quite aloof, the older and taller ones looking stiffly over the heads
of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great
gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little
saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding
their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats
decorously, sat up so silent and proper.
So unlike the small birches and maples that chattered incessantly,
wagging their giddy heads, and playing tag with the butterflies in the
sunshine all the day long!
"How tiresome those stupid old pines are! No expression, no animation.
So lofty and so exclusive, and forever grumbling to each other in
their hoarse old Scandinavian, which it gives one the croup even to
listen to! Of what possible use _can_ they be?"
This was what the maple said to the birch one day when the Summer and
her patience with her sombre neighbor were on the wane--one day when
there was a gleam of golden pumpkins in the tawny corn stubble beyond
the wood, and the purpling grapes hung ripening over the old stone
wall that lay between, and the maple had brightened its summer dress
with a gay little leaf set here and there in its shining folds.
The birch agreed with the maple about the pines, and the maple went
glibly on.
"I've ordered my autumn dresses--a different one for each day in the
week. Just think of those horrid pines never altering the fashion of
their stiff old plaiting."
"We shall not be obliged to remain in this dull place much longer,"
said the tall pines loftily to each other, looking quite over the
heads of the maple and the birch. "We shall soon be crossing the
ocean, and then our lives will have just begun. We simply vegetate
here."
"Ho, ho!" laughed the maple and the birch behind their fluttering
green fans, pretending to be greatly amused at what the west wind was
saying to them.
Now, though the trees spoke a different language, yet each understood
perfectly well what the other said; so their rudeness was quite
inexcusable.
When the summer was ended, the maple began to put on her gorgeous
autumn dresses; but the pines looked much at the sky, and paid little
heed to the maple. The other trees on the hill-side, quite faded with
their summer gayeties, looked on languidly in the still autumn days at
the maple's brilliant toilets.
Soon the cold rains swept in from the sea, blurring the wood vistas;
and when they were gone, the frost came in the midnight, with its
unwelcome message, and later the snow lay white above all the faded
and fallen crimson and gold of the maple and the tarnished silver of
the birch.
All the trees, brown and bare now, moaned in the wintry wind--all but
the tall pines, and they were crossing the ocean; their lives had
begun. The little saplings remained behind, but with their heads
perked stiffly up above the snow; they had the air of expecting
somebody.
They were not disappointed. One sunny morning, a boy and a girl came
singing through the wood paths, each in a pair of high-topped boots,
and each in a faded and closely-buttoned coat, the girl with a blue
hood pulled over her rosy face, and the boy with a fur cap closely
tied about his ears by a red comforter. The two drew a hand-sled, and
peered about under the tall trunks as they went stamping through the
deep snow. How they shouted as they spied the little pine trees
perking up their heads! How they tossed aside the snow, and worked
away with their jackknives, hacking at the little pine trees till they
had cut them all down, all ready to be piled up on their hand-sled.
"Where are you going?" asked the giddy little birch of the pines,
peeping out from a small window in her snow-house. Her nose was
purple, and her fingers stiff with cold; but down under the earth her
feet were warm, and that was pleasant, at any rate.
"It is of no consequence where," said the pines, in their grimmest
Scandinavian.
The birch simply said, "O!" and drew in her little purple nose, hoping
heartily they were all going to be burned, as that would be a good end
and riddance of them.
But the little pines were not going to be burned; they were going away
to the city that lay misty and still beyond the frozen meadows.
Stretched out stiffly on the hand-sled, they were jostled along out
through the wood, over the frozen turnpike, and across the mill-dam to
Boston.
They alighted at the Boylston Market, and were ranged in a row against
the dark brick wall.
"How much happens in a very short time!" they said to each other; "all
those gaudy, chattering trees left without a leaf to cover them, our
own friends all gone on their travels, and we here in the city,
wrapped in our warm winter furs."
It was the Christmas week. The shop windows were gay with toys and
gorgeous Christmas offerings; the shop doors were opening and shutting
on the crowd that came and went through them. A bustling throng of
people passed incessantly up and down the narrow sidewalks, and
carriages of all descriptions blocked the crossings, or drove
recklessly over the frozen pavement.
The old woman in the quilted black hood and shaggy cape, who had
charge of the little pine trees, drove a brisk trade that day in her
wreaths and holly; but though many people stopped to admire the little
pines, and even to ask their price, no purchaser had yet appeared for
them.
