It was a sad sight to see Mrs. Jamison and her little family gathered
about the fire one Christmas Eve, for she had been a widow for twenty
years. Yes, twenty years before had Mr. Jamison, her husband, set sail
on a ship for a foreign land, and nevermore had been heard of. The snow
was falling fast, and the wind was howling without.
“Alas!” Mrs. Jamison said, as she pressed her hungry babe to her bosom:
“I fear we shall have no turkey to-morrow.”
“Why not, mother?” asked Robin, a bright lad of fourteen.
“Listen,” said Mrs. Jamison. “I have only thirty cents left. To-day I
pawned my jewels, and thus we are cast upon the mercy of the cold
world.”
Mrs. Jamison wept bitterly, and so did the children.
“Oh, if Henry were only here!” moaned Mrs. Jamison. Henry was Mr.
Jamison’s name before he was lost at sea, never, never to return. By and
by Mrs. Jamison said, “Put on your fur cape, Lucy, and take this thirty
cents, and go down to the grocery-store, and buy one dozen eggs. It is
all the money I have; but the eggs will allay our hunger, and keep the
wolf from the door another day.”
So Lucy, who was a beautiful girl of fifteen, put on her fur cape; and
Robin went with her. Having bought the eggs, each of them took an apple
when Mr. Sinclair, the kind-hearted grocer, was not looking; and with
joyous hearts they rode home in the street-car. While Lucy was eating
her apple, she put the bag of eggs on the seat; and suddenly a big man
entered the car, and sat down on the bag. Then Lucy began to cry, and
Robin too.
“Children,” said the big man in kind tones, “why do you weep?”
“Alas!” said Lucy: “you have sat on our bag of eggs.”
“Never mind the eggs,” said the man. “But, tell me, have I not heard
that voice before, and have I not seen those features? Is your name Lucy
Jamison?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lucy.
“Then look upon me, child,” cried the man, “and tell me if you do not
know me. Has time and sorrow changed me so that my children do not know
me?”
“Father, father!” cried Lucy, throwing herself into her father’s arms.
It was indeed Mr. Jamison. He had been wrecked on a lone island for
twenty years; but a passing ship picked him up, and brought him home. He
was very rich; and, oh, what a happy meeting it was for Mrs. Jamison and
the children! They had turkey for dinner, and cranberries, and lived in
peace all the rest of their lives.
_Chicago Weather._
To-day, fair Thisbe—winsome girl!—
Strays o’er the meads where daisies blow,
Or, ling’ring where the brooklets purl,
Laves in the cool, refreshing flow.
To-morrow, Thisbe, with a host
Of amorous suitors in her train,
Comes like a goddess forth to coast,
Or skate upon the frozen main.
To-day, sweet posies mark her track,
While birds sing gayly in the trees:
To-morrow morn, her sealskin sack
Defies the piping polar breeze.
So Doris is to-day enthused
By Thisbe’s soft, responsive sighs,
And on the morrow is confused
By Thisbe’s cold, repellent eyes.
_A Chicago Christmas Legend._
Gabriel Barton was an editor. After years of patient toil and continuous
self-denial he had succeeded in amassing as large a competency of boys
and girls as you could expect to find in a monogamic community.
Yet Gabriel was not content. Instead of being thankful for the blessings
with which his family-board was surrounded three times a day, he pined
for other boons which he did not possess. He yearned ever for gold,—that
insidious canker that gnaws the soul beyond reparation, and leaves a
dark, indelible stain on the proudest escutcheons.
“Gold—gold! I must have gold!” he cried incessantly.
His strange demeanor was the occasion of grievous perplexity to his
wife; for Estelle Barton was a simple, unaffected woman, ill acquainted
with the selfish nature and ways of the cold world.
“But why, dear husband,” she asked, “why clamor for the unattainable? Be
satisfied with what we have; ’tis humble, I know; but so long as our
nine children are in good health, and so long as the water-tax is not
due, we surely shall not perish of thirst. Would this sordid gold you
crave deepen the color in our darlings’ cheeks, or better the quality of
the nourishment we drink? Prithee, be content.”
But, alas! Estelle Barton’s wise words weighed naught with Gabriel.
Ceaselessly he yearned for debasing lucre; and his morbid appetite made
him thin and pale, and brought a faltering into his gait, and a
tremulousness into his voice.
