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Aoross the hedge a soream I heard,
And saw Priscilla run.
Pursued by a glgantio bird . .,
Out in the .....>. V. -
The gander flapped his \vi tigs in air
And, hissing, pressed the pace
While she with feelings of despair
Led the unhappy chase.
I sealed the hedgerow double quick,
And as the gaiidor came
, In range I raised iny walking stick
And with unerring aim
Landed upon his head a whack
Which proved the maid’s release
From harm—for he turned on his back
And dosed his eyes iu peaoe.
.; “Our Christmas bird is ready quite
To dangle on the peg,”
She murmured, “till with rare delight
We eat him wing and teg.”
She smiled and said, '“You’ll come around
On Christmas flay to - ( dine?”
I answered, with a bow p?ofound,
“I’ll be there snow or shine!”
*> ' S •
•
Ih juicy bride the gander lay *
Most luscious, brown and fat,
Upon the dish that Christmas Day,
While we about him sat.
Aoross the board upon me fell
Hersmilo, which was the spring’s,
Till I was dazed and couldn't tell
Tne drumsticks from the wings.
We ate him till he was a wreck—
A.wrack', of loveliness—
And then unto her fairy beck
And call; I must confess,
I went for loye’s most precious sake—
(Love set my dreams astir)—
Behind the flowered screen to break
The frail,wish bone with her.
I won the better part, and wished—
She seemed my wish to read.
While with her eye in mine she fished
With subtleVskill indeed.
Just then the Christmas chimes with zest
Trembled across the dell,
She blushed as if they did suggest
The merry-wedding bell.
My golden wish, made on that day
Of revelry and mirth,
Has been fulfilled—perpetual May
For me begilds the earth.
That wish hone, like the horseshoe old,
That brings good luck galore,
Now, mended, hangs with charm untold
Above our cottage door.
—K. K. Muflkittrick.
ON CHRISTMAS EYE.
BY J. L. HARBOUR.
jSf' H DHNNO creation what to in
your ma for
a; C h r i t m a s,
JS ( Mandy, Jason Hogarth and
(i If looked at his
M daughter inquir-
4 ingly as if expect-
c ing her to suggest
~ some suitable gift.
But she was busy
at that moment
testing the condi-
' tion of a cake m
the oven b y
jffi'SqTY* yjjjl ‘ thrusting straw into a it, broom and
Aw ^ ' when she had
risen to her feet
,F : her father said:
“I got her a nice silk umbrel’ with
a silver handle las’ Christmas; paid
four dollars an’ seventy-nine cents for
it ; an’ -F-ll be switched if'shb’s'Had it
out o’ the case it came in but one
solitary time, an’ theh shH knowed it
wa’n’t goin’ to rain. Beats all how
savin’ your ma is of things. _ There’s
the silk dress pattern I got ’er two
years ago this Christmas, not even
made up yit. I want to git her some¬
thing this Christmas that she’ll have
to use an’ enjoy. What kin you sug¬
gest, Mandy?”
His married daughter, Amanda Jen-
ness, now stood at her molding board
rolling out pie orust. She was a dnmpy
little body with laughing blue eyes
and a good-hnmored expression of
countenance. But now a look of de¬
termination came in her face and she
turned suddenly and faced%er father,
with her back to the table and the
rolling pin held in both hands across
her checked gingham aproD;
“You want me to tell you what to
get for ma’s Christmas gift, pa?”
“Yes; blamed if I know what to
git?” ”
“I can tell you in one word, pa.
••You kin? Well, I’ll git it if it
don’t come at too high a figger. Never
had better crops in my life than I had
this year. My onions- an’ tobacker ’ll*
bring me in $200 more’n I expected to
git for ’em, an’ the rozberry ■ crop have was
something tremenjus an’ I didn’t
to sell a quart for less’n twenty cents.
Your ma done her full share o’ work
an’ I’m anxious to git her something
real hansom for Christmas, What
shall it be?”
His daughter looked at him steadily
for a moment and then said slowly and
distinctly:
“Jenny!”
A sullen frown took the place of the
kindly smile on his wrinkled faee.
His eyes flashed ominously and his
voice was harsh and cold as he said:
“Haven’t I told you, Mandy Jen-
ness, never to mention that pame to
me?”
“I know that you have,” replied
Mandywith gathering courage ; “but
I never said that I wouldn’t do it, and
when you asked me what I thought
ma’d like best for Christmas, I just
iold you what I knew she'd like best.