The old dame was rubbing her mittened hands briskly together, and
mumbling in a displeased way at the pine trees, when a carriage drew
suddenly up at the curbstone, and out sprang a little girl.
"See, papa, how lovely! So green, and fresh, and thick!" she said,
pointing to the row of pines.
A bargain was concluded in a trice. The money was dropped into the
eager, outstretched mitten of the old woman, and a little Christmas
tree dragged over the sidewalk, and set up in the buggy.
"We must have some of these lower branches cut off; they are in the
way," said papa.
"Hev a knife, sir?" shouted a ragged little fellow, whipping a rusty
old knife out of his pocket.
"Please, sir, lemme cut it for you. Say, where?" he cried, laying hold
of the pine, as the gentleman in the buggy pointed to him where to
cut.
The lower branches being trimmed to the gentleman's satisfaction, the
Christmas tree, leaning comfortably against the crimson afghan, was
soon on its way to Meadow Home, while its lower branches and some
jingling small coin remained in the hands of the gaping urchin on the
curbstone.
"This here's luck--fust-rate luck," remarked the small boy, stamping
his feet, and staring stupidly after the retreating buggy wheels.
"Out of the way there!" growled a man in a farmer's frock, lifting a
pile of frozen turkeys from a wagon.
The boy ducked aside, his ragged little trousers fluttering in the
wind. Then he sat down on the market steps to count his coin.
"Hi! twenty-five cents. There's a mutton stew and onions for you and
your folks a Christmas, Mike Slattery, and all this jolly green stuff
thrown in free gratis. That chap was a gen'leman, and no mistake.
Won't Winnie hop when she sees me a-h'isting of these here over our
stairs, and she a-blowin' at me for a week to bring her some sich, and
me niver seein' nary a chance at 'em 'cept stealin's, which is wot
this here feller ain't up to no ways whatsomever. No, _sir_. Hi!"
Mike waved his Christmas boughs aloft in great glee.
An old gentleman with gold-headed cane and spectacles was going up the
steps of the market, followed by a beautiful black-and-white setter.
The playful dog sprang at the green branches. Mike held on to them
stoutly. The dog suddenly let go of them, and bounded away, while Mike
rolled over and over to the foot of the steps, clutching tightly the
pine boughs.
"You'll ketch it," he muttered, setting his teeth hard together behind
his white lips, and trying in vain to scramble up.
"Yer hurt, bub?" asked a wrinkled old apple woman, turning round on
her three-legged stool, and thrusting her nose inquiringly out of the
folds of the old brown shawl, which was wrapped around her head.
"You bet I be!" whimpered Mike, pointing forlornly with his one
unoccupied finger to his bruised ankle.
"Been playin' pitch-pennies, yer mis'ble young 'un!" grinned a tall
boy, strolling by with his hands in his pockets, and his ferret eyes
on the sharp lookout for mischief.
In a twinkling he swooped up Mike's small coin, which had rattled to
the pavement, and vanished with them in a struggling tangle of horse
cars and omnibuses before Mike finished his desperate yell of, "Gim me
'um."
By this time a crowd had gathered about the prostrate Mike, who,
faint with pain, was at last lifted into the chaise of a kind-hearted
doctor, who was passing, and carried to his house in Bone Court.
There we will leave Mike for a while, and look after the little pine
tree on its way to Meadow Home.
Such a group of round, rosy faces as were on the watch for it in the
great bay window of Meadow Home, peering out in the red sunset,
straining their eyes in the dim twilight, and peering still more
persistently as the stars came out through the gathering darkness!
The fire danced in the grate, and the shadows danced on the wall, and
the four little heads danced more and more impatiently in the window
pane, as the cold winter night settled down on the world outside of
Meadow Home.
"They're run away with and threw out. What will you bet, Mab?" shouted
Will, turning away from the window in disgust, and indulging in a
double somerset.
"_Thrown_, Will," corrected Mabel, just now more indignant with his
grammar than his slang.
Mabel began to clear with her sleeve an unblurred peep through the
pane, and then pressed her nose hard against the glass.
"It's _my_ opinion," she said, with great pompousness, "that the
Christmas trees are all sold. I told Ely not to put off buying till
to-day. Don't you remember, Alice? And so papa is just coming home
without them."
