Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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hTf/fl Cifrlsimst3» ®:*tta y*ar, tsas. y THE LEDGER. oafnkv < in, k. c:. SUPPLEMENT. ^ING Ol'T, ye bells, ye Christmas be-lls. Your k 1 a (1 and happy story! Rinjr out, with peals of holy mirth. Your sontr to all tho listening earth! Now far and wide your eehoes Iling, And wake each laggard heart to sing Hosanna to the little Child— The Lord of Life and Glory! Oh, sweet the sound of Christmas bells. And sweet the music of their swells. Which tell this happy story! God’s wondrous gift to us is this Dear Labe, so pure and holy! Long years ago, on llethlehem’s plains. The shepherds heard angelic strains, Proclaiming Jesus Christ was born; Their blessed song is ours this morn. Hosanna to the little Child— The Lord of Life and Glory! Oh, sweet the sound of Christmas bells, And sweet the music of their swells. Which tell this happy story! —Hannah Coddington, in Golden Days. OLD ME up, uncle, very high up. I can’t see, and, oh, they are so beauti ful! You were a darling to bring me, C__zr but what is the tise of my being here if I can't see?” Uncle Dick,who was 40, ami handsome and tall, obediently lifted up Jluntie, who was four and an autocrat, and very like a golden- haired doll herself in the latest thing in fur- trimmed pelisses and bewitching baity bon nets. The Albert ball was very crowded, and, glittering with thousands of toys, seemed a very fairy-land to Ituntic, whose heart was wrung with longing for the dolls, despite the fact that a large family, very pale with much kissing, slept peacefully in her gay nursery in Herkeley square. •"Hut, Huntie, these arc for little girls who have no dollies.” "Doesn’t Santa Claus come to them, then? I think lie must be a naughty old man if lie- only comes to me, and 1 have lots and lots of things.” "Don’t you see, Jluntie, there are kind ladies who remember the other little girls, and they dress all thesedollicsand send them to Santa Claus in ease his supply runs short.” "I would like to send them one of mine,” said Jluntie. "It must be so drefful to have Done on Christmas.” Uncle Dick had no very clear notion of the utter desolation this terrible idea implied to llaby Jluntie—Jluntie, who woke raptur ously on the most magical of all mornings, with full trust in the annual miracle that was the securest certainty of Jier little creed. Then not only the tiny stocking would he brimful of delight, but all the nursery turned into a novel wonder-world of joy ful surprises. Hut something in the sweet spontaneous pity of the child touched him, and he put his hand into his pocket with a sense of compunction that the hard fate of those forgotten J>y .Santa Claus had never been brought home to him. “1 think 1 can show you the way. Take this, darling.” Buntie proudly dropped a shining coin into the chariot of a very captivating fairy queen, and gazed about her from her lofty coign of vantage with rosc-llushed cheeks and eyes like stars. Thty had got among the dolls in fancy dresses,and even Maj. Dick Maruzion found, as usual, that taking Buntie out pleasuring meant amusement. The girls—and they Were numerous enough—who had tried to marry Dick Marazion would not have known that impenetrable gentleman in the guise of Buntie's willing slave. Once upon n time, before the death of Pick's godfather and the comfortable wo thousand a year that had come to him after tb&t event, he had been madly in love. For AT THE DOLL SHOW. ‘ason Hylvia Berwick, the sweet dnugh- f the most outrageously vulgar man sver made and lost a faJnilous fortune, ueened it over society and Dick’s heart. Id Berwick wanted a title and more for aughter, whose beauty lie rated at its ttmmercinl value, bylvia’s tears had not availed to keep the young lover she had chosen; and she Jiad no mother to plead for her. Dick had been ordered to India, and very soon after old Berwick Jiad gone under, as they say. This time in a double sense, for the crash that took his fortune took his life, and left Sylvia absolutely alone in the world. Society was naturally too busy with its own concerns to remember the comet of a day. Dic k had been at first sore and angry, then cynical, over his own passion. The organ played Christmas hymns, the hymns that, whether we will or no, take us back, and exercise such subtle magic. Even to the most careless listener they had a touch of fresh significance among these gay memorials of good will and kindness, not towards men, hut towards the children, to whom the pitiless heritage of the sins of the fathers comes with such cruel force. Suddenly 1 lick’s eye was riveted by a pair of immense dolls, and his heart beat as it had not beaten for 15 years. among the pink lamps and friendly shady palms! So she had never married, then, after all. He thought of the bright face, of the crowd of eager partners round the pretty heiress. Not one of them all true to the woman when her hour of tribulation came. Or was it be cause she had not forgotten him? Im possible. The dolls stared at him as only dolls do stare. The jaunty colonel, with everything complete; the dainty damsel, in