She’d rather nave my sister Jenny
than anything money can buy.i"
Then she added, undaunted by her
father’s frowning visage:
“I firmly behove, pa, that ma is
shortening her days grieving for Jen¬
ny. She just is! I'm going to say my
say while I’m at it, whether you like
it or not. I know that I owe you re 1
spect, but I owe my^own u.nd_only, sis¬
ter something, important too.'aqd other. one duty If I—” is
just as as the
“Wait a rninnit, Mandy,” her father
said, rising and buttoning up his
overcoat. “When your sister Jenny
disgraced the family by Up an’ running
away with that Will Martin an’ mar-
ryin’ into that good-for-nothing
Marlin family, I said that I’d never
own her as my daughter ag’in, an’ I
never will. I said that she should
never cross my threshold ag’in, an’ she
never shall.”
] “I shiftless know that lot, the an’ Martins that Will are a
: poor, was
i ns trifling as any of ’em. Like enough
it was born in ’em to be so. But there
never was anything bad about ’em,
an’ he’s dead an’ gone now. An’ when
I think of poor Jenny workin’ the way
she has to work over there in Hebron
to support herself an’ her two little
children, an’ you with plenty and to
spare, I know it isn’t right.. I can tell
you now, father, that 1 go to see Jen¬
ny ev’ry time I go to Hebron, an’if
we weren’t so poor ourselves, an’ if
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It is the holy Christmas-time O blessed season, angel-gnest, Bing, Christmas bells, and tell again
That sheds a glow through all the year. Thou comest alike to all on earth, The good old truth for ever new!
Hark, how the bells, a silv’ry chime, Bearing sweet gifts of love and rest, There is no heart so dull with pain
King out their welcome far and near! Of precious hope and heartfelt mirth. But will rejoice and sing with you;
my husband’s invalid mother didn’t
have an’'her to live with us, I’d bring Jenny
children right, here to live.”
“I’d never darken your door ag’in
if you did.”
“I guess ma would. It’s a burning
shame, pa, that you won’t even let her
go to Hebron to see Jenny. It’s daugh¬ kill¬
ing ma. To think of her. own
ter living only fifteen miles away and
her mother not seeing her for nearly
six years! It’s wicked. If I was ma
I’d go no matter what you said.”
“Your ma knows very well that she’d
have to go for good if she went at all,’’
replied her father, coldly. Then he
added_: “I must be goin’, for Pve got to
go
’round by Job Prouty’s an’ see if he’ll
loan me his light wagon to go to He¬
bron with, Wednesday. I broke the
tongues o’ mine Sunday an’ that pesky ain’t
wagonmaker down to the village
goin’ to git it fixed fer a month, I
reckon. You an’ Tom’ll be over to
eat dinner with us Christmas, I
s’pose?”
“Yes, I s’pose so.”
They parted with manifest stiffness
of manner on both sides.
‘“Set! set! set!” said Mrs. Jenness,
as her father walked out of. the yard
'and down the road toward his own
home. “The settest man that ever
walked the earth! I ryouldn’t stand
it about Jenny if I was mother. She’s
dying to see Jenny’s babies, an’ I just
b’leevo that father’d soften if he saw
’em once. The only grandchildren
he’s got on earth, and he nor ma never
even saw them. If 1 dared I’d fix it
so he should see those two dear little
tots once!”
It was dark when Jason Hogarth
reached his house. There were no
lights in the front windows of the big,
square farm house with an incredibly
long L back of it. He walked around
to the rear, where streams of cheery
light shone from the kitchen windows.
A pleasant odor of. frying ham greeted
him as he entered the kitchen, where
a table with a snowy cloth was set for
supper, close to the shining kitchen
stove,
“It was so chilly in the dining-room,
I thought we’d eat supper out ber°,”
said his wife, a small, slight, gray-
haired woman.
“I enjoy eatin’ in the kitchen of a
cold night like this,” said hor hus¬
band. “It’s gitt.in’ colder fast. Sup¬
per ’about ready?”
“Yes; I’ll take it right up.”
They talked little while they ate.
.Jason was inwardly rebellious -over
what he called his daughter’s “impu¬
dence,” and Mrs. Hogarth’s thoughts
could not be given utterance, because
they were of Jenny.
“I must go up to the attic an’ git
out the buff’lo robes,” said Mr. Ho¬
garth, pushing his chair away from
the table. “I’ll start so early in the,
mornin’ I won’t have time to git the -
robes then. I guess I’ll put right off
for bed soon as I git the robes, I’ve
got to be off by 5 o’clock.
