And the armorers mended the old armor, and the young men girded on

swords which had never been tried in fight, and the pennons that they

bore were embroidered by their sweethearts and sisters as in the old

days of the Crusades, and with the same device of a sky-lark in

mid-heaven, and the motto, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

And there came from the great Cathedral the wise men who had come from

all the lands. They found the King, and they said to him, "Your Grace,

we know how to build the new defences for the land, and we will guard

the river ways, that the barbarians shall never enter them."

And when the people knew that the Red Russians were on the way, they met

in the square and marched to the palace, and Robert the Smith mounted

the steps of the palace and called the King. And he said, "The people

are here to bid the King be of good heart. The people bid me say that

they will die for their King and for his land."

And the King took from his wife's neck the blue ribbon that she wore,

with a golden sky-lark on it, and bound it round the blacksmith's arm,

and he said, "If I die, it is nothing; if I live, it is nothing; that is

in God's hand. But whether we live or die, let us draw as near Him as we

may."

And the Blacksmith Robert turned to the people, and with his loud voice,

told what the King had said.

And the people answered in the shout which the Hungarians shout to this

day, "Let us die for our king! Let us die for our king!"

And the King called the Queen hastily, and they and their children led

the host to the great Cathedral.

And the old priest Stephen, who was ninety years old, stood at the

altar, and he read the gospel where it says, "Fear not, little flock, it

is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

And he read the other gospel where the Lord says, "And I, if I be lifted

up, will draw all men unto me." And he read the epistle where it says,

"No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." And he chanted

the psalm, "The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer."

And fifty thousand men, with one heart and one voice, joined with him.

And the King joined, and the Queen to sing, "The Lord is my rock, my

fortress, and my deliverer."

And they marched from the Cathedral, singing in the language of the

country, "Propior Deo," which is to say in our tongue, "Nearer, my God,

to Thee."

And the aged braves who had fought with Godfrey, and the younger men who

had learned of arms in the University, went among the people and divided

them into companies for the war. And Robert the Blacksmith, and all the

guild of the blacksmiths, and of the braziers, and of the coppersmiths,

and of the whitesmiths, even the goldsmiths, and the silversmiths, made

weapons for the war; and the masons and the carpenters, and the ditchers

and delvers marched out with the cathedral builders to the narrow passes

of the river, and built new the fortresses.

And the Lady Constance and her daughters, and every lady in the land,

went to the churches and the convents, and threw them wide open. And in

the kitchens they baked bread for the soldiers; and in the churches they

spread couches for the sick or for the wounded.

And when the Red Russians came in their host, there was not a man, or

woman, or child in all Hungary but was in the place to which God had

called him, and was doing his best in his place for his God, for the

Church of Christ, and for his brothers and sisters of the land.

And the host of the Red Russians was turned aside, as at the street

corner you have seen the dirty water of a gutter turned aside by the

curbstone. They fought one battle against the Hungarian host, and were

driven as the blackbirds are driven by the falcons. And they gathered

themselves and swept westward; and came down upon the passes to Bohemia.

And there were no fortresses at the entrance to Bohemia; for King Bela

had no learned men who loved him. And there was no army in the plains of

Bohemia; for his people had been swept away in the pestilence. And there

were no brave men who had fought with Godfrey, and knew the art of arms,

for in those old days the King had said, "It is far away; and we have

'enough' in Bohemia."

So the Red Russians, who call themselves the Szechs, took his land from

him; and they live there till this day. And the King, without a battle,

fled from the back-door of his palace, in the disguise of a

charcoal-man; and he left his queen and his daughters to be cinder-girls

in the service of the Chief of the Red Russians.

And the false charcoal-man walked by day, and walked by night, till he

found refuge in the castle of the King Ladislaus; and he met him in the

old school-room where they read the fables together. And he remembered

how the water-rat came to the home of the beavers.

And he said to King Ladislaus,--

"Ah, me! do you remember when we were boys together? Do you remember the

fable of the Sky-lark, and the fable of the Water-rat?"

"I remember both," said the King. And he was silent.

"God has been very kind to you," said the beggar; "and He has been very

hard to me."

And the King said nothing.

But the old priest Stephen, said,--

"God is always kind. But God will not give us other fruit than we sow

seed for. The King here has tried to serve God as he knew how; with one

single eye he has looked on the world of God, and he has made the best

choice he knew. And God has given him what he thought not of: brave men

for his knights; wise men for his council; a free and loving people for

his army. And you have not looked with a single eye; your eye was

darkened. You saw only what served yourself. And you said, 'This is

enough;' and you had no brave men for your knights; no wise men for your

council; no people for your army. You chose to look down, and to take a

selfish brute for your adviser. And he has led you so far. We choose to

look up; to draw nearer God; and where He leads we follow."

Then King Ladislaus ordered that in the old school-room a bed should be

spread for Bela; and that every day his breakfast and his dinner and his

supper should be served to him; and he lived there till he died.

THE STORY OF OELLO.

Once upon a time there was a young girl, who had the pretty name of

Oello. I say, once upon a time, because I do not know when the time

was,--nor do I know what the place was,--though my story, in the main,

is a true story. I do not mean that I sat by and saw Oello when she wove

and when she spun. But I know she did weave and did spin. I do not mean

that I heard her speak the word I tell of; for it was many, many hundred

years ago. But I do know that she must have said some such words; for I

know many of the things which she did, and much of what kind of girl she

was.

She grew up like other girls in her country. She did not know how to

read. None of them knew how to read. But she knew how to braid straw,

and to make fish-nets and to catch fish. She did not know how to spell.

Indeed, in that country they had no letters. But she knew how to split

open the fish she had caught, how to clean them, how to broil them on

the coals, and how to eat them neatly. She had never studied the

"analysis of her language." But she knew how to use it like a lady; that

is, prettily, simply, without pretence, and always truly. She could sing

her baby brother to sleep. She could tell stories to her sisters all day

long. And she and they were not afraid when evening came, or when they

were in any trouble, to say a prayer aloud to the good God. So they got

along, although they could not analyze their language. She knew no

geography. She could count her fingers, and the stars in the Southern

Cross. She had never seen Orion, or the stars in the Great Bear, or the

Pole-Star.

Oello was very young when she married a young kinsman, with whom she had

grown up since they were babies. Nobody knows much about him. But he

loved her and she loved him. And when morning came they were not afraid

to pray to God together,--and when night came she asked her husband to

forgive her if she had troubled him, and he asked her to forgive

him,--so that their worries and trials never lasted out the day. And

they lived a very happy life, till they were very old and died.

There is a bad gap in the beginning of their history. I do not know how

it happened. But the first I knew of them, they had left their old home

and were wandering alone on foot toward the South. Sometimes I have

thought a great earthquake had wrecked their old happy home. Sometimes I

have thought there was some horrid pestilence, or fire. No matter what

happened, something happened,--so that Oello and her husband, of a hot,

very hot day, were alone under a forest of laurels mixed with palms,

with bright flowering orchids on them, looking like a hundred

butterflies; ferns, half as high as the church is, tossing over them;

nettles as large as trees, and tangled vines, threading through the

whole. They were tired, oh, how tired! hungry, oh, how hungry! and hot

and foot-sore.

"I wish so we were out of this hole," said he to her, "and yet I am

afraid of the people we shall find when we come down to the lake side."

"I do not know," said Oello, "why they should want to hurt us."

"I do not know why they should want to," said he, "but I am afraid they

will hurt us."

"But we do not want to hurt them," said she. "For my part, all I want is

a shelter to live under; and I will help them take care of their

children, and

'I will spin their flax,

And weave their thread,

And pound their corn,

And bake their bread.'"

"How will you tell them that you will do this?" said he.

"I will do it," said Oello, "and that will be better than telling them."

"But do not you just wish," said he, "that you could speak five little

words of their language, to say to them that we come as friends, and not

as enemies?"

Oello laughed very heartily. "Enemies," said she, "terrible enemies, who

have two sticks for their weapons, two old bags for their stores, and

cotton clothes for their armor. I do not believe more than half the army

will turn out against us." So Oello pulled out the potatoes from the

ashes, and found they were baked; she took a little salt from her

haversack or scrip, and told her husband that dinner would be ready, if

he would only bring some water. He pretended to groan, but went, and

came in a few minutes with two gourds full, and they made a very merry

meal.

* * * * *

The same evening they came cautiously down on the beautiful meadow land

which surrounded the lake they had seen. It is one of the most beautiful

countries in the world. It was an hour before sunset,--the hour, I

suppose, when all countries are most beautiful. Oello and her husband

came joyfully down the hill, through a little track the llamas had made

toward the water, wondering at the growth of the wild grasses, and,

indeed, the freshness of all the green; when they were startled by

meeting a horde of the poor, naked, half-starved Indians, who were just

as much alarmed to meet with them.

I do not think that the most stupid of them could have supposed Oello an

enemy, nor her husband. For they stepped cheerfully down the path,

waving boughs of fresh cinchona as tokens of peace, and looking kindly

and pleasantly on the poor Indians, as I believe nobody had looked on

them before. There were fifty of the savages, but it was true that they

were as much afraid of the two young Northerners as if they had been an

army. They saw them coming down the hill, with the western sun behind

them, and one of the women cried out, "They are children of the sun,

they are children of the sun!" and Oello and her husband looked so as if

they had come from a better world that all the other savages believed

it.

But the two young people came down so kindly and quickly, that the

Indian women could not well run away. And when Oello caught one of the

little babies up, and tossed it in her arms, and fondled it, and made it

laugh, the little girl's mother laughed too. And when they had all once

laughed together, peace was made among them all, and Oello saw where the

Indian women had been lying, and what their poor little shelters were,

and she led the way there, and sat down on a log that had fallen there,

and called the children round her, and began teaching them a funny game

with a bit of crimson cord. Nothing pleases savage people or tame people

more than attention to their children, and in less time than I have

been telling this they were all good friends. The Indian women produced

supper. Pretty poor supper it was. Some fresh-water clams from the lake,

some snails which Oello really shuddered at, but some bananas which were

very nice, and some ulloco, a root Oello had never seen before, and

which she thought sickish. But she acted on her motto. "I will do the

best I can," she had said all along; so she ate and drank, as if she had

always been used to raw snails and to ulloco, and made the wild women

laugh by trying to imitate the names of the strange food. In a few

minutes after supper the sun set. There is no twilight in that country.

When the sun goes down,

"Like battle target red,--

He rushes to his burning bed,

Dyes the whole wave with ruddy light,

Then sinks at once, and all is night."

The savage people showed the strangers a poor little booth to sleep in,

and went away to their own lairs, with many prostrations, for they

really thought them "children of the sun."

Oello and her husband laughed very heartily when they knew they were

alone. Oello made him promise to go in the morning early for potatoes,

and oca, and mashua, which are two other tubers like potatoes which grow

there. "And we will show them," said she, "how to cook them." For they

had seen by the evening feast, that the poor savage people had no

knowledge of the use of fire. So, early in the morning, he went up a

little way on the lake shore, and returned with strings of all these

roots, and with another string of fish he had caught in a brook above.

And when the savage people waked and came to Oello's hut, they found her

and her husband just starting their fire,--a feat these people had never

seen before.

