The Birds' Christmas Carol  by Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Bird's Nest

AROL herself knew nothing of motherly tears and fatherly anxieties; she lived on peacefully in the room where she was born.

But you never would have known that room; for Mr. Bird had a great deal of money, and though he felt sometimes as if he wanted to throw it all in the sea, since it could not buy a strong body for his little girl, yet he was glad to make the place she lived in just as beautiful as it could be.

The room had been extended by the building of a large addition that hung out over the garden below, and was so filled with windows that it might have been a conservatory. The ones on the side were thus still nearer the Church of Our Saviour than they used to be; those in front looked out on the beautiful harbor, and those in the back commanded a view of nothing in particular but a narrow alley; nevertheless, they were pleasantest of all to Carol, for the Ruggles family lived in the alley, and the nine little, middle-sized, and big Ruggles children were the source of inexhaustible interest.

The shutters could all be opened and Carol could take a real sun-bath in this lovely glass house, or they could all be closed when the dear head ached or the dear eyes were tired. The carpet was of soft gray, with clusters of green bay and holly leaves. The furniture was of white wood, on which an artist had painted snow scenes and Christmas trees and groups of merry children ringing bells and singing carols.

Donald had made a pretty, polished shelf and screwed it on to the outside of the foot-board, and the boys always kept this full of blooming plants, which they changed from time to time; the head-board, too, had a bracket on either side, where there were pots of maiden-hair ferns.

Love-birds and canaries hung in their golden houses in the windows, and they, poor caged things, could hop as far from their wooden perches as Carol could venture from her little white bed.

On one side of the room was a bookcase filled with hundreds—yes, I mean it—with hundreds and hundreds of books; books with gay-colored pictures, books without; books with black and white outline sketches, books with none at all; books with verses, books with stories; books that made children laugh, and some, only a few, that made them cry; books with words of one syllable for tiny boys and girls, and books with words of fearful length to puzzle wise ones.

This was Carol's "Circulating Library." Every Saturday she chose ten books, jotting their names down in a diary; into these she slipped cards that said:—

"Please keep this book two weeks and read it. With love, Carol Bird ."

Then Mrs. Bird stepped into her carriage, and took the ten books to the Children's Hospital, and brought home ten others that she had left there the fortnight before.

This was a source of great happiness; for some of the Hospital children that were old enough to print or write, and were strong enough to do it, wrote Carol sweet little letters about the books, and she answered them, and they grew to be friends. (It is very funny, but you do not always have to see people to love them. Just think about it, and tell if it is n't so.)

There was a high wainscoting of wood about the room, and on top of this, in a narrow gilt framework, ran a row of illuminated pictures, illustrating fairy tales, all in dull blue and gold and scarlet and silver. From the door to the closet there was the story of The Fair One with Golden Locks; from closet to bookcase, ran Puss in Boots; from bookcase to fireplace, was Jack the Giant-killer; and on the other side of the room were Hop o' my Thumb, The Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella.

Then there was a great closet full of beautiful things to wear, but they were all dressing-gowns and slippers and shawls; and there were drawers full of toys and games; but they were such as you could play with on your lap. There were no ninepins, nor balls, nor bows and arrows, nor bean bags, nor tennis rackets; but, after all, other children needed these more than Carol Bird, for she was always happy and contented whatever she had or whatever she lacked; and after the room had been made so lovely for her, on her eighth Christmas, she always called herself, in fun, a "Bird of Paradise."

On these particular December days she was happier than usual, for Uncle Jack was coming from England to spend the holidays. Dear, funny, jolly, loving, wise Uncle Jack, who came every two or three years, and brought so much joy with him that the world looked as black as a thunder-cloud for a week after he went away again.

The mail had brought this letter:—

LONDON, November 28, 188-.

Wish you merry Christmas, you dearest birdlings in America! Preen your feathers, and stretch the Birds' nest a trifle, if you please, and let Uncle Jack in for the holidays. I am coming with such a trunk full of treasures that you'll have to borrow the stockings of Barnum's Giant and Giantess; I am coming to squeeze a certain little lady-bird until she cries for mercy; I am coming to see if I can find a boy to take care of a black pony that I bought lately. It's the strangest thing I ever knew; I've hunted all over Europe, and can't find a boy to suit me! I'll tell you why. I've set my heart on finding one with a dimple in his chin, because this pony particularly likes dimples! ["Hurrah!" cried Hugh; "bless my dear dimple; I'll never be ashamed of it again."]

Please drop a note to the clerk of the weather, and have a good, rousing snow-storm—say on the twenty-second. None of your meek, gentle, nonsensical, shilly-shallying snow-storms; not the sort where the flakes float lazily down from the sky as if they did n't care whether they ever got here or not and then melt away as soon as they touch the earth, but a regular business-like whizzing, whirring, blurring, cutting snow-storm, warranted to freeze and stay on!

I should like rather a LARGE Christmas tree, if it's convenient: not one of those "sprigs," five or six feet high, that you used to have three or four years ago, when the birdlings were not fairly feathered out; but a tree of some size. Set it up in the garret, if necessary, and then we can cut a hole in the roof if the tree chances to be too high for the room.

Tell Bridget to begin to fatten a turkey. Tell her that by the twentieth of December that turkey must not be able to stand on its legs for fat, and then on the next three days she must allow it to recline easily on its side, and stuff it to bursting. (One ounce of stuffing beforehand is worth a pound afterwards.)

The pudding must be unusually huge, and darkly, deeply, lugubriously blue in color. It must be stuck so full of plums that the pudding itself will ooze out into the pan and not be brought on to the table at all. I expect to be there by the twentieth, to manage these little things myself,—remembering it is the early Bird that catches the worm,—but give you the instructions in case I should be delayed.

And Carol must decide on the size of the tree—she knows best, she was a Christmas child; and she must plead for the snow-storm—the Clerk of the weather may pay some attention to her; and she must look up the boy with the dimple for me—she's likelier to find him than I am, this minute. She must advise about the turkey, and Bridget must bring the pudding to her bedside and let her drop every separate plum into it and stir it once for luck, or I'll not eat a single slice—for Carol is the dearest part of Christmas to Uncle Jack, and he'll have none of it without her. She is better than all the turkeys and puddings and apples and spare-ribs and wreaths and garlands and mistletoe and stockings and chimneys and sleigh-bells in Christendom. She is the very sweetest Christmas Carol that was ever written, said, sung or chanted, and I am coming, as fast as ships and railway trains can carry me, to tell her so.

Carol's joy knew no bounds. Mr. and Mrs. Bird laughed like children and kissed each other for sheer delight, and when the boys heard it they simply whooped like wild Indians; until the Ruggles family, whose back yard joined their garden, gathered at the door and wondered what was going on at the big house.

 

Richard of Jamestown  by James Otis

Captain Smith's Speech

Jamestown was a scene of turmoil and confusion when Captain Smith came back from his journey having on board only two baskets of corn for seed. After understanding what had been done by the idle ones during his absence, he called all the people together and said unto them, speaking earnestly, as if pleading for his very life:

"Never did I believe white men who were come together in a new world, and should stand shoulder to shoulder against all the enemies that surround them, could be so reckless and malicious. It is vain to hope for more help from Powhatan, and the time has come when I will no longer bear with you in your idleness; but punish severely if you do not set about the work which must be done, without further plotting. You cannot deny but that I have risked my life many a time in order to save yours, when, if you had been allowed to go your own way, all would have starved. Now I swear solemnly that you shall not only gather for yourselves the fruits which the earth doth yield, but for those who are sick. Every one that gathers not each day as much as I do, shall on the next day be set beyond the river, forever banished from the fort, to live or starve as God wills."

This caused the lazy ones to bestir themselves for the time, and perhaps all might have gone well with us had not the London Company sent out nine more vessels, in which were five hundred persons, to join us people in Jamestown. One of the ships, as we afterward learned, was wrecked in a hurricane; seven arrived safely, and the ninth vessel we had not heard from.

All these people had expected to find food in plenty, servants to wait upon them, and everything furnished to hand without being obliged to raise a finger in their own behalf. What was yet worse, they had among them many men who believed they were to be made officers of the government.

 

Richard of Jamestown  by James Otis

The New Laws

Now you must understand that with the coming of this fleet we of Jamestown were told that the London Company had changed all the laws for us in Virginia, and that Lord De la Warr, who sailed on the ship from which nothing had been heard, was to be our governor.

From that hour did it seem as if all the men in Jamestown, save only half a dozen, among whom were Captain Smith, Master Hunt and Master Percy, strove their best to wreck the settlement.

Because Lord De la Warr, the new governor, had not arrived, many of the new comers refused to obey my master, and they were so strong in numbers that it was not possible for him to force them to his will.

Each man strove for himself, regardless of the sick, or of the women and children. Some banded themselves together in companies, falling upon such Indian villages as they could easily overcome, and murdered and robbed until all the brown men of Virginia stood ready to shed the blood of every white man who crossed their path.

Then came that which plunged Nathaniel and me into deepest grief.

 

Richard of Jamestown  by James Otis

The Accident

Captain Smith had gone up the bay in the hope of soothing the trouble among the savages, and, failing in this effort, was returning, having got within four and twenty hours' journey of Jamestown, when the pinnace was anchored for the night.

The boat's company lay down to sleep, and then came that accident, if accident it may be called, the cause of which no man has ever been able to explain to the satisfaction of Master Hunt or myself.

Captain Smith was asleep, with his powder bag by his side, when in some manner it was set on fire, and the powder, exploding, tore the flesh from his body and thighs for the space of nine or ten inches square, even down to the bones.

In his agony, and being thus horribly aroused from sleep, hardly knowing what he did, he plunged overboard as the quickest way to soothe the pain. There he was like to have drowned but for Samuel White, who came near to losing his own life in saving him.

He was brought back to the town on the day before the ships of the fleet, which had brought so many quarrelsome people, were to sail for England. With no surgeon to dress his wounds, what could he do but depart in one of these ships with the poor hope of living in agony until he arrived on the other side of the ocean.

Nathaniel and I would have gone with him, willing, because of his friendship for us, to have served him so long as we lived. He refused to listen to our prayers, insisting that we were lads well fitted to live in a new land like Virginia, and that if we would but remain with Master Hunt, working out our time of apprenticeship, which would be but five years longer, then might we find ourselves men of importance in the colony. He doubted not, so he said, but that we would continue, after he had gone, as we had while he was with us.

What could we lads do other than obey, when his commands were laid upon us, even though our hearts were so sore that it seemed as if it would no longer be possible to live when he had departed?

Even amid his suffering, when one might well have believed that he could give no heed to anything save his own plight, he spoke to us of what we should do for the bettering of our own condition. He promised that as soon as he was come to London, and able to walk around, if so be God permitted him to live, he would seek out Nathaniel's parents to tell them that the lad who had run away from his home was rapidly making a man of himself in Virginia, and would one day come back to gladden their hearts.

 

Richard Watson Gilder

The Christmas Tree in the Nursery

With wild surprise Four great eyes In two small heads From neighboring beds Looked out—and winked— And glittered and blinked At a very queer sight In the dim dawn-light. As plain as can be A fairy tree Flashes and glimmers And shakes and shimmers. Red, green, and blue Meet their view; Silver and gold Sharp eyes behold; Small moons, big stars; And jams in jars, And cakes and honey And thimbles, and money, Pink dogs, blue cats, Little squeaking rats, And candles, and dolls, And crackers and polls, A real bird that sings, And tokens and favors, And all sorts of things For the little shavers. Four black eyes Grow big with surprise; And then grow bigger When a tiny figure, Jaunty and airy, A fairy! a fairy! From the treetop cries "Open wide! Black Eyes! Come, children, wake now! Your joys you may take now." Quick as you can think, Twenty small toes In four pretty rows, Like little piggies pink, All kick in the air— And before you can wink The tree stands bare!

 

Fifty Famous Stories Retold  by James Baldwin

Antonio Canova

A GOOD many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name was An-to´ni-o Ca-no´va. He lived with his grand-fa-ther, for his own father was dead. His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was very poor.

An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work. He did not care to play with the other boys of the town. But he liked to go with his grandfather to the stone-yard. While the old man was busy, cutting, and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips. Sometimes he would make a little statue of soft clay; sometimes he would take hammer and chisel, and try to cut a statue from a piece of rock. He showed so much skill that his grandfather was de-light-ed.

"The boy will be a sculptor some day," he said.

Then when they went home in the evening, the grand-moth-er would say, "What have you been doing to-day, my little sculp-tor?"

And she would take him upon her lap and sing to him, or tell him stories that filled his mind with pictures of wonderful and beautiful things. And the next day, when he went back to the stone-yard, he would try to make some of those pictures in stone or clay.

