have to keep the Christmas holiday in all the world at once! He has
been the children’s own saint, you know, ever since he ceased to be
a bishop in far-away Asia Minor. The oldest story we hear of him is
that once three little boys on their way to school at Athens stopped
over night at an inn, of which the innkeeper was also a butcher, and
a robber besides. This wicked man killed the boys in the night and
threw their bodies into his salting tub. But the very next morning
the saint walked in and asked for them, for though he was only
Bishop Nicholas then, he knew all about it in some wonderful way.
The trembling butcher took him out to the pork barrel; the saint
struck the edge of it sharply with his staff and called the boys by
name. Out jumped the three little pickles all alive, and of course
the wicked butcher was punished and Nicholas became the school-boys’
saint.
There is also a story that one night Bishop Nicholas wished to
carry a purse of gold to a worthy nobleman who was so proud and so
unwilling to have his poverty noticed that it was a difficult matter
to make the gift without hurting his feelings. When the house was
reached the old noble was to be seen through the window fast asleep
by the fire, and without disturbing him good St. Nicholas climbed
to the top of the wide chimney and dropped the purse, intending it
to fall on the hearth. But as the old man’s daughter had hung her
father’s stockings by the fire to dry, it chanced to fall into one of
them. There it was found the next day and most opportunely provided
a marriage portion for the oldest daughter. The story goes on to say
that after that whenever one of the noble’s daughters was of marrying
age he hung up a stocking,—and St. Nicholas’s gift was never lacking.
They say that all this happened early in December, and in some
countries December 6 is the great day for the children. In Holland,
on St. Nicholas Eve, December 5, the children go out with their
parents to see the brilliantly decorated shops, and in the doorways
of many of them stands the saint, gorgeously dressed and handing to
every child who passes a tiny toy or a sweet. No wonder the good
saint must needs go to the seashore for a day before his next heavy
job of being Santa Claus to all America on the twenty-fifth,—to say
nothing of merry England!
At any rate, we find that in a certain seaport of southern Italy it
is the sailors’ custom on December 6 to take the image of the saint
from the beautiful church of St. Nicholas and, with a long procession
of boats, carry it far out to sea. Toward nightfall they return and
in the glory of the gold and crimson sunset are met on landing by
all the townspeople. Hundreds of quaintly dressed pilgrims from the
country round join the crowd that welcomes the home-coming saint with
songs, bonfires, and torches, and brings him back to his own place.
[Illustration:
_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York_
AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS TREE]
His next appearance is in those countries where the Greek Church is
the national religion. Their Day of St. Nicholas, which is December 6
elsewhere, comes upon what we should call December 19, and the saint
is supposed to bring the winter with him. On the frozen river by
Peter’s city it is celebrated with a skating and sleighing carnival.
Lines of track are laid down on the ice like small-sized street-car
lines. Tiny cars run here and there along them, back and forth from
the smooth ice-fields roped off for sleigh races or skating contests.
Perhaps it was in that cold country he found the high cap, the furs,
and the coat he wears for his hard work of chimney scrambling and
running the reindeer express on the Christmas Eve we know.
Once more after his strenuous American holiday week is over the
hard-worked saint appears again. From the little whitewashed villages
of Greece north to ice-bound Archangel and east even to Vladivostok
the saint swings wearily on thousands of wax-lighted Christmas trees
(their Christmas Eve comes, you must remember, thirteen days after
ours). But he is a sadly wasted saint by this time—a mere waxen image
a few inches long—able only to dance a little at the tip of a branch
of a Christmas tree, and that is all he is asked to do. But in some
houses you would find him with a queer cotton tassel in the top of
his cap, and what happens then is this: some boy or girl comes by,
touches his cotton tassel into flame from a lighted taper, and he
burns and melts and grows shorter as if he were just an ordinary wax
candle until he is all gone.
But in spite of that, in the next December, when the little children
in Holland beg their mothers to take them out to see the lighted
shops, there he is again with his bag of sweets. And if you want to
know what happens to him after that you will only have to read this
story over again.
The Befana Fair in Rome
In Rome the season of making gifts corresponding to our Christmas
comes twelve days later, and the gift-bringer would not be called
Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas, but Befana, a gruff little old woman.