He had cut with his copper knife a little groove in some soft palm-wood,

and he had fitted in it a round piece of iron-wood, and round the

iron-wood had bound a bow-string, and while Oello held the palm-wood

firm, he made the iron-wood fly round and round and round, till the pith

of the palm smoked, and smoked, and at last a flake of the pith caught

fire, and then another and another, and Oello dropped other flakes upon

these, and blew them gently, and fed them with dry leaves, till they

were all in a blaze.

The savage people looked on with wonder and terror. They cried out when

they saw the blaze, "They are children of the sun,--they are children of

the sun!"--and ran away. Oello and her husband did not know what they

said, and went on broiling the fish and baking the potatoes, and the

mashua, and the oca, and the ulloco.

And when they were ready, Oello coaxed some of the children to come

back, and next their mothers came and next the men. But still they said,

"They are children of the sun." And when they ate of the food that had

been cooked for them, they said it was the food of the immortals.

Now, in Oello's home, this work of making the fire from wood had been

called menial work, and was left to servants only. But even the princes

of that land were taught never to order another to do what they could

not do themselves. And thus it happened that the two young travellers

could do it so well. And thus it was, that, because they did what they

could, the savage people honored them with such exceeding honor, and

because they did the work of servants they called them gods. As it is

written: "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant."

And this was much the story of that day and many days. While her husband

went off with the men, taught them how he caught the fish, and how they

could catch huanacos, Oello sat in the shade with the children, who were

never tired of pulling at the crimson cord around her waist, and at the

tassels of her head-dress. All savage children are curious about the

dress of their visitors. So it was easy for Oello to persuade them to go

with her and pick tufts of wild cotton, till they had quite a store of

it, and then to teach them to spin it on distaffs she made for them from

laurel-wood, and at last to braid it and to knit it,--till at last one

night, when the men came home, Oello led out thirty of the children in

quite a grand procession, dressed all of them in pretty cotton suits

they had knit for themselves, instead of the filthy, greasy skins they

had always worn before. This was a great triumph for Oello; but when the

people would gladly have worshipped her, she only said, "I did what I

could,--I did what I could,--say no more, say no more."

And as the year passed by, she and her husband taught the poor people

how, if they would only plant the maize, they could have all they wanted

in the winter, and if they planted the roots of the ulloco, and the oca,

and the mashua, and the potato, they would have all they needed of them;

how they might make long fish-ways for the fish, and pitfalls for the

llama. And they learned the language of the poor people, and taught them

the language to which they themselves were born. And year by year their

homes grew neater and more cheerful. And year by year the children were

stronger and better. And year by year the world in that part of it was

more and more subdued to the will and purpose of a good God. And

whenever Manco, Oello's husband, was discouraged, she always said, "We

will do the best we can," and always it proved that that was all that a

good God wanted them to do.

It was from the truth and steadiness of those two people, Manco and

Oello, that the great nation of Peru was raised up from a horde of

savages, starving in the mountains, to one of the most civilized and

happy nations of their times. Unfortunately for their descendants, they

did not learn the use of iron or gunpowder, so that the cruel Spaniards

swept them and theirs away. But for hundreds of years they lived

peacefully and happily,--growing more and more civilized with every

year, because the young Oello and her husband Manco had done what they

could for them.

They did not know much. But what they knew they could do. They were not,

so far as we know, skilful in talking. But they were cheerful in acting.

They did not hide their light under a bushel. They made it shine on all

that came around. Their duties were the humblest, only making a fire in

the morning, cleaning potatoes and cooking them, spinning, braiding,

twisting, and weaving. This was the best Oello could do. She did that,

and in doing it she reared an empire. We can contrast her life with that

of the savages around her. As we can see a drop of blood when it falls

into a cup of water, we can see how that one life swayed theirs. If she

had lived among her kindred, and done at home these simple things, we

should never have heard her name. But none the less would she have done

them. None the less, year in and year out, century in and century out,

would that sweet, loving, true, unselfish life have told in God's

service. And he would have known it, though you and I--who are we?--had

never heard her name!

Forgotten! do not ever think that anything is forgotten!

LOVE IS THE WHOLE.

A STORY FOR CHILDREN.

This is a story about some children who were living together in a

Western State, in a little house on the prairie, nearly two miles from

any other. There were three boys and three girls; the oldest girl was

seventeen, and her oldest brother a year younger. Their mother had died

two or three years before, and now their father grew sick,--more sick

and more, and died also. The children were taking the best care they

could of him, wondering and watching. But no care could do much, and so

he told them. He told them all that he should not live long; but that

when he died he should not be far from them, and should be with their

dear mother. "Remember," he said, "to love each other. Be kind to each

other. Stick together, if you can. Or, if you separate, love one

another as if you were together." He did not say any more then. He lay

still awhile, with his eyes closed; but every now and then a sweet smile

swept over his face, so that they knew he was awake. Then he roused up

once more, and said, "Love is the whole, George; love is the

whole,"--and so he died.

I have no idea that the children, in the midst of their grief and

loneliness, took in his meaning. But afterwards they remembered it again

and again, and found out why he said it to them.

Any of you would have thought it a queer little house. It was not a log

cabin. They had not many logs there. But it was no larger than the log

cabin which General Grant is building in the picture. There was a little

entry-way at one end, and two rooms opening on the right as you went. A

flight of steps went up into the loft, and in the loft the boys slept in

two beds. This was all. But if they had no rooms for servants, on the

other hand they had no servants for rooms. If they had no hot-water

pipes, on the other hand a large kettle hung on the crane above the

kitchen fire, and there was but a very short period of any day that one

could not dip out hot water. They had no gas-pipes laid through the

house. But they went to bed the earlier, and were the more sure to enjoy

the luxury of the great morning illumination by the sun. They lost but

few steps in going from room to room. They were never troubled for want

of fresh air. They had no door-bell, so no guest was ever left waiting

in the cold. And though they had no speaking-tubes in the house, still

they found no difficulty in calling each other if Ethan were up stairs

and Alice wanted him to come down.

Their father was buried, and the children were left alone. The first

night after the funeral they stole to their beds as soon as they could,

after the mock supper was over. The next morning George and Fanny found

themselves the first to meet at the kitchen hearth. Each had tried to

anticipate the other in making the morning fire. Each confessed to the

other that there had been but little sleep, and that the night had

seemed hopelessly long.

"But I have thought it all over," said the brave, stout boy. "Father

told us to stick together as long as we can. And I know I can manage it.

The children will all do their best when they understand it. And I

know, though father could not believe it, I know that I can manage with

the team. We will never get in debt. I shall never drink. Drink and

debt, as he used to say, are the only two devils. Never you cry, darling

Fanny, I know we can get along."

"George," said Fanny, "I know we can get along if you say so. I know it

will be very hard upon you. There are so many things the other young men

do which you will not be able to do; and so many things which they have

which you might have. But none of them has a sister who loves them as I

love you. And, as he said, 'Love is the whole.'"

I suppose those words over the hearth were almost the only words of

sentiment which ever passed between those two about their plans. But

from that moment those plans went forward more perfectly than if they

had been talked over at every turn, and amended every day. That is the

way with all true stories of hearth and home.

For instance, it was only that evening, when the day's work of all the

six was done--and for boys and girls, it was hard work, too--Fanny and

George would have been glad enough, both of them, to take each a book,

and have the comfort of resting and reading. But George saw that the

younger girls looked down-cast and heavy, and that the boys were

whispering round the door-steps as if they wanted to go down to the

blacksmith's shop by way of getting away from the sadness of the house.

He hated to have them begin the habit of loafing there, with all the

lazy boys and men from three miles round. And so he laid down his book,

and said, as cheerily as if he had not laid his father's body in the

grave the day before,--

"What shall we do to-night that we can all do together? Let us have

something that we have never had before. Let us try what Mrs. Chisholm

told us about. Let us act a ballad."

Of course the children were delighted with acting. George knew that, and

Fanny looked across so gratefully to him, and laid her book away also;

and, in a minute, Ethan, the young carpenter of the family, was putting

up sconces for tallow candles to light the scenes, and Fanny had Sarah

and Alice out in the wood-house, with the shawls, and the old ribbons,

and strips of bright calico, which made up the dresses, and George

instructed Walter as to the way in which he should arrange his armor and

his horse, and so, after a period of preparation, which was much longer

than the period of performance, they got ready to act in the kitchen the

ballad of Lochinvar.

The children had a happy evening. They were frightened when they went to

bed--the little ones--because they had been so merry. They came together

with George and Fanny, and read their Bible as they had been used to do

with their father, and the last text they read was, "Love is the

fulfilling of the law." So the little ones went to bed, and left George

and Fanny again together.

"Pretty hard, was it not?" said she, smiling through her tears. "But it

is so much best for them that home should be the happiest place of all

for them. After all, 'Love is the whole.'"

And that night's sacrifice, which the two older children made to the

younger brothers and sisters as it were over their father's grave, was

the beginning of many such nights, and of many other joint amusements

which the children arranged together. They read Dickens aloud. They

cleared out the corn-room at the end of the wood-house for a place for

their dialogues and charades. The neighbors' children liked to come in,

and, under very strict rules of early hours and of good behavior, they

came. And George and Fanny found, not only that they were getting a

reputation for keeping their own little flock in order, but that the

nicest children all around were intrusted to their oversight, even by

the most careful fathers and mothers. All this pleasure to the children

came from the remembrance that "Love is the whole."

Far from finding themselves a lonely and forsaken family, these boys and

girls soon found that they were surrounded with friends. George was

quite right in assuming that he could manage the team, and could keep

the little farm up, not to its full production under his father, but to

a crop large enough to make them comfortable. Every little while there

had to be a consultation. Mr. Snyder came down one day to offer him

forty dollars a month and his board, if he would go off on a surveying

party and carry chain for the engineers. It would be in a good line for

promotion. Forty dollars a month to send home to Fanny was a great

temptation. And George and Fanny put an extra pine-knot on the fire,

after the children had gone to bed, that they might talk it over. But

George declined the proposal, with many thanks to Mr. Snyder. He said to

him, "that, if he went away, the whole household would be very much

weakened. The boys could not carry on the farm alone, and would have to

hire out. He thought they were too young for that. After all, Mr.

Snyder, 'Love is the whole.'" And Mr. Snyder agreed with him.

Then, as a few years passed by, after another long council, in which

another pine-knot was sacrificed on the hearth, and in which Walter

assisted with George and Fanny, it was agreed that Walter should "hire

out." He had "a chance," as they said, to go over to the Stacy Brothers,

in the next county. Now the Stacy Brothers had the greatest stock farm

in all that part of Illinois. They had to hire a great deal of help, and

it was a great question to George and Fanny whether poor Walter might

not get more harm than good there. But they told Walter perfectly

frankly their doubts and their hopes. And he said boldly, "Never you

fear me. Do you think I am such a fool as to forget? Do I not know that

'Love is the whole'? Shall I ever forget who taught us so?" And so it

was determined that he should go.