Five, minutes later he was in his
musty,.cobwebbed old attic, candle in
hand. When he had found the robes
ho said to himself:
“Wonder if my big fur muffler ain’t
up here in some o’ them trunks?
I’ll need it if it’s cold as I think it’ll
be in the morning. Mebbe it’s in this
trunk.”
He dropped on one knee beforo n
small, old, hair-covered trunk, with
brass-headed nails that had lost their
Jinsti* years ago. Throwing up the
trunk lid, he held the candle lower.
His eye fell on a big rag doll with a
china head. He picked it up and
stared at it a moment.
His mind went back to a Christmas
long years ago. He was a poor young
married man then, and he had worked
nearly all day at husking corn for a
neighbor, to earn money to buy that
doll head, and his wife had set up un¬
til midnight to make the clumsy body
stuffed with sawdust. He remembered
how his little Jenny had shrieked with
joy when she found the doll in her
stocking the next morning. And what'
is this? A tiny, faded, blue merino
baby sacque. His wife had made it
before Jenny had yet come into the
world. 1 It was the very first tiny gar¬
ment she had made, and her husband
recalled how she had blushed and tried
to hide i it under her apton when he
had fofl.ikd her at work on it. He re¬
membered that he had taken it from
her and kissed her, and then he had
kissed the tiny garment itself.
The candle in his hand shook
strangely as he bent lower over the
trunk and brought forth a tiny china,
cup with “From Papa,” on it, and a
little sampler with “God bless father
and mother” worked in rather uncer¬
tain letters by a little hand.
There was a string of blue glass
beads that he has given her on her
fifth birthday and in a heavy black
case beads was a daguerreotype of her with
the around her neck. The lit¬
tle pictured face smiled up at him
from the frame and there was a mist:
before his eyes when he thought of
how many, many times those bare lit¬
tle arms had tightened in a warm em¬
brace around his neck, and of how
many times those smiling lips had
kissed him and said:
“I love you best of anybody in all
the world, farver. ”
Everything in the trunk was a re¬
minder'of her in her baby days, of his
little Jenny. He sat down on the
floor beside the trunk and took the
things out one by one, the stern look
in his faee softening and his heart
growing warmer. .
He smiled when he came to a little
white sunbonnet and remembered just
cold water that he might not know
that she had been crying. But he
would know if he had any discernment
at all, for she had been crying nearly
all day. Her heart had been so heavy
with thoughts of Jenny.
“How’d you happen to come in at
the front door?”-she asked.
“You mustn’t ask questions so near
Christmas time,” he said in a voice so
light and joyous that she looked up
quickly. He picked up a lamp and
said:
“I want to go into the parlor a min¬
ute before supper.”
A moment later he called ont
cheerily:
“Come in here an’ see your Christ¬
mas gift, ma. It’s such a,, beauty I
can’t wait until morning. ” j
“Better wait until after supper any¬
how. It’s all on the table. ”
“No; come in here first.”
When she reached the open door of
the parlor she saw her husband on his
knees between a little boy of about
four years and a little girl of two, his
arms around their waists. A little wo¬
man with a thin, pale, tear stained
fade showing beneath her cheap ^little
mourning bonnet, was standing be¬
hind Jason.
“And this ia Walter Jason, named
for me, and this is Marthy Isabelle,
named for you,” said Jason, joyously.
“Come, come ma; stop huggin’ an’
cryin’over Jenny an’ take a look at
your gran -children. What do you say
to them for a Christmas gift?” ®
ax She i knelt ii .1 down and , took , them in •
her arms, saying incoherently :
Jenny-*-Jason--oh, dear—1—I—
yon dear lit tie things! Gran ma s
babies! You darlings! You dar ings!
You rethe bes gift the sweetes gift,
the dearest gi t in all the wor d! The
httle peace child that <*me to Beth-
lehem was not dearer .to his mother
than you are to me. Kneel right down
“
Christmas Day for this an’ for the
beautiful Christmas there will be un¬
der this roof to-morrow!”—Detroit
Free Press.
how Jenny had looked when she oarne
toddling out to meet him, wearing it
for the first time.
It was 9 o’clock when he went back
to the kiloheu. His wife looked np
from the weekly paper she was read¬
ing and said:
“Why, Jason, you ain’t been up in
I the attic all this time? I s’posed you’d
come down an’ gpneto bed long ago.”