Alice poh-pohed. Alice was sitting up stiffly at a table by the fire,
stuffing a pin-cushion, assisted, or, more properly, impeded, by her
small brother Chrissy, who had offered his services, and would not
listen to Alice's nay. Chrissy was not handsome in any light, but by
the flickering firelight he looked like a little ogre. He sat
hunched up in his chair, his knees drawn up to his nose, the sharp end
of his tongue curling out of the corner of his mouth, and his small
eyes actually crossed in the earnestness of his work, which consisted
in snatching chances at the stuffing with a table-spoon and a cup of
bran.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE SLATTERYS.]
"I hear them," exclaimed Mabel, springing down from the window, her
nose a spectacle.
Now away down stairs flew all the four, who had been wriggling for an
hour in the bay window.
"Shut the door, Chrissy," nodded the dignified Alice to Chrissy, whose
eyes had marvellously uncrossed, and whose tongue had disappeared at
Mabel's announcement. Chrissy drew down his knees, and obeyed. "Spoon
up the bran you spilled, Chrissy," directed Alice, calmly stitching at
her pin-cushion.
The reluctant Chrissy's obedience was less of a success this time. The
noise of a great commotion in the hall below reached the quiet
chamber. Chrissy, with his face twisted inquiringly first over one
shoulder and then over the other, spooned at random.
The sounds came nearer. Through the hurrying of eager feet and the
clamor of glad voices was a tap-tapping on the wainscot and a thumping
on the oaken stairs.
"May be it's St. Nicholas?" questioned Chrissy, spooning very
unsteadily, his eyes and his ears wide open.
"No; it isn't time for him. He's doing up his pack now, and they are
harnessing his reindeer."
"Who? Where?"
The door burst open, and in tumbled four children and the little pine
tree. Chrissy darted forward, shrieking with delight, and fell
headlong among the family group.
"What a pretty pine!" said Alice, calmly locking up the pin-cushion
in her work-box.
Now Ely, still in her fur cap and sack, rushed in excitedly among her
struggling brothers and sisters, and rescued the pine tree.
"Sitting up so piminy there, Alice Eliot, your two hands folded, and
the beautiful Christmas tree just going to destruction, with those
four wretched little thunderbolts pitching into it!"
Ely was purple with wrath.
The four little Eliots were on their feet again in a trice, giggling
and nudging each other behind the excited Ely.
"It's a truly lovely pine," remarked Alice, composedly, shaking some
bran from her skirt.
"You might have said so, if you had gone round looking for them in the
freezing cold, as I did, and then couldn't find one fit to be seen,
except--"
"Alice, didn't I tell her so?" interrupted Mabel, pulling Chrissy's
fat fingers away from Ely's pocket just as they were about to grasp
the protruding heels of a little dancing jack.
Alice now lighted the gas, Ely set the pretty pine tree carefully
against the wall, and the four little Eliots danced hand in hand
frantically about it.
Then Alice, and Mabel, and Ely went up close to the fender, and
whispered together about the presents Ely had brought home to put in
the children's stockings, and Mabel helped Ely empty her great
stuffed-out pocket; and the fire laughed through the bars of the grate
to see the parcels that came forth.
By and by Mabel and Ely took the pine tree carefully down stairs into
a beautiful room, and Alice came close behind them with a great
covered basket. The four little Eliots followed noisily, striving to
peep under the basket covers; but Ely thrust them all out again into
the hall, and locked the door upon them.
Now began the Christmas adorning of the little pine tree. Such
beautiful things as were hung upon it, and folded about it, and
festooned around it!
"How charming to be a pine!" murmured the little tree, with its head
among the frescoed cherubs on the ceiling.
"Where are you, Mabel Eliot? Light up the burners now," commanded Ely
from the top of a step-ladder.
Ely crept out from under the green baize around the foot of the pine
tree, two pins in her mouth, a crimson smoking-cap on her dishevelled
head, and a pair of large-flowered toilet slippers drawn over her
hands.
"I crawled in behind there to see if there mightn't be a place
somewhere for these," explained Ely, hastening for the torch, and
proceeding to light up.
The pine tree now saw itself reflected in the great mirror opposite,
and echoed the "splendid" of the three girls, who clapped their hands
at the gorgeous effect. Then the lights were put out. The silver key
was turned in the door again, and the girls went away, leaving the
pine tree in darkness indeed.