Yes, and he went. The Stacys' great establishment was different indeed

from the little cabin he had left. But the other boys there, and the men

he met, Norwegians, Welshmen, Germans, Yankees, all sorts of people, all

had hearts just like his heart. And a helpful boy, honest as a clock and

brave as St. Paul, who really tried to serve every one as he found

opportunity, made friends on the great stock farm just as he had in the

corn-room at the end of the wood-house. And once a month, when their

wages were paid, he was able to send home the lion's share of his to

Fanny, in letters which every month were written a little better, and

seemed a little more easy for him to write. And when Thanksgiving came,

Mr. George Stacy sent him home for a fortnight, with a special message

to his sister, "that he could not do without him, and he wished she

would send him a dozen of such boys. He knew how to raise oxen, he said;

but would Miss Fanny tell him how she brought up boys like Walter?"

"I could have told him," said Walter, "but I did not choose to; I could

have told him that love was the whole."

And that story of Walter is only the story of the way in which Ethan

also kept up the home tie, and came back, when he got a chance, from his

voyages. His voyages were not on the sea. He "hired out" with a

canal-boatman. Sometimes they went to the lake, and once they set sail

there and came as far as Cleveland. Ethan made a great deal of fun in

pretending to tell great sea-stories, like Swiss Family Robinson and

Sinbad the Sailor. Fresh-water voyaging has its funny side, as has the

deep-sea sailing. But Ethan did not hold to it long. His experience with

grain brought him at last to Chicago, and he engaged there in the work

of an elevator. But he lived always the old home life. There were three

other boys he got acquainted with, one at Mr. Eggleston's church, one at

the Custom House, and one at the place where he got his dinner, and they

used to come up to his little room in the seventh story of the McKenzie

House, and sit on his bed and in his chairs, just as the boys from the

blacksmith's came into the corn-room. These four boys made a literary

club "for reading Shakespeare and the British essayists." Often did they

laugh afterwards at its title. They called it the Club of the Tetrarchy,

because they thought it grand to have a Greek name. Whatever its name

was, it kept them out of mischief. These boys grew up to be four ruling

powers in Western life. And when, years after, some one asked Ethan how

it was that he had so stanch a friend in Torrey, Ethan told the history

of the seventh-story room at the McKenzie House, and he said, "Love is

the whole."

Central in all his life was the little cabin of two rooms and a loft

over it. There is no day of his life, from that time to this, of which

Fanny cannot tell you the story from his weekly letters home. For though

she does not live in the cabin now, she keeps the old letters filed and

in order, and once a week steadily Ethan has written to her, and the

letters are all sealed now with his own seal-ring, and on the seal-ring

is carved the inscription, "Love is the whole."

I must not try to tell you the story of Alice's fortunes, or Sarah's.

Every day of their lives was a romance, as is every day of yours and

mine. Every day was a love-story, as may be every day of yours and

mine, if we will make it so. As they all grew older their homes were all

somewhat parted. The boys became men and married. The girls became women

and married. George never pulled down the old farm-house, not even when

he and Mr. Vaux built the beautiful house that stands next to it to-day.

He put trellises on the sides of it. He trained cotoneaster and Roxbury

wax-work over it. He carved a cross himself, and fastened it in the

gable. Above the door, as you went in, was a picture of Mary Mother and

her Child, with this inscription:--

"Holy cell and holy shrine,

For the Maid and Child divine!

Remember, thou that seest her bending

O'er that babe upon her knee,

All heaven is ever thus extending

Its arms of love round thee.

Such love shall bless our arched porch;

Crowned with his cross, our cot becomes a church."

And in that little church he gathered the boys and girls of the

neighborhood every Sunday afternoon, and told them stories and they sang

together. And on the week days he got up children's parties there, which

all the children thought rather the best experiences of the week, and

he and his wife and his own children grew to think the hours in the

cabin the best hours of all. There were pictures on the walls; they

painted the windows themselves with flower-pictures, and illuminated

them with colored leaves. But there were but two inscriptions. These

were over the inside of the two doors, and both inscriptions were the

same,--"Love is the whole."

They told all these stories, and a hundred more, at a great Thanksgiving

party after the war. Walter and his wife and his children came from

Sangamon County; and the General and all his family came down from

Winetka; and Fanny and the Governor and all their seven came all the way

from Minnesota; and Alice and her husband and all her little ones came

up the river, and so across from Quincy; and Sarah and Gilbert, with the

twins and the babies, came in their own carriage all the way from

Horace. So there was a Thanksgiving dinner set for all the six, and the

six husbands and wives, and the twenty-seven children. In twenty years,

since their father died, those brothers and sisters had lived for each

other. They had had separate houses, but they had spent the money in

them for each other. No one of them had said that anything he had was

his own. They had confided wholly each in each. They had passed through

much sorrow, and in that sorrow had strengthened each other. They had

passed through much joy, and the joy had been multiplied tenfold because

it was joy that was shared. At the Thanksgiving they acted the ballad of

Lochinvar again, or rather some of the children did. And that set Fanny

the oldest and Sarah the youngest to telling to the oldest nephews and

nieces some of the stories of the cabin days. But Fanny said, when the

children asked for more, "There is no need of any more,--'Love is the

whole.'"

CHRISTMAS AND ROME.

The first Christmas this in which a Roman Senate has sat in Rome since

the old-fashioned Roman Senates went under,--or since they "went up," if

we take the expressive language of our Chicago friends.

And Pius IX. is celebrating Christmas with an uncomfortable look

backward, and an uncomfortable look forward, and an uncomfortable look

all around. It is a suggestive matter, this Italian Parliament sitting

in Rome. It suggests a good deal of history and a good deal of prophecy.

"They say" (whoever they may be) that somewhere in Rome there is a range

of portraits of popes, running down from never so far back; that only

one niche was left in the architecture, which received the portrait of

Pius IX., and that then that place was full. Maybe it is so. I did not

see the row. But I have heard the story a thousand times. Be it true, be

it false, there are, doubtless, many other places where portraits of

coming popes could be hung. There is a little wall-room left in the City

Hall of New York. There are, also, other palaces in which popes could

live. Palaces are as plenty in America as are Pullman cars. But it is

possible that there are no such palaces in Rome.

So this particular Christmas sets one careering back a little, to look

at that mysterious connection of Rome with Christianity, which has held

on so steadily since the first Christmas got itself put on historical

record by a Roman census-maker. Humanly speaking, it was nothing more

nor less than a Roman census which makes the word Bethlehem to be a

sacred word over all the world to-day. To any person who sees the

humorous contrasts of history there is reason for a bit of a smile when

he thinks of the way this census came into being, and then remembers

what came of it. Here was a consummate movement of Augustus, who would

fain have the statistics of his empire. Such excellent things are

statistics! "You can prove anything by statistics," says Mr. Canning,

"except--the truth." So Augustus orders his census, and his census is

taken. This Quirinus, or Quirinius, pro-consul of Syria, was the first

man who took it there, says the Bible. Much appointing of marshals and

deputy-marshals,--men good at counting, and good at writing, and good at

collecting fees! Doubtless it was a great staff achievement of Quirinus,

and made much talk in its time. And it is so well condensed at last and

put into tables with indexes and averages as to be very creditable, I

will not doubt, to the census bureau. But alas! as time rolls on, things

change, so that this very Quirinus, who with all a pro-consul's power

took such pains to record for us the number of people there were in

Bethlehem and in Judah, would have been clean forgotten himself, and his

census too, but that things turned bottom upward. The meanest child born

in Bethlehem when this census business was going on happened to prove to

be King of the World. It happened that he overthrew the dynasty of Caesar

Augustus, and his temples, and his empire. It happened that everything

which was then established tottered and fell, as the star of this child

arose. And the child's star did rise. And now this Publius Sulpicius

Quirinus or Quirinius,--a great man in his day, for whom Augustus asked

for a triumph,--is rescued from complete forgetfulness because that baby

happened to be born in Syria when his census was going on!

I always liked to think that some day when Augustus Caesar was on a state

visit to the Temple of Fortune some attentive clerk handed him down the

roll which had just come in and said, "From Syria, your Highness!" that

he might have a chance to say something to the Emperor; that the Emperor

thanked him, and, in his courtly way, opened the roll so as to seem

interested; that his eye caught the words "Bethlehem--village near

Jerusalem," and the figures which showed the number of the people and of

the children and of all the infants there. Perhaps. No matter if not.

Sixty years after, Augustus' successor, Nero, set fire to Rome in a

drunken fit. The Temple of Fortune caught the flames, and our roll, with

Bethlehem and the count of Joseph's possessions twisted and crackled

like any common rag, turned to smoke and ashes, and was gone. That is

what such statistics come to!

Five hundred years after, the whole scene is changed. The Church of

Christ, which for hundreds of years worshipped under-ground in Rome, has

found air and sunlight now. It is almost five hundred years after Paul

enters Rome as a prisoner, after Nero burned Rome down, that a monk of

St. Andrew, one of the more prominent monasteries of the city of Rome,

walking through that great market-place of the city--which to this hour

preserves most distinctly, perhaps, the memory of what Rome was--saw a

party of fair-haired slaves for sale among the rest. He stops to ask

where they come from, and of what nation they are; to be told they are

"Angli." "Rather Angeli," says Gregory,--"rather angels;" and with other

sacred _bon-mots_ he fixes the pretty boys and pretty girls in his

memory. Nor are these familiar plays upon words to be spoken of as mere

puns. Gregory was determined to attempt the conversion of the land from

which these "angels" came. He started on the pilgrimage, which was then

a dangerous one; but was recalled by the pope of his day, at the

instance of his friends, who could not do without him.

A few years more and this monk is Bishop of Rome. True to the promise of

the market-place, he organizes the Christian mission which fulfils his

prophecy. He sends Austin with his companions to the island of the

fair-haired slave boys; and that new step in the civilization of that

land comes, to which we owe it that we are met in this church, nay, that

we live in this land this day.

So far has the star of the baby of Bethlehem risen in a little more than

five centuries. A Christian dominion has laid its foundations in the

Eternal City. And you and I, gentle reader, are what we are and are

where we are because that monk of St. Andrew saw those angel boys that

day in a Roman market-place.

THE SURVIVOR'S STORY.

Fortunately we were with our wives.

It is in general an excellent custom, as I will explain if opportunity

is given.

First, you are thus sure of good company.

For four mortal hours we had ground along, and stopped and waited and

started again, in the drifts between Westfield and Springfield. We had

shrieked out our woes by the voices of fire-engines. Brave men had dug.

Patient men had sate inside, and waited for the results of the digging.

At last, in triumph, at eleven and three-quarters, as they say in

Cinderella, we entered the Springfield station.

It was Christmas eve!

Leaving the train to its devices, Blatchford and his wife (her name was

Sarah), and I with mine (her name was Phebe), walked quickly with our

little sacks out of the station, ploughed and waded along the white

street, not to the Massasoit,--no, but to the old Eagle and Star, which

was still standing, and was a favorite with us youngsters. Good waffles,

maple syrup _ad lib._, such fixings of other sorts as we preferred, and

some liberty. The amount of liberty in absolutely first-class hotels is

but small. A drowsy boy waked, and turned up the gas. Blatchford entered

our names on the register, and cried at once, "By George, Wolfgang is

here, and Dick! What luck!" for Dick and Wolfgang also travel with their

wives. The boy explained that they had come up the river in the

New-Haven train, were only nine hours behind time, had arrived at ten,

and had just finished supper and gone to bed. We ordered rare

beef-steak, waffles, dip-toast, omelettes with kidneys, and omelettes

without; we toasted our feet at the open fire in the parlor; we ate the

supper when it was ready; and we also went to bed; rejoicing that we had

home with us, having travelled with our wives; and that we could keep

our merry Christmas here. If only Wolfgang and Dick and their wives

would join us, all would be well. (Wolfgang's wife was named Bertha, and

Dick's was named Hosanna,--a name I have never met with elsewhere.)

