HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1892-12-23, Page 11CHERRITENS CHICK.
4.48,4444ai41444
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
• Cherriten and I were boys together
in a big establishment where the wages
were quite as large as our services de-
served. On this subject Cherriten dis-
agreed with me, and he made up Ms
deficiencies by borrowing to suchan
extent that he found it necessary to
-disappear just after he received his
pay one Saturday afternoon. As
WAS his creditor to the extent of eight
cents, which was a large sum of money
in those days, I declined to recognize
him next we met, and our relations
remained strained for two or three
years afterwards, he having made sev-
eral involuntary visits to the jail for
reasons which police justices thought
sufficient. Both of us enlisted when
the civil war broke out, and although
I escaped being in the same regiments
with him. I chanced to hear from time
to time that he was bravely living upi
to his old reputation and making oc-
casional business for courts martial.
Our ways diverged after this, and for
year I had forgotten Cherriten's ex-
istence, but -one day when I chanced
to give my seat in a street car to a lady,
I was thanked in a voice which I rec-
ognized as that of Cherriten. ,
"You needn't be afraid to speak to
own dinner time I assented and with-
in ten mihutes was seated in as cosey
a room as I luta ever seen anywhere,
and Cherriten and 1 were beginning to
burn some very good cigars.
"Well," said my host, proceeding at
once to business, "I needn't go over
old times very much. I was a pretty
tough lot when you knew me, and I
got about ten times worse each year
for five or six years. I got taken in
by the polite three or four tittles, and
three inouthfuls and left Me to finish and cake shop told me where I could
by rights ought to have spent most of
my time in jail. Father and mother may thejob. was pretty awkward, as you get decent lodgings for Chick and me
both hadn'tany rien 8, which I imagine, but Chick got there for twenty-five cents a night,and where
every time I gave her a fair Show with I could have Chick taken care of for
was good for the friends. I was loafer,
at
the spoon. ten cents a day whilI was o
thief, wharf rat, fighter and everything e off
else that was had; I was so tough that the P migrants explained to a kind " Work ! 1 wanted to laugh at her
other fellows of my own kind wouldn't
stand me; so at last I had to flock by
myself. My boarding house was a
lumber heap, and sometimes 1 was
hounded out of even that by gangs of
boys—a dozen against one.
"At last I went on the tramp—
thought I'd get to some place where I
wasn't known so well. A good deal of
the time I followed the railroad tracks,
as most tramps do, and one day I reach-
ed a place where an emigrant train
had been wrecked half an hour before
•
z
cry in my time—rd teasc1 dozens of
them just to, make them cir—yet this
one's voice tore my 4art a 1 to pieces,
and just as I was liieginning to find
out that I had such a thing as a heart
inme.
"At last i stood up in the car, feel-
ing real desperate, atigl 1 shouted out:
"'Say! Ain't there a mother to
lend ,here somewhere—one of the
kind that can give ai baby something
to eat 7"
"Nobody answered; there weren't
many awake, but at last an emigrant
woman came over ahd looked at the
child, and hen brought a little cup of
milk itlid a spoon and fed it two or
sate et
• 111111.11111111
little thing like that, and I told the
wOman just how I felt.
"'.Good,' she said, you'll be a man
yet, if you stick to that.' Then she
asked me how much money I had and
toIld me where I could buy a -clean cot-
toln jumper for a few dimes thatwould
make me look a good deal decenter,
and then she hinted that if I'd lea'
the child with her a while. and take a
swim on the sly:off the docks some-
where I might be allowed in the free
baths afterward and take a genuine
wash. took her adviCe, but every-
thing seemed like a dream. I'd.never
had baths .or &leap clothes in my life
except the few times I'd been sent to
the island. The woman at the coffee
" DOND' YOU GOT SENSE TO
me, Mr. Bloggs, said. he, as our recog-
nition became mutual. " I'm not the
sort of a fellow I used to be." Then
he whispered, That's my chick—she
that you gave your seat to."
