Chapter 3

“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 opened her mouth to welcome the butler—for if that solemn and portentous individual ever unbent it was to Miss Ethel, whom in his heart of hearts he adored—but he placed a warning finger to his lip and whispered in an awestruck voice:

“The master, your father, came in late last night, Miss, an’ he said there must be no noise or racket this morning.”

Ethel nodded sadly, her eyes filling at her disappointment; William then marched down the hall with a stately magnificence peculiar to butlers, and opened the door into the playroom. He flung it wide and stood to one side like a grenadier, as Celeste and Ethel entered. There was a gorgeous tree, beautifully trimmed. William had bought the tree and Celeste’s French taste had adorned it. It was a sight to delight any child’s eyes and the things strewn around it on the floor were even more attractive. Everything that money could buy, that Celeste and William could think of was there. Ethel’s mother had given her maid carte blanche to buy the child whatever she liked, and Ethel’s father had done the same with William. The two had pooled their issue and the result was a toyshop dream. Ethel looked at the things in silence.

“How do you like it, Miss?” asked William at last rather anxiously.

“Mademoiselle is not pleased?” questioned the French woman.

“It—it—is lovely,” faltered the little girl.

“We haf selected zem ourselves.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Didn’t mamma—buy anything—or papa—or Santa?”

“Zey tell us to get vatever you vould like and nevair mind ze money.”

“It was so good of you, I am sure,” said Ethel struggling valiantly against disappointment almost too great to bear. “Everything is beautiful but—I—wish mamma or papa had—I wish they were here—I’d like them to wish me a Merry Christmas.”

The little lip trembled but the upper teeth came down on it firmly. The child had courage. William looked at Celeste and Celeste shrugged her shoulders, both knowing what was lacking.

“I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry Christmas, an’”—the butler began bravely, but the situation was too much for him. “There goes the master’s bell,” he said quickly and turned and stalked out of the room gravely, although no bell had summoned him.

“You may go, Celeste,” said Ethel with a dignity not unlike her mother’s manner.

The maid shrugged her shoulders again, left the room and closed the door. Everything was lovely, everything was there except that personal touch which means so much even to the littlest girl. Ethel was used to being cared for by others than her parents but it came especially hard on her this morning. She turned, leaving the beautiful things as they were placed about the tree, and walked to the end window whence she could get a view of the little house beyond the garage over the back wall.

There was a Christmas tree in Maggie’s house too. It wouldn’t have made a respectable branch for Ethel’s tree, and the trimmings were so cheap and poor that Celeste would have thrown them into the waste basket immediately. There were a few common, cheap, perishable little toys around the tree on the floor but to Maggie it was a glimpse of heaven. She stood in her little white night-gown—no such thing as dressing for her on Christmas morning—staring around her. The whole family was grouped about her, even the littlest brothers, who went to school because they were not big enough to work, forgot their own joy in watching their little sister. Her father, her mother, the big boys all in a state of more or less dishevelled undress stood around her, pointing out first one thing and then another which they had been able to get for her by denying themselves some of the necessities of life. Maggie was so happy that her eyes brimmed, yet she did not cry. She laughed, she clapped her hands, and kissed them all round and finally found herself, a big orange in one hand, a tin trumpet in the other, perched upon her father’s broad shoulders leading a frantic march around the narrow confines of the living-room. As she passed by the one window she caught a glimpse of the alley. It had been snowing throughout the night and the ground was white.

“Oh,” she screamed with delight, “let me see the snow on Christmas morning.”

Her father walked over to the window, parted the cheap lace curtains, while Maggie clapped her hands gleefully at the prospect. Presently she lifted her eyes and looked toward the other window high up in the air, where Ethel stood, a mournful little figure. Maggie’s papa looked too. He knew how cheap and poor were the little gifts he had bought for his daughter.

“I wish,” he thought, “that she could have some of the things that child up there has.”

Maggie however was quite content. She smiled, flourished her trumpet, waved her orange, but there was no answering smile on Ethel’s face now. Finally the wistful little girl in the big house languidly waved her hand, and then Maggie was taken away to be dressed lest she should catch cold after the mischief was done.

“I hope that she’s having a nice Christmas,” said Maggie, referring to Ethel.

“I hope so too,” answered her mother, wishing that her little girl might have some of the beautiful gifts she knew must be in the great house.

“Whatever she has,” said Maggie, gleefully, “she can’t have any nicer Christmas than I have, that you and papa and the boys gave me. I’m just as happy as I can be.”

