remembering what he had learned on camp and trail, he took his
+      bearing by the stars; he did not mean to get lost if he left that
+      hill. Looking back, he could see the car, the lamp of which sent
+      broad beams of light through the windows across the snow.
+
+      Then he plunged down the hill, thanking God in his boyish heart
+      for the snow-shoes and his knowledge of them.
+
+      It did not take him long to reach the mound whence the smoke
+      rose. It was a sod house, he found, built against a sharp knoll,
+      which no doubt formed its rear wall. The wind had drifted the
+      snow, leaving a half-open way to the door. Noiselessly the boy
+      slipped down to it, drew his feet from the snow-shoes and
+      knocked. There was a burst of sound inside. It made his heart
+      jump, but he was reassured by the fact that the voices were those
+      of children. What they said he could not make out; but, without
+      further ado, he opened the door and entered.
+
+      It was a fairly large room. There were two beds in it, a stove, a
+      table, a chest of drawers and a few chairs. From one of the beds
+      three heads stared at him. As each head was covered with a wool
+      cap, drawn down over the ears, like his own, he could not make
+      out who they were. There were dishes on the table, but they were
+      empty. The room was cold, although it was evident that there was
+      still a little fire in the stove.
+
+      “Oh!” came from one of the heads in the bed. “I thought you were
+      my father. What is your name?”
+
+      “My name,” answered the boy, “is Henry Ives. I was left behind
+      alone in the railroad car about a mile back, and saw the smoke
+      from your house and here I am.”
+
+      “Have you brought us anything to burn?” asked the second head.
+
+      “Or anything to eat?” questioned the third.
+
+      “My name is Mary Wright,” said the first speaker, “and these are
+      my brothers George and Philip. Father went away yesterday morning
+      with the team, to get some coal and some food. He went to Kiowa.”
+
+      “That’s where I am going,” interrupted Henry.
+
+      “Yes,” continued Mary, “I suppose he can’t get back because of
+      the snow. It’s an awful storm.”
+
+      “We haven’t anything to eat, and I don’t know when father will be
+      back,” said George.
+
+      “And it’s Christmas Eve,” wailed Philip, who appeared to be about
+      seven.
+
+      He set up a howl about this which his brother George, who was
+      about nine, had great difficulty in quieting.
+
+      “We put the last shovelful of coal in the stove,” said Mary
+      Wright, “and got into bed to keep warm.”
+
+      “I’ll go outside while you get up and dress,” said Henry
+      considerately, “and then we will try and get to the car. It is
+      warm there, and there is something to eat.”
+
+      “You needn’t go,” said the girl; “we are all dressed.” She threw
+      back the covers and sprang out of bed. She was very pretty and
+      about Henry’s own age, he discovered, although she was pale and
+      haggard with cold and hunger.
+
+      “Goody, goody!” exclaimed little Philip, as his feet landed on
+      the floor. “Maybe we’ll have some Christmas, too.”
+
+      “Maybe we will,” said Henry, smiling at him. “At least we will
+      have something to eat.”
+
+      “Well, let’s start right away then,” urged George.
+
+      This brought Henry face to face with a dilemma. “I have only one
+      pair of snow-shoes,” he said at last, “and you probably don’t
+      know how to use them anyway, and you can’t walk on the snow.”
+
+      “I have a sled,” suggested George.
+
+      “That won’t do,” said Henry. “I’ve got to have something that
+      won’t sink in the snow—that will lie flat, so I can draw you
+      along.”
+
+      “How about that table?” said the girl.
+
+      “Good suggestion,” cried Henry.
+
+      It was nothing but a common kitchen table. He turned it upside
+      down, took his Scout axe from its sheath, knocked the legs off,
+      fastened a piece of clothesline to the butts of two of them.
+
+      “Now if I could have something to turn up along the front, so as
+      not to dig into the snow,” he said, “it would be fine.” He
+      thought a moment. “Where is that sled of yours, George?”
+
+      “Here,” said George, dragging it forth. The runners curved
+      upwards. Henry cut them off, in spite of Philip’s protests. He
+      nailed these runners to the front of the table and stretched rope
+      tightly across them so that he had four up-curves in front of the
+      table.
+
+      “Now I want something to stretch on these things, so as to let
+      the sled ride over the snow, instead of digging into it,” he said
+      to the girl.
+
+      She brought him her father’s old “slicker.” Henry cut it into
+      suitable shape and nailed and lashed it securely to the runners
+      and to the table top. Now he had a flat-bottomed sled with a
+      rising front to it that would serve. He smiled as he looked at
+      the queer contrivance and said aloud: “I wish Mr. Lesher could
+      see that!”
+
+      “Who is Mr. Lesher?” asked George.
+
+      “Oh, he’s my Scoutmaster back in Ohio. Now come on!”
+
+      He opened the door, drew the sled outside, pushed it up on the
+      snow and stepped on it. It bore his weight perfectly.
+
+      “It’s all right,” he cried. “But it won’t take all three of you
+      at once.”
+
+      “I’ll wait,” said Mary, “you take the two boys.”
+
+      “Very well,” said Henry.
+
+      “You’ll surely come back for me?”
+
+      “Surely, and I think it’s mighty brave of you to stay behind. Now
+      come on, boys,” he said.
+
+      Leaving Mary filled with pleasure at such praise, he put the two
+      boys carefully into the sled, stepped into his snow-shoes and
+      dragged them rapidly across the prairie. It was quite dark now,
+      but the sky was clear and the stars were bright. The storm had
+      completely stopped. He remembered the bearings he had taken by
+      the stars, and reached the high hill without difficulty. Below
+      him lay the car.
+
+      Presently he drew up before the platform. He put the boys in the
+      car, told them to go up to the fire and warm themselves and not
+      to touch anything. Then he went back for the girl.
+
+      “Did you think I was not coming?” he asked as he re-entered the
+      cabin.
+
+      “I knew you would come back,” said the girl and it was Henry’s
+      turn to tingle with pride.
+
+      He wrapped her up carefully, and fairly ran back to the car. They
+      found the boys warm and comfortable and greatly excited.
+
+      “If we just had a Christmas tree and Santa Claus and something to
+      eat and a drink of water and a place to sleep,” said the youngest
+      boy, “it would be great fun.”
+
+      “I am afraid we can’t manage the Christmas tree,” said Henry,
+      “but we can have everything else.”
+
+      “Do you mean Santy?”
+
+      “Santy too,” answered the boy. “First of all, we will get
+      something to eat.”
+
+      “We haven’t had anything since morning,” said the girl. Henry
+      divided the sandwiches into three portions. As it happened, there
+      were three hard-boiled eggs. He gave one portion to each of his
+      guests.
+
+      “You haven’t left any for yourself,” said Mary.
+
+      “I ate before I looked for you,” answered Henry, although the one
+      sandwich had by no means satisfied his hunger.
+
+      “My, but this is good!” said George.
+
+      “Our mother is dead,” said Mary Wright after a pause, “and our
+      father is awful poor. He has taken out a homestead and we are
+      trying to live on it until he gets it proved up. We have had a
+      very hard time since mother died.”
+
+      “Yes, I know,” said Henry, gravely; “my mother died, too.”
+
+      “I wonder what time it is?” asked the girl at last.
+
+      Henry pulled out his watch. “It is after six o’clock,” he said.
+
+      “Say,” broke in George, “that’s a funny kind of a uniform you’ve
+      got on.”
+
+      “It is a Boy Scout uniform.”
+
+      “Oh, is it?” exclaimed George. “I never saw one before. I wish I
+      could be a Scout!”
+
+      “Maybe you can,” answered Henry. “I am going to organize a troop
+      when I get to Kiowa. But now I’m going to fix beds for you. Of
+      course we are all sleepy after such a hard day.”
+
+      He had seen the trainmen lift up the bottoms of the seats and lay
+      them lengthwise of the car. He did this, and soon made four
+      fairly comfortable beds. The two nearest the stove he gave to the
+      boys. He indicated the next one was for Mary, and the one further
+      down toward the middle of the car was for himself.
+
+      “You can all go to bed right away,” he said when he had made his
+      preparations. The two boys decided to accept this advice. Mary
+      said she would stay up a little longer and talk with Henry.
+
+      “You can’t undress,” she said to the two boys. “You’ll have to
+      sleep as you are.” She sat down in one of the car seats; Philip
+      knelt down at one knee and George at the other. The girl, who was
+      barely fifteen had already taken her mother’s place. She laid her
+      hand on each bent head and listened while one after the other the
+      boys said their prayers. She kissed them good-night, saw them
+      comfortably laid out on the big cushions with their overcoats for
+      pillows and turned away.
+
+      “Say,” began Philip, “you forgot something, Mary.”
+
+      “What have I forgotten, dear?”
+
+      “Why, it’s Christmas Eve and we must hang up our stockings.”
+
+      Mary threw up her hands. “I am afraid this is too far away for
+      Santa Claus. He won’t know that we are out here,” she said.
+
+      “Oh, I don’t know,” said Henry, thinking rapidly, “let them hang
+      them up.”
+
+      Mary looked at him in surprise. “They haven’t any to hang up,”
+      she said. “We can’t take those they’re wearing.”
+
+      “You should have thought of that,” wailed Philip, “before you
+      brought us here.”
+
+      “I have some extra ones in my bag,” said Henry. “We will hang
+      them up.”
+
+      He opened the bag and brought out three stockings, one for each
+      of his guests. He fastened them to the baggage racks above the
+      seats and watched the two boys contentedly close their eyes and
+      go to sleep.
+
+      “They will be awfully disappointed when they wake up in the
+      morning and do not find anything in them,” said Mary.
+
+      “They’re going to find something in them,” said Henry
+      confidently.
+
+      He went to the end of the car, opened his trunk and lifted out
+      various packages which had been designed for him. Of course he
+      was going on sixteen, but there were some things that would do
+      for Philip and plenty of things for George and some good books
+      that he had selected himself that would do for Mary. Then there
+      were candy and nuts and cakes and oranges galore. Mary was even
+      more excited than he was as they filled the boys’ stockings and
+      arranged things that were too big to go in them.
+
+      “These are your own Christmas gifts, I know,” said the girl, “and
+      you haven’t hung up your stocking.”
+
+      “I don’t need to. I have had my Christmas present.”
+
+      “And what is that?”
+
+      “A chance to make a merry Christmas for you and your little
+      brothers,” answered Henry, and his heart was light.
+
+      “How long do you suppose we will have to stay here?” asked the
+      girl.
+
+      “I don’t know. I suppose they will try to dig us out to-morrow.
+      Meanwhile we have nuts, oranges, crackers, and little cakes, to
+      say nothing of the candy, to live on. Now you go to bed and have
+      a good sleep.”
+
+      “And what will you do?”
+
+      “I’ll stay up for a while and read one of these books and keep
+      the fire going.”
+
+      “You are awfully good to us,” said Mary, turning away. “You are
+      just like a real Santa Claus.”
+
+      “We have to help other people—especially people in trouble,”
+      answered the boy. “It is one of the first Scout rules. I am
+      really glad I got left behind and found you. Good-night.”
+
+      The girl, whose experience that day had been hard, soon fell
+      asleep with her brothers. Henry did not feel sleepy at all; he
+      was bright and happy and rejoiced. This certainly _was_ an
+      adventure. He wondered what Dick and Joe and Spike and the other
+      fellows of his troop would think when he wrote them about it. He
+      did not realize that he had saved the lives of the children, who
+      would assuredly have frozen to death in the cabin.
+
+      When he was satisfied that Mary was sound asleep, he put some
+      things in her stocking and then piled in the rack over her head
+      two books he thought the girl would like. It was late when he
+      went to sleep himself, happier than he had dreamed he could be.
+
+      He awoke once in the night to replenish the fire, but he was
+      sleeping soundly at seven o’clock in the morning when the door of
+      the car opened and half a dozen men filed in. They had not made
+      any noise. Even the big snow-plough tearing open the way from
+      Kiowa had not disturbed the four sleepers.
+
+      The first man in was the conductor. After the trainmen had
+      discovered that the coach had been left behind they had managed
+      to get into Kiowa and had started back at once with the rotary
+      plough to open the road and to rescue the boy. Henry’s uncle had
+      been in town to meet Henry, and of course the trainmen let him go
+      back with them on the plough. The third man was Mr. Wright. He
+      had been caught by the storm and, as he said, the abandoned coach
+      must be near his claim, he asked to be taken along because he was
+      afraid his children would be freezing to death.
+
+      The men stopped and surveyed the sleeping boys and girl. Their
+      glances ranged from the children to the bulging stockings and the
+      pile of Christmas presents in the racks.
+
+      “Well, can you beat that?” said the conductor.
+
+      “By George!” exclaimed Rancher Ives, “a regular Christmas
+      layout!”
+
+      “These are my children safe and well, thank God!” cried Mr.
+      Wright.
+
+      “Boy,” said the conductor, laying his hand on Henry’s shoulder,
+      “we came to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
+
+      “Father!” cried Mary Wright, awakened by the voice, and the next
+      minute she was in his arms, while she told him rapidly what Henry
+      had done for them all.
+
+      The boys were awake, too, but humanity had no attraction for
+      them.
+
+      “Santa has come!” shouted Philip making a dive for his stocking.
+
+      “This is your uncle, Jim Ives,” said the conductor to Henry.
+
+      “And this is my father,” said Mary in turn.
+
+      “I am awfully sorry,” said Henry to the conductor, “but we had to
+      eat your dinner. And I had to chop up your kitchen table,” he
+      added, turning to Mr. Wright.
+
+      “I am glad there was something to eat in the pail,” said one.
+
+      “You could have chopped the cabin down,” said the other.
+
+      “By George!” said the ranchman proudly. “I wrote to your father
+      to send you out here and we’d make a man of you, but it seems to
+      me you are a man already,” he continued as Mary Wright poured
+      forth the story of their rescue.
+
+      “No, I am not a man,” said Henry to his uncle, as he flushed with
+      pride at the hearty praise of these men. “I am just a—”
+
+      “Just a what?” asked the conductor as the boy hesitated.
+
+      “Why, just a Boy Scout,” answered Henry.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LOOKING INTO THE MANGER
+
+      _A Christmas Meditation_
+
+
+      Christmas morning, the day we celebrate as the anniversary of the
+      birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in the obscure,
+      little hill town of Bethlehem in the far-off Judæan land, over
+      nineteen hundred years ago!
+
+      It is said:
+
+“When beggars die, there are no comets seen:
+The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
+
+      What is true of the passing of kings is perhaps more true of
+      their coming; yet in this birth are singular contradictions. The
+      Child was born a beggar. There lacks no touch which even
+      imagination could supply to indicate the meanness of His earthly
+      condition. Homeless, His mother, save for the stable of the
+      public inn—and words can hardly describe any place more
+      unsuited—was shelterless, unprotected, in that hour of travail
+      pain.
+
+      I love to let my imagination dwell upon that scene. Sometimes I
+      think wayfarers may have gathered in the tavern hard by and with
+      music and play sought to while away the hours as travellers have
+      from time immemorial. Perhaps in some pause in their merriment, a
+      strange cry of anguish, borne by the night wind from the rude
+      shelter without, may have stopped their revelry for a moment and
+      one may have asked of another:
+
+      “What is that?”
+
+      The servant of the house who stood obsequious to promote their
+      pleasure may have answered apologetically:
+
+      “It is the cry of a woman of the people in travail in the inn
+      yard.”
+
+      I can fancy their indifference to the answer, or I can hear
+      perhaps the rude jest, or the vulgar quip, with which such an
+      announcement may have been received, as the play or the music
+      went on again.
+
+      Oh, yes, the world in solemn stillness lay, doubtless, that
+      winter night, but not the people in it. They pursued their
+      several vocations as usual. They loved or they hated, they worked
+      or they played, they hoped or they despaired, they dreamed or
+      they achieved, just as they had done throughout the centuries,
+      just as they have done since that day, just as they will do far
+      into the future; although their little God came to them, as never
+      He came before, in the stable in the Bethlehem hills that night.
+
+      And yet, had they but cast their eyes upward like the wise men—it
+      is always your wise man who casts his eyes upward—they, too,
+      might have seen the star that blazed overhead. It was placed so
+      high above the earth that all men everywhere could see to which
+      spot on the surface it pointed. Or, had they been devout men,
+      they would have listened for heavenly voices—it is always your
+      devout man who tries to hear other things than the babble of the
+      Babel in which he lives—they, too, could have heard the angelic
+      chorus like the shepherds in the fields and on the hillsides that
+      frosty night.
+
+      For the heavens did blaze forth the birth of the Child. Not with
+      the thunder of guns, not with the blare of trumpets, not with the
+      beating of drums, not with the lighting of castle, village, and
+      town, the kindling of beacons upon the far-flung hills, the cry
+      of fast-riding messengers through the night, and the loud acclaim
+      of thousands which greet the coming of an earthly king, was He
+      welcomed; but by the still shining of a silent star and by the
+      ineffable and transcendent voices of an Angel Choir.
+
+      How long did the Shepherds listen to that chorus? How long did it
+      ring over the hills and far away? Whither went the Wise Men? Into
+      what dim distance vanished the star?
+
+“Where are the roses of yesterday?
+What has become of last year’s snow?”
+
+      And the residuum of it all was a little Baby held to a woman’s
+      breast in a miserable hovel in the most forlorn and detested
+      corner of the world. And yet to-day and at this hour, and at
+      every hour during the twenty-four, men are looking into that
+      chamber; men are bowing to that Child and His mother, and even
+      that mother is at the feet of the Child.
+
+      From the snow peaks of the North land, “from Greenland’s icy
+      mountains to India’s coral strand,” and on and on through all the
+      burning tropics to the companion ice of the other pole, the
+      antarctic, and girdling the world from east to west as well, the
+      adoration continues. It comes alike from the world’s noblest,
+      from the world’s highest, from the world’s truest, from the
+      world’s kindest, from the world’s poorest, from the world’s
+      humblest, from the world’s best.
+
+      Do not even the soldiers in the trenches upon the far-flung
+      battle lines pause to listen, look to see as for a moment dies
+      away the cannonade? Do not even the sailors of war and trade peer
+      across the tossing waters of the great deep, longing for a truce
+      of God if only for an hour upon this winter morning?
+
+[Illustration: “The world bows down to a Mother and her Child—and the
+Mother herself is at the feet of the Child.”]
+
+      Yes, they all look into the manger as they look upon the cross
+      and if only for an instant this war reddened planet comes to
+      “_see and believe_.” What keen vision saw in the Baby the Son of
+      God and the Son of Man? What simple faith can see these things in
+      Him now? “_Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing
+      which is come to pass_.”
+
+      That birth is known as the Incarnation. Ye know not “_how the
+      bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child_.” Life
+      itself is insusceptible of any definition which satisfies, but we
+      know that we live, nevertheless. Science points out a common
+      origin in protoplasmic cells and is quite unable to explain so
+      common a fact as sex differentiation. I care not what methods of
+      accounting for life you propose, you yet have to refer it to the
+      Author of all life “_in whom we live and move and have our
+      being_.” Why, therefore, should the Incarnation be thought
+      incredible or impossible because it does not come within the
+      limitations of our present understanding and it is not taught by
+      our limited human experience. The sweet reasonableness of the
+      Incarnation, this conception by Divine power, this birth from the
+      Virgin mother, should appeal to all who think deeply on these
+      subjects.
+
+      And yet perhaps the manner, place, and circumstance of this birth
+      may awaken wonder. Possibly you would have the King come as other
+      kings come, in pomp and circumstance, glory and majesty, with
+      heralds preceding, music playing, blossoms strewn, and people
+      cheering. Oh, no, that way did not seem the best way to the
+      wisdom of God—a young girl, an old man, in the stable, no other
+      tendance, no luxury, no comfort—poverty, humility, absolute.
+
+      Let us forget the Angel Chorus and the blazing star and go now
+      even unto Bethlehem and look into the manger at that Child, while
+      the uncomprehending cattle stare resentful perhaps at their
+      displacement. The King comes as a Child, as weak, as helpless, as
+      vocal of its pains as any other child. Not a Child of luxury, not
+      a Child of consequence, not a Child of comfort, but a Child of
+      poverty; and in the eyes of the blind world, if they had been
+      privy to it, without the glorious vision of the good man, Joseph,
+      a Child of shame! If the world had known that the Babe was not
+      the Child of Joseph and Mary how it would have mocked. What
+      laughter, what jeers, what contempt, what obloquy, what scorn
+      would have been heaped upon the woman’s head! Why the world would
+      heap them there now were it not that that portion of it which
+      disbelieves in the Incarnation, says that Joseph was after all
+      the father of the Child.
+
+      Nor shall we go down to Bethlehem alone. The poor, ignorant
+      shepherds came to the cradle that night. They could understand.
+      It did not seem strange to them that their God was poor, for they
+      themselves were poor. I wonder how much the shepherds reflected.
+      Theirs is a profession which gives rise to thought; they are much
+      alone in the waste places with the gentlest of God’s creatures.
+      Their paths lead by green pastures and still waters; they enjoy
+      long, lonely hours for meditation. Did they say:
+
+      “Ah! God has come to us as a poor man, not because there is
+      anything particularly noble or desirable in poverty, but because
+      so many of us are so very poor, and because the most of us have
+      been poor all the time, and because it is probable that most of
+      us will be poor in the future!”
+
+      Many a poor man has looked up into the silent heavens and
+      wondered sometimes whether God understood or cared about his
+      wretched lot. Of course God always knew and cared, we cannot
+      gainsay that, but in order to make men know that He knew and to
+      make them believe that He cared, He let them see that He did not
+      disdain to be a poor man and humble; that He sought His followers
+      and supporters in the great majority. _My God was a Carpenter_!
+      That is why He came to the stable; that is why He came to the
+      manger. And that is why the poor come to Him.