I was not sure what "chick " might
mean in the,vocabulary of the class to
• which Cherriten had belonged when I
knew hiny but 1 'Venturaci to.hv
way of corigintulation, that rifliy mat
with so pretty.a wife ought to think
himself remarkably lucky.
"Wife ? No more my wife thaa sae
is yours. •She's my chick—my child.
I'm her dad—the only one she ever
knew, though there's n
e o relation be-
tween us. Let mintroduce you."
Then, befora I could • suggest that a
crowded horse car was scarcely the
place to introduce any one to a young
wolnata he leaned forward and said:—
"Chick, this is Mr. Bloggs, that
used to work in the same place with
me when I was a boy, and beginning
to be a reguler tough, like I've told
'you so often."
A face that was really charming
turned toward me as I raised my hat,
and a well modulated voice said :—
"Papa never loses an opportunity to
tell me that he used to be dreadfully
bad when he was young. It really
seems to give him pleasure to give him-
self a bad character."
I do it so as to Leep her in mind
of the great lot of good she has done
me," Cherriten explained, as both of
us resumed, erect positions. " She's
been the making of me. She puts it
the other way --she hasn't cost me any-
thing but money, and goodness knows
that's easy enough to get if a man is
willing to work, but she has had to
spend enough patience on me to set
old Jab up in business. Honest, now,
Mr. Bloggs--Im not fishing for com-
pliments, but from what you can see
offhand don't I seem something of an
improvement on what I used to be as
you remember me ?"
I was glad to answer, in the affirm-
ative. Cherriten never cbuld have been
a beauty; he was born of very bad
stock, according to his early accounts
of himself, and he had farge features
under a "small brow, but the old dom-
inant expression of lawlessness had en-
tirely departed and there was a'health-
fal glow in his eyes and cheeks which
told of good physical habits. He was
as well dressed as any man in the car,
and he wore good clothing with the air
of a man accustomed to that sort of
thing; he was neatly gloved even, and
carried a stick without seeming embar-
rassed by it.
"She did it all," he said. He could
see that.I was looking. him over. " I
• wish you'd let me come to see you,
wherever your place of business is, and
tell you the whole story. I'm sure
you'd enjoy hearing it. Besides, it's a
story you'd like to tell your wife, if
I'm not g! eatly mistaken. "Tisn't
every day that you meet men that's
gone through what I have—and got as
much good 0 t of it. pant you come
• along with IN and see ricw I live —how
she lives, toe ? Mayl,e you may run
against bone! of tile other boys that we
used to Work with— never know who
you'll meet et in a big city like this
and I'd like you to pass the word along
that Merril en isn't what he used to be
and thathe eouldn't go back if he tried.
We get out the next street but one."
Then he bee t over the girl and said,
"Chick, I'm rying to Coax Ar. Bloggs
caw tIrt ; Oa 011 TV) I- Vrtil
lit' `i'
11 Is
t„ _I
KNOW DOT RAi3YIS HONGRY ? "
and a lot of iseople killed. Maybe you'
won't believe it, but I was so low down
that I went Prowling about the rocks,
on the lower side of the road, to see
if anything had been lost from the
wreck that I could steal. Well, some-
thing had rolled down there and been
overlooked by the people that were
searching. 'Well, I found something
—it was Chick. She was only about
a year old then, judging by the usual
signs, and she was about as dirty and
shabby as the man that found her, and
she didn't look any better for a cut or
two on her head and face. But she
was somebody's young one, I said to
myself, and her folks would be glad to
get her back, They couldn't he worth
much money, judging by the ceild's
clothes,but they might stand the price
of 8 drink out of gratitude.
