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Auntie’s Christmas Shopping
3y Margaret 'Richard\
“Last year,” said Auntie, “it was such fun going
from store to store, selecting presents for everybody.
But this Christmas”—
She paused. Auntie had away of pausing in her
speech in those dark days, as though her heart
were too full for utterance.
Mamma knew how hard it was, and so she said,
sympathetically: “Ah, well, we all know what you
would do for us if you could. But you cannot, and
you must not worry about it.”
“I try not to, but T cannot help it. It is so
hard to lie in bed, from day to day, and to long so
inch to be out.”
“ Cut 'oil’s not in bed ’t all.” p”t in four-year
! 1 A-ch’e. coming close io her side, “an’ why’d
von say so? Didn’t you jus’ now get on this horse
to go out riding?”
“Why, yes, I did!” Auntie acknowledged, with a
laugh. “I had forgotten.”
“You mustn’t ’get. Now, where do you want to
go?”
“.Well,” said Auntie, thoughtfully, “suppose you
take me down the garden path, and let me peep
under the violet leaves, and ask the buds if they
expect to become pretty blue violets by Christmas
mornin”. I shall want a posy on my breakfast
waiter, you know. Then we can gallop up and
down the pavement in the warm sunshine, after
which it will be time to come home.”
Then Archie ran out of the door, holding a halj:-
hoop by the middle, its ends hitting the floor at
every step with a clank-i-ti-clank as he galloped
down the hall and out of doors.
He paused at the violet border, and knelt to whis
per to the buds. There were a number of tiny
green ones, and they seemed to answer: “Yes, there
shall be a posy for Christmas morning.”
“Now, get on again, Auntie,” he said, “and let’s
gallop on the pavement.”
Then he stood a moment, holding the half-hoop
very still, for the space of time it would have
taken for a person to mount a horse, when he was
off again.
Up and down the pavement he ran for full five
minutes, the afternoon sun tinting his curls with
new beauty.
Presently he paused, and said thoughtfully:
“Auntie said something ’bout shopping; she said
she wanted to see some presents for everybody. Get
up, pony!”
And without more ado the little fellow was head
ed for main street, the- hoofs of his horse going
clank-i-ti-clank on the pavement, just as they had
on the hall floor a while before.
Auntie and mamma talked on for half an hour
or more before they thought of his return, when
Auntie said, laughingly: “I fear I shall be worse
after such a long ride. Archie is keeping me out
a good while this -afternoon, don’t you think?”
“Why, so he is!” And mamma rose to go in
search of the little boy. But he did not answer
when she called, and none of the neighbors had
seen him pass on his way down town.
It was an hour later when he and his horse were
brought home on a delivery wagon, and yes, there
was a package, too.
“Why, Archie,” said mamma, “what is this,
and where have you been?”
“It’s Auntie’s,” he said, his eyes shining. “We’s
been shopping.”
And when he had reached the invalid’s room, he
explained further: “You said you wanted to go
shopping, and "o k you down the street. An’
the horse leaned up mst the counter, an’ let you
look ’round at everything.”
“And what was there to sev. \untie asked.
“Oh, lots an’ lots of things! .s a ’ drums an’
firecrackers an’ —an’ a engine! An’ when I uvw f
I jus’ tol’ you easy, so nobody couldn’t hear,
I w-anted it, an’ you didn’t have your pocket-b*
you know, ’cause you wasn’t specting to go sn
ping. So I tol’ the horse to stand straight by the
counter, so you wouldn’t fall off. Then I went to
The Golden Age for December 24, 1908.
ast the man wouldn’t he sell that engine on credic,
an’ —”
“Why, Archie, Auntie didn’t like for you to do
that!”
“An’,” went on the child, not noticing the in
terruption, “while I was asting him somebody
runned right ag’inst my horse, an’ knocked it down.
I was mad, an’ I sez: ‘Now, she’s gone an’ made
my poor sick auntie hurt herself.’ ”
“And what did he say to that?” Auntie asked,
her eyes twinkling.
“Oh, he jus’ asted everything, an’ I tol’ him all
about it. An’ I tol’ him I wanted that engine, but
Auntie didn’t have her pocket-book ’long, ’cause
she didn’t know she was going shopping. Then he
went over there where my horse had fell, an’ he
stooped down right quick an’ picked up some
thing. An’ what do you s’pose? It was some
money, and that man jus’ laughed an’ laughed. An’
he sez: ‘I just know your Auntie dropped it when
she fell off her horse.’ An’ he said ’twas zaetlv
’nougli to pay for that engine. Auntie bought it—
now, didn’t she?”
Newberry, S. C.
H *
"Tlease Remember Us Christmas. ”
We have had a hard struggle, but a victorious one.
The new Tabernacle Infirmary Building, which is
equal to any Christian hospital in this country, is
now complete in every way, and doing the best work
in its history.
The pressure of the building forced us to neglect
the money necessary for the charity fund. We must
now raise that. In all we must have $3,000 by the
first of the year. Every penny of this amount
will go to this fund and to finish paying for the
additional new furnishings which had to be ob
tained for the' new building.
