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MRS. WHITES PARTY;

AND OTHER STORIES.

BY

ELLA FARMAN,
AND OTHER FAVORITE AMERICAN AUTHORS.

     
    

 

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BOSTON:
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY,

FRANKLIN ST.’ CORNER O1" ]IA\\'LEY.

copvmcrrr mr
D. LOTHROP & CO

MRS. WHITE’S PARTY.

__§
r>

“ N OW, Ef May, you go right straight back home I

Lotty an’ I want a little time to ourselves with-
out a little snip like you taggin’ after, an’ listenin’ to
every word we say ; so you go right straight back this
minute I ”

Little Efiie Maylie Marsh (called “ Ef May ” for
short) turned her round blue eyes for a moment full
upon her sister, and then, without word or sign, trotted
composedly along in that sister’s wake, serenely
oblivious of the fact that she was the one too many
in the little party that had started, joyful at the pros-
pect of a whole afternoon’s confidential chat, for the
blackberry patch over the hill, when poor Ef May as
usual intruded her roly-poly presence just when she
was least wanted.

Goznsi

Mrs. I/V/zz'te’s Party.

“ Did Mother know that you came? ”

Sister Anne looked and spoke with all the dignity
that her twelve years were capable of, but the in-
truder never flinched.

“ Yes, she did. I said lemme go pick blackberries
with the other girls, an’ size said ”—

“ What? ”

“ Yes, if they don’t projec .”

Both girls laughed, for Ef May was famous for her
conversational blunders, and good-natured Lotty
whispered under the shelter of her sunbonnet :

“ Let her go, she won’t do any harm.”

“Yes she will. She’11 hear every single word we
say and tell Gus of it just as quick as she gets home.
I know her, of old.”

Poor Anne had had bitter experiences of her little
sister’s quickness of hearing and equal quickness in
repeating whatever she had heard, and she was far
too shrewd to trust her on this occasion. But how to
get rid of the dear little nuisance— ah, that was the
rub l

“ May,” she whispered mysteriously, and Ef May
pricked up her ears and looked curious ; “if you’ll
go home now, like a good girl, you shall (put your

ear closer, so Lotty won’t hear) go to Mrs. W/zite’:
party, to-night.”

Mrs. W/zz°te’s Party.

Ef May had often heard older people talk about
parties, and in .her inquisitive little soul she had
longed many a time, to know more about them, and
especially to see with her own eyes what they were like ;
and now she stood with her great blue eyes wide open
like a pair of very early morning glories, and a little
flush of excitement deepened the roses on her plump
cheeks, as Anne continued in her most seductive
tones:

“ Now, run right along, there’s a darling! and I’ll
get you ‘ready, my own self, and see that you have
a ,,

“ Rockaway ? ” suggested Lotty, in a voice that
sounded suspiciously hoarse, to which Anne replied,
with an air of lofty disdain that, —

“Ef May had outgrown such babyish ways long
ago, and would go to the party as other folks
did.”

Ef May was a very old bird for one of her age, and
this “ chaff ” between the two girls did strike her as a
little suspicious. Perhaps there was some hidden
flaw in this magnificent offer, and jerking her little
yellow curly head one side like a shrewd canary, she
fixed one round bright eye full upon her sister’s face
as she asked solemnly:

“ Now, Anne Marsh, — ‘ honest an’ true, black an’

Mrs. W7zz'!e’s Party.

blue,’ can I go to Mrs. White’s party, this very
night ? ”

“ Yes, you shall, if I have to go with you myself.”

Ef May was satisfied; even Lotty’s half suppressed
giggle passed unobserved, and her face shone with
happy anticipation as turning her chubby feet home-
ward she smiled her parting salutation:

“ Good-by, —I’l1 go home an’ ’npaz'r myself for
the party.”

The girls laughed, but Lotty said rather regretfully:

“ It was kinder too bad to fool the little thing so.
What will you say to her when night comes ? ”

“Oh, I’ll coax her up, somehow—make her doll
a new hat, maybe.”

And thus dismissing poor Ef May and her forth-
coming disappointment from their minds, the two girls
walked gaily on laughing and chatting in their
pleasant school-girl fashion, as they gathered the rich
purple berries, heedless of scratched hands and
stained finger tips, while they listened to the part-
ridge drumming in the cedars overhead, or the social
chatter of that provident little householder the squir-
rel, who, perched upon some convenient bough out of
possible reach of their longing fingers, discoursed in
the choicest squirrel language of his way of preserving
acorns and beechnuts, by a receipt handed down from

Mrs. W/zz'z‘e’s Party.

his forefathers, as far back as the days of Noah,—
a receipt that never had failed and never would.

It was after sunset when with full baskets and
tired steps, they walked up the lane that led to
Anne’s home; both starting guiltily as they caught
sight of Ef May’s little figure seated in the doorway
with her bowl of bread and milk, and her blue eyes
turned wistfully upon them as they came slowly up
the clover-bordered path.

“I was in hopes she’d be asleep,” muttered Anne
with an uncomfortable feeling at the heart as she saw
the joyfully significant nod with which her little sister
greeted her, and hastily bestowing a generous hand-
ful of the delicious fruit upon her, she said, with an
effort to appear natural and at ease :

“ See what a lot of nice, ripe blackberries I brought
you!”

The little girl smiled, but she shook her head with
an air of happy importance.

“I’l1 put ’em away for my breakfast,” she whis-
pered. “I must save my appetite for to-mgr/zt, you
know.”

Anne could have cried with a relish.

“Oh, Ef May,” she began penitently, “I’m afraid
I’ve done wrong in telling you— ”

“Come, Anne! Come right in! Supper is wait-

Mrs. W/zz°2‘e’s Party.

ing for you,” called their mother, and the confession
was postponed until they should be alone again ; but
when that time came, and, after her usual custom
Anne took the little one to her room to undress and
put her to bed, the sight of the child’s happy expec-
tant face forced back the words that she would have
spoken, and made her feel that she could not yet con-
fess the deception.

“You must curl my hair real pretty, now. I do
wish,” with a sigh, “that mamma would let me wear
her waz‘erzm;g'.”

And the bright eyes shone like stars, as she thus
gave the signal for the preparations to commence ,° and
Anne obeyed, patiently brushing out the tangled locks
and curling them one by one over her fingers, while
she listened to the excited chatter of her little charge
and vaguely wondered how long it would be possible
for those dreadfully wide awake eyes to keep open.
She was as long about her task as possible, but the
the last curl was finished at last, and Effie asked
eagerly:

“ What dress are you going to put on me? ”

By this time poor Anne was fairly desperate.

“ I forgot to tell you,” she said with a sudden de-
termination to carry out the joke to the end, “that
this is a queer party, something like the ‘ sheet and

Mrs. W}zz'te’.r Paréy.

pillow case balls,’ that you’ve heard of, — and every-

body goes to this in in their night-gowns.”

Ef May looked up sharply.

“What’s that for?” she asked with a suspicious
look at her sister’s guilty face.

“ Because —we1l,I guess its because its the fashion.”

Ef May pondered the subject for a moment, and
then her brow cleared :

“ I’ll wear my very bestest one, then, with the
tuckeraz’ out yoke an’ Huméug trimming,” she said,
complacently, “ an’ my corals outside.”

Anne obeyed without a word, and the little lady
surveyed herself in the glass with a smile of intense
satisfaction.

“ Ain’t it most time to go ? ” she asked, and Anne
detecting, as she thought, just the ghost of a yawn in
the tone, replied briskly:

“Oh no, not for some time yet. Come and sit in
my lap,— there lay your head on my shoulder, ea-sy,
so as not to tumble the curls, and I’ll sing, ‘ Tap, tap,
tapping at the garden gate,’ so you won’t get tired of
waiting, you know.”

The little girl was nothing loth to accept her sister’s
offer, for in spite of her exertions to keep herself
awake the heavy eyelids would droop, the curly head
press more heavily, and the lively, chattering little

Mrs. W/zz°te’.s' Party.

tongue grow slower and more indistinct in its utter-
ances until at last it was silent altogether; not even
the tinniest line of blue parted the golden lashes, the
dimples settled undisturbed into their old places
about the rosy mouth while only the faintest breath
of a sigh answered to Anne’s good—night kiss as she
softly laid her precious burden down among the
snowy pillows of her own little bed, and stole~away,
with the secret resolve in her heart that never again
by word or act, would she deceive the innocent little
sister who trusted so implicitly in her truth and ‘honor.

It was a funny party, and Ef May looked about
her in astonishment as a servant in dressing gown
and night-cap, announced in a sleepy sing-song tone:

"Miss Ef May Marsh ? ”

Mrs. White, a heavy—eyed lady in an elaborately
embroidered and ruffled night-dress, gave her hand a
little languid shake, and asked, in a faint, die-away
voice:

“ How do you rest, my dear?”

“Very well, maam, generally, ’cept when I eat too
much cake for my supper.”

At this Mrs. White nodded intelligently.

“ ’s that you, Ef May?” murmured :1 voice at her
elbow, and there was Tommy Bliss, his brown curls

Mrs. W /zz°z‘e’.s‘ Party.

all in a tangle, and — oh, horrible ! ina yellow flannel
night-gown with legs. Such a figure as he was, with
his short body all the way of a bigness, and his little
yellow straddling legs like an old-fashioned brass
andiron.

Ef May turned away and pretended not to see him,
while she remarked with an air of kindly condescen-
sion to a little girl near her:

“ It’s z'mpre:sz'7/eév warm here.”

“ Kick the clo’es off, then.”

There was a refreshing briskness in the tones that
went straight to Ef May’s heart and she “took to” the
stranger on the spot.

“ Who is that old gentleman with such a big tassel
in his night—cap ? ”

The little girl rubbed her eyes and looked in the
direction indicated.

“ Oh, that’s old Dr. Opiamus. He gives all the
babies paragoric, and the old folks laudanum, so that
they can die and not know it.”

Ef May shuddered. There was something in the
idea that even to her childish fancy was horri-
ble.

“ Don’t you want another blanket?” asked her new
friend 3 but Ef May shook her head.

“ I hear some music?” she exclaimed, and just

Jlrs. W}zz'te’s Party.

then began the funniest medley of sound that was ever
heard:

First, a low, soft, half-frightened strain as of some
wandering night-bird calling to his mate to set her
glow-worm lamp in the window to light him home;
then the quick, cheery note of the cricket chimed in ;
the owl’s solemn “too-whit! too-whit! too-whoo ! ”
broke in at stately intervals 3 and the “ rain-call of the
loon burst forth like a wild, wierd laugh in the midst
of the softer sounds, until the dancers, who had tried
in vain to keep time with the strange music, faltered,
hesitated, and at last stopped entirely, and dropped
off to sleep upon the couches and easy chairs with
which the rooms were filled, to a low, monotonous
march that sounded exactly like the patter of rain-
drops upon the roof.

The costumes were a study, and Ef May, who

strange to say didn't feel at all sleepy herself, found it_

rare fun to watch them.

There were old ladies, who minus their false fronts,
teeth, and spectacles, would never have been recog.
nized by their most intimate friends, in “calf’s-head ”
night-caps tied tightly under their chins, short night-
gowns with wide, crimped ruflles at neck and wrists,
and blue flannel petticoats just short enough to show
the felt slippers beneath ; young ladies, whose wealth

Mrs. W/zz'te’s Party.

of curls, braids and pufis had many a time excited
the admiration and envy of their less fortunate sisters,
appeared here, looking like picked chickens, their
luxuriant tresses packed away in a drawer, their
flounces, and rufiles, and panniers, and overskirts, all
safe in the closet, their jewelry and their smiles laid
aside together; and they nodded indifierently to stately
gentlemen in tasselled night-caps and gorgeous dress-
ing gowns; or frowned aside upon the boys, who, in
all sorts of night gear, bobbed about in the most de-
sirable nooks and corners, disturbing everybody with
their clumsy ways and sleepy drollery.

In short, taken as a whole, a comical looking set
they were,— and so stupid! Ef May felt somewhat
hurt, and a good deal offended, when even her new
friend dropped off into a doze instead of listening to
her questions; and she was only too glad when a good
looking young gentleman with a pen behind his ear,
and a roll of manuscript sticking out of the pocket
of his dressing-gown, walked leisurely up to her, and
began talking in a queer rambling. fashion about the
people around them.

“What makes some of the s‘leep1est folks groan
and grumble so, all the time?” asked the little girl
curiously, and her companion laughed, a queer,
dreamy sort of a laugh, as he replied :

Mrs. W/tile’; Parzfy.

“Oh, those are the ones that came here on night-
mares,— that sort of riding always makes people rest-
less, it’s worse than a /zobby for that!”

He spoke the last words with a sudden fierceness
that startled her, but he didn’t seem to notice her
frightened face for he kept on talking, in that steady
but far off tone :

“ Do you see that man there with his face all twisted
up into a knot? That’s the head master of the Boys’
Grammar School,— he ate toasted cheese for his sup-
per and he’s having a hard night of it,— no doubt the
boy: will have 12 /zam’ time qf 2'2‘, to-morrow.”

Ef May thought of brother Gus’careless scholar-
ship, and trembled.

“ There’s a little girl that told a lie to her mother,
—hear her moan and sob ! She‘ will confess her
fault and ask to be forgiven, in the morning, I think.”

Ef May silently took the lesson to heart.