+
+      And there came to that same cradle, a little while after, the
+      Wise Men. They were professional wise men; they belonged to the
+      learned, the cultured, the thoughtful class; but they were wise
+      men as well in the sense in which we use wisdom to-day. That is,
+      they looked beyond earthly conditions and saw Divinity where the
+      casual glance does not see it. How many a seamed, rugged face,
+      how many a burden-bent back, how many a faltering footstep, how
+      many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more nearly in the
+      image of God than the fairer face, the straighter figure, the
+      softer palm!
+
+      The shepherds were not only poor, but they laboured in their
+      poverty; they were working men and they worshipped Him, the
+      Working Man. The wise men were not only wise, but they were rich.
+      They brought the treasures of the earth from the ends thereof and
+      laid them before the Babe and the mother. How fragrant the
+      perfume of the frankincense and the myrrh, and how rich the
+      lustre of the gold and silver in the mean surroundings of the
+      hovel. They took no thought of their costly apparel, they had no
+      fear of contamination from their surroundings, no question of
+      relative degree entered their heads. As simply and as truly as
+      the shepherds they worshipped the Christ. The rich and the poor
+      met together there, and the Lord was the maker of them all.
+
+      Was that baby-hand the shaper of destiny? Was that working-hand
+      the director of events? Even so. The Lord’s power is not less the
+      Lord’s power though it be not exhibited in the stretched out arm
+      of majesty.
+
+      Some of you who read this and many more who can not are poor,
+      perhaps very poor, but you can stand beside that manger and look
+      at that Baby’s face, you can reflect upon the Child, how He grew,
+      what He said, what He did, until a cross casts its black shadow
+      across your vision—the war is raising many crosses and many there
+      be that walk the _via dolorosa_ to them to-day. You shall be
+      counted blessed if you can gaze at that cross until it is
+      transformed by the glory of the resurrection. And in it all you
+      can see your God—the poor man’s God!—the rich man’s
+      God!—everybody’s God!
+
+      You can know that your God was poor, that He was humble, that He
+      struggled under adverse conditions, that He laboured, that He was
+      hungry, thirsty, tired, cold, that He was homeless, that He was
+      denied many of the joys of human society and the solace of
+      affection, that His best friends went back on Him, that everybody
+      deserted Him, and that the whole world finally rose up and
+      crushed Him down. That he suffered all things. Only a very great
+      God could so endure. Only one who was truly God could so manifest
+      Himself in pain.
+
+      You can understand how He can comprehend what your trouble is.
+      Oh, yes, the poor and the bereaved have as great a right to look
+      into that manger and see their God there as have the rich and the
+      care free.
+
+      Now there is a kind of pernicious socialism which condemns riches
+      as things unholy and exalts poverty as a thing acceptable to God.
+      That Baby came as well to the rich as to the poor. Do not forget
+      that. It is not generally understood, but it is true. He accepted
+      gladly the hospitality, the alms, the gifts, priceless in value,
+      of those who had great possessions and He loved them even as He
+      loved those who had nothing. The rich and wise also have a right
+      to look into that cradle to see their God, too. When we say He is
+      the God of all classes we do not mean that He is only the God of
+      the poor any more than we mean He is only the God of the rich.
+
+      He came to all the children of men and they can all stand by that
+      cradle this morning and claim Him as their own; ask, receive, and
+      share in His blessing. The light that shone in the darkness
+      lighted impartially the world. Some of you are blessed with
+      competences and some of the competences are greater than others.
+      What of it? The poor man may serve God acceptably in his poverty
+      and the rich man may serve God acceptably in his wealth. There is
+      one God and though He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, even
+      though He may lie lowly in a manger, yet the kingdom of Heaven is
+      like a republic—it is a democracy in which all are equal, or if
+      there be distinctions they are based on righteousness
+      alone—saving only the distinctions Divine.
+
+      Now there is one other condition into which all men inevitably
+      fall. Whether they be rich or whether they be poor, they are all
+      bound to be sorrowful. Sooner or later, we are certain to be
+      troubled. And that is more true today, doubtless, than in any
+      other period in the long history of this old world.
+
+      These sorrowful ones can go unto Bethlehem and look into the
+      cradle and claim the Child as their God. For every sorrow that
+      has been yours, He experienced; every grief that you have bowed
+      before, He was forced to struggle with. Very tender and
+      compassionate is our Lord. I am quite sure that He notices your
+      bowed head, that He puts His arms across your shoulders, that He
+      whispers words of comfort into your ear, or that He gives you the
+      silent sympathy of His presence, that He takes you by the hand;
+      that whatever action most appeals to you and is best for you He
+      takes if you wish Him to.
+
+      There are many people belonging to you or your family who are far
+      away, whom you would fain have with you this Christmas morning.
+      Many of them are fighting manfully in His cause, too. Do not
+      forget that our Lord came to the family! that He made a family by
+      coming. These far-off loved ones are doing what we are doing this
+      morning. And there are some you love who are still farther away.
+      The sound of their earthly voices is stilled, we may not clasp
+      their hands, we cannot see them any more. They are gone from the
+      world, but not from our hearts. If they are not here I think they
+      are with Him. And we may be sure that it is very pleasant to them
+      where He is. They are not unmindful of our human regrets and
+      longings, but I think we ought not to be unmindful of their
+      peaceful joy in His presence.
+
+      And so everybody has a right to come to that cradle, the poor,
+      the humble, the hard workers, the toilers, the wise, the learned,
+      the easy, the rich, the joyous, the sad, the sorrowful, the
+      bereaved. They may all look into the manger and see their God.
+
+      He came to a family; He made a family. We are all in that family,
+      the children of the selfsame Father, the sons of the selfsame
+      God, the brethren of Him of the manger—German and French, English
+      and Austrian, Italian and Bulgar, Russian and Turk! Ay, and above
+      all and with all American and Belgian. Sirs, we be, not twelve,
+      but many brethren! What does that mean?
+
+      There is one musical word with, I think, perhaps the ugliest
+      meaning in the language. It is _rancour_. Let us do away with it,
+      let us put it aside. If we are poor let us be brethren to the
+      other poor, if we are rich let us be brethren to the other rich,
+      if we are wise let us be brethren to the other wise, if we are
+      foolish let us be brethren to the other foolish. Ah, that is not
+      difficult; it is an easy task. But that is not enough.
+      Brotherhood is broader, thank God! Let the poor be brethren to
+      the rich and the rich to the poor, the wise to the ignorant, the
+      misguided to the well-directed, the ignorant to the wise, the
+      foolish to the discreet, the discreet to the foolish, the glad to
+      the sorrowful, the sorrowful to the glad, the servants of the
+      Lord to the sinners against Him!
+
+“Then none was for a party;
+Then all were for the state;
+Then the great man helped the poor,
+And the poor man loved the great:
+Then lands were fairly portioned;
+Then spoils were fairly sold:
+The Romans were like brothers,
+In the brave days of old.”
+
+      Let us make out of the old pagan ideals present-day realities in
+      our hearts as we go even unto Bethlehem and look into the cradle
+      of the King; realities in His own nobler and better words:
+
+        “_Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again
+        those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their
+        sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
+        hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel
+        preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be
+        offended in Me_.”
+
+        Peace, goodwill toward men! Peace to men of goodwill! That is
+        what the angels sang. But there is nothing on earth to prevent
+        us from making it our human song as well. As we stand by the
+        cradle of the Master and peer into the manger at that which
+        every human being loves, a baby, our earthly differences of
+        nationality, of rank, power, station, and influence—things that
+        are but the guinea’s stamp upon the gold of character and
+        personality—fade into insignificance and become as nothing. The
+        little child in life notices none of these distinctions, he
+        marks nothing of them. Let us come as little children before
+        Him. We may be war-battered, sin-marked, toil-stained,
+        care-burdened. Let us forget it all this Christmas morning.
+
+        It was a poor place, that manger—the poorest place on earth—but
+        it was a place. It was somewhere. Let us give humanity even as
+        little as a manger. Let us not take up the Christ Child as we
+        see Him and throw Him out into the streets, or into no man’s
+        land. That is what we do when we mock Him, when we deny Him,
+        when we laugh Him to scorn. Let us not shut Him out of His home
+        place in our souls. Let us not refuse to open when His hand
+        knocks upon the door. That is what we do when we are
+        indifferent to Him. Let us take him out of the manger cradle,
+        each one of us, and enthrone Him in the most precious place we
+        have, our inmost hearts.
+
+        It all happened a very long time ago and much water has run in
+        the brooks of the world under the bridges thereof since that
+        time, but the mangers of the world are never empty. They are
+        always full. In one sense, Christ is being born everywhere at
+        this very hour and at all hours.
+
+        Let us give the Child the best we have, the best we can. Let us
+        even now go down unto Bethlehem, laden with what we have for
+        the use of the King, and let us see in every child of man that
+        lacks anything this Christmas morning the image of Him who in
+        that manger lay in Bethlehem and let us minister to their needs
+        in love.
+
+“The little Christ is coming down[1]
+Across the fields of snow;
+The pine trees greet Him where they stand,
+The willows bend to kiss His hand,
+The mountain laurel is ablush
+In hidden nooks; the wind, ahush
+And tiptoe, lest the violets wake
+Before their time for His sweet sake;
+The stars, down dropping, form a crown
+Upon the waiting hills below—
+The little Christ is coming down
+Across the fields of snow.
+
+“The little Christ is coming down
+Across the city streets;
+The wind blows coldly from the north,
+His dimpled hands are stretching forth,
+And no one knows and no one cares,
+The priests are busy with their prayers,
+The jostling crowd hastes on apace,
+And no one sees the pleading face,
+None hears the cry as through the town
+He wanders with His small cold feet—
+The little Christ is coming down
+Acrossthe city streets.”
+
+        What welcome shall we have for Him, my friends?
+
+ [1] These loving and appealing verses were written by Harriet F.
+ Blodgett, of whom unfortunately I know absolutely nothing but her
+ name. I am sure, however, that if they had been written today another
+ verse, even more touching than those I have quoted, would have been
+ inspired by present conditions. And we should have seen “The Little
+ Christ” coming down between the lines in Flanders, on the Balkan
+ Frontier, amid the snows of Russia and the deserts of Mesopotamia, and
+ perhaps, as of old, even walking on the waters in the midst of the
+ sea.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOWS
+
+        _Being Some Personal Adventures in the Far West_[2]
+
+
+        The love of Christmas is as strong in the West as it is in any
+        section of the country—perhaps, indeed, stronger, for people
+        who have few pleasures cherish holidays more highly than those
+        for whom many cheap amusements are provided. But when the
+        manifestation of the Christmas spirit is considered, there is a
+        great difference between the West and the East. There are vast
+        sections of country in which evergreens do not grow and to
+        which it would not pay to ship them; consequently Christmas
+        trees are not common, and therefore they are the more prized
+        when they may be had. There are no great rows nor small
+        clusters of inviting shops filled with suggestive and
+        fascinating contents at attractive prices. The distances from
+        centres of trade are so great that the things which may be
+        purchased even in the smallest towns in more favourable
+        localities for a few cents have there almost a prohibitive
+        price put upon them. The efforts of the people to give their
+        children a merry Christmas in the popular sense, however, are
+        strong and sometimes pitiful.
+
+        It must not be forgotten that the West is settled by Eastern
+        people, and that no very great difference exists between them
+        save for the advantages presented by life in the West for the
+        higher development of character. Western people are usually
+        brighter, quicker, more progressive and less conservative, and
+        more liberal than those from whom they came. The survival of
+        the fittest is the rule out there and the qualities of
+        character necessary to that end are brought to the top by the
+        strenuous life necessitated by the hardships of the frontier.
+        If the people are not any better than they were, it is because
+        they are still clinging to the obsolete ideas of the East.
+
+        The Eastern point of view always reminds me of the reply of the
+        bishop to the layman who was deploring the poor quality of the
+        clergy. “Yes,” said the bishop, “some of them are poor; but
+        consider the stock from which they come. You see, we have
+        nothing but laymen out of which to make them.”
+
+        The East never understands the West—the real West that is,
+        which lies beyond the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Rocky
+        Mountains. They know nothing of its ideas, its capacities, its
+        possibilities, its educational facilities, its culture, its
+        real power, in the East. And they do not wish to learn,
+        apparently. The Easterners fatuously think, like Job, that they
+        are the people, and wisdom will die with them. Some years since
+        an article in the “Forum” on the theme, “Kansas more civilized
+        than New York” conclusively proved the proposition to the
+        satisfaction of the present writer at least.
+
+        Yet I know numberless dwellers in Gotham whose shibboleth is
+        “nothing outside of New York City but scenery,” and they are a
+        little dubious about admitting that. When one describes the
+        Grand Canyon or the Royal Gorge they point to Nassau or Wall
+        Street, and the Woolworth tower challenges Pike’s Peak!
+
+        I sat at a dinner table one day when the salted almonds were
+        handed me with the remark: “I suppose you never saw anything
+        like these out West. Try some.” And my wife has been quite
+        gravely asked if we feared any raids by the Indians and if they
+        troubled us by their marauding in Kansas. I have found it
+        necessary to inform the curious that we did not live in tepees
+        or wigwams when in Nebraska or Colorado.
+
+        Shortly after I came East to live I was talking with a man and
+        a very stupid man at that, who informed me that he graduated
+        from Harvard; to which surprising statement he added the
+        startling information, for the benefit of my presumably
+        untutored occidental mind, that it was a college near Boston!
+        They have everything in the West that the East has so far as
+        their sometimes limited means will provide them and when they
+        have no money they have patience, endurance, grim
+        determination, and courage, which are better than money in the
+        long run.
+
+        The cities and smaller towns especially as a rule are cleaner,
+        better governed, more progressive, better provided with
+        improvements and comforts than corresponding places in the
+        East. Scarcely a community exists without its water works,
+        electric light plant, telephone system, trolleys, paved
+        streets, etc. Of course, this does not apply to the extreme
+        frontier in which my field of work largely lay so many years
+        ago. The conditions were different there—the people too in that
+        now far-distant time.
+
+        But to return to Christmas. One Christmas day I left my family
+        at one o’clock in the morning. Christmas salutations were
+        exchanged at that very sleepy hour and I took the fast express
+        to a certain station whence I could drive up country to a
+        little church in a farming country in which there had never
+        been a Christmas service. It was a bitter cold morning, deep
+        snow on the ground, and a furious north wind raging.
+
+        The climate is variable indeed out West. I have spent Christmas
+        days on which it rained all day and of all days in the year on
+        which to have it rain, Christmas is the worst. Still, the
+        farmers would be thankful. It was usually safe to be thankful
+        out there whenever it rained. I knew a man once who said you
+        could make a fortune by always betting two to one that it would
+        not rain, no matter what the present promise of the weather
+        was. You were bound to win nine times out of ten.
+
+        I hired a good sleigh and two horses, and drove to my
+        destination. The church was a little old brick building right
+        out in the prairie. There was a smouldering fire in a
+        miserable, worn-out stove which hardly raised the temperature
+        of the room a degree although it filled the place with smoke.
+        The wind had free entrance through the ill-fitting window and
+        door frames and a little pile of snow formed on the altar
+        during the service. I think there were twelve people who had
+        braved the fury of the storm. There was not an evergreen within
+        a hundred miles of the place and the only decoration was
+        sage-brush. To wear vestments was impossible, and I conducted
+        the service in a buffalo overcoat and a fur cap and gloves as I
+        have often done. It was short and the sermon was shorter. Mem.:
+        If you want short sermons give your Rector a cold church or a
+        hot one!
+
+        After service I went to dinner at the nearest farm-house. Such
+        a Christmas dinner it was! There was no turkey, and they did
+        not even have a chicken. The menu was corn-bread, ham, and
+        potatoes, and mighty few potatoes at that. There were two
+        children in the family, a girl of six and a boy of five. They
+        were glad enough to get the ham. Their usual bill of fare was
+        composed of potatoes and corn-bread, and sometimes corn-bread
+        alone. My wife had put up a lunch for me, fearing that I might
+        not be able to get anything to eat, in which there was a small
+        mince-pie turnover; and the children had slipped a small box of
+        candy in my bag as a Christmas gift. I produced the turnover
+        which by common consent was divided between the astonished
+        children. Such a glistening of eyes and smacking of small lips
+        you never saw!
+
+        “This pie makes it seem like Christmas, after all,” said the
+        little girl, with her mouth full.
+
+        “Yes,” said the boy, ditto, “that and the ham.”
+
+        “We didn’t have any Christmas this year,” continued the small
+        maiden. “Last year mother made us some potato men” (_i.e._,
+        little animal and semi-human figures made out of potatoes and
+        matches with buttons for eyes; they went into many stockings
+        among the very poor out West then).
+
+        “But this year,” interrupted the boy, “potatoes are so scarce
+        that we couldn’t have ’em. Mother says that next year perhaps
+        we will have some real Christmas.”
+
+        They were so brave about it that my heart went out to them.
+        Children and no Christmas gifts! Only the chill, bare room, the
+        wretched, meagre meal. I ransacked my brain. Finally something
+        occurred to me. After dinner I excused myself and hurried back
+        to the church. There were two small wicker baskets there which
+        were used for the collection—old but rather pretty. I selected
+        the best one. Fortunately I had in my grip a neat little
+        “housewife” which contained a pair of scissors, a huge thimble,
+        needles, thread, a tiny little pin-cushion, an emery bag,
+        buttons, etc. I am, like most ex-sailors, something of a
+        needleman myself. I emptied the contents into the collection
+        basket and garnished the dull little affair with the bright
+        ribbon ties ripped off the “housewife” and went back to the
+        house.
+
+        To the boy I gave my penknife which happened to be nearly new,
+        and to the girl the church basket with the sewing things for a
+        work-basket. The joy of those children was one of the finest
+        things I have ever witnessed. The face of the little girl was
+        positively filled with awe as she lifted from the basket, one
+        by one, the pretty and useful articles the “housewife” had
+        supplied and when I added the small box of candy that my
+        children had provided me, they looked at me with feelings of
+        reverence, as a visible incarnation of Santa Claus. They were
+        the cheapest and most effective Christmas presents it was ever
+        my pleasure to bestow. I hope to be forgiven for putting the
+        church furniture to such a secular use.
+
+        Another Christmas day I had a funeral. There was no snow, no
+        rain. The day was warm. The woman who died had been the wife of
+        one of the largest farmers in the diocese. He actually owned a
+        continuous body of several thousands of acres of fine land,
+        much of it under cultivation. She had been a fruitful mother
+        and five stalwart sons, all married, and several daughters
+        likewise, with numerous grandchildren represented her
+        contribution to the world’s population. They were the people of
+        the most consideration in the little community in which they
+        lived. We had the services in the morning in the Methodist
+        church, which was big enough to hold about six hundred people.
+        As it was a holiday, it was filled to the very doors. One of my
+        farmer friends remarked as we stood on the front steps watching
+        the crowd assembling:
+
+        “My, doc, all of them wagons gatherin’ here makes it seem more
+        like circus day than a funeral.”
+
+        I had been asked to preach a sermon, which I essayed to do. The
+        confusion was terrific. In order to be present themselves the
+        mothers in Israel had been obliged to bring their children, and
+        the most domestic of attentions were being bestowed upon them
+        freely. They cried and wailed and expostulated with their
+        parents in audible tones until I was nearly frantic. I found
+        myself shouting consoling platitudes to a sobbing,
+        grief-stricken band of relatives and endeavouring to drown the
+        noise of the children by roaring—the lion’s part à la Bottom.
+        It was distracting. I was a very young minister at the time and
+        the perspiration fairly rained from me. That’s what makes me
+        remember it was a warm day.
+
+        When we got through the services after every one of the six
+        hundred had, in the language of the local undertaker, “viewed
+        the remains,” we went to the cemetery. I rode behind a horse
+        which was thirty-eight years old. I do not know what his
+        original colour had been but at present he was white and hoary
+        with age.
+
+        “I always use him for funerals,” said the undertaker, “because
+        he naturally sets the proper pace for a funeral procession.”
+
+        “Mercy,” said I, “I hope he won’t die on the road.”
+
+        “Well, if he does,” continued the undertaker, “your services
+        will come in handy. We can bury him proper. I am awful fond of
+        that horse. I shouldn’t wonder if he hadn’t been at as many as
+        a thousand funerals in his life.”
+
+        I thought that he had all the gravity of his grewsome
+        experiences, especially in his gait. The Christmas dinners were
+        all late on account of the funeral but they were bountiful and
+        good nevertheless and I much enjoyed mine.
+
+        Another Christmas I was snow-bound on one of the obscure
+        branches of a Western railroad. If the train had been on time I
+        would have made a connection and have reached home by Christmas
+        Eve, but it was very evident, as the day wore on, that it was
+        not going to be on time. Indeed it was problematical whether it
+        would get anywhere at all. It was snowing hard outside. Our
+        progress had become slower and slower. Finally in a deep cut we
+        stopped. There were four men, one woman, and two little
+        children in the car—no other passengers in the train. The train
+        was of that variety known out West as a “plug” consisting of a
+        combination baggage and smoker and one coach.
+
+        One of the trainmen started on a lonely and somewhat dangerous
+        tramp of several miles up the road to the next station to call
+        for the snow-plough, and the rest of us settled down to spend
+        the night. Certainly we could not hope to be extricated before
+        the next evening, especially as the storm then gave no signs of
+        abating. We all went up to the front of the car and sat around
+        the stove in which we kept up a bright fire,—fortunately we had
+        plenty of fuel—and in such circumstances we speedily got
+        acquainted with each other. One of the men was a “drummer,” a
+        travelling man for a notion house; another was a cow-boy; the
+        third was a big cattle-man; and I was the last. We soon found
+        that the woman was a widow who had maintained herself and the
+        children precariously since the death of her husband by sewing
+        and other feminine odd jobs but had at last given up the
+        unequal struggle and was going back to live with her mother,
+        also a widow who had some little property.
+
+        The poor little threadbare children had cherished anticipations
+        of a joyous Christmas with their grandmother. From their talk
+        we could hear that a Christmas tree had been promised them and
+        all sorts of things. They were intensely disappointed at the
+        blockade. They cried and sobbed and would not be comforted.