There lived in the same town a rich man who was called the Count. Sometimes the Count would have a grand dinner, and his rich friends from other towns would come to visit him. Then Antonio's grandfather would go up to the Count's house to help with the work in the kitchen; for he was a fine cook as well as a good stone-cut-ter.

It happened one day that Antonio went with his grandfather to the Count's great house. Some people from the city were coming, and there was to be a grand feast. The boy could not cook, and he was not old enough to wait on the table; but he could wash the pans and kettles, and as he was smart and quick, he could help in many other ways.

All went well until it was time to spread the table for dinner. Then there was a crash in the dining room, and a man rushed into the kitchen with some pieces of marble in his hands. He was pale, and trembling with fright.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" he cried. "I have broken the statue that was to stand at the center of the table. I cannot make the table look pretty without the statue. What will the Count say?"

And now all the other servants were in trouble. Was the dinner to be a failure after all? For everything de-pend-ed on having the table nicely arranged. The Count would be very angry.

"Ah, what shall we do?" they all asked.

Then little Antonio Ca-no-va left his pans and kettles, and went up to the man who had caused the trouble.

"If you had another statue, could you arrange the table?" he asked.

"Cer-tain-ly," said the man; "that is, if the statue were of the right length and height."

"Will you let me try to make one?" asked Antonio. "Perhaps I can make something that will do."

The man laughed.

"Non-sense!" he cried. "Who are you, that you talk of making statues on an hour's notice?"

"I am Antonio Canova," said the lad.

"Let the boy try what he can do," said the servants, who knew him.

And so, since nothing else could be done, the man allowed him to try.

On the kitchen table there was a large square lump of yellow butter. Two hundred pounds the lump weighed, and it had just come in, fresh and clean, from the dairy on the mountain. With a kitchen knife in his hand, Antonio began to cut and carve this butter. In a few minutes he had molded it into the shape of a crouching lion; and all the servants crowded around to see it.

"The servants crowded around to see it."

"How beautiful!" they cried. "It is a great deal pret-ti-er than the statue that was broken."

When it was finished, the man carried it to its place.

"The table will be hand-som-er by half than I ever hoped to make it," he said.

When the Count and his friends came in to dinner, the first thing they saw was the yellow lion.

"What a beautiful work of art!" they cried. "None but a very great artist could ever carve such a figure; and how odd that he should choose to make it of butter!" And then they asked the Count to tell them the name of the artist.

"Truly, my friends," he said, "this is as much of a surprise to me as to you." And then he called to his head servant, and asked him where he had found so wonderful a statue.

"It was carved only an hour ago by a little boy in the kitchen," said the servant.

This made the Count's friends wonder still more; and the Count bade the servant call the boy into the room.

"My lad," he said, "you have done a piece of work of which the greatest artists would be proud. What is your name, and who is your teacher?"

"My name is Antonio Canova," said the boy, "and I have had no teacher but my grandfather the stonecutter."

By this time all the guests had crowded around Antonio. There were famous artists among them, and they knew that the lad was a genius. They could not say enough in praise of his work; and when at last they sat down at the table, nothing would please them but that Antonio should have a seat with them; and the dinner was made a feast in his honor.

The very next day the Count sent for Antonio to come and live with him. The best artists in the land were em-ployed to teach him the art in which he had shown so much skill; but now, instead of carving butter, he chis-eled marble. In a few years, Antonio Canova became known as one of the greatest sculptors in the world.

 

Outdoor Visits  by Edith M. Patch

Sleepy Bumblebees

They stopped to look at one bush and Nan said, "Do you remember this rose bush? It had lovely pink flowers in summer. The bumble-bees came here for pollen. We liked to hear their humming wings."

"We will ask our uncle about bumblebees in winter," said Don.

"In the late summer," said Uncle Tom, "the youngest Mother Bumblebees go to flowers for nectar. They drink as much as they can. After a time they seem to feel sleepy.

"Then each very young Mother Bumblebee finds a good dry place and digs a hole in the ground.

"This small dry hole is her winter sleeping room. She stays there alone until spring comes."

"I know what she does in spring," said Don. "She hunts for a good hole big enough for a summer home."

"Yes," said Nan, "and then she makes bee bread of pollen and honey. And at last she begins to lay eggs."

 

Anonymous

An Old Christmas Carol

God bless the master of this house, The mistress also, And all the little children, That round the table go, And all your kin and kinsmen That dwell both far and near; I wish you a Merry Christmas, And a Happy New Year.

 

The Burgess Bird Book for Children  by Thornton Burgess

Peter Learns Something about Spooky

P ETER RABBIT likes winter. At least he doesn't mind it so very much, even though he has to really work for a living. Perhaps it is a good thing that he does, for he might grow too fat to keep out of the way of Reddy Fox. You see when the snow is deep Peter is forced to eat whatever he can, and very often there isn't much of anything for him but the bark of young trees. It is at such times that Peter gets into mischief, for there is no bark he likes better than that of young fruit trees. Now you know what happens when the bark is taken off all the way around the trunk of a tree. That tree dies. It dies for the simple reason that it is up the inner layer of bark that the life-giving sap travels in the spring and summer. Of course, when a strip of bark has been taken off all the way around near the base of a tree, the sap cannot go up and the tree must die.

Now up near the Old Orchard Farmer Brown had set out a young orchard. Peter knew all about that young orchard, for he had visited it many times in the summer. Then there had been plenty of sweet clover and other green things to eat, and Peter had never been so much as tempted to sample the bark of those young trees. But now things were very different, and it was very seldom that Peter knew what it was to have a full stomach. He kept thinking of that young orchard. He knew that if he were wise he would keep away from there. But the more he thought of it the more it seemed to him that he just must have some of that tender young bark. So just at dusk one evening, Peter started for the young orchard.

Peter got there in safety and his eyes sparkled as he hopped over to the nearest young tree. But when he reached it, Peter had a dreadful disappointment. All around the trunk of that young tree was wire netting. Peter couldn't get even a nibble of that bark. He tried the next tree with no better result. Then he hurried on from tree to tree, always with the same result. You see Farmer Brown knew all about Peter's liking for the bark of young fruit trees, and he had been wise enough to protect his young orchard.

At last Peter gave up and hopped over to the Old Orchard. As he passed a certain big tree he was startled by a voice. "What's the matter, Peter?" said the voice. "You don't look happy."

Peter stopped short and stared up in the big apple-tree. Look as he would he couldn't see anybody. Of course there wasn't a leaf on that tree, and he could see all through it. Peter blinked and felt foolish. He knew that had there been any one sitting on any one of those branches he couldn't have helped seeing him.

"Don't look so high, Peter; don't look so high," said the voice with a chuckle. This time it sounded as if it came right out of the trunk of the tree. Peter stared at the trunk and then suddenly laughed right out. Just a few feet above the ground was a good sized hole in the tree, and poking his head out of it was a funny little fellow with big eyes and a hooked beak.

"You certainly did fool me that time, Spooky," cried Peter. "I ought to have recognized your voice, but I didn't."

Spooky the Screech Owl, for that is who it was, came out of the hole in the tree and without a sound from his wings flew over and perched just above Peter's head. He was a little fellow, not over eight inches high, but there was no mistaking the family to which he belonged. In fact he looked very much like a small copy of Hooty the Great Horned Owl, so much so that Peter felt a little cold shiver run over him, although he had nothing in the world to fear from Spooky.

SPOOKY THE SCREECH OWL The most common of all Owls, sometimes reddish‑brown and sometimes gray.

His head seemed to be almost as big around as his body, and he seemed to have no neck at all. He was dressed in bright reddish-brown, with little streaks and bars of black. Underneath he was whitish, with little streaks and bars of black and brown. On each side of his head was a tuft of feathers. They looked like ears and some people think they are ears, which is a mistake. His eyes were round and yellow with a fierce hungry look in them. His bill was small and almost hidden among the feathers of his face, but it was hooked just like the bill of Hooty. As he settled himself he turned his head around until he could look squarely behind him, then brought it back again so quickly that to Peter it looked as if it had gone clear around. You see Spooky's eyes are fixed in their sockets and he cannot move them from side to side. He has to turn his whole head in order to see to one side or the other.

"You haven't told me yet why you look so unhappy, Peter," said Spooky.

"Isn't an empty stomach enough to make any fellow unhappy?" retorted Peter rather shortly.

Spooky chuckled. "I've got an empty stomach myself, Peter," said he, "but it isn't making me unhappy. I have a feeling that somewhere there is a fat Mouse waiting for me."

Just then Peter remembered what Jenny Wren had told him early in the spring of how Spooky the Screech Owl lives all the year around in a hollow tree, and curiosity made him forget for the time being that he was hungry. "Did you live in that hole all summer, Spooky?" he asked.

Spooky nodded solemnly. "I've lived in that hollow summer and winter for three years," said he.

Peter's eyes opened very wide. "And till now I never even guessed it," he exclaimed. "Did you raise a family there?"

"I certainly did," replied Spooky. "Mrs. Spooky and I raised a family of four as fine looking youngsters as you ever have seen. They've gone out into the Great World to make their own living now. Two were dressed just like me and two were gray."

"What's that?" exclaimed Peter.

"I said that two were dressed just like me and two were gray," replied Spooky rather sharply.

"That's funny," Peter exclaimed.

"What's funny?" snapped Spooky rather crossly.

"Why that all four were not dressed alike," said Peter.

"There's nothing funny about it," retorted Spooky, and snapped his bill sharply with a little cracking sound. "We Screech Owls believe in variety. Some of us are gray and some of us are reddish-brown. It is a case of where you cannot tell a person just by the color of his clothes."

Peter nodded as if he quite understood, although he couldn't understand at all. "I'm ever so pleased to find you living here," said he politely. "You see, in winter the Old Orchard is rather a lonely place. I don't see how you get enough to eat when there are so few birds about."

"Birds!" snapped Spooky. "What have birds to do with it?"

"Why, don't you live on birds?" asked Peter innocently.

"I should say not. I guess I would starve if I depended on birds for my daily food," retorted Spooky. "I catch a Sparrow now and then, to be sure, but usually it is an English Sparrow, and I consider that I am doing the Old Orchard a good turn every time I am lucky enough to catch one of the family of Bully the English Sparrow. But I live mostly on Mice and Shrews in winter and in summer I eat a lot of grasshoppers and other insects. If it wasn't for me and my relatives I guess Mice would soon overrun the Great World. Farmer Brown ought to be glad I've come to live in the Old Orchard and I guess he is, for Farmer Brown's boy knows all about this house of mine and never disturbs me. Now if you'll excuse me I think I'll fly over to Farmer Brown's young orchard. I ought to find a fat Mouse or two trying to get some of the bark from those young trees."

"Huh!" exclaimed Peter. They can try all they want to, but they won't get any; I can tell you that."

Spooky's round yellow eyes twinkled. "It must be you have been trying to get some of that bark yourself," said he.

Peter didn't say anything but he looked guilty, and Spooky once more chuckled as he spread his wings and flew away so soundlessly that he seemed more like a drifting shadow than a bird. Then Peter started for a certain swamp he knew of where he would be sure to find enough bark to stay his appetite.

 

The Christmas Porringer  by Evaleen Stein

Karen Asks about Christmas

VER the old Flemish city of Bruges the wintry twilight was falling. The air was starry with snowflakes that drifted softly down, fluttering from off the steep brown roofs, piling up in corners of ancient doorways, and covering the cobblestones of the narrow streets with a fleecy carpet of white.

At a corner of one of the oldest of these and facing on another no wider than a lane, but which bore the name of The Little Street Of The Holy Ghost, a number of years ago there stood a quaint little house built of light yellow bricks. It had a steep gabled roof, the bricks that formed it being arranged in a row of points that met at the peak beneath a gilded weather-vane shaped like an arrow. The little house had no dooryard, and a wooden step led directly from its entrance to the flagstones that made a narrow, uneven walk along that side of the street.

Icicles hung from the edge of the brown roof and twinkled in a crystal fringe around the canopy of the little shrine up in the corner of the dwelling. For, like so many others of the old city, the little house had its own shrine. It was a small niche painted a light blue, and in it, under a tiny projecting canopy of carved wood, stood a small figure of the Virgin Mother holding the Christ-child in her arms. Now and then a starry snowflake drifted in beneath the canopy and clung to the folds of the Virgin's blue robe or softly touched the little hands of the Christ-child nestling against her breast.

And, by and by, as the wind rose and blew around the corner of the house, it began to pile up the snow on the sills of the casement windows whose small panes of glass lighted the room within, where sat an old woman and a little girl. The woman was clad in a plain black gown, such as is still worn by the humbler of the Flemish dames, and on her silvery hair was a stiffly starched cap of white.