Over in the big house, Ethel was also wishing. She was so unhappy since she had seen Maggie in the arms of her big, bearded father, standing by the window, that she could control herself no longer. She turned away and threw herself down on the floor in front of the tree and buried her face in her hands bursting into tears.

It was Christmas morning and she was all alone.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

“_Christmas Then and Now_”

The Stars look down On David’s town, While angels sing in Winter night; The Shepherds pray, And far away The Wise Men follow guiding light. Little Christ Child By Mary Mild In Manger lies without the Inn; Of Man the Son, Yet God in One, To save the lost in World of Sin. Still stars look down On David’s town And still the Christ Child dwells with men, What thought give we To such as He, Or souls who live in Sin as then? Show we our love To Him above By offering others’ grief to share; And Christmas cheer For all the year Bestow to lighten pain and care.

THE LONE SCOUT’S CHRISTMAS

_Wherein is Set Forth the Courage and Resourcefulness of Youth_

_A Story for Boys_

Every boy likes snow on Christmas Day, but there is such a thing as too much of it. Henry Ives, alone in the long railroad coach, stared out of the clouded windows at the whirling mass of snow with feelings of dismay. It was the day before Christmas, almost Christmas Eve. Henry did not feel any too happy, indeed he had hard work to keep down a sob. His mother had died but a few weeks before and his father, the captain of a freighter on the Great Lakes, had decided, very reluctantly, to send him to his brother who had a big ranch in western Nebraska.

Henry had never seen his uncle or his aunt. He did not know what kind of people they were. The loss of his mother had been a terrible blow to him and to be separated from his father had filled his cup of sorrow to the brim. His father’s work did not end with the close of navigation on the lakes, and he could not get away then although he promised to come and see Henry before the ice broke and traffic was resumed in the spring.

The long journey from the little Ohio town on Lake Erie to western Nebraska had been without mishap. His uncle’s ranch lay far away from the main line of the railroad on the end of the branch. There was but one train a day upon it, and that was a mixed train. The coach in which Henry sat was attached to the end of a long string of freight cars. Travel was infrequent in that section of the country. On this day Henry was the only passenger.

The train had been going up-grade for many miles and had just about reached the crest of the divide. Bucking the snow had become more and more difficult; several times the train had stopped. Sometimes the engine backed the train some distance to get headway to burst through the drift. So Henry thought nothing of it when the car came to a gentle stop.

The all-day storm blew from the west and the front windows of the car were covered with snow so he could not see ahead. Some time before the conductor and rear brakeman had gone forward to help dig the engine out of the drift and they had not come back.

Henry sat in silence for some time watching the whirling snow. He was sad; even the thought of the gifts of his father and friends in his trunk which stood in the baggage compartment of the car did not cheer him. More than all the Christmas gifts in the world, he wanted at that time his mother and father and friends.

“It doesn’t look as though it was going to be a very merry Christmas for me,” he said aloud at last, and then feeling a little stiff from having sat still so long he got up and walked to the front of the car.

It was warm and pleasant in the coach. The Baker heater was going at full blast and Henry noticed that there was plenty of coal. He tried to see out from the front door; but as he was too prudent to open it and let in the snow and cold he could make out nothing. The silence rather alarmed him. The train had never waited so long before.

Then, suddenly, came the thought that something very unusual was wrong. He must get a look at the train ahead. He ran back to the rear door, opened it and standing on the leeward side, peered forward. The engine and freight cars were not there! All he saw was the deep cut filled nearly to the height of the car with snow.

Henry was of a mechanical turn of mind and he realized that doubtless the coupling had broken. That was what had happened. The trainmen had not noticed it and the train had gone on and left the coach. The break had occurred at the crest of the divide and the train had gone rapidly down hill on the other side. The amount of snow told the boy that it would not be possible for the train to back up and pick up the car. He was alone in the wilderness of rolling hills in far western Nebraska. And this was Christmas Eve!

It was enough to bring despair to any boy’s heart. But Henry Ives was made of good stuff, he was a first-class Boy Scout and on his scout coat in the trunk were four Merit Badges. He had the spirit of his father, who had often bucked the November storms on Lake Superior in his great six-hundred-foot freighter, and danger inspired him.

He went back into the car, closed the door, and sat down to think it over. He had very vague ideas as to how long such a storm would last and how long he might be kept prisoner. He did not even know just where he was or how far it was to the end of the road and the town where his uncle’s ranch lay.