+        Fortunately the woman had a great basket filled with
+        substantial provisions which, by the way, she generously shared
+        with the rest of us, so we were none of us hungry. As the night
+        fell, we tipped up two of the seats, placed the bottoms
+        sideways, and with our overcoats made two good beds for the
+        little folks. Just before they went to sleep the drummer said
+        to me:
+
+        “Say, parson, we’ve got to give those children some Christmas.”
+
+        “That’s what,” said the cow-boy.
+
+        “I’m agreed,” added the cattle-man.
+
+        “Madam,” said the drummer, addressing the woman with the easy
+        assurance of his class, after a brief consultation between us,
+        “we are going to give your kids some Christmas.”
+
+        The woman beamed at him gratefully.
+
+        “Yes, children,” said the now enthused drummer, as he turned to
+        the open-mouthed children, “Santa Claus is coming round
+        to-night sure. We want you to hang up your stockings.”
+
+        “We ain’t got none,” quivered the little girl, “’ceptin’ those
+        we’ve got on and ma says it’s too cold to take ’em off.”
+
+        “I’ve got two new pair of woollen socks,” said the cattle-man
+        eagerly, “which I ain’t never wore, and you are welcome to
+        ’em.”
+
+        There was a clapping of little hands in childish glee, and then
+        the two faces fell as the elder remarked.
+
+        “But Santa Claus will know they are not our stockings and he
+        will fill them with things for you instead.”
+
+        “Lord love you,” said the burly cattle-man, roaring with
+        infectious laughter, “he wont bring me nothin’. One of us will
+        sit up anyway and tell him it’s for you. You’ve got to hustle
+        to bed right away because he may be here any time now.”
+
+        Then came one of those spectacles which we sometimes meet once
+        or twice in a lifetime. The children knelt down on the rough
+        floor of the car beside their improvised beds. Instinctively
+        the hands of the men went to their heads and at the first words
+        of “Now I lay me down to sleep,” four hats came off. The
+        cow-boy stood twirling his hat and looking at the little
+        kneeling figures; the cattle-man’s vision seemed dimmed; while
+        in the eyes of the travelling man there shone a distant look—a
+        look across snow-filled prairies to a warmly lighted home.
+
+        The children were soon asleep. Then the rest of us engaged in
+        earnest conversation. What should we give them? was the
+        question.
+
+        “It don’t seem to me that I’ve got anything to give ’em,” said
+        the cow-boy mournfully, “unless the little kid might like my
+        spurs, an’ I would give my gun to the little girl, though on
+        general principles I don’t like to give up a gun. You never
+        know when you’re goin’ to need it, ’specially with strangers,”
+        he added with a rather suspicious glance at me. I would not
+        have harmed him for the world.
+
+        “I’m in much the same fix,” said the cattle-man. “I’ve got a
+        flask of prime old whiskey here, but it don’t seem like it’s
+        very appropriate for the occasion, though it’s at the service
+        of any of you gents.”
+
+        “Never seen no occasion in which whiskey wasn’t appropriate,”
+        said the cow-boy, mellowing at the sight of the flask.
+
+        “I mean ’taint fit for kids,” explained the cattle-man handing
+        it over.
+
+        “I begun on’t rather early,” remarked the puncher, taking a
+        long drink, “an’ I always use it when my feelin’s is onsettled,
+        like now.” He handed it back with a sigh.
+
+        “Never mind, boys,” said the drummer. “You all come along with
+        me to the baggage car.”
+
+        So off we trooped. He opened his trunks, and spread before us
+        such a glittering array of trash and trinkets as almost took
+        away our breath.
+
+        “There,” he said, “look at that. We’ll just pick out the best
+        things from the lot, and I’ll donate them all.”
+
+        “No, you don’t,” said the cow-boy. “My ante’s in on this game,
+        an’ I’m goin’ to buy what chips I want, an’ pay fer ’em too,
+        else there ain’t going to be no Christmas around here.”
+
+        “That’s my judgment, too,” said the cattle-man.
+
+        “I think that will be fair,” said I. “The travelling man can
+        donate what he pleases, and we can each of us buy what we
+        please, as well.”
+
+        I think we spent hours looking over the stock which the
+        obliging man spread out all over the car for us. He was going
+        home, he said, and everything was at our service. The trainmen
+        caught the infection, too, and all hands finally went back to
+        the coach with such a load of stuff as you never saw before. We
+        filled the socks and two seats besides with it. The grateful
+        mother was simply dazed.
+
+        As we all stood about, gleefully surveying our handiwork
+        including the bulging socks, the engineer remarked:
+
+        “We’ve got to get some kind of a Christmas tree.”
+
+        So two of us ploughed off on the prairie—it had stopped snowing
+        and was bright moon-light—and wandered around until we found a
+        good-sized piece of sage-brush, which we brought back and
+        solemnly installed and the woman decorated it with bunches of
+        tissue paper from the notion stock and clean waste from the
+        engine. We hung the train lanterns around it.
+
+        We were so excited that we actually could not sleep. The
+        contagion of the season was strong upon us, and I know not
+        which were the more delighted the next morning, the children or
+        the amateur Santa Clauses, when they saw what the cow-boy
+        called the “layout.”
+
+        Great goodness! Those children never did have, and probably
+        never will have, such a Christmas again. And to see the thin
+        face of that mother flush with unusual colour when we handed
+        her one of those monstrous red plush albums which we had
+        purchased jointly and in which we had all written our names in
+        lieu of our photographs, and between the leaves of which the
+        cattle-man had generously slipped a hundred dollar bill, was
+        worth being blockaded for a dozen Christmases. Her eyes filled
+        with tears and she fairly sobbed before us.
+
+        During the morning we had a little service in the car, in
+        accordance with the custom of the Church, and I am sure no more
+        heartfelt body of worshippers ever poured forth their thanks
+        for the Incarnation than those men, that woman, and the little
+        children. The woman sang “Jesus Lover of my Soul” from memory
+        in her poor little voice and that small but reverent
+        congregation—cow-boy, drummer, cattle-man, trainmen, and
+        parson—solemnly joined in.
+
+        “It feels just like church,” said the cow-boy gravely to the
+        cattle-man. “Say I’m all broke up; let’s go in the other car
+        and try your flask ag’in.” It was his unfailing resource for
+        “onsettled feelin’s.”
+
+        The train-hand who had gone on to division headquarters
+        returned with the snow-plough early in the afternoon, but what
+        was more to the purpose he brought a whole cooked turkey with
+        him, so the children had turkey, a Christmas tree, and Santa
+        Claus to their heart’s content! I did not get home until the
+        day after Christmas.
+
+        But, after all, what a Christmas I had enjoyed!
+
+        During a season of great privation we were much assisted by
+        barrels of clothing which were sent to us from the East. One
+        day just before Christmas, I was distributing the contents of
+        several barrels of wearing apparel and other necessities to the
+        women and children at a little mission. The delight of the
+        women, as the good warm articles of clothing for themselves and
+        their children which they so sadly needed were handed out to
+        them was touching; but the children themselves did not enter
+        into the joy of the occasion with the same spontaneity. Finally
+        just as I got to the bottom of one box and before I had opened
+        the other one, a little boy sniffling to himself in the corner
+        remarked, _sotto voce_:
+
+        “Ain’t there no real Chris’mus gif’s in there for us little
+        fellers, too?”
+
+        I could quite enter into his feelings, for I could remember in
+        my youthful days when careful relatives had provided me with a
+        “cardigan” jacket, three handkerchiefs, and a half-dozen pairs
+        of socks for Christmas, that the season seemed to me like a
+        hollow mockery and the attempt to palm off necessities as
+        Christmas gifts filled my childish heart with disapproval. I am
+        older now and can face a Christmas remembrance of a cookbook, a
+        silver cake-basket, or an ice-cream freezer (some of which I
+        have actually received) with philosophical equanimity, if not
+        gratitude.
+
+        I opened the second box, therefore, with a great longing,
+        though but little hope. Heaven bless the woman who had packed
+        that box, for, in addition to the usual necessary articles,
+        there were dolls, knives, books, games galore, so the small fry
+        had some “real Chris’mus gif’s” as well as the others.
+
+        After one of the blizzards a young ranchman who had gone into
+        the nearest town some twenty miles away to get some Christmas
+        things for his wife and little ones, was found frozen to death
+        on Christmas morning, his poor little packages of petty
+        Christmas gifts tightly clasped in his cold hands lying by his
+        side. His horse was frozen too and when they found it, hanging
+        to the horn of the saddle was a little piece of an evergreen
+        tree—you would throw it away in contempt in the East, it was so
+        puny. There it meant something. The love of Christmas? It was
+        there in his dead hands. The spirit of Christmas? It showed
+        itself in that bit of verdant pine over the lariat at the
+        saddle-bow of the poor bronco.
+
+        Do they have Christmas out West? Well, they have it in their
+        hearts if no place else, and, after all, that is the place
+        above all others where it should be.
+
+ [2] This bit of personal history is reprinted from my book
+ _Recollections of a Missionary in the Great West_ by the courtesy of
+ Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons, the publishers thereof. Incidentally
+ the reader will find much interesting matter in the way of
+ reminiscence and anecdote in that little volume, should he chance upon
+ it.
+    There are some amusing things connected with the publication in
+    serial form of these episodes. The great magazine in which it
+    appeared has very strong views on certain subjects. Following out a
+    policy which has deservedly won them perhaps the largest
+    circulation of any magazine in the world it seemed to the editors
+    necessary and desirable to make some changes in the story as
+    originally written and as it appears hereafter.
+    For instance the revised serial version made the cowboy lift the
+    flask of whiskey to his lips and then it declared that after a long
+    look at the sleeping children he put it down! I was quite agreeable
+    to the change. I remember remarking that the cowboy certainly did
+    “put it down.” It was a way cowboys had in those bygone days; so
+    the editor and the author were both satisfied.
+    Another amusing thing I recall in connection with the serial
+    publication was this: The art editor of the magazine wrote to the
+    officials of the railroad, the name of which I gave in the first
+    version but which I now withhold, saying that the magazine had a
+    story of a snow-bound train on the railroad in question and asking
+    for pictures of snow-bound trains to help the artist illustrate it.
+    By return mail came an indignant remonstrance almost threatening a
+    lawsuit because the railroad in question, one of the southerly
+    transcontinental roads, made a point in its appeal to travellers
+    that its trains were never snow-bound! The art editor who was not
+    without a vein of humour wrote back and asked if they could furnish
+    him with pictures of snow-bound trains on competing roads and they
+    sent him a box full! C.T.B.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A CHRISTMAS WISH
+
+        _For Everybody, Everywhere_
+
+
+        May peace and goodwill, prosperity and plenty, joy and
+        satisfaction abound in your homes and in your hearts this day
+        and all days. May opportunities for good work be many, and may
+        you avail yourselves of them all. May your sorrows be
+        lightened, may your griefs be assuaged. May your souls be
+        fitted for what they must endure; may your backs be
+        strengthened for your burdens; may your responsibilities be
+        met; may your obligations be discharged; may your duties be
+        performed. May love abound more and more until the perfect day
+        breaks in your lives. In short, every wish that would be
+        helpful, uplifting, and comforting, I wish you at this hour and
+        in all hours.
+
+        In the words of Tiny Tim.
+
+        “_God Bless us every one!_”
+
+        Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Book for Christmas by Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Little Book for Christmas, by Cyrus Townsend Brady.</title>
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+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Book for Christmas, by Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: A Little Book for Christmas
+
+Author: Cyrus Townsend Brady
+
+Release Date: March 12, 2005 [EBook #15343]
+[Most recently updated: July 31, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE BOOK FOR CHRISTMAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gene Smethers and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>A Little Book for Christmas</h1>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<a name="illus01"></a>
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[The author making his
+book, as pictured by his friend, Will Crawford.]" />
+</div>
+
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">Containing a Greeting, a Word of Advice, Some
+      Personal Adventures, a Carol, a Meditation, and Three Christmas Stories
+      for All Ages</span>
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">By</span>
+    </h4>
+    <h2>
+      <span class="smallcaps">Cyrus Townsend Brady</span>
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">Author of &ldquo;And Thus He Came, A Christmas
+      Fantasy,&rdquo; &ldquo;Christmas When the West Was Young,&rdquo; etc., etc.</span>
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">With Illustrations and Decorations by</span>
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      <span class="smallcaps">Will Crawford</span>
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">G.P. Putnam&rsquo;s Sons</span>
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">New York and London</span>
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">The Knickerbocker Press</span>
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      <span class="smallcaps">1917</span>
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      DEDICATED
+    </h2>
+    <h5>
+      TO
+    </h5>
+    <h3>
+      MRS. LEONARD L. HILL
+    </h3>
+    <h5>
+      AND HER CHARMING COMPANIONS
+    </h5>
+    <h5>
+      OF
+    </h5>
+    <h5>
+      THE AMERICAN CRITERION SOCIETY
+    </h5>
+    <h5>
+      OF NEW YORK
+    </h5>
+    <h5>
+      BY
+    </h5>
+    <h5>
+      THEIR CHAPLAIN
+    </h5>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/001.jpg" width="400" height="103" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+    <p>
+      Christmas is one of the great days of obligation and observance in the
+      Church of which I am a Priest; but it is much more than that, it is one of
+      the great days of obligation and observance in the world. Furthermore it
+      is one of the evidences of the power of Him Whose birth we commemorate
+      that its observation is not limited by conditions of race and creed. Those
+      who fail to see in Him what we see nevertheless see something and even by
+      imperfect visions are moved to joy. The world transmutes that joy into
+      blessing, not merely by giving of its substance but of its soul because
+      men perceive that it is for the soul&rsquo;s good and because they hope to
+      receive its benefits although they well know that giving is far better
+      than receiving, in the very words of Him Who gave us the greatest of all
+      gifts&mdash;Himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a Priest of the Church, as a Missionary in the Far West, as the Rector
+      of large and important parishes I have been brought in touch with varied
+      life. Christmas in all its phases is familiar to me. The author of many
+      books and stories as well as the preacher of many sermons, it is natural
+      that Christmas should have engaged a large part of my attention. Out of
+      the abundance of material which I have accumulated in the course of a long
+      ministry and a longer life I have gathered here a sheaf of things I have
+      written about Christmas; personal adventures, stories suggested by the old
+      yet ever-new theme; meditations, words of advice which I am old enough to
+      be entitled to give; and last but not least good wishes and good will. I
+      might even call this little volume <i>A Book of Good Will toward Men</i>.
+      And so fit it not only for Christmas but for all other seasons as well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it shall add to your joy in Christmas, dear reader, and better still,
+      if it shall move you to add to the joy of some one else at Christmas-tide
+      or in any other season, I shall be well repaid for my efforts and
+      incidentally you will also be repaid for your purchase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <span class="smallcaps"> <span style="margin-left: 10em;">Cyrus
+      Townsend Brady.</span> <br /><br /> <span style="margin-left: 3em;">The
+      Hemlocks, Park Hill,</span><br /> <span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yonkers,
+      N.Y.</span><br /> <span style="margin-left: 7em;">1917</span> </span> <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The author is in debt to his long-time and greatly beloved friend the Rev.
+      Alsop Leffingwell for the beautiful musical setting of the little carol
+      which this book contains.
+    </p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/002.jpg" width="374" height="300" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> I.&mdash;<a href="#chap01">A CHRISTMAS GREETING</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&ldquo;<i>Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men</i>&rdquo;</span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> II.&mdash;<a href="#chap02">FROM A FAR COUNTRY</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A story for grown-ups<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Being a new variation of an ancient theme</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> III.&mdash;<a href="#chap03">ON CHRISTMAS GIVING</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Being a word of much needed advice</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> IV.&mdash;<a href="#chap04">IT WAS THE SAME CHRISTMAS MORNING</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A story for girls</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>In which it is shown how different the same thing may be</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> V.&mdash;<a href="#chap05">A CHRISTMAS CAROL</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>To be sung to the music accompanying it</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> VI.&mdash;<a href="#chap06">THE LONE SCOUT&rsquo;S CHRISTMAS</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A story for boys</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Wherein is set forth the courage of youth</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> VII.&mdash;<a href="#chap07">LOOKING INTO THE MANGER</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>A Christmas meditation</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> VIII.&mdash;<a href="#chap08">CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOWS</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Being some personal adventures in the Far West</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> IX.&mdash;<a href="#chap09"> CHRISTMAS WISH</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>For everybody everywhere</i></span></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/003.jpg" width="450" height="334" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/004.jpg" width="450" height="155" alt="[A_CHRISTMAS_GREETING]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus01">The Author Making his Book</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus02">&ldquo;I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de
+chimney,&rdquo; said the younger of the twain.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus03">&ldquo;I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry
+Christmas.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus04">&ldquo;The Stars look down&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus05">&ldquo;Thrusting his toes into the straps he struck out
+boldly.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus06">&ldquo;The world bows down to a Mother and her
+Child&mdash;and the Mother herself is at the feet of the Child.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/005.jpg" width="350" height="184" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>A CHRISTMAS GREETING</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">
+      &ldquo;<i>Good Will Toward Men&rdquo;&mdash;St. Luke 11-14.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a time when the spirit of Christmas was of the present. There is
+      a period when most of it is of the past. There shall come a day perhaps
+      when all of it will be of the future. The child time, the present; the
+      middle years, the past; old age, the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come to my mind Christmas Days of long ago. As a boy again I enter into
+      the spirit of the Christmas stockings hanging before my fire. I know what
+      the children think to-day. I recall what they feel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passes childhood, and I look down the nearer years. There rise before me
+      remembrances of Christmas Days on storm-tossed seas, where waves beat upon
+      the ice-bound ship. I recall again the bitter touch of water-warping
+      winter, of drifts of snow, of wind-swept plains. In the gamut of my
+      remembrance I am once more in the poor, mean, lonely little sanctuary out
+      on the prairie, with a handful of Christians, mostly women, gathered
+      together in the freezing, draughty building. In later years I worship in
+      the great cathedral church, ablaze with lights, verdant and fragrant with
+      the evergreen pines, echoing with joyful carols and celestial harmonies.
+      My recollections are of contrasts like those of life&mdash;joy and
+      sadness, poverty and ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the pictures are full of faces, many of which may be seen no more by
+      earthly vision. I miss the clasp of vanished hands, I crave the sound of
+      voices stilled. As we old and older grow, there is a note of sadness in
+      our glee. Whether we will or not we must twine the cypress with the holly.
+      The recollection of each passing year brings deeper regret. How many have
+      gone from those circles that we recall when we were children? How many
+      little feet that pattered upon the stair on Christmas morning now tread
+      softer paths and walk in broader ways; sisters and brothers who used to
+      come back from the far countries to the old home&mdash;alas, they cannot
+      come from the farther country in which they now are, and perhaps, saddest
+      thought of all, we would not wish them to come again. How many, with whom
+      we joined hands around the Christmas tree, have gone?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Circles are broken, families are separated, loved ones are lost, but the
+      old world sweeps on. Others come to take our places. As we stood at the
+      knee of some unforgotten mother, so other children stand. As we listened
+      to the story of the Christ Child from the lips of some grey old father, so
+      other children listen and we ourselves perchance are fathers or mothers
+      too. Other groups come to us for the deathless story. Little heads which
+      recall vanished halcyon days of youth bend around another younger mother.
+      Smaller hands than ours write letters to Santa Claus and hear the story,
+      the sweetest story ever told, of the Baby who came to Mary and through her
+      to all the daughters and sons of women on that winter night on the
+      Bethlehem hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we thank God for the children who take us out of the past, out of
+      ourselves, away from recollections that weigh us down; the children that
+      weave in the woof and warp of life when our own youth has passed, some of
+      the buoyancy, the joy, the happiness of the present; the children in whose
+      opening lives we turn hopefully to the future. We thank God at this
+      Christmas season that it pleased Him to send His beloved Son to come to us
+      as a little child, like any other child. We thank God that in the lesser
+      sense we may see in every child who comes to-day another incarnation of
+      divinity. We thank God for the portion of His Spirit with which He dowers
+      every child of man, just as we thank Him for pouring it all upon the
+      Infant in the Manger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no age that has not had its prophet. No country, no people, but
+      that has produced its leader. But did any of them ever before come as a
+      little child? Did any of them begin to lead while yet in arms? Lodges
+      there upon any other baby brow &ldquo;the round and top of sovereignty?&rdquo;
+      What distinguished Christ and His Christian followers from all the world?
+      Behold! no mighty monarch, but &ldquo;a little child shall lead them!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may see through the glass darkly, you may not know or understand the
+      blessedness of faith in Him as He would have you know it, but there is
+      nothing that can dim the light that radiates from that birth in the rude
+      cave back of the inn. Ah, it pierces through the darkness of that
+      shrouding night. It shines to-day. Still sparkles the Star in the East. He
+      is that Star.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing that can take from mankind&mdash;even doubting mankind&mdash;the
+      spirit of Christ and the Christmas season. Our celebrations do not rest
+      upon the conclusions of logic, or the demonstrations of philosophy; I
+      would not even argue that they depend inevitably or absolutely upon the
+      possession of a certain faith in Jesus, but we accept Christmas,
+      nevertheless; we endeavour to apply the Christmas spirit, for just once in
+      the year; it may be because we cannot, try as we may, crush out utterly
+      and entirely the divinity that is in us that makes for God. The stories
+      and tales for Christmas which have for their theme the hard heart softened
+      are not mere fictions of the imagination. They rest upon an instinctive
+      consciousness of a profound philosophic truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is the unpardonable sin, I wonder? Is it to be persistently and
+      forever unkind? Does it mean perhaps the absolute refusal to accept the
+      principle of love which is indeed creation&rsquo;s final law? The lessons of the
+      Christmastide are so many; the appeals that now may be made to humanity
+      crowd to the lips from full minds and fuller hearts. Might we not reduce
+      them all to the explication of the underlying principle of God&rsquo;s purpose
+      to us, as expressed in those themic words of love with which angels and
+      men greeted the advent of the Child on the first Christmas morning, &ldquo;Good
+      will toward men?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us then show our good will toward men by doing good and bringing
+      happiness to someone&mdash;if not to everyone&mdash;at this Christmas
+      season. Put aside the memories of disappointments, of sorrows that have
+      not vanished, of cares that still burden, and do good in spite of them
+      because you would not dim the brightness of the present for any human
+      heart with the shadows of old regrets. Do good because of a future which
+      opens possibilities before you, for others, if not for yourselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brethren, friends, all, let us make up our minds that we will be kindly
+      affectioned one to another in our homes and out of them, on this
+      approaching Christmas day. That the old debate, the ancient strife, the
+      rankling recollection, the sharp contention, shall be put aside, that
+      &ldquo;envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness&rdquo; shall be
+      done away with. Let us forgive and forget; but if we cannot forget let us
+      at least forgive. And so let there be peace between man and man at
+      Christmas&mdash;a truce of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us pray that Love shall come as a little child to our households. That
+      He shall be in our hearts and shall find His expression in all that we do
+      or say on this birthday of goodness and cheer for the world. Then let us
+      resolve that the spirit of the day shall be carried out through our lives,
+      that as Christ did not come for an hour, but for a lifetime, we would fain
+      become as little children on this day of days that we may begin a new life
+      of good will to men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us make this a new birthday of kindness and love that shall endure.
