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* FORT MILL TIMES.
Published Thursday Mornings.
/.
l*ORT MILL, S. C.
Bigbee children
looked at the
Cv^HH river, and eave
r^/JvU InH up all hope of
iTTi 7 Ww Christmas. The
A- steamboat went
Tj~ by on its dally
<7j trip, breaking the
way through the
crust during the night, and leaving
behind a highway of drifting ice. On
the bank beyond they could see the
houseB and the church, but could not
go there.
^ "We may even forget when Christmas
comes." said Ben. "unless we
notch a stick, like Robinson Crusoe."
"I shall not forget," said Delia.
"Nor I," said Mamie Scudder.
Kf The FMgbees lived on an island.
There was one house besides their
W own, where Mrs. 6cudder and Mamie
lived. Mamie never crossed the waF
ter In cold weather, but the Bigbee
children rowed across every week to
Sunday school, until December
brought ice and snow.
People living on a small island must
take boat3 instead of carriages when
they go to church or post office or
n^arket. But the Bigbee children did
not think that a hardship.
I "We want clear water all winter,"
aid Delia.
/ "I hope you will have it." said the'1
teacher, "at least till Christmas. We
/are going to have carols and a Christ- !
I mas tree."
I This was great news to the Bigbees, 1
I who had never seen a Christmas tree. !
I They talked about it. and told Mamie
J Scudder. They knew there would be ;
candles on the tree, and shining
things among the bougha.
But the flrst Sunday lr December |
a blinding snowstorm kept them at
home. The next Sunday and the next
there was ice tossing in the river, so
that no llttln rowhoat rotild Ventura
abroad.
One more Sunday, and then Monday
would be Christmas. All the
hnppy children across the river would
go to church end there would be the
t tree " dl of gifts.
* "It's a cold day and growing cold- 1
eT." said Mr. Blgbee on Saturday.
The family kept close round the
fire. None of them spoke of Christ- |
? mas. There had been no secret preparations.
no shopping trips. Money
was scarce in the Blgbee family.
When Ben and Delia went to their
beds at night, Paul, who followed
soon after, came back Into the kitchen
with a serious face.
"Mother." he said, "they have hung
up their stockings!"
Mrs. Blgbee set her lips tight. Then
fsho put her arm round Paul, and
n *' * kissed him.
"Never mind." he said. "We can
pop corn and crack nuts."
Mrs. Blgbee stayed up late that
night. By 11 o'clock she had mado
cookies shaped In various ways?
birds, dogs, balls, hoys, horses, elephants.
camels, hearts, sheep and
rabbits?and not one too big to slip
easily Into a child's stocking.
She put 12 Into each of her children's
stockings, hanging Paul's up
also. She glanced toward Mrs. Scudder's,
but the lights were out.
"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"
shouted the children the next
morning. The house rang with laughter
and mirth. There was great excitement
over the stockings. Even
Paul was Interested and amused.
"Dear little mother." he said, softly.
Mamie came with her stockingful.
and the children nlaved monnpurl#
Noah'B Ark. and farmyard for hours.
The Btenmboat mado no trip that
day. A few skaters were seen. "1
guess the boat skips Christmas the
same as Sundays," said Paul.
After dork he went to the window.
"I bear the bells." he said. "And the
church windows shine." A silence fell
on the group.
"Tf we knew the carols we would
sing them ourselves." said Mrs. Pigbee.
From time to time the children 1
went to the window. It was starlight.
"See the lights In the road!" exclaimed
Delia. "The folks are going
home with lanterns."
"They're coming down the bank!"
said Den.
A little line of lights moved steadily i
along. They were certainly on the j
frozen river. They were coming
toward the Island.
"Why. father, father!" shouted Paul. |
"The river must be frozen hard all
over, and that's why the boat didn't
go!"
"It happened so once six years ago." i
said Mr. Dlgbce.
Mrs. Scudder ran over from her j
house. "They're Ringing!" she cried
"Listen!"
The sweet Christmas carols sounded
clearer and clearer, as boys nnd
girls came up the bank, up to the
very house.
"Come In! Come In!" said Mr. Rigbee.
throwing the door open.
It was as If church, tree, festival,
Christmas and everything had come
to the Blgbees and Scudders.
"We cut off a bough full of candles
to bo your tree," said the boys. They
set It up In a corner and lighted the
candles anew.
"We brought your presents." said
the girls, giving each a book and box
of candy.