Bed followed; and I am a graceless dog that I do not write a sonnet here

on the unbroken slumber that followed. Breakfast, by arrangement of us

four, at nine. At 9.30, to us enter Bertha, Dick, Hosanna, and Wolfgang,

to name them in alphabetical order. Four chairs had been turned down for

them. Four chops, four omelettes, and four small oval dishes of fried

potatoes had been ordered, and now appeared. Immense shouting, immense

kissing among those who had that privilege, general wondering, and great

congratulating that our wives were there. Solid resolution that we would

advance no farther. Here, and here only, in Springfield itself, would we

celebrate our Christmas day.

It may be remarked in parenthesis that we had learned already that no

train had entered the town since eleven and a quarter; and it was known

by telegraph that none was within thirty-four miles and a half of the

spot, at the moment the vow was made.

We waded and ploughed our way through the snow to church. I think Mr.

Rumfry, if that is the gentleman's name who preached an admirable

Christmas sermon, in a beautiful church there is, will remember the

platoon of four men and four women, who made perhaps a fifth of his

congregation in that storm,--a storm which shut off most church-going.

Home again; a jolly fire in the parlor, dry stockings, and dry slippers.

Turkeys, and all things fitting for the dinner; and then a general

assembly, not in a caravanserai, not in a coffee-room, but in the

regular guests' parlor of a New-England second-class hotel, where, as it

was ordered, there were no "transients" but ourselves that day; and

whence all the "boarders" had gone either to their own rooms, or to

other homes.

For people who have their wives with them, it is not difficult to

provide entertainment on such an occasion.

"Bertha," said Wolfgang, "could you not entertain us with one of your

native dances?"

"Ho! slave," said Dick to Hosanna, "play upon the virginals." And

Hosanna played a lively Arab air on the tavern piano, while the fair

Bertha danced with a spirit unusual. Was it indeed in memory of the

Christmas of her own dear home in Circassia?

All that, from "Bertha" to "Circassia," is not so. We did not do this at

all. That was all a slip of the pen. What we did was this. John

Blatchford pulled the bell-cord till it broke (they always break in

novels, and sometimes they do in taverns). This bell-cord broke. The

sleepy boy came; and John said, "Caitiff, is there never a barber in the

house?" The frightened boy said there was; and John bade him send him.

In a minute the barber appeared,--black, as was expected,--with a

shining face, and white teeth, and in shirt sleeves, and broad grins.

"Do you tell me, Caesar," said John, "that in your country they do not

wear their coats on Christmas day?"--"Sartin, they do, sir, when they go

out doors."

"Do you tell me, Caesar," said Dick, "that they have doors in your

country?"--"Sartin, they do," said poor Caesar, flurried.

"Boy," said I, "the gentlemen are making fun of you. They want to know

if you ever keep Christmas in your country without a dance."

"Never, sar," said poor Caesar.

"Do they dance without music?"

"No, sar; never."

"Go, then," I said in my sternest accents,--"go fetch a zittern, or a

banjo, or a kit, or a hurdy-gurdy, or a fiddle."

The black boy went, and returned with his violin. And as the light grew

gray, and crept into the darkness, and as the darkness gathered more

thick and more, he played for us and he played for us, tune after tune;

and we danced,--first with precision, then in sport, then in wild

holiday frenzy. We began with waltzes,--so great is the convenience of

travelling with your wives,--where should we have been, had we been all

sole alone, four men? Probably playing whist or euchre. And now we began

with waltzes, which passed into polkas, which subsided into round

dances; and then in very exhaustion we fell back in a grave quadrille. I

danced with Hosanna; Wolfgang and Sarah were our _vis-a-vis_. We went

through the same set that Noah and his three boys danced in the ark with

their four wives, and which has been danced ever since, in every moment,

on one or another spot of the dry earth, going round it with the sun,

like the drumbeat of England,--right and left, first two forward, right

hand across, _pastorale_,--the whole series of them; we did them with

as much spirit as if it had been on a flat on the side of Ararat, ground

yet too muddy for croquet. Then Blatchford called for "Virginia Reel,"

and we raced and chased through that. Poor Caesar began to get exhausted,

but a little flip from down stairs helped him amazingly. And, after the

flip, Dick cried, "Can you not dance 'Money-Musk'?" And in one wild

frenzy of delight we danced "Money-Musk" and "Hull's Victory" and "Dusty

Miller" and "Youth's Companion," and "Irish Jigs" on the closet-door

lifted off for the occasion, till the men lay on the floor screaming

with the fun, and the women fell back on the sofas, fairly faint with

laughing.

* * * * *

All this last, since the sentence after "Circassia," is a mistake. There

was not any bell, nor any barber, and we did not dance at all. This was

all a slip of my memory.

What we really did was this:--

John Blatchford said,--"Let us all tell stories." It was growing dark

and he had put more logs on the fire.

Bertha said,--

"Heap on more wood, the wind is chill;

But let it whistle as it will,

We'll keep our merry Christmas still."

She said that because it was in "Bertha's Visit," a very stupid book

which she remembered.

Then Wolfgang told

THE PENNY-A-LINER'S STORY.

[Wolfgang is a reporter, or was then, on the staff of the "Star."]

When I was on the "Tribune" (he never was on the "Tribune" an hour,

unless he calls selling the "Tribune" at Fort Plains being on the

"Tribune"). But I tell the story as he told it. He said,--

When I was on the "Tribune," I was despatched to report Mr. Webster's

great reply to Hayne. This was in the days of stages. We had to ride

from Baltimore to Washington early in the morning to get there in time.

I found my boots were gone from my room when the stage-man called me,

and I reported that speech in worsted slippers my wife had given me the

week before. As we came into Bladensburg it grew light, and I recognized

my boots on the feet of my fellow-passenger,--there was but one other

man in the stage. I turned to claim them, but stopped in a moment, for

it was Webster himself. How serene his face looked as he slept there! He

woke soon, passed the time of day, offered me a part of a sandwich,--for

we were old friends,--I was counsel against him in the Ogden case. Said

Webster to me,--"Steele, I am bothered about this speech: I have a

paragraph in it which I cannot word up to my mind." And he repeated it

to me. "How would this do?" said he. "'Let us hope that the sense of

unrestricted freedom may be so intertwined with the desire to preserve a

connection of the several parts of the body politic, that some

arrangement, more or less lasting, may prove in a measure satisfactory.'

How would that do?"

I said I liked the idea, but the expression seemed involved.

"And it is involved," said Webster; "but I can't improve it."

"How would this do?" said I.

"'LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE!'"

"Capital!" he said, "capital! write that down for me." At that moment

we arrived at the Capitol steps. I wrote down the words for him, and

from my notes he read them, when that place in the speech came along.

All of us applauded the story.

Phebe then told

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS'S STORY.

You remind me of the impression that very speech made on me, as I heard

Henry Chapin deliver it at an exhibition at Leicester Academy. I

resolved then that I would free the slave, or perish in the attempt. But

how? I, a woman,--disfranchised by the law? Ha! I saw!

I went to Arkansas. I opened a "Normal College, or Academy for

Teachers." We had balls every second night, to make it popular. Immense

numbers came. Half the teachers of the Southern States were trained

there. I had admirable instructors in Oil Painting and Music,--the most

essential studies. The Arithmetic I taught myself. I taught it well. I

achieved fame. I achieved wealth; invested in Arkansas Five per Cents.

Only one secret device I persevered in. To all,--old and young, innocent

girls and sturdy men,--I so taught the multiplication-table, that one

fatal error was hidden in its array of facts. The nine line is the

difficult one. I buried the error there. "Nine times six," I taught

them, "is fifty-six." The rhyme made it easy. The gilded falsehood

passed from lip to lip, from State to State,--one little speck in a

chain of golden verity. I retired from teaching. Slowly I watched the

growth of the rebellion. At last the aloe blossom shot up,--after its

hundred years of waiting. The Southern heart was fired. I brooded over

my revenge. I repaired to Richmond. I opened a first-class

boarding-house, where all the Cabinet, and most of the Senate, came for

their meals; and I had eight permanents. Soon their brows clouded. The

first flush of victory passed away. Night after night, they sat over

their calculations, which all came wrong. I smiled,--and was a villain!

None of their sums would prove. None of their estimates matched the

performance! Never a muster-roll that fitted as it should do! And

I,--the despised boarding-mistress,--I alone knew why! Often and often,

when Memminger has said to me, with an oath, "Why this discordancy in

our totals?" have my lips burned to tell the secret! But no! I hid it

in my bosom. And when, at last, I saw a black regiment march into

Richmond, singing "John Brown," I cried, for the first time in twenty

years, "Nine times six is fifty-four;" and gloated in my sweet revenge.

Then was hushed the harp of Phebe, and Dick told his story.

THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY.

Mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. It is well-nigh thirty

years since I was walking by the Owego and Ithaca Railroad,--a crooked

road, not then adapted to high speed. Of a sudden I saw that a long

cross timber, on a trestle, high above a swamp, had sprung up from its

ties. I looked for a spike with which to secure it. I found a stone with

which to hammer the spike. But, at this moment, a train approached, down

hill. I screamed. They heard! But the engine had no power to stop the

heavy train. With the presence of mind of a poet, and the courage of a

hero, I flung my own weight on the fatal timber. I would hold it down,

or perish. The engine came. The elasticity of the pine timber whirled

me in the air! But I held on. The tender crossed. Again I was flung in

wild gyrations. But I held on. "It is no bed of roses," I said; "but

what act of Parliament was there that I should be happy." Three

passenger cars, and ten freight cars, as was then the vicious custom of

that road, passed me. But I held on, repeating to myself texts of

Scripture to give me courage. As the last car passed, I was whirled into

the air by the rebound of the rafter. "Heavens!" I said, "if my orbit is

a hyperbola, I shall never return to earth." Hastily I estimated its

ordinates, and calculated the curve. What bliss! It was a parabola!

After a flight of a hundred and seventeen cubits, I landed, head down,

in a soft mud-hole.

In that train was the young U. S. Grant, on his way to West Point for

examination. But for me the armies of the Republic would have had no

leader.

I pressed my claim, when I asked to be appointed to England. Although no

one else wished to go, I alone was forgotten. Such is gratitude with

republics!

He ceased. Then Sarah Blatchford told

THE WHEELER AND WILSON'S OPERATIVE'S STORY.

My father had left the anchorage of Sorrento for a short voyage, if

voyage it may be called. Life was young, and this world seemed heaven.

The yacht bowled on under close-reefed stay-sails, and all was happy.

Suddenly the corsairs seized us: all were slain in my defence; but

I,--this fatal gift of beauty bade them spare my life!