The four small Eliots, after pinning up their stockings by the
chimney, seated themselves in their night-gowns on the hearth-rug, and
talked over St. Nicholas before they got into bed. Each agreed to wake
the others if he "should just but catch Santa Claus coming down the
chimney."
Chrissy, squinting up his eyes till nothing but two little lines of
black lashes were visible, was sure "he should catch him; O, yes, he
should."
So they all climbed sleepily into bed, pinning their faith on Chrissy.
The night darkened and deepened, the stars moving on in a grand
procession. Somewhere about midnight St. Nicholas was off on his ride,
galloping over the roof-tops, and knocking at every chimney-top that
had a knocker, just getting through at day dawn with the deal he had
to do. The "eight tiny reindeer" had barely trotted him out of sight,
when thousands of little children in thousands of homes began hopping
out of bed to look in their stockings.
The Christmas morning was breaking in joy and gladness, as if the dear
Christ Child of eighteen hundred years ago were newly born that day.
Little children, and old men, and maidens waked to give good gifts and
greetings to each other, remembering whom the good Father in heaven
had given to them on that first glad Christmas morn.
In an attic in Bone Court, Mike Slattery, wildly staring about him,
bolted up in bed, waked by big Winnie, and little Pat, and Jimmy
roaring "Merry Christmas" in his ears.
"Oop, Mike, an' tak' a look at Winnie's Christmas fixin's foreninst
yer two eyes," piped Jimmy, flapping the little breeches he was too
excited to put on at the little pine branches stuck up thickly in the
window.
"Isn't yer fut that better ye might hobble up to see what the good
gintleman--him as brought ye home--left behind for yees and us
arl--the Christmas things, ye'll mind?" inquired Winnie, combing her
tangled auburn locks, and stooping compassionately over Mike.
"There's the big burhd for yees," cackled little Pat, staggering up to
the bedside with a goose hugged to his bosom.
"Hooray!" cried Mike, swinging his pillow; "that thafe of a chap
didn't do us out of our Christmas dinner, thin. Here's a go beyant
mutton and onions."
"Blissid be thim as saysonably remimbers the poor," sniffed Mrs.
Slattery, who was down on her hands and knees washing up the broken
bit of hearth under the stove.
"That's so," chimed in the little Slatterys; and then they all fell
again to admiring the goose.
The sun had climbed a long way up the sky, and was just looking in
through the pine branches in the Slatterys' window, when a little
golden head, surmounted by a blue velvet hat, looked in through the
Slatterys' door.
"Merry Christmas. May I come in?"
Pat looked at Jim, and Jim looked at Mike, and all three,
open-mouthed, looked at the little golden head in the doorway.
"I just came in to bring you some pretty story books of mine, and a
cap of brother Jack's, and a nice new pair of shoes for Mike. How do
you do, Mike, this morning? Papa--he's the doctor who brought you
home, Mike--is coming soon to see you."
She had emptied her little leathern bag, laid down her gifts on a
chair, and vanished before Winnie got up the stairs from the
wood-house, or Mrs. Slattery, in the closet, had finished skewering up
the goose, or a single little Slattery had found a word to say.
I cannot stay to tell you about the Slatterys' Christmas dinner, and
Mike perched up at the table, with brother Jack's cap on his head, and
the new pair of shoes on the floor by his side. I have just time to
stop a minute at Meadow Home, where a little golden head, with a
little blue velvet hat tilted atop, flits in before me at the great
hall door. As I went quickly through the holly and under the wreaths,
a little voice, in wheedling tones, called from the gallery above,--
"Stay to dine to dinner?"
At the same time a small dancing jack, dangling from somewhere
overhead, caught by his hands and feet in my chignon, as if striving
to pull me up. Ah, naughty Chrissy!
Chrissy clapped his hands in delight, and then dropping the string of
the little jack, ran away swiftly to hide.
"Do stay to dine, aunt Clara," begged Mabel, and Alice, and Ely, all
three springing forward at once to disengage the jumping jack from my
hair.
"Ah, do, Miss Clara; I've something to tell you about a little boy I
saw this morning," pleaded little golden-head, peering through an
evergreen arch. "Do stay and see the Christmas tree lighted after
dinner," besought all four, gathering closely around me.