One bitter cold Christmas Eve little Eugenia Barton, the nine-year-old
daughter and the senior child of the family, asked pleadingly, “Papa, do
you not know what day to-morrow is?”
Gazing into the depths of the child’s innocent blue eyes, Mr. Barton
said, “How came you to know, child, that my note fell due to-morrow?”
“Nay, papa,” interposed Eugenia, “I did not know it. But surely you
cannot have forgotten! To-morrow is Christmas—Christmas, papa! the
gladdest, merriest day in all the year!”
A far-off look came into Mr. Barton’s lack-lustre eyes.
“Well?” he uttered inquiringly.
“Tell me, papa,” cried Eugenia, “tell me, will Santa Claus come this
year?”
“I think I can safely say, that, unless he intends to break his record,
he will not,” replied Mr. Barton promptly.
“Alas!” sighed Eugenia; and with this she hung her beautiful golden
head.
Mr. Barton regretted that he had cast a gloom over the child’s hopes. He
sought to explain his seeming harshness.
“Why _should_ Santa Claus come?” he asked bitterly. “Haven’t the
neighbors got through lending us what we need? Where, in all this great
but heartless city, can we expect to borrow any thing to hang up?”
“True,” said Eugenia: “I had not thought of that. Forgive me, dear papa,
if, in my puerile heedlessness, I have caused you pain!”
That night Eugenia sobbed herself to sleep on the sofa with a volume of
old files tucked around her shivering form. How long she slept, we will
not presume to say. But the golden sunbeams of the early Christmas morn
were dancing through the window-frames, and floating o’er the hardwood
floor, when she awoke. A man stood before her,—a man clad in habiliments
of fur. Eugenia uttered a cry of joy.
“Santa Claus!” she cried.
The man smiled pleasantly with that part of his personality that was
exposed to the rigorous temperature of the editor’s home.
“O Santa Claus!” said Eugenia, “I knew you would come: we’ve been
waiting for you year after year until the rest had given you up, but
I—_I knew_ you would come!”
Again the exposed surface of the fur-clad stranger wrinkled into a
smile.
“Thank you for coming,” continued Eugenia. “I knew that my faith in you
would be rewarded. So tell me, dear Santa Claus, what gifts—what wealth
of beauteous things—have you brought to pour out into our grateful laps
at last?”
The strange, fur-clad figure stood still a moment, as if dazed; then
drew a bit of coin from the mysterious depths of his shaggy robe, and
tossed it to the anxious child.
“There’s a nickel for you, little un,” he said; and his tones betokened
a kindly heart. “But, bless you, I’m not Santa Claus: I’m the
constable!”
_A Plea for the Classics._
A Boston gentleman declares
By all the gods, above, below,
That our degenerate sons and heirs
Must let their Greek and Latin go!
Forbid, O Fate! we loud implore,
A dispensation harsh as that—
What! wipe away the sweets of yore—
The dear “_Amo, amas, amat_”?
The sweetest hour the student knows,
Is not while poring over French,
Or when, in harsh Teutonic throes,
He writhes upon collegiate bench:
’Tis when on roots and _kais_ and _gars_
He feeds his soul, and feels it glow,
Or when his mind transcends the stars
With “_Zoa mou, sas agapo!_”
So give our bright, ambitious boys
An inkling of these pleasures too—
A little smattering of the joys
Their old but knowing fathers knew;
And let them sing—whilst glorying that
Their sires so sang, long years ago—
The songs “_Amo, amas, amat_,”
And “_Zoa mou, sas agapo!_”
_Mlle. Prud’homme’s Book._
WASHINGTON, D.C., Mai 3.
_M. le Redacteur_,—D’apres votre article dans la New-York Tribune,
copie du Chicago News, je me figure que les habitants de Chicago ayant
grand besoin d’un systeme de prononciation francaise, je prends la
liberte de vous envoyer par la malle-poste le No. 2 d’un ouvrage que
je viens de publier; si vous desirez les autres numeros, je me ferai
un plaisir de vous les envoyer aussi. Les emballeurs de porc ayant peu
de temps a consacrer a l’etude, vu l’omnipotent dollar, seront je
crois enchantes et reconnaissants d’un systeme par lequel ils pourront
apprendre et comprendre, la langue de la fine Sara, au bout de trente
lecons, si surtout Monsieur le redacteur vent bien au bout de sa plume
spirituelle leur en indiquer le chemin. Sur ce l’auteur du systeme a
bien l’honneur de le saluer.