+      That is a Christmas hope, a Christmas wish. Let us give to it the gracious
+      expression of life among men.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/006.jpg" width="450" height="77" alt="[A Christmas Greeting (foot)]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/007.jpg" width="232" height="268" alt="[From A Far Country (Header)]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>FROM A FAR COUNTRY</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">
+      <i>Being a New Variation of an Ancient Theme</i><br /><br />
+      A STORY FOR GROWN-UPS
+    </p>
+
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>A certain man had two sons</i>&rdquo;&mdash;so begins the best and
+      most famous story in the world&rsquo;s literature. Use of the absolute
+      superlative is always dangerous, but none will gainsay that statement, I
+      am sure. This story, which follows that familiar tale afar off, indeed,
+      begins in the same way. And the parallelism between the two is exact up to
+      a certain point. What difference a little point doth make; like the little
+      fire, behold, how great a matter it kindleth! Indeed, lacking that one
+      detail the older story would have had no value; it would not have been
+      told; without its addition this would have been a repetition of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the modern young prodigal came to himself, when he found himself no
+      longer able to endure the husks of the swine like his ancient exemplar,
+      when he rose and returned to his father because of that distaste, he found
+      no father watching and waiting for him at the end of the road! Upon that
+      change the action of this story hangs. It was a pity, too, because the
+      elder brother was there and in a mood not unlike that of his famous
+      prototype.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, there was added to that elder brother&rsquo;s natural resentment at the
+      younger&rsquo;s course the blinding power of a great sorrow, for the father of
+      the two sons was dead. He had died of a broken heart. Possessed of no
+      omniscience of mind or vision, he had been unable to foresee the long
+      delayed turning point in the career of his younger son and death came too
+      swiftly to enable them to meet again. So long as he had strength, that
+      father had stood, as it were, at the top of the hill looking down the road
+      watching and hoping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And but the day before the tardy prodigal&rsquo;s return he had been laid away
+      with his own fathers in the God&rsquo;s acre around the village church in the
+      Pennsylvania hills. Therefore there was no fatted calf ready for the
+      disillusioned youth whose waywardness had killed his father. It will be
+      remembered that the original elder brother objected seriously to fatted
+      calves on such occasions. Indeed, the funeral baked meats would coldly
+      furnish forth a welcoming meal if any such were called for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For all his waywardness, for all his self-will, the younger son had loved
+      his father well, and it was a terrible shock to him (having come to his
+      senses) to find that he had returned too late. And for all his hardness
+      and narrowness the eldest son also had loved his father well&mdash;strong
+      tribute to the quality of the dead parent&mdash;and when he found himself
+      bereft he naturally visited wrath upon the head of him who he believed
+      rightly was the cause of the untimely death of the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he sat in the study, if such it might be called, of the departed,
+      before the old-fashioned desk with its household and farm and business
+      accounts, which in their order and method and long use were eloquent of
+      his provident and farseeing father, his heart was hot within his breast.
+      Grief and resentment alike gnawed at his vitals. They had received vivid
+      reports, even in the little town in which they dwelt, of the wild doings
+      of the wanderer, but they had enjoyed no direct communication with him.
+      After a while even rumour ceased to busy itself with the doings of the
+      youth. He had dropped out of their lives utterly after he passed over the
+      hills and far away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father had failed slowly for a time, only to break suddenly and
+      swiftly in the end. And the hurried frantic search for the missing had
+      brought no results. Ironically the god of chance had led the young man&rsquo;s
+      repentant footsteps to the door too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s father?&rdquo; cried John Carstairs to the startled woman who
+      stared at him as if she had seen a ghost as, at his knock, she opened the
+      door which he had found locked, not against him, but the hour was late and
+      it was the usual nightly precaution:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your brother is in your father&rsquo;s study, sir,&rdquo; faltered the
+      servant at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Umph! Will,&rdquo; said the man, his face changing. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather
+      see father first.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better see Mr. William, sir.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, Janet?&rdquo; asked young Carstairs anxiously.
+      &ldquo;Is father ill?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir! indeed I think you had bettor see Mr. William at once, Mr.
+      John.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strangely moved by the obvious agitation of the ancient servitor of the
+      house who had known him from childhood, John Carstairs hurried down the
+      long hall to the door of his father&rsquo;s study. Always a scapegrace,
+      generally in difficulties, full of mischief, he had approached that door
+      many times in fear of well merited punishment which was sure to be meted
+      out to him. And he came to it with the old familiar apprehension that
+      night, if from a different cause. He never dreamed that his father was
+      anything but ill. He must see his brother. He stood in no little awe of
+      that brother, who was his exact antithesis in almost everything. They had
+      not got along particularly well. If his father had been inside the door he
+      would have hesitated with his hand on the knob. If his father had not been
+      ill he would not have attempted to face his brother. But his anxiety,
+      which was increased by a sudden foreboding, for Janet, the maid, had
+      looked at him so strangely, moved him to quick action. He threw the door
+      open instantly. What he saw did not reassure him. William was clad in
+      funeral black. He wore a long frock coat instead of the usual knockabout
+      suit he affected on the farm. His face was white and haggard. There was an
+      instant interchange of names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;William!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is father ill?&rdquo; burst out the younger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Janet said&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead!&rdquo; interposed William harshly, all his indignation flaming
+      into speech and action as he confronted the cause of the disaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead! Good God!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God had nothing to do with it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Your drunken revelry, your reckless extravagance, your
+      dissipation with women, your unfeeling silence, your&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried the younger. &ldquo;I have come to my senses, I
+      can&rsquo;t bear it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll say it if it kills you. You did it, I repeat. He longed and
+      prayed and waited and you didn&rsquo;t come. You didn&rsquo;t write. We could hear
+      nothing. The best father on earth.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger man sank down in a chair and covered his face with his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When?&rdquo; he gasped out finally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three days ago.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have you&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is buried beside mother in the churchyard yonder. Now that you
+      are here I thank God that he didn&rsquo;t live to see what you have become.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The respectable elder brother&rsquo;s glance took in the disreputable younger,
+      his once handsome face marred&mdash;one doesn&rsquo;t foregather with swine in
+      the sty without acquiring marks of the association&mdash;his clothing in
+      rags. Thus errant youth, that was youth no longer, came back from that far
+      country. Under such circumstances one generally has to walk most of the
+      way. He had often heard the chimes at midnight, sleeping coldly in the
+      straw stack of the fields, and the dust of the road clung to his person.
+      Through his broken shoes his bare feet showed, and he trembled visibly as
+      the other confronted him, partly from hunger and weakness and shattered
+      nerves, and partly from shame and horror and for what reason God only
+      knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tall, handsome man in the long black coat, who towered over him so
+      grimly stern, was two years older than he, yet to the casual observer the
+      balance of time was against the prodigal by at least a dozen years.
+      However, he was but faintly conscious of his older brother. One word and
+      one sentence rang in his ear. Indeed, they beat upon his consciousness
+      until he blanched and quivered beneath their onslaught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead&mdash;you did it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, it was just. No mercy seasoned that justice in the heart of either
+      man. The weaker, self-accusing, sat silent with bowed head, his conscience
+      seconding the words of the stronger. The voice of the elder ran on with
+      growing, terrifying intensity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please stop,&rdquo; interposed the younger. He rose to his feet.
+      &ldquo;You are right, Will. You were always right and I was always wrong. I
+      did kill him. But you need not have told me with such bitterness. I
+      realized it the minute you said he was dead. It&rsquo;s true. And yet I was
+      honestly sorry. I came back to tell him so, to ask his forgiveness.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When your money was gone.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can say that, too,&rdquo; answered the other, wincing under the
+      savage thrust. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s as true as the rest probably, but sometimes a
+      man has to get down very low before he looks up. It was that way with me.
+      Well, I&rsquo;ve had my share and I&rsquo;ve had my fling. I&rsquo;ve no business here.
+      Good-bye.&rdquo; He turned abruptly away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t add more folly to what you have already done,&rdquo; returned
+      William Carstairs, and with the beginnings of a belated pity, he added,
+      &ldquo;stay here with me, there will be enough for us both and&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; he drew out of his pocket a roll of bills, &ldquo;take
+      these and when you want more&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn your money,&rdquo; burst out John Carstairs, passionately. He
+      struck the other&rsquo;s outstretched hand, and in his surprise, William
+      Carstairs let the bills scatter upon the floor. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want it&mdash;blood
+      money. Father is dead. I&rsquo;ve had mine. I&rsquo;ll trouble you no more.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and staggered out of the room. Now William Carstairs was a proud
+      man and John Carstairs had offended him deeply. He believed all that he
+      had said to his brother, yet there had been developing a feeling of pity
+      for him in his heart, and in his cold way he had sought to express it. His
+      magnanimity had been rejected with scorn. He looked down at the scattered
+      bills on the floor. Characteristically&mdash;for he inherited his father&rsquo;s
+      business ability without his heart&mdash;he stooped over and picked them
+      slowly up, thinking hard the while. He finally decided that he would give
+      his brother yet another chance for his father&rsquo;s sake. After all, they were
+      brethren. But the decision came too late. John Carstairs had stood not on
+      the order of his going, but had gone at once, none staying him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Carstairs stood in the outer door, the light from the hall behind
+      him streaming out into the night. He could see nothing. He called aloud,
+      but there was no answer. He had no idea where his younger brother had
+      gone. If he had been a man of finer feeling or quicker perception, perhaps
+      if the positions of the two had been reversed and he had been his younger
+      brother, he might have guessed that John might have been found beside the
+      newest mound in the churchyard, had one sought him there. But that idea
+      did not come to William, and after staring into the blackness for a long
+      time, he reluctantly closed the door. Perhaps the vagrant could be found
+      in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, there had been no father waiting for the prodigal at the end of the
+      road, and what a difference it had made to that wanderer and vagabond!
+    </p>
+
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We leave a blank line on the page and denote thereby that ten years have
+      passed. It was Christmas Eve, that is, it had been Christmas Eve when the
+      little children had gone to bed. Now midnight had passed and it was
+      already Christmas morning. In one of the greatest and most splendid houses
+      on the avenue two little children were nestled all snug in their beds in a
+      nursery. In an adjoining room sound sleep had quieted the nerves of the
+      usually vigilant and watchful nurse. But the little children were wakeful.
+      As always, visions of Santa Claus danced in their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were fearless children by nature and had been trained without the use
+      of bugaboos to keep them in the paths wherein they should go. On this
+      night of nights they had left the doors of their nursery open. The older,
+      a little girl of six, was startled, but not alarmed, as she lay watchfully
+      waiting, by a creaking sound as of an opened door in the library below.
+      She listened with a beating heart under the coverlet; cause of agitation
+      not fear, but hope. It might be, it must be Santa Claus, she decided.
+      Brother, aged four, was close at hand in his own small crib. She got out
+      of her bed softly so as not to disturb Santa Claus, or&mdash;more
+      important at the time&mdash;the nurse. She had an idea that Saint Nicholas
+      might not welcome a nurse, but she had no fear at all that he would not be
+      glad to see her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Need for a decision confronted her. Should she reserve the pleasure she
+      expected to derive from the interview for herself or should she share it
+      with little brother? There was a certain risk in arousing brother. He was
+      apt to awaken clamant, vociferous. Still, she resolved to try it. For one
+      thing, it seemed so selfish to see Santa Claus alone, and for another the
+      adventure would be a little less timorous taken together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slipping her feet into her bedroom slippers and covering her nightgown
+      with a little blanket wrap, she tip-toed over to brother&rsquo;s bed.
+      Fortunately, he too was sleeping lightly, and for a like reason. For a
+      wonder she succeeded in arousing him without any outcry on his part. He
+      was instantly keenly, if quietly, alive to the situation and its
+      fascinating possibilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be very quiet, John,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;But I think
+      Santa Claus is down in the library. We&rsquo;ll go down and catch him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother, as became the hardier male, disdained further protection of his
+      small but valiant person. Clad only in his pajamas and his slippers, he
+      followed sister out the door and down the stair. They went hand in hand,
+      greatly excited by the desperate adventure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What proportion of the millions who dwelt in the great city were children
+      of tender years only statisticians can say, but doubtless there were
+      thousands of little hearts beating with anticipation as the hearts of
+      those children beat, and perhaps there may have been others who were
+      softly creeping downstairs to catch Santa Claus unawares at that very
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One man at least was keenly conscious of one little soul who, with
+      absolutely nothing to warrant the expectation, nothing reasonable on which
+      to base joyous anticipation, had gone to bed thinking of Santa Claus and
+      hoping that, amidst equally deserving hundreds of thousands of obscure
+      children, this little mite in her cold, cheerless garret might not be
+      overlooked by the generous dispenser of joy. With the sublime trust of
+      childhood she had insisted upon hanging up her ragged stocking. Santa
+      Claus would have to be very careful indeed lest things should drop through
+      and clatter upon the floor. Her heart had beaten, too, although she
+      descended no stair in the great house. She, too, lay wakeful, uneasy,
+      watching, sleeping, drowsing, hoping. We may have some doubts about the
+      eternal springing of hope in the human breast save in the case of
+      childhood&mdash;thank God it is always verdant there!
+    </p>
+
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Now few people get so low that they do not love somebody, and I dare say
+      that no people get so low that somebody does not love them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Crackerjack,&rdquo; so called because of his super-excellence in his
+      chosen profession, was, or had been, a burglar and thief; a very ancient
+      and highly placed calling indeed. You doubtless remember that two thieves
+      comprised the sole companions and attendants of the Greatest King upon the
+      most famous throne in history. His sole court at the culmination of His
+      career. &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; was no exception to the general rule about
+      loving and being beloved set forth above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He loved the little lady whose tattered stocking swung in the breeze from
+      the cracked window. Also he loved the wretched woman who with himself
+      shared the honours of parentage to the poor but hopeful mite who was also
+      dreaming of Christmas and the morning. And his love inspired him to
+      action. Singular into what devious courses, utterly unjustifiable, even so
+      exalted and holy an emotion may lead fallible man. Love&mdash;burglary!
+      They do not belong naturally in association, yet slip cold, need, and
+      hunger in between and we may have explanation even if there be no
+      justification. Oh, Love, how many crimes are committed in thy name!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; would hardly have chosen Christmas eve for a
+      thieving expedition if there had been any other recourse. Unfortunately
+      there was none. The burglar&rsquo;s profession, so far as he had practised it,
+      was undergoing a timely eclipse. Time was when it had been lucrative, its
+      rewards great. Then the law, which is no respecter of professions of that
+      kind, had got him. &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; had but recently returned from
+      a protracted sojourn at an institution arranged by the State in its
+      paternalism for the reception and harbouring of such as he. The pitiful
+      dole with which the discharged prisoner had been unloaded upon a world
+      which had no welcome for him had been soon spent; even the hideous
+      prison-made clothes had been pawned, and some rags, which were yet the
+      rags of a free man, which had been preserved through the long period of
+      separation by his wife, gave him a poor shelter from the winter&rsquo;s cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That wife had been faithful to him. She had done the best she could for
+      herself and baby during the five years of the absence of the bread winner,
+      or in his case the bread taker would be the better phrase. She had eagerly
+      waited the hour of his release; her joy had been soon turned to
+      bitterness. The fact that he had been in prison had shut every door
+      against him and even closed the few that had been open to her. The three
+      pieces of human flotsam had been driven by the wind of adversity and
+      tossed. They knew not where to turn when jettisoned by society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Came Christmas Eve. They had no money and no food and no fire. Stop! The
+      fire of love burned in the woman&rsquo;s heart, the fire of hate in the man&rsquo;s.
+      Prison life usually completes the education in shame of the unfortunate
+      men who are thrust there. This was before the days in which humane men
+      interested themselves in prisons and prisoners and strove to awaken the
+      world to its responsibilities to, as well as the possibilities of, the
+      convict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; was a man of unusual character. Poverty,
+      remorse, drink, all the things that go to wreck men by forcing them into
+      evil courses had laid him low, and because he was a man originally of
+      education and ability, he had shone as a criminal. The same force of
+      character which made him super-burglar could change him from criminal to
+      man if by chance they could be enlisted in the endeavour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had involved the wife he had married in his misfortunes. She had been a
+      good woman, weaker than he, yet she stuck to him. God chose the weak thing
+      to rejuvenate the strong. In the prison he had enjoyed abundant leisure
+      for reflection. After he learned of the birth of his daughter he
+      determined to do differently when he was freed. Many men determine,
+      especially in the case of an ex-convict, but society usually determines
+      better&mdash;no, not better, but more strongly. Society had different
+      ideas. It was Brahministic in its religion. Caste? Yes, once a criminal
+      always a criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old girl,&rdquo; said the broken man, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s no use. I&rsquo;ve tried
+      to be decent for your sake and the kid&rsquo;s, but it can&rsquo;t be done. I can&rsquo;t
+      get honest work. They&rsquo;ve put the mark of Cain on me. They can take the
+      consequences. The kid&rsquo;s got to have some Christmas; you&rsquo;ve got to have
+      food and drink and clothes and fire. God, how cold it is! I&rsquo;ll go out and
+      get some.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there something else we can pawn?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there any work?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Work?&rdquo; laughed the man bitterly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tramped the city
+      over seeking it, and you, too. Now, I&rsquo;m going to get money&mdash;elsewhere.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where it&rsquo;s to be had.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Jack, think.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I thought, I&rsquo;d kill you and the kid and myself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps that would be better,&rdquo; said the woman simply. &ldquo;There
+      doesn&rsquo;t seem to be any place left for us.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t come to that yet,&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;Society owes
+      me a living and, by God, it&rsquo;s got to pay it to me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an oft-repeated, widely held assertion, whether fallacious or not
+      each may determine for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid,&rdquo; said the woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t be; nothing can be worse than this hell.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He kissed her fiercely. Albeit she was thin and haggard she was beautiful
+      to him. Then he bent over his little girl. He had not yet had sufficient
+      time since his release to get very well acquainted with her. She had been
+      born while he was in prison, but it had not taken any time at all for him
+      to learn to love her. He stared at her a moment. He bent to kiss her and
+      then stopped. He might awaken her. It is always best for the children of
+      the very poor to sleep. He who sleeps dines, runs the Spanish proverb. He
+      turned and kissed the little ragged stockings instead, and then he went
+      out. He was going to play&mdash;was it Santa Claus, indeed?
+    </p>
+
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The strange, illogical, ironical god of chance, or was it Providence
+      acting through some careless maid, had left an area window unlocked in the
+      biggest and newest house on the avenue. Any house would have been easy for
+      &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; if he had possessed the open sesame of his kit of
+      burglar&rsquo;s tools, but he had not had a jimmy in his hand since he was
+      caught with one and sent to Sing Sing. He had examined house after house,
+      trusting to luck as he wandered on, and, lo! fortune favoured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clock in a nearby church struck the hour of two. The areaway was dark.
+      No one was abroad. He plunged down the steps, opened the window and
+      disappeared. No man could move more noiselessly than he. In the still
+      night he knew how the slightest sounds are magnified. He had made none as
+      he groped his way through the back of the house, arriving at last in a
+      room which he judged to be the library. Then, after listening and hearing
+      nothing, he ventured to turn the button of a side light in a far corner of
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in a large apartment, beautifully furnished. Books and pictures
+      abounded, but these did not interest him, although if he had made further
+      examination he might have found things worthy of his attention even there.
+      It so happened that the light bracket to which he had blundered, or had
+      been led, was immediately over a large wall safe. Evidently it had been
+      placed there for the purpose of illuminating the safe door. His eyes told
+      him that instantly. This was greater fortune than he expected. A wall safe
+      in a house like that must contain things of value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marking the position of the combination knob, he turned out the light and
+      waited again. The quiet of the night continued unbroken. A swift
+      inspection convinced him that the lock was only an ordinary combination.
+      With proper&mdash;or improper&mdash;tools he could have opened it easily.
+      Even without tools, such were his delicately trained ear and his
+      wonderfully trained fingers that he thought he could feel and hear the
+      combination. He knelt down by the knob and began to turn it slowly,
+      listening and feeling for the fall of the tumblers. Several times he
+      almost got it, only to fail at the end, but by repeated trials and
+      unexampled patience, his heart beating like a trip-hammer the while, he
+      finally mastered the combination and opened the safe door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his excitement when he felt the door move he swung it outward sharply.
+      It had not been used for some time evidently and the hinges creaked. He
+      checked the door and listened again. Was he to be balked after so much
+      success? He was greatly relieved at the absence of sound. It was quite
+      dark in the room. He could see nothing but the safe. He reached his hand
+      in and discovered it was filled with bulky articles covered with some kind
+      of cloth, silver evidently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He decided that he must have a look and again he switched on the light.