"Well, I couldn't find the owners.
s near as anybody could tell,the man
and woman that she'd been with were
amona the killed. You know hOw
ra
things are at such times every -body's
rattled. Some folks told me to do one
thing with her and some another. ' I
tried to ;ive her away, but nobody'd take
a
her. -.".;.re was another reason why I
3011.MY 't get rid of her—she had both of
he little arms around my neck and I
souldn't get them off. One of the
women that had been in the accident
sahl. it was because the little thing was
so -scared; said she looked as if she was
too frightened to breathe straight,
which is likely enough, beeing where
lt
and how I'd found her. The railroad
folks couldn't do anythi g about the
young one, except to say hat if I'd go
back to the city with ottier emigrants
--they thought I was one of the crowd
—that they guessed they'd find some
way of disposing of it there.
"All the way down to Toronto that
young one kept throttling the. She'd
drop asleep once in a while and I'd try
to lay her down; seemed to be so infer-
nal foolish for a fellow like me to
have a young one in his arms. But
whenever I tried to,drop her she woke
up and hung tighter.. What do you
suppose happened at last? Why, she
got so tired that she slept soundly, and
her arms unloosed and I put her down
on a seat, making a sort of pillow
with the ragged coat I had, and then
"'---I felt lonesome! Yes, sir! I'd got
so used to the feeling of that child's
arms around my neck that I couldn't
wait for hr th wake up again. I
couldn't understand it, so I swore about
it, and whett that didn't do any good I
went to thinking about it. I never
had any brothers or sisters, and as to
my fatherand mother—well, I sup-
pose they didn't find me very interest-
ing when I was a young one. Any-
how I sat ,there awake in the car all
,
night long 3 waiting for the child to
waken, and every once in a while I'd
feel of its arms to see what there was
about thelit that—oh, I was puzzled
enough to be clean daft.
"When it did awake, though, I was
worse off. , Flow it did hoWl ! It hug-
ged me jtist the same as before, but
once in awhile it would stop long
enough to look up at me as if I'd been
real unkind to it. At last a man
whose wife put him up to it,came over
to me and said :—
" ' Don't you got sense to know dat
shild hungry 7' .
"No, T hadn't, and when it came to
me I wasn't much better off, for 1
hadn't anything to feed it with, and I
;1;.-1-4.'i- ltrinur Virhpflietr it P VP r 110 CI 11PATI
looking old man---acity missionary I When she said that, for I hadn't done
any work in years except loafing,
though that's the very hardest kind.
I thought about the luck I'd had in
begging at the ferry house, but I
couldn't work that racket again unless
I put both of us backinto our dirty
rags again, and I'd rather have killed
niyself than done that. Strange,what
sudden changes come over a man some -
she held me. She seemed to know, Ornes, isn't it? I told the woman I
somehow, when I was belt* made to hadn't any regular job, and she said T
feel bad, bless hei !—she's been that . could get plenty of odd jobs right near
way ever since. At last I got to the ler place by banging around for them
asylum and rang the bell, and then 1 end keeping honest and sober. Work
thought to myself that in a minute or -7—honest—sober—why, it sounded a
two I'd have seen the last of her. Well, hundred times worse than 'Ten dollars
sir, what did f do but take tosuly heels
and run as if the police were after me.
• I suppose you don't know, how that
feels'? No? Well, it pits wings on
the feet of the le zieet tramp in the city.
it. of sight
I walked
strong my -
1,
self, not having had anytIiing to eat
for aboui) twenty-four hors, besides
11 1
having been awake all night.
"Without intending to I went down
to the river, and oh the shady side of
the lumber heap where I used to sleep
nights. It .was. warm weather, and
the air from the water freOienech me.