Perhaps she is in some way connected with the old woman of whom the
legend is told that she was sweeping out her house when the Three
Kings rode by with gifts for the infant Christ. “Come,” they said,
“and see the _Bambin Gesù_.” She said she would when she had finished
her sweeping. But though she took her gifts and started, she was too
late then, of course, so she gave the presents to good children and
bits of charcoal to those who had been naughty. The name is really a
short form of Epifania, the Feast of Epiphany, and it is given both
to the gift-bringer and to one of the most extraordinary popular
festivals ever invented to amuse children and to turn grown people
into children. It is a night fair opened every Eve of Epiphany in the
great square called Piazza Navona, where long, long ago one of the
Roman emperors, Domitian, once had his race-course. In the days just
after Christmas workmen begin to bring out from queer underground
storerooms all the lumber and other material needed for setting up
booths and decorating the square for the Befana. From year to year it
lies somewhere, ready for use at a moment’s notice, and when needed
it is suddenly produced without confusion, marked and numbered, all
ready to be put together and regilded, or repainted, or hung with
acres of bright-colored draperies. The Romans are masters of the
art of managing public displays and change the empty, windy square
as if by magic suddenly into a great oval street of booths enclosing
the whole circus-shaped space. At dark on the Eve of the Epiphany
the Befana begins. The hundreds of booths are choked with toys, and
gleam with thousands of little lights. In the open spaces the moving
crowd of children, parents, and grandparents grows closer and closer
between sunset and midnight, and every one is splitting the air with
some sort of whistle, horn, or trumpet. Noise is the chief need of
a successful Befana, and the first thing every one buys who comes
must be a tin horn or one of the grotesque little figures made of
painted clay, always with a whistle in some part of it. Their very
ugliness is attractive, and they are daubed with a kind of bright
and harmless paint of which every Roman child remembers the taste
so long as he lives. Round and round the crowd moves in a stream of
young, old, and middle-aged, all blowing horns and whistles with a
ridiculously solemn persistency, bent on making all the noise it is
possible to get out of one small toy. Now and then they stop to buy
at some booth, or to greet a friend; one group attacks another with a
specially strong burst of noise almost too much to stand when shrill
whistles are brought close to ears, and there are shouts of laughter
when the party which can make the most hideous noise drives off the
other half deaf from the din.
In one long-remembered year, in the old English Protestant church
about a mile away, the organ was rebuilt and the organist, a
practical Anglo-Saxon, had the useless old pipes sold at the night
fair for the benefit of the church. The braying of the high cracked
reeds was frightful and never to be forgotten.
Thousands upon thousands of people throng the square; even under the
clear winter sky it is not cold; the flaring, smoking, wind-blown
torches throw strange shadows down upon the old women who behind
the booths sit warming their skinny hands over earthen pots of
glowing coals. They look on without a smile on their wrinkled faces
while their sons and daughters sell little old women of clay, the
very images of their mothers, to passing customers. And there is no
confusion, no accident, no trouble, there are no drunken men and no
pickpockets. But Romans are not like other people.
The Golden Carol
(Of Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspar, the Three Kings.)
We saw the light shine out a-far,
On Christmas in the morning,
And straight we knew Christ’s Star it was,
Bright beaming in the morning.
Then did we fall on bended knee,
On Christmas in the morning,
And prais’d the Lord, who’d let us see
His glory at its dawning.
Oh! ever thought be of His Name,
On Christmas in the morning,
[Illustration:
_Memling_
THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI]
Who bore for us both grief and shame,
Afflictions sharpest scorning.
And may we die (when death shall come),
On Christmas in the morning,
And see in heav’n, our glorious home,
The Star of Christmas morning.
Babouscka
It was the night the dear Christ Child came to Bethlehem. In a
country far away from Him, an old, old woman named Babouscka sat
in her snug little house by her warm fire. The wind was drifting
the snow outside and howling down the chimney, but it only made
Babouscka’s fire burn more brightly.
“How glad I am that I may stay indoors!” said Babouscka, holding her
hands out to the bright blaze.
But suddenly she heard a loud rap at her door. She opened it, and her
candle shone on three old men standing outside in the snow. Their
beards were as white as the snow, and so long that they reached the
ground. Their eyes shone kindly in the light of Babouscka’s candle,
and their arms were full of precious things—boxes of jewels, and
sweet-smelling oils, and ointments.
