A Little Book for Christmas, Cyrus Townsend Brady [novels to read txt] 📗

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"John," said William Carstairs, "I offered you money once and you struck it out of my hand. You remember?"

"Yes."

"What I am offering you now is your own. You can't strike it out of my hand. It is not mine, but yours."

"I won't have it," protested the man. "It's too late. You don't know what I've been, a common thief. 'Crackerjack' is my name. Every policeman and detective in New York knows me."

"But you've got a little Helen, too, haven't you?" interposed the little girl with wisdom and tact beyond her years.

"Yes."

"And you said she was very poor and had no Christmas."

"Yes."

"For her sake, John," said William Carstairs. "Indeed you must not think you have been punished alone. I have been punished, too. I'll help you begin again. Here"--he stepped closer to his brother--"is my hand."

The other stared at it uncomprehendingly.

"There is nothing in it now but affection. Won't you take it?"

Slowly John Carstairs lifted his hand. His palm met that of his elder brother. He was so hungry and so weak and so overcome that he swayed a little. His head bowed, his body shook and the elder brother put his arm around him and drew him close.

Into the room came William Carstairs' wife. She, too, had at last been aroused by the conversation, and, missing her husband, she had thrown a wrapper about her and had come down to seek him.

"We tame down to find Santy Claus," burst out young John William, at the sight of her, "and he's been here, look muvver."

Yes, Santa Claus had indeed been there. The boy spoke better than he knew.

"And this," said little Helen eagerly, pointing proudly to her new acquaintance, "is a friend of his, and he knows papa and he's got a little Helen and we're going to give her a Merry Christmas."

William Carstairs had no secrets from his wife. With a flash of womanly intuition, although she could not understand how he came to be there, she divined who this strange guest was who looked a pale, weak picture of her strong and splendid husband, and yet she must have final assurance.

"Who is this gentleman, William?" she asked quietly, and John Carstairs was forever grateful to her for her word that night.

"This," said William Carstairs, "is my father's son, my brother, who was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."

And so, as it began with the beginning, this story ends with the ending of the best and most famous of all the stories that were ever told.



ON CHRISTMAS GIVING

Being a Word of Much Needed Advice

Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate God's ineffable gift of Himself to His children. No human soul has ever been able to realize the full significance of that gift, no heart has ever been glad enough to contain the joy of it, and no mind has ever been wise enough to express it. Nevertheless we powerfully appreciate the blessing and would fain convey it fitly. Therefore to commemorate that great gift the custom of exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has grown until it has become well nigh universal. This is a day in which we ourselves crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for those we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas day however we may feel before or after.

But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method of exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is not a time for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves. To paraphrase Polonius, "Costly thy gift as thy purse can buy, rich but not expressed in fancy, for the gift oft proclaims the man." In making presents observe three principal facts; the length of your purse, the character of your friend, and the universal rule of good taste. Do not plunge into extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle. On the other hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not that; avoid selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather no gift at all than a grudging one. Let your offerings represent yourselves and your affections. Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at all. "The gift without the giver is bare."

And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity. The lex talionis has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think or feel that you must give to someone because someone gave to you. There is no barter about it. You give because you love and without a thought of return. Credit others with the same feeling and be governed thereby. I know one upon whose Christmas list there are over one hundred and fifty people, rich and poor, high and low, able and not able. That man would be dismayed beyond measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to make a return for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.

In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day. Let your gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men. Hunt up somebody who needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness, and disappointment.

Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To gorge one's self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is not the noblest method of commemorating the day. The rules and laws of digestion are not abrogated upon the Holy day. These are material cautions, the day has a spiritual significance of which material manifestations are, or ought to be, outward and visible expressions only.

Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year, then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around the table of the Lord, kneeling before God's altar in the ministering of that Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and the future--the communion of the saints of God's Holy Church with His Beloved Son. Then and thus in body, soul, and spirit we do truly participate in the privilege and blessing of the Incarnation, then and there we receive that strength which enables everyone of us to become factors in the great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout the ages and throughout the world.

Let us therefore on this Holy Natal Day, from which the whole world dates its time, begin on our knees before that altar which is at once manger, cross, throne. Let us join thereafter in holy cheer of praise and prayer and exhortation and Christmas carol, and then let us go forth with a Christmas spirit in our hearts resolved to communicate it to the children of men, and not merely for the day but for the future. To make the right use of these our privileges, this it is to save the world.

In this spirit, therefore, so far as poor, fallible human nature permits him to realize it and exhibit it, the author wishes all his readers which at present comprise his only flock--

A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.



IT WAS THE SAME CHRISTMAS MORNING

In Which it is Shown how Different the Same Things may Be

A Story for Girls

In Philadelphia the rich and the poor live cheek by jowl--or rather, back to back. Between the streets of the rich and parallel to them, run the alleys of the poor. The rich man's garage jostles elbows with the poor man's dwelling.

In a big house fronting on one of the most fashionable streets lived a little girl named Ethel. Other people lived in the big house also, a father, a mother, a butler, a French maid, and a host of other servants. Back of the big house was the garage. Facing the garage on the other side of the alley was a little, old one-story-and-a-half brick house. In this house dwelt a little girl named Maggie. With her lived her father who was a labourer; her mother, who took in washing; and half a dozen brothers, four of whom worked at something or other, while the two littlest went to school.

Ethel and Maggie never played together. Their acquaintance was simply a bowing one--better perhaps, a smiling one. From one window in the big playroom which was so far to one side of the house that Ethel could see past the garage and get a glimpse of the window of the living-room in Maggie's house, the two little girls at first stared at each other. One day Maggie nodded and smiled, then Ethel, feeling very much frightened, for she had been cautioned against playing with or noticing the children in the alley, nodded and smiled back. Now neither of the children felt happy unless they had held a pantomimic conversation from window to window at some time during the day.

It was Christmas morning. Ethel awoke very early, as all properly organized children do on that day at least. She had a beautiful room in which she slept alone. Adjacent to it, in another room almost as beautiful, slept Celeste, her mamma's French maid. Ethel had been exquisitely trained. She lay awake a long time before making a sound or movement, wishing it were time to arise. But Christmas was strong upon her, the infection of the season was in her blood. Presently she slipped softly out of bed, pattered across the room, paused at the door which gave entrance to the hall which led to her mother's apartments, then turned and plumped down upon Celeste.

"Merry Christmas," she cried shaking the maid.

To awaken Celeste was a task of some difficulty. Ordinarily the French woman would have been indignant at being thus summarily routed out before the appointed hour but something of the spirit of Christmas had touched her as well. She answered the salutation of the little girl kindly enough, but as she sat up in bed she lifted a reproving finger.

"But," she said, "you mus' keep ze silence, Mademoiselle Ethel. Madame, vôtre maman, she say she mus' not be disturb' in ze morning. She haf been out ver' late in ze night and she haf go to ze bed ver' early. She say you mus' be ver' quiet on ze Matin de Noël!"

"I will be quiet, Celeste," answered the little girl, her lip quivering at the injunction.

It was so hard to be repressed all the time but especially on Christmas Day of all others.

"Zen I will help you to dress immediatement, and zen Villiam, he vill call us to see ze tree."

Never had the captious little girl been more docile, more obedient. Dressing Ethel that morning was a pleasure to Celeste. Scarcely had she completed the task and put on her own clothing when there was a tap on the door.

"Vat is it?"

"Mornin', Miss Celeste," spoke a heavy voice outside, a voice subdued to a decorous softness of tone, "if you an' Miss Ethel are ready, the tree is lit, an'--"

"Ve air ready, Monsieur Villiam," answered Celeste, throwing open the door dramatically.

Ethel