I tried to think, but I tumbled asleep,
and when I woke up it Was because
Chick was patting my face—the cun-
believe—about chick and me, and he
told me of a place where they'd take
it in, and I walked there, for I hadn't
the price of a car fere. Lots of folks
that we passed looked at us funnily,
and a good many of them looked dis-
gusted. I suppose we weren't a pretty
pair ; but the meaner anybody looked
the tighter t held Chick and the tighter
Away I went till I got o
of that building; then
slowly,for I wasn't any too
or tendaysd
"1 did, though. 'TwaS hard and
be pay was small, but I had Chick to
o back to every night, and she paid
e until I felt richer than any man in
all street She was always good
hawed as a kitten and a puppy rolled
into one,and when she fell asleep 'twas
islways with her arm around my neck.
In the course of time I found out that
the only Ugly facessheever made was
ecause she didn' t like the smell of
bacco, so I stopped chewing. Did
ou ever try.to stop chewing? - No?
Well it's harder than starving. 4 Ought
Ito knew, for I've tried both. I
1 "Well, everything went better and
'better, until one Christmas Eve I took
a drink and then another, and some
1morening young one! I don't ee how she
after that, ,and when I went for
brought herself tbdo it. , My face Chick and, she saw me she wouldn't
isn't rnuch to speak of now, but then 'come to me, and the woman Who took
—Well, never mil I sbit up and be- care, of her by daylight called me a
th
brute. I started for e river to drown
myself, but that -wouldn't do, for who
would take etre of Chick .when I was
gone? I Walked the streets till I was
sober, and I was praying and Swearing
all tbe time; I didn't exactly know
where the praying left off 'and the
swearing began, but to this day I think
they were part and parcel of the same
thing, whichever it was. Christmas
morning I went for Chick and she took
to me again, and she and I went house
hunting, for by that Wile I had saved
up a few dollars. We got _beard with
a decent family that had no children
of their own, and where the woman
was very motherly to Chick, but the
little thing never took any of her heart
away .from tile, bless her!
," Things went on well with us for
ir.
two o' thnree years after that. I kept
so Stsraight and worked so had that I
got a steady job and putall My savings
in the bank. Other men that knew
me and Chick would say I ought to
marry again—they didn't know I was
a bachelor—so as to have a mother for
the child. 1 rather thought myself
that the little thing Ought to have a
better chance and I talked , with her
about it, for she was about four years
old, and seemed about four hundred
whenever we talked _seriously about
gan thinking; Chic sat in my lap and
looked at 'peas hard as if she was won-
dering what was on my m nd. At last
I said to myself, 'Oki man, sometimes
you've tried to keep a do,- bu t some-
body. always stole it—somebody that
could steal more grub forlit than you
could. Suppose you keep this thing?
'Tain't as good looking e,s a dog—I
was talking of how she looked then—
and it'll make more trouble,sonobody'll
think of hooking it /Then I said,
.What do you think of the notion,
Chick?' and she put upi both arms to
me. Great Lord! Wild horses couldn't
have dragged her from me after that.
But what was 1 to do? hadn't any
home—and I, didn't .know how soon_
she might get hutigry again. Besides,
was all gone inside ;myself. I re-
membered seeing womeh with children
begging in the streets iaad at the fer-
ries; as for that, I'd done beggin,g on
my own account many and many a
time, and got up heel big .enough to
squeeze out money to get drunk on.
So I went' ,to the nearest ferry and
watched my chances, and stood on the
side of the crowd where the policeman
wasn't and held Out my hat. It fetch-
ed a good many of the women. I was
astonished at what I took in from one
single boatful and I didn't wait for
" VIRILE 18 NOTHIgG
any more, but put out fora shanty I
knew of where they sold coffee and
cakes aid milk and that sort of a thing,
and I gave Chick a good feed before I
ate anything myself. The woman that
ran the place was a rough creature,
that could outswear a tramp if he made
her mad—rd heard her do it, but.she
had a heart like other folks, and she
told me 'twas a shame I didn't take
better care of my child. My child !