Why linger on my tale! In the Zenana of the Shah of Persia I found my

home. "How escape his eye?" I said; and, fortunately, I remembered that

in my reticule I carried one box of F. Kidder's indelible ink. Instantly

I applied the liquid in the large bottle to one cheek. Soon as it was

dry, I applied that in the small bottle, and sat in the sun one hour. My

head ached with the sunlight, but what of that? I was a fright, and I

knew all would be well.

I was consigned, so soon as my hideous deficiencies were known, to the

sewing-room. Then how I sighed for my machine! Alas! it was not there;

but I constructed an imitation from a cannon-wheel, a coffee-mill, and

two nut-crackers. And with this I made the under-clothing for the palace

and the Zenana.

I also vowed revenge. Nor did I doubt one instant how; for in my youth I

had read Lucretia Borgia's memoirs, and I had a certain rule for slowly

slaying a tyrant at a distance. I was in charge of the shah's own linen.

Every week, I set back the buttons on his shirt collars by the width of

one thread; or, by arts known to me, I shrunk the binding of the collar

by a like proportion. Tighter and tighter with each week did the vice

close around his larynx. Week by week, at the high religious festivals,

I could see his face was blacker and blacker. At length the hated tyrant

died. The leeches called it apoplexy. I did not undeceive them. His

guards sacked the palace. I bagged the diamonds, fled with them to

Trebizond, and sailed thence in a caique to South Boston. No more! such

memories oppress me.

Her voice was hushed. I told my tale in turn.

THE CONDUCTOR'S STORY.

I was poor. Let this be my excuse, or rather my apology. I entered a

Third Avenue car at Thirty-sixth Street, and saw the conductor

sleeping. Satan tempted me, and I took from him his badge, 213. I see

the hated figures now. When he woke, he knew not he had lost it. The car

started, and he walked to the rear. With the badge on my coat, I

collected eight fares within, stepped forward, and sprang into the

street. Poverty is my only apology for the crime. I concealed myself in

a cellar where men were playing with props. Fear is my only excuse. Lest

they should suspect me, I joined their game, and my forty cents were

soon three dollars and seventy. With these ill-gotten gains, I visited

the gold exchange, then open evenings. My superior intelligence enabled

me to place well my modest means, and at midnight I had a competence.

Let me be a warning to all young men. Since that night, I have never

gambled more.

I threw the hated badge into the river. I bought a palace on Murray

Hill, and led an upright and honorable life. But since that night of

terror the sound of the horse-cars oppresses me. Always since, to go up

town or down, I order my own coupe, with George to drive me; and never

have I entered the cleanly, sweet, and airy carriage provided for the

public. I cannot; conscience is too much for me. You see in me a

monument of crime.

I said no more. A moment's pause, a few natural tears, and a single sigh

hushed the assembly; then Bertha, with her siren voice, told--

THE WIFE OF BIDDEFORD'S STORY.

At the time you speak of, I was the private governess of two lovely

boys, Julius and Pompey,--Pompey the senior of the two. The black-eyed

darling! I see him now. I also see, hanging to his neck, his blue-eyed

brother, who had given Pompey his black eye the day before. Pompey was

generous to a fault; Julius, parsimonious beyond virtue. I therefore

instructed them in two different rooms. To Pompey, I read the story of

"Waste not, want not." To Julius, on the other hand, I spoke of the

All-love of his great Mother Nature, and her profuse gifts to her

children. Leaving him with grapes and oranges, I stepped back to Pompey,

and taught him how to untie parcels so as to save the string. Leaving

him winding the string neatly, I went back to Julius, and gave to him

ginger-cakes. The dear boys grew from year to year. They outgrew their

knickerbockers, and had trousers. They outgrew their jackets, and became

men; and I felt that I had not lived in vain. I had conquered nature.

Pompey, the little spendthrift, was the honored cashier of a savings

bank, till he ran away with the capital. Julius, the miser, became the

chief croupier at the New Crockford's. One of those boys is now in

Botany Bay, and the other is in Sierra Leone!

"I thought you were going to say in a hotter place," said John

Blatchford; and he told his story:--

THE STOKER'S STORY.

We were crossing the Atlantic in a Cunarder. I was second stoker on the

starboard watch. In that horrible gale we spoke of before dinner, the

coal was exhausted, and I, as the best-dressed man, was sent up to the

captain to ask what we should do. I found him himself at the wheel. He

almost cursed me and bade me say nothing of coal, at a moment when he

must keep her head to the wind with her full power, or we were lost. He

bade me slide my hand into his pocket, and take out the key of the after

freight-room, open that, and use the contents for fuel. I returned

hastily to the engine-room, and we did as we were bid. The room

contained nothing but old account books, which made a hot and effective

fire.

On the third day the captain came down himself into the engine-room,

where I had never seen him before, called me aside, and told me that by

mistake he had given me the wrong key; asking me if I had used it. I

pointed to him the empty room: not a leaf was left. He turned pale with

fright. As I saw his emotion he confided to me the truth. The books were

the evidences or accounts of the British national debt; of what is

familiarly known as the Consolidated Fund, or the "Consols." They had

been secretly sent to New York for the examination of James Fiske, who

had been asked to advance a few millions on this security to the English

Exchequer, and now all evidence of indebtedness was gone!

The captain was about to leap into the sea. But I dissuaded him. I told

him to say nothing; I would keep his secret; no man else knew it. The

Government would never utter it. It was safe in our hands. He

reconsidered his purpose. We came safe to port and did--nothing.

Only on the first quarter-day which followed, I obtained leave of

absence, and visited the Bank of England, to see what happened. At the

door was this placard,--"Applicants for dividends will file a written

application, with name and amount, at desk A, and proceed in turn to the

Paying Teller's Office." I saw their ingenuity. They were making out new

books, certain that none would apply but those who were accustomed to.

So skilfully do men of Government study human nature.

I stepped lightly to one of the public desks. I took one of the blanks.

I filled it out, "John Blatchford, L1747 6_s._ 8_d._," and handed it in

at the open trap. I took my place in the queue in the teller's room.

After an agreeable hour, a pile, not thick, of Bank of England notes was

given to me; and since that day I have quarterly drawn that amount from

the maternal government of that country. As I left the teller's room, I

observed the captain in the queue. He was the seventh man from the

window, and I have never seen him more.

We then asked Hosanna for her story.

THE N. E. HISTORICAL GENEALOGIST'S STORY.

"My story," said she, "will take us far back into the past. It will be

necessary for me to dwell on some incidents in the first settlement of

this country, and I propose that we first prepare and enjoy the

Christmas-tree. After this, if your courage holds, you shall hear an

over-true tale." Pretty creature, how little she knew what was before

us!

As we had sat listening to the stories, we had been preparing for the

tree. Shopping being out of the question, we were fain from our own

stores to make up our presents, while the women were arranging nuts, and

blown egg-shells, and pop-corn strings from the stores of the "Eagle and

Star." The popping of corn in two corn-poppers had gone on through the

whole of the story-telling. All being so nearly ready, I called the

drowsy boy again, and, showing him a very large stick in the wood-box,

asked him to bring me a hatchet. To my great joy he brought the axe of

the establishment, and I bade him farewell. How little did he think what

was before him! So soon as he had gone I went stealthily down the

stairs, and stepping out into the deep snow, in front of the hotel,

looked up into the lovely night. The storm had ceased, and I could see

far back into the heavens. In the still evening my strokes might have

been heard far and wide, as I cut down one of the two pretty Norways

that shaded Mr. Pynchon's front walk, next the hotel. I dragged it over

the snow. Blatchford and Steele lowered sheets to me from the large

parlor window, which I attached to the larger end of the tree. With

infinite difficulty they hauled it in. I joined them in the parlor, and

soon we had as stately a tree growing there as was in any home of joy

that night in the river counties.

With swift fingers did our wives adorn it. I should have said above,

that we travelled with our wives, and that I would recommend that custom

to others. It was impossible, under the circumstances, to maintain much

secrecy; but it had been agreed that all who wished to turn their backs

to the circle, in the preparation of presents, might do so without

offence to the others. As the presents were wrapped, one by one, in

paper of different colors, they were marked with the names of giver and

receiver, and placed in a large clothes-basket. At last all was done. I

had wrapped up my knife, my pencil-case, my letter-case, for Steele,

Blatchford, and Dick. To my wife I gave my gold watch-key, which

fortunately fits her watch; to Hosanna, a mere trifle, a seal ring I

wore; to Bertha, my gold chain; and to Sarah Blatchford, the watch which

generally hung from it. For a few moments, we retired to our rooms while

the pretty Hosanna arranged the forty-nine presents on the tree. Then

she clapped her hands, and we rushed in. What a wondrous sight! What a

shout of infantine laughter and charming prattle! for in that happy

moment were we not all children again?

I see my story hurries to its close. Dick, who is the tallest, mounted a

step-ladder, and called us by name to receive our presents. I had a nice

gold watch-key from Hosanna, a knife from Steele, a letter-case from

Phebe, and a pretty pencil-case from Bertha. Dick had given me his

watch-chain, which he knew I fancied; Sarah Blatchford, a little toy of

a Geneva watch she wore; and her husband, a handsome seal ring, a

present to him from the Czar, I believe; Phebe, that is my wife,--for we

were travelling with our wives,--had a pencil-case from Steele, a

pretty little letter-case from Dick, a watch-key from me, and a French

repeater from Blatchford; Sarah Blatchford gave her the knife she

carried, with some bright verses, saying that it was not to cut love;

Bertha, a watch-chain; and Hosanna a ring of turquoise and amethysts.

The other presents were similar articles, and were received, as they

were given, with much tender feeling. But at this moment, as Dick was on

the top of the flight of steps, handing down a red apple from the tree,

a slight catastrophe occurred.

The first I was conscious of was the angry hiss of steam. In a moment I

perceived that the steam-boiler, from which the tavern was warmed, had

exploded. The floor beneath us rose, and we were driven with it through

the ceiling and the rooms above,--through an opening in the roof into

the still night. Around us in the air were flying all the other contents

and occupants of the Star and Eagle. How bitterly was I reminded of

Dick's flight from the railroad track of the Ithaca & Owego Railroad!

But I could not hope such an escape as his. Still my flight was in a

parabola; and, in a period not longer than it has taken to describe it,

I was thrown senseless, at last, into a deep snow-bank near the United

States Arsenal.

Tender hands lifted me and assuaged me. Tender teams carried me to the

City Hospital. Tender eyes brooded over me. Tender science cared for me.

It proved necessary, before I recovered, to amputate my two legs at the

hips. My right arm was wholly removed, by a delicate and curious

operation, from the socket. We saved the stump of my left arm, which was

amputated just below the shoulder. I am still in the hospital to recruit

my strength. The doctor does not like to have me occupy my mind at all;

but he says there is no harm in my compiling my memoirs, or writing

magazine stories. My faithful nurse has laid me on my breast on a

pillow, has put a camel's-hair pencil in my mouth, and, feeling almost

personally acquainted with John Carter, the artist, I have written out

for you, in his method, the story of my last Christmas.

I am sorry to say that the others have never been found.

THE SAME CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW.