+      Yes, his surmise had been correct. The safe was filled with silver. There
+      was a small steel drawer in the middle of it. He had a broad bladed
+      jack-knife in his pocket and at the risk of snapping the blade he forced
+      the lock and drew out the drawer. It was filled with papers. He lifted the
+      first one and stood staring at it in astonishment, for it was an envelope
+      which bore his name, written by a hand which had long since mouldered away
+      in the dust of a grave.
+    </p>
+
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Before he could open the envelope, there broke on his ear a still small
+      voice, not that of conscience, not that of God; the voice of a child&mdash;but
+      does not God speak perhaps as often through the lips of childhood as in
+      any other way&mdash;and conscience, too?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you Santa Claus?&rdquo; the voice whispered in his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; dropped the paper and turned like a flash, knife
+      upraised in his clenched hand, to confront a very little girl and a still
+      smaller boy staring at him in open-eyed astonishment, an astonishment
+      which was without any vestige of alarm. He looked down at the two and they
+      looked up at him, equal bewilderment on both sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,&rdquo; said the
+      younger of the twain, whose pajamas bespoke the nascent man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In all the books he has a long white beard. Where&rsquo;s yours?&rdquo;
+      asked the coming woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This innocent question no less than the unaffected simplicity and
+      sincerity of the questioner overpowered &ldquo;Crackerjack.&rdquo; He sank
+      back into a convenient chair and stared at the imperturbable pair. There
+      was a strange and wonderful likeness in the sweet-faced golden-haired
+      little girl before him to the worn, haggard, and ill-clad little girl who
+      lay shivering in the mean bed in the upper room where God was not&mdash;or
+      so he fancied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a little girl, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No voice had been or was raised above a whisper. It was a witching hour
+      and its spell was upon them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Helen had been &ldquo;Crackerjack&rsquo;s&rdquo; mother&rsquo;s name and it was the
+      name of his own little girl, and although everybody else called her Nell,
+      to him she was always Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my name&rsquo;s John,&rdquo; volunteered the other child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John!&rdquo; That was extraordinary!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your other name?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John William.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man stared again. Could this be coincidence merely? John was his own
+      name and William that of his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean what is your last name?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carstairs,&rdquo; answered the little girl. &ldquo;Now you tell us who
+      you are. You aren&rsquo;t Santa Claus, are you? I don&rsquo;t hear any reindeers
+      outside, or bells, and you haven&rsquo;t any pack, and you&rsquo;re not by the
+      fireplace where our stockings are.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus02"></a>
+<img src="images/008.jpg" width="415" height="500" alt="[I sought dat Santy
+Claus tame down de chimney,&rdquo; said the younger of the twain.]" />
+<p class="caption">&ldquo;I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,&rdquo;
+said the younger of the twain.</p>
+</div>
+
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the man, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not exactly Santa Claus, I&rsquo;m his
+      friend&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What should he say to these children? In his bewilderment for the moment
+      he actually forgot the letter which he still held tightly in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dat&rsquo;s muvver&rsquo;s safe,&rdquo; continued the little boy. &ldquo;She keeps
+      lots o&rsquo; things in it. It&rsquo;s all hers but dat drawer. Dat&rsquo;s papa&rsquo;s and&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I hear some one on the stairs,&rdquo; broke in the little
+      girl suddenly in great excitement. &ldquo;Maybe that&rsquo;s Santa Claus.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it is,&rdquo; said the man, who had also heard. &ldquo;You
+      wait and watch for him. I&rsquo;ll go outside and attend to his reindeer.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a movement to withdraw, but the girl caught him tightly by the
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are his friend,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can introduce us.
+      You know our names and&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The golden opportunity was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say a word,&rdquo; whispered the man quickly. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll
+      surprise him. Be very still.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached his hand up and turned out the light. He half hoped he might be
+      mistaken, or that in the darkness they would not be seen, but no. They all
+      heard the footsteps on the stair. They came down slowly, and it was
+      evident that whoever was approaching was using every precaution not to be
+      heard. &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; was in a frightful situation. He did not
+      know whether to jerk himself away from the two children, for the boy had
+      clasped him around the leg and the girl still held his hand, or whether to
+      wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The power of decision suddenly left him, for the steps stopped before the
+      door. There was a little click as a hand pressed a button on the wall and
+      the whole room was flooded with light from the great electrolier in the
+      centre. Well, the game was up. &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; had been crouching
+      low with the children. He rose to his feet and looked straightly enough
+      into the barrel of a pistol held by a tall, severe looking man in a rich
+      silk dressing robe, who confronted him in the doorway. Two words broke
+      from the lips of the two men, the same words that had fallen from their
+      lips when they met ten years before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John!&rdquo; cried the elder man, laying the weapon on a nearby
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will!&rdquo; answered &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; in the same breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As if to mark the eternal difference as before, the one was clothed in
+      habiliments of wealth and luxury, the other in the rags and tatters of
+      poverty and shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that isn&rsquo;t Santa Claus,&rdquo; instantly burst out the little
+      girl, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s papa.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dis is Santy Claus&rsquo;s friend, papa,&rdquo; said the little boy. &ldquo;We
+      were doin&rsquo; to su&rsquo;prise him. He said be very still and we minded.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So this is what you have come to, John,&rdquo; said the elder man,
+      but there was an unwonted gentleness in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear to God I didn&rsquo;t know it was your house. I just came in here
+      because the window was open.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other pointed to the safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you were&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I was. You don&rsquo;t suppose I wandered in for fun, do you?
+      I&rsquo;ve got a little girl of my own, and her name&rsquo;s Helen, too; our mother&rsquo;s
+      name.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other brother nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s hungry and cold and there&rsquo;s no Christmas for her or her
+      mother.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Santy has been here already,&rdquo; cried Master John Williams,
+      running toward the great fireplace, having just that moment discovered the
+      bulging stockings and piles of gifts. His sister made a move in the same
+      direction, for at the other corner hung her stocking and beneath it her
+      pile, but the man&rsquo;s hand unconsciously tightened upon her hand and she
+      stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stay with you,&rdquo; she said, after a moment of hesitation.
+      &ldquo;Tell me more about your Helen.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to tell.&rdquo; He released her hand roughly. &ldquo;You
+      musn&rsquo;t touch me,&rdquo; he added harshly. &ldquo;Go.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t go, my dear,&rdquo; said her father quickly. &ldquo;Indeed,
+      I think, perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is your Helen very poor?&rdquo; quietly asked the little girl,
+      possessing herself of his hand again, &ldquo;because if she is she can have&rdquo;&mdash;she
+      looked over at the pile of toys&mdash;&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll see. I&rsquo;ll give her
+      lots of things, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; broke out the younger man harshly, extending his
+      hand with the letter in it toward the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a letter to you from our father.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you kept it from me?&rdquo; cried the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read it,&rdquo; said William Carstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With trembling hands &ldquo;Crackerjack&rdquo; tore it open. It was a
+      message of love and forgiveness penned by a dying hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had had this then I might have been a different man,&rdquo; said
+      the poor wretch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another paper under it, or there should be, in the same
+      drawer,&rdquo; went on William Carstairs, imperturbably. &ldquo;Perhaps you
+      would better read that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Carstairs needed no second invitation. He turned to the open drawer
+      and took out the next paper. It was a copy of a will. The farm and
+      business had been left to William, but one half of it was to be held in
+      trust for his brother. The man read it and then he crushed the paper in
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that, too, might have saved me. My God!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+      been a drunken blackguard. I&rsquo;ve gone down to the very depths. I have been
+      in State&rsquo;s prison. I was, I am, a thief, but I never would have withheld a
+      dying man&rsquo;s forgiveness from his son. I never would have kept a poor
+      wretch who was crazy with shame and who drank himself into crime out of
+      his share of the property.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Animated by a certain fell purpose, he leaped across the room and seized
+      the pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and I have you now!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make you pay.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He levelled the weapon at his brother with a steady hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doin&rsquo; to do wif that pistol?&rdquo; said young John
+      William, curiously looking up from his stocking, while Helen cried out.
+      The little woman acted the better part. With rare intuition she came
+      quickly and took the left hand of the man and patted it gently. For one
+      thing, her father was not afraid, and that reassured her. John Carstairs
+      threw the pistol down again. William Carstairs had never moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;let me explain.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you explain away this?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can. Father&rsquo;s will was not opened until the day after you left. As
+      God is my judge I did not know he had written to you. I did not know he
+      had left anything to you. I left no stone unturned in an endeavour to find
+      you. I employed the best detectives in the land, but we found no trace of
+      you whatever. Why, John, I have only been sorry once that I let you go
+      that night, that I spoke those words to you, and that has been all the
+      time.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where does this come from?&rdquo; said the man, flinging his arm
+      up and confronting the magnificent room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It came from the old farm. There was oil on it and I sold it for a
+      great price. I was happily married. I came here and have been successful
+      in business. Half of it all is yours.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t take it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;John,&rdquo; said William Carstairs, &ldquo;I offered you money once
+      and you struck it out of my hand. You remember?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I am offering you now is your own. You can&rsquo;t strike it out of
+      my hand. It is not mine, but yours.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have it,&rdquo; protested the man. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too late. You
+      don&rsquo;t know what I&rsquo;ve been, a common thief. &lsquo;Crackerjack&rsquo; is my name. Every
+      policeman and detective in New York knows me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ve got a little Helen, too, haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; interposed
+      the little girl with wisdom and tact beyond her years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you said she was very poor and had no Christmas.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For her sake, John,&rdquo; said William Carstairs. &ldquo;Indeed you
+      must not think you have been punished alone. I have been punished, too.
+      I&rsquo;ll help you begin again. Here&rdquo;&mdash;he stepped closer to his
+      brother&mdash;&ldquo;is my hand.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other stared at it uncomprehendingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing in it now but affection. Won&rsquo;t you take it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly John Carstairs lifted his hand. His palm met that of his elder
+      brother. He was so hungry and so weak and so overcome that he swayed a
+      little. His head bowed, his body shook and the elder brother put his arm
+      around him and drew him close.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into the room came William Carstairs&rsquo; wife. She, too, had at last been
+      aroused by the conversation, and, missing her husband, she had thrown a
+      wrapper about her and had come down to seek him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We tame down to find Santy Claus,&rdquo; burst out young John
+      William, at the sight of her, &ldquo;and he&rsquo;s been here, look muvver.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Santa Claus had indeed been there. The boy spoke better than he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this,&rdquo; said little Helen eagerly, pointing proudly to her
+      new acquaintance, &ldquo;is a friend of his, and he knows papa and he&rsquo;s got
+      a little Helen and we&rsquo;re going to give her a Merry Christmas.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Carstairs had no secrets from his wife. With a flash of womanly
+      intuition, although she could not understand how he came to be there, she
+      divined who this strange guest was who looked a pale, weak picture of her
+      strong and splendid husband, and yet she must have final assurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is this gentleman, William?&rdquo; she asked quietly, and John
+      Carstairs was forever grateful to her for her word that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; said William Carstairs, &ldquo;is my father&rsquo;s son, my
+      brother, who was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, as it began with the beginning, this story ends with the ending of
+      the best and most famous of all the stories that were ever told.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/009.jpg" width="450" height="81" alt="[From A Far Country (foot)]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/010.jpg" width="450" height="220" alt="[On Christmas Giving (head)]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>ON CHRISTMAS GIVING</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">
+      <i>Being a Word of Much Needed Advice</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate God&rsquo;s
+      ineffable gift of Himself to His children. No human soul has ever been
+      able to realize the full significance of that gift, no heart has ever been
+      glad enough to contain the joy of it, and no mind has ever been wise
+      enough to express it. Nevertheless we powerfully appreciate the blessing
+      and would fain convey it fitly. Therefore to commemorate that great gift
+      the custom of exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has grown until it
+      has become well nigh universal. This is a day in which we ourselves crave,
+      as never at any other time, happiness and peace for those we love and that
+      ought to include everybody, for with the angelic message in our ears it
+      should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas day however we may feel
+      before or after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many
+      instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method of
+      exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is not a time for
+      extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to
+      purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves. To
+      paraphrase Polonius, &ldquo;Costly thy gift as thy purse can buy, rich but
+      not expressed in fancy, for the gift oft proclaims the man.&rdquo; In
+      making presents observe three principal facts; the length of your purse,
+      the character of your friend, and the universal rule of good taste. Do not
+      plunge into extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in
+      months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle. On the other
+      hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not that; avoid
+      selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather no gift at all than
+      a grudging one. Let your offerings represent yourselves and your
+      affections. Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at
+      all. &ldquo;The gift without the giver is bare.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity. The <i>lex
+      talionis</i> has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think or feel that
+      you must give to someone because someone gave to you. There is no barter
+      about it. You give because you love and without a thought of return.
+      Credit others with the same feeling and be governed thereby. I know one
+      upon whose Christmas list there are over one hundred and fifty people,
+      rich and poor, high and low, able and not able. That man would be dismayed
+      beyond measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to make a return
+      for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day. Let your
+      gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle
+      consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your
+      abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men. Hunt up somebody who
+      needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness,
+      and disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To gorge one&rsquo;s
+      self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is not the noblest
+      method of commemorating the day. The rules and laws of digestion are not
+      abrogated upon the Holy day. These are material cautions, the day has a
+      spiritual significance of which material manifestations are, or ought to
+      be, outward and visible expressions only.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year, then
+      as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around the
+      table of the Lord, kneeling before God&rsquo;s altar in the ministering of that
+      Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and the
+      future&mdash;the communion of the saints of God&rsquo;s Holy Church with His
+      Beloved Son. Then and thus in body, soul, and spirit we do truly
+      participate in the privilege and blessing of the Incarnation, then and
+      there we receive that strength which enables everyone of us to become
+      factors in the great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout
+      the ages and throughout the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us therefore on this Holy Natal Day, from which the whole world dates
+      its time, begin on our knees before that altar which is at once manger,
+      cross, throne. Let us join thereafter in holy cheer of praise and prayer
+      and exhortation and Christmas carol, and then let us go forth with a
+      Christmas spirit in our hearts resolved to communicate it to the children
+      of men, and not merely for the day but for the future. To make the right
+      use of these our privileges, this it is to save the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this spirit, therefore, so far as poor, fallible human nature permits
+      him to realize it and exhibit it, the author wishes all his readers which
+      at present comprise his only flock&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p class="center">
+      A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/011.jpg" width="450" height="165" alt="[On Christmas Giving (end)]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/012.jpg" width="450" height="232" alt="[It Was the Same Christmas Morning (head)]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IT WAS THE SAME CHRISTMAS MORNING</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+      <i>In Which it is Shown how Different the Same Things may Be</i>
+    </p>
+
+<p class="center">
+      <i>A Story for Girls</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Philadelphia the rich and the poor live cheek by jowl&mdash;or rather,
+      back to back. Between the streets of the rich and parallel to them, run
+      the alleys of the poor. The rich man&rsquo;s garage jostles elbows with the poor
+      man&rsquo;s dwelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a big house fronting on one of the most fashionable streets lived a
+      little girl named Ethel. Other people lived in the big house also, a
+      father, a mother, a butler, a French maid, and a host of other servants.
+      Back of the big house was the garage. Facing the garage on the other side
+      of the alley was a little, old one-story-and-a-half brick house. In this
+      house dwelt a little girl named Maggie. With her lived her father who was
+      a labourer; her mother, who took in washing; and half a dozen brothers,
+      four of whom worked at something or other, while the two littlest went to
+      school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethel and Maggie never played together. Their acquaintance was simply a
+      bowing one&mdash;better perhaps, a smiling one. From one window in the big
+      playroom which was so far to one side of the house that Ethel could see
+      past the garage and get a glimpse of the window of the living-room in
+      Maggie&rsquo;s house, the two little girls at first stared at each other. One
+      day Maggie nodded and smiled, then Ethel, feeling very much frightened,
+      for she had been cautioned against playing with or noticing the children
+      in the alley, nodded and smiled back. Now neither of the children felt
+      happy unless they had held a pantomimic conversation from window to window
+      at some time during the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Christmas morning. Ethel awoke very early, as all properly
+      organized children do on that day at least. She had a beautiful room in
+      which she slept alone. Adjacent to it, in another room almost as
+      beautiful, slept Celeste, her mamma&rsquo;s French maid. Ethel had been
+      exquisitely trained. She lay awake a long time before making a sound or
+      movement, wishing it were time to arise. But Christmas was strong upon
+      her, the infection of the season was in her blood. Presently she slipped
+      softly out of bed, pattered across the room, paused at the door which gave
+      entrance to the hall which led to her mother&rsquo;s apartments, then turned and
+      plumped down upon Celeste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merry Christmas,&rdquo; she cried shaking the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To awaken Celeste was a task of some difficulty. Ordinarily the French
+      woman would have been indignant at being thus summarily routed out before
+      the appointed hour but something of the spirit of Christmas had touched
+      her as well. She answered the salutation of the little girl kindly enough,
+      but as she sat up in bed she lifted a reproving finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you mus&rsquo; keep ze silence, Mademoiselle
+      Ethel. Madame, v&ocirc;tre maman, she say she mus&rsquo; not be disturb&rsquo; in ze
+      morning. She haf been out ver&rsquo; late in ze night and she haf go to ze bed
+      ver&rsquo; early. She say you mus&rsquo; be ver&rsquo; quiet on ze Matin de No&euml;l!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be quiet, Celeste,&rdquo; answered the little girl, her lip
+      quivering at the injunction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so hard to be repressed all the time but especially on Christmas
+      Day of all others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zen I will help you to dress immediatement, and zen Villiam, he vill
+      call us to see ze tree.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had the captious little girl been more docile, more obedient.
+      Dressing Ethel that morning was a pleasure to Celeste. Scarcely had she
+      completed the task and put on her own clothing when there was a tap on the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vat is it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mornin&rsquo;, Miss Celeste,&rdquo; spoke a heavy voice outside, a voice
+      subdued to a decorous softness of tone, &ldquo;if you an&rsquo; Miss Ethel are
+      ready, the tree is lit, an&rsquo;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ve air ready, Monsieur Villiam,&rdquo; answered Celeste, throwing
+      open the door dramatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethel opened her mouth to welcome the butler&mdash;for if that solemn and
+      portentous individual ever unbent it was to Miss Ethel, whom in his heart
+      of hearts he adored&mdash;but he placed a warning finger to his lip and
+      whispered in an awestruck voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The master, your father, came in late last night, Miss, an&rsquo; he said
+      there must be no noise or racket this morning.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ethel nodded sadly, her eyes filling at her disappointment; William then
+      marched down the hall with a stately magnificence peculiar to butlers, and
+      opened the door into the playroom. He flung it wide and stood to one side
+      like a grenadier, as Celeste and Ethel entered. There was a gorgeous tree,
+      beautifully trimmed. William had bought the tree and Celeste&rsquo;s French
+      taste had adorned it. It was a sight to delight any child&rsquo;s eyes and the
+      things strewn around it on the floor were even more attractive. Everything
+      that money could buy, that Celeste and William could think of was there.
+      Ethel&rsquo;s mother had given her maid carte blanche to buy the child whatever
+      she liked, and Ethel&rsquo;s father had done the same with William. The two had
+      pooled their issue and the result was a toyshop dream. Ethel looked at the
+      things in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you like it, Miss?&rdquo; asked William at last rather
+      anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle is not pleased?&rdquo; questioned the French woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&mdash;it&mdash;is lovely,&rdquo; faltered the little girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We haf selected zem ourselves.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Miss.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t mamma&mdash;buy anything&mdash;or papa&mdash;or Santa?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zey tell us to get vatever you vould like and nevair mind ze money.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was so good of you, I am sure,&rdquo; said Ethel struggling
+      valiantly against disappointment almost too great to bear. &ldquo;Everything
+      is beautiful but&mdash;I&mdash;wish mamma or papa had&mdash;I wish they
+      were here&mdash;I&rsquo;d like them to wish me a Merry Christmas.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little lip trembled but the upper teeth came down on it firmly. The
+      child had courage. William looked at Celeste and Celeste shrugged her
+      shoulders, both knowing what was lacking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry Christmas, an&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;the
+      butler began bravely, but the situation was too much for him. &ldquo;There
+      goes the master&rsquo;s bell,&rdquo; he said quickly and turned and stalked out
+      of the room gravely, although no bell had summoned him.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus03"></a>
+<img src="images/013.jpg" width="385" height="550" alt="[&ldquo;I am sure, Miss,
+that they do wish you a Merry Christmas.&rdquo;]" />
+<p class="caption">&ldquo;I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry Christmas.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may go, Celeste,&rdquo; said Ethel with a dignity not unlike her
+      mother&rsquo;s manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid shrugged her shoulders again, left the room and closed the door.
+      Everything was lovely, everything was there except that personal touch
+      which means so much even to the littlest girl. Ethel was used to being
+      cared for by others than her parents but it came especially hard on her
+      this morning. She turned, leaving the beautiful things as they were placed
+      about the tree, and walked to the end window whence she could get a view
+      of the little house beyond the garage over the back wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a Christmas tree in Maggie&rsquo;s house too. It wouldn&rsquo;t have made a
+      respectable branch for Ethel&rsquo;s tree, and the trimmings were so cheap and
+      poor that Celeste would have thrown them into the waste basket
+      immediately. There were a few common, cheap, perishable little toys around
+      the tree on the floor but to Maggie it was a glimpse of heaven. She stood
+      in her little white night-gown&mdash;no such thing as dressing for her on
+      Christmas morning&mdash;staring around her. The whole family was grouped
+      about her, even the littlest brothers, who went to school because they
+      were not big enough to work, forgot their own joy in watching their little
+      sister. Her father, her mother, the big boys all in a state of more or
+      less dishevelled undress stood around her, pointing out first one thing
+      and then another which they had been able to get for her by denying
+      themselves some of the necessities of life. Maggie was so happy that her
+      eyes brimmed, yet she did not cry. She laughed, she clapped her hands, and
+      kissed them all round and finally found herself, a big orange in one hand,
+      a tin trumpet in the other, perched upon her father&rsquo;s broad shoulders
+      leading a frantic march around the narrow confines of the living-room. As
+      she passed by the one window she caught a glimpse of the alley. It had
+      been snowing throughout the night and the ground was white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; she screamed with delight, &ldquo;let me see the snow on
+      Christmas morning.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father walked over to the window, parted the cheap lace curtains,
+      while Maggie clapped her hands gleefully at the prospect. Presently she
+      lifted her eyes and looked toward the other window high up in the air,
+      where Ethel stood, a mournful little figure. Maggie&rsquo;s papa looked too. He
+      knew how cheap and poor were the little gifts he had bought for his
+      daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;that she could have some of the
+      things that child up there has.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maggie however was quite content. She smiled, flourished her trumpet,
+      waved her orange, but there was no answering smile on Ethel&rsquo;s face now.