The mere mentioh of it made me fee
—well, as I'd never felt before. 1 tol
her that the mother was dead and th
youngster had rtin down some in ap
pearance, but if I could get it start
right I thought 1 could keep it so
The upshot of it was that she !told m
where rcould get it some cheap ne
clethes with what motley was left fro
what I'd begged at the ferry, and she'
gige it a cleaning up for me in the
little kitchen behind the shop as Boole
as I got back. She was as good as he
word. After it was over Chick put
FUNNY ABOUT THAT."
anything. Bet she said, Don't want
any mothers ; ,don't want nobody but
papa.' Now, just imagine—hut pshew !
you can't—nobedy can. I
"Meanwhile she picked up some
very strange expressions, or .11.ade them
hp, I don't know which. I suppose
you know how young ones get a notion
here and another one there and then
put them together in a agsy that a
grown person never would think of.
One day, when she was about six years
old, she paralyzed me by saying :—
"'Now, papa, I'm going to take you
in hand. I think you neeedra mother's
care.' She was as good as 4er word;
she's had me in hand ever since. I
thought I'd made a great insprovenient
in myself in the first two or three years
of our acquaintance, but 'twas nothing
to what she put me up to. She began
to go to school, and nothing would do
but that she and 1t• should study the
lessons together. Now that she's older,
I think that trick of malting school
•
.4444444.44
fun to me to get her lessonswith her
and then recite to her, while she look-
ed as grave as a cage full of owls, and
gave me reproofs, and corrections, and
marks, and report cards, and every-
thing that the teachers at school gave
her.
"'Twas.tough, though, when she:got
further along and put -me into fractions
and grammar. .Did ycitt ever study
grammar? Of all infernal—but that's
neither here nor there. • She had to
study it, and what her little bead could
take in I wasn't going to flunk at, so
sweated my way through it, and 1 got
fractions into my head - so solidly that
Eve never been able to get them out
again, though I wish I could.
"In the course of time I was troub-
led about Chick. 11faybe'twas because
she was mine that I ithought her a great
deal better and smarter than any of
the other children I saw, and that she
ought te have better,chances and better
company. The mate of the family we
lived with died, and'his wife was pretty
old and had no faMily, so I told her
that if she'd keep house for me we'd
move into a better heighborhood. I'd
hire a little fiat instead of apartments
in a tenement housel and she and Chick
could live like ladies. She took to the
notion, for she had, good stuff in her
and her manners had always been a
mile above most of the folks in the
house where we'd lied, though it's a
great mistake to suPpose all the poor
are rOugh and coarse. We came here
five or six years ago. I've worked up
to be foreman in a pretty big business,
and though I can't make much of a
show of myself I stand well with every-
body that knows me, and Chick has
any number of nice friends whom she's
slowly picked up at school and church,
and she takes pains to make all of them
understand that her papa is the great-
est, smartest, dearest, funniest., best
man in the world. Some of them have
opinions of the same Kind about their
own fathers, but Chick makes no allow-
ances for any one although I've tried
to teach her that c!ihildren have a right
to their own opinions in family matters
of that kind.
"Well, that ought to be the end of
the story, but it isn't. All the years
Chick and I had been together it had
never occurred to me that she didn't
know there wasn't any relationship
between us. I'd beencareful not to
tell othecaepeople anything about the
way I came by her, for I was afraid
there might be a law of some kind by
which somebody might take her away
from me. There was no reason why
they should do so, but people are al-
ways fearful about their treasures, you
know. One day when I was sick at
home, and lying in bed, and Chick sat
on my bedside saying loving and funny
things to cheer me, and looking like
the beautiful angelic hearted thing she
is, she suddenly said :—
• " never knew a father and daugh-
ter look so unlike. It's positively
funny that we haven't a single feature
in common. I've been noticing it a
great deal since I began to study draw-
ing.'
"I thought a moment, and then—I
don't think I would have done it if I
hadn't been sick and weak and babyish
—I told her the story of our first meet-
ing and what happened afterward. It
broke her up; it broke me up too, but it
brought her heart out a hundred times
more than it had been, though she al
way i had been all that was loving.