The first Christmas in New England was celebrated by some people who

tried as hard as they could not to celebrate it at all. But looking back

on that year 1620, the first year when Christmas was celebrated in New

England, I cannot find that anybody got up a better _fete_ than did

these Lincolnshire weavers and ploughmen who had got a little taste of

Dutch firmness, and resolved on that particular day, that, whatever else

happened to them, they would not celebrate Christmas at all.

Here is the story as William Bradford tells it:

"Ye 16. _day_ ye winde came faire, and they arrived safe in this harbor.

And after wards tooke better view of ye place, and resolved wher to

pitch their dwelling; and ye 25. _day_ begane to erecte ye first house

for comone use to receive them and their goods."

You see, dear reader, that when on any 21st or 22d of December you give

the children parched corn, and let them pull candy and swim candles in

nut-shells in honor of the "landing of the Forefathers"--if by good luck

you be of Yankee blood, and do either of these praiseworthy things--you

are not celebrating the anniversary of the day when the women and

children landed, wrapped up in water-proofs, with the dog and John

Carver in headpiece, and morion, as you have seen in many pictures. That

all came afterward. Be cool and self-possessed, and I will guide you

through the whole chronology safely--Old Style and New Style, first

landing and second landing, Sabbaths and Sundays, Carver's landing and

Mary Chilton's landing, so that you shall know as much as if you had

fifteen ancestors, a cradle, a tankard, and an oak chest in the

Mayflower, and you shall come out safely and happily at the first

Christmas day.

Know then, that when the poor Mayflower at last got across the Atlantic,

Massachusetts stretched out her right arm to welcome her, and she came

to anchor as early as the 11th of November in Provincetown Harbor. This

was the day when the compact of the cabin of the Mayflower was signed,

when the fiction of the "social compact" was first made real. Here they

fitted their shallop, and in this shallop, on the sixth of December, ten

of the Pilgrims and six of the ship's crew sailed on their exploration.

They came into Plymouth harbor on the tenth, rested on Watson's island

on the eleventh,--which was Sunday,--and on Monday, the twelfth, landed

on the mainland, stepping on Plymouth rock and marching inland to

explore the country. Add now nine days to this date for the difference

then existing between Old Style and New Style, and you come upon the

twenty-first of December, which is the day you ought to celebrate as

Forefathers' Day. On that day give the children parched corn in token of

the new provant, the English walnut in token of the old, and send them

to bed with Elder Brewster's name, Mary Chilton's, Edward Winslow's, and

John Billington's, to dream upon. Observe still that only these ten men

have landed. All the women and children and the other men are over in

Provincetown harbor. These ten, liking the country well enough, go

across the bay to Provincetown where they find poor Bradford's wife

drowned in their absence, and bring the ship across into Plymouth harbor

on the sixteenth. Now you will say of course that they were so glad to

get here that they began to build at once; but you are entirely

mistaken, for they did not do any such thing. There was a little of the

John Bull about them and a little of the Dutchman. The seventeenth was

Sunday. Of course they could not build a city on Sunday. Monday they

explored, and Tuesday they explored more. Wednesday,

"After we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution,

to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places,

which we thought most fitting for us; for we could not now take time for

further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent,

especially our beer."

Observe, this is the Pilgrims' or Forefathers' beer, and not the beer of

the ship, of which there was still some store. Acting on this resolution

they went ashore again, and concluded by "most voices" to build Plymouth

where Plymouth now is. One recommendation seems to have been that there

was a good deal of land already clear. But this brought with it the

counter difficulty that they had to go half a quarter of a mile for

their wood. So there they left twenty people on shore, resolving the

next day to come and build their houses. But the next day it stormed,

and the people on shore had to come back to the ship, and Richard

Britteridge died. And Friday it stormed so that they could not land, and

the people on the shallop who had gone ashore the day before could not

get back to the ship. Saturday was the twenty-third, as they counted,

and some of them got ashore and cut timber and carried it to be ready

for building. But they reserved their forces still, and Sunday, the

twenty-fourth, no one worked of course. So that when Christmas day came,

the day which every man, woman and child of them had been trained to

regard as a holy day--as a day specially given to festivity and

specially exempted from work, all who could went on shore and joined

those who had landed already. So that William Bradford was able to close

the first book of his history by saying: "Ye 25. _day_ begane to erect

ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods."

Now, this all may have been accidental. I do not say it was not. But

when I come to the record of Christmas for next year and find that

Bradford writes: "One ye day called Chrismas-day, ye Gov'r caled them

out to worke (as was used)," I cannot help thinking that the leaders had

a grim feeling of satisfaction in "secularizing" the first Christmas as

thoroughly as they did. They wouldn't work on Sunday, and they would

work on Christmas.

They did their best to desecrate Christmas, and they did it by laying

one of the cornerstones of an empire.

Now, if the reader wants to imagine the scene,--the Christmas

celebration or the Christmas desecration, he shall call it which he

will, according as he is Roman or Puritan himself,--I cannot give him

much material to spin his thread from. Here is the little story in the

language of the time:

"Munday the 25. day, we went on shore, some to fell tymber, some to saw,

some to riue, and some to carry, so no man rested all that day, but

towards night some as they were at worke, heard a noyse of some Indians,

which caused vs all to goe to our Muskets, but we heard no further, so

we came aboord againe, and left some twentie to keepe the court of gard;

that night we had a sore storme of winde and rayne.

"Munday the 25. being Christmas day, we began to drinke water aboord,

but at night the Master caused vs to have some Beere, and so on board we

had diverse times now and then some Beere, but on shore none at all."

There is the story as it is told by the only man who chose to write it

down. Let us not at this moment go into an excursus to inquire who he

was and who he was not. Only diligent investigation has shown beside

that this first house was about twenty feet square, and that it was for

their common use to receive them and their goods. The tradition says

that it was on the south side of what is now Leyden street, near the

declivity of the hill. What it was, I think no one pretends to say

absolutely. I am of the mind of a dear friend of mine, who used to say

that, in the hardships of those first struggles, these old forefathers

of ours, as they gathered round the fires (which they did have--no

Christian Registers for them to warm their cold hands by), used to

pledge themselves to each other in solemn vows that they would leave to

posterity no detail of the method of their lives. Posterity should not

make pictures out of them, or, if it did, should make wrong ones; which

accordingly, posterity has done. What was the nature, then, of this

twenty-foot-square store-house, in which, afterward, they used to sleep

pretty compactly, no man can say. Dr. Young suggests a log cabin, but I

do not believe that the log cabin was yet invented. I think it is more

likely that the Englishmen rigged their two-handled saws,--after the

fashion known to readers of Sanford and Merton in an after age,--and

made plank for themselves. The material for imagination, as far as

costume goes, may be got from the back of a fifty-dollar national

bank-note, which the well-endowed reader will please take from his

pocket, or from a roll of Lorillard's tobacco at his side, on which he

will find the good reduction of Weir's admirable picture of the

embarkation. Or, if the reader has been unsuccessful in his investment

in Lorillard, he will find upon the back of the one-dollar bank-note a

reduced copy of the fresco of the "Landing" in the Capitol, which will

answer his purpose equally well. Forty or fifty Englishmen, in hats and

doublets and hose of that fashion, with those odd English axes that you

may see in your AEsop's fable illustrations, and with their

double-handled saws, with a few beetles, and store of wedges, must make

up your tableau, dear reader. Make it _vivant_, if you can.

To help myself in the matter, I sometimes group them on the bank there

just above the brook,--you can see the place to-day, if it will do you

any good--at some moment when the women have come ashore to see how the

work goes on--and remembering that Mrs. Hemans says "they sang"--I throw

the women all in a chorus of soprano and contralto voices on the left,

Mrs. Winslow and Mrs. Carver at their head, Mrs. W. as _prima assoluta

soprano_ and Mrs. Carver as _prima assoluta contralto_,--I range on the

right the men with W. Bradford and W. Brewster as leaders--and between,

facing us, the audience,--who are lower down in the valley of the brook,

I place Giovanni Carver (tenor) and Odoardo Winslow (basso) and have

them sing in the English dialect of their day,

Suoni la tromba,

Carver waving the red-cross flag of England, and Winslow swinging a

broadaxe above his head in similar revolutions. The last time I saw any

Puritans doing this at the opera, one had a star-spangled banner and the

other an Italian tricolor,--but I am sure my placing on the stage is

more accurate than that. But I find it very hard to satisfy myself that

this is the correct idealization. Yet Mrs. Hemans says the songs were

"songs of lofty cheer," which precisely describes the duet in Puritani.

It would be an immense satisfaction, if by palimpsest under some old

cash-book of that century, or by letters dug out from some family

collection in England, one could just discover that "John Billington,

having become weary with cutting down a small fir-tree which had been

allotted to him, took his snaphance and shot with him, and calling a dog

he had, to whom in the Low Countries the name Crab had been given, went

after fowle. Crossing the brook and climbing up the bank to an open

place which was there, he found what had been left by the savages of one

of their gardens,--and on the ground, picking at the stalkes of the

corne, a flocke of large blacke birds such as he had never seen before.

His dogge ran at them and frightened them, and they all took wing

heavily, but not so quick but that Billington let fly at them and

brought two of them down,--one quite dead and one hurt so badly that he

could not fly. Billington killed them both and tyed them together, and

following after the flocke had another shot at them, and by a good

Providence hurte three more. He tyed two of these together and brought

the smallest back to us, not knowing what he brought, being but a poor

man and ignorant. Hee is but a lazy Fellowe, and was sore tired with the

weight of his burden, which was nigh fortie pounds. Soe soon as he saw

it, the Governour and the rest knew that it was a wild Turkie, and

albeit he chid Billington sharply, he sent four men with him, as it were

Calebs and Joshuas, to bring in these firstlings of the land. They found

the two first and brought them to us; but after a long search they could

not find the others, and soe gave them up, saying the wolves must have

eaten them. There were some that thought John Billington had never seen

them either, but had shot them with a long bowe. Be this as it may,

Mistress Winslow and the other women stripped them they had, cleaned

them, spytted them, basted them, and roasted them, and thus we had fresh

foule to our dinner."

I say it would have been very pleasant to have found this in some

palimpsest, but if it is in the palimpsest, it has not yet been found.

As the Arab proverb says, "There is news, but it has not yet come."

I have failed, in just the same way, to find a letter from that

rosy-cheeked little child you see in Sargent's picture, looking out of

her great wondering eyes, under her warm hood, into the desert. I

overhauled a good many of the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum

(Otho and Caligula, if anybody else wants to look), and Mr. Sainsbury

let me look through all the portfolios I wanted in the State Paper

Office, and I am sure the letter was not there then. If anybody has

found it, it has been found since I was there. If it ever is found, I

should like to have it contain the following statement:--

"We got tired of playing by the fire, and so some of us ran down to the

brook, and walked till we could find a place to cross it; and so came up

to a meadow as large as the common place in Leyden. There was a good

deal of ice upon it in some places, but in some places behind, where

there were bushes, we found good store of berries growing on the ground.