The little girl was dressed much the same, save that her light brown hair was not hidden but braided in two plaits that were crossed and pinned up very flat and tight at the back of her head.

The woman was bending over a rounded pillow, covered with black cloth, which she held in her lap; it was stuck full of stout pins, and around these was caught a web of fine threads each ending in a tiny bone bobbin, and beneath her skillful fingers, as they deftly plied these bobbins in and out, a delicate piece of lace was growing; for it was thus that she earned bread for herself and the little girl.

Indeed, the lace of Bruges, made by the patient toil of numberless of her poorer people, has for many centuries been famous for its fineness and beauty. And those who so gain their livelihood must often begin to work while they are still children, even as young as the little girl who sat there in the twilight by the window of the little yellow house.

She, too, was bending over a black-covered pillow, only hers was smaller and had fewer bobbins than that of the white-capped woman beside her; for the child was just beginning to learn some of the simpler stitches. But though the bit of lace on the pillow showed that she had made good progress, she was working now slowly and had already broken her thread twice, for her mind was full of other thoughts.

She was thinking that the next night would be Christmas eve, and that she would set her little wooden shoes by the hearth, and that if she had been good enough to please the Christ-child, he would come while she was asleep and put in them some red apples and nuts, or perhaps—perhaps he might bring the little string of beads she wanted so much. For Flemish children do not hang up their stockings for Santa Claus as do the children of our land, but instead, at Christmas time, they set their little shoes on the hearth and these they expect the Christ-child himself to fill with gifts.

As the little girl by the window now thought and thought of Christmas, her fingers dropped the thread at last and, looking up from her task with her blue eyes full of dreams, "Grandmother," she said softly, "will the Christ-child surely come again tomorrow night? And do you think he will bring me something?"

"Why, yes, Karen, thou hast been a good child," answered Grandmother, who was trying hard to finish a difficult part of her lace pattern before the dark fell.

"And, Grandmother," went on Karen, after thinking a little longer, "is it really his own birthday?"

"Yes, yes, child," said Grandmother.

"Then," said Karen, as a bewildered look crept into her eyes, "why is it that he brings gifts to me, instead of my giving something to him? I thought on people's birthdays they had presents of their own. You know on my last one you gave me my blue kerchief, and the time before, my pewter mug." Karen considered a moment more, and then she added: "Is it because we are so poor, Grandmother, that I have never given the Christ-child a Christmas present?"

Here Grandmother's flying fingers paused an instant, though still holding a pair of the tiny bobbins, as she answered, "It is true we are poor, Karen, but that is not the reason. No one gives such gifts to the Christ-child. Thou must give him obedience and love; dost thou not remember what Father Benedicte told thee? And then, too, thou knowest thou art to carry a wax candle to the cathedral for a Christmas offering at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin and Child."

"But," continued Karen perplexedly, "does no  one give him something for his very own?"

"There, there, child," said Grandmother, with a note of weariness in her patient voice, "I cannot work and answer thy questions!"

And Grandmother bent still closer over the flower of lace which she was trying so hard to finish, and the little girl became silent.

After a while, from the beautiful tall belfry that soared into the sky from the center of the city, the chimes rang out the hour, and, no longer able to see in the gathering dusk, Grandmother rose and laid aside her work.

"Come, Karen," she said, "put up thy work, and get thy shawl and go fetch some water for the tea-kettle."

The little girl carefully placed her lace-pillow on a shelf at one side of the room; and taking a knitted shawl from a peg near the doorway, she ran to the dresser and lifted down a copper tea-kettle, polished till it shone. Then she unbarred the door and sped out into the snowy dusk.

She had but a short distance to go to the quaint pump that served the neighborhood. It stood among the cobblestones of the narrow street, and had been made long, long ago, when the workmen of even the commonest things loved their craft and strove to make everything beautiful that their fingers touched. So the pump had a wonderful spout of wrought iron shaped like a dragon's head; and as Karen tugged at the long, slender handle of the same metal, she laughed to see how the icicles hung from the dragon's mouth like a long white beard. She liked to pretend that he was alive and wanting to eat her up, and that she was very brave to make him fill her tea-kettle; for Karen loved fairy stories and lived a great deal in her own thoughts.

Meantime, the dragon had not eaten her, and the copper tea-kettle was brimming over with cold water, seeing which she stooped and lifting it in both hands, carefully carried it back to the little yellow house and set it on the hearth where Grandmother had raked out some glowing coals. Then she lighted a candle, and helped prepare their simple evening meal of coarse brown bread and coffee, though this last was for Grandmother; for Karen there was a pewter mug full of milk.

When they had finished their supper, Grandmother placed her lace-pillow on the table close to the candle and again busied herself with her work. For the wife of Burgomaster Koerner had ordered the lace, and it must be finished and sent home the next day.

And Grandmother sorely needed every penny she could earn; for, since Karen had neither father nor mother, there was no one but herself to gain a livelihood until the little girl grew older and could help carry the burden. To be sure, Grandmother was not really so old as she looked, but many years of toil over the lace-pillow had bent her back and taken the color from her face. While Karen's father had lived they had known more of comfort; but when he died and the mother had followed soon afterward, leaving her baby girl to Grandmother's care, there had been but little left with which to buy their bread. That had been eight years before, but Grandmother had struggled bravely on; she was one of the most skillful of the scores of lace-makers of the old city, and so she had managed still to keep the little yellow house in which she had always lived, and to shield Karen from knowing the bitterest needs of the poor.

But Grandmother was weary; and as now she bent over the fairylike web of lace in which she had woven flowers and leaves from threads of filmy fineness, she was glad that the piece was almost finished, and that she would have the blessed Christmas day in which to rest.

And while Grandmother's fingers flew back and forth among the maze of pins, Karen was busy tidying up the hearth and the few dishes which she neatly set back on the old-fashioned dresser near the fireplace. Then she drew a little stool close to the hearth, and, resting her chin on one hand, looked dreamily into the fire.

"resting her chin on one hand, looked dreamily into the fire."

She was still thinking of Christmas eve, and the more she thought the more she wanted to give something to the Christ-child. For she was a generous hearted little girl and loved to share any little pleasures with her friends, especially those who had been so good to her. And she considered the Christ-child the most faithful friend she knew, "for," she said to herself, "as far back as I can remember, he has come every Christmas while I was asleep, and has always put something in my wooden shoes! And to think that no one gives him any present for himself!" For Karen could not see how giving him one's obedience or love (for, of course, every one expected their friends to love them anyway!), or offering a wax candle in the shrine at the cathedral, could take the place of some little gift that he might have for his very own.

Surely, she thought, the Christ-child must like these things just as other children do. If only she had some money to buy something for him, or if only she had something of her own nice enough to offer him! She went over in her mind her little possessions; there was her blue kerchief, her pewter mug, her rag doll, her little wooden stool; but none of these things seemed just right for the Christ-child. And, besides, she felt that he was so wonderful and holy that his present should be something not only beautiful, but also quite new and fresh.

Poor Karen gave a sigh to think she had not a penny to buy anything; and Grandmother, looking up from her work, said, "What is the matter, child?" And as Karen said nothing, "Where is thy knitting?" asked Grandmother, " 'tis yet a little while till bedtime; see if thou canst remember how to make thy stitches even, the way I showed thee yesterday."

"Yes, Grandmother," answered Karen; and going into the little room that opened off from the living-room, she came back with a bit of knitting and again seating herself on the wooden stool, began carefully to work the shining needles through some coarse blue yarn. For little Flemish girls even as young as she were not thought too small to be taught not only the making of lace, but how to knit; and their hands were seldom allowed to be idle.

Indeed the folk of the humbler class in Bruges had to work long and industriously to keep bread on their tables and a shelter over their heads.

The city had once been the richest and most powerful in all Flanders, and up to her wharves great ships had brought wonderful cargoes from all over the world; and the rulers of Bruges and her merchant citizens had lived in the greatest splendor. The wealthy people were wealthier and the poorer people less poor in those old days. But then had come bitter wars and oppression; the harbor had slowly filled up with sand brought down by the river Zwijn, till at the time when Karen lived, Bruges was no longer the proud and glorious city she had once been, but was all the while becoming poorer and poorer.

It was true there were many ancient families who still lived at ease in the beautiful old carved houses facing on shady squares or built along the edges of the winding canals that everywhere threaded the once busy city; though the quiet water of these now scarcely rippled save when the trailing branches of the overhanging willow trees dipped into them, or a fleet of stately white swans went sailing along. But in the poorer parts of the city the people must work hard, and there were whole streets where every one made lace; and all day long women and girls, old and young, bent over the black-covered pillows just as Karen's Grandmother was at that moment doing.

Grandmother's fingers steadily plied the tiny bobbins in and out long after Karen had put away her knitting and crept into the little cupboard bed which was built into the wall of the small room next to the living-room.

At last, as the candle burned low, the lace was finished; and carefully unpinning it from the pillow, Grandmother laid it in a clean napkin; and then she raked the ashes over the embers of the fire on the hearth, and soon her tired eyes closed in sleep as she lay in the high-posted bed close to Karen.

 

Madison Cawein

A Song of the Snow

Sing, Ho, a song of the winter dawn, When the air is still and the clouds are gone, And the snow lies deep on hill and lawn, And the old clock ticks, " 'Tis time! 'Tis time!" And the household rises with many a yawn Sing, Ho, a song of the winter dawn! Sing, Ho! Sing, Ho, a song of the winter sky When the last star closes its icy eye And deep in the road the snow-drifts lie, And the old clock ticks, " 'Tis late! 'Tis late!" And the flame on the hearth leaps red—leaps high Sing, Ho, a song of the winter sky! Sing, Ho! Sing, Ho, a song of the winter morn When the snow makes ghostly the wayside thorn, And hills of pearl are the shocks of corn, And the old clock ticks, "Tick-tock; tick-tock;" And the goodman bustles about the barn Sing, Ho, a song of the winter morn! Sing, Ho! Sing, Ho, a song of the winter day, When ermine capped are the stocks of hay, And the wood-smoke pillars the air with gray, And the old clock ticks, "To work! To work!" And the goodwife sings as she churns away Sing, Ho, a song of the winter day! Sing, Ho!

 

The Christmas Porringer  by Evaleen Stein

Buying the Porringer

HE next morning was bright and clear, and the sunshine sparkled over the freshly fallen snow and touched all the icicles with rainbow light.

Karen and her Grandmother were astir early. The little girl fetched down some wood from the small attic, over the living-room, where they kept their precious supply for the winter; and then she set the table as Grandmother prepared the porridge for their breakfast.

After breakfast Grandmother took her lace-pillow and began arranging her pins and bobbins for another piece of work; and when Karen had dusted the simple furniture and swept the snow from the doorstep, she put on her knitted hood and shawl, and pinning together the napkin in which Grandmother had placed the piece of lace, she set out for the home of Madame Koerner.

Down the narrow street she passed, and then across an old stone bridge that spanned one of the lazy canals that wandered through the city. The ice had spread a thin sheet over this, and the beautiful white swans that swam about on it in the summer-time had gone into the shelter of their little wooden house, which stood on the bank under a snowy willow tree. One of the great shining birds, looking herself like a drift of snow, stood at the door of the little shelter house preening her feathers in the sunlight, and Karen waved her hand to her with a smiling "Good-morning, Madame Swan!" for she loved the beautiful creatures, numbers of which are still seen on all the water-ways of Bruges, and she always spoke to them, and sometimes brought them crumbs from her bits of coarse bread at home.

Beyond the bridge she sped on past rows of tall brown houses with here and there a little shop crowded in between, and presently her way led across the Grande Place, a large, irregular square in the center of the city. Here there were many shops, and people passing to and fro; and among them went numbers of great shaggy dogs harnessed to little carts filled with vegetables or tall copper milk cans, and these they tugged across the cobblestones to the ancient Market Halles from which towered the wonderful belfry of which every one in Bruges was so proud.

Karen paused to listen while the silvery chimes rang out, as they had rung every quarter hour for more than three hundred years.

Then she passed on into a long, quiet street where the houses stood farther apart and had rows of trees in front of them. Some of them had high walls adjoining them, and behind these were pretty gardens, though now, of course, all were covered with the wintry snow.

Presently Karen stopped at a wooden gate leading into one of these gardens, and pushing it open made her way along a winding path to the door of a tall house with many gables and adorned with rare old carvings. This was the home of Madame Koerner; the house really faced on the street, but the little girl did not like to go to the more stately entrance, and so chose the smaller one that opened into the garden. She knocked timidly, for she was a little in awe of Madame Koerner, who seemed to her a very grand lady. But the maid who opened the door knew Karen and led her in and took her at once to the upstairs room where Madame Koerner sat with a fine piece of needlework in her lap.

