Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hand under the back of his head and smiled. "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on." wonderfully The magi, as you know, were wise men wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are the wisest. They are the magi. THE HAPPIEST HEART BY JOHN VANCE CHENEY WHO drives the horses of the sun Better the lowly deed were done, And kept the humble way. The rust will find the sword of fame, Ay, none shall nail so high his name The happiest heart that ever beat That found the common daylight sweet, And left to Heaven the rest. ON HIS BLINDNESS BY JOHN MILTON WHEN I consider how my light is spent, LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN LEAD, kindly Light! amid the encircling gloom, The night is dark, and I am far from home, Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou I loved to choose and see my path; but now I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years. So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile! SHADOW A CHRISTMAS STORY BY HARRY STILLWELL EDWARDS A NEGRO convict, awake, lay on his back in the log barracks. Wearied forms stretched out in slumber in long lines to the right and left of him. A chain ran from his shackles, as from theirs, to a stout beam, holding him prisoner. He was only a boy when the shackles were riveted on his ankles, his crime an error born of ignorance and the lack of moral training. Six years had passed since, dazed and terrified, he had been led from the courthouse, and at twenty he still owed the State of Alabama fourteen years of servitude. Life for him had been fierce and full of agony. Down in the black darkness of coal-mines he had labored until accident made him useless and gave him back to daylight and the great green world above. Life then settled into the dull routine of the camp and a hostler's duties, the darkness behind him a nightmare, the days of his lost freedom a dream. The freedom to come was too far away for his imagination to compass. From the right and left of him came the deep breathing of tired men. Sleep with the convict is rest in the full and perfect significance of the word, and he plunges into it after his coarse evening meal as into a tide. That which kept the boy awake was necessarily something novel. It was not pain. Had he not felt the lash and the crush of falling coal? Nor sorrow; for behind him, among the far-away Georgian hills, was a cabin about which as a child he had played, as all children play, and the sad undying memory of it shut out all other sorrows. Nor was it a mere yearning for freedom; that had long since given place to a dull, unlifting despair. All these sorrow, pain, and despair - had been the companions of his solitude in many a night of gloom, keeping watch as he slept. The strange new companion of his solitude, from whose divine presence this night all others withdrew, was Hope. As he lay, the darkness fell away beyond the radiance of his visitor, and three faces shone out as clearly as the white cloudlets in the blue of summer skies. Sunshine, Moonbeam, and Starlight stood by his side. Sunshine, Moonbeam, and Starlight! When all the branches and departments of the State government refugeed into the highlands away from the fever and beyond the vexations of quarantine, the convicts came to Wetumpka; and on days when the prison commissioner came to inspect the camp, with him were the three, each less than a dozen years of age. And Sunshine was the youngest of them all. "Take care of them, Shadow," he said to the hostler convict; and the black boy, with the memory of his "own white folks" far away filling his heart with joy, took care of them proudly and gratefully. Six years had passed since he had looked on childhood. Take care of them? Aye, if necessary, he would lay down his life for them. Instead, he rigged up swings of plow-lines, |