I filled my apron, and William took off his jerkin and made a bag of it,

and we all filled it to carry up to the fire. But they were so sour,

that they puckered our mouths sadly. But my mother said they were

cranberries, but not like your cranberries in Lincolnshire. And, having

some honey in one of the logs the men cut down, she boiled the

cranberries and the honey together, and after it was cold we had it with

our dinner. And besides, there were some great pompions which the men

had brought with them from the first place we landed at, which were not

like Cinderella's, but had long tails to them, and of these my mother

and Mrs. Brewster and Mrs. Warren, made pies for dinner. We found

afterwards that the Indians called these pompions, _askuta squash_."

But this letter, I am sorry to say, has not yet been found.

Whether they had roast turkey for Christmas I do not know. I do know,

thanks to the recent discovery of the old Bradford manuscript, that

they did have roast turkey at their first Thanksgiving. The veritable

history, like so much more of it, alas! is the history of what they had

not, instead of the history of what they had. Not only did they work on

the day when all their countrymen played, but they had only water to

drink on the day when all their countrymen drank beer. This deprivation

of beer is a trial spoken of more than once; and, as lately as 1824, Mr.

Everett, in his Pilgrim oration, brought it in high up in the climax of

the catalogue of their hardships. How many of us in our school

declamations have stood on one leg, as bidden in "Lovell's Speaker,"

raised the hand of the other side to an angle of forty-five degrees, as

also bidden, and repeated, as also bidden, not to say compelled, the

words, "I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their almost

desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five-months' passage,

on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and exhausted from the voyage,

poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their

ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water

on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile

tribes."

Little did these men of 1620 think that the time would come when ships

would go round the world without a can of beer on board; that armies

would fight through years of war without a ration of beer or of spirit,

and that the builders of the Lawrences and Vinelands, the pioneer towns

of a new Christian civilization, would put the condition into the

title-deeds of their property that nothing should be sold there which

could intoxicate the buyer. Poor fellows! they missed the beer, I am

afraid, more than they did the play at Christmas; and as they had not

yet learned how good water is for a steady drink, the carnal mind almost

rejoices that when they got on board that Christmas night, the

curmudgeon ship-master, warmed up by his Christmas jollifications, for

he had no scruples, treated to beer all round, as the reader has seen.

With that tankard of beer--as those who went on board filled it, passed

it, and refilled it--ends the history of the first Christmas in New

England.

* * * * *

It is a very short story, and yet it is the longest history of that

Christmas that I have been able to find. I wanted to compare this

celebration of Christmas, grimly intended for its desecration, with some

of the celebrations which were got up with painstaking intention. But,

alas, pageants leave little history, after the lights have smoked out,

and the hangings have been taken away. Leaving, for the moment, King

James's Christmas and Englishmen, I thought it would be a pleasant thing

to study the contrast of a Christmas in the countries where they say

Christmas has its most enthusiastic welcome. So I studied up the war in

the Palatinate,--I went into the chronicles of Spain, where I thought

they would take pains about Christmas,--I tried what the men of "la

religion," the Huguenots, were doing at Rochelle, where a great assembly

was gathering. But Christmas day would not appear in memoirs or annals.

I tried Rome and the Pope, but he was dying, like the King of Spain, and

had not, I think, much heart for pageantry. I looked in at Vienna, where

they had all been terribly frightened by Bethlem Gabor, who was a great

Transylvanian prince of those days, a sort of successful Kossuth, giving

much hope to beleaguered Protestants farther west, who, I believe,

thought for a time that he was some sort of seal or trumpet, which,

however, he did not prove to be. At this moment of time he was

retreating I am afraid, and at all events did not set his

historiographer to work describing his Christmas festivities.

Passing by Bethlem Gabor then, and the rest, from mere failure of their

chronicles to make note of this Christmas as it passed, I returned to

France in my quest. Louis XIII. was at this time reigning with the

assistance of Luynes, the short-lived favorite who preceded Richelieu.

Or it would, perhaps, be more proper to say that Luynes was reigning

under the name of Louis XIII. Louis XIII. had been spending the year in

great activity, deceiving, thwarting, and undoing the Protestants of

France. He had made a rapid march into their country, and had spread

terror before him. He had had mass celebrated in Navarreux, where it had

not been seen or heard in fifty years. With Bethlem Gabor in the

ablative,--with the Palatinate quite in the vocative,--these poor

Huguenots here outwitted and outgeneralled, and Brewster and Carver

freezing out there in America, the Reformed Religion seems in a bad way

to one looking at that Christmas. From his triumphal and almost

bloodless campaign, King Louis returns to Paris, "and there," says

Bassompierre, "he celebrated the _fetes_ this Christmas." So I thought I

was going to find in the memoirs of some gentleman at court, or

unoccupied mistress of the robes, an account of what the most Christian

King was doing, while the blisters were forming on John Carver's hands,

and while John Billington was, or was not, shooting wild turkeys on that

eventful Christmas day.

But I reckoned without my king. For this is all a mistake, and

whatever else is certain, it seems to be certain that King Louis

XIII. did not keep either Christmas in Paris, either the Christmas

of the Old Style, or that of the New. Such, alas, is history, dear

friend! When you read in to-night's "Evening Post" that your friend

Dalrymple is appointed Minister to Russia, where he has been so

anxious to go, do not suppose he will make you his Secretary of

Legation. Alas! no; for you will read in to-morrow's "Times" that it

was all a mistake of the telegraph, and that the dispatch should

have read "O'Shaughnessy," where the dispatch looked like

"Dalrymple." So here, as I whetted my pencil, wetted my lips, and

drove the attentive librarian at the Astor almost frantic as I sent

him up stairs for you five times more, it proved that Louis XIII.

did not spend Christmas in Paris, but that Bassompierre, who said

so, was a vile deceiver. Here is the truth in the _Mercure

Francaise_,--flattering and obsequious Annual Register of those

days:

"The King at the end of this year, visited the frontiers of Picardy. In

this whole journey, which lasted from the 14th of December to the 12th

of January (New Style), the weather was bad, and those in his Majesty's

suite found the roads bad." Change the style back to the way our

Puritans counted it, and observe that on the same days, the 5th of

December to the 3d of January, Old Style, those in the suite of John

Carver found the weather bad and the roads worse. Let us devoutly hope

that his most Christian Majesty did not find the roads as bad as his

suite did.

"And the King," continues the _Mercure_, "sent an extraordinary

Ambassador to the King of Great Britain, at London, the Marshal Cadenet"

(brother of the favorite Luynes). "He departed from Calais on Friday,

the first day of January, very well accompanied by _noblesse_. He

arrived at Dover the same evening, and did not depart from Dover until

the Monday after."

Be pleased to note, dear reader, that this Monday, when this Ambassador

of a most Christian King departs from Dover, is on Monday the 25th day

of December, of Old Style, or Protestant Style, when John Carver is

learning wood-cutting, by way of encouraging the others. Let us leave

the King of France to his bad roads, and follow the fortunes of the

favorite's brother, for we must study an English Christmas after all. We

have seen the Christmas holidays of men who had hard times for the

reward of their faith in the Star of Bethlehem. Let us try the fortunes

of the most Christian King's people, as they keep their second Christmas

of the year among a Protestant people. Observe that a week after their

own Christmas of New Style, they land in Old Style England, where

Christmas has not yet begun. Here is the _Mercure Francais's_ account of

the Christmas holidays,--flattering and obsequious, as I said:

"Marshal Cadenet did not depart from Dover till the Monday after"

(Christmas day, O. S.). "The English Master of Ceremonies had sent

twenty carriages and three hundred horses for his suite." (If only we

could have ten of the worst of them at Plymouth! They would have drawn

our logs for us that half quarter of a mile. But we were not born in the

purple!) "He slept at Canterbury, where the Grand Seneschal of England,

well accompanied by English noblemen, received him on the part of the

King of England. Wherever he passed, the officers of the cities made

addresses to him, and offers, even ordering their own archers to march

before him and guard his lodgings. When he came to Gravesend, the Earl

of Arundel visited him on the part of the King, and led him to the Royal

barge. His whole suite entered into twenty-five other barges, painted,

hung with tapestry, and well adorned" (think of our poor, rusty shallop

there in Plymouth bay), "in which, ascending the Thames, they arrived in

London Friday the 29th December" (January 8th, N. S.). "On disembarking,

the Ambassador was led by the Earl of Arundel to the palace of the late

Queen, which had been superbly and magnificently arranged for him. The

day was spent in visits on the part of his Majesty the King of Great

Britain, of the Prince of Wales, his son, and of the ambassadors of

kings and princes, residing in London." So splendidly was he

entertained, that they write that on the day of his reception he had

four tables, with fifty covers each, and that the Duke of Lennox, Grand

Master of England, served them with magnificent order.

"The following Sunday" (which we could not spend on shore), "he was

conducted to an audience by the Marquis of Buckingham," (for shame,

Jamie! an audience on Sunday! what would John Knox have said to that!)

"where the French and English nobility were dressed as for a great feast

day. The whole audience was conducted with great respect, honor, and

ceremony. The same evening, the King of Great Britain sent for the

Marshal by the Marquis of Buckingham and the Duke of Lennox; and his

Majesty and the Ambassador remained alone for more than two hours,

without any third person hearing what they said. The following days were

all receptions, banquets, visits, and hunting-parties, till the embassy

departed."

That is the way history gets written by a flattering and obsequious

court editor or organ at the time. That is the way, then, that the dread

sovereign of John Carver and Edward Winslow spent his Christmas

holidays, while they were spending theirs in beginning for him an

empire. Dear old William Brewster used to be a servant of Davison's in

the days of good Queen Bess. As he blows his fingers there in the

twenty-foot storehouse before it is roofed, does he tell the rest

sometimes of the old wassail at court, and the Christmas when the Earl

of Southampton brought Will. Shakespeare in? Perhaps those things are

too gay,--at all events, we have as much fuel here as they have at St.

James's.

Of this precious embassy, dear reader, there is not a word, I think, in

Hume, or Lingard, or the "Pictorial"--still less, if possible, in the

abridgments. Would you like, perhaps, after this truly elegant account

thus given by a court editor, to look behind the canvas and see the

rough ends of the worsted? I always like to. It helps me to understand

my morning "Advertiser" or my "Evening Post," as I read the editorial

history of to-day. If you please, we will begin in the Domestic State

Papers of England, which the good sense of somebody, I believe kind Sir

Francis Palgrave, has had opened for you and me and the rest of us.

Here is the first notice of the embassy:

Dec. 13. Letter from Sir Robert Naunton to Sir George Calvert.... "The

King of France is expected at Calais. The Marshal of Cadenet is to be

sent over to calumniate those of the religion (that is, the

Protestants), and to propose Madme. Henriette for the Prince."

So they knew, it seems, ten days before we started, what we were coming

for.

Dec. 22. John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. "In spite of penury,

there is to be a masque at Court this Christmas. The King is coming in

from Theobalds to receive the French Ambassador, Marshal Cadenet, who

comes with a suite of 400 or 500."

What was this masque? Could not Mr. Payne Collier find up the libretto,

perhaps? Was it Faith, Valor, Hope, and Love, founding a kingdom,

perhaps? Faith with a broadaxe, Valor and Hope with a two-handled saw,

while Love dug post-holes and set up timbers? Or was it a less

appropriate masque of King James' devising?