Madame Koerner smiled kindly at the little girl, who had several times before brought Grandmother's lace to her. "Good-morning, Karen," she said, "I am so glad to have the lace, for now I can finish this cap, which I want for a Christmas gift." And then as she unfolded the napkin and looked at the lace, "O," she cried, "how lovely it is! No one in all Bruges does more beautiful work than thy Grandmother, little one! And some day, I dare say, thou, too, wilt do just as well, for I know thou art learning fast." And she smiled again, and patted Karen's hands as the little girl held out the lace for her to see.

Karen colored with pleasure to hear Grandmother's work praised, as indeed it deserved; for the delicate scrolls and flowers and leaves of it looked as if made of frost and caught in a net of pearly cobwebs.

Madame Koerner was so pleased with it that when the little girl laid it down, she looked in her purse and gave her a generous gold piece for Grandmother, and then she added a smaller piece of silver for Karen herself; "That is for thee, little one," she said. "And I hope thou wilt have a very happy Christmas."

Karen thanked her shyly, and as with shining eyes she turned to go, Madame Koerner said, "Go out through the kitchen, child, and tell Marie, the cook, to fill thy napkin with some of the little cakes she is baking."

So when once more Karen tripped out into the street, her heart was very light and her mind full of happy thoughts as she tightly clasped in one hand the gold piece for Grandmother, and in the other the franc of silver which Madame Koerner had given for her own, and the napkin filled with the Christmas cakes. These were the kind that all Flemish children delight in, and were made of fine gingerbread and filled with candied orange peel and red cherries.

As Karen came near the Grande Place and saw the Market Halles, her eyes fairly danced, for she knew the Christmas market was going on there, and all the way from Madame Koerner's she had kept saying to herself: "Now I can buy a present for the Christ-child and one for Grandmother!"

Outside the Halles the cobblestones had been swept clean of snow, and a few hardy dealers had placed their wares for sale out of doors. But these were chiefly sellers of leather harnesses for the patient Flemish dogs, of wooden shoes and coarse baskets; and some had piled in front of them small bundles of fire-wood and fagots. But none of these wares interested Karen, and so she stepped inside the Halles where one might find all manner of things for sale. Here were stalls piled with different colored cloths, with kerchiefs and laces; in others were displayed great earthen pots and pans and other gear for the kitchen. And there were sellers of Christmas trinkets, and wax candles, and what not; of the milk in the tall copper cans the dogs had drawn thither in their little carts; of winter vegetables, and food and sweetmeats of various kinds.

"See!" called a white-capped woman, who sat behind a stall heaped with little cakes, "here are caraway cookies fit for the king's children, and only four sous the dozen!"

But Karen felt very rich with the Christmas cakes in her napkin, and so was not to be tempted. As she stepped slowly along, looking first at one side and then the other, presently she came to a stall where colored beads and trinkets of many kinds were arranged on a long strip of scarlet cloth. As she saw these, she could not help but stop and look longingly at a little necklace of blue beads, the very kind she had wanted for so long a time!

At this stall sat another white-capped woman dealer, who, seeing the wistful look in Karen's face, said: "Well, my child, if thou canst give me ten sous, thou canst take home with thee this pretty trinket. 'Tis a fair match for thine eyes, little maid!"

Karen's blue eyes began to brim with tears, for she knew ten sous were only half a franc, and she did want the beads so very, very much! But after one more longing look she resolutely passed on, still tightly holding her silver franc; for, much as she wanted the necklace, she was determined that the Christ-child and Grandmother should have their gifts, and she was afraid even her wonderful franc might not be enough for all.

So she went on, still looking carefully at each stall she passed, and all the while growing more and more perplexed trying to decide which were the very prettiest things she could buy. She had gone more than half the length of the market, and was becoming bewildered and a little frightened as she hugged her shawl about her and made her way as best she could among the different groups of buyers and sellers. And then, by and by, her face lighted up with pleasure as she stopped in front of a pottery dealer's stall. This was presided over by a kindly faced man in a workman's blouse. On a smooth board in front of him were all kinds of the coarser wares of Flanders, and also some pieces made by the peasant folk of Normandy and Brittany, countries not far away; and among these smaller pieces Karen had spied a little porringer. It was just an humble little earthen dish such as the peasants of Brittany make for their children to use for their bread and milk; but it was gayly painted, and Karen thought it the most beautiful porringer she had ever seen. Its flat handles were colored a bright yet soft blue, and around the inner edge of its bowl were bands of blue and red, and right in the bottom was painted a little peasant girl; she wore a blue dress and a white and orange colored apron, and on her head was a pointed white cap. She carried in one hand a red rose, and on either side of her was a stiff little rose-tree with red blossoms. It was all crudely done, yet had a quaint charm of its own, a charm lacked by many a more finely finished piece; and it stood there leaning against a tall brown jar behind it, the little girl in the porringer seemed to smile back at Karen as she paused, rapt in admiration.

For Karen was quite sure that at last she had found the very thing for the blessed Christ-child. Indeed, she felt it was the one thing of all the things she had seen, that she most wanted to buy for him. And then, too, just beyond the porringer, a little farther down on the board, she saw a small, green jug that she was sure Grandmother would like. She wondered if they cost very much, and hardly dared to ask the pottery dealer. But presently she summoned up her courage, and, pointing to the little porringer and the jug, she said in a timid voice, "Please, sir, tell me, can I buy these for my franc?" And she held out to him her little palm, where lay the silver franc all warm and moist from the tight clasp of her rosy fingers.

The dealer looked at her anxious face and smiled at her as he said: "Dost thou want them so very much, little one? Truly thou canst have them for thy franc. My price would be some fifteen sous more, but for the sake of thy sweet face and the blessed Christmas time thou shalt have them." And he put them into Karen's arms as she smiled her delight.

The little girl was so happy that she fairly skimmed over the snowy cobblestones. When she came to the old bridge spanning the icy canal, the white swan was still standing on the bank blinking in the sunlight, and Karen called out merrily, "Dear Madame Swan, I have bought the most wonderful things!" And then she laughed a little silvery laugh, for her heart was so light it was fairly bubbling over with happiness.

When she reached the little yellow house she bounded up the step, and, standing on the sill close to the door, she called "Grandmother! Grandmother! Please let me in! I cannot open the door!"

Grandmother, hearing her, hurried to unlatch it, and Karen burst in with "Oh, Grandmother, see these beautiful Christmas cakes that Marie gave me! And here is a gold piece for your lace!"

And then having freed one hand, she pulled her shawl tightly together over the other things, and smiling delightedly, cried "And Madame Koerner gave me a silver franc for my very own, and I spent it in the Market Halles!"

"Thou hast already spent it?" asked Grandmother reprovingly. "Karen! Karen! wilt thou never learn to save thy pennies? What hast thou bought?"

"Oh," answered Karen, as her face fell, "I wanted one of them to be a secret till to-morrow! They are Christmas presents! But I wanted to show the other"—here she broke off confusedly; she had meant to say she wanted to show the porringer to Grandmother, but now she had not the heart. "But, Grandmother," she went on earnestly, "it was my own franc, and I love to buy gifts! And you know I couldn't last year because I had no pennies."

"Well, well, child," said Grandmother softening, "thou hast a generous heart, only thou shouldst not have spent all thy franc; thou hadst done better to put some by for another time."

Karen said nothing, though the tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes. She had wanted so much to show the porringer and share her joy in it with Grandmother. But now she felt that it would not be approved of since Grandmother thought her so foolish to spend all her franc, and especially since she had said that no one gave Christmas presents to the Christ-child. But though that had seemed to settle the matter for Grandmother, it only made Karen the more anxious to do so. She said to herself that if no one gave the Christ-child presents, it was all the more reason why she should—surely somebody ought to! And so she was not in the least sorry that she had not saved any of her franc. And she tried to think, too, that perhaps Grandmother would like a Christmas present herself, for all she said the money should not have been spent; perhaps when Grandmother saw the little green jug, she would think it so pretty that she would be glad that Karen had bought it. But she was not to see it till Christmas morning, for Karen meant to put it in her shoe just as the Christ-child did for children.

So presently her face brightening up, while Grandmother went on with her work, she ran into the other room and pulling open a deep drawer from a clothes-press that stood against the wall, she thrust the precious gifts under the folded clothes to stay hidden until she wanted them.

After dinner Grandmother began to prick the pattern for the new piece of lace she was beginning, and Karen knitted a while until it was time for the vesper service in the old cathedral of Saint Sauveur, whose tall tower rose above the steep housetops not far away.

When the bells began chiming, Grandmother and the little girl, laying aside their work, made themselves ready; and each carrying a white wax candle, which Grandmother had taken pains to provide some time before, they trudged off down the street.

When they reached the cathedral and entered through the great carved portal, the late afternoon light was falling in softly colored bars through the multitude of richly stained windows. As Karen gazed around at the many shrines where hundreds of wax tapers brought by other worshippers were already dotting the brightly colored air with their tiny golden flames, they looked so beautiful that for a moment she wondered if perhaps after all the Christ-child might not like the wax candles best. But the more she thought, she decided that he would surely be pleased to have something for really his own; for, of course, the candles were partly for God and the Blessed Virgin; and so she was glad she had the porringer that should be entirely his.

After the vesper service was over, and they were back again in the little house, the rest of the day passed very quickly for Karen. After supper Grandmother dozed a while in her chair beside the hearth; and then Karen ran into their sleeping-room and hurriedly took out the porringer and the green jug from their hiding-place in the clothes-press. Grandmother had put on some old slippers in place of the heavy wooden shoes she had worn all day, and these sabots were standing on the floor near her bed.

The room was dark, but Karen felt around till she found the sabots; and then she gave a little suppressed laugh of pleasure as she thrust the little green jug as far as it would go in one of them. She knew Grandmother would not find it till morning, for they never thought of having a light by which to go to bed; a candle for the living-room was all they could afford.

After placing the green jug in Grandmother's shoe, Karen stood for a moment thinking where she would put the porringer. She wanted the Christ-child to find it without any trouble; for he must be in a great hurry with so many children's houses to visit and sabots to fill. She thought first that when she took off hers for the night and stood them on the hearth to wait for him, she would set the porringer beside them. But then she remembered that at midnight, when he would come, the room would be quite dark; for Grandmother would put out the candle, and cover up the fire with ashes. And while, of course, the Christ-child expected sabots to be ready for him on the hearth and so could fill them in the dark, just as she had put the jug in Grandmother's, still, he might miss the porringer as that he would not be expecting, and so would not look for it.

Then, all at once, Karen remembered that out of doors it was moonlight; for, when she had fastened the wooden shutters at the front windows, the moon was rising round and silvery above the peaked roofs across the way. As she thought of this her perplexity vanished, and again a smile came to her lips as she said to herself: "I will set it outside on the doorstep, and the Christ-child will be sure to see it when he comes, and, of course, he will know it was meant for him, for he knows all about Christmas presents!"

Karen was greatly pleased with this plan; and so giving one more look at the little girl in the porringer, she took up two of the Christmas cakes from the dish on the table, and, squeezing them into its bowl, she went to the door and softly unbarred it; then, setting the porringer on the doorstep where the moonlight touched it, she again shut and fastened the door.

Grandmother roused from her doze before long, and sent Karen to bed, while she herself stayed up to knit to the end of her skein.

But long after the little girl lay in her cupboard bed her blue eyes were wide open with excitement. On the hearth in the living-room stood her little wooden shoes waiting for the visit of the Christ-child, and she longed with all her might to see him! And she longed, too, to know if he would be pleased with the porringer. But Grandmother had always told her that he did not like to be watched, and would not come till children were asleep.

By and by, after what seemed to Karen a very long time, her eyes began to blink, and she fell asleep and slept so soundly that she did not know when Grandmother put out the candle and covered up the fire and came to bed. Nor did she waken later on when peals of bells from the tall belfry and the cathedral and all the many churches of Bruges rang in the Christmas, and the sweet echoes of chanting voices and the songs of innumerable choristers floated over the city as the holy midnight mass was celebrated.

The rain of music thrilled and quivered through the frosty air, and then slowly it died away; and the Christmas stars shone and twinkled, and the great silver moon flooded the quiet night with a white radiance.

 

Robinson Crusoe Written Anew for Children  by James Baldwin

I Bring My Tale to a Close

AND SO on the 19th of December, 1687, we set sail for England. I had been on the island twenty-eight years, two months, and nineteen days.

I took on board with me the money that had been by me so long and had been so useless.

I took also my big goatskin cap and my umbrella. Neither did I forget my good Poll Parrot.

As for my man Friday, nothing in the world could have parted him from me. He would have gone to the ends of the earth with me.