“ Do you see that old fellow in the corner? How
he grasps with his hands and mutters, and now he is
trying to call ‘ murder! ’ He has spent all his life
hoarding up riches, and now, sleeping or waking, he
lives in constant terror of losing his gold that he will
neither spend for himself or others.”

“But here,” and the speaker pointed to a corner
near at hand, where rolled up into a round yellow

Mrs. W/zz'le’s Party.

ball, was the figure of Johnny Staples, sound asleep
in the velvety depths of an easy chair, his good-
natured, honest little face, calm and peaceful, with
not a cloud of sufiering, remorse or fear to mar its
innocent beauty.

“ But here,” he repeated, “is one who will find in
our friend’s party the refreshment and rest that only
health and innocence can reasonably expect.”

Just then the company showed signslof a general
breaking up, and the assembled guests gave such a
loud, unanimous more that Ef May started up, terri-
fied half out of her senses ; and pulling vigorously at
her sleeping sister’s sleeve, she cried out with a burst
of angry tears:

“It’s a nasty, mean old party, any how! They
snore, an’ talk in their sleep, an’ make up faces. an"
— I won’t go again, so, there I ”

But she did for all that.

 ~

KITTY’S CHRISTMAS.

 

DECEMBER twenty-fourth. Overhead the sky
was clear as a bell. Under foot the ground
was hard as frost could make it. It was bitter cold,
and so still that it seemed as if the air was holding
its breath. In the east the sky was ruddy with the
first morning light, while in the west, low down on
the horizon, two or three sickly-looking stars struggled
faintly against the coming day.

Kitty Merrill had been out of bed since five
o’clock, and five o’clock on the twenty-fourth of
December is a tolerably early hour for a girl of ten
to be stirring. But Kitty had her reasons, and if the
morning had been twice as cold and the hour twice
as early, they would have been good and sufficient.
One was that it was her birth-day, and another and
by far the most important was that she was going to
Boston that very day to spend Christmas with her
cousins.

Kitty’: C/zristmas.

Now a visit to the city at any time would have
been an event in Kitty’s life, but just now, in the
very heart of the holiday season, it was like the pros-
pect of a day in Paradise. As a general thing Kitty
hated to go to bed at night, and hated ten times
worse to get up in the morning, but on the evening
preceeding this memorable day, she expressed a wil-
lingness to be tucked away anytime after six o’clock.
As soon as tea was over she re-packed her little
satchel, which she had done at least twenty times
within the past two days, placed it on a chair by her
bed and propped the handle up so she could take
hold of it without loss of time in the morning ; placed
her stockings and shoes in -such a position that
they would almost put themselves on if she should
jump out of bed in the dark 3 laid her clean things on
the foot of the bed ; counted over her money and
looked at her railroad ticket, and finally, after a series
of vain efforts, fell asleep.

By and bye she awoke. It was dark, but she was
sure she had overslept. There was a sound of some-
body talking down stairs, and then she heard a door
shut. She felt for her stockings, put them on, and
was groping for the lamp when the kitchen clock
began striking—one, two, three, and so on up to ten.
She had been in bed three hours. After a while she

.Kz°tzfy’.s' C’/zristmas.

got asleep again, and when she opened her eyes the
second time it was really and truly morning. The
darkness Was just beginning to turn into day. She
jumped out of bed and ran to the windows, but the
panes were so thickly coated with frost that it was
impossible to see through them. Her warm breath
made a peep—hole, however, and she looked out upon
the little village street. In one or two houses she
could see the glimmer of lights which showed that the
people were already astir, and a moment later there
was a noise of some one about the kitchen stove.
She hurried her clothes on as well as she could by
the dim light and hastened down stairs.

“Mercy on us, child! what are you doing down
here this time 0’ night?” ejaculated the girl, who was
just putting on the tea-kettle. “It’s only half past
five, and your mamma won’t be up this hour. Go
back to bed, again. You’ll freeze to death before it
gets warm down here.”

“ I should think you’d remember this was my birth-
day, Jane Walker,” answered Kitty, with a great deal
of dignity, “and I’m going to Boston, too, this very
day. I’ve got a sight to do to get ready.”

“I’m sure 1 don’t know what, besides eating-

breakfast, and you can’t have that before seven
o’c1ock,” returned Jane. “I heard your pa say last

Kz'fly’s C/27 zirtmas.

night, that the train didn’t go until nine. I don’t
s’pose you’ll start off afoot.”

To this Kitty made no answer, but continued to
warm her fingers at the stove until Jane had started
the sitting-room fire. Then she bethought herself of
her satchel, which she brought down and emptied and
repacked again. There was her nightdress, her
brush and comb, a morning wrapper, and a small
assortment of Christmas presents, mostly the work of
her own hands, which she was to take with her for
distribution. These, after one examination, were
carefully put back. Then the jaws of the satchel
were shut with a click, which sounded as if they had
said “all right,” and the precious burden was de-
posited near the door.

By this time Mr. and Mrs. Merrill were down, and
breakfast was soon in progress.

“You’ll have a lovely day, Kit,” said her father,
as he helped her to a hot roll. “ It’s sharp, now, but
when the sun gets up it’ll be warm enough for you.”

The state of the thermometer made little difference
to Kitty. Heat and cold were alike to her, provided
it didn’t rain or snow.

“ You must think of us once in a while, to-morrow,”
said Mrs. Merrill. “We shall have to eat our Christ-

mas dinner alone, I am afraid.”

.Kz'ttjy’: C/zristmas.

Her voice trembled as she spoke. Kitty knew
what was in her mother’s mind, and jumping from
her chair put her arm round her neck as she said °

“ I won’t go at all, mammal I know I oughtn’t to
go away Christmas. I can have just as good a time
at home with papa and you, and Boston can wait for
me.”

She tried to say it bravely, and laughed a make-
believe little laugh to end off with, but it was hard
work, and in spite of herself a tear dropped upon her
mother’s hand.

“No, no, dear. It will give me more pleasure to
have you go than it possibly could to have you stay
at home. I ought not to have said a word, but I
couldn’t help thinking of poor Tom.”

‘Kitty kissed her mother without speaking. Mr.
Merrill’s head bent lower over his plate for a mo-
ment. Then he said:

“He’s happier today than we are. And yet it
seems harder to bear every Christmas that comes.
The day ought to bring sunshine into every house, but
it has been the darkest of all the days in the year
ever since he left us.”

Five years before, on Christmas Eve, Tom Merrill,
:1 ruddy-checked, handsome, adventurous lad of six-
teen, said “good-night” to his father and mother,

K'z'tty’s C’/zrzlrtmas.

kissed little Kit in her crib, and lamp in hand, went
up stairs to bed. The door that closed behind him
might as well have shut him into his grave, for never
since that time had his face been seen or his voice
heard by those who loved him most. How well Kitty
remembered the day that followed! the silent agony
of her father, and her mother’s sobs and tears. She
remembered, too, the letter which came a day or two
later, overflowing with affection for them all, and say-
ing that he was going to sea. From a mere child he
had had a passion for a sailor’s life; a passion that
had grown with his growth. He struggled against it,
for he knew his mother’s terror of the sea, and he
knew, too, the hopelessness of obtaining her consent
to his going away, even upon the briefest of voyages.
One day the temptation came in too strong a form to
be resisted. A companion, whose father was a sailor,
told him of an East India merchantman lying in
Boston harbor, whose captain wanted to ship two or
three boys for the voyage. His mind was made up
in an instant. Two days afterward he was on board
the ship, whose sails were spread for the shores of
another continent.

Two years passed. The gloom in the household
was gradually dissipated by long letters from the
repentant runaway, dated at foreign ports, and filled

K'z'tt_y’.s' C/zristmas.

with loving messages. He should be home, he wrote,
in two years, never to go away again. Then came a
long silence. One day a neighbor stopped at the
gate with a daily paper in his hand and handed it
with a pale face to Mr. Merrill. One glance at it was
enough, and the stricken father staggered into the
house to tell the dreadful news. Tom was dead.
Bright-eyed, cheery-voiced, affectionate Tom, the boy
on whose future they had built so much, their hope
and pride was dead. The account was a brief one.
He was washed overboard in a gale off the Chinese
coast, and although every attempt was made to rescue
him it was found impossible on account of the high
sea and the darkness. That was the story and those
were the events which Kitty remembered so vividly.

With a strong eflort Mrs. Merrill choked back her
tears, and spoke in a lighter tone:

“ Finish your breakfast, dear, for you will need all
you can eat. Railroad riding makes one hungry.”

Half an hour afterwards, Kitty, bundled up to her
nose, stood at the sitting-room window waiting for
her father to bring the horse round, for it was a good
three miles’ ride to the little station where she was to
take the train. And this brings us back to the time
when our story begins.

The journey to Boston was an uneventful one.

Kz'f{y’s C/z ristmas.

Nothing in particular happened except that she was
embarrassed a portion of the way by the steady star
ing of a tall old woman with a wen on her neck, and
once her hat was snatched from her head by an
active baby of foreign parentage which sat, or rather
was held, in the seat behind her.

Two hours isn’t a very long time to ride, but Kitty
soon got tired, and it seemed as if she never would
reach her journey’s end. For the first fifteen minutes
she looked out of the window ;, then she ate her
luncheon, and then she began seriously to think of
repacking her satchel. She went so far as to open it,
but a natural reluctance to take the traveling public,
especially the woman with the wen, into her confi-
dence, led her to give up the idea, and she closed it
again, not, however, before abstracting an envelope
containing photographs of her father and mother,
which she had been commissioned to deliver to her
aunt.

“ I can put them in my pocket,” she said to herself,
“ and then they’ll be all ready to hand out.”

At last the cars rolled into the Boston depot, and
five minutes later her uncle was putting her into a
hack and giving the driver directions where to go.
Such a greeting as she received from her innumerable
cousins when they drew up at the front door! Such

Kz°t{y’: Clzristmas.

a dinner as they had when she had got her things off
and her feet warmed 1 Such a multitude of plans as
were unfolded after that dinner was eaten and they
were gathered together in the sitting-room about the
cosy open grate!

“ It’s the day to buy presents to-day,” said Jennie,
“and we’re all going down town this afternoon, me
and Effie and Julia and Gracie and Willie, and you
are going, too, and I’ve got four dollars, and Gracie’s
got two dollars, and Julia won’t tell me how much
she’s got—don’t you think she’s mean?—and I’m
going to buy a wax doll —”

“ Don’t talk so much, Jen,” interrupted Julia, who
was a year older than Kitty and the eldest of the
family of cousins; “you won’t have anything to tell
if you keep on. How much money have you got,
Kit? Let me count it.”

Kitty meekly produced her portmonnaie, whose
contents were emptied, paper, silver and scrip, upon
the rug in front of the fire, and the whole party on
their knees began to count it. After a great many
times recounting and several narrow escapes from
downright disputes, it was formally declared that
Kitty was possessed of six dollars and thirteen cents.

“Why, you’re awful rich,” said Gracie ; “are you
going to buy me anything?”

Kz°t2fy’: C/zrzlrtmas.

“ I don’t know,” answered Kitty, doubtfully. “ I’ve
got something for you in my satchel—all of you.”

“What is it? Where is it? Let’s see it!” de-
manded the cousins in chorus.

But Kitty stoutly refused.

“ You must wait till night,” she said. ' It wouldn’t
be like Christmas to give ’em round now.”

Her resolution might possibly have broken down
under the combined assault of her kin, but just then
the clock on the mantel struck two, and Aunt Mary
came in to call the children to dress to go down
town. That task was soon accomplished, and before
three o’clock the entire family, including Kitty, were
packed in an already overflowing horse—car, and on
their way down Washington street.

The streets were crowded, and though the air was
still sharp, and many of the people Kitty saw were
insufliciently clothed, everybody looked happy. Even
the little children who hadn’t a cent to spend, and
whose faces and fingers were blue with the cold,
seemed to find a source of intense enjoyment in the
shop—windows round which they congregated and in-
dulged in dreams of possible possessorship of various
articles their forlorn little hearts yearned for. Almost
everybody was carrying parcels, and the children
looking from the car began to be nervousy anxious

1Yz'tzjy’s C/zrzirtmas.

lest everything in the stores should have been sold,
and the establishments themselves closed up.
By-and-by the toy-shop region was reached, and
they left the horse-car, Aunt Mary supervising and
directing their movements, which under the circum-
stances was almost as responsible a task as the man-
aging of an invading army. The windows of the
great shops fairly glowed with the wonderful crea-
tions of the toy-makers—gorgeously dressed dolls of
all descriptions, sizes, and complexions ; drums,
swords, jumping-jacks, tea and dinner sets, trains of
tin cars, kitchens, carriages, and hundred of things
Kitty had never seen or dreamed of, and of course
could not tell the names of. There were pianos for
dolls to play; tables for dolls to eat from; tubs and
boards for dolly washerwomen 3 dolls that walked,
lolls that talked, and dolls that rode in carriages
which moved all of themselves. There were cats
with real fur that mewed, dogs that barked, bears
that stood up and opened their red flannel mouths,
and all sorts of animals that wagged and bobbed
their heads at the least touch. Poor Kitty was fairly
bewildered. She stood staring at the cases inside
one of the crowded stores, wondering what she
should buy, and utterly unable to make up her mind.
People pushed against and jostled her, and crowded

K2702’: C/zr istmas.

her into the narrow places, and turned her about, but
she managed to keep within the protecting reach of
Aunt Mary, who was busy making selections and pay-
ing for them, at the various counters. At last Kitty
saw something which attracted her attention and
which she determined to have. She felt in her
pocket for her portmonnaie and found that it had
settled to the very bottom. First she took out her
handkerchief and laid it on the counter, then an

-apple, then the envelope containing the photographs,

then a little bead bag, and lastly her portmonnaie.
During this process the attention of several of the
shoppers was drawn towards her. Among them was
a handsome young man, who with his arms full of
parcels was waiting for his change at the counter
near her. He had been watching her with a puzzled
as well as amused look, and when she moved rapidly
away after making her purchase he passed his hand
over his eyes as if trying to read some memory he
had forgotten. The next moment he discovered she
had left the contents of her pocket on the counter
where she had placed them. She was yet in sight,
and he gathered the various articles up hastily to
return them. As he did so, the inscription on the
envelope caught his eye: “With the compliments of
Paul and Katherine Merrill.” His bundles dropped

Kitty’: C/zrimnas.

to the floor. With trembling fingers he drew forth
the pictures. His face grew pa1e—then flushed.
Suddenly, and unmindful of his bundles, he moved
swiftly across the store, and placing his hand on the
arm of the little girl said:

“ Is your name Kitty Merrill?”