“We have travelled far, Babouscka,” they said, “and we stop to tell
you of the Baby Prince born this night in Bethlehem. He comes to
rule the world and teach all men to be loving and true. We carry Him
gifts. Come with us, Babouscka!”
But Babouscka looked at the driving snow, and then inside at her cozy
room and the crackling fire. “It is too late for me to go with you,
good sirs,” she said, “the weather is too cold.” She went inside
again and shut the door, and the old men journeyed on to Bethlehem
without her. But as Babouscka sat by her fire, rocking, she began to
think about the little Christ Child, for she loved all babies.
“To-morrow I will go to find Him,” she said; “to-morrow, when it is
light, and I will carry Him some toys.”
So when it was morning Babouscka put on her long cloak, and took her
staff, and filled her basket with the pretty things a baby would
like, gold balls, and wooden toys, and strings of silver cobwebs—and
she set out to find the Christ Child.
But, oh! Babouscka had forgotten to ask the three old men the road to
Bethlehem, and they had travelled so far through the night that she
could not overtake them. Up and down the roads she hurried, through
woods and fields and towns, saying to whomsoever she met: “I go to
find the Christ Child. Where does He lie? I bring some pretty toys
for His sake.”
But no one could tell her the way to go, and they all said, “Farther
on, Babouscka, farther on.” So she travelled on, and on, and on for
years and years—but she never found the little Christ Child.
They say that old Babouscka is travelling still, looking for Him.
When it comes Christmas Eve, and the children are lying fast asleep,
Babouscka comes softly through the snowy fields and towns, wrapped in
her long cloak and carrying her basket on her arm. With her staff
she raps gently at the doors and goes inside and holds her candle
close to the little children’s faces.
“Is He here?” she asks. “Is the little Christ Child here?” And then
she turns sorrowfully away again, crying, “Farther on, farther on.”
But before she leaves she takes a toy from her basket and lays it
beside the pillow for a Christmas gift. “For His sake,” she says
softly and then hurries on through the years and forever in search of
the little Christ Child.
The Three Kings
If you had been a child in Provence when Mistral was a boy, you
might perhaps have joined the excited party of curly-headed boys and
fair-haired girls in hoods and clacking wooden shoes who went with
him to meet the Three Kings, the Wise Men from the East, coming to
worship the Holy Child on the night before Epiphany. Mistral told of
it long afterwards in this way:—
With hearts beating and eyes bright we started forth on the road to
Arles, bearing our gifts of welcome, cakes for the Kings, figs for
the boy pages, sweet hay for the tired camels. The wind blew cold,
the robin and wren hopped shivering in the branches of the leafless
trees. The fields were empty except for perhaps an old woman picking
up sticks, or a ragged snail-gatherer under the hedge.
“Where are you going so late, my little ones?” some one would ask.
“We go to meet the Kings,” we said, singing and laughing, sliding and
running along the white, wind-swept road. But the daylight faded, the
black, pointed cypress trees hid the bell-tower of Maillane, and the
long, white road stretched away empty.... Then we met a shepherd, his
long, brown cloak held tight around him.
“Have you seen the Kings? Are they still a long way off?”
“Ah! the Kings! You should see them soon. They are not so far away.”
Then we set off running again, with our gifts for the Kings and
the pages, and handfuls of hay for the camels. The bravest of us
flagged a little as a great cloud over the mountain hid the sun, when
suddenly a flash of golden splendor and a glory of yellow and crimson
shone just where the white road curved from behind the mountain.
“The Kings! The Kings! See their mantles! See the banners! They are
coming.”
And so we stood amazed; but instead of growing brighter as if the
Kings were coming nearer, the glory faded with the sunset and we
found ourselves alone in the dark highway.
“Which way did the Kings go?”
“They have gone behind the mountain.”
[Illustration:
_Bouguereau_
ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS]
The white owls hooted, the wind was chill, and night-shadows
frightened us; so close together with backward glances we hurried
toward the village again. The hay we threw away, but the cakes we
had brought to give the Kings and the figs for the boy pages—they
were comforting. And at home our mothers asked us: “Well, did you see
them?”