The voyage was a long and hard one. But on the eleventh day of June we at last reached London. Once more I was in England, the land of my birth.

I was as perfect a stranger as if I had never been there.

I went down to York. My father and mother had been dead a long time. The friends of my boyhood had forgotten me.

I was alone in the world. Where should I go and what should I do?

By chance I learned that my plantation in Brazil was doing well. The man whom I had left in charge of it had made much money from the tobacco he had raised.

He was an honest man, and when he heard that I was still alive he wrote me a long, kind letter. In this he gave me a full account of the business.

He also sent me a large amount of money, which I was very glad to get.

I was now a rich man. I might have settled down to a life of ease and idleness; but such was not my wish.

Soon I was wandering from one place to another, seeing more of the world. I had many surprising adventures, I assure you; but I need not tell you about them. You would think any account of them very dry reading compared with the story I have already related.

And so, looking back with regretful memories to the years which I spent on my dear desert island, I bid you a kind good-by.

 

Anonymous

The Friendly Beasts

Jesus our brother, kind and good, Was humbly born in a stable rude, And the friendly beasts around Him stood, Jesus our brother, kind and good. "I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown, "I carried His mother up hill and down, I carried her safely to Bethlehem town; I," said the donkey, shaggy and brown. "I," said the cow all white and red, "I gave Him my manger for His bed, I gave Him my hay to pillow His head. I," said the cow all white and red. "I," said the sheep with curly horn, "I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm; He wore my coat on Christmas morn; I," said the sheep with curly horn. "I," said the dove, from the rafters high, "I cooed Him to sleep so He would not cry; We cooed him to sleep, my mate and I; I," said the dove from the rafters high. Thus every beast by some good spell, In the stable dark was glad to tell, Of the gift he gave Immanuel, The gift he gave Immanuel.

 

The Christmas Porringer  by Evaleen Stein

Robber Hans

HE midnight music had ceased for some time, and The Little Street Of The Holy Ghost was very quiet and deserted, as indeed it had been all the evening. But presently any one looking up it might have seen a man moving swiftly along. He did not walk like honest folk, but trod softly on the narrow flagstones close to the tall old houses, and seemed to try to keep within their shadows; and his eyes were all the while alertly watching everything about him.

As he came in front of the little yellow house the moon was slowly sinking behind a high gable across the street, but a last ray of silvery light fell across the doorstep, and just touched the edge of the porringer as it stood where Karen had placed it.

The man's keen eyes caught the gleam of something there, and though he could not tell exactly what it was, as the moonlight was waning fast, he nevertheless stooped quickly, and seizing the porringer in his hand, thrust it into the great pocket of his ragged coat. Then he hurried on and turned the corner and soon was lost in the shadows of a narrow passageway between two old houses.

"the man's keen eyes caught the gleam of something there."

Now, this man was known among evil-doers as "Hans the Robber," and many times the watchmen of Bruges had tried to catch him and punish him because he had stolen so many things from honest folk.

But always he managed to get away from them; or, if they came to the miserable hut where he lived at the edge of the city, he had some story to tell that deceived them so they could prove nothing against him, or else he contrived to hide until they got tired searching for him.

But people suspected him and shunned him as much as possible. On this night he had gone out hoping that while many were in the churches attending the midnight mass, he might find a chance to creep into some house and rob the owner of whatever he could. But he had not had good success in his dishonest work. To be sure, he had stolen a silver cup from one place; but then he had been frightened off before he could secure more, and so he had decided to try another and quieter part of the city; and as he came along the deserted Little Street Of The Holy Ghost and saw the porringer on the doorstep, he took it, because he always took everything he could.

When, after dropping it into his pocket, he went around the corner and into the passage-way, he reached his hand stealthily through the half closed shutters of a tall house beside him and tried to unfasten the window so that he might steal in. But just then he heard some one stirring within, and angrily muttering to himself, he fled away.

Here and there, as he hurried along, the waning moonbeams still shed a lingering light; and besides, it was getting so near dawn time that at last he decided that it was no use trying to get in anywhere else that night; and so he went back to his hut. When he reached this, he first carefully hid the silver cup he had stolen, by putting it in a cranny under a loose board in the floor; then throwing himself down on a rude bed of straw heaped in a corner, he soon fell into a heavy sleep.

When Hans the Robber awoke next morning, the hut was cold and cheerless. He rose from his wretched bed, and found a few billets of wood with which he kindled some fire on the untidy hearth.

In the bare cupboard he found little save crusts of black bread; and as he ate these he sat down on a rickety bench, which he pulled close to the fire, and drew his ragged coat closer around him.

Everything looked very dreary and desolate to him; and, as he heard the Christmas bells beginning to ring, a bitter look came into his face, for it had been many years since Christmas had meant anything to Robber Hans. He shrugged his shoulders, and thrust both hands into the pockets of his coat. As he did so, he felt something in one of them which he had forgotten all about; and then drawing out the little porringer, which still held the two Christmas cakes, he stared at it in surprise.

"Now, where could I have picked up that?" he said to himself, as he set it down on the bench beside him. Then he remembered how he had taken some object from the doorstep of a little yellow house that stood on a corner.

He took up one of the little cakes and broke it, and, as he was hungry, in two bites he had eaten it. As he took the other one in his fingers, he began to look at it curiously and to think.

Robber Hans had not eaten a little cake like that for years and years. All at once, with a start, old memories began to waken in his mind; for the little cake made him think of when he was a little boy and his mother had made just such wonderful little ginger cakes full of orange-peel and red cherries. And then, as he looked at the empty porringer, he stared at it with an almost startled look, for he remembered how he used to eat his bread and milk from a porringer exactly like that; only instead of a little girl painted in the bowl, in his was a little boy. Robber Hans could remember precisely how that little boy looked in his blue blouse and wooden shoes, and on his head a broad-brimmed hat of Breton straw, with a red ribbon on it.

For Robber Hans as a child had lived in the old seaport town of Quiberon, in Brittany, where his father was a fisherman. His mother's home before she married had been in Bruges, and so it was that at holiday time she always made for the little family of children the Christmas cakes like that which Robber Hans now held in his hand.

As he remembered all these things he forgot all about being cold and hungry. Presently, laying down the little cake, he took up the porringer and looked closely at the little girl holding the red rose in her hand.

Robber Hans in those far-away days had had a little sister whom he dearly loved; and the more he looked at the little girl in the porringer, the more he thought of his little sister Emschen, till presently he was sure that the face looking up at him from under the stiff white cap was the face of Emschen. It did not matter whether it looked like the little sister or not, for before the eyes of Robber Hans memory was bringing back her face so clearly that to him it seemed really there. Yes, and he was quite sure, too, that Emschen had worn a little apron like that; and there was the rose in her hand, and he remembered how she had loved roses!

It all came back to him how when they were children together he had made a little flower bed for her, close by their cottage door, and how both of them had carried white scallop shells from the edge of the sea and laid them around it, making a pretty border; and how pleased Emschen had been when her first little rosebush had a blossom, and how wonderfully it had flourished in the salt sea air, as do all the roses of Brittany.

And then more and more things came back to his memory, and the longer he looked and thought, his own face began gradually to soften, till, by and by, the oddest thing happened—a great tear fell into the porringer and lay there like a drop of dew on one of the painted rose-trees!

At this he roused himself, and, quickly brushing his hand across his eyes, he angrily thrust the porringer from him, and the bitter look came back into his face. For his memory, having started, would not stop with the pleasant days when he was a little boy in Quiberon, but went on and on, bringing freshly back to him how father, mother, and Emschen, all were gone; the father drowned in the stormy Breton sea, and the mother and Emschen sleeping in the wind-swept God's acre of Quiberon, with no one to lay on their graves even so much as a green holly leaf at Christmas time, or a wild poppy flower on Midsummer day. He saw in memory his brothers grown up and scattered from the old home, and himself become a sailor roving the sea to many lands; and then later on drifting ashore in the Flemish country, and overtaken by misfortune after misfortune, till at last he had fallen so low that here in Bruges, his mother's old home, he was known only as Robber Hans!

He rose to his feet, and, in a fit of sudden anger, because of his wasted and unhappy life, he seized the little porringer which had reminded him of what he had lost, and was about to dash it to pieces on the bricks of the hearth. But, just as he raised his hand, something seemed to stop him. He could not tell why, but instead of breaking the porringer he slowly walked over to the empty cupboard and placed it on the shelf. Then, bewildered by his own action, he stood a moment and stared at it.

Presently, as his unhappy thoughts came crowding back again, his bitterness and anger rose as before, and he wanted to be rid of the porringer. But instead of trying to break it this time, another idea occurred to him. "There!" he muttered gruffly to himself, as he turned away from the cupboard, "It can stay there till to-morrow, and then I will take it with the silver cup and sell it at the thieves' market!"

That was a place in the old city where those who lived by stealing from others were accustomed to dispose of their spoils; and so among themselves they called it the "thieves' market." The dealer who kept the place and who bought their stolen articles knew how to send them around quietly and sell them, usually in other cities, where there was less danger of their being discovered by their rightful owners.

Robber Hans had many times before disposed of his dishonestly gotten things to the keeper of the thieves' market; and so when he made up his mind to sell the porringer along with the silver cup, he knew very well where to take them. But he knew, too, that he would have to wait till the next day, for the dealer would probably not be in his place until Christmas was over.

Having thus made up his mind how to rid himself of the porringer, and meantime having nothing to do in the hut, he thrust on his battered cap, and pulling it down over his eyes, he strode out into the street.

After wandering aimlessly about for some time, at last he made his way to a certain quay, or open space, on the edge of one of the many old canals of the city. There were numbers of these embankments which had been made, in the days of Bruges' prosperity, as mooring places for the freighted barges that carried her commerce. And though the barges had long since deserted all but a few of the quiet waterways, still the quays bore their old Flemish names. Thus, the one to which Hans had wandered was called the Quai du Rosaire. Here a moss-grown stone bridge crossed the water, and in a paved square near by and in a tumbledown old brown house facing the square, for three days of every week a fish market was held. And here, on holidays, the rougher folk of Bruges would gather to amuse themselves.

Robber Hans crossed the paved square and entered the old house, where he was greeted boisterously as he joined the noisy company. But somehow their rough talk and rude actions did not please him as they had often done before. He was silent and moody, and at last the others taunted him so with his sour looks, that he got up from a bench where he was sitting beside a tipsy fishmonger, and, flinging back some scornful words, he left the place and went out.

Again he wandered aimlessly along the snowy streets; till after a while the wintry wind blew through his ragged coat and he shivered with cold. He was, by this time, near the great square where the belfry rose from the Halles, and making his way to this, he crept into the shelter of its entrance. Then, in a little while, he ventured inside and dropped down on the long, wooden seat between its tall windows. And though many who came and went through the Halles looked at him suspiciously, no one cared to make him go away, for it was the blessed Christmas day, and so the hearts of all were kindlier for the while.

As he leaned back against the wall, by and by the warmth of the room made him drowsy and he fell asleep. And, as he slept, there flitted through his brain a great many confused dreams; and with almost all of them the thoughts started by the little porringer seemed somehow to be connected. Sometimes he dreamed he was a little boy again, in Quiberon; and then Emschen would seem to be running toward him with a red rose in her hand; but always when she came near to him, though she put out her hands to him, he could not touch her, and the red rose faded and fell apart. And then the dreams trailed off so dim and shadowy that when at last he awakened Hans could not remember just what it was that he had been dreaming. He only vaguely knew that it had something to do with the porringer and that it had made him unhappy; and as he stumbled to his feet and set out for his hut, he again determined to get rid of it as soon as he could.

 

The Story-Teller  by Maud Lindsay

The Jar of Rosemary

T HERE was once a little prince whose mother, the queen, was sick. All summer she lay in bed, and everything was kept quiet in the palace; but when the autumn came she grew better. Every day brought color to her cheeks, and strength to her limbs, and by and by the little prince was allowed to go into her room and stand beside her bed to talk to her.

He was very glad of this for he wanted to ask her what she would like for a Christmas present; and as soon as he had kissed her, and laid his cheek against hers, he whispered his question in her ear.

"What should I like for a Christmas present?" said the queen. "A smile and a kiss and a hug around the neck; these are the dearest gifts I know."

But the prince was not satisfied with this answer. "Smiles and kisses and hugs you can have every day," he said, "but think, mother, think, if you could choose the thing you wanted most in all the world what would you take?"

So the queen thought and thought, and at last she said: "If I might take my choice of all the world I believe a little jar of rosemary like that which bloomed in my mother's window when I was a little girl would please me better than anything else."