She looked at me as I never had seen
her look before at any �n°, except
when she was saying her prayers.
From that hour she was a woma,n—a
woman before her time, though all her
life had been leading up to it. She
had long times of sitting at my feet
and crying—not unhappily, for she
said it comforted her a great deal to
think how good I'd been to her. I
was afraid she would grow morbid and
looney, so I made light of all I'd done,
and told her that I'd been repaid a
thousand times, which was true. She
was thoughtful for a few days, and then
announced that she was going to be
everything to me that I'd been to her;
she was going to take me in hand
again and give me everything I had
given her.
"Well, she's been at it ever since.
She's twenty years old now, and being
very smart naturally and having had
every advantage of education that gond
advisers could suggestand money could
buy, she knows a great deal --and rm
being taught it all. I have to take
music lessons, with her for teacher ;
she makes me practice, only an hour
an eveuing, as I have a long day le
business. I'm obliged to practice
drawing and study languages while
riding to and from home, and practice
on her while at home. I've got a good
grip on •Geienan, having plenty of
ohance to use it as fast as I learn it;
but French—well, I've my opinion of
the people who got up such chatter. I
won't show you any of my sketches,
but she will if you stay long eneugh.
We were on our way home from the
fall exhibition at the Academy when
you met us, and I'd been obliged to
weed out the pictures with my own
eyes and tell her which were the dozen
best, And to her great delight—and
mine; too, as to that—I was right in
most cases, according to the experts'
reports that she had clipped from the
newspapers. As I said, there's none
of my sketches that I would think of
showing you, but there's one picture
in the house that I want you
to see, for a certain reason. A
few years ago I found myself for-
getting what I had been and .1 didn't
want to—I wanted to keep my grati-
tude very lively as long as I lived. So
I asked my employer, whom I knew
was well up about pictures, who was a
good artist in lowlife characters—this
was before Chick went into art. He
gave me a name and I put in part of
my summer vacation in having a pic-
ture painted—a picture of a tramp
holding a shabby child whose arms
were around his neck. I was the model
for the tramp. It took a long time to
find a child that would do, though, til
"HERE SHE is Reamer."
the hour. I never told her the story
of it until the night when she learned
she was not my daughter; even then I
told her only to quiet her, and show
her by comparison, what she had done
for \me. Here's the picture."
As Cherriten spoke he rose and
drew a curtain which I had noticed on
entering the room. The picture was
a three-quarter length, by a very clev-
er artist, and the principal figure was
an offensively realistic tramp.
"Nothing fancy about it, is there'?"
he asked. "1 told him I wanted real,
and he obeyed orders. I think it's the
ugliest thing of the kind on the face of
the earth; I made myself up to look
that way, and I don't think I over -did
my old self a. bit. But what do you
suppose happened when Chick learned
the story of that picture? Why, she
put this curtain before it the very next
day; she said it was to be her shrine.
Every night since then before going
to her room, she kneels before that
picture to say her prayers. I kneel
beside her; that is one of the many
habits she's taught me, and I'm not a
bit ashamed of it. If any one had told
me-- Sh—h--hh 7 She's coming I"
"Robert has come to tea, papa."
All right, Chick, be there in a
moment." Then he said Co me, "Rob-
ert is my employer's son, and one of
the finest young fellows alive; I've
been noticing him closely for more
than ten years, for he is always with
his father. He saw Chick one day
when she came in to ask me for some-
thing, and he lost his head at once and
wanted me to take him home with me
some evening. I knew something of
the 'sort would happen some time, with
somebody, if Chick were to be as hap-
py as she had the right to be, so I told
him I would think about it. What I
did was to have a talk with his father
first making the old man promise to
hold his tongue. I made a clean breast
of it, but the old man didn't scare
worth a cent; he said his own parents
had come over as emigrants. As to me
having been a tramp, he made light of -
it. The fact was, as he acknowledged,
he had seen Chick himself, and he
would be delighted if the boy could
persuade her to make a match of it.