“I’m goin’ right away. Set me out
some breakfast on the table and fix
the coffee so I kin make me a cup
’fore I start. ”
“I shall get up an’ get you a good
hot breakfast myself, Jason.”
“You needn’t to, Marthy, it’ll be so
early.”
“1 shall get up just the same. How
husky your voice is, Jason. I’m ’fraid
you took oold up there in the attic.
What ever were you doing up there
all this time?”
“Oh, just lookin’ over some old
things. I didn’t take any cold. Bet¬
ter go <o bed, Marthy, if you’re beat
on gittin’ up at 4 in the mornin’.”
Why, Jason, bow’d you happen to
come in at the front door?”
It was 9 o’clock at night, bitterly
cold and stormy, and Christmas Eve.
Jason had just come home from He¬
bron. His wife had heard him drive
into the barnyard and hacp.made haste
with her supper that it might be
ready and hot when tie came in. She
had also bathed her eyes hastily in
CHRISTMAS TOYS.
MOST OF THEM ARE MADE IN
ONE GERMAN PROVINCE.
Nearly Every ThuriiiKlan Is a Maher
of Playthings—Turning Out Dolls
—Where American . Manu¬
facturers Excel.
DEALER in toys
was crossing the At¬
lantic a few years
f ago on his way to
Thuringia, Q e r -
many, where most
of the world’s play¬
things for children
are made. Among
the passengers on
shipboard, says the
Chicago Record, was
an American lady
with her daughter,
a bright-eved, curly-
headed four-year-old. As the child
skipped merrily about the deok on
pleasant days the dealer thought how
much more beautiful and attractive
his dolls could be made if they were
modeled after such a type of the
American child instead of after little
Germans and Italians and Parisians.
For two or three days the ides kept
growing upon him until he finally
sought out the American lady and
succeeded in obtaining her permission
to make a number of photographs of
the little girl, showing her curls and
her big, laughing eyes, With these
he went up into the Thuringian moun¬
tains, and it was not long before a
clever artist had molded the face in
elay and sent it to one of the queer
little factories where toys are manu¬
factured. In course of time the dolls’
heads were made and shipped across
the water, reaching this country' only
a few weeks before Christmas.
The dealer unpacked his windows— treasures
and displayed them in his
scores of bisque and china reproduc¬
tions of the face of his little acquaint¬
ance on shipboard. When the chil¬
dren saw that the doll really looked
like an American girl the windows
A
<3
\
BISQUE DOLL PROM A LIVING MODEL.
were quickly emptied, and by Christ¬
mas every one of the heads had been
sold. Since that time the dealer has
had most of his dolls modeled from
real boys and girls, and he could, if
he chose, give their games. A pic¬
ture of the doll’s head modeled after
the child on shipboard accompanies
this article.
For some reason American manufac¬
turers have been unable to make toys
that please the children of this coun¬
try half as well as those which come
from Thuringia. Perhaps they haven’t
the art of the German peasants, whose
fathers Mid grandfathers before them
were toymakers; or, perhaps, the
necessary materials are not at hand;
or it may be that they simply lack the
patience. But, whatever the reason,
American wholesale toy dealers are
compelled to send to Europe for their
dolls’ heads, and almost everything
else except certain iron and mechani¬
cal toys.
Almost everybody in the provinoe
of Thuringia is a maker ofjilaythings.
There are twenty
factories or more,
all of them small
and quaint, in which
dolls’ heads alone
are manufactured.
They employ from
150 to 500 workmen
<each, the best paid A.
of whom—the ar-
tists who make theeQr
clay molds—receivewf to©
only from $15 / J l.ii!
$25 a week, while IS
some of the girls |
who paint eyebrows f, ma
and rouge the dolls’ If/) j
cheeks draw odIv -
twenty-five or.thirty M
cents When a day. Ameri- ™ gj
an
can dealer sends A KNIT DOlL.
over the photograph of the child
whose face he wishes repro¬
duced the artist takes it and molds
<i head of the proper size in clay.
Then two plaster casts are made, one
of the face of the mold and one of the
back, the dividing line running from
the center of the top of the head
through the point of the shoulders. A
core of plaster about half an inch
smaller in diameter than the mold is
then constructed, to be used in making
the cavity inside of the doll’s head.