Dec. 25. This is our day. Francis Willisfourd, Governor of Dover Castle

to Lord Zouch, Warden of the Cinque Ports. "A French Ambassador has

landed with a great train. I have not fired a salute, having no

instructions, and declined showing them the fortress. They are

entertained as well as the town can afford."

Observe, we are a little surly. We do not like the French King very

well, our own King's daughter being in such straits yonder in the

Palatinate. What do these Papists here?

That is the only letter written on Christmas day in the English

"Domestic Archives" for that year! Christmas is for frolic here, not for

letter-writing, nor house-building, if one's houses be only built

already!

But on the 27th, Wednesday, "Lord Arundel has gone to meet the French

Ambassador at Gravesend." And a very pretty time it seems they had at

Gravesend, when you look on the back of the embroidery. Arundel called

on Cadenet at his lodgings, and Cadenet did not meet him till he came to

the stair--head of his chamber-door--nor did he accompany him further

when he left. But Arundel was even with him the next morning. He

appointed his meeting for the return call _in the street_; and when the

barges had come up to Somerset House, where the party was to stay,

Arundel left the Ambassador, telling him that there were gentlemen who

would show him his lodging. The King was so angry that he made Cadenet

apologize. Alas for the Court of Governor John Carver on this

side,--four days old to-day--if Massasoit should send us an ambassador!

_We_ shall have to receive him in the street, unless he likes to come

into a palace without a roof! But, fortunately, he does not send till we

are ready!

The Domestic Archives give another glimpse:

Dec. 30. Thomas Locke to Carleton: "The French Ambassador has arrived at

Somerset House with a train so large that some of the seats at

Westminster Hall had to be pulled down to make room at their audience."

And in letters from the same to the same, of January 7, are accounts of

entertainments given to the Ambassador at his first audience (on that

Sunday), on the 4th at Parliament House, on the 6th at a masque at

Whitehall, where none were allowed below the rank of a Baron--and at

Lord Doncaster's entertainment--where "six thousand ounces of gold are

set out as a present," says the letter, but this I do not believe. At

the Hampton entertainment, and at the masque there were some disputes

about precedency, says John Chamberlain in another letter. Dear John

Chamberlain, where are there not such disputes? At the masque at

Whitehall he says, "a Puritan was flouted and abused, which was thought

unseemly, considering the state of the French Protestants." Let the

Marshal come over to Gov. John Carver's court and see one of our masques

there, if he wants to know about Puritans. "At Lord Doncaster's house

the feast cost three thousand pounds, beside three hundred pounds worth

of ambergris used in the cooking," nothing about that six thousand

ounces of gold. "The Ambassador had a long private interview with the

king; it is thought he proposed Mad. Henriette for the Prince. He left

with a present of a rich jewel. He requested liberation of all the

imprisoned priests in the three kingdoms, but the answer is not yet

given."

By the eleventh of January the embassy had gone, and Thomas Locke says

Cadenet "received a round answer about the Protestants." Let us hope it

was so, for it was nearly the last, as it was. Thomas Murray writes that

he "proposed a match with France,--a confederation against Spanish

power, and asked his Majesty to abandon the rebellious princes,--but he

refused unless they might have toleration." The Ambassador was followed

to Rochester for the debts of some of his train,--but got well home to

Paris and New Style.

And so he vanishes from English history.

His king made him Duke of Chaulnes and Peer of France, but his brother,

the favorite died soon after, either of a purple fever or of a broken

heart, and neither of them need trouble us more.

At the moment the whole embassy seemed a failure in England,--and so it

is spoken of by all the English writers of the time whom I have seen.

"There is a flaunting French Ambassador come over lately," says Howel,

"and I believe his errand is naught else but compliment.... He had an

audience two days since, where he, with his train of ruffling

long-haired Monsieurs, carried himself in such a light garb, that after

the audience the king asked my Lord Keeper Bacon what he thought of the

French Ambassador. He answered, that he was a tall, proper man. 'Aye,'

his Majesty replied, 'but what think you of his head-piece? Is he a

proper man for the office of an ambassador?' 'Sir,' said Bacon, 'tall

men are like houses of four or five stories, wherein commonly the

uppermost room is worst furnished.'"

Hard, this, on us poor six-footers. One need not turn to the biography

after this, to guess that the philosopher was five feet four.

I think there was a breeze, and a cold one, all the time, between the

embassy and the English courtiers. I could tell you a good many stories

to show this, but I would give them all for one anecdote of what Edward

Winslow said to Madam Carver on Christmas evening. They thought it all

naught because they did not know what would come of it. We do know.

And I wish you to observe, all the time, beloved reader, whom I press to

my heart for your steadiness in perusing so far, and to whom I would

give a jewel had I one worthy to give, in token of my consideration (how

you would like a Royalston beryl or an Attleboro topaz).[A] I wish you

to observe, I say, that on the Christmas tide, when the Forefathers

began New England, Charles and Henrietta were first proposed to each

other for that fatal union. Charles, who was to be Charles the First,

and Henrietta, who was to be mother of Charles the Second, and James the

Second. So this was the time, when were first proposed all the precious

intrigues and devisings, which led to Charles the Second, James the

Second, James the Third, so called, and our poor friend the Pretender.

Civil War--Revolution--1715--1745--Preston-Pans, Falkirk and

Culloden--all are in the dispatches Cadenet carries ashore at Dover,

while we are hewing our timbers at the side of the brook at Plymouth,

and making our contribution to Protestant America.

[A] Mrs. Hemans says they did not seek "bright jewels of the

mine," which was fortunate, as they would not have found

them. Attleboro is near Plymouth Rock, but its jewels are

not from mines. The beryls of Royalston are, but they are

far away. Other good mined jewels, I think, New England

has none. Her garnets are poor, and I have yet seen no

good amethysts.

On the one side Christmas is celebrated by fifty outcasts chopping wood

for their fires--and out of the celebration springs an empire. On the

other side it is celebrated by the _noblesse_ of two nations and the

pomp of two courts. And out of the celebration spring two civil wars,

the execution of one king and the exile of another, the downfall twice

repeated of the royal house, which came to the English throne under

fairer auspices than ever. The whole as we look at it is the tale of

ruin. Those are the only two Christmas celebrations of that year that I

have found anywhere written down!

You will not misunderstand the moral, dear reader, if, indeed, you

exist; if at this point there be any reader beside him who corrects the

proof! Sublime thought of the solemn silence in which these words may be

spoken! You will not misunderstand the moral. It is not that it is

better to work on Christmas than to play. It is not that masques turn

out ill, and that those who will not celebrate the great anniversaries

turn out well. God forbid!

It is that these men builded better than they knew, because they did

with all their heart and all their soul the best thing that they knew.

They loved Christ and feared God, and on Christmas day did their best to

express the love and the fear. And King James and Cadenet,--did they

love Christ and fear God? I do not know. But I do not believe, nor do

you, that the masque of the one, or the embassy of the other, expressed

the love, or the hope, or the faith of either!

So it was that John Carver and his men, trying to avoid the celebration

of the day, built better than they knew indeed, and, in their faith,

laid a corner-stone for an empire.

And James and Cadenet trying to serve themselves--forgetful of the

spirit of the day, as they pretended to honor it--were so successful

that they destroyed a dynasty.

There is moral enough for our truer Christmas holidays as 1867 leads in

the new-born sister.

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Extract from a private letter,--not intended for publication,--the

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"_Thanks for the book. I sat up nearly all night to read it, and think

it very charming.... I hope she will soon write again; for we need just

such simple, pure, and cheerful stories here in America, where even the

nursery songs are sensational, and the beautiful old books we used to

love are now called dull and slow. I shall sing its praises loud and

long, and set all my boys and girls to reading 'Off the Skelligs,' sure

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If I could reach so far, I should love to shake hands with Miss Ingelow,

and thank her heartily for this delightful book._"

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_From the London Athenaeum._

A collection of fugitive tales and sketches which we should have been

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_From the New York Tribune._

The large and increasing circle of juveniles who sit enchanted year in

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_Mrs. Hale, in Godey's Lady's Book._

These little stories are in every way worthy of the author of "Little

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original of Laurie, ever to be remembered by all "Aunt Jo's" readers.

_From the Providence Press._

Dear Aunt Jo! You are embalmed in the thoughts and loves of thousands of

little men and little women. Your scrap-bag is rich in its stores of

good things. Pray do not close and put it away quite yet.

This is Louisa Alcott's Christmas tribute to the young people, and it

is, like herself, _good_. In making selections, "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag"

must not be forgotten. There will be a vacant place where this little

volume is not.

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_From the Boston Daily Advertiser._

One rarely meets with three so thoroughly charming and satisfactory

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Their author seems to possess--and in a high degree--every one of the

very peculiar and varied characteristics which fit one to be a good

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for that is the word which the children understand best; and Mrs.

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Nevertheless we have not yet noted Mrs. O'Reilly's chief excellence as a

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one, and it is perfectly delivered by one only of our native writers of

children's books. That one is of course Miss Alcott. Her "Little Women"

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nearly so. We have other writers who approach Miss Alcott, more or less

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in the quality of her talent, that one hopes her next essay may be

absolutely successful in this regard.

_From the New York Tribune._

The pretty edition of Mrs. Robert O'Reilly's works, just issued by

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and wax to care for; though "Deborah's Drawer," with its graceful

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many. Our own preference is for "Daisy's Companions," and this for a

reason less comprehensible to children than to older people; namely,

that the story closes, leaving the characters in the midst of their

childish lives, and without hint of further fate or development.

There are few books for children which we can recommend so thoroughly

and so heartily as hers. And as one of our wise men has told us that

"there is a want of principle in making amusements for children dear,"

Messrs. Roberts Brothers deserve thanks for giving us these volumes in a

form at once so tasteful and so inexpensive.

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Transcriber's Notes:

Page numbering in the original goes from 39 to 39^1 through to 39^{14}

before recommencing the sequence from 40.

Variations in hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the

original publication. Changes to the original have been made as

follows:

Title Page

Comma changed to fullstop at the end of the line

_WITH ILLUSTRATION BY F. O. C. DARLEY_.

Page 19

polked to their hearts' content _changed to_

polkaed to their hearts' content

Page 39^{12}

Quotation mark removed from the end of the line

down and kisses her!

Page 48

Single quotation mark replaced by double before

"The star, the manger, and the Child!"

Page 60

Quotation mark added at the end of

the court, the camp, and the Argus office."

Page 72

Quotation mark added at the end of

What fun!"

Page 79

Quotation mark added before

"Can't you behave

Page 84

haled Bridget up five flights of stairs _changed to_

hauled Bridget up five flights of stairs

Page 98

docter says, maybe a shade _changed to_

doctor says, maybe a shade

Page 158

three or four regiments, thirteeen _changed to_

three or four regiments, thirteen

Page 208

words of their langauge _changed to_

words of their language

Page 225

And Mr. Sydner agreed with _changed to_

And Mr. Snyder agreed with

In the promotional pages at the end of the book:

A $ sign has been added to

670 pages. Price $1.75.

A fullstop has been added after the initial G in

A NURSERY RHYME BOOK. By CHRISTINA G.

A fullstop has been added after

of the Apostle of the Gentiles.

End of Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, by Edward E. Hale