It was late when, with merry farewells,
the visitors took their lanterns
and departed, singing carols, while
the happy children watched the line
of lights recrosslng the river, and
listened In happinos until the voleo:;
died nway in the distance
> BEgBHT
.- :
Che BilliM
Aliuaiji 0
4
mmmA ROM the rush and bustle of biisy
El ^ American city streets, alive at
this season of the year with
Eg Christmas shoppers, back to old
f Nuremberg, In Germany, where
the Christmas spirit lasts the
year around, where Santa Claus
spends his working mpnths for
the Joy of the world's children?
surely the step is not too great
for the imagination nor its goal
uninteresting as a study. Come
oyt of your crowded streets,
your people-packed stores, leave
off for the time being your
breathless chase after that
troublesome "last present," and
turn into the quiet winding streets, the irregular
hilly passages dovetailed by houses older than anything
in the oldest parts of the United States.
House rises above house full of a history as romantic
as the proudest mansion of our city streets,
and yet marked by a simplicity and single-heartedness
seldom present'in things modern. It is lu?re
that the toys are made which von hnv in vmir hnmn
across the sea. Here in the quietness of the unmodern,
the playthings are invented and perfected
for your restless,, buoyant children. You read
"Made in Germany" with a skeptical tilt of the
eyebrow, but the fact remains that bv far the
I
1
greater number of all the toys manufactured tl
come from Nuremberg. n
The ancient feudal city, around which cluster u
the grim traditions of the Inquisition und the ^
thrilling epic of the times of Charles V., has for tj
four hundred years or more been the center of B
the children's fairyland. It lias been and is the
nucleus of Christmas happiness for the youth e
of every place in the Occident, and its charm ti
is the perpetual one of joyous creation which de- t<
lights in planning the amusement of little people. c'
In the fnctories they will tell you that 72,000,000
marks ($18,000,000) worth of pleasure is
sent out from Nuremberg every year, and that tl
$5,800,000 of this export is for the benefit of 0|
Young America. Only a few years ago all of the w
necessary labor for this immense production was a
done by hand, ami much of the finishing and fine ci
last touches are performed by special artists. ft
Even now in the factories the old spirit of an P
almost consecrated enthusiasm lives and is evi- ^
dent in the interest of the village artisans for
their craft. Not merely the reason of broad and ^
butter goi s toward the making of those marvel- ^
ous walking dolls, those phenomenal speaking ^
picture books, those thousand and one games that
have called for all the imaginative as well as {
practical genius of these honest German peasant
folk. Rather has their unique industry called for .
and developed in them a romance, a sensitiveness
of perception which is remarkable.
Follow the lurching, worn curves of the Al- t
brecht-Durerstrasse, and you come to one of the f
many homes of this Nuremberg spirit. In a niln- \
iature red-roofed house, wedged in among a hun- v
dred squat brown huts, live two old men?broth- t
ers, of sixty-five and seventy?whose white t
heads are constantly bent over small circles of |
wood?shaping, paring, carving, painting. t
All day they sit there, sometimes all night,
toiling over the delicately ornamented dolls' t
dishes which perhaps you have bought, as a small I
Insignificant thing, Just this afternoon for your c
small daughter's tree. t
You looked at them carelessly; they were not v
especially original or attractive, and you shoved
them into your bag with a half-hesitating accept- f
ance, thinking that mavhe they would please ca- 1
prlelous Dorothy. How could you know that hack
in the village of Always Christmas old hands had
fashioned those trivial plates and pitchers, old '
eyes had strained with loving anxiety over those
fine traceries of columbine, and old hearts had r
warmed over those completed trifles with the a
same thrill of the master painter over his best? r
But this viia true. Indeed, nearlv all of the 1
simple wooden toys are constructed by hand, in x
some humble volkshause which goes to make up 1
the aggregate creative force of Santa Claus' c
workshop. Take the tiny sets of soldiers, the f
doll's chairs and tables, the painted wooden aid- 1
inals whose realism Is a delight to all children, 1
actual or' grown up. These are fashioned in
homes, sometimes by the efTorts of wholo fain- <
ilies, but most often by children themselves. t
Sixteen Is the ago limit for chJJd labor in the '
factories, but no young person is prohibited from *
assisting his parents at home, provided he spends *
the required period of time at school, tio that
many of those playthings which give most happiness
to the children of America have been 1
made by the children of Nuremberg. And If <
babies must work, what work could one find for 1
| them more appropriate or more pleasurable than i
* \
? at
(iriftmnST
\rs, Parisian frocks, 1/1 V^W\. ^,yS^ A ^c? >
riinitlve carta drawn ^^S^sssjL-Si, ?T""T1. 1
y hugs mastiffs, funny ?55;
lcked-away inns near cTcfy^zA^^- szv
le market place full 2^C>y fu'iDJPJr
{ peasant women in
ide black silk aprons
nd snowy white caps?crumbly fountains and a
istle with n secret passage. All the elements of the
iscinating past and the strangely progressive
resent within a stone's throw of each other. The
sali/.atlon of all that Nuremberg has been and
as undergone comes to one most vividly as one
lands looking down Into the Schloss well fi50
set deep, where prisoners used to come to fetch
ater. Underground their passage led from the
ungeons to this unlit circular pool, for state prisners
were never permitted to see the light, and
he hollow splash of the water which the attendnt
drops into the well seems to re-echo, after an
nternilnable lialf-minute, the hopeless pilgrimge
of those countless victims of medieval fanatcism.