“Only a long way off. They went behind the mountain.”
“But what road did you take?”
“The road to Arles.”
“Ah, my poor lambs—but the Kings never come by that road. They come
from the East—you should have taken the Roman road. Ah, the beautiful
sight when they entered Maillane! the banners and trumpets! the pages
leading the camels! But what a show! Now they are gone to the church
to offer their adoration. After supper you shall go and see them.”
Suppers were swallowed quickly, mine at my grandmother’s, and then
we all ran to the church. Sure enough, high above the manger hung
the glittering star, and on bended knees before the Holy Child were
the Three Kings—Gaspar, in a crimson cloak, with gifts of gold;
Melchior, in yellow, offering incense; and Balthasar, in a mantle
blue, presenting a vase of myrrh. How reverently we admired the gayly
dressed pages who carried the Kings’ long trains, and the great
camels whose heads and humps rose high above St. Joseph’s ass and the
oxen!...
Many a time since those days I have been on the Arles road at this
season when the robin and wren haunt the hawthorne hedges. The
snail-gatherer still searches under the hedge and the owls hoot in
the winter evening. But I see no more in the glory of the sunset
clouds the banners of the Kings.
“Which way did they go, the Kings?”
“Behind the mountain.”
Christmas Peace
That sweetly prophetic evening silence, before the great feast of
Good-Will, does not come over everything each year, even in a lonely
cottage on an abandoned farm in Connecticut, than which you cannot
possibly imagine anything more silent or more remote from the noise
of the world. Sometimes it rains in torrents just on that night,
sometimes it blows a raging gale that twists the leafless birches and
elms and hickory trees like dry grass and bends the dark firs and
spruces as if they were feathers, and you can hardly be heard unless
you shout, for the howling and screaming and whistling of the blast.
But now and then, once in four or five years perhaps, the feathery
snow lies a foot deep, fresh-fallen, on the still country side and
in the woods; and the waxing moon sheds her large light on all,
and Nature holds her breath to wait for the happy day and tries to
sleep, but cannot from sheer happiness and peace. Indoors, the fire
is glowing on the wide hearth, a great bed of coals that will last
all night and be enough, because it is not bitter weather, but only
cold and clear and still, as it should be; or if there is only a poor
stove, the iron door is open and a comfortable, cheery red light
shines out from within upon the battered iron plate and the wooden
floor beyond; and the older people sit around it, not saying much,
and thinking with their hearts rather than with their heads; but
small boys and girls know that interesting things have been happening
in the kitchen all the afternoon, and are rather glad that the
supper was not very good, because there will be more room for good
things to-morrow; and the grown-ups and the children have made up any
little differences of opinion they may have had before supper time,
because Good-Will must reign, and reign alone, like Alexander; so
that there is nothing at all to regret, and nothing hurts anybody any
more, and they are all happy in just waiting for King Christmas to
open the door softly and make them all great people in his kingdom.
But if it is the right sort of house, he is already looking in
through the window, to be sure that every one is all ready for him,
and that nothing has been forgotten.
[Illustration: Decoration]
[Illustration: Decoration]
The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan
books for children
THE CHILDREN’S PLEASURE BOOK SERIES
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF ART
By MISS A. E. CONWAY and SIR MARTIN CONWAY.
With 16 full-page illustrations in color from public and private
galleries.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
An entertaining and attractive volume. The paintings reproduced
have been chosen because of their undoubted appeal to young minds.
CHILD’S WORLD IN PICTURES
By CLOTILDE VON WYSS.
With 32 full-page illustrations in color and 30 in black and white.
Dec. boards, 12mo, $.75 net; by mail $.85.
Story-like descriptions, illustrated by pictures of life in
far-away and unknown lands, certain to appeal to a child’s vivid
imagination.
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF STARS
By G. E. MITTON.
With 11 full-page illustrations in color and other illustrations.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
A capital introduction to astronomy written in a most pleasing
manner for children’s comprehension and interest and well
illustrated.
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF GARDENING
MRS. ALFRED SIDGWICK and MRS. PAYNTER.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Mrs. Cayley-Robinson.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
Tells the juvenile reader how to make his garden grow. It is
written from a child’s point of view and supplies the information a
child can use.