“ Yes,” answered Kitty, faintly, half-frightened, and
looking about for her aunt.

“ Won’t you come this way just for a moment, out
in that corner where there are not so many peo-
ple ? ”

Kitty followed him mechanically. She did not
dare do otherwise. There was a place in the rear of
the store which contained nothing especially attract-
ive, and it was just now almost deserted. When they
reached it the young man turned and putting a hand
on each shoulder, and his face close down to Kitty’s
own asked in an excited tone :

“ Kit, don’t you know me?”

The frightened little girl could not answer. She
shook her head slowly, and the tears came into her
eyes.

“ Look! look again ! Who is there in all the! world
you would like to see most?”

Kitty did look. A sudden thought shot through
her heart. She hardly dared give it utterance. She

K'z'tty’s C /1 rzirtmas.

trembled from head to foot with hope and fear as her
lips stoutly shaped the word —

“ Tom ! ”

“Yes, Tom ! your own, own brother Tom, who
hasn’t heard from you and home for three long years!
Why, Kit, I can’t believe my eyes 1 You dear, darling
girl ! ”

“ Oh, Tom !”

That was all Kitty could say as she clung to her
brother’s neck, sobbing hysterically.

“ Father and mother, Kitty—are they here? You
are alone ; are they well? Are they living?”

“Yes ; but oh, Tom! I thought you were dead-
they think you are dead. The paper said so, and we
never heard from you. Why didn’t you write ? ”

“ I did write, Kit. But it’s too long a story to tell
now. I touched American soil for the first time for
five years this morning, and I was laying in a store of
things to take home to you to-night. I was watching
you at the counter, but I couldn’t remember where I
had seen your face. You’ve grown into a young
lady, Kit, and I’m proud of you. But now tell me
how you came here, and who is with you, and when
you are going home ! ”

“ I’ve just come to-day, Tom. I came down to
spend Christmas at Aunt Mary’s, but I'm going right

Kz°tt_‘y’s C/zrzlrtmas.

back again to-night with you. Oh, how I wish
mother could know! ”

It would take too much space to describe the as-
tonishment and delight of Aunt Mary, when Torn
made his appearance before her and she had heard
his story.

“You must go home to-night, Tom,” she said, as
they sat round the tea-table. “We’d like to keep you
and Kitty here for a month, but we rnustn’t.”

“As if I should stay!” answered Tom. “ If there
were no other way to get home, I’d walk there.”

“The train starts at seven,” said his uncle, “so
you’ll get there about nine, and the depot stage’Il
take you over to the village.”

That night, just as Mr. Merrill was winding the tall
clock in the corner of the sitting-room preparatory to
going to bed, and Mrs. Merrillwas setting back the
chairs, there was a sharp ring at the door-bell.
When the key was turned and the door opened, Kitty
burst in like a gale, her cheeks red and her eyes
shining.

“ Oh, papa! oh, mammal ” she cried, dancing from
one to the other, kissing and embracing them alter-
nately. “I couldn’t stay away from you Christmas.
I never knew how much I loved you and everybody

K'z°z‘zjy’s C/zrzlrtmas.

else till now. Such presents! Oh, mamma, you
can’t guess ze//zaz‘ I’ve brought home for you. I’m
afraid if you don’t go right to bed I shall tell you. I
don’t believe I can wait till morning, anyway.”

“Why, little daughter, what has come over you?”
said her father. “I never saw you look so excited
and happy before.”

“I never was so happy before, papa: and both of
you will never be so happy as you’ll be to-morrow.
You mustn’t ask me any questions, but go right to
bed and not peep nor listen. And you must give me
both your stockings to hang up, papa; your very
biggest, biggest pair. Mamma shall have her share
of what you find in them.”

Both father and mother laughed as they left the
room, willing to wait until next morning for Kitty’s
explanation. When she was sure they were both in
bed, and when she had possessed herself of her
father’s stockings, she softly turned the front door
key and admitted Tom, who had been waiting out-
side, together with numerous bundles which the ex-
pressman had brought to the door. After these had
been duly arranged, Tom crept carefully up to the
little chamber where all the nights of his boyhood
were spent, and tired out with the day’s experience
was soon fast asleep.

K'z'lt_y’s Clzristmas.

December twenty-fifth. Christmas. At five o’clo(~.l<
the house was still. At half past five Kitty’s step
was heard descending the stairs. Then there was a
sound of mufiled voices in the sitting-room. Mrs.
Merrill half rose from the bed and listened. A min-
ute later Kitty rapped sharply on the door.

“Are you awake?” she called. “A Merry Christ-
mas, papa! A Merry Christmas, mamma! I want
you down stairs just as soon as you can dress. My
present can’t wait any longer. You mustn’t come
one by one, either. It’s for both of you, and you
must come together.”

Kitty’s mysterious return from the city, and the
equally mysterious character of her present, had
aroused their curiosity. They were ready.

“ You must shut your eyes when you come in, for a
minute,” said Kitty, who was keeping watch and ward
at the sitting-room door. “ Now /” and the door was
flung wide open.

In a big arm—chair, in the middle of the room, sat
Tom, his feet in his father's long gray stockings, the
old twinkle of fun in his eyes, and the same roguish
curve to his lips his mother remembered so well.
He kept his seat but for a moment. Then he sprang
to his feet and reached out his arms.

I(z'z‘ty’s C /zrzlrtmas.

“Father! mother!”

“Tom!”

What need to say more? How Tom was picked up
by a whaling vessel and carried away upon a long
voyage; how he vainly tried to communicate with
home, and the story of his adventures in strange seas
and foreign lands—this would take too much space.

The day that followed was a red-letter day in the
Merrill calendar. Nowhere in all the land where
Christmas had a living meaning was there a happier
household, and all the pain and sorrow of the past
were amply compensated for by the perfect pemrr
which now rested upon it.

A PET HEN.

 

HILDREN never seem to tire of stories regard-
ing animals. And they like them all the better
if they are sure the stories are true.

Of all the many different kinds of animals which
have been tamed, but few appear to have intelligence
enough to make their ways worthy of mention. Most
of the wonderful stories.are told about monkeys and
dogs, horses and elephants. Now and then we hear
about cats and pigs, but the former animals possess
great intelligence in comparison with other creatures.

The seat of intelligence is the brain; and dogs
noted for their tricks have usually possessed bigger
brains than other dogs of the same kind. It cannot
be the size of brain alone, however, which determines
the degree of intelligence manifested, for the ant,
whose brain is no larger than a minute dot, is one of
the brightest animals in existence. Their feats of

A Pet lien.

building and traveling, their powers of communica-
ting with each other, and various other extraordinary
things which might be told about them, all go to show
that few animals below man are more intelligent.
And so, after all, it is quality of brain, and not
quantity, that is needed.

While many of the domesticated animals are
bright, the cow and the hen are generally looked upon
as extremely dull and stupid 3 but those who are
careful to watch their ways often find glimmers of
intelligence, and evidences that they are not so very
stupid, after all.

The stupid, quiet hen! who would ever think of
accusing her of conscious pride? We know they look
proud enough when they come swelling out from
beneath some barn, with a large brood of little chickens

swarming around them like a cloud.
In the Nursery an account is given of a hen that

had such an inordinate pride that strangers could not
glance at her without exciting in her this desire for
admiration to such a degree that she would leave off
eating, and strut forward in the most ridiculous
fashion.

Indeed, she would become so absorbed in display-
ing herself, that one day she tumbled heels over head
through an open scuttle in the barn floor, without
noticing where she was going.

A Pet 17:272.

At another time she was seen to pick up a bright-
colored feather that some rooster had shed, and stick
it in between the feathers on her back ; and this she
did over and over again, as the feather would drop
off.

Some of the children who read these pages may
have had a pet hen, but we wonder if they ever had
a hen so bright as the one we are going to tell about
now ?

A little girl who lived in Maine had a little white
hen which was called Pet. It belonged to the kind
of hen called Bolton Gray, only it was white instead
of gray.

The hen came to be petted and tamed in the fol-
lowing way :

Its mother had sat upon a lot of eggs, and, for
some reason, only succeeded in hatching out one.
And this little solitary chicken seemed so lonesome
with all the other big hens and roosters, and they
were so rough in walking about carelessly, and step-
ping on her, that this little girl thought she would
take it away from its mother, and be a mother to it
herself.

So it was brought into the house, and a little box
was prepared for it lined with soft cotton, and every
day the little chicken was taken out and fed and

A Pet Hen.

allowed to run about the house. As it grew up it
became very tame, and accustomed to the ways of
the household; and gradually learned how to ask for
something to eat. When the family were at the table
Pet would come along, and with its bill, seize hold of
the dress of the little girl, and pull it several times;
and this meant that it wanted something to eat. It
would go to other members of the family as well, and
ask for food in the same way. If it was thirsty it
would go to the sink in the kitchen, where there was
an old-fashioned iron pump, and peck away at the
cupboard-door beneath the sink, and make a loud
rapping with its bill, and this meant that it wanted
some water to drink.

Pet was also taught to catch flies; and, by simply
putting the hand down in front of her, the hen would
jump on and cling to the fingers ; and then, by hold-
ing the creature up to the window, and moving it
from one pane to the other, the hen would rapidly
catch the flies and swallow them.

But the funniest thing for the hen to do — and we
never heard of a hen doing such athing before, —was
to slide down hill with the little girl! There was a
steep hill near the house where the little girl lived,
and in winter there were nice slides upon it. This
little girl used to take her pet hen with her when she

A Pet H272.

went out coasting,—or sliding, as they call it in
Maine. For the hen would sit quietly on the sled
while it was going down hill, and, when the sled was
dragged up, she would scramble on again and get a
ride up! Sometimes she would slip off, for it
was hard to cling on to the smooth top of the sled.
But no matter how many times she tumbled off, she
would chase after the sled and hop on again, and
thus get a ride to the top of the hill, and be ready to
have another slide down.

The picture on a preceeding page shows the little
girl dragging her sled up hill with Pet clinging to it
and evidently preferring riding up to walking up.

ANNA ALBITZ OF BIRKENDORF.

HAVE any of the little readers of the WIDE
AWAKE ever seen a castle, — a real castle with
strong turrets and dark battlements rising high where
the birds fly?

When I was a little girl, I used to think how delight-
ful it would be to live in a castle, full of queer, dusty,
musty old rooms, where I could find fairy-books and
giant-stories, and dolls that were very old, and had
belonged to the little countess, or the little duchess,
or even, perhaps, to the queen’s daughter. But, most
of all, I thought it would be great fun to climb up on
the battlements and look so far below, and see the
lakes and fields and woods and houses spread out for
miles and miles around me ; and I want to give you
just such a pleasure as this.

Come then with me. We have only to sit between
the broad, swift wings of a bird that loves to carry
children wherever they like to go.

zy’ Birkmdotgfl

See how we rise ! How soft the air is, and howthe
fields fly past us, and how the great ocean far
down beneath us waves and sparkles in the sunlight !

Here are new gardens, cities, lakes ; and moun-
tains wearing their snow-caps far above the green and
blooming valleys. And now, — for the bird knows
where we wish to go, —we will descend, swift as light,
yet lightly as a feather ;for here are the antique battle-
ments and feudal towers of something more than a
single castle, for these make part of the ancient walls
that wind around and enclose the charming little city
of Freyburg , in that picturesque bit of this great world
called Switzerland.

We will not go down into the city, but will sit in this
recess of the gray old battlements in the shadow of
the turret, where the whole of F reyburg is beautifully
mapped before us in the yellow sunshine.

I have chosen this spot because it overlooks the Rue
St. Nicolas, the street which was the scene of an action
which will quicken every little heart that hears it.

On this street stands the St. Nicolas cathedral, a
stately pile, whose walls are used to the sweet vibra-
tions of one of the finest organs in the world ; that, by
sunlight and moonlight, lifts, shining, the highest spire
in Switzerland.