The little prince was delighted to hear this, and as soon as he had gone out of the queen's room he sent a servant to his father's greenhouses to inquire for a rosemary plant.

But the servant came back with disappointing news. There were carnation pinks in the king's greenhouses, and roses with golden hearts, and lovely lilies; but there was no rosemary. Rosemary was a common herb and grew, mostly, in country gardens, so the king's gardeners said.

"Then go into the country for it," said the little prince. "No matter where it grows, my mother must have it for a Christmas present."

So messengers went into the country here, there, and everywhere to seek the plant, but each one came back with the same story to tell; there was rosemary, enough and to spare, in the spring, but the frost had been in the country and there was not a green sprig left to bring to the little prince for his mother's Christmas present.

Two days before Christmas, however, news was brought that rosemary had been found, a lovely green plant growing in a jar, right in the very city where the prince himself lived.

"But where is it?" said he. "Why have you not brought it with you? Go and get it at once."

"Well, as for that," said the servant who had found the plant, "there is a little difficulty. The old woman to whom the rosemary belongs did not want to sell it even though I offered her a handful of silver for it."

"Then give her a purse of gold," said the little prince.

So a purse filled so full of gold that it could not hold another piece was taken to the old woman; but presently it was brought back. She would not sell her rosemary; no, not even for a purse of gold.

"Perhaps if your little highness would go yourself and ask her, she might change her mind," said the prince's nurse. So the royal carriage drawn by six white horses was brought, and the little prince and his servants rode away to the old woman's house, and when they got there the first thing they spied was the little green plant in a jar standing in the old woman's window.

The old woman, herself, came to the door, and she was glad to see the little prince. She invited him in, and bade him warm his hands by the fire, and gave him a cooky from her cupboard to eat.

She had a little grandson no older than the prince, but he was sick and could not run about and play like other children. He lay in a little white bed in the old woman's room, and the little prince, after he had eaten the cooky, spoke to him, and took out his favorite plaything, which he always carried in his pocket, and showed it to him.

The prince's favorite plaything was a ball which was like no other ball that had ever been made. It was woven of magic stuff as bright as the sunlight, as sparkling as the starlight, and as golden as the moon at harvest time. And when the little prince threw it into the air, or bounced it on the floor or turned it in his hands it rang like a chime of silver bells.

The sick child laughed to hear it, and held out his hands for it, and the prince let him hold it, which pleased the grandmother as much as the child.

But pleased though she was she would not sell the rosemary. She had brought it from the home where she had lived when her little grandson's father was a boy, she said, and she, hoped to keep it till she died. So the prince and his servants had to go home without it.

No sooner had they gone than the sick child began to talk of the wonderful ball.

"If I had such a ball to hold in my hand," he said, "I should be contented all the day."

"You may as well wish for the moon in the sky," said his grandmother; but she thought of what he said, and in the evening when he was asleep she put her shawl around her, and taking the jar of rosemary with her she hastened to the king's palace.

When she got there the servants asked her errand but she would answer nothing till they had taken her to the little prince.

"Silver and gold would not buy the rosemary," she said when she saw him; "but if you will give me your golden ball for my little grandchild you may have the plant."

"But my ball is the most wonderful ball that was ever made!" cried the little prince; "and it is my favorite plaything. I would not give it away for anything."

And so the old woman had to go home with her jar of rosemary under her shawl.

The next day was the day before Christmas and there was a great stir and bustle in the palace. The queen's physician had said that she might sit up to see the Christmas Tree that night, and have her presents with the rest of the family; and every one was running to and fro to get things in readiness for her.

The queen had so many presents, and very fine they were, too, that the Christmas Tree could not hold them all, so they were put on a table before the throne and wreathed around with holly and with pine. The little prince went in with his nurse to see them, and to put his gift, which was a jewel, among them.

"She wanted a jar of rosemary," he said as he looked at the glittering heap.

"She will never think of it again when she sees these things. You may be sure of that," said the nurse.

But the little prince was not sure. He thought of it himself many times that day, and once, when he was playing with his ball, he said to the nurse:

"If I had a rosemary plant I'd be willing to sell it for a purse full of gold. Wouldn't you?"

"Indeed, yes," said the nurse; "and so would any one else in his right senses. You may be sure of that."

The little boy was not satisfied, though, and presently when he had put his ball up and stood at the window watching the snow which had come to whiten the earth for Christ's birthday, he said to the nurse:

"I wish it were spring. It is easy to get rosemary then, is it not?"

"Your little highness is like the king's parrot that knows but one word with your rosemary, rosemary, rosemary," said the nurse who was a little out of patience by that time. "Her majesty, the queen, only asked for it to please you. You may be sure of that."

But the little prince was not sure; and when the nurse had gone to her supper and he was left by chance for a moment alone, he put on his coat of fur, and taking the ball with him he slipped away from the palace, and hastened toward the old woman's house.

He had never been out at night by himself before, and he might have felt a little afraid had it not been for the friendly stars that twinkled in the sky above him.

"We will show you the way," they seemed to say; and he trudged on bravely in their light, till, by and by, he came to the house and knocked at the door.

Now the little sick child had been talking of the wonderful ball all the evening. "Did you see how it shone, grandmother? And did you hear how the little bells rang?" he said; and it was just then that the little prince knocked at the door.

The old woman made haste to answer the knock and when she saw the prince she was too astonished to speak.

"Here is the ball," he cried, putting it into her hands. "Please give me the rosemary for my mother."

And so it happened that when the queen sat down before her great table of gifts the first thing she spied was a jar of sweet rosemary like that which had bloomed in her mother's window when she was a little girl.

"I should rather have it than all the other gifts in the world," she said; and she took the little prince in her arms and kissed him.

She took the little prince in her arms and kissed him.

 

Phillips Brooks

A Christmas Song

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night! Christmas in lands of fir tree and pine; Christmas in lands of palm tree and vine, Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white; Christmas where cornfields lie sunny and bright; Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night! Christmas where children are hopeful and gay; Christmas where old men are patient and grey; Christmas where peace like a dove in its flight, Broods over brave men in the thick of the fight; Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night.

 

Gabriel and the Hour Book  by Evaleen Stein

The Little Colour Grinder

T was a bright morning of early April, many hundred years ago; and through all the fields and meadows of Normandy the violets and cuckoo-buds were just beginning to peep through the tender green of the young grass. The rows of tall poplar-trees that everywhere, instead of fences, served to mark off the farms of the country folk, waved in the spring wind like great, pale green plumes; and among their branches the earliest robins and field-fares were gaily singing as a little boy stepped out from a small thatched cottage standing among the fields, and took his way along the highroad.

That Gabriel Viaud was a peasant lad, any one could have told from the blouse of blue homespun, and the wooden shoes which he wore; and that he felt gladness of the April time could easily be known by the happy little song he began to sing to himself, and by the eager delight with which he now and then stooped to pluck a blue violet or to gather a handful of golden cuckoo-buds.

A mile or two behind him, and hidden by a bend in the road, lay the little village of St. Martin-de-Bouchage; while in the soft blue distance ahead of him rose the gray walls of St. Martin's Abbey, whither he was going.

Indeed, for almost a year now the little boy had been trudging every day to the Abbey, where he earned a small sum by waiting upon the good brothers who dwelt there, and who made the beautiful painted books for which the Abbey had become famous. Gabriel could grind and mix their colours for them, and prepare the parchment on which they did their writing, and do many other little things that helped them in their work.

The lad enjoyed his tasks at the Abbey, and, above all, delighted in seeing the beautiful things at which the brothers were always busy; yet, as he now drew near the gateway, he could not help but give a little sigh, for it was so bright and sunny out-of-doors. He smiled, though, as he looked at the gay bunches of blossoms with which he had quite filled his hands, and felt that at least he was taking a bit of the April in with him, as he crossed the threshold and entered a large room.

"Good morrow, Gabriel," called out several voices as he came in, for the lad was a general favorite with the brothers; and Gabriel, respectfully taking off his blue peasant cap, gave a pleasant "good morrow" to each.

The room in which he stood had plain stone walls and a floor of paved stone, and little furniture, except a number of solidly made benches and tables. These were placed beneath a row of high windows, and the tables were covered with writing and painting materials and pieces of parchment; for the brotherhood of St. Martin's was very industrious.

In those days,—it was four hundred years ago,—printed books were very few, and almost unknown to most people; for printing-presses had been invented only a few years, and so by far the greater number of books in the world were still made by the patient labour of skilful hands; the work usually being done by the monks, of whom there were very many at that time.

These monks, or brothers, as they were often called, lived in monasteries and abbeys, and were men who banded themselves together in brotherhoods, taking solemn vows never to have homes of their own or to mingle in the daily life of others, but to devote their lives to religion; for they believed that they could serve God better by thus shutting themselves off from the world.

And so it came about that the brothers, having more time and more learning than most other people of those days, made it their chief work to preserve and multiply all the books that were worth keeping. These they wrote out on parchment (for paper was very scarce so long ago), and then ornamented the pages with such beautiful painted borders of flowers and birds and saints and angels, and such lovely initial letters, all in bright colours and gold, that to this day large numbers of the beautiful books made by the monks are still kept among the choicest treasures of the museums and great libraries of the world.

And few of all those wonderful old illuminations (for so the painted ornaments were called) were lovelier than the work of the brotherhood of St. Martin's. Gabriel felt very proud even to grind the colours for them. But as he passed over to one of the tables and began to make ready his paint mortar, the monk who had charge of the writing-room called to him, saying:

"Gabriel, do not get out thy work here, for the Abbot hath just ordered that some one must help Brother Stephen, who is alone in the old chapter-house. He hath a special book to make, and his colour-grinder is fallen ill; so go thou at once and take Jacques's place."

So Gabriel left the writing-room and passed down the long corridor that led to the chapter-house. This was a room the brothers had kept for years, as a meeting-place, when they and the Abbot, who governed them all, wished to talk over the affairs of the Abbey; but as it had at last grown too small for them, they had built a new and larger one; and so the old chapter-house was seldom used any more.

Gabriel knew this, and he wondered much why Brother Stephen chose to work there rather than in the regular writing-room with the others. He supposed, however, that, for some reason of his own, Brother Stephen preferred to be alone.

He did not know that the monk, at that moment, was sitting moodily by his work-table, his eyes staring aimlessly ahead of him and his hands dropped idly in his lap. For Brother Stephen was feeling very cross and unhappy and out of sorts with all the world. And this was the reason: poor Brother Stephen had entered the Abbey when a lad scarcely older then Gabriel. He had come of good family, but had been left an orphan with no one to care for him, and for want of another home had been sent to the Abbey, to be trained for the brotherhood; for in those days there were few places where fatherless and motherless children could be taken care of.

As little Jean (for this was his name before he joined the monks, when one's own name was always changed) grew up, he took the solemn vows which bound him to the rules of the brotherhood without realizing what it all would mean to him; for Brother Stephen was a born artist; and, by and by, he began to feel that while life in the Abbey was well for most of the brothers, for him it was not well. He wanted to be free to wander about the world; to paint pictures of many things; and to go from city to city, and see and study the work of the world's great artists.

It is true he spent the greater part of his time in the Abbey working on the illuminated books, and this he loved; yet it did not wholly satisfy him. He longed to paint other things, and, above all, his artist nature longed for freedom from all the little rules of daily life that governed the days of the brotherhood.

Brother Stephen had brooded much over this desire for freedom, and only the day before had sought out the Abbot of St. Martin's and asked to be released from the vows of obedience which he had taken years before, but which now he found so hard to live up to. But, to his great disappointment, the Abbot had refused to grant his request.

The Abbot had several reasons for this refusal; one of them was that he himself dearly loved all the little daily ceremonies of the Abbey, and he could not understand why any one who had once lived there could prefer a life in the world. He really thought it was for Brother Stephen's own good that he should stay in the brotherhood.

And then, too, perhaps there was another reason less to the Abbot's credit; and this reason was that of all the beautiful illuminated books for which the Abbey of St. Martin's had become so famous, none were quite so exquisitely done as those made by Brother Stephen. So perhaps the Abbot did not wish to lose so skilful an artist from the work-room of the Abbey, and especially at this particular time. For just before Brother Stephen had had his talk with the Abbot, a messenger from the city of Paris had come to the Abbey, bearing an order from the king, Louis XII., who reigned over France, and Normandy also, which was a part of France.

Now the following winter, the king was to wed the Lady Anne of Bretagne; and as Lady Anne was a great admirer and collector of beautiful painted books, the king thought no gift would please his bride quite so much as a piece of fine illumination; and he decided that it should be an hour book. These books were so called because in them were written different parts of the Bible, intended to be read at certain hours of the day; for most people at that time were very devout, and the great ladies especially were very fond of having their hour books made as beautiful as possible.