+      Finally the wistful little girl in the big house languidly waved her hand,
+      and then Maggie was taken away to be dressed lest she should catch cold
+      after the mischief was done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that she&rsquo;s having a nice Christmas,&rdquo; said Maggie,
+      referring to Ethel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope so too,&rdquo; answered her mother, wishing that her little
+      girl might have some of the beautiful gifts she knew must be in the great
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whatever she has,&rdquo; said Maggie, gleefully, &ldquo;she can&rsquo;t have
+      any nicer Christmas than I have, that you and papa and the boys gave me.
+      I&rsquo;m just as happy as I can be.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over in the big house, Ethel was also wishing. She was so unhappy since
+      she had seen Maggie in the arms of her big, bearded father, standing by
+      the window, that she could control herself no longer. She turned away and
+      threw herself down on the floor in front of the tree and buried her face
+      in her hands bursting into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Christmas morning and she was all alone.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/014.jpg" width="450" height="151" alt="[It Was the Same Christmas Morning (end)]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/015.jpg" width="171" height="250" alt="[A Christmas Carol (head)]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>A CHRISTMAS CAROL</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;<i>Christmas Then and Now</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The Stars look down</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">On David&rsquo;s town,</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">While angels sing in Winter night;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The Shepherds pray,</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">And far away</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">The Wise Men follow guiding light.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Little Christ Child</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">By Mary Mild</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">In Manger lies without the Inn;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of Man the Son,</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">Yet God in One,</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">To save the lost in World of Sin.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Still stars look down</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">On David&rsquo;s town</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">And still the Christ Child dwells with men,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">What thought give we</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">To such as He,</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">Or souls who live in Sin as then?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Show we our love</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">To Him above</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">By offering others&rsquo; grief to share;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And Christmas cheer</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 5em;">For all the year</span><br /> <span
+style="margin-left: 3em;">Bestow to lighten pain and care.</span><br />
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus04"></a>
+<img src="images/016.jpg" width="370" height="600" alt="[The Stars Look Down (music page one)]" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/017.jpg" width="371" height="600" alt="[The Stars Look Down (music page two)]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/018.jpg" width="270" height="200" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>THE LONE SCOUT&rsquo;S CHRISTMAS</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">
+      <i>Wherein is Set Forth the Courage and Resourcefulness of Youth</i>
+    </p>
+    <p class="center">
+      <i>A Story for Boys</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every boy likes snow on Christmas Day, but there is such a thing as too
+      much of it. Henry Ives, alone in the long railroad coach, stared out of
+      the clouded windows at the whirling mass of snow with feelings of dismay.
+      It was the day before Christmas, almost Christmas Eve. Henry did not feel
+      any too happy, indeed he had hard work to keep down a sob. His mother had
+      died but a few weeks before and his father, the captain of a freighter on
+      the Great Lakes, had decided, very reluctantly, to send him to his brother
+      who had a big ranch in western Nebraska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry had never seen his uncle or his aunt. He did not know what kind of
+      people they were. The loss of his mother had been a terrible blow to him
+      and to be separated from his father had filled his cup of sorrow to the
+      brim. His father&rsquo;s work did not end with the close of navigation on the
+      lakes, and he could not get away then although he promised to come and see
+      Henry before the ice broke and traffic was resumed in the spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long journey from the little Ohio town on Lake Erie to western
+      Nebraska had been without mishap. His uncle&rsquo;s ranch lay far away from the
+      main line of the railroad on the end of the branch. There was but one
+      train a day upon it, and that was a mixed train. The coach in which Henry
+      sat was attached to the end of a long string of freight cars. Travel was
+      infrequent in that section of the country. On this day Henry was the only
+      passenger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train had been going up-grade for many miles and had just about
+      reached the crest of the divide. Bucking the snow had become more and more
+      difficult; several times the train had stopped. Sometimes the engine
+      backed the train some distance to get headway to burst through the drift.
+      So Henry thought nothing of it when the car came to a gentle stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The all-day storm blew from the west and the front windows of the car were
+      covered with snow so he could not see ahead. Some time before the
+      conductor and rear brakeman had gone forward to help dig the engine out of
+      the drift and they had not come back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry sat in silence for some time watching the whirling snow. He was sad;
+      even the thought of the gifts of his father and friends in his trunk which
+      stood in the baggage compartment of the car did not cheer him. More than
+      all the Christmas gifts in the world, he wanted at that time his mother
+      and father and friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t look as though it was going to be a very merry Christmas
+      for me,&rdquo; he said aloud at last, and then feeling a little stiff from
+      having sat still so long he got up and walked to the front of the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was warm and pleasant in the coach. The Baker heater was going at full
+      blast and Henry noticed that there was plenty of coal. He tried to see out
+      from the front door; but as he was too prudent to open it and let in the
+      snow and cold he could make out nothing. The silence rather alarmed him.
+      The train had never waited so long before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, suddenly, came the thought that something very unusual was wrong. He
+      must get a look at the train ahead. He ran back to the rear door, opened
+      it and standing on the leeward side, peered forward. The engine and
+      freight cars were not there! All he saw was the deep cut filled nearly to
+      the height of the car with snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was of a mechanical turn of mind and he realized that doubtless the
+      coupling had broken. That was what had happened. The trainmen had not
+      noticed it and the train had gone on and left the coach. The break had
+      occurred at the crest of the divide and the train had gone rapidly down
+      hill on the other side. The amount of snow told the boy that it would not
+      be possible for the train to back up and pick up the car. He was alone in
+      the wilderness of rolling hills in far western Nebraska. And this was
+      Christmas Eve!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was enough to bring despair to any boy&rsquo;s heart. But Henry Ives was made
+      of good stuff, he was a first-class Boy Scout and on his scout coat in the
+      trunk were four Merit Badges. He had the spirit of his father, who had
+      often bucked the November storms on Lake Superior in his great
+      six-hundred-foot freighter, and danger inspired him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went back into the car, closed the door, and sat down to think it over.
+      He had very vague ideas as to how long such a storm would last and how
+      long he might be kept prisoner. He did not even know just where he was or
+      how far it was to the end of the road and the town where his uncle&rsquo;s ranch
+      lay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was growing dark so he lighted one of the lamps close to the heater and
+      had plenty of light. In doing so he noticed in the baggage rack a dinner
+      pail. He remembered that the conductor had told him that his wife had
+      packed that dinner pail and although it did not belong to the boy he felt
+      justified in appropriating it in such circumstances. It was full of food&mdash;eggs,
+      sandwiches, and a bottle of coffee. He was not very hungry but he ate a
+      sandwich. He was even getting cheerful about the situation because he had
+      something to do. It was an adventure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he had been eating, the storm had died away. Now he discovered that
+      it had stopped snowing. All around him the country was a hilly, rolling
+      prairie. The cut ran through a hill which seemed to be higher than others
+      in the neighbourhood. If he could get on top of it he might see where he
+      was. Although day was ending it was not yet dark and Henry decided upon an
+      exploration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he could not walk on foot in that deep and drifted snow without
+      sinking over his head under ordinary conditions, but his troop had done a
+      great deal of winter work, and strapped alongside of his big, telescope
+      grip were a pair of snow-shoes which he himself had made, and with the use
+      of which he was thoroughly familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mustn&rsquo;t spoil this new suit,&rdquo; he told himself, so he ran to
+      the baggage-room of the car, opened his trunk, got out his Scout uniform
+      and slipped into it in a jiffy. &ldquo;Glad I ran in that &lsquo;antelope
+      dressing race,&rsquo;&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;ll beat my former record
+      now.&rdquo; Over his khaki coat he put on his heavy sweater, then donned
+      his wool cap and gloves, and with his snow-shoes under his arm hurried
+      back to the rear platform. The snow was on a level with the platform. It
+      rose higher as the coach reached into the cut. He saw that he would have
+      to go down some distance before he could turn and attempt the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had used his snow-shoes many times in play but this was the first time
+      they had ever been of real service to him. Thrusting his toes into the
+      straps he struck out boldly.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus05"></a>
+<img src="images/019.jpg" width="364" height="600" alt="[&ldquo;Thrusting his
+toes into the straps he struck out boldly.&rdquo;]" />
+<p class="caption">&ldquo;Thrusting his toes into the straps he struck out boldly.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+    <p>
+      To his delight he got along without the slightest difficulty although he
+      strode with great care. He gained the level and in ten minutes found
+      himself on the top of the hill, where he could see miles and miles of
+      rolling prairie. He turned himself slowly about, to get a view of the
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As his glance swept the horizon, at first it did not fall upon a single,
+      solitary thing except a vast expanse of snow. There was not a tree even.
+      The awful loneliness filled him with dismay. He had about given up when,
+      in the last quarter of the horizon he saw, perhaps a quarter of a mile
+      away, what looked like a fine trickle of blackish smoke that appeared to
+      rise from a shapeless mound that bulged above the monotonous level.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Smoke means fire, and fire means man,&rdquo; he said, excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sky was rapidly clearing. A few stars had already appeared.
+      Remembering what he had learned on camp and trail, he took his bearing by
+      the stars; he did not mean to get lost if he left that hill. Looking back,
+      he could see the car, the lamp of which sent broad beams of light through
+      the windows across the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he plunged down the hill, thanking God in his boyish heart for the
+      snow-shoes and his knowledge of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not take him long to reach the mound whence the smoke rose. It was
+      a sod house, he found, built against a sharp knoll, which no doubt formed
+      its rear wall. The wind had drifted the snow, leaving a half-open way to
+      the door. Noiselessly the boy slipped down to it, drew his feet from the
+      snow-shoes and knocked. There was a burst of sound inside. It made his
+      heart jump, but he was reassured by the fact that the voices were those of
+      children. What they said he could not make out; but, without further ado,
+      he opened the door and entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a fairly large room. There were two beds in it, a stove, a table, a
+      chest of drawers and a few chairs. From one of the beds three heads stared
+      at him. As each head was covered with a wool cap, drawn down over the
+      ears, like his own, he could not make out who they were. There were dishes
+      on the table, but they were empty. The room was cold, although it was
+      evident that there was still a little fire in the stove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; came from one of the heads in the bed. &ldquo;I thought you
+      were my father. What is your name?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name,&rdquo; answered the boy, &ldquo;is Henry Ives. I was left
+      behind alone in the railroad car about a mile back, and saw the smoke from
+      your house and here I am.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you brought us anything to burn?&rdquo; asked the second head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or anything to eat?&rdquo; questioned the third.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Mary Wright,&rdquo; said the first speaker, &ldquo;and
+      these are my brothers George and Philip. Father went away yesterday
+      morning with the team, to get some coal and some food. He went to Kiowa.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where I am going,&rdquo; interrupted Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continued Mary, &ldquo;I suppose he can&rsquo;t get back because
+      of the snow. It&rsquo;s an awful storm.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t anything to eat, and I don&rsquo;t know when father will be
+      back,&rdquo; said George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s Christmas Eve,&rdquo; wailed Philip, who appeared to be
+      about seven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He set up a howl about this which his brother George, who was about nine,
+      had great difficulty in quieting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We put the last shovelful of coal in the stove,&rdquo; said Mary
+      Wright, &ldquo;and got into bed to keep warm.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go outside while you get up and dress,&rdquo; said Henry
+      considerately, &ldquo;and then we will try and get to the car. It is warm
+      there, and there is something to eat.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t go,&rdquo; said the girl; &ldquo;we are all dressed.&rdquo;
+      She threw back the covers and sprang out of bed. She was very pretty and
+      about Henry&rsquo;s own age, he discovered, although she was pale and haggard
+      with cold and hunger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goody, goody!&rdquo; exclaimed little Philip, as his feet landed on
+      the floor. &ldquo;Maybe we&rsquo;ll have some Christmas, too.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe we will,&rdquo; said Henry, smiling at him. &ldquo;At least we
+      will have something to eat.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let&rsquo;s start right away then,&rdquo; urged George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This brought Henry face to face with a dilemma. &ldquo;I have only one pair
+      of snow-shoes,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;and you probably don&rsquo;t know
+      how to use them anyway, and you can&rsquo;t walk on the snow.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a sled,&rdquo; suggested George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That won&rsquo;t do,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to have something
+      that won&rsquo;t sink in the snow&mdash;that will lie flat, so I can draw you
+      along.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about that table?&rdquo; said the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good suggestion,&rdquo; cried Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was nothing but a common kitchen table. He turned it upside down, took
+      his Scout axe from its sheath, knocked the legs off, fastened a piece of
+      clothesline to the butts of two of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now if I could have something to turn up along the front, so as not
+      to dig into the snow,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it would be fine.&rdquo; He
+      thought a moment. &ldquo;Where is that sled of yours, George?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said George, dragging it forth. The runners curved
+      upwards. Henry cut them off, in spite of Philip&rsquo;s protests. He nailed
+      these runners to the front of the table and stretched rope tightly across
+      them so that he had four up-curves in front of the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I want something to stretch on these things, so as to let the
+      sled ride over the snow, instead of digging into it,&rdquo; he said to the
+      girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She brought him her father&rsquo;s old &ldquo;slicker.&rdquo; Henry cut it into
+      suitable shape and nailed and lashed it securely to the runners and to the
+      table top. Now he had a flat-bottomed sled with a rising front to it that
+      would serve. He smiled as he looked at the queer contrivance and said
+      aloud: &ldquo;I wish Mr. Lesher could see that!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is Mr. Lesher?&rdquo; asked George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s my Scoutmaster back in Ohio. Now come on!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened the door, drew the sled outside, pushed it up on the snow and
+      stepped on it. It bore his weight perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;But it won&rsquo;t take all three of
+      you at once.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll wait,&rdquo; said Mary, &ldquo;you take the two boys.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll surely come back for me?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, and I think it&rsquo;s mighty brave of you to stay behind. Now
+      come on, boys,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving Mary filled with pleasure at such praise, he put the two boys
+      carefully into the sled, stepped into his snow-shoes and dragged them
+      rapidly across the prairie. It was quite dark now, but the sky was clear
+      and the stars were bright. The storm had completely stopped. He remembered
+      the bearings he had taken by the stars, and reached the high hill without
+      difficulty. Below him lay the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently he drew up before the platform. He put the boys in the car, told
+      them to go up to the fire and warm themselves and not to touch anything.
+      Then he went back for the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think I was not coming?&rdquo; he asked as he re-entered the
+      cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you would come back,&rdquo; said the girl and it was Henry&rsquo;s
+      turn to tingle with pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrapped her up carefully, and fairly ran back to the car. They found
+      the boys warm and comfortable and greatly excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we just had a Christmas tree and Santa Claus and something to eat
+      and a drink of water and a place to sleep,&rdquo; said the youngest boy,
+      &ldquo;it would be great fun.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid we can&rsquo;t manage the Christmas tree,&rdquo; said Henry,
+      &ldquo;but we can have everything else.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean Santy?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Santy too,&rdquo; answered the boy. &ldquo;First of all, we will get
+      something to eat.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t had anything since morning,&rdquo; said the girl. Henry
+      divided the sandwiches into three portions. As it happened, there were
+      three hard-boiled eggs. He gave one portion to each of his guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t left any for yourself,&rdquo; said Mary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ate before I looked for you,&rdquo; answered Henry, although the
+      one sandwich had by no means satisfied his hunger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My, but this is good!&rdquo; said George.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our mother is dead,&rdquo; said Mary Wright after a pause, &ldquo;and
+      our father is awful poor. He has taken out a homestead and we are trying
+      to live on it until he gets it proved up. We have had a very hard time
+      since mother died.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know,&rdquo; said Henry, gravely; &ldquo;my mother died, too.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what time it is?&rdquo; asked the girl at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry pulled out his watch. &ldquo;It is after six o&rsquo;clock,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; broke in George, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s a funny kind of a uniform
+      you&rsquo;ve got on.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a Boy Scout uniform.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, is it?&rdquo; exclaimed George. &ldquo;I never saw one before. I
+      wish I could be a Scout!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe you can,&rdquo; answered Henry. &ldquo;I am going to organize a
+      troop when I get to Kiowa. But now I&rsquo;m going to fix beds for you. Of
+      course we are all sleepy after such a hard day.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had seen the trainmen lift up the bottoms of the seats and lay them
+      lengthwise of the car. He did this, and soon made four fairly comfortable
+      beds. The two nearest the stove he gave to the boys. He indicated the next
+      one was for Mary, and the one further down toward the middle of the car
+      was for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can all go to bed right away,&rdquo; he said when he had made his
+      preparations. The two boys decided to accept this advice. Mary said she
+      would stay up a little longer and talk with Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t undress,&rdquo; she said to the two boys. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have
+      to sleep as you are.&rdquo; She sat down in one of the car seats; Philip
+      knelt down at one knee and George at the other. The girl, who was barely
+      fifteen had already taken her mother&rsquo;s place. She laid her hand on each
+      bent head and listened while one after the other the boys said their
+      prayers. She kissed them good-night, saw them comfortably laid out on the
+      big cushions with their overcoats for pillows and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; began Philip, &ldquo;you forgot something, Mary.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I forgotten, dear?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s Christmas Eve and we must hang up our stockings.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary threw up her hands. &ldquo;I am afraid this is too far away for Santa
+      Claus. He won&rsquo;t know that we are out here,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Henry, thinking rapidly, &ldquo;let them
+      hang them up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mary looked at him in surprise. &ldquo;They haven&rsquo;t any to hang up,&rdquo;
+      she said. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t take those they&rsquo;re wearing.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have thought of that,&rdquo; wailed Philip, &ldquo;before
+      you brought us here.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have some extra ones in my bag,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;We will
+      hang them up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened the bag and brought out three stockings, one for each of his
+      guests. He fastened them to the baggage racks above the seats and watched
+      the two boys contentedly close their eyes and go to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will be awfully disappointed when they wake up in the morning
+      and do not find anything in them,&rdquo; said Mary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to find something in them,&rdquo; said Henry
+      confidently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the end of the car, opened his trunk and lifted out various
+      packages which had been designed for him. Of course he was going on
+      sixteen, but there were some things that would do for Philip and plenty of
+      things for George and some good books that he had selected himself that
+      would do for Mary. Then there were candy and nuts and cakes and oranges
+      galore. Mary was even more excited than he was as they filled the boys&rsquo;
+      stockings and arranged things that were too big to go in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are your own Christmas gifts, I know,&rdquo; said the girl,
+      &ldquo;and you haven&rsquo;t hung up your stocking.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need to. I have had my Christmas present.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is that?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A chance to make a merry Christmas for you and your little brothers,&rdquo;
+      answered Henry, and his heart was light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long do you suppose we will have to stay here?&rdquo; asked the
+      girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I suppose they will try to dig us out to-morrow.
+      Meanwhile we have nuts, oranges, crackers, and little cakes, to say
+      nothing of the candy, to live on. Now you go to bed and have a good sleep.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what will you do?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stay up for a while and read one of these books and keep the
+      fire going.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are awfully good to us,&rdquo; said Mary, turning away. &ldquo;You
+      are just like a real Santa Claus.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have to help other people&mdash;especially people in trouble,&rdquo;
+      answered the boy. &ldquo;It is one of the first Scout rules. I am really
+      glad I got left behind and found you. Good-night.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl, whose experience that day had been hard, soon fell asleep with
+      her brothers. Henry did not feel sleepy at all; he was bright and happy
+      and rejoiced. This certainly <i>was</i> an adventure. He wondered what
+      Dick and Joe and Spike and the other fellows of his troop would think when
+      he wrote them about it. He did not realize that he had saved the lives of
+      the children, who would assuredly have frozen to death in the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was satisfied that Mary was sound asleep, he put some things in
+      her stocking and then piled in the rack over her head two books he thought
+      the girl would like. It was late when he went to sleep himself, happier
+      than he had dreamed he could be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He awoke once in the night to replenish the fire, but he was sleeping
+      soundly at seven o&rsquo;clock in the morning when the door of the car opened
+      and half a dozen men filed in. They had not made any noise. Even the big
+      snow-plough tearing open the way from Kiowa had not disturbed the four
+      sleepers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first man in was the conductor. After the trainmen had discovered that
+      the coach had been left behind they had managed to get into Kiowa and had
+      started back at once with the rotary plough to open the road and to rescue
+      the boy. Henry&rsquo;s uncle had been in town to meet Henry, and of course the
+      trainmen let him go back with them on the plough. The third man was Mr.
+      Wright. He had been caught by the storm and, as he said, the abandoned
+      coach must be near his claim, he asked to be taken along because he was
+      afraid his children would be freezing to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men stopped and surveyed the sleeping boys and girl. Their glances
+      ranged from the children to the bulging stockings and the pile of
+      Christmas presents in the racks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, can you beat that?&rdquo; said the conductor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; exclaimed Rancher Ives, &ldquo;a regular Christmas
+      layout!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are my children safe and well, thank God!&rdquo; cried Mr.