The molds being now completed, they
are taken to the factory, and a work-
1 DreBaes into ,°“ one e of the ® halves “Y V * a
piece f of ^ potter s clay. J Into this a V he
oro0S t e oore un tiI it is within a
quarter of aQ inch or less of the mold>
aocordin 8 to the desired thickness of
th ghell of the head . Then a thin
j ^ of cl ^ is * d over t he ex-
^ ^ h cor0 and th0
f th mold ig d down
oyer this and wei » hted that every
^ ftnd chink t he molds will be
«ji ed
“ “» “«■
thoroughly, the head is taken out and
set into a little fire-clay receptacle
much resembling a cheese-box. When
this is full of heads it is ready for the
kiln, the clay
is the i I 'Oiffy iow important in the whole
work, , the most skilled men are
employed, men who can tell almost by
instinot how hot the fires should be
and whon the heads have been suf¬
ficiently burned. The kiln itself is a
great flro-olay apartment, which opens
oft from the factory and is entered
through a number of small doors.
When the fire-olay boxes containing
all the way from ten to forty “raw”
doll’s heads have been piled inside the
kiln, sometimes to the number of
several hundred, the doors are all
dosed and the heat is started and kept
going steadily for about three days
and then the furnace is allowed to oool
for two days more. If the heat is not
kept absolutely even the dolls become
stoop shouldered or have twisted
countenances like those frequently
sold on the bargain counters of depart¬
ment stores. When the heads are
taken from the kiln they are of a faint
amber color and are known as bisque
ware.
For ordinary china dolls a coarser
quality of ciay is used, and after
being taken from the furnace the first
time they are dipped into a glazing
solution and then baked again.
gH fit
2 ' <?■
COMIC MASKS.
When the heads are thoroughly
cooled they are conveyed to a long
table at which scores of girls, all gayly
dressed and all chattering, are sitting.
They range from thirteen years of age
upward, the laws of the land not per¬
mitting the employment of younger
children. The first girl takes the
head, and with a deft movement of a
brush which she holds in her hands,
paints the eyebrows and then slips it
along to the next girl, who puts the
blushes on the doll’s cheeks, A third
girl colors the hair, another the lips,
and then the head is turned over to a
more experienced girl, who is charged
with the duty of putting in the eyes.
She has before her a miniature mor¬
tar box full of moist plaster of paris
and scores of eyes of different sizes
and shapes. When she has found a
pair that fits/ she fastens them in,
chinking in the gaping spaces with
plaster of paris, which is subsequent¬
ly colored. For the “go-to-sleep”
doll the eyes are attached by little
wires and operated by a simple weight
of lead. Long experience has made
all the girls extremely deft and rapid
in their work, and where theyjwork by
the piece they sometimes make as
high as fifty cents a day.
The feet and hands of the dolls are
molded and baked just like the heads.
The cloth for the bodies is cut by a
great machine, the knives of whioh
are fashioned in the exact shape of the
pieces desired. The sewing is all done
by girls, a small place being left iu
one end of the body for stuffing. The
contents are sometimes cork, some¬
times sawdust and sometimes hay.
Papier maehe dolls are pressed into
form by a hydraulic maohine and
afterward baked and painted like oth¬
er dolls. The peasants in the sur¬
rounding country also make great
numbers of knit dolls of a hundred
shapes and hues, and they are sold for
a few marks a dozen to the factory
managers. The hair of dolls for the
most part comes from England, where
it is manufactured from a variety of
flax known as mohair flax. Some of
the more expensive dolls are provided
with real hair.
Most of the ordinary wooden toys,
such as the animals for Noah’s ark,
are whittled out by the boys and men
i n the little mountain homes of
Thuringia. The whole family often
works at the business, one member
always making an elephant, another a
camel, another a horse, year in and
year out. Of course they become
very expert, but the pay whioh they
receive is small.
The ordinary papier-mache masks
sold by costumers are made in molds
similar to those prepared for dolls,
and, while there has bean some attempt
on the part of American manufactur¬
ers to make them, the greatest number
still comes from over the water.
But the Americans have driven out
all competitors in one branch of the
toy trade. No artisans in the world
have been able to invent such wonder¬
ful mechanical toys of iron and tin,
and the exports of this class of work
to Europe All every year are exceedingly
large. the clever devices sold by
street peddlers are the work of ingea-
ious Yankees.
The Night Belore Christmas,
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> fin
Billy Brass— 1 ‘That stocking game
ain’t large enougbfor me; IguessTl’ll
spring something n*w,onSanta Weekly. Claus.”,
—Frazil Leslie’s