As King Louis thought over the best places where he might have his bride's gift painted, at last he made up his mind to send to the monks of St. Martin's. He commanded that the hour book be done in the most beautiful style, and that it must be finished by the following December.

The Abbot was delighted with the honour the king had shown the Abbey in sending this order; and he determined that Brother Stephen should stay and make the entire book, as no one else wrote so evenly, or made quite such lovely initials and borders as did he.

When the Abbot told this to Brother Stephen, however, it was a pity that he did so in such a cold and haughty way, that altogether Brother Stephen's anger was aroused, for he had a rather unruly temper; and so, smarting under the disappointment of not receiving his liberty, and feeling that the book for Lady Anne was one cause of this, he had spoken angrily and disrespectfully to the Abbot, and refused point-blank to touch the king's order.

At this, the Abbot in his turn became angry, and declared that Brother Stephen should be compelled to paint the hour book whether he wished to or not; that he must do it as punishment for his unruly conduct; and the Abbot threatened, moreover, that if he did not obey, he would be placed under the ban of the Church, which was considered by all the brotherhood as a dreadful misfortune.

And so with this threat hanging over him, that very morning, just before Gabriel reached the Abbey, Brother Stephen had been sent to the old chapter-house, where he was ordered to work by himself, and to begin the book at once. And to complete his humiliation, and for fear he might try to run away, the Abbot caused him to be chained to one of the legs of the heavy work-table; and this chain he was to wear every day during working hours.

Now all this made Brother Stephen very angry and unhappy, and his heart was full of bitterness toward the Abbot and all of the brotherhood, and all the world in general, when all at once he heard Gabriel's knock at the door; and then, in another moment, the door was softly pushed open, and there, on the threshold, stood the little boy.

 

The Children's Book of Christmas Stories  by Asa Don Dickinson

A Christmas Star

"C OME now, my dear little stars," said Mother Moon, "and I will tell you the Christmas story."

Every morning for a week before Christmas, Mother Moon used to call all the little stars around her and tell them a story.

It was always the same story, but the stars never wearied of it. It was the story of the Christmas star—the Star of Bethlehem.

When Mother Moon had finished the story the little stars always said: "And the star is shining still, isn't it, Mother Moon, even if we can't see it?"

And Mother Moon would answer: "Yes, my dears, only now it shines for men's hearts instead of their eyes."

Then the stars would bid the Mother Moon good-night and put on their little blue nightcaps and go to bed in the sky chamber; for the stars' bedtime is when people down on the earth are beginning to waken and see that it is morning.

But that particular morning when the little stars said good-night and went quietly away, one golden star still lingered beside Mother Moon.

"What is the matter, my little star?" asked the Mother Moon. "Why don't you go with your little sisters?"

"Oh, Mother Moon," said the golden star. "I am so sad! I wish I could shine for some one's heart like that star of wonder that you tell us about."

"Why, aren't you happy up here in the sky country?" asked Mother Moon.

"Yes, I have been very happy," said the star; "but to-night it seems just as if I must find some heart to shine for."

"Then if that is so," said Mother Moon, "the time has come, my little star, for you to go through the Wonder Entry."

"The Wonder Entry? What is that?" asked the star. But the Mother Moon made no answer.

Rising, she took the little star by the hand and led it to a door that it had never seen before.

The Mother Moon opened the door, and there was a long dark entry; at the far end was shining a little speck of light.

"What is this?" asked the star.

"It is the Wonder Entry; and it is through this that you must go to find the heart where you belong," said the Mother Moon.

Then the little star was afraid.

It longed to go through the entry as it had never longed for anything before; and yet it was afraid and clung to the Mother Moon.

But very gently, almost sadly, the Mother Moon drew her hand away. "Go, my child," she said.

Then, wondering and trembling, the little star stepped into the Wonder Entry, and the door of the sky house closed behind it.

The next thing the star knew it was hanging in a toy shop with a whole row of other stars blue and red and silver. It itself was gold. The shop smelled of evergreen, and was full of Christmas shoppers, men and women and children; but of them all, the star looked at no one but a little boy standing in front of the counter; for as soon as the star saw the child it knew that he was the one to whom it belonged.

The little boy was standing beside a sweet-faced woman in a long black veil and he was not looking at anything in particular.

The star shook and trembled on the string that held it, because it was afraid lest the child would not see it, or lest, if he did, he would not know it as his star.

The lady had a number of toys on the counter before her, and she was saying: "Now I think we have presents for every one: There's the doll for Lou, and the game for Ned, and the music box for May; and then the rocking horse and the sled."

Suddenly the little boy caught her by the arm. "Oh, mother," he said. He had seen the star.

"Well, what is it, darling?" asked the lady.

"Oh, mother, just see that star up there! I wish—oh, I do wish I had it."

"Oh, my dear, we have so many things for the Christmas-tree," said the mother.

"Yes, I know, but I do want the star," said the child.

"Very well," said the mother, smiling; "then we will take that, too."

So the star was taken down from the place where it hung and wrapped up in a piece of paper, and all the while it thrilled with joy, for now it belonged to the little boy.

It was not until the afternoon before Christmas, when the tree was being decorated, that the golden star was unwrapped and taken out from the paper.

"Here is something else," said the sweet-faced lady. "We must hang this on the tree. Paul took such a fancy to it that I had to get it for him. He will never be satisfied unless we hang it on too."

"Oh, yes," said some one else who was helping to decorate the tree; "we will hang it here on the very top."

So the little star hung on the highest branch of the Christmas-tree.

That evening all the candles were lighted on the Christmas-tree, and there were so many that they fairly dazzled the eyes; and the gold and silver balls, the fairies and the glass fruits, shone and twinkled in the light; and high above them all shone the golden star.

At seven o'clock a bell was rung, and then the folding doors of the room where the Christmas-tree stood were thrown open, and a crowd of children came trooping in.

They laughed and shouted and pointed, and all talked together, and after a while there was music, and presents were taken from the tree and given to the children.

How different it all was from the great wide, still sky house!

But the star had never been so happy in all its life; for the little boy was there.

He stood apart from the other children, looking up at the star, with his hands clasped behind him, and he did not seem to care for the toys and the games.

At last it was all over. The lights were put out, the children went home, and the house grew still.

Then the ornaments on the tree began to talk among themselves.

"So that is all over," said a silver ball. "It was very gay this evening—the gayest Christmas I remember."

"Yes," said a glass bunch of grapes; "the best of it is over. Of course people will come to look at us for several days yet, but it won't be like this evening."

"And then I suppose we'll be laid away for another year," said a paper fairy. "Really it seems hardly worth while. Such a few days out of the year and then to be shut up in the dark box again. I almost wish I were a paper doll."

The bunch of grapes was wrong in saying that people would come to look at the Christmas-tree the next few days, for it stood neglected in the library and nobody came near it. Everybody in the house went about very quietly, with anxious faces; for the little boy was ill.

At last, one evening, a woman came into the room with a servant. The woman wore the cap and apron of a nurse.

"That is it," she said, pointing to the golden star. The servant climbed up on some steps and took down the star and put it in the nurse's hand, and she carried it out into the hall and upstairs to a room where the little boy lay.

The sweet-faced lady was sitting by the bed, and as the nurse came in she held out her hand for the star.

"Is this what you wanted, my darling?" she asked, bending over the little boy.

The child nodded and held out his hands for the star; and as he clasped it a wonderful, shining smile came over his face.

The next morning the little boy's room was very still and dark.

The golden piece of paper that had been the star lay on a table beside the bed, its five points very sharp and bright.

But it was not the real star, any more than a person's body is the real person.

The real star was living and shining now in the little boy's heart, and it had gone out with him into a new and more beautiful sky country than it had ever known before—the sky country where the little child angels live, each one carrying in its heart its own particular star.

— Katherine Pyle

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Christmas Bells

Written December 25, 1864 I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men!

 

Gabriel and the Hour Book  by Evaleen Stein

Brother Stephen's Inspiration

ABRIEL knew nothing of Brother Stephen's troubles, and so was smiling happily as he stepped into the room, holding his cap in one hand, while with his other arm he hugged to him his large bunch of violets and cuckoo-buds. Indeed he looked so bright and full of life that even Brother Stephen felt the effect of it, and his frown began to smooth out a little as he said:

"Well, my lad, who art thou?"

"I am Gabriel Viaud, Brother Stephen," answered the boy, "and I have come to help you; for they told me Jacques is fallen ill. What would you like me to do first?"

To this Brother Stephen scarcely knew what to reply. He was certainly in no mood for work. He was still very, very angry, and thought himself terribly misused by the Abbot; and though he greatly dreaded the latter's threats, he had almost reached the point of defying him and the king and everybody else, no matter what dreadful thing happened to him afterward.

But then as he looked again at the bright-faced little boy standing there, and seeming so eager to help he began to relent more and more; and besides, he found it decidedly embarrassing to try to explain things to Gabriel.

So after a little pause, he said to him: "Gabriel, I am not ready for thee at this moment; go sit on yonder bench. I wish to think out a matter which is perplexing me." Then as Gabriel obediently went over to the bench and seated himself, he added: "Thou canst pass the time looking at the books on the shelf above thee."

So while Brother Stephen was trying to make up his mind as to what he would do, Gabriel took down one of the books, and was soon absorbed in its pages. Presently, as he turned a new one he gave a little involuntary exclamation of delight. At this Brother Stephen noticed him, and—

"Ah!" he said, "what hast thou found that seems to please thee?"

"Oh, Sir," answered Gabriel, "this is the most beautiful initial letter I have ever seen!"

Now Gabriel did not know that the book had been made a few years before by Brother Stephen himself, and so he had no idea how much it pleased the brother to have his work admired.

Indeed, most people who do good work of any kind oftentimes feel the need of praise; not flattery, but the real approval of some one who understands what they are trying to do. It makes the workman or artist feel that if his work is liked by somebody, it is worth while to try to do more and better.

Poor Brother Stephen did not get much of this needed praise, for many of the other monks at the Abbey were envious of him, and so were unwilling really to admire his work; while the Abbot was so cold and haughty and so taken up with his own affairs, that he seldom took the trouble to say what he liked or disliked.

So when Brother Stephen saw Gabriel's eager admiration, he felt pleased indeed; for Gabriel had a nice taste in artistic things, and seemed instinctively to pick out the best points of anything he looked at. And when, in his enthusiasm, he carried the book over and began to tell Brother Stephen why he so much admired the painting, without knowing it, he really made the latter feel happier than he had felt for many a day. He began to have a decided notion that he would paint King Louis's book after all. And just then, as if to settle the matter, he happened to glance at the corner of the table where Gabriel had laid down his bunch of flowers as he came in.

It chanced that some of the violets had fallen from the cluster and dropped upon a broad ruler of brass that lay beside the painting materials. And even as Brother Stephen looked, it chanced also that a little white butterfly drifted into the room through the bars of the high, open window; after vaguely fluttering about for a while, at last, attracted by the blossoms, it came, and, poising lightly over the violets on the ruler, began to sip honey from the heart of one of them.

As Brother Stephen's artistic eye took in the beauty of effect made by the few flowers on the brass ruler with the butterfly hovering over them, he, too, gave a little exclamation, and his eyes brightened and he smiled; for he had just got a new idea for an illuminated border.

"Yes," he said to himself, "this would be different from any I have yet seen!" I will decorate King Louis's book with borders of gold; and on the gold I will paint the meadow wildflowers, and the bees and butterflies, and all the little flying creatures."

Now before this, all the borders of the Abbey books had been painted, in the usual manner of the time, with scrolls and birds and flowers more or less conventionalized; that is, the artists did not try to make them look exactly like the real ones, but twisted them about in all sorts of fantastic ways. Sometimes the stem of a flower would end in the curled-up folds of a winged dragon, or a bird would have strange blossoms growing out of his beak, or perhaps the tips of his wings.

These borders were indeed exquisitely beautiful, but Brother Stephen was just tired of it all, and wanted to do something quite different; so he was delighted with his new idea of painting the field-flowers exactly like nature, only placing them on a background of gold.

As he pictured in his mind one page after another thus adorned, he became more and more interested and impatient to begin at once. He forgot all about his anger at the Abbot; he forgot everything else, except that he wanted to begin King Louis's book as quickly as possible!

And so he called briskly to Gabriel, who meantime had reseated himself on his bench:

"Gabriel, come hither! Canst thou rule lines without blotting? Canst thou make ink and grind colours and prepare gold size?"

"Yes, sir," said Gabriel, surprised at the monk's eager manner, "I have worked at all these things."

"Good!" replied Brother Stephen. "Here is a piece of parchment thou canst cut and prepare, and then rule it, thus" (and here he showed him how he wished it done), "with scarlet ink. But do not take yonder brass ruler! Here is one of ivory thou canst use instead."