Chick did not understand it for a long
time, though the prising fellow came
very often. When it did come over
her she tried to back out --said she
never would leave me, and all that sort
of thing. I told her she might always
count upon me being around. Then she
did a braver thing still—she brought
the young fellow in hero, showed him
this picture and told him the story of
it. By the merest chance I happened
into the room just then, and—
and " —
" Well?"
" Well, Robert threw his arms
around her, and instead of seeming
embarrassed when he saw me be spoke
up as manly as you please, and said
Thank you, Mr. Cherriten."
"That's about all there is to the
story. You're welcome to tell it to
any of the old boys if You meet any of
them. I wish you'd come to the wed-
ding ; I'll send you an invitation. If
you want to see the happiest mah there,
though, look at me— not at the bride-
groom."
• To Decorate a Church.
When flowers or other bright decor-
ations are hard to obtainea most pleas-
ing substitute is afforded by the cones
of pine or Norway spruce. These, in
their natural color, are very pretty, lout
their effect can be gdeatly heightened
by bronzing or gilding them. The'
liquid gold paints sold by all dealers in
artists' goods, are cheap, and produoe
good results. Apply two coats, so that
the cone willbe well covered. A cluster
of them, shining against a background
of dark -green, will stand out brilliant-
ly by lamp -light. For a good deal of
the decorative work about arches over
the altar, and in the making of crosses
and similar designs, they are much pre-
ferable to flower S or fruit, as they are
more in harmony with the evergreens
among which they are,used. Provided
your gilding is good, most pleasing re-
sults can. be secured by giving cones
such a covering. Try it, and you will
be sure to be pleased with this new
method. It is always well to remem-
ber that artistic effects do not depend
upon elaborate designs. The simplest'
decorations, especially in a church
altar, are ofttimes the most effective,
and where taste is used rather than
quantity, success is, as a- rule far more
certain.
Father Christina
Hark 1 the C:hristmas bells are chiming ;
Let your voice with them be rhyming
On this festal morn.
Hear them heralding my corning,—
Heard you not amid their humming
• Blast of bugle -horn?
I am patron of the season!
From my realm I banish treason;
Crown me Christmas' King!
Unto children I am gracious,
And for them in bag capacious
Gifts of toys I bring.
By my beard and hair so hoary,
Ne'er Was known in lite or story
A Christmas Hymno
Rejoice! rejoiee ! on Christmas -day,
Let every heart be glad and gay;
Be joyful for for that distant morn
When 'Christ, the Prince of Peace, was
The holy time is here,
'Tis Christnias day,
Good cheerl good cheer!
Angels are near.
Loud let the joy -bells ring,
And sing, oh, sing,
'Tis Christmas -day.
He loved the world and came to be
The Helper of Humanity.
The lowly tenant of a stall,
fle brought great gifts of love to *all.
Rejoice! rejoice ! your glad heart bring;
The dear Lord loves such offering.
He brought you joy which naught can dim—
Give back your gladness in this hymn.
The holy time is here,
'Tis Christmas -day,
Good cheer! good cheer!
Angels are near.
Lnitid let the joy -bells ring,
And sing, oh, sing,
'Tis Christmas -day.
—[William S. Lord.
Christmas Eve.
The children dreamed the whole night
through
Of stocking hung the hefkrth beside;
And, bound to make each gift come true,
Went Santa Claus at Christmas -tide.
Black stockings, red, brown, white and
gray—
Long, little, warm, or patched and thin—
The kindly Saint found on his way.
And, smiling, popped his presents in.
But as he felt his hoard grow light,
A tear drop glistened in his eye;
" More children on this earth to -night,
Than:stars are twinkling in the sky."