Such is the potency of the ended. While
he vitality of the occurring emphasizes Itself, not
ar off, in one of the dozens of toy factories,
rhose very machinery whirs modernity, men,
foroen and children?that is, children over sixeen?are
massed Into this building, nil intent on
he one idea, the creation of better and newer and
nore wonderful toys for everyone's children, in
sveryone's country.
It is seldom the industrial planet can boast of
i broader ambition than this of the craftsmen of
Nuremberg. To bring the greatest possible amount
?f pleasure, legitimate and often educative pleasire,
to growing, active minds is surely an aim
vorthy of the finest art In the world. It even
ieenis as though the thought back of the toys
should surround them with a deeper meaning as
lifts this Chrlstmastide, since the added gift?the
jfggest gift?lies in the patient interested invenion
and accomplishment of which they are the
exponent.
As for the inventors, strictly speaking, their
eward seems Infinitesimal according to our stand- ,
irds. The ' boss"' controls Ideas as well as mateiuls
of output, and It Is chiefly to his profit that
lew inventions in toyland redound. The man or
voman who first thinks of or improves upon some
ilaything gets a very small per cent, of the in:ome
from it. To our new world standards of
onimerce it seems strange that the originator
thould receive such scant recognition and that
without grumbling.
Very, very few Nuremberg toymakers have
jver grown rich over their ingenlousness. It is
rue that Ideas as well as toys In Germany sell
or double what they sold for eight years ago,
?ven! On the other hand the price of living has
sone up appreciably, and what would have seemed
i large purchase price then is only moderate now.
The staff of artists employed by the Nuremjerg
factory boss is in Itself a not Inconsiderable
)x,>ense, and many a quiet charity is undertaken
l>y these men. who at home would be absorbed
n getting rich. In the shop of Fritz Muller aro
}
w .
" ? - w "
ff
i
' ^ '' ?* ;' v ,r/^^3\
\vcs&frt/i?eoJ
Zcssyroj^ ??*, ^ ^- j
various sruall kitchen gardenB, carved and painted
by a poor man and his sister after their regular
working hours, and bought by Mr. Muller at high
rates as his pet philanthropy. In this shop, now
100 years old, are seen all of the most novel of
the toy-village playthings. The store was crowded
with n\pre children over thirty than under thlr
teen, an?l absorbed for hours over the clever and
quaint attractions.
The doll's house of Nuremberg leaves nothing
to be desired. Not only the usual rooms of a conventional
menage are found in it, but conservatories
with miniature orchids, fountains and watering
chns; school rooms with tiny deslcs, a
schoolmaster, very stern, with goggles and ruler,
and children in aprons and carrying slates, tho
latter a sixteenth of an Inch big; fields of flowers
for the back yard and a swing for the smallest
doll.
In all German art. of which toy "making is by
no means an Insignificant department, perfection
of detail has always been the salient feature. Ever.v
phase of home life is reproduced in microscopic
form in German toylnnd, even down to the
wee pairs of hand-knitted stockings and sweaters,
the hob-nailed shoes and blue blouses which make
up the wardrobe of the volks boy and girl.
The tourist season is a second Christmas for
Nuremberg people, and they sell as many playthings
In the one period as the other. An interesting
point brought to light by this fact is the
early differentiation of the American and European
Individuality, which shows itself in choice of
games and pastimes. They say in the shops that
an American child is invariably fascinated over
the mechanical and complicated, that lie finds intense
interest in mastering the technicalities even
of playing, while the European child likes a simpler
hut brilliantly colored toy, cherishing often a
curious sentiment for traditional objects such as
typify old world conservatism.
They are blessed with imagination, there village
people, and they are not ashamed of showing
their simplicity of spirit. Their souls are
bound up In the heritage of centuries. The tragedies
of their city's history wind about the toys
they make, breathing into the wood a characteristic
vitality?the vitality that comes of centuries
nf Rtrivinc nf nonfnrlfto 1 ? 4
... ....... ... .... ui imurui nuuit-Vflllt'Ill.