Yet to see this fine cathedral did not bring us here,

Amza A lbitz

else we might as well now be standing, dumb, before
St. Peter’s dome in Rome, or before the lovely sculpt-
ured master-piece in Milan. Through the city winds
the Sarine river, with the homes of the German quar-
ter clustered on its banks; the line between German
and French Switzerland runs through the city, and
across it the French quarter rises upon a gradually
swelling terrace of sandstone.

This Swiss city is very pretty, with its college, mu-
seum, hospital, schools, orphan asylum, public baths,
libraries, learned societies and manufactures ; with its
many curious fashions, its quaint old houses, and its
Jesuit monastery ; yet we did not come to Switzerland
to look on these.

The arch of yonder fine suspension bridge is the
second longest single curve in the world ; and there
before the town-hall stands the ancient linden tree
planted in 1480 to commemorate the victory of Morat
over Charles the Bold in 1476. Worth coming to see,
yet not for these we came.

Look now into the Rue St. Nicolas. It is a pleas-
ant, rather idle looking street just now, — the people
pass to and fro in no great hurry, and not many of
them ; and we can just hear the gay troll of the peas-
ant drivers as their teams crawl lazily along. Those
two new houses you see, near the Hotel des Merciers,
were not there in 1871.

of Birkmdorf

One of them was the mazlron Gottrau, and it had an
iron balcony which was on that day worth more to hu-
man life than both houses put toge .her.

I do not know the name of the other house ; but to
distinguish it, I will call it the maison Monnard, as the
Monnards lived in it.

In the morning of November eighteenth, Madame
Monnard went out to another part of the city, leaving
at home her two little children, Marie and Victor Mon-
nard, in the care of her servant Anna Albitz, a young
girl from Birkendorf.

Anna took the little ones into the nursery on the sec-
ond floor, and gave up her time to them. Little Vic-
tor, five years old, had some blocks and quaint carv-
ings which could be combined so as to represent many
pretty devices; but particularly was he pleased with
the result of his own ingenuity in fashioning a tiny
Swiss chalét such as he had often seen and admired.

He had the quiet meditative soul of the born archi-
tect, and would be very silent and happy for hours, in
dreaming over what his little fingers strove to realize.

But Marie two years older, was a highly imaginative,
very restless little maiden, who darted from one occu-
pation or fancy to another , and would be quiet only
when Anna would tell her stories.

Anna was a patient girl, and fond of the children,

of Bz'r.ée7za’or_'f§

gent questions and flighty motions of little Marie, had
prevented her from more closely observing. With a
fear she could not have named, she bent over little Vic-
tor, touched the floor one instant with her trembling
hand, and saw a fine thin stream of smoke creeping
softly between the door and sill.

She rose quickly with the wondering and nearly
fainting boy caught close to her breast.

“Oh, Anna ! ” screamed Marie at this moment.
“come—come quick ! — do open it!” She was tug-
ging at the window. “The street is filling with peo-
ple — both ways ! ”— Here Marie stopped.

She had felt only a childish excitement, —the mix-
ture of wonder, curiosity, and desire to see something
unusual going on» such as very often stirs little
breasts.

But Marie had a quick mind. She saw the people
running, flocking closer, tossing their arms, pointing
and shouting and looking up at t/zeir window, each
face with the same terrible gaze.

All in an instant, it seemed, flames and smoke shot
out and disappeared, then flashed out again beneath
the window, between them and the staring, shouting
crowd ; and above the confused war of voices rose now
distinctly the fearful cry:

“ Fire /fire/fire /”

Amm A léitz

Marie turned from the window with her heart beat-
ing so fast that the sound of it was like a drum beaten
in her ears. She understood now.

Anna Albitz, with Victor in her arms, stood just be-
hind her. Anna, too, had been looking out ; but now
she only looked at Marie and took hold of her shoul-
der with one hand, a firm hand but so cold that little
Marie felt the chill through her sleeve.

" Quick! —keep close to me!” said Anna, and she
went to the door near which Victor had been playing.
She opened it a little way, but through the opening a
sheet of flame and a choking gust of smoke instantly
whipped into their faces.

Anna shut the door and turned without an exclama-
tion, still carrying Victor and dragging Marie, and
opened an opposite door that led up a stairway
to the third story. She closed this door behind her
to prevent the draught, drew quickly her skirts over
Marie’s face and shoulders, and through the smoke,
lashcd at with single tongues of out-leaping flame, she
fled up the stair to the third floor and into a room over
the one they had just left.

She had already seen that the fire raged on the first
floor, encircled them on three sides, and was rapidly

mounting.

of Birkendorf

The window was the only hope. Victor lay inani-
mate over her shoulder. Anna opened the window
and showed him and little Marie to the crowd now
filling the Rue St. Nicolas.

They saw her, and by her motions could tell that
she called to them ; but the din of voices and the roar
of flames swelled between, so that they heard nothing.

Still she showed the children, and clasped her hands,
raising them, so clasped, as in a burst of prayer, then
stretching them down toward the up-turned faces.

Suddenly a wilder eddy of smoke and flame obscured
the window. When it ebbed, the window was empty.

But Anna was working!

She rolled little Marie, who was docile and stupefied
with fright and smoke, in ablanket, and laid her down
on the floor close to the window ; then she wrapped a
woolen cape around the benumbed Victor.

As she did this she saw little wavering spears of
flame creeping between the doors and sills of the room,
and she heard a harsh crackling and snapping along
the walls, and the smoke grew so dense she could hard-
ly see ; but she again stood at the window and showed
the boy.

The flames from without drove her back, and again
as they subsided she reappeared.

Now a great shout arose ; it was unmistakably the

A mm A lbitz

cry of hope, and Anna, leaning out, looked instinctive
ly toward the balcony of the Mazkon Gottrau.

There she saw afireman with a coil of rope. Anna
understood and waved her hand. The flames covered
the window. Anna pressed her hand upon the letter
in her pocket, and said very softly, not knowing that
she spoke :

“ Franz ! poor Franz !”

The flames fell away, and went curling and licking
along the facade, and Anna leaned quickly out. Four
times the fireman threw the rope, and four times the
girlish arms were seen to vainly grasp for it 3 but the
fifth time Anna caught it, and a tremendous cheer
greeted her.

In a moment the noose was firmly knotted around
Victor’s body, and Anna swung him gently out and
clown. As she did so, bracelets of flame wreathed
around her arms, but she did not flinch.

The boy was drawn safely into the balcony, and
again the rope was thrown.

Anna stood ready with little Marie, still completely
enveloped in the blanket, to protect her from the
flames. Anna caught the rope the first time it was
thrown 3 but the crowd did not shout, and there was
no noise save that made by the hungry and fast-
spreading flames; for they saw that the room where

iy Bz'r,ée7za’o2;/I

she stood was bright-colored behind her with the
flames, or black with the smoke, alternately.

The moment was too awful for even a cheering
cry.

There seemed to be but one heart and one eye in
that crowd, and that heart and eye were fixed in
breathless terror and suspense on the unaided effort
and unequalled heroism of one poor servant girl.

As Anna was tying the rope around Marie’s waist,
a jet of flame rose suddenly, as if it were a creature
with life and meaning, and, sliding around Anna’s
waist, clasped her in a white, hot belt. But she fas-
tened the knot firmly, and leaned out and swung the
little Marie into safety.

The single heart of the crowd beneath gave one
great cry, and then all was speechless, tense expect-
ancy once more.

A fire brigade from Berne was working valiantly,
and the fire, which had at first threatened the whole
block, was now under control and held in narrow
limits. But in its fervid heart, as in a furnace, stood
Anna Albitz, cut off from all hope, if her own match-
less courage and endurance failed her. The roof was
already in flames, but still that one window was
strangely spared; and as the flickering, hissing red
waves once more fell away from it, they saw Anna

Amztz Albitz

reaching for the rope, which again she caught at the
first attempt, and, noosing it around her waist, she
fell, rather than swung, from the window.

Tears and shouts, of joy, pity and irrepressible ad-
miration, greeted the poor girl, as she was gently
lowered into the street, scorched and burned almost
past recognition.

Little Marie and Victor were unscathed, but Anna
was found to be so badly injured that she was taken
at once to the hospital, and every care and tenderness
shown her, while the whole Swiss and German press
warmly praised the heroism of Anna Albitz of Birk-
endorf.

She was only a simple unknown peasant girl, yet
she behaved as bravely and patiently as the famous
maiden of Domrémy, Jeanne d’Arc.

And it was to see the city where this brave deed
was done, to look into the Rue St. Nicolas—un-
mindful of its ancient linden, and soaring cathedral
spire—where that true heroine stood unflinching in
a sheet of flame to save those little children, ——it is
for this we came to Switzerland.

For this is a true story of an event which actually
did happen in Freyburg, and if I ever learn (as I
think I may) what afterward became of noble Anna
Albitz of Birkendorf, I shall be glad to tell.

qf Bz'rke7za’o7j'.

The pen and the tongue can do great things; but
I think atrue and loving life is greatest of all. And
one who perfectly lived such a life has said :

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends.”

I would rather face the great judgment as Anna
Albitz,* with that one loving perfect deed recorded
against my name, than as Shakespeare, or the planet-

finding Herschell, or the builder of St. Peter’s lofty
dome.

*1 have since learned that Anna recovered her health and strength, and
there may he .nore to say of her by and by.

KATIE’S ADVENTURES.

 

“ I DO think, Katie Bradshaw,” said her little sister

Nina, “that you are going to have a perfectly
splendid time! Such lots of new things, and a new
trunk of your own, and to be gone the whole summer!
And you are almost a child, too —only fifteen ; why,
in ten years, I shall be ever so much older than you
are. I wish I was going, too.”

“Why, you funny little thing!” replied Katie,
laughing, and showing her pretty dimples, “ what
would poor mamma do if both of her daughters went
off and left her? And as to you, you little goosie!
you’d be boo-hoo-ing for her the very first night. I
shouldn’t wonder if I did myself. Oh, mammie!
mammiel I don’t want to leave you! ”

And, with a sudden bound, Katie nearly strangled
avery bright, sweet-looking little woman, who was
bending over an open trunk.

Katz°e ’s A ziverz lures.

“ I should be very sorry, dear, if you did want to
leave me,” was the laughing reply, for Mrs. Bradshaw
shed all her tears very privately, “but don’t forget,
Precious, that you are not going to Aunt Esther’s be-
cause you want to, but because you are wanted. We
hope that you will be a great comfort to the old lady
this summer.”

“ But Katie is a great comfort to us,” put in little
ten-year-old Nina, “ and I don’t see why Aunt Esther
should take her away from us. I don’t believe she is
nice a bit! ”

Her funny little nose went up in the air more than
ever, as she sat swinging her short legs over the big
arm-chair in which she had curled herself. She was
very fond of sister Katie, who was also an object of
admiring envy. “If Katie is Precious,” said she, one
day, when she was a very little girl, “what am I, I
should like to know?” “O, you are ‘Pet ’ ” replied
mamma with a kiss; and ‘ Precious’ and ‘ Pet ’, the
two little sisters had been ever since.

“ Aunt Esther” was Mr. Bradshaw’s aunt; a
maiden lady who lived in the country about one hun-
dred miles away, and who had never visited her city
relatives since the children were little things—quite
too little to remember her. But now she had written
to ask that her oldest great-niece might be sent to

Katz'o ’s Advezztzzres.

spend the summer vacation with her: and Katie who
had studied pretty hard at school, and grown rather
tall and pale, was being done up just like a parcel,
she said, to be sent on to the old lady. She did not
fancy it at all, at first : but papa said that it must be.
Aunt Esther had acted the part of mother to him when
he was a little orphan boy, with no one to care for
him; and he wanted his daughter to give cheerfully
two or three months of her bright young life to lighten
the loneliness of this kind old aunt. Besides, Katie
was to be wonderfully benefited herself by change of
air and scene; and would, doubtless, return to her
winter studies with renewed strength and zeal.

So Katie came by degrees, to look upon going to
Aunt Esther’s in the light of a duty ; but she did not
expect any great amount of pleasure from it. There
was to be sure, an agreeable excitement in the new
trunk and pretty traveling satchel, and other belong-
ings for her journey: also in the added importance
that Miss Katie Bradshaw, the prospective traveler,
seemed to have suddenly acquired in the eyes of her
friends and relatives.

This same journey had been something of a stumb-
ling block at first, for it must be taken alone. Mr.
Bradshaw could not leave his business to accompany
his daughter, and mamma did not fancy having her

K'az‘z'e’s A (Zr/eiztures.

pretty bright-eyed Katie set adrift in this way ; but
papa declared that there was reason in all things, and
it was quite preposterous that a girl of fifteen could
not travel a hundred miles in broad daylight without
change of cars, if placed comfortably in her seat at the
station—and met, as she would be, by her aunt’s
equipage on reaching her destination. It would not
do, he thought, to make girls too helpless 5 and this
journey would teach Katie self-reliance.

Katie did not seem to mind it herself—she
thought she should enjoy the fun of going off inde-
pendently ; and when mamma had finally considered
that neither ogres nor wild beasts were allowed on
railroads, and that her precious girl had, at least, an
ordinary amount of common sense and regard for
propriety, she consented to the solitary journey.

She folded up many sighs and some tears with
those neatly-packed clothes, for it was a real trial to
part with her bright, loving Katie for two or three
months ; but the children did not guess this from her
outward cheerfulness.