Upon the white and frozen snow
He knelt his empty bag beside—
"Some little socks must empty go,
Alas !"—said he—" this Chrismas-tide!
" Though 1 their stockings may not heap
With gifts and toys and Christmas
• cheer,
These little ones from sorrow keep;
For each, dear Lord, to Thee is dear 1
" Thou wert a little Child like them "—
Prayed he—" For whom I would pro-
vide
Long years ago in Bethlehem,
That first and blessed -Christmas -tide 1
As soothed Thee then Thy mother's kiss,
And all her comfort, sweet and kind,
So give them love, lest they may miss
The gifts I now not were to find!
"That sweetest gift, dear Lord, bestow
On all the children far and wide;
And give them hearts as pure as snow"
Prayed Santa,' Claus—" at Christmas-
tide 1"
-411111ti•---—...=•••••••=m•
The Birth of Motherhood.
To me, that Christmas night at
Bethlehem has no more beautiful sig-
nificance than that it was the birth of
an honored motherhood as well as ofa
Saviour. Two angels on their wings
might have brought an infant Saviour
to Bethlehem without Mary being there
at all. When the villagers, on the
morning of December 25th, awoke, by
Divine arrangement and in some un-
explained way, the child Jesus might
have been found in some comfortable
cradle of the village. But no, no !
Motherhood for all time was to be con-
secrated, and one of the tenderest re-
lations was to be the maternal relation,
ilia one of the sweetest words
"Mother !" In all ages God has honor-
ed_ good motherhood. John Wesley
had a good mother; St. Bernard had
a good mother; Samuel Budget, a good
mother; Doddridge, a good mother;
Walter Scott, agood mother; Benjamin
West, a good mother. In a great
audience, most of 'whom were Chris-
tians, I asked that all those who had
beenblessed of Christian mothers arise,
and almost the entire assembly stood
up. Don't you s ie how important it
is that all motherhood be consecrated.
When you hear some one in sermon
or oration speak in the abstract of a
good, faithful, honest mother your eyes
fill up with tears, while you say to
yourself, that was my mother. The
first word a child utters is apt to be
"mamma," and the old man in his
dying dreams calls, "Mother ! Mother I"
It matters not whether she was brought
up in the surrounding of a city, and
in affluent home, and was dressed ap-
propriately with reference to the de-
mands of modern life, or whether she
wore the old-time cap, and great
round spectacles, and apron of her own
make, and knit your socks With her
own needles, seated by the broad fire-
place, with great black log ablaze on a
winter night. It matters not how
-many wrinkles crossed and recrossed
her face, and how much her shoulders
stooped with the burdens of a long
life, if you painted a Madonna her's
would be the face. What a gentle hand
she had when we were sick, and what
a voice to soothe pain! And was there
any one who could so fill up a room
with Peace and purity, and light?
And what a sad day that,was when
we came homeandshe could greet us
not, for her lips were forever still.
Come back, mother, this Christmas
day, take your old place, and as
ten, .or twenty, or fifty years ago,
come and open the old Bible you used
to read, and kneel in the same place
where you used to pray, and look upon
as as of old when you wished us a
11erry Christmas ' or a Happy New
Year! But, no! That would not be
fair to call you back. You had troubles
enough, and aches enough, and bereave -
meats enough- while you were here.
Tarry by the throne, mother, till we
join you there, your prayers all answer-
ed, and in the eternal homestead of
our God we shall agein keep Christmas
jubilee together. But speak from your
thrones, all you glorified mothers, and.
say to all these, your sons and daughters:,
words of love, words of warning, words
of cheer. They need your voice, for
they have traveled far and with many
a heart -break since you left them, and
you do well to call from the heights of
Heaven to the valleys of the earth.
Hail, enthroned ancestry! We are
coming. Keep a place for us, right
beside you, at the banquet.
Slow -footed years! Mote swiftyree
1 Into the gal of that unsesting sun ;
4ornesick we are for 0160—
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