But aunt Clara was engaged to dine at the square old house over the
way, with the dear old lady who could not see the pine wreaths that
made her old-fashioned parlor so sweet with their resinous, balmy
fragrance.
"They remind me of the times when my girls and boys were all about me
so gay and happy, and the old house resounded with their 'Merry
Christmas.' 'Tis many a year now, dear Clara, since there was a merry
Christmas here; but happy Christmases there have been, thank God, not
a few. A happy Christmas, dear, to you, and thanks for brightening the
day for me," said the old lady, with a gentle sigh, as I placed her at
the quiet table.
A merry, merry Christmas to all the little "Merrys" who read this
story. Do not forget that there are homes where live forlorn little
Mikes and Jimmys, whom you can make glad in this glad time; and do not
forget that there are sorrowing homes which the mere sight and sound
of your bright young faces and voices will brighten and cheer.
E. G. C.
[Illustration: ANNIE.]
ANNIE.
I've a sweet little pet; she is up with the lark,
And at eve she's asleep when the valleys are dark,
And she chatters and dances the blessed day long,
Now laughing in gladness, now singing a song.
She never is silent; the whole summer day
She is off on the green with the blossoms at play;
Now seeking a buttercup, plucking a rose,
Or laughing aloud at the thistle she blows.
She never is still; now at some merry elf
You'll smile as you watch her, in spite of yourself;
You may chide her in vain, for those eyes, full of fun,
Are smiling in mirth at the mischief she's done;
And whatever you do, that same thing, without doubt,
Must the mischievous Annie be busied about;
She's as brown as a nut, but a beauty to me,
And there's nothing her keen little eyes cannot see.
She dances and sings, and has many sweet airs;
And to infant accomplishments adding her prayers,
I have told everything that the darling can do,
For 'twas only last summer her years numbered two.
She's the picture of health, and a southern-born thing
Just as ready to weep as she's ready to sing,
And I fain would be foe to lip that hath smiled
At this wee bit of song of the _dear little_ child.
IF; OR, BESSIE GREEN'S HOLIDAY.
It seems absurd to say so, and at first sight almost impossible, that
that one little word of only two letters could have so much power, and
yet there is no doubt that the constant use of "_if_" spoilt Bessie
Green's holiday and took away from it all the enjoyment and pleasure
which she imagined a long summer day spent in the country would give.
How she had thought about it and looked forward to it for weeks
beforehand! Her parents were poor, hardworking people who rarely left
home, and so the very idea of a treat like this was delightful, and
she scarcely slept the night before, so afraid was she of not being
ready in time. I cannot tell you how often she got up in the course of
the night, either to see what o'clock it was or to look out of the
window and wonder whether it was going to be a fine or a wet day, but
it seemed to her as if morning would never come. However, long before
six she was up and dressed, and with one last good-bye to her mother
through the kitchen door was off to the station. And very soon the
train went speeding away from the smoky streets of the city toward the
green fields and shady lanes of the country.
Now, if Bessie Green had been as wise as her companions, she would
have done as they did--looked out of the window and admired all she
saw passing by, and so have begun the enjoyment of the day; for to
eyes unaccustomed to such scenes even the cows and sheep grazing in
the meadows or the horses galloping off across the fields frightened
by the train were all new and amusing sights. But our foolish little
friend, instead of doing this, began to look first at her own dress
and then at her neighbors', and thereby she grew discontented: "_If_ I
only had a felt hat with a red feather in it, like Mary Jones',
instead of this straw one with a plain bit of blue ribbon round it,
how I should like it! and _if_ mother would buy me a smart muslin
frock, such as Emma Smith wears, how much better it would be than the
cotton frocks she always gets for me!" And she pouted and frowned and
looked so miserable that her schoolfellows would have wondered what
was the matter if they had noticed her, but they were so busy thinking
of other things that they never saw there was anything amiss. Happy
children! They had resolved to enjoy themselves, and they did so from
morning till night, while unhappy little Bessie let discontent creep
in, and so her holiday--that day she had looked forward to so
much--was, as I said before, spoilt.
Ah! I fear there are many people in this world, both young and old,
who do as Bessie did: instead of being contented with the state of
life in which God has placed them, and doing their best to make
themselves and others happy, they let this little word "_if_" creep in
on every occasion, and in too many cases spoil not _one day only_, but
their _whole lives_.
[Illustration: GOOD-BYE.]