Will you not personally, or through your church
or Sunday school, or in some other way, give us a
helping hand? We are doing a work in the n-ame
of Christ for needy humanity and feel sure that we
shall have your sympathy, your prayers and your
help. Any amount that you send will be properly
applied and a receipt from the Secretary and Treas
urer sent you. Money can be sent either through
Rev. J. J. Bennett, D.D., Secretary of the Georgia
Mission Board, or to the Tabernacle Infirmary di
rect, or to me.
Assuring you in advance of our appreciation of
your interest in this matter, I am,
LEN G. BROUGHTON,
President Tabernacle Infirmary.
* *
A Nelv "Nolv 1 Lay Me. ”
I heard of a little girl once who, in reciting this
children’s prayer, when she had got as far as the
third line, “If I should die before I wake,” stop
ped and ejaculated fervently, “I wouldn’t die for
a hundred dollars!” So, as others may feel the
same way, I submit the following version:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
He’ll keep me safe through all the night,
Until He sends the morning light.
* *
"The Limit of the Line. ”
(Continued from Page 2.)
“No, my dear,” her mother replied, serenely,
“it is your impatience. I simply haven’t reached
the personal application as yet. I suppose that you
can recall, Shirley, without any severe evolution of
memory, that half of our big, old, dilapidated house,
colonial columns and all, has been for rent‘for many
long, weary months. Well, who should come down
from the hotel this morning but that much talked
of young man, Gregory Ford, of New York, and his
stately mother. . . and the drum was dropped
over my head!?’
“Mother, not mean,” Shirley said, in a
quick, imperious tone, “that you have rented half
of our house to those exclusive, stuck up stran
gers?”
“Shirley,” her mother replied, reprovingly,
“your descriptive adjectives are a discredit to your
training. lam ashamed of you.”
“But, Mater, can’t you see how hard it will be?”
the girl inquired, with a thrill in her proud young
voice, “with poverty and its limitations on one
sile of the hall, and prosperity, with its splendors,
on the other?”
“Oh, I do not think that you need be afraid of
any such startling contrasts! ” Mrs. Bryan answered.
“The Fords will doubtless regard their temporary
home simply as a Southern camp for the winter;
and I have no idea that they will think of furnish
ing it extravagantly. The young gentleman came
south for his health; he is obliged to live out of
doors or die. Indeed, he intends, ultimately, to
farm. They are both, mother and son, persons of
culture and refinement; but it is fortunately found
ed on a good working basis of common sense. I
hope, Shirley, that you will abandon your ungener
ous conclusions about them, and treat them, when
you happen to meet them, courteously. It is doubt
less unnecessary for me to remind you of how
dreadfully we need the money at this time.”
“Hardly,” Shirley answered, with a half hys
terical laugh, “for since Barry Moore cut my salary
down, I have been dining on peanut butter sand
wiches for a month. But today I took a bowl of
soup, byway of variety, and it tasted as delicious
as the ambrosia of the gods!”
As she finished speaking they stopped, simulta
neously, before a gate which opened upon an old
fashioned yard, with box-bordered beds, that en
vironed on either side a great magnolia tree whose
glossy leaves glittered like silver mail in the moon
light. There was a glimpse of white columns be
hind the foliage, and the square outlines of a house
that looked imposing at night, but which showed
very plainly, by day, that it had not been painted
in a decade.
-Shirley stooped and kissed her mother. Some
emotion provoked bv the glory of her old home, in
the moon mist, might have been responsible for the
action.
“All right, Mater,” she said, in a gay voice, as
they walked down between the box-bordered walk
to the steps, “we will consider the incident closed.
I do not suppose that it will annihilate me . .
to bow, occasionally, to the young man from Gotham.
But, I confess, that if I followed my personal in
clinations, I should prefer to greet him . . as
the little boy did the drum.”
“Breeze,” Mrs. Bryan laughed, “you are incor
rigible. ’ ’
“Only sometimes, Mater.”
“But,” with a lift of her chin, “I do not deserve
my pet nom-de-wing tonight, Mater. The ‘System’
has ground me up alive today. I am not a breeze,
dear, but a pauvre, little Southern sigh! Heigh-ho!
I think I need some supper. I am sure that ideas
are evolved from the food we eat, and peanut but
ter sandwiches are not conducive to brilliancy. I
feel like I represented the hunger of the world to
night. I don’t believe I ever dined in my life.”
“Then, Shirley, I hope that you will forgive me,”
Mrs. Bryan said, as they entered the wide hall,
“for daring to celebrate my small victory today.
Aunt Dilsey,” she was the colored woman who
rented the spacious kitchen in the white folk’s
yard, “has broiled you a chicken, and cooked the
rice and potatoes, just as you prefer ... ”
Shirley sat down on a green covered seat, in the
lamp-lit hall, with a slight gasp.
“Shirley, you are not going to faint?” Mrs.
Bryan asked, alarmed by the girl’s pillar, the weary
droop of the lids over the dark, luminous eyes.
“Why not? Why should I not be allowed that
distinction,” with a melodramatic gesture, “com
mon to my sex, Mater?”
After a long pause.
“I have worked nine hours today for Barry
Moore, the Man of Iron! And, I have had nothing
to eat, except that bowl of soup, . . which was a
will-’o-tbe-wisp. a fairy tale, . . ”
(To be Continued.)
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