As you sit in a swirl of red ribbon and foamy
paper, "doing up" your Christ mas presents, remember
that many of them have come from this
quaint little Village of Always Christmas. it
may add to your holiday happiness to know that
no pleasure which the toys may bring can be
greater than the pleasure of those who made them,
and that no good will of yours can outdo the quiet
sincerity of purpose with which the simple people
of Nuremberg have given their part toward this
season of the universal gift.
I
========= {
"Bfttg ssnft
?illfkcn"
As Rnttv Innkt'll nn frnm t>f.f ?"?
broidery, a letter was thrown into her
lap. "Hurrah!" cried Hillee, "here's
a letter from mother. She Is not a
bit angry about our runaway match,
and writeB beautifully. She wants us
to go down for a visit and stay over
the Christmas season. Will you go,
Hetty?"
"Of course. 1 will!" she cried delightedly;
and then, a little wistfully,
"Do you think your mother will like
me. Hlllikin?"
"She will adore you. How can she
help it? And I am sure you will
love her. Do you think we could
start tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow? Well. 1 guess we
could. We can pack at once. Let me
see. what clothes shall 1 take? Are
they very gay down there, or must I
be terribly demure?
"Let me know my role and 1 shall
play it to the letter. I once took
part in a Sunday school entertainment
and was the hit of the piece. I
think I was somebody's spinster aunt.
| and said 'Land sokes' every five min1
utes. I simply must get on with your
I mother."
Billee smiled. "It isn't a case of
land sakes exactly, though I'll admit
mother is a little old-fashioned, and
there isn't much doing down there.
"Oh. I see." sighed Hetty ruefully,
j "I could take my blnok tailored
gown, and my blue rnjnh. a couple of
I quiet blouses and skirts. .
i It was almost tea time when they
arrived, cold and tired after their
long Journey.
When they were shown to their
room Hetty was delighted.
"Oh. isn't this delightful, after a
10x12 flat! And. Hilloe, I think your
mother is a dear!"
"I knew you would like her. and
she will absolutely dote on you; I feel
i It in my bones!"
Hut Hetty was not so sure. More
than once she felt her niotlier-in-law
1 /Sb
I
:
"Here They Are," Exclaimed Betty.
gazing at her in a sort of mild dlsapj
proval. which was both annoying and
J perplexing.
In the meantime Hillee had noticed
it. too. and cornered his mother on
, the !irst opportunity. ?
"Now, mother, what is it you don't
like about Hetty? I am sure you do
I not approve of her in some way."
"Why, I did feel a little disappointed
that you, being so young and lively,
had chosen a girl of her age and with
! so little life and spirit."
"Of her age!" exclaimed the aston1
Ished fellow. "Why. Hetty Is only
' nineteen and 1 am twenty-four. Did
j you want me to rob a kindergarten?
And lively? Why. Hetty Is the most
spirited girl you ever saw."
"Well." she said finally, "if that is
:h?- way she appears to you, I am very SB
glad for your snkr; but she really is '
shy and isn't quite her natural self. Jpt
or that the way she wears her hair
j and dresses makes her seein older
| and more staid than she really is "
"Oh!" exclaimed her son in a tone
that spoke volumes. "Mother. I
j thought that you did not care for
' folderols and vanities."
"Well. I am an old lady." she anI
swercd with a toss of her head, "but
when I was young I wore my share of
i vanities with the best of them. You
see how it is. Hillee; 1 had told all our
friends here that you had married
such n society belle and that she was
j so stylish and pretty and?"
"And she doesn't look the part!"
With a peal of laughter he rushed out
| of the room and up the stairs.
"Come out of it. Hetty; it's all a A
ni'stake. Get on your war paint. You
did bring a few things with you, didn't
! you?"
"What do you mean?" demanded an
i astonished Hetty. M
"Hetty." he began gravely, but ended
in another peal of laughter, "we'ro
on the wrong track The mater says
you depress her. You lack youth and
gaiety. It's all my fault, wretch that
I am; she isn't old-fashioned at all."
When they burst into the Bitting
room a few minutes later the old lady
looked up in amazement. For a
whole minute she surveyed them, then
latighed till the tears ran down her
pink cheeks.
"You poor child! And to think that
you went to all that trouble to gain
my regard!"
| "Yes. ami rve oeen positively sufi
faring for a good laugh, and afraid to
be my natural self, for fear you
would be shocked," added Betty dolefully.
"The idea! The very idea! And
I've been suffering for a little life and
gaiety, and have looked to Billeo and
| his wife to bring mirth into this lonely
old homo, nnd to?" Her voice I
broke Instantly their arms were ?
J around her. ' ^
"Shall we have a Jolly Christmas,
Tlillikin? Shall we make the rafters
ring''" comes a gay challenge from
Betty.
"Leave it to us! ' raid Tlillikin.