+      Wright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Boy,&rdquo; said the conductor, laying his hand on Henry&rsquo;s shoulder,
+      &ldquo;we came to wish you a Merry Christmas.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father!&rdquo; cried Mary Wright, awakened by the voice, and the next
+      minute she was in his arms, while she told him rapidly what Henry had done
+      for them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boys were awake, too, but humanity had no attraction for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Santa has come!&rdquo; shouted Philip making a dive for his stocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is your uncle, Jim Ives,&rdquo; said the conductor to Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is my father,&rdquo; said Mary in turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am awfully sorry,&rdquo; said Henry to the conductor, &ldquo;but we
+      had to eat your dinner. And I had to chop up your kitchen table,&rdquo; he
+      added, turning to Mr. Wright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad there was something to eat in the pail,&rdquo; said one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could have chopped the cabin down,&rdquo; said the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; said the ranchman proudly. &ldquo;I wrote to your
+      father to send you out here and we&rsquo;d make a man of you, but it seems to me
+      you are a man already,&rdquo; he continued as Mary Wright poured forth the
+      story of their rescue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not a man,&rdquo; said Henry to his uncle, as he flushed
+      with pride at the hearty praise of these men. &ldquo;I am just a&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a what?&rdquo; asked the conductor as the boy hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, just a Boy Scout,&rdquo; answered Henry.
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/020.jpg" width="350" height="133" alt="[The Lone Scout&rsquo;s Christmas (end)]" />
+</div>
+
+    <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/021.jpg" width="250" height="179" alt="[Looking Into the Manger (head)]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>LOOKING INTO THE MANGER</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">
+      <i>A Christmas Meditation</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Christmas morning, the day we celebrate as the anniversary of the birth of
+      our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in the obscure, little hill town of
+      Bethlehem in the far-off Jud&aelig;an land, over nineteen hundred years
+      ago!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is said:
+    </p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;When beggars die, there are no comets seen:<br />
+The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+    
+    <p>
+      What is true of the passing of kings is perhaps more true of their coming;
+      yet in this birth are singular contradictions. The Child was born a
+      beggar. There lacks no touch which even imagination could supply to
+      indicate the meanness of His earthly condition. Homeless, His mother, save
+      for the stable of the public inn&mdash;and words can hardly describe any
+      place more unsuited&mdash;was shelterless, unprotected, in that hour of
+      travail pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I love to let my imagination dwell upon that scene. Sometimes I think
+      wayfarers may have gathered in the tavern hard by and with music and play
+      sought to while away the hours as travellers have from time immemorial.
+      Perhaps in some pause in their merriment, a strange cry of anguish, borne
+      by the night wind from the rude shelter without, may have stopped their
+      revelry for a moment and one may have asked of another:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant of the house who stood obsequious to promote their pleasure
+      may have answered apologetically:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the cry of a woman of the people in travail in the inn yard.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can fancy their indifference to the answer, or I can hear perhaps the
+      rude jest, or the vulgar quip, with which such an announcement may have
+      been received, as the play or the music went on again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, yes, the world in solemn stillness lay, doubtless, that winter night,
+      but not the people in it. They pursued their several vocations as usual.
+      They loved or they hated, they worked or they played, they hoped or they
+      despaired, they dreamed or they achieved, just as they had done throughout
+      the centuries, just as they have done since that day, just as they will do
+      far into the future; although their little God came to them, as never He
+      came before, in the stable in the Bethlehem hills that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, had they but cast their eyes upward like the wise men&mdash;it is
+      always your wise man who casts his eyes upward&mdash;they, too, might have
+      seen the star that blazed overhead. It was placed so high above the earth
+      that all men everywhere could see to which spot on the surface it pointed.
+      Or, had they been devout men, they would have listened for heavenly voices&mdash;it
+      is always your devout man who tries to hear other things than the babble
+      of the Babel in which he lives&mdash;they, too, could have heard the
+      angelic chorus like the shepherds in the fields and on the hillsides that
+      frosty night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the heavens did blaze forth the birth of the Child. Not with the
+      thunder of guns, not with the blare of trumpets, not with the beating of
+      drums, not with the lighting of castle, village, and town, the kindling of
+      beacons upon the far-flung hills, the cry of fast-riding messengers
+      through the night, and the loud acclaim of thousands which greet the
+      coming of an earthly king, was He welcomed; but by the still shining of a
+      silent star and by the ineffable and transcendent voices of an Angel
+      Choir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How long did the Shepherds listen to that chorus? How long did it ring
+      over the hills and far away? Whither went the Wise Men? Into what dim
+      distance vanished the star?
+    </p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Where are the roses of yesterday?<br />
+What has become of last year&rsquo;s snow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+    <p>
+      And the residuum of it all was a little Baby held to a woman&rsquo;s breast in a
+      miserable hovel in the most forlorn and detested corner of the world. And
+      yet to-day and at this hour, and at every hour during the twenty-four, men
+      are looking into that chamber; men are bowing to that Child and His
+      mother, and even that mother is at the feet of the Child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the snow peaks of the North land, &ldquo;from Greenland&rsquo;s icy
+      mountains to India&rsquo;s coral strand,&rdquo; and on and on through all the
+      burning tropics to the companion ice of the other pole, the antarctic, and
+      girdling the world from east to west as well, the adoration continues. It
+      comes alike from the world&rsquo;s noblest, from the world&rsquo;s highest, from the
+      world&rsquo;s truest, from the world&rsquo;s kindest, from the world&rsquo;s poorest, from
+      the world&rsquo;s humblest, from the world&rsquo;s best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do not even the soldiers in the trenches upon the far-flung battle lines
+      pause to listen, look to see as for a moment dies away the cannonade? Do
+      not even the sailors of war and trade peer across the tossing waters of
+      the great deep, longing for a truce of God if only for an hour upon this
+      winter morning?
+    </p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus06"></a>
+<img src="images/022.jpg" width="500" height="496" alt="[&ldquo;The world bows
+down to a Mother and her Child&mdash;and the Mother herself is at the feet of
+the Child.&rdquo;]" />
+<p class="caption">&ldquo;The world bows down to a Mother and her
+Child&mdash;and the Mother herself is at the feet of the Child.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+    <p>
+      Yes, they all look into the manger as they look upon the cross and if only
+      for an instant this war reddened planet comes to &ldquo;<i>see and believe</i>.&rdquo;
+      What keen vision saw in the Baby the Son of God and the Son of Man? What
+      simple faith can see these things in Him now? &ldquo;<i>Let us now go even
+      unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass</i>.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That birth is known as the Incarnation. Ye know not &ldquo;<i>how the bones
+      do grow in the womb of her that is with child</i>.&rdquo; Life itself is
+      insusceptible of any definition which satisfies, but we know that we live,
+      nevertheless. Science points out a common origin in protoplasmic cells and
+      is quite unable to explain so common a fact as sex differentiation. I care
+      not what methods of accounting for life you propose, you yet have to refer
+      it to the Author of all life &ldquo;<i>in whom we live and move and have
+      our being</i>.&rdquo; Why, therefore, should the Incarnation be thought
+      incredible or impossible because it does not come within the limitations
+      of our present understanding and it is not taught by our limited human
+      experience. The sweet reasonableness of the Incarnation, this conception
+      by Divine power, this birth from the Virgin mother, should appeal to all
+      who think deeply on these subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet perhaps the manner, place, and circumstance of this birth may
+      awaken wonder. Possibly you would have the King come as other kings come,
+      in pomp and circumstance, glory and majesty, with heralds preceding, music
+      playing, blossoms strewn, and people cheering. Oh, no, that way did not
+      seem the best way to the wisdom of God&mdash;a young girl, an old man, in
+      the stable, no other tendance, no luxury, no comfort&mdash;poverty,
+      humility, absolute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us forget the Angel Chorus and the blazing star and go now even unto
+      Bethlehem and look into the manger at that Child, while the
+      uncomprehending cattle stare resentful perhaps at their displacement. The
+      King comes as a Child, as weak, as helpless, as vocal of its pains as any
+      other child. Not a Child of luxury, not a Child of consequence, not a
+      Child of comfort, but a Child of poverty; and in the eyes of the blind
+      world, if they had been privy to it, without the glorious vision of the
+      good man, Joseph, a Child of shame! If the world had known that the Babe
+      was not the Child of Joseph and Mary how it would have mocked. What
+      laughter, what jeers, what contempt, what obloquy, what scorn would have
+      been heaped upon the woman&rsquo;s head! Why the world would heap them there now
+      were it not that that portion of it which disbelieves in the Incarnation,
+      says that Joseph was after all the father of the Child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor shall we go down to Bethlehem alone. The poor, ignorant shepherds came
+      to the cradle that night. They could understand. It did not seem strange
+      to them that their God was poor, for they themselves were poor. I wonder
+      how much the shepherds reflected. Theirs is a profession which gives rise
+      to thought; they are much alone in the waste places with the gentlest of
+      God&rsquo;s creatures. Their paths lead by green pastures and still waters; they
+      enjoy long, lonely hours for meditation. Did they say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! God has come to us as a poor man, not because there is anything
+      particularly noble or desirable in poverty, but because so many of us are
+      so very poor, and because the most of us have been poor all the time, and
+      because it is probable that most of us will be poor in the future!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many a poor man has looked up into the silent heavens and wondered
+      sometimes whether God understood or cared about his wretched lot. Of
+      course God always knew and cared, we cannot gainsay that, but in order to
+      make men know that He knew and to make them believe that He cared, He let
+      them see that He did not disdain to be a poor man and humble; that He
+      sought His followers and supporters in the great majority. <i>My God was a
+      Carpenter</i>! That is why He came to the stable; that is why He came to
+      the manger. And that is why the poor come to Him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there came to that same cradle, a little while after, the Wise Men.
+      They were professional wise men; they belonged to the learned, the
+      cultured, the thoughtful class; but they were wise men as well in the
+      sense in which we use wisdom to-day. That is, they looked beyond earthly
+      conditions and saw Divinity where the casual glance does not see it. How
+      many a seamed, rugged face, how many a burden-bent back, how many a
+      faltering footstep, how many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more
+      nearly in the image of God than the fairer face, the straighter figure,
+      the softer palm!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shepherds were not only poor, but they laboured in their poverty; they
+      were working men and they worshipped Him, the Working Man. The wise men
+      were not only wise, but they were rich. They brought the treasures of the
+      earth from the ends thereof and laid them before the Babe and the mother.
+      How fragrant the perfume of the frankincense and the myrrh, and how rich
+      the lustre of the gold and silver in the mean surroundings of the hovel.
+      They took no thought of their costly apparel, they had no fear of
+      contamination from their surroundings, no question of relative degree
+      entered their heads. As simply and as truly as the shepherds they
+      worshipped the Christ. The rich and the poor met together there, and the
+      Lord was the maker of them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was that baby-hand the shaper of destiny? Was that working-hand the
+      director of events? Even so. The Lord&rsquo;s power is not less the Lord&rsquo;s power
+      though it be not exhibited in the stretched out arm of majesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of you who read this and many more who can not are poor, perhaps very
+      poor, but you can stand beside that manger and look at that Baby&rsquo;s face,
+      you can reflect upon the Child, how He grew, what He said, what He did,
+      until a cross casts its black shadow across your vision&mdash;the war is
+      raising many crosses and many there be that walk the <i>via dolorosa</i>
+      to them to-day. You shall be counted blessed if you can gaze at that cross
+      until it is transformed by the glory of the resurrection. And in it all
+      you can see your God&mdash;the poor man&rsquo;s God!&mdash;the rich man&rsquo;s God!&mdash;everybody&rsquo;s
+      God!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can know that your God was poor, that He was humble, that He struggled
+      under adverse conditions, that He laboured, that He was hungry, thirsty,
+      tired, cold, that He was homeless, that He was denied many of the joys of
+      human society and the solace of affection, that His best friends went back
+      on Him, that everybody deserted Him, and that the whole world finally rose
+      up and crushed Him down. That he suffered all things. Only a very great
+      God could so endure. Only one who was truly God could so manifest Himself
+      in pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can understand how He can comprehend what your trouble is. Oh, yes,
+      the poor and the bereaved have as great a right to look into that manger
+      and see their God there as have the rich and the care free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now there is a kind of pernicious socialism which condemns riches as
+      things unholy and exalts poverty as a thing acceptable to God. That Baby
+      came as well to the rich as to the poor. Do not forget that. It is not
+      generally understood, but it is true. He accepted gladly the hospitality,
+      the alms, the gifts, priceless in value, of those who had great
+      possessions and He loved them even as He loved those who had nothing. The
+      rich and wise also have a right to look into that cradle to see their God,
+      too. When we say He is the God of all classes we do not mean that He is
+      only the God of the poor any more than we mean He is only the God of the
+      rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came to all the children of men and they can all stand by that cradle
+      this morning and claim Him as their own; ask, receive, and share in His
+      blessing. The light that shone in the darkness lighted impartially the
+      world. Some of you are blessed with competences and some of the
+      competences are greater than others. What of it? The poor man may serve
+      God acceptably in his poverty and the rich man may serve God acceptably in
+      his wealth. There is one God and though He is King of Kings and Lord of
+      Lords, even though He may lie lowly in a manger, yet the kingdom of Heaven
+      is like a republic&mdash;it is a democracy in which all are equal, or if
+      there be distinctions they are based on righteousness alone&mdash;saving
+      only the distinctions Divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now there is one other condition into which all men inevitably fall.
+      Whether they be rich or whether they be poor, they are all bound to be
+      sorrowful. Sooner or later, we are certain to be troubled. And that is
+      more true today, doubtless, than in any other period in the long history
+      of this old world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These sorrowful ones can go unto Bethlehem and look into the cradle and
+      claim the Child as their God. For every sorrow that has been yours, He
+      experienced; every grief that you have bowed before, He was forced to
+      struggle with. Very tender and compassionate is our Lord. I am quite sure
+      that He notices your bowed head, that He puts His arms across your
+      shoulders, that He whispers words of comfort into your ear, or that He
+      gives you the silent sympathy of His presence, that He takes you by the
+      hand; that whatever action most appeals to you and is best for you He
+      takes if you wish Him to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are many people belonging to you or your family who are far away,
+      whom you would fain have with you this Christmas morning. Many of them are
+      fighting manfully in His cause, too. Do not forget that our Lord came to
+      the family! that He made a family by coming. These far-off loved ones are
+      doing what we are doing this morning. And there are some you love who are
+      still farther away. The sound of their earthly voices is stilled, we may
+      not clasp their hands, we cannot see them any more. They are gone from the
+      world, but not from our hearts. If they are not here I think they are with
+      Him. And we may be sure that it is very pleasant to them where He is. They
+      are not unmindful of our human regrets and longings, but I think we ought
+      not to be unmindful of their peaceful joy in His presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so everybody has a right to come to that cradle, the poor, the humble,
+      the hard workers, the toilers, the wise, the learned, the easy, the rich,
+      the joyous, the sad, the sorrowful, the bereaved. They may all look into
+      the manger and see their God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came to a family; He made a family. We are all in that family, the
+      children of the selfsame Father, the sons of the selfsame God, the
+      brethren of Him of the manger&mdash;German and French, English and
+      Austrian, Italian and Bulgar, Russian and Turk! Ay, and above all and with
+      all American and Belgian. Sirs, we be, not twelve, but many brethren! What
+      does that mean?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is one musical word with, I think, perhaps the ugliest meaning in
+      the language. It is <i>rancour</i>. Let us do away with it, let us put it
+      aside. If we are poor let us be brethren to the other poor, if we are rich
+      let us be brethren to the other rich, if we are wise let us be brethren to
+      the other wise, if we are foolish let us be brethren to the other foolish.
+      Ah, that is not difficult; it is an easy task. But that is not enough.
+      Brotherhood is broader, thank God! Let the poor be brethren to the rich
+      and the rich to the poor, the wise to the ignorant, the misguided to the
+      well-directed, the ignorant to the wise, the foolish to the discreet, the
+      discreet to the foolish, the glad to the sorrowful, the sorrowful to the
+      glad, the servants of the Lord to the sinners against Him!
+    </p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Then none was for a party;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then all were for the state;</span><br />
+Then the great man helped the poor,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the poor man loved the great:</span><br />
+Then lands were fairly portioned;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then spoils were fairly sold:</span><br />
+The Romans were like brothers,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the brave days of old.&rdquo;</span>
+</p>
+
+    <p>
+      Let us make out of the old pagan ideals present-day realities in our
+      hearts as we go even unto Bethlehem and look into the cradle of the King;
+      realities in His own nobler and better words:
+    </p>
+
+      <p class="letter">
+        &ldquo;<i>Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John
+        again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their
+        sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
+        the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
+        And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me</i>.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Peace, goodwill toward men! Peace to men of goodwill! That is what the
+        angels sang. But there is nothing on earth to prevent us from making it
+        our human song as well. As we stand by the cradle of the Master and peer
+        into the manger at that which every human being loves, a baby, our
+        earthly differences of nationality, of rank, power, station, and
+        influence&mdash;things that are but the guinea&rsquo;s stamp upon the gold of
+        character and personality&mdash;fade into insignificance and become as
+        nothing. The little child in life notices none of these distinctions, he
+        marks nothing of them. Let us come as little children before Him. We may
+        be war-battered, sin-marked, toil-stained, care-burdened. Let us forget
+        it all this Christmas morning.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        It was a poor place, that manger&mdash;the poorest place on earth&mdash;but
+        it was a place. It was somewhere. Let us give humanity even as little as
+        a manger. Let us not take up the Christ Child as we see Him and throw
+        Him out into the streets, or into no man&rsquo;s land. That is what we do when
+        we mock Him, when we deny Him, when we laugh Him to scorn. Let us not
+        shut Him out of His home place in our souls. Let us not refuse to open
+        when His hand knocks upon the door. That is what we do when we are
+        indifferent to Him. Let us take him out of the manger cradle, each one
+        of us, and enthrone Him in the most precious place we have, our inmost
+        hearts.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        It all happened a very long time ago and much water has run in the
+        brooks of the world under the bridges thereof since that time, but the
+        mangers of the world are never empty. They are always full. In one
+        sense, Christ is being born everywhere at this very hour and at all
+        hours.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Let us give the Child the best we have, the best we can. Let us even now
+        go down unto Bethlehem, laden with what we have for the use of the King,
+        and let us see in every child of man that lacks anything this Christmas
+        morning the image of Him who in that manger lay in Bethlehem and let us
+        minister to their needs in love.
+      </p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;The little Christ is coming down<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Across the fields of snow;</span><br />
+The pine trees greet Him where they stand,<br />
+The willows bend to kiss His hand,<br />
+The mountain laurel is ablush<br />
+In hidden nooks; the wind, ahush<br />
+And tiptoe, lest the violets wake<br />
+Before their time for His sweet sake;<br />
+The stars, down dropping, form a crown<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon the waiting hills below&mdash;</span><br />
+The little Christ is coming down<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Across the fields of snow.</span><br />
+<br />
+&ldquo;The little Christ is coming down<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Across the city streets;</span><br />
+The wind blows coldly from the north,<br />
+His dimpled hands are stretching forth,<br />
+And no one knows and no one cares,<br />
+The priests are busy with their prayers,<br />
+The jostling crowd hastes on apace,<br />
+And no one sees the pleading face,<br />
+None hears the cry as through the town<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He wanders with His small cold feet&mdash;</span><br />
+The little Christ is coming down<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Acrossthe city streets.&rdquo;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+      <p>
+        What welcome shall we have for Him, my friends?
+      </p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+These loving and appealing verses were written by Harriet F. Blodgett, of whom
+unfortunately I know absolutely nothing but her name. I am sure, however, that
+if they had been written today another verse, even more touching than those I
+have quoted, would have been inspired by present conditions. And we should have
+seen &ldquo;The Little Christ&rdquo; coming down between the lines in Flanders,
+on the Balkan Frontier, amid the snows of Russia and the deserts of
+Mesopotamia, and perhaps, as of old, even walking on the waters in the midst of
+the sea.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/023.jpg" width="300" height="149" alt="[Looking Into the Manger (foot)]" />
+</div>
+
+      <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/024.jpg" width="250" height="242" alt="[Christmas in the Snows (head)]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOWS</h2>
+
+      <p class="center">
+        <i>Being Some Personal Adventures in the Far West</i><a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The love of Christmas is as strong in the West as it is in any section
+        of the country&mdash;perhaps, indeed, stronger, for people who have few
+        pleasures cherish holidays more highly than those for whom many cheap
+        amusements are provided. But when the manifestation of the Christmas
+        spirit is considered, there is a great difference between the West and
+        the East. There are vast sections of country in which evergreens do not
+        grow and to which it would not pay to ship them; consequently Christmas
+        trees are not common, and therefore they are the more prized when they
+        may be had. There are no great rows nor small clusters of inviting shops
+        filled with suggestive and fascinating contents at attractive prices.