Numerous were Katie’s questions about the un-
known aunt; but her mother said laughingly, “No
more interrogation points, Precious! You must find
out some things for yourself, after you get there. And
do not forget, Katie, that our comfort and enjoyment

Katze’s Adventures.

anywhere depends in a great measure on ourselves,
for we have much to do with the treatment we receive
from others. Aunt Esther is an excellent Christian
lady, and will, I am sure, receive my little girl kindly,
and do what she can to make her visit pleasant. But
you must remember that she is quite an elderly lady
who has lived much alone, and her views of things
will often differ from yours. She may wish you to
help her a little in household matters, but this will
not hurt you, Katie ; and perhaps you will return to
me quite an experienced seamstress and knitter—
Aunt Esther generally talks to the accompaniment of
knitting needles.”

Katie made a very wry face ,- and Nina exclaimed
scornfully:

“ Aunt Esther wont catch me there, I guess.”

“ I should pity her if she did,” replied mamma
smiling, “ but I do not think she has any designs on
my useless little ‘ Pet.’ Don’t be discouraged, Katie
—things may turn out better than you expect ; and
I wish you to go to Aunt Esther’s with the resolution
of being a help and comfort to her. I have written
her a long letter, and have especially requested that
you may have plenty of exercise in the open air-
which will enable you to get along very well with a
little housework and sewing. I remember a very

Katie ’s Adventures.

pretty grove near the house that I think you will de-
light in — you can do your reading there 3 but do not
forget, clear, that to be wrapt up in books when on a
visit is neither considerate nor polite.”

“Dear me!” thought Katie, as she tied up her
bright hair with a fresh ribbon, “what lots of things
I am to remember! I shall have to approach Aunt
Esther as carefully as if she were a loaded pistol
ready to go off at the slightest touch. But I think
she must be pretty nice, too, from what papa and
mamma say about her— and then she was so kind to
papa when he was a little boy. I will try to do the
very best I can ; and I do hope she will love me.”

It was a very sweet face that the dressing-glass re-
flected: bright, mischievous, and yet delicate and re-
fined, with a rosy glow constantly coming and going,
and a clear, rippling laugh that seemed to bring out
dimples everywhere. Every one a’z'zz’ love Katie Brad-
shaw, for she was a very lovable girl, and it was not
at all likely that Aunt Esther would prove an excep-
tion to the general rule.

As the dreaded day drew near, Nina became quite
tearful over the approaching separation, and mani-
fested her sorrow by suspending herself at frequent
intervals, like a very large locket, on Katie’s neck
and sending forth a series of half-sobs and half-howls

Katie ’s Adventures.

that were supposed to express the extremest depths of
grief. Sometimes Katie rolled on the floor with her,
laughing, to shake her off 3 and someflmes she cried a
little herself; but papa always laughed at these ebul-
litions, and said he didn’t believe there had been
more fuss made over any of the heroines of ancient
history who were delivered up as sacrifices, to wild
beasts and the like.

There was a terrible rushing around on the last
morning, and quite a scene of confusion. Everybody
kept putting things into Katie’s hands to carry with
her, until she seemed almost in danger of being taken
for an express-wagon. Cook had a great pile of lun-
cheon ready for her, that looked like a generous
meal for three or four hearty men — papa gave her a
new book to read on the way—mamma handed her
an immense letter for the same purpose, that had
been written jointly by all the family — and what did
Nina do but nearly strip the garden to give Katie a
huge bunch of flowers to carry into the country !
Every one laughed at this ; but the little lady stoutly
maintained that people always had a bouquet with
them when they went traveling.

Papa and mamma and Nina all went to the depot
with Katie, and saw her comfortably seated with all
her belongings, trying hard not to cry, and looking

K'atz°e’s A dz/eiztures.

bright and hopeful; and the last leave-takings had
been accomplished in quite an orderly manner—
when Nina made a sudden turn and rushed back to
the seat again, pounced wildly on Katie, kissed her
nose frantically and nearly put out her eyes, crushed
her new hat and knocked it all on one side, boo-hoo-
ing all the while in quite an alarming manner — and
was finally dragged off by her parents, barely in time,
as the cars were just starting 5 leaving the young trav-
eler in quite abattered and mortified condition, as
she saw a smile of amusement on the faces around
her.

But tears came into Katie’s eyes, and she straight-
ened herself up under the conviction that her little
sister’s affection, if it was rather noisily demonstra-
tive, was not a thing to be ashamed of. She turned
to her new book for comfort ; the letter, mamma said,
was not to be opened until she was l1alf—way on her
journey —and the conductor had smilingly promised
to inform her when they reached that precise point.
Every one smiled on the young girl, she looked so
fresh, and pretty, and sweet; and even a dirty, crying
baby, in front of her stopped screaming to stare at
her bright face.

Katie was soon smiling at the urchin, and he be-
gan to smile back, until he quite forgot to cry; but

Katzk ’s Adventures.

no one had thought of trying to quiet him in this way,
though every one had complained of his noise. The
young lady gave him a flower and an orange, and the
poor, tired mother looked grateful; while Katie felt
glad that she had been able to do one of the “little
kindnesses ” mamma so often spoke of.

“ Look out for them all the while, Precious,” had
been one of the last charges, “and they will strew
your path with roses. Very few people have the op-
portunity of doing large things—don’t miss the cups
of cold water.”

It was a lovely June day, neither too warm nor too
cold ; and Katie enjoyed the scenery, and ate her
luncheon, and when the conductor said, “ Now, Miss,
I guess this is the half-way tree,” as he pointed to a
tall elm, she opened the precious letter.

She found it delicious 3 papa’s came first, and was
inexpressibly funny, as usual— then dea.rmamma’s, full
of such beautiful things, partly bright and laughing,
and partly sweet and tender, with a few last whispered
counsels to her fifteen-year-old girlie— while that lit-
tle midget, Nina, took it upon herself to give her sis-
ter an immense amount of good advice, chiefly from
not knowing what else to say; but when she wound
up with, “ Now, Katie, don’t bite your nails, and re-
member that it isn’t lady-like to whistle,” she seemed

Katie ’.s‘ Adventures.

to have become a little mixed in her ideas —- for
Katie never was guilty of these abominations, while
the young woman herself had to be frequently re-
proved for them.

The journey did not seem so long to our young
traveler as she had thought it would, and she scarcely
felt tired at all ; but it was getting well on in the af-
ternoon, and she listened eagerly to hear the conduc-
tor call out, “ C1anmore.” This was the station where
she was to stop, and presently, it was called 3 and the
conductor said, as he helped her out:

“ Here you are, Miss, all safe and sound —and I
guess that wagon over there is waiting for you.”

Katie was the only passenger for Clanmore, that
looked like a rather lonely place; but her aunt’s
house was two or three miles off, and there stood a
wagon, and avery shabby horse, and a stout good-
natured man, who stared at her in a surprised way, as
he said :

“I guess you’re the gal from Philadelphy that I’m
lookin’ for, and your aunt’s expectin’ of you. Jump
right in, Sis.”

But this was not easy to do, for the wagon was
high and the step a long distance from the ground.
The driver inwardly, pronounced Katie “ a shiftless
creetur,” as he clumsily lifted her into the vehicle, and

Katzk ’: Adventures.

expressed astonished disapprobation at the size of her
trunk: while the young lady was slightly indignant —
first, at being called “Sis,” and then at being grasped
by this rough man as though she had been a bale of
goods. It was not a pleasant beginning; and it
seemed to Katie that Aunt Esther might have come
herself to meet her after such a journey all alone, for
she knew that her parents expected it.

“ Is my aunt sick?” she asked, when the man had
finally arranged the trunk to his satisfaction.

“Not unless she’s been took since I started,” was
the reply. “I left her as spry as ever— I guess
Miss Hetty don’t find much time for layin’ ’round
sick.”

Katie was quite disgusted. “Miss Hetty,” indeed!
Why not “ Miss Bradshaw ” when speaking of a lady
of Aunt Esther’s age and standing? And what a
horrid wagon to ride in, when she had expected at
least a light, tasteful rockaway!

“She flies round pretty lively, Miss Hetty does,”
continued the speaker, “and [ guess you’ll have to
fly round, too. Aint seen much of your aunt have
you? She said she scarcely knew w/zat you’d look
like, but I guess she expected a stouter gal than
you.”

“I thought my aunt would have come to meet me,”

Katie ’.s' Adventures.

said Katie, as well as her anger and disgust would let
her. For she was a dainty little lady, this Katie of
ours, and did not like the idea of riding alone with a
man who seemed to her both vulgar and impertinent.

“ She don’t gad much, Miss Hetty don’t,” was the
reply, “ thinks as I do, that the best place for women
folks is at home.”

Katie ventured only one more question.

“ Is this my aunt’s horse and wagon? ” she asked.

“ Partly hers, and partly mine,” said the man. “ I
work the farm for her on shares——and I guess we
own the out-door things about even.”

He was not a servant, then ; and Katie’s heart
sank at the idea of such a partnership. It seemed as
if Aunt Esther must have changed since papa and
mamma saw her; and when the vehicle stopped at a
low, white, dismally shut-up looking house, the poor
child found it very hard to keep from a burst of tears.
N 0 one came to the front door, even ; and the house
scarcely looked as if any one lived there.

“Go right through the side gate,” said the man
from the wagon, “ and foller that there little path to the
kitchen door. I guess you’ll find Miss Hetty in the
sink-room—she had a mess of soap under way when
I started.”

Katie did as she was told ; she was resolved to be
patient and do the best she could under the circum-

Katzk ’.s‘ Azlverztzzres.

stances. But when she stood in the open kitchen
door, and beheld a tall, lank figure in a rusty black
dress, with rough-looking gray hair twisted up in a
hard little knot, coarse hands, and a weather-beaten
face, her courage sank at the prospect before her. A
dreadful oder pervaded the place ; and “ Miss
Hetty,” as her farm partner called her, was bending
over a huge brass kettle and stirring a dark-looking
mess in which she seemed deeply interested.

“ It must be soft soap,” thought Katie —who con-
tinued to stare as if she had been enchanted; but
she had not imagined that soft soap could make it-
self so unpleasant.

Presently the witch-like figure turned and looked
almost as much amazed as the young girl in the door-
way.

“ The land’s sake I ” she exclaimed, advancing
toward Katie. “ So, you’ve come, have you? Why,
you don’t look the least mite like what I expected I ”

Katie’s politeness prevented her from returning
the compliment—indeed, she felt much more like
crying; first she had expected Aunt Esther to meet
her at the depot—and then she had certainly ex-
pected to be greeted on her arrival with a warm em-
brace and a kiss, but this busy housekeeper did not
appear to have any such frivolous intentions.

“ Did I come too soon, Aunt Esther?” asked Katie

Katie ’s Adventures.

somewhat tremulously. “ Mamma wrote to tell you
when to look for me.”

Aunt Esther smiled grimly. “ Well, I guess that
letter is in the post-oflice now—I don’t trouble my-
self much about letters. Of course, I knew you was
comin’ —I told your par some time ago to send you
along; and as ’Bijah had to go to the station for
some flour, it didn’t matter.”

More and more bewildered, Katie went on without
knowing what she was saying :

“You seem to be very busy, auntie—perhaps I
can help you while I am here.”

“Perhaps you can,” was the somewhat ungracious
reply, “that is about what I got you for. But I can’t
make out why you are rigged up in that kind of style
to come into the country —nor where the money has
come from,” she muttered in a lower tone. “I’ll give
you one of my old calico gowns to put on to-mor-
row, and then you’ll be fit to go to work.”

Now Katie did not feel “rigged up” at all ; she only
wore a brown traveling suit of fine material, and fash-
ionably made; but everything matched and harmo-
nized, and the dainty figure seemed to stand out like
a picture from the frame of the rough kitchen door-
way. She thought of Ellen Montgomery in the
“Wide, Wide World,” and rather wondered if Aunt

Katie ’s Adventures.

Esther would dye her stockings to save washing, as
Miss Fortune did E11en’s.

“Go along into the settin’-room, child,” continued
Miss Hetty, “ and take your things off. I can’t leave
this mess just now.”

“ I won’tl I 2:/o7z’z‘/” said Katie to herself, as she
walked into the sitting-room, and bit her lip very hard.
This referred to the crying fit that seemed just on the
point of breaking forth; but she tried to remember
what her mother had told her about Aunt Esther’s
views and ways being different from theirs, and that
two months would, after all, pass quickly, whether it
passed pleasantly or not. But oh l how long it looked
to the lonely child on that firstdo1efu1evening!—
how could she ever live through it? she wondered.

Miss Hetty put her head into the room to say:

“ We’ve had supper— but if you want a bite, you
can have it.”

Katie declined the “bite ”— which struck her as a
very homeopathic allowance to offer any one; she
still had part of her luncheon left if she should get
hungry before morning; but just then, she felt as if
she could not eat anything while she stayed in that
dreadful place. Her aunt seemed to be a very silent
woman, and she looked sad and worried most of the
time ; Katie wondered if she never sat down to rest,

Katie ’s Adventures.

and if she would ever have time to hear about papa
and mamrna and Nina. She scarcely seemed to no-
tice what Katie tried to tell her about home, and once
or twice she looked at her so queerly that the child
almost feared she might have become a little crazy.
Perhaps she had ; and this was what made her seem
so strange and so different from the Aunt Esther she
had heard about.

