Part 22

But hark! the Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree! Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the waters in a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children around; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed soldiers, a darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do!"

Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof be the star of all the Christian world!

A moment's pause, O vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me yet, and let me look once more. I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled, from which they are departed. But, far above, I see the Raiser of the dead girl and the widow's son,--and God is good!

THE END.

* * * * * Transcriber's Notes:

5. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without comment and include missing or end of sentence comma and period errors and missing or misplaced quotation marks.

6. Spelling Corrections:

p. 120, "wery" to "very" (and it's very much to be) p. 128, "arter" to "after" (after all, that's where) p. 128, "biled" to "billed" (A billed fowl and) p. 128, "woice" to "voice" (the voice of love) p. 168, "Joe" to "Job" (29) (And Job tumbled into his) p. 275, "pototo" to "potato" (4) (a potato-field) p. 277, "familar" to "familiar" (3) (a familiar voice)

7. Suspected mispellings retained as possible alternate spellings of the time:

"amadavid bird" (amadavat bird) "azalias" (azaleas) "gayety" (gaiety) "Mackarel" (Mackerel) "plash" (splash) "scymitar" (scimitar) "skurrying" (scurrying)

8. Printer Error corrections:

p. 109, removed duplicate "carried" (Oeyvind carried leaves)

9. Word variations retained in the text which vary by author:

"fireflies" and "fire-flies" "flagstones" and "flag-stones" "nightgown" and "night-gown" "Red Riding-Hood" and "Red-Riding-Hood" "schoolhouse" and "school-house" "toyshop" and "toy-shop"