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF CELTIC STORIES
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Allan Stewart.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
A collection of stories, some of them strange and weird, but quite
as fascinating as any of the better known fairy tales. They are
retold in words as near the original as possible.
CHILDREN’S TALES FROM SCOTTISH BALLADS
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Allan Stewart.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
Seventeen of the most famous Scottish ballads retold in simple
English for children.
CHILDREN’S TALES OF ENGLISH MINSTERS
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by various artists.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail, $2.15. Also separately:
Canterbury, Durham, Ely, Lincoln, St. Albans, St. Paul’s, York. Each
with a colored illustration, 50 cents net; by mail 55 cents.
Stories of saints, monarchs, statesmen and warriors connected with
the founding of ten of the best known English cathedrals.
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF LONDON
By G. E. MITTON.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by John Williamson.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
“A book as thoroughly charming as it is variously instructive ...
fitted to kindle in the imagination of a child a lively sense
of what great London is, as also of what it has been.”—_Chicago
Tribune._
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF EDINBURGH
By ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Allan Stewart.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
In simple language Miss Grierson writes about the modern interests
of the city.
THE BOOK OF THE RAILWAY
By G. E. MITTON.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Allan Stewart.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00; by mail $2.15.
There is nothing technical in it; it is written so clearly that a
young child can understand it and yet grown up children will find a
great deal that is entirely new to them.
THE ADVENTURES OF PUNCH
By ASCOTT R. HOPE.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Stephen Baghot De La
Bere.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
A book full of thrilling experiences and illustrated with lively
color pictures. It will hold the attention of boy or girl from the
first to the last word.
THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
By JOHN BUNYAN.
With 8 full-page illustrations in color by Gertrude D. Hammond.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
This great allegory illustrated with pictures which are remarkable
for the manner in which they portray the spirit of Bunyan’s famous
text.
WILLIAM TELL TOLD AGAIN
By P. G. WODEHOUSE.
With 16 full-page illustrations in color by Philip Dadd.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
Accompanying the prose story and supplementing the pictures are
delightfully humorous verses revealing a lighter side to the story.
THE ADVENTURES OF DON QUIXOTE
By MIGUEL DE CERVANTES.
Translated and abridged by Dominick Daly.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Stephen Baghot De La
Bere.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
A selection of the more interesting and amusing parts of Cervantes’
great composition.
THE KING WHO NEVER DIED
By DOROTHY SENIOR.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $1.50.
BEASTS AND BIRDS
By CLOTILDE VON WYSS.
With 55 illustrations, of which 31 are in color.
Dec. boards, 8vo, 75 cents net.
A nature book for boys and girls.
RED CAP ADVENTURES
By S. R. CROCKETT.
With 16 full-page illustrations in color by Allan Stewart.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $1.75.
A collection of nineteen stories founded upon Sir Walter Scott’s
“Ivanhoe,” “Fortunes of Nigel,” “Quentin Durward,” and “The Pirate.”
RED CAP TALES
By S. R. CROCKETT.
With 16 full-page illustrations in color by Allan Stewart.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.20.
Here Mr. Crockett adapts “Waverley,” “Rob Roy,” “Guy Mannering,”
and “The Antiquary” for the benefit of young readers.
ADVENTURES IN MANY LANDS NORTH AMERICA
By ASCOTT R. HOPE.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by Henry Sandham.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $1.75
A collection of personal narratives of adventure, remarkable not
only for their own interest, but because they represent notable
phases of American life.
THE BULL OF THE KRAAL
By DUDLEY KIDD.
With 12 full-page illustrations in color by A. M. Goodall.
Dec. cloth, 12mo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
A story of the exciting adventures of a delightful little Kafir
Prince and a number of his small, black friends.
GOD’S LANTERN BEARERS
By REV. R. C. GILLIE.
With 32 full-page illustrations in black and white by John Sargent
and others.
Dec. cloth, 8vo, $2.00 net; by mail $2.15.
A retelling of certain Bible stories in the language of children,
each illustrated by photogravures of ideal portraits. The lantern
bearers are holy men who, in each age, passed on the light of
heavenly truth to those beyond them.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Transcriber’s Notes