Miss Hetty went to bed at nine o’clock——taking
Katie up-stairs with her to a little room that seemed
quite filled up with a clumsy bedstead and one chair,
and having asingle window without blinds or shutters,
only a torn shade of green paper on the inside.

The room was very close and needed airing—but
the window wouldn’t open, and when Katie got into
bed she fairly cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, she was aroused at daylight by
a vigorous shaking; and when she opened her eyes,
there stood her aunt looking quite disgusted at her
sleeping powers.

“ Be spry, now,” said she, “and hurry down to the
kitchen. Here’s the gown you are to put on ;”
and before poor Katie could say a word, she had van-
ished.

Katie attired herself in the coarse-looking calico-
only a sacque and skirt ——which was considerably too

Kati: ’.r Adventures.

large for her; and she felt queerly enough when she
entered the kitchen, to find the breakfast-table set
there, and “ ’Bijah,” in his shirt-sleeves, eating rap-
idly with his knife.

He glanced up when Katie appeared and told her
that “she looked quite like folks now,” but the meal
was almost a silent one, and very little food passed
the child’s lips. Her head ached badly with her cry-
ing of the night before, and her unwonted early ris-
ing; so that she scarcely knew what to do with her-
self. There was plenty of work to occupy her, how-
ever as immediately after breakfast she was set at
washing up the dishes and sweeping the kitchen,
while Miss Hetty went at her churning: and for two
or three hours she was very busy with “chores,” as
her aunt called them.

Thoroughly tired out, Katie threw herself down at
last, on the hard lounge in the sitting-room and went
fast asleep; and when she was called to dinner,
Miss Hetty told her that she was afraid she wouldn’t
be worth her salt.

By the next morning Katie felt so sick and misera-
ble, that she got her writing materials out of her
trunk, which had been left in the lower hall and spent
most of her spare moments during the day in writing
a long letter to her mother, in which she begged most

Katze ’: Adventures.

piteously to be taken home at once. The poor child
felt that she could not stand it any longer.

But release was nearer at hand than she thought.

That very afternoon ’Bijah appeared with a stout-
looking girl of about Katie’s age in his wagon, and
called out jokingly to Miss Hetty that “ he guessed
she’d have to start an orphan asylum, as he had found
another niece of hers at the zleqfiot, who had come to
live with her, too.”

The new comer was stupid and bashful, and did
not appear to have anything to say for herself; but
Aunt Hetty looked wildly at her for a moment and
then said:

“What is your name ? ”

“Phebe Ann Kelley,” was the reply.

“And yours?” as she turned to Katie.

“Katie Bradshaw,” said our heroine.

“Aren’t you Miss Esther Bradshaw? ” she asked
in her turn, as a faint hope rose before her.

“ No,” was the reply. “ My name’s Hester Kelly,
and this girl is my brother’s daughter, that I’ve been
expectin’ to come and live with me. Miss Bradshaw
lives a good five mile from here —she’s one of your
kind, too, and I guess you’ll be as glad to go to her
as I am to have you. But, I am sorry for you, child,
now that I know you don't belong to me, for you

Katie ’s Adventures.

must have had a real hard time of it — and I hope
you won’t bear malice. I’m a hard-workin’ woman,
and mean to do what is right.”

This was a long speech for Miss Hetty, but poor
Katie was much too joyful to think of bearing malice.

“ I’m so glad!” said she, “I’m so glad I ” and
Phebe Ann looked on stolidly, while she cried for
very joy.

“I dou’t blame you one mite,” said Miss Hetty,
“ and ’Bijah will carry you over to Miss Bradshaw’s
just as quick as you can get ready —for I guess the
folks on both sides are proper worried about you.”

Katie was ready in a very short time 3 and she
clambered into the shabby wagon (with the help of a
chair now) in a much more hopeful frame of mind
than she did before. She felt quite sure that the real
aunt Esther would not be a disappointment; and it
seemed as though she had just come out of a horrible
nightmare.

“There,” said her companion, after they had ac-
complished the five miles in almost total silence, “ I
guess you’ll like the looks of that better than our
place —— wouldn’t mind ownin’ just such another my-
self.”

It was a charming old homestead, shaded by mag-
nificent elms and maples; and when the sound of

Katie ’s Adventures.

wheels was heard, a very sweet-looking, elderly lady
appeared, who came rapidly down the walk and took
Katie in her arms, as she said:

“I know this must be my little girl whom I have
been looking for these two or three days. But, child,
how did you get here now? And what has hap-
pened ?”

There was no reply—for Katie had fainted; the
fatigue, and want of food, and disappointment, and
joy, of the last few days had been too much for her.
Very tenderly was she carried into the parlor and
placed on the comfortable sofa ; and when she opened
her eyes, Aunt Esther was bending lovingly over her.

Katie’s letter to her mother will tell the rest of the
story.

“ My owN DARLING MAMMA : Such a dreadful time
as I have had! but don’t be worried about me, please,
because it is all over now. Aunt Esther says she
wrote to you on Tuesday evening, the day I left you,
that I had not come—which worried you of course,
until you got the telegram she sent last evening to
tell you that I /zazz’ come. You see I had been mak-
ing a little visit somewhere else, (I am glad it was a
little one) but you shall hear all about it. Didn’t you
get the letter and the telegram about the same time?

Kart? ’.s' Adventures.

“The way it all happened was this: Aunt Esther
had such a bad headache on Tuesday that she could
not go to the cars to meet me as she intended, and
she had to send her man-servant alone with the car-
riage. He had two or three errands to do in the vil-
lage, and did not get to the station till after the train
had stopped and gone on again, and I had gone off
in a miserable-looking wagon with a very queer man
who called me ‘Sis.’ Of course I thought he was
Aunt Esther’s man and /ze thought I was Miss Hetty’s
niece, and Aunt Esther’s man thought I hadn’t come.
So, things got dreadfully mixed up, you see.

“ Suc/z a house, mamma, as the man took me to !—
and such a queer, common-looking woman that I sup-
posed was Aunt Esther! Wasn’t it funny that size
was expecting a niece from Philadelphia, too? and
this is what made the mistake. Aunt E. knows all
about this Miss Kelly, and she says she feels very
sorry for her—she works so hard, and she has a
brother who drinks, and she has to help support his
family. She thought I was this dreadful man’s
daughter, (only think of it, dear papa I ) — and if you
could just see Phebe Ann, the niece, who came while
I was trying to get a letter written to you begging you
to come and take me away, (I was so glad that letter
didn’t get into the post-oflice) I think you would

Katzk ’.s‘ Adventures.

laugh very much. It did not seem a bit funny 2‘/zen,
though—how I a’z'zz’ cry, that first night! I had to
leave that place, as the servant girls say, because the
work was too hard. Poor Miss Hetty was very much
disappointed in me, though I did my very best-she
said, “ I wasn’t worth my salt.” But Azmz‘ Es!/zer
thinks I am, and a great deal more.

“ Oh, mammal why did you not tell me how lovely
she is? I shall not be at all afraid of her, except that
I would not disobey or grieve her for the world. I
wish you could see my room, which opens out of
Aunt Esther’s ; she had it fitted up purposely for me,
(wasn’t it kind of her?) and everything in it is blue
and white, (Aunt E. says that young girls always like
blue) and it is so pretty. Dear auntie tucks me up
every night, and kisses me the last thing. She says
she means to ‘spoil me for my father.’ Tell Nina
there are two lovely little Maltese kittens here, which
Aunt Esther says I may name and have for my own-.
I shall call them ‘ Katie ’ and ‘Nina’— and one
shall wear a blue ribbon and the other a pink one.

“ It is lovely here. and if I only had you and papa
and Nina, I should like to stay here always. I am so
glad that Aunt Esther is Aunt Esther, and not Miss
Hetty."

K'az‘z'e’5 Adventures.

Great was the consternation at home over Katie’s
adventures when Aunt Esther’s letter and telegram
were received followed so quickly by a lengthy epistle
from the wanderer herself. Things had turned out
wonderfully well, considering how bad they mzgr/zt
have been under the circumstances; and papa and
mamma thought that perhaps after all, that short ap-
prenticeship to Miss Hetty might prove a real bene-
fit to their little girl, by showing Aunt Esther in still
brighter colors.

When Nina had quite exhausted her astonishment
and indignation at Katie’s mishaps, she volunteered a
piece of advice, which was, that when the young lady
traveled alone again, she should be “ checked
through,” like the trunks.

Papa said this was not a bad idea and he would
think of it.

A C/zristmas C/zarity.

A CHRISTMAS CHARITY.

 

ITTLE Fay Campbell is four years old. Her
L brother Jack is three years older. Fay has the
greatest respect for Jack because he is a boy and
wears knickerbockers, while she is only a girl and
must always wear dresses.

Then Jack is seven and she is only four. It is a
great trial to Fay that she will never be as tall as her
brother, and never catch up to him in age.

She thinks it is a great mistake they were not
twins.

And then, Jack can read in the second reader
while Fay only knows her A. B. C’s. That is another
trial.

These children were born and have always lived in
a very strange place. This queer place is a large and
beautiful Asylum for the Insane.

You know insane people are those who have lost
their reason ; their minds, instead of their bodies, are

A C /zrzirtmas C/zarzlfy.

sick, and they are placed in Asylums in order that
they may be taken care of, and, sometimes, made
quite well again. In this Asylum there are over a
thousand of these poor, crazy people, many of whom.
have never known, before, so pleasant a home. The
people who take care of them, always speak of them
as “patients,” for it offends them to be called “in-
sane.” Now, because Jack and Fay live in this
Asylum, you must not suppose they, too, are crazy.
They are just as sane as you are, but their father, Dr.
Campbell, is the Superintendent of the Asylum, and
has charge of all the persons living in it. Sometimes
he allows them to go into the wards where the
patients live, because it makes these poor people very
happy to see such pretty little children.

When people lose their minds they are not ac-
countable for what they do, and they often become
very violent and hurt each other and the people who
take care of them, but no matter how wild or violent
they may be, they very seldom hurt little children.
So Jack and Fay are not a bit afraid to go into the
halls among them.

Each patient has a small, neat room with a bed
and a window in it.

Across all the windows iron gratings have been put,
to prevent the patients from getting away.

A C/zrzirtmas C/zarity.

Each little room.opens into a long, wide hall, which
is furnished with chairs, tables and benches, and has
big bay-windows, through which the pleasant sun-
shine comes.

Some kind persons have hung bright pictures on
the walls and have given these poor people books
and illustrated papers to amuse them.

During the warm summer weather, the patients are
allowed to spend most of their time out of doors. in a
big yard. Those that are able, take long walks with
the attendants who have care of them.

The most violent patients are kept in the upper
wards of the buildings, and the little children seldom
go up there ; they only know the milder, quieter
patients who live on the first floor.

And, now, would you like to be introduced to some
of these children’s queer friends? One of the doctors
is unlocking the door, let us go into the hall, while
Jack and Fay trot gaily along by our sides.

Who is this big fat woman sailing down the hall,
with a brown paper crown on her head? Why, this
is Queen Victoria and she is very angry if we do not
pay great respect to her.

“ Good morning, Your Majesty, how does your
Royal Highness feel to~day ? ” says Jack, making his
most polite bow.

A C/zristmas C/zarify.

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which is the symbol of my glory, alone weighs four
tons! It is solid gold covered with jewels, you see.”

A C/zrz'.vtmas C/zarizfy.

“Pshaw! there ain’t much gold about that,” says
he, “Why, it’s nothing but paper!”

She takes off the paper crown for Jack to examine.

“Paper! I tell you this magnificent crown was
made in the time of Henry VIII. It cost England
ten thousand pounds! This diamond in the middle
is the largest diamond in the kingdom. Little boy,
you don’t know much ! ”

With this contemptuous remark, her Majesty re-
places the valuable crown and scornfully sails away.

“Good morning, Miss Fay! Bless your heart,
Master Jack,” says a very strange looking woman
who now salutes us. “Got some buttons for me,
dearies? I ain’t had no new ones in a month.”

Jack empties his pockets, and among the old nails,
horse chestnuts, empty spools and pieces of string,
which naturally appear, a number of buttons are
brought to light, which have been begged from
mamma’s work-basket.

“There, Eliza, jus’ see all the funny ones I’ve
brought you this time, and F ay’s got bushels more in
her pocket!”

“Dess I have, ’Liza, Fay sto1’d these, whole loty
of ’em!” says the child, holding up her two little
hands full of old buttons. This woman is a very
remarkable looking person. She is almost covered

A C/zristmas C/zarity.

with different kinds of buttons. Bone, worsted, silk
and pearl, they are sewed on every conceivable place

“JACK EMPTIES ms Pocx<r:'rs.”

on her dress, her apron, her cap, and even her shoes.
She wears long strings of buttons around her neck,
on her arms, her wrists and her fingers. She was

A C/zrzktmas C/zarity.

once in a button-factory and made buttons to earn
her living, and now she is crazy about them.

Many of the patients take no notice of us. Some
are singing and dancing, one or two are jabbering to
themselves and making a great noise, while a few
pace up and down the hall, with folded arms, looking
neither to the right nor to the left.

Some look very happy and are always smiling,
while others have vacant looks and sad, staring eyes.
Here is one who comes up earnestly to Fay and puts
her hand on the child’s flaxen head.