+        The distances from centres of trade are so great that the things which
+        may be purchased even in the smallest towns in more favourable
+        localities for a few cents have there almost a prohibitive price put
+        upon them. The efforts of the people to give their children a merry
+        Christmas in the popular sense, however, are strong and sometimes
+        pitiful.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        It must not be forgotten that the West is settled by Eastern people, and
+        that no very great difference exists between them save for the
+        advantages presented by life in the West for the higher development of
+        character. Western people are usually brighter, quicker, more
+        progressive and less conservative, and more liberal than those from whom
+        they came. The survival of the fittest is the rule out there and the
+        qualities of character necessary to that end are brought to the top by
+        the strenuous life necessitated by the hardships of the frontier. If the
+        people are not any better than they were, it is because they are still
+        clinging to the obsolete ideas of the East.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The Eastern point of view always reminds me of the reply of the bishop
+        to the layman who was deploring the poor quality of the clergy. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
+        said the bishop, &ldquo;some of them are poor; but consider the stock
+        from which they come. You see, we have nothing but laymen out of which
+        to make them.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The East never understands the West&mdash;the real West that is, which
+        lies beyond the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Rocky Mountains. They
+        know nothing of its ideas, its capacities, its possibilities, its
+        educational facilities, its culture, its real power, in the East. And
+        they do not wish to learn, apparently. The Easterners fatuously think,
+        like Job, that they are the people, and wisdom will die with them. Some
+        years since an article in the &ldquo;Forum&rdquo; on the theme, &ldquo;Kansas
+        more civilized than New York&rdquo; conclusively proved the proposition
+        to the satisfaction of the present writer at least.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Yet I know numberless dwellers in Gotham whose shibboleth is &ldquo;nothing
+        outside of New York City but scenery,&rdquo; and they are a little
+        dubious about admitting that. When one describes the Grand Canyon or the
+        Royal Gorge they point to Nassau or Wall Street, and the Woolworth tower
+        challenges Pike&rsquo;s Peak!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I sat at a dinner table one day when the salted almonds were handed me
+        with the remark: &ldquo;I suppose you never saw anything like these out
+        West. Try some.&rdquo; And my wife has been quite gravely asked if we
+        feared any raids by the Indians and if they troubled us by their
+        marauding in Kansas. I have found it necessary to inform the curious
+        that we did not live in tepees or wigwams when in Nebraska or Colorado.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Shortly after I came East to live I was talking with a man and a very
+        stupid man at that, who informed me that he graduated from Harvard; to
+        which surprising statement he added the startling information, for the
+        benefit of my presumably untutored occidental mind, that it was a
+        college near Boston! They have everything in the West that the East has
+        so far as their sometimes limited means will provide them and when they
+        have no money they have patience, endurance, grim determination, and
+        courage, which are better than money in the long run.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The cities and smaller towns especially as a rule are cleaner, better
+        governed, more progressive, better provided with improvements and
+        comforts than corresponding places in the East. Scarcely a community
+        exists without its water works, electric light plant, telephone system,
+        trolleys, paved streets, etc. Of course, this does not apply to the
+        extreme frontier in which my field of work largely lay so many years
+        ago. The conditions were different there&mdash;the people too in that
+        now far-distant time.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        But to return to Christmas. One Christmas day I left my family at one
+        o&rsquo;clock in the morning. Christmas salutations were exchanged at that
+        very sleepy hour and I took the fast express to a certain station whence
+        I could drive up country to a little church in a farming country in
+        which there had never been a Christmas service. It was a bitter cold
+        morning, deep snow on the ground, and a furious north wind raging.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The climate is variable indeed out West. I have spent Christmas days on
+        which it rained all day and of all days in the year on which to have it
+        rain, Christmas is the worst. Still, the farmers would be thankful. It
+        was usually safe to be thankful out there whenever it rained. I knew a
+        man once who said you could make a fortune by always betting two to one
+        that it would not rain, no matter what the present promise of the
+        weather was. You were bound to win nine times out of ten.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I hired a good sleigh and two horses, and drove to my destination. The
+        church was a little old brick building right out in the prairie. There
+        was a smouldering fire in a miserable, worn-out stove which hardly
+        raised the temperature of the room a degree although it filled the place
+        with smoke. The wind had free entrance through the ill-fitting window
+        and door frames and a little pile of snow formed on the altar during the
+        service. I think there were twelve people who had braved the fury of the
+        storm. There was not an evergreen within a hundred miles of the place
+        and the only decoration was sage-brush. To wear vestments was
+        impossible, and I conducted the service in a buffalo overcoat and a fur
+        cap and gloves as I have often done. It was short and the sermon was
+        shorter. Mem.: If you want short sermons give your Rector a cold church
+        or a hot one!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        After service I went to dinner at the nearest farm-house. Such a
+        Christmas dinner it was! There was no turkey, and they did not even have
+        a chicken. The menu was corn-bread, ham, and potatoes, and mighty few
+        potatoes at that. There were two children in the family, a girl of six
+        and a boy of five. They were glad enough to get the ham. Their usual
+        bill of fare was composed of potatoes and corn-bread, and sometimes
+        corn-bread alone. My wife had put up a lunch for me, fearing that I
+        might not be able to get anything to eat, in which there was a small
+        mince-pie turnover; and the children had slipped a small box of candy in
+        my bag as a Christmas gift. I produced the turnover which by common
+        consent was divided between the astonished children. Such a glistening
+        of eyes and smacking of small lips you never saw!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;This pie makes it seem like Christmas, after all,&rdquo; said the
+        little girl, with her mouth full.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the boy, ditto, &ldquo;that and the ham.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t have any Christmas this year,&rdquo; continued the small
+        maiden. &ldquo;Last year mother made us some potato men&rdquo; (<i>i.e.</i>,
+        little animal and semi-human figures made out of potatoes and matches
+        with buttons for eyes; they went into many stockings among the very poor
+        out West then).
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;But this year,&rdquo; interrupted the boy, &ldquo;potatoes are so
+        scarce that we couldn&rsquo;t have &rsquo;em. Mother says that next year perhaps we
+        will have some real Christmas.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        They were so brave about it that my heart went out to them. Children and
+        no Christmas gifts! Only the chill, bare room, the wretched, meagre
+        meal. I ransacked my brain. Finally something occurred to me. After
+        dinner I excused myself and hurried back to the church. There were two
+        small wicker baskets there which were used for the collection&mdash;old
+        but rather pretty. I selected the best one. Fortunately I had in my grip
+        a neat little &ldquo;housewife&rdquo; which contained a pair of scissors,
+        a huge thimble, needles, thread, a tiny little pin-cushion, an emery
+        bag, buttons, etc. I am, like most ex-sailors, something of a needleman
+        myself. I emptied the contents into the collection basket and garnished
+        the dull little affair with the bright ribbon ties ripped off the &ldquo;housewife&rdquo;
+        and went back to the house.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        To the boy I gave my penknife which happened to be nearly new, and to
+        the girl the church basket with the sewing things for a work-basket. The
+        joy of those children was one of the finest things I have ever
+        witnessed. The face of the little girl was positively filled with awe as
+        she lifted from the basket, one by one, the pretty and useful articles
+        the &ldquo;housewife&rdquo; had supplied and when I added the small box of
+        candy that my children had provided me, they looked at me with feelings
+        of reverence, as a visible incarnation of Santa Claus. They were the
+        cheapest and most effective Christmas presents it was ever my pleasure
+        to bestow. I hope to be forgiven for putting the church furniture to
+        such a secular use.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Another Christmas day I had a funeral. There was no snow, no rain. The
+        day was warm. The woman who died had been the wife of one of the largest
+        farmers in the diocese. He actually owned a continuous body of several
+        thousands of acres of fine land, much of it under cultivation. She had
+        been a fruitful mother and five stalwart sons, all married, and several
+        daughters likewise, with numerous grandchildren represented her
+        contribution to the world&rsquo;s population. They were the people of the most
+        consideration in the little community in which they lived. We had the
+        services in the morning in the Methodist church, which was big enough to
+        hold about six hundred people. As it was a holiday, it was filled to the
+        very doors. One of my farmer friends remarked as we stood on the front
+        steps watching the crowd assembling:
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;My, doc, all of them wagons gatherin&rsquo; here makes it seem more like
+        circus day than a funeral.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I had been asked to preach a sermon, which I essayed to do. The
+        confusion was terrific. In order to be present themselves the mothers in
+        Israel had been obliged to bring their children, and the most domestic
+        of attentions were being bestowed upon them freely. They cried and
+        wailed and expostulated with their parents in audible tones until I was
+        nearly frantic. I found myself shouting consoling platitudes to a
+        sobbing, grief-stricken band of relatives and endeavouring to drown the
+        noise of the children by roaring&mdash;the lion&rsquo;s part &agrave; la
+        Bottom. It was distracting. I was a very young minister at the time and
+        the perspiration fairly rained from me. That&rsquo;s what makes me remember it
+        was a warm day.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        When we got through the services after every one of the six hundred had,
+        in the language of the local undertaker, &ldquo;viewed the remains,&rdquo;
+        we went to the cemetery. I rode behind a horse which was thirty-eight
+        years old. I do not know what his original colour had been but at
+        present he was white and hoary with age.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I always use him for funerals,&rdquo; said the undertaker, &ldquo;because
+        he naturally sets the proper pace for a funeral procession.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Mercy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I hope he won&rsquo;t die on the road.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Well, if he does,&rdquo; continued the undertaker, &ldquo;your
+        services will come in handy. We can bury him proper. I am awful fond of
+        that horse. I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if he hadn&rsquo;t been at as many as a
+        thousand funerals in his life.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I thought that he had all the gravity of his grewsome experiences,
+        especially in his gait. The Christmas dinners were all late on account
+        of the funeral but they were bountiful and good nevertheless and I much
+        enjoyed mine.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Another Christmas I was snow-bound on one of the obscure branches of a
+        Western railroad. If the train had been on time I would have made a
+        connection and have reached home by Christmas Eve, but it was very
+        evident, as the day wore on, that it was not going to be on time. Indeed
+        it was problematical whether it would get anywhere at all. It was
+        snowing hard outside. Our progress had become slower and slower. Finally
+        in a deep cut we stopped. There were four men, one woman, and two little
+        children in the car&mdash;no other passengers in the train. The train
+        was of that variety known out West as a &ldquo;plug&rdquo; consisting of a
+        combination baggage and smoker and one coach.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        One of the trainmen started on a lonely and somewhat dangerous tramp of
+        several miles up the road to the next station to call for the
+        snow-plough, and the rest of us settled down to spend the night.
+        Certainly we could not hope to be extricated before the next evening,
+        especially as the storm then gave no signs of abating. We all went up to
+        the front of the car and sat around the stove in which we kept up a
+        bright fire,&mdash;fortunately we had plenty of fuel&mdash;and in such
+        circumstances we speedily got acquainted with each other. One of the men
+        was a &ldquo;drummer,&rdquo; a travelling man for a notion house; another
+        was a cow-boy; the third was a big cattle-man; and I was the last. We
+        soon found that the woman was a widow who had maintained herself and the
+        children precariously since the death of her husband by sewing and other
+        feminine odd jobs but had at last given up the unequal struggle and was
+        going back to live with her mother, also a widow who had some little
+        property.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The poor little threadbare children had cherished anticipations of a
+        joyous Christmas with their grandmother. From their talk we could hear
+        that a Christmas tree had been promised them and all sorts of things.
+        They were intensely disappointed at the blockade. They cried and sobbed
+        and would not be comforted. Fortunately the woman had a great basket
+        filled with substantial provisions which, by the way, she generously
+        shared with the rest of us, so we were none of us hungry. As the night
+        fell, we tipped up two of the seats, placed the bottoms sideways, and
+        with our overcoats made two good beds for the little folks. Just before
+        they went to sleep the drummer said to me:
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Say, parson, we&rsquo;ve got to give those children some Christmas.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what,&rdquo; said the cow-boy.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I&rsquo;m agreed,&rdquo; added the cattle-man.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said the drummer, addressing the woman with the easy
+        assurance of his class, after a brief consultation between us, &ldquo;we
+        are going to give your kids some Christmas.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The woman beamed at him gratefully.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Yes, children,&rdquo; said the now enthused drummer, as he turned
+        to the open-mouthed children, &ldquo;Santa Claus is coming round to-night
+        sure. We want you to hang up your stockings.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;We ain&rsquo;t got none,&rdquo; quivered the little girl, &ldquo;&rsquo;ceptin&rsquo;
+        those we&rsquo;ve got on and ma says it&rsquo;s too cold to take &rsquo;em off.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got two new pair of woollen socks,&rdquo; said the cattle-man
+        eagerly, &ldquo;which I ain&rsquo;t never wore, and you are welcome to &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        There was a clapping of little hands in childish glee, and then the two
+        faces fell as the elder remarked.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;But Santa Claus will know they are not our stockings and he will
+        fill them with things for you instead.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Lord love you,&rdquo; said the burly cattle-man, roaring with
+        infectious laughter, &ldquo;he wont bring me nothin&rsquo;. One of us will sit
+        up anyway and tell him it&rsquo;s for you. You&rsquo;ve got to hustle to bed right
+        away because he may be here any time now.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Then came one of those spectacles which we sometimes meet once or twice
+        in a lifetime. The children knelt down on the rough floor of the car
+        beside their improvised beds. Instinctively the hands of the men went to
+        their heads and at the first words of &ldquo;Now I lay me down to sleep,&rdquo;
+        four hats came off. The cow-boy stood twirling his hat and looking at
+        the little kneeling figures; the cattle-man&rsquo;s vision seemed dimmed;
+        while in the eyes of the travelling man there shone a distant look&mdash;a
+        look across snow-filled prairies to a warmly lighted home.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The children were soon asleep. Then the rest of us engaged in earnest
+        conversation. What should we give them? was the question.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;It don&rsquo;t seem to me that I&rsquo;ve got anything to give &rsquo;em,&rdquo; said
+        the cow-boy mournfully, &ldquo;unless the little kid might like my spurs,
+        an&rsquo; I would give my gun to the little girl, though on general principles
+        I don&rsquo;t like to give up a gun. You never know when you&rsquo;re goin&rsquo; to need
+        it, &rsquo;specially with strangers,&rdquo; he added with a rather suspicious
+        glance at me. I would not have harmed him for the world.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in much the same fix,&rdquo; said the cattle-man. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+        got a flask of prime old whiskey here, but it don&rsquo;t seem like it&rsquo;s very
+        appropriate for the occasion, though it&rsquo;s at the service of any of you
+        gents.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Never seen no occasion in which whiskey wasn&rsquo;t appropriate,&rdquo;
+        said the cow-boy, mellowing at the sight of the flask.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I mean &rsquo;taint fit for kids,&rdquo; explained the cattle-man handing
+        it over.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I begun on&rsquo;t rather early,&rdquo; remarked the puncher, taking a
+        long drink, &ldquo;an&rsquo; I always use it when my feelin&rsquo;s is onsettled,
+        like now.&rdquo; He handed it back with a sigh.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Never mind, boys,&rdquo; said the drummer. &ldquo;You all come along
+        with me to the baggage car.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        So off we trooped. He opened his trunks, and spread before us such a
+        glittering array of trash and trinkets as almost took away our breath.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;There,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;look at that. We&rsquo;ll just pick out the
+        best things from the lot, and I&rsquo;ll donate them all.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;No, you don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said the cow-boy. &ldquo;My ante&rsquo;s in on this
+        game, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; to buy what chips I want, an&rsquo; pay fer &rsquo;em too, else
+        there ain&rsquo;t going to be no Christmas around here.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my judgment, too,&rdquo; said the cattle-man.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;I think that will be fair,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The travelling man
+        can donate what he pleases, and we can each of us buy what we please, as
+        well.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I think we spent hours looking over the stock which the obliging man
+        spread out all over the car for us. He was going home, he said, and
+        everything was at our service. The trainmen caught the infection, too,
+        and all hands finally went back to the coach with such a load of stuff
+        as you never saw before. We filled the socks and two seats besides with
+        it. The grateful mother was simply dazed.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        As we all stood about, gleefully surveying our handiwork including the
+        bulging socks, the engineer remarked:
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get some kind of a Christmas tree.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        So two of us ploughed off on the prairie&mdash;it had stopped snowing
+        and was bright moon-light&mdash;and wandered around until we found a
+        good-sized piece of sage-brush, which we brought back and solemnly
+        installed and the woman decorated it with bunches of tissue paper from
+        the notion stock and clean waste from the engine. We hung the train
+        lanterns around it.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        We were so excited that we actually could not sleep. The contagion of
+        the season was strong upon us, and I know not which were the more
+        delighted the next morning, the children or the amateur Santa Clauses,
+        when they saw what the cow-boy called the &ldquo;layout.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Great goodness! Those children never did have, and probably never will
+        have, such a Christmas again. And to see the thin face of that mother
+        flush with unusual colour when we handed her one of those monstrous red
+        plush albums which we had purchased jointly and in which we had all
+        written our names in lieu of our photographs, and between the leaves of
+        which the cattle-man had generously slipped a hundred dollar bill, was
+        worth being blockaded for a dozen Christmases. Her eyes filled with
+        tears and she fairly sobbed before us.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        During the morning we had a little service in the car, in accordance
+        with the custom of the Church, and I am sure no more heartfelt body of
+        worshippers ever poured forth their thanks for the Incarnation than
+        those men, that woman, and the little children. The woman sang &ldquo;Jesus
+        Lover of my Soul&rdquo; from memory in her poor little voice and that
+        small but reverent congregation&mdash;cow-boy, drummer, cattle-man,
+        trainmen, and parson&mdash;solemnly joined in.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;It feels just like church,&rdquo; said the cow-boy gravely to the
+        cattle-man. &ldquo;Say I&rsquo;m all broke up; let&rsquo;s go in the other car and
+        try your flask ag&rsquo;in.&rdquo; It was his unfailing resource for &ldquo;onsettled
+        feelin&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        The train-hand who had gone on to division headquarters returned with
+        the snow-plough early in the afternoon, but what was more to the purpose
+        he brought a whole cooked turkey with him, so the children had turkey, a
+        Christmas tree, and Santa Claus to their heart&rsquo;s content! I did not get
+        home until the day after Christmas.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        But, after all, what a Christmas I had enjoyed!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        During a season of great privation we were much assisted by barrels of
+        clothing which were sent to us from the East. One day just before
+        Christmas, I was distributing the contents of several barrels of wearing
+        apparel and other necessities to the women and children at a little
+        mission. The delight of the women, as the good warm articles of clothing
+        for themselves and their children which they so sadly needed were handed
+        out to them was touching; but the children themselves did not enter into
+        the joy of the occasion with the same spontaneity. Finally just as I got
+        to the bottom of one box and before I had opened the other one, a little
+        boy sniffling to himself in the corner remarked, <i>sotto voce</i>:
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t there no real Chris&rsquo;mus gif&rsquo;s in there for us little
+        fellers, too?&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I could quite enter into his feelings, for I could remember in my
+        youthful days when careful relatives had provided me with a &ldquo;cardigan&rdquo;
+        jacket, three handkerchiefs, and a half-dozen pairs of socks for
+        Christmas, that the season seemed to me like a hollow mockery and the
+        attempt to palm off necessities as Christmas gifts filled my childish
+        heart with disapproval. I am older now and can face a Christmas
+        remembrance of a cookbook, a silver cake-basket, or an ice-cream freezer
+        (some of which I have actually received) with philosophical equanimity,
+        if not gratitude.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        I opened the second box, therefore, with a great longing, though but
+        little hope. Heaven bless the woman who had packed that box, for, in
+        addition to the usual necessary articles, there were dolls, knives,
+        books, games galore, so the small fry had some &ldquo;real Chris&rsquo;mus
+        gif&rsquo;s&rdquo; as well as the others.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        After one of the blizzards a young ranchman who had gone into the
+        nearest town some twenty miles away to get some Christmas things for his
+        wife and little ones, was found frozen to death on Christmas morning,
+        his poor little packages of petty Christmas gifts tightly clasped in his
+        cold hands lying by his side. His horse was frozen too and when they
+        found it, hanging to the horn of the saddle was a little piece of an
+        evergreen tree&mdash;you would throw it away in contempt in the East, it
+        was so puny. There it meant something. The love of Christmas? It was
+        there in his dead hands. The spirit of Christmas? It showed itself in
+        that bit of verdant pine over the lariat at the saddle-bow of the poor
+        bronco.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Do they have Christmas out West? Well, they have it in their hearts if
+        no place else, and, after all, that is the place above all others where
+        it should be.
+      </p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+This bit of personal history is reprinted from my book <i>Recollections of a
+Missionary in the Great West</i> by the courtesy of Messrs. Charles
+Scribner&rsquo;s Sons, the publishers thereof. Incidentally the reader will
+find much interesting matter in the way of reminiscence and anecdote in that
+little volume, should he chance upon it.<br/>
+    There are some amusing things connected with the publication in serial form
+of these episodes. The great magazine in which it appeared has very strong
+views on certain subjects. Following out a policy which has deservedly won them
+perhaps the largest circulation of any magazine in the world it seemed to the
+editors necessary and desirable to make some changes in the story as originally
+written and as it appears hereafter.<br/>
+    For instance the revised serial version made the cowboy lift the flask of
+whiskey to his lips and then it declared that after a long look at the sleeping
+children he put it down! I was quite agreeable to the change. I remember
+remarking that the cowboy certainly did &ldquo;put it down.&rdquo; It was a way
+cowboys had in those bygone days; so the editor and the author were both
+satisfied.<br/>
+    Another amusing thing I recall in connection with the serial publication
+was this: The art editor of the magazine wrote to the officials of the
+railroad, the name of which I gave in the first version but which I now
+withhold, saying that the magazine had a story of a snow-bound train on the
+railroad in question and asking for pictures of snow-bound trains to help the
+artist illustrate it. By return mail came an indignant remonstrance almost
+threatening a lawsuit because the railroad in question, one of the southerly
+transcontinental roads, made a point in its appeal to travellers that its
+trains were never snow-bound! The art editor who was not without a vein of
+humour wrote back and asked if they could furnish him with pictures of
+snow-bound trains on competing roads and they sent him a box full! C.T.B.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/025.jpg" width="400" height="71" alt="[Christmas in the Snows (foot)]" />
+</div>
+
+      <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/026.jpg" width="373" height="81" alt="[A Christmas Wish (head]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>A CHRISTMAS WISH</h2>
+
+      <p class="center">
+        <i>For Everybody, Everywhere</i>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        May peace and goodwill, prosperity and plenty, joy and satisfaction
+        abound in your homes and in your hearts this day and all days. May
+        opportunities for good work be many, and may you avail yourselves of
+        them all. May your sorrows be lightened, may your griefs be assuaged.
+        May your souls be fitted for what they must endure; may your backs be
+        strengthened for your burdens; may your responsibilities be met; may
+        your obligations be discharged; may your duties be performed. May love
+        abound more and more until the perfect day breaks in your lives. In
+        short, every wish that would be helpful, uplifting, and comforting, I
+        wish you at this hour and in all hours.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        In the words of Tiny Tim.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &ldquo;<i>God Bless us every one!</i>&rdquo;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <span class="smallcaps">Cyrus Townsend Brady</span>
+      </p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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