And then as Gabriel went to work, Brother Stephen, taking a goose-quill pen and some black ink, began skilfully and carefully to make drawings of the violets as they lay on the ruler, not forgetting the white butterfly which still hovered about. The harder he worked the happier he grew; hour after hour passed, till at last the dinner time came, and Gabriel, who was growing very hungry, could hear the footsteps of the brothers, as they marched into the large dining-room where they all ate together.

Brother Stephen, however, was so absorbed that he did not notice anything; till, by and by, the door opened, and in came two monks, one carrying some soup and bread and a flagon of wine. As they entered, Brother Stephen turned quickly, and was about to rise, when all at once he felt the tug of the chain still fastened about the leg of the table; at this his face grew scarlet with shame, and he sank back in his chair.

Gabriel started with surprise, for he had not before seen the chain, partly hidden as it was by the folds of the brother's robe. As he looked, one of the two monks went to the table, and, with a key which he carried, unlocked the chain so Brother Stephen might have a half-hour's liberty while he ate. The monks, however, stayed with him to keep an eye on his movements; and meantime they told Gabriel to go out to the Abbey kitchen and find something for his own dinner.

As Gabriel went out along the corridor to the kitchen, his heart swelled with pity! Why was Brother Stephen chained? He tried to think, and remembered that once before he had seen one of the brothers chained to a table in the writing-room because he was not diligent enough with his work,—but Brother Stephen! Was he not working so hard? And how beautiful, too, were his drawings! The more Gabriel thought of it the more indignant he grew. Indeed, he did not half-enjoy the bread and savoury soup made of black beans, that the cook dished out for him; he took his wooden bowl, and sitting on a bench, ate absently, thinking all the while of Brother Stephen.

When he had finished he went back to the chapter-house and found the other monks gone and Brother Stephen again chained. Gabriel felt much embarrassed to have been obliged to see it; and when Brother Stephen, pointing to the chain, said bitterly, "Thou seest they were afraid I would run away from my work," the lad was so much at a loss to know what to say, that he very wisely said nothing.

Now Brother Stephen, though he had begun the book as the Abbot wished, yet he had by no means the meek and penitent spirit which also the Abbot desired of him, and which it was proper for a monk to have.

And so if the truth must be told, each time the other monks came in to chain him, he felt more than anything else like seizing both of them, and thrusting them bodily out of the door, or at least trying to do so. But then he could not forget the Abbot's threat if he showed disobedience; and he had been brought up to dread the ban of the Church more than anything else that could possibly happen to him, because he believed that this would make him unhappy, not only in this life, but in the life to come. And so he smothered his feelings and tried to bear the humiliation as patiently as he could.

Gabriel could not help but see, however, that it took him some time to regain the interest he had felt in his work, and it was not until the afternoon was half-gone that he seemed to forget his troubles enough really to have heart in the pages he was making.

When dusk fell, Gabriel picked up and arranged his things in order, and bidding Brother Stephen good night, trudged off home.

 

The Sandman: His Sea Stories  by Willliam J. Hopkins

The Privateer Story

NCE upon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

That wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.

Once, in the year 1807, the brig Industry  sailed from Boston for far countries with Captain Sol as her captain. There was, at that time, a great war between France and Spain, on one side, and England and some other countries, on the other side; but the English ships had to do almost all the fighting, for their side, that was done on the ocean. And there were a good many English and French and Spanish privateers sailing about, seeing how much harm they could do to the ships that belonged to the other side.

A privateer was a vessel that was fitted out by private persons, just as if Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had made up their minds that the Industry  should be a privateer, if the United States was at war. And they would fit her out with guns and swords and cutlasses, and they would get a crew for her, and they would ask the government if she could be a privateer. And the government would probably have said that she could, and they would have sent Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob some papers, called "letters of marque and reprisal," which said that the Industry  was a United States privateer and that she could take ships as prizes and sell them. Governments do not do that, now, and a privateer is no better than a pirate; but they all did it a hundred years ago.

Captain Sol had thought about it a great deal, for privateers weren't very particular what ships they captured; and he wondered whether he ought to carry a whole lot of guns. He always had some guns on the ship, but not enough to make a fight with, if the other vessel had a whole lot, as privateers always did. But, finally, he decided that he had better not, or he might be taken for a pirate. For his country wasn't at war and, of course, he hadn't any papers. Pirates that are captured are usually short lived. So he had sailed away without any guns worth mentioning.

The Industry  sailed along over the ocean for about two weeks and nothing much happened, and she wasn't so very far from the coast of Spain; perhaps she was three or four hundred miles away.

For, on that voyage, she was bound to Leghorn, first, and then she was going to Java and Manila. And, in the middle of the forenoon of that day, the lookout in the crosstrees of the Industry  reported a sail heading directly for them.

Captain Sol was worried about it and asked the sailor about the rig of the vessel. And the sailor said that he couldn't tell what her rig was because he couldn't see any more than her upper sails, and not much of them; but she seemed to be a brig, and he thought she was fast, by the way she was rising. He thought he should be able to see her hull in less than half an hour.

Captain Sol said a bad word and took his glass and went up to the crosstrees himself. But he couldn't see enough, there, so he went on, up the mast. And he rested the glass against the rigging and looked. It took him a long time to see anything, the rigging jumped around so; but at last he managed to see. And he came down quickly and spoke to the man at the wheel, who looked at him as if he expected some orders.

"Keep her as she goes," he said. "It won't do any good to try to run away from that vessel. She can sail three feet to our two. And, whoever she is, she has no business with us, anyway."

But Captain Sol knew that it would make very little difference whether she had any right to stop them or not. If her captain wanted to he would. And the mates knew that, and the sailors knew it. So Captain Sol ordered one of the sailors to hoist the United States flag, and he kept on.

The brig kept rising fast and, in a short time, they could see her hull from the deck of the Industry. They saw that she was a Spanish privateer; and she hoisted the Spanish flag and kept on. And, pretty soon, she was nearly abreast of the Industry;  and she turned a little, and there was a little puff of smoke from her side, and the sound of the report came over the water a second or two later.

That was a signal for the Industry  to stop. But the Industry seemed to have grown deaf, and she didn't stop, and no sailor made a move to touch a rope. And the Spanish brig seemed to be a little angry, and she turned again and there was a bigger puff of smoke from her side and a cannon ball came skipping across the water, ahead of the Industry. That was a hint that she had better stop, if she knew what was good for her. But Captain Sol only had another United States flag hoisted, and it was a bigger flag than the first one.

When the Spanish brig saw that the Industry  wasn't going to stop, she seemed to get very angry. There was another puff of smoke from her side, and a solid shot tore through one of the sails of the Industry, leaving a ragged hole.

That was a signal for the Industry  to stop.

"Well," said Captain Sol, "she's begun to talk. I guess we may as well heave to."

So he had the sailors fix the sails so that the ship wouldn't go ahead. But the sailors worked slowly, and the mates didn't hurry them, either.

And, in a few minutes, a boat put off from the Spanish brig, and the boat was filled with men. They had a pretty long way to row because Captain Sol hadn't stopped when he was asked to. But, after a while, they were at the side. The officer in the Spanish boat was very much excited and talked very fast. He wanted Captain Sol to put a gangway or a ladder over the side, so that he could get on board easily.

But Captain Sol winked at the mate and made believe that he didn't understand.

"No compreeny," he said, leaning over the side. For he thought that they could come aboard any way they were able. He had had the ship stopped for them.

"Donkey!" said the officer, in Spanish. And he scrambled up, followed by ten of his men. The other men stayed in the boat.

And Captain Sol was very polite, but he couldn't talk Spanish and he made believe he couldn't understand what was said. Really, he knew enough Spanish to be able to understand what the officer said, but he couldn't speak Spanish. After a while, the officer tried French, but Captain Sol made believe that he couldn't understand that, either, and he said, in English, that he was very sorry that he didn't have any Frenchmen in the crew. So the officer gave up trying to make Captain Sol understand.

And he made the crew of the Industry  go in the boat, but he left Captain Sol and the mates, and ten men for a prize crew. And he told Captain Sol that he was to take the ship to Cadiz. He kept saying that name over and over.

Captain Sol knew that it would be of no use to resist, and he didn't. And the crew bade him good bye, and the boat was rowed away. Then his new Spanish crew fixed the sails so that the ship would go ahead. He thought they were pretty clumsy about it, but he didn't say anything. And the Industry  sailed away towards Cadiz, and the Spanish brig turned to the north.

They sailed all the rest of that day towards the coast of Spain, which was on their way to Leghorn, anyway. Captain Sol kept his eyes open, for he hadn't given up hoping for a chance to get the ship back again; but the chance didn't seem very good, with only the two mates and himself against the ten Spaniards. And, that night, there must have been something the matter with the watch that the Spaniards kept, for, when there was light enough to see, in the morning, there was a big English warship close to them. She was big enough to swallow the Industry  whole and never to know the difference. Captain Sol laughed right out loud when the Spaniards first saw her; he had known about her nearly half the night.

The Spaniards never once thought of fighting, but surrendered right off. It would have been very foolish for them to fight, for they were only ten men, in a ship that wasn't fitted for fighting; and the English ship was a big ship fitted up on purpose to fight, and she had a crew of three or four hundred men.

So a boat soon put off from the English ship, with sailors in it, and came to the side of the Industry. And Captain Sol was hurrying to put a ladder over, so that the English officer could come up without any trouble. But the officer didn't wait for any ladder; he and his men swarmed up the side like flies. And Captain Sol met the officer, and he laughed and said that he was glad to see him. And the officer smiled and wondered why that was, and he shook hands with Captain Sol; and then Captain Sol and the officer went into the cabin together. And Captain Sol told the officer about the Spanish privateer.

When the officer had heard the story he said it was hard luck, but, as the vessel was a Spanish prize, he should have to take her. He thought that the Admiralty court would fix that matter all right. And Captain Sol sighed and said that he hoped so, but he didn't know much about Admiralty courts. He had understood that American owners were apt to get the worst of it. And then Captain Sol and the officer had a glass of wine together, and it was so good that they each had another glass; and then they went on deck.

The officer bundled the Spaniards into the boat and left ten Englishmen to take their places, apologizing to Captain Sol for leaving him so short-handed. The Industry  generally had a crew of twenty-five or thirty men. Then the officer got into the boat and rowed away. Captain Sol was to take the Industry  to Gibraltar, which was right on the way to Leghorn, too. And it was pretty near, so that he ought to get there the next day.

Then Captain Sol had an idea. He served out a little rum, first, and he told the crew that if nothing happened he would take the ship straight to Gibraltar. But the Spaniards were pretty thick between where they were and Gibraltar, so he thought he would ask them a question. If they should be taken by the Spaniards again, and the crew should be left on board, would they agree to sign as his crew, for a voyage to Leghorn and other ports?

When the English sailors heard that, some of them began to grin; and they talked together for a little while, and then they said that they would agree to do as Captain Sol had said. And Captain Sol was pleased, and he served out another helping of rum all around. The sailors called it grog.

Sure enough, they were captured again, the next morning, before they had got within sight of Gibraltar; and the Spanish ship put on board the Industry  a prize crew of nine men. But she left the English crew on board, for she had already taken several other prizes; and she had put other prize crews on board of those prizes, and she had their crews as prisoners. And her captain was afraid to have more prisoners because he would have nearly as many prisoners as he had men left in his crew. Then the Spanish ship told Captain Sol to steer for Algiers, and she sailed away about her business.

Captain Sol did as he was told and steered for Algiers. But, in the night of that day, the two mates went, while the Spanish crew weren't looking, and they set free the Englishmen and gave them a paper to sign. That paper made them Captain Sol's sailors. And then they gave each man pistols and a cutlass, and the first mate took half of the Englishmen and went to the forecastle, where four men of the Spanish crew were sleeping; and the second mate took the other five Englishmen, and he went on deck, where the other five men of the Spanish crew were on watch, but he hid his Englishmen. And Captain Sol was walking back and forth on the quarter deck, and suddenly he began to whistle softly. And all the Englishmen sprang out, and they had that Spanish crew captured before they knew what had happened. But they didn't have to hurt anybody, they captured them so quickly.

Then Captain Sol changed the course of the Industry  so that she was heading for Leghorn, and he got to Leghorn in due time; but he had some trouble in getting rid of his Spanish prisoners.

And nobody ever knew whether Captain Sol meant to be captured by the Spaniards, that last time, or not.

And that's all.

 

Anonymous

Bethlehem

A little child, A shining star, A stable rude, The door ajar. Yet in that place, So crude, forlorn, The Hope of all The world was born.