“Baby, can you tell me how many kinds of water
there are in the world ? ”

Fay is very much insulted to be called a baby,
especially as she sees unfeeling Jack laughing. She
speaks with a great deal of dignity, her face getting
very red, meanwhile:

“ I dess I’m not a baby; my papa says I’m mos’ a
gwown’d-up young lady! ”

Then Jack, who is always very important, says, “ O,
F ay's too little to know muc/z. She’s only in the
primers. Ask me, I bet you I can tell!”

“ Well, sir, how many kinds of water are there?”

“Two kinds, hard and soft," replied Jack, looking
triumphantly at Fay.

“No, my child, there are twenty-four kinds!”

A C/zristmas C/zarity.

And then, as fast as she can say them, she counts
them on her long fingers.

“ Rain-water, hard-water, soft-water, well-water,
cistern-water, spring-water, lake-water, river-water,
filtered-water, fresh-water, salt-water, sulphur-water,
Congress-water, soda-water, lime-water, hot-water,
cold-water, warm-water, boiling-water, ice-water, slop-
water, dirty-water, clean-water, and dish-water! I
own all the water in the world, children, all the
springs and rivers and lakes, I make the rain, the
dew, the snow, and the hail. I command. The
elements obey my voice. Without my power this
world would dry up.”

Jack and Fay are very much impressed. They are
about to tell her that they had always supposed God
had something to do with the rain, and snow, when a
very fierce-looking woman, with long hair streaming
down her shoulders, comes rushing up to us, wildly
clapping her hands and laughing and screaming.

“ Poor Betsey Bangle has got one of her bad days
again, she’s been in a tantrum all the morning,” says
the attendant, who puts her arm around the poor
creature and gently leads her to a seat.

“ Poor Betsey, Fay’s brought an apple to ’oo,” says
the little girl, looking very sorry, as she holds out a
big, red apple to the woman.

A C/zrzktmas C/zarizfy.

Betsey looks insulted. “Apples! Do you think
I’d ever eat anything in this place? They put poison
in everythino. They’re tryin’ to get rid of me, but

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“ Poox BETSEY BANGLE.’

they won’ succeed! Go away, young one, and poison
Mary Bates with your apple.”

A C/zdstma: C/zarizfy.

Mary Bates is a happy, contented looking girl, who
takes the apple gratefully, and whispers, as she kisses
little Fay, “Poor Betsey! Poor Miss Bangle! you
mustn’t mind her, Fay, you know the poor thing’s
z'ma7ze.”

Miss Bates always imagines that she is boarding at
a large hotel, and is continually telling her friends
how much more delightful it is at this resort, than at
any other place she has ever visited.

“The fact is,” she whispered to me confidentially,
¢‘I have tried all the watering places of note, and
none of them suit me so well as this. The salt air of
Newport takes the crimps out, Saratoga is too gay,
and Long Branch too expensive. Here we have
large, airy rooms, pleasant society and low prices.”

“Ah, here’s my little man, again; well, what shall
I give you to-clay, sir?”

The old lady who asks this question, sits all day
long rocking in a big chair, and she is always per-
fectly happy counting her vast possessions. She im-
agines that she owns all the railroads, all the gold
mines, all the banks, and all the real estate in the
world. She is immensely wealthy, and is continually
giving away the most wonderful presents.

“I’d like a really locomotive and a big, long train
of cars,” said Jack, modestly.

A C/zristmas C/zarify.

“You shall have them, to-morrow, my lad,” says
this generous Cresceus, rocking away, contentedly, in
her chair.

“Siz, :22, siz, sizzle. What a queer noise! Just
like steam escaping. Where does it come from?

“ 0, here is Mrs. Tea-kettle I ” cries Jack.

Close behind us stands a woman with one of her
arms crooked to represent the spout of a tea-kettle,
and the other on top of her head to look like the lid.

“Poor thing, she imagines she’s a tea-kettle,” ex-
plains the attendant. Jack knows her queer delusion,
and he asks:

“Mrs. Tea-kettle, is your water boiling? Have
you got your steam up?”

“ Siz, siz, sizzle,” is all the answer he gets, while he
tells Fay, winking drolly at her to get out of the way
for fear the kettle will burn her!

The dinner bell is ringing, and, after watching the
patients go quietly into the dining-room and seat
themselves at the long, neat tables, the children
scamper down the corridor, the heavy door is un-
locked, and we are once more out of Bedlam.

And now that you have met some of these poor
people, and can better understand the sad, monoto-
nous lives they lead, I will tell you how much Jack
and Fay have done to make them happy.

A C/zrz'.s'tma: C/zczrity.

It was a dreary morning about the first of Decem-
ber. The rain was pouring down steadily, and the
cold wind blew the few dead leaves that clung to the
trees, down to the ground. Jack and Fay leaned dis-
consolately against the window of the nursery, watch-
ing the rain drops trickle down the glass.

“Such a horrid day, oh, dear me, I wish ’t would
stop raining.

“ ‘ Rain, rain go away,
Come again ’nother day
Jack Campbell wants to play.’ ”

“ ‘ Wain, wain go ’way,
Come ’gain some other day
’Dess Fay Campbell wants to play, too 1”’

echoes little Fay, looking at her favorite doll, which
she left out of doors the night before, and who was
not improved by the rain.

“ Poor Mawy Elizabeff got all soaked up last night,
an’ she mos’ floated away in the wet 3 come play with
me and her, Jack.”

But Jack was altogether above dolls. Mamma
coming into the room just then, and seeing the un-
happy condition Jack was in, began to think of some-
thing to amuse the children on such a dreary day.

“ How would you like to get up a beautiful Christ-

A C/zrz':tma: C/zarizfy.

mas tree for some of the poor patients?” she asked,
drawing the children to her side.

“A Christmas tree!” cried Jack, delighted. “ A
Twistmas twree ! ” echoed Fay, jumping up and down
and looking at Jack to see what be would do next.

Now Fay had lived through three mysterious Christ-
mas eves, three merry Christmas mornings, and three
long, sleepy Christmas nights, but she did not remem-
ber very much about them. Jack felt it necessary to
explain to her what a Christmas tree meant.

“You know, mamma, F ay’s too little to remember
all the jolly times we’ve had.”

But Fay pretended she understood all about it.

“ I dess I remember lots and lots of fings; we had
fire-twackers an’ wockets, an’ Mawy Elizabeff got a
hole burnt in her best dwress, course she did ! ” Fay
was a little confused. Fourth-of-July was still linger-
ing in her mind.

Mrs. Campbell explained that the children must
make most of the presents themselves, and must save
all their pennies to buy candy with, and ribbons and
mittens, etc. “And Mike shall go out in the woods
and get a tree and put it up in the chapel, and Jack,
you and Fay, shall help trim it. Won’t that be
nice ? ”

They went to work immediately to begin the pres-

A C/zrz':z‘ma: C/zarz'ty.

ents, and were very happy and busy for the next
three weeks, working for the Christmas tree.

It was to be a secret and a grand surprise to the
patients. But, to keep such an important secret was
very hard work. I

When the children went into the wards they were
constantly on the point of referring to the one thought
uppermost in their minds. One day they met the
“water-woman,” and she was complaining that she
was thirsty.

“Why, I fought ’ou ow/trim’ all the wivers an’ lakes
in all the whole world, I shouldn’t sink you’d ever
want a drink,” said Fay, philosophically.

“Of course I own them all,” said the woman, “but
do you suppose I’d drink out of the old tin clippers
and earthen-ware cups they have here? Not I ! I’ve
been accustomed to gold and silver, I tell you. Tin
dippers, indeed!”

Up spoke little Fay, always generously inclined.
“I’ll hang my silver cup way up high on the Twist-
mas T—— ”

“Oh, stop, Fay! Mercy sakes! You most told I ”
cried Jack, in great alarm.

Fay clapped her small hands over her mouth, and
was very penitent. “ I dess she didn’t hear, Jack. I
sink she was sinkin’ of somefing else.”

A C/zrzlrtmas C/zarzkfy.

“O, you’ll never keep the secret, Fay, you’ll be
sure to tell. Girls always do,” said Jack, contemptu-
ously.

“No, I won’t, true’s I live, an’ bweave, an’ draw
the breff of life!” And Fay shook her flaxen curls
conclusively.

The children earned a good many pennies in differ-
ent ways, and worked hard for them. They ran on
errands, swept up the dead leaves from the grass,
sorted over the apples for the steward, and did many
little things to earn money. Each day the precious
pennies were counted over about twenty times, to see
if the hoard increased, and every night Jack slept
with the much-prized bank under his pillow.

At last it was the day before Christmas, and about
three o’clock in the short, cloudy, winter afternoon.
Jack and Fay had been in the chapel all the morning
watching the men put up the wonderful tree, and
their little feet had run back and forth while they
brought the pretty presents, and helped mamma
decorate the beautiful green branches. They had
been in everyhody’s way, for of course, they must
assist in everything that was done to celebrate the
merry Christmas time.

At last everything was ready. The candles were
in their places, ready to light, the gilt balls and strings

A C/zrzirlmas C’/zarity.

of white pop-corn, the pictures and painted boxes,
and books, and bows of bright ribbon, the warm mit-
tens and caps and collars and neckties, the oranges
and shiny red apples, the bags of candy and nuts and
raisins, were all hung artistically upon the tree, and
everything was done. The children were in ecstasies
and jumped up and down with delight. They wanted
to stay and examine the wonderful tree all the after-
noon. It was too beautiful to leave. But mamma
was too busy to stay with them, and so the chapel
was locked, hiding the wonders of the mysterious tree
from the children’s eager eyes. Very mournfully
they went into the deserted nursery.

“Fay,” said Jack, after a little, “My head’s so
awful full of plans for to-morrow I think it will
burst!”

Fay looked very sympathetic, but she didn’t know
how to prevent such a misfortune. The nursery was
quiet and they were tired of all their old playthings.
After the excitement of trimming the beautiful Christ-
mas tree, the attractions of their toys seemed dull
and tame.

“ I say let’s go out in the grove, Fay, and get some
big cones. ’Tain’t no fun staying here.”

“ All wight, 1’l1 wear my new wed hood ' answered

A C/zristma: C/zarizjy.

Fay to whom ]ack’s suggestions were, of course, law
and gospel.

The two jumped, two steps at a time, down the
back stairs, and slipped out the back door to avoid
being seen.

They were soon skipping along the stone walk in
the big garden. “ Oh, my, the gate’s locked, an’ we
haven’t any key,” exclaimed Jack, discouraged.

“Never mind, put your foot up here, Fay, and I’ll
boost you over.”

But F ay’s little legs were so short and fat that with
all ]ack’s “boosting ” she couldn’t get over the fence.

Just then, one of the patients, a sad-looking man
came through the door with a spade over his shoulder.

This patient was considered well enough to work
about the grounds, and was supposed to be perfectly
harmless.

He was an Englishman whose wife and three little
children had all been lost at sea. His grief was so
terrible that he became insane, and he was always
hunting for his lost children. He was constantly ex-
pecting to find them, and had the peculiar delusion
that every child he saw was one of his little dead
children come back to life.

As soon as he saw Jack and Fay, he ran joyfully
up to them, and said:

A Christmas Clzarity.

“Ah, here you are! I knew you’d come back to
your daddy! They told a lie when they said you
were drowned forever in the cruel sea.” The chil-
dren were so accustomed to the odd delusions of the
patients that they paid no attention to what he said.
They were intent upon the cones.

“Mr. Brooks, we can’t open the gate ’cause it's
locked, an’ we want to get some cones to trim the
Chris —

“Oh! Jack Campbell ’oo mos’ telled, too/” cried
Fay, delighted to find her brother as weak as herself.

Mr. Brooks was so happy in finding his children,
that he quickly opened the gate, muttering to himself,
“Now, I’ve got ’em again, I won't lose them. They
shan’t get you back in the ocean, dearies. I’ll hide
you!” The children were already skipping along,
kicking the dust with their little boots. Then Mr.
Brooks said coaxingly, “If you’ll come with me, chil-
dren, I’ll show you the biggest cones you ever saw I ”

“ All right I ” said Jack, putting his little hand into
the man’s big, brawny one.

“ All wight,” repeated Fay, trotting along by Jacl<’s
side as fast as her fat little legs would carry her.

Mr. Brooks had a purpose and to accomplish it, he
hurried the children along the lonely path in the
woods as fast as he could make them run.

A C/zristma: C/zarizfy.

“ I'm afraid it’s going to snow and storm, to-
morrow,” said Mr. Brooks, looking over at the cloudy,
western sky.

“Why, it wouldn’t ever go and storm on Christ-
mas day,” said Jack.

“Why, it wouldn’t never storm on T wistmas day,”
echoed Fay.

“Never mind, I’ll take care of you, you won’t get
drowned again,” said Mr. Brooks, consolingly.

“Oh, Fay it’s beginning to snow already. Let’s go
home,” said Jack, who was losing his anxiety about
the precious cones.

But Mr. Brooks hurried them on, on, across a little
ravine, over a long distance, until I*'ay’s strength
began to give out.

“Oh ! ”sl1e moaned, getting very tired, “ I wish ’oo
wouldn’t go so fast. Fay’s very tired an’ a whole big
snow ball’s going down my froat ! ”

By this time it began to get very dark, and it was
rapidly becoming colder.

