The Pearl Story Book Part 19

"Yes, I guess you will stick tight--in the chimney, my little man."

"I mean to your back," half sobbed Rob.

Santa Claus can't bear to see little folks in trouble, so he took the boy into his arms, and asked where he wanted to go.

"To Tommy Turner's, and, oh, you know, that boy in the awful old jacket that likes popguns," was the breathless reply.

Of course he knew him, for he knows every boy and girl in Christendom; so a popgun was added to the medley of toys. Santa Claus then strapped Rob and the basket on his back. He next crept through an open window to a ladder he had placed there, down which he ran as nimbly as a squirrel. The reindeer before the sledge were in a hurry to be off, and tinkled their silver bells right merrily. An instant more and they were snugly tucked up in the white robes; an instant more and they were flying like the wind over the snow.

Ah! Tommy's home. Santa Claus sprang out, placed the light ladder against the house, and before Rob could wink a good fair wink they were on the roof, making for the chimney. Whether it swallowed him, or he swallowed it, is still a puzzle to Robby.

Tommy lay sleeping in his little bed and dreaming of a merry Christmas. His rosy mouth was puckered into something between a whistle and a smile. Rob longed to give him a friendly punch, but Santa Claus shook his head. They filled his stocking and hurried away, for empty little stockings the world over were waiting for that generous hand.

On they sped again, never stopping until they came to a wretched little hovel. A black pipe instead of a chimney was sticking through the roof.

Rob thought, "Now I guess he'll have to give it up." But no, he softly pushed the door open and stepped in.

On a ragged cot lay the urchin to whom Robby had given the cookies.

One of them, half eaten, was still clutched in his hand. Santa Claus gently opened the other little fist and put the popgun into it.

"Give him my drum," whispered Rob, and Santa Claus, without a word, placed it near the rumpled head.

How swiftly they flew under the bright stars! How sweetly rang the bells!

When Santa Claus reined up at Robby's door he found his little comrade fast asleep. He laid him tenderly in his crib, and drew off a stocking, which he filled with the smaller toys. The rocking-horse he placed close to the crib, that Rob might mount him on Christmas morning.

A kiss, and he was gone.

P.S.--Rob's mother says it was all a dream, but he declares that "It's true as Fourth of July!" I prefer to take his word for it.

A CHILD'S THOUGHTS ABOUT SANTA CLAUS

What do you think my grandmother said, Telling Christmas stories to me To-night, when I went and coaxed and coaxed With my head and arms upon her knee?

She thinks--she really told me so-- That good Mr. Santa Claus, long ago, Was as old and grey as he is to-day, Going around with his loaded sleigh.

She thinks he's driven through frost and snow For a hundred, yes, a thousand times or so, With jingling bells and a bag of toys-- Ho, ho! for good girls and boys, With a carol gay, Crying, "Clear the way, For a rollicking, merry Christmas day!"

Grandmother knows almost everything-- All that I ask her she can tell; Rivers and towns in geography, And the hardest words she can always spell.

But the wisest ones, sometimes, they say, Mistake--and even grandmother may.

If Santa Claus never had been a boy How would he always know so well What all the boys are longing for On Christmas day? Can grandmother tell?

Why does he take the s.h.i.+ny rings, The baby houses, the dolls with curls, The little lockets and other such things Never to boys, but always to girls?

Why does he take the skates and all The bats and b.a.l.l.s, and arrows and bows, And trumpets and drums, and guns--hurrah!

To the boys? I wonder if grandmother knows?

But there's one thing that doesn't seem right-- If Santa Claus was a boy at play And hung up his stocking on Christmas night, Who filled it for him on Christmas day?

Sydney Dayre.

CHARITY IN A COTTAGE

Jean Ingelow

The charity of the rich is much to be commended; but how beautiful is the charity of the poor!

Call to mind the coldest day you ever experienced. Think of the bitter wind and driving snow; think how you shook and s.h.i.+vered--how the sharp white particles were driven up against your face--how, within doors, the carpets were lifted like billows along the floors, the wind howled and moaned in the chimneys, windows cracked, doors rattled, and every now and then heavy lumps of snow came thundering down with a dull weight from the roof.

Now hear my story.

In one of the broad, open plains of Lincolns.h.i.+re, there is a long reedy sheet of water, a favourite resort of wild ducks. At its northern extremity stand two mud cottages, old, and out of repair.

One bitter, bitter night, when the snow lay three feet deep on the ground, and a cutting east wind was driving it about, and whistling in the dry frozen reeds by the water's edge, and swinging the bare willow trees till their branches swept the ice, an old woman sat spinning in one of these cottages before a moderately cheerful fire. Her kettle was singing on the coals, she had a reed candle, or home-made rushlight, on her table, but the full moon shone in, and was the brighter light of the two. These two cottages were far from any road, or any other habitation; the old woman was, therefore, surprised, in an old northern song, by a sudden knock at the door.

It was loud and impatient, not like the knock of her neighbours in the other cottage; but the door was bolted, and the old woman rose, and shuffling to the window, looked out and saw a s.h.i.+vering figure, apparently that of a youth.

"Trampers!" said the old woman, sententiously, "tramping folks be not wanted here." So saying she went back to the fire without deigning to answer the door.

The youth upon this tried the door, and called to her to beg admittance. She heard him rap the snow from his shoes against her lintel, and again knock as if he thought she was deaf, and he should surely gain admittance if he could make her hear.

The old woman, surprised at his audacity, went to the cas.e.m.e.nt and with all the pride of possession, opened it and inquired his business.

"Good woman," the stranger began, "I only want a seat at your fire."

"Nay," said the old woman, giving effect to her words by her uncouth dialect, "thou'll get no shelter here; I've nought to give to beggars--a dirty, wet critter," she continued wrathfully, slamming to the window. "It's a wonder where he found any water, too, seeing it freeze so hard a body can get none for the kettle, saving what's broken up with a hatchet."

The stranger turned very hastily from her door and waded through the deep snow towards the other cottage. The bitter wind helped to drive him towards it. It looked no less poor than the first; and when he had tried the door and found it bolted and fast, his heart sank within him. His hand was so numbed with cold that he had made scarcely any noise; he tried again.

A rush candle was burning within and a matronly looking woman sat before the fire. She held an infant in her arms and had dropped asleep; but his third knock aroused her, and wrapping her ap.r.o.n round the child, she opened the door a very little way, and demanded what he wanted.

"Good woman," the youth began, "I have had the misfortune to fall in the water this bitter night, and I am so numbed I can scarcely walk."

The woman gave him a sudden earnest look and then sighed.

"Come in," she said; "thou art so nigh the size of my Jem, I thought at first it was him come home from sea."

The youth stepped across the threshold, trembling with cold and wet; and no wonder, for his clothes were completely encased in wet mud, and the water dripped from them with every step he took on the sanded floor.

"Thou art in a sorry plight," said the woman, "and it be two miles to the nighest house; come and kneel down afore the fire; thy teeth chatter so pitifully I can scarce bear to hear them."