Etc. [pp. 91-96]

1873.]
bud, who was tatting like a good little
woman by the window in the landlady's
parlor. Tom looked ominous, and Hal
looked puzzled, until Dick returned with
a face almost as complacent and satisfied
as Tom's own. Dick winked at Tom,
and thereupon both boys seized a hand of
Hal, and wished him joy of Rosebud.
They assured him, that to no husband
but himself would they intrust so precious a bride; and with that they sought
the sideboard, in the best of humorsfeeling an almost irresistible desire to
hug everybody in creation.
So Hal married Rosebud, to the joy of
the whole household; and nothing happened after that but congratulations and
good-luck.
Dick never married. He thought it
safer to live by himself; and so he lived,
until Tom, one fine day, discovered a
treasure, and secured it. Tom wrote
Hal a long letter all about it, and declared, in several places, that he was
very happy-in fact, much happier than
he deserved; Wand that as soon as Mr.
and Mrs. Hal would call on Mr. and
Mrs. Tom, Mr. Tom would take very
great pleasure in introducing to them a
perfect little fairy, with a face like a
cameo-and who, to tell the whole truth,
could be none other than Mrs. Tom herself!
Then Dick, like a good fellow, went to
end his days with Tom and his wife; and
he proved to be matter-of-fact enough to
strike a balance in the domestic circle,
so that they lived happily for many years.
Rosebud's mamma grew more and
more puddingish, until, like a good
mother- in - law, she died of richness.
So, on the whole, the amount of joy that
came of that Christmas pudding was
only equaled by the amount of misery
everybody escaped in doing just as he
did; and I believe the whole of it may
be credited to the eating of that particular pudding, and the eating of it cold,
after the pantomime-all of a Christmas
night!
ETC.
" Christmas Comes but Once a Year."
To the Californian who still remembers
with some degree of fondness the Christmas
in his Eastern home, this sacred season returns
like an old friend in a new dress. Perhaps
he wakens from a dream of Christmases past:
it is scarcely daybreak; he sees the frost-ferns
on the window-frame, and beyond them the
sharp stars are sparkling in the clear, cold
sky; during the night some boisterous wind
has heaped a snow-hill against the casement,
and laid white, feathery rolls of snow in the
shelves of the shutters.
By and by the sun slides his level rays
across the glittering landscape; the trees look
like silver candelabra, ribbed with crystal,
and hung full of prismatic stalactites; the
snow- apples fairly ripen in the rosy light,
and the evergreens shake off their cumbrous
mantles of ermine, and reach out their resinous boughs to the brave little snow-birds.
From every chimney ascends the incense of
the morning meal, the frost - ferns wither on
the window -panes, and day begins. Somehow, those Eastern Christmases are forever
associated with a sentiment of fraternal love.
It was always at such a season that everybody
loved everybody in a very open and cordial
manner; the exchange of gifts, the universal
charity, the earnest jollity of the occasion,
will live forever in the heart of him who has
once realized them.
We have our California Christmas, though
it be of a different temperature. To be sure,
the old folks and the young folks-the linked
generations that have such good cause to re
ETC.
9I