“Ain’t we mos’ there? It’s very cold, an’ Fay’l1
get the croup,” said Jack, remembering at this rather
late hour, that Fay was subject to that unpleasant
disease.

“Oh-oh,” sobbed Fay, “ I’m mos’ dead a-wunning
so fast, an’ my feets are very heavy!” The tears

! I want

A C/'zrz'sz‘mas C/zarity.
were running down her little red cheeks, and she
sobbed, “'1 don’t fink cones are nice, a bit

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“ H2: HURRIED THE CHILDREN ALONG.”
I want my— mam — ma!”
Mr. Brooks lifted her up in his arms and soothed

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to go home,
her. Just then, they reached a dilapidated little

A C/zristmas C/zaritjy.

shanty, built probably for some workman’s use, but
long ago fallen into disuse.

“Now, we’ll go in here,” said Mr. Brooks, “and I’ll
tell you some splendid stories. Don’t you want to
hear about some crocodiles and alligators ?”

Crocodiles and alligators were ]ack’s special de-
light, so he forgot his troubles in a minute. Mr.
Brooks sat down on the floor and took the children
on his knees, and rubbed their little red hands, until
they began to get warm, and told them funny stories
about the most remarkable things. and made them
forget the cold and dark. The long walk and the
cold wind had made Fay very sleepy and she put her
little head down on Mr. Brook’s arm and soon fell
fast asleep. He took off his coat and covered her
gently with it, while Jack began to be frightened.

“ Where are the cones you said you’d find us?”

“ Oh, it’s too dark to find them to-night, we’ll get
them to-morrow. Don’t you think, my dear, this is
better than being in the great, roaring ocean? You
shan’t ever be eaten up again by the fishes!” And
Mr. Brooks put his arm around ]ack’s shivering little
body.

His mind was still running on his shipwrecked
children and he was very happy to feel them safe
again in his arms.

A C/zrirtma: C/zarity.

“ But we’re goin’ to hang up our stockings, to-night,
’cause it’s Christmas eve, an’ it’s tea time, an’ I want
to go home to the ’Sylum, now!” said Jack, trying to
be brave.

“The big sharks won’t ever get you again, my boy,
never again. You’ll never get drownded any more.”

“Ain’t you ever goin’ to take us home, again? I’ll
tell my papa if you don’t! It’s awful mean to keep
us out here in the cold. and there’s my stockings not
hung up yet ! ” —and poor Jack began to cry, too.

But just then a light was seen, and a number of
voices heard. The children had been missed and
men had been sent everywhere to hunt for them.

Mamma was so happy to get her little folks home
safely, that she couldn’t scold them, and they were
soon safe in the land of dreams, their stockings hung
by the chimney-piece, and “ visions of sugar plums ”
already dancing in their heads.

The next morning was the merry Christmas they
had anticipated so much.

Very early they were out of bed examining the
treasures Santa Claus had brought them in the night.
Fay fondly hugged a new "Mawy Elizabeff” to her
bosom, while Jack gloried over a “really” pair of
skates. They never thought of the troubles of the
night before, except when they promised mamma

A C/zristma: C/zarity.

they'd never run away anymore, while Dr. Campbell
said he would not let Mr. Brooks out, alone, again,
as he carried off little children by the wholesale.

But even with all the excitements of the day, the
Christmas dinner, and the big plum pudding, 
seemed to Jack and Fay that five o’clock would
never, never come. They watched the slow pendu-
lum in the big, hall clock, and at last, it was time to
be dressed!

In her dainty white dress, “all wufiex,” with her
pink sash and pinker cheeks, Fay looked her prettiest,
while Jack’s velvet knickerbockers and cardinal-red
stockings, gave him an immense amount of satisfac-
tion.

The gas was brilliantly lighted in the chapel, flags
and evergreen wreaths were festooned gracefully
upon the walls, and the room looked very gay and
bright. But the brightest, gayest objects in the room,
were the two little children who danced up and down
in their happy impatience. Soon the patients, neatly
dressed in their Sunday clothes, came quietly in, and
took their seats with the attendants.

Queen Victoria, with her valuable crown erect
upon her royal head, occupied one of the front seats,
while Eliza, with all her jingling buttons, sat beside
her. Near them, were our friends the “water-woman”

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and Betsey Bangle, while Mary Bates constantly as-
sured her neighbors that no watering-place she had
patronized, had ever afforded its guests such a
charming entertainment as this!

Mrs. T ea-kettle was too much excited by what was
going on, to remember to keep her water at the 3, '1-
ing point, and Mr. Brooks, for once, forgot his 1itt|3
shipwrecked children.

Looking down, over the rows of eager, expectant
faces, you would never have supposed you were in a
company of crazy men and women. Some merry
songs were sung, and then little Fay repeated the
poem:

“’Twas the night before Christmas,” but she was
so excited, that she made everybody laugh when she

said : —

“ ’Twas the night before Twistmas, an’ all fough the house
Not a creature was stirrin’ not even a wall ”

Then Dr. Campbell rolled the big curtain up, and
there, before their eager, surprised eyes, stood the
gorgeous, gayly-lighted Christmas tree.

The children were wild with excitement and danced
about while their papa told the patients how they had
worked and earned the pennies to give them this

beautiful Christmas treat.

A C/zrz'stmas C/zarz't_y.

Sounds of joy and admiration were heard from all
sides, as Dr. Campbell took off the presents from the
laden branches, while Jack and Fay ran about dis-
tributing them among the patients. N 0 one was for-
gotten. Each received some pretty gift.

It was a gay, merry, happy festival, and these poor,
afllicted people who are shut up, away from their
friends, in one building, year after year, whose lives
are dull and grey and monotonous, and who have no
merry Christmas times at home, enjoyed, more than
I can tell you, the pleasure which Jack and Fay had
worked so hard to give them.

And is it not a pleasant thing that these happy,
little children have learned, so early, the good princi-
ple that it is more blessed to give than to receive? I
think so, and the good Lord, looking down upon this
beautiful celebration of His birth-day, no doubt, said
again the old, sweet words:

“ I/zasmuc/z as ye /tam dune it unto I/ze leastqf time
my lzrcl/arm, ye /zav: (1014: 2'’ unto Me.”

A GREAT WOMAN.

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v

ANY of the readers of the Wide Awake have
doubtless seen Tom Thumb, and his little
wife and friends. Not so many of them, perhaps
have seen persons who are as much larger than aver-
age human beings as Tom Thumb is smaller. Shall
Itell them about a woman of unusual stature, who
once lived in the state of Maine? She may be living
at this time, for it was not many years ago that I saw
her, and she was then not middle-aged; and, as she
was somewhat sensitive regarding her remarkable
size, perhaps it would be as well not to give her real
name, but simply to call her Sylvia, since she was
born and brought up in the country.

When I saw Sylvia, she was probably not more
than thirty-five years old. She must have been then
nearly seven feet tall, and was said to have grown a
little within a year or two before. My young friends

A Great Woman.

will better realize what it is to be nearly seven feet
high when I tell them that when Sylvia sat in a high-
backed rocking-chair, in which if a tall man sat his
head would just reach to the top of the back, you
could go behind her and put your fingers across the
top and under her arm ; or she could easily sit in it,
with her elbow resting on the back, and her hand
supporting her cheek, as other people lean an elbow
on the arm of the chair in which they sit.

Yet Sylvia had been a very little baby—even
smaller than usual. She was one of twins, and they
were both so very small that in the night, when the
babies were in bed with their papa, who was not at
all a large man, he turned over in his sleep and
crushed one of the poor babies to death without know-
ing it.

But either he was so shocked at what he had done
that he was more careful in future, or the mother took
the precaution to save her other baby by putting it to
sleep out of his reach ; for Sylvia, the small twin that
was left, managed to get through her babyhood with-
out being mashed by her papa. She was always
:.ma.ll of her age, and a delicate little thing, and did
not begin to take on unusual proportions until she
was as old as other girls are when they cease grow-
ing. Instead of stopping when she was seventeen or

A Great Woman.

eighteen years old, as most girls do, she simply kept
on growing and growing, for ten or a dozen years
longer, just as fast as children grow. She was never
fat or plump, but had the rather meagre habit which
children have who grow rapidly.

When she was twenty-two or three years old she
fell on the icy door—step and broke her arm. The
doctor who set it was astonished to find that the
bones were yet soft like a little child’s, instead of
firm and hard, like a grown person’s 5 and this soft-

ness of the bones seemed to continue until she-

stopped growing.

Sylvia’s parents were poor people, and by the time
she was a woman they were growing old, and she was
obliged to do something for their support as well as
her own. She could not work any faster, or earn any
more, because of her superior size; in fact, it is not
strange if she did not feel so strong and well as other
girls, since so much of her force went toward growing.
She used to go out among the villagers and towns-
people and nurse sick people and take care of little
young babies ; she was a very careful and tender
nurse, and I have heard it said that when she was
holding a little baby, instead of taking it on her arm,
as most of us do, she laid it on one of her hands with
its head toward her finger-ends, and its little feet

A Great Woman.

along her wrist, and in this great, warm, loving hand,
as in a cozy cradle, the little creature would go com-
fortably to sleep without a thought of how exceed-
ingly funny it was, to be thus literally held in the hol-
low of one’s hand.

Everybody loved Sylvia, not because she was a
great woman, but because she was always kind, and
gentle, and helpful; and even the rude boys in the
street, who were sometimes tempted to shout and jeer
at her, because it was so droll to see awoman so
much larger than any man in town, were generally
polite to her; partly because they knew how easily
she could pick them up and toss them over the fence
if she chose, and partly, perhaps, because most of
them remembered how kind and patient she had been
when some of their friends were sick, or when their
mothers needed help.

Once Sylvia went to help a farmer’s wife who had
more work on her hands than she could do alone.
Sylvia was not only handy and faithful, but she was
by this time unusually strong and capable of doing
hard work. One evening she had been straining the
milk into big pans in the kitchen-—-they used big,
heavy, brown, earthen pans, not often seen in cities, —
and she started to carry them down cellar. So she
took up a pan, holding nine or ten, perhaps twelve

A Great Woman.

quarts of new milk, and went toward the cellar
doon

Now this was an old-fashioned kitchen, and had in
the ceiling overhead a row of hooks which were made
to hold long poles for the purpose of drying apples,
pumpkins, and other things. Ordinary people were
obliged to stand in chairs in order to reach these
poles, and the drying apples were quite out of the
way above people’s heads. But Sylvia was not an or-
dinary woman; and as there were at this time no
poles in the hooks she forgot about them, and as she
passed too close to one it caught in her hair and held
her fast. The poor woman could not raise her hand
to her head to free herself, because both hands were
steadying the great pan, swimming-full of milk; she
could not even move her head back and forward to
try and unhitch it, because such shaking would spill
the milk on the nice, white kitchen-floor which she
had just scoured; and there was no one but herself
in the house at the time, as the farmer was in the
barn-yard with his cattle, and his wife had stepped
into a neighbor's house.

So poor Sylvia could do nothing but stand and
wait, and occasionally give a faint call for help; for
surely no one could shout very loud, with her head
caught up by the hair, and her whole attention en-

A Great Woman.

gaged in holding without spilling a heavy pan of milk.
More than half an hour passed before poor Sylvia was
liberated from her painful predicament ; and even
when the farmer, coming in for another milk pail, dis-
covered her sad plight, he laughed so immoderately
at the affair that it took him a long time to free her.
In fact, it was said that he did not know what to do
first, and actually went to the neighbor’s to call his
wife, without thinking to relieve poor Sylvia first, by
taking the pan from her aching hands.

By and by, Mr. Barnum, the showman, heard in
some way of Sylvia, and he at once sent an agent to
see her, and try to hire her to come to his museum
in Boston as a curiosity. Now poor Sylvia was just
as averse to being stared at as you or I would be;
she could not bear to be set up for a show and have
all manner of people looking at her and making re-
marks about her broad shoulders, and her large hands,
so at first she refused.

But her parents were getting old, and she could
not obtain by her poorly-paid labor many little com-
forts which she knew they needed ; and, moreover, she
had greater expenses than most country women, since
it took so many yards of cloth to make her gar-
ments. All her friends and acquaintances joined
in telling her that it was really her duty to accept

A Great Woman.

Mr. Barnum’s offer, which was a great deal more
money than Sylvia had ever earned or seen in her
life; and so, finally, after many tears, she decided to
go.

Of course Sylvia could never buy anything ready
made, as she could never find any garments large
enough. All her “things,” excepting shawls and
handkerchiefs, had to be made on purpose for her,
shoes, stockings, and all. She had always been
obliged to wear knitted gloves or go bare-handed ;
but when she was going to Boston for the first time
in her life she thought she ought to have a pair of
kid gloves. She searched in all the stores and sent
all over the country, hoping to find a pair of men's
gloves which she could wear ; but none large enough
could be found, either of kid, silk or cotton, and poor
Sylvia was obliged to go to Boston with a pair of
home-made gloves.

Mr. Barnum treated Sylvia very kindly, but he
made the most of her size, wishing her to wear high
head-dresses and high-heeled boots, which added
greatly to her gigantic appearance, and, in conse-
quence, she looked a great deal larger in Boston than
she ever had looked in Maine. She was a good
woman, and she was undeniably a great woman.

DUE I RETURNED
FF 0 6 '8/2 

1931384 MU

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI — COLUMBIA
Ll S—J GO2051

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