delicate sea-blue brocade, with her lilies in her hand. He so dark, she so fair, just as they had been. “Oh, the dear little man. Oh, let me kiss him. Uncle Dick.” Forced back to fact, and Buntie growing restless, he took a sudden resolution. “Have you had enough, Buntie? Would you like to go where cake is?” “Arc there chocolates there, too?” queried that small person. “Everything,” said her uncle. “Then let’s go. Good-by, dear dollies; “Does Miss Berwick live here?” "Yes, sir, but she is not at home.” “That is unfortunate, for 1 wanted to see I her particularly.” "On business, sir?” "Yes,” said Dick, untruthfully. “Then, if you please, sir. 1 was to ask yon to wait. Miss Berwick will be in directly.” "So she is expecting some other fellow on business? What business?” thought Dick, as be followed the girl upstairs into a little j room pathetically pretty with the pretti- ‘ ness of tasteful poverty. His question answered itself, for there was a typewriter by the window piled with blotty manuscript. ()n the mantelpiece, what? A photograph —his own. No; after all, it was not a pho tograph, but a portrait cut from the Graphic after that affair in the Sindra Pass that the papers had made such a fuss over. There were footsteps on the stairs, and the door opened. It was nearly dark, but the firelight showed him that it was indeed He took her in his arms and answered, passionately: “My darling, 1 never knew until to-day that you wanted me; it was the doll that spoke.” Then there was a very complete and eloquent silence between them, till Sylvia looked up with her old smile: “Why, Dick, you can’t mean that you saw the colonel of the days of the duke of Marlborough. What were you doing in the Albert hall?” “I was dragged there by force by a small tryant—my sister’s Baby Buntie—and I got the best Christmas present of all, though I didn’t deserve it. Good old Santa Clans jiad not forgotten me when she showed me the lady in blue with the lilies in her hand.” “I dare say it was silly and sentimental of me to dress the dolls like ourselves, but sometimes, Dick, when I sat here working at them I could hear the music—that waltz, ‘Souviens toi,’ and see the pink lights just as they were on the happiest night of all my life. There was nothing left but my dear past. Nothing could take that from me.” Where shall I hang my stocking up,” said little Dottie Lee; Some folks are awful mean, I think; they’ve left no room for me.* 1 “The very best of all, in my opinion,” two admiring spectators near him were saying. “ ‘A colonel in the days of the duke of Marlborough’ and ‘a lady of the same period,’ dressed by—ob, give me my glasses—‘Miss Sylvia Berwick, 11 Teck-ter- race, West Kensington.’ There is only one fault, perhaps. Did ladies carry bouquets in those days?” Not in those days, perhaps, but certainly in the days when in all Covent Garden then- seemed no lilies of the valley fresh enough for ('apt. Marazion to send to Miss Berwick for Lady llurstmonceux’s fancy ball—the hull where she had figured us a lady of thc eourt of (juoen Anne, and lie as one of MurllKiroiigh’s colonels. How well he remembered it! Some Ik-iicv oh-nt girl had told him what Sylvia was to wear, and he had chosen his own dress ac cordingly. They had been much commented upon as the successes of the night, and in the pauses of a Waldteufel waltz he had told her that he loved hei, and she—ah, for the kiss hurriedly exchanged in the conservatory good-by all. I hope the poor little girls will love you very much.” It was half-past three and a sunny De cember afternoon. Buntie got her choco lates—twice as many as were good for her— before she was handed back to tell her nurse of the wonders of the Albert ball. "I dare say I’m a fool, but 1 mean to do it,” said Dick to himself as he came out of his sister’s house and hailed a hansom. “Eleven Teck-terrace; and, look here, stop lirst at that big Bond-street Hot ist’s.” There were not many lilies, and they were dear, but be bought every one. The inter minable cab drive was like a dream domin ated by the two great dolls. He could not think conseeut'vely. The old ache, the old longing, had come insistently back. The cabman lost bis way twice in a desert of mean honseu with empty "art” pots on the smutty ledges, and pallid yellow muslin curtains a breadth too narrow. At last he stopped at a quiet, unprepossessing row. No. 11 at least had elean steps, and a clean servant opened the door. Sylvia who came in. Not the- Sylvia of other days, so radiant, so girlish, so fresh in her dainty dresses—the years are not so kind— but a sweet, serious woman in plain black, with the old masses of golden hair showing under her little bonnet. Dick, with a sudden strange sensation of shyness that was very like tear, drew back until be was almost hidden by a screen, so that she did not see him. But the room was full of a fragrance her heart knew in a moment. He had laid the lilies upon a table, and she took them up with a little soft exclamation of pleasure. He saw how tender was the face that bent over tbe flowers, a face no longer young, but with a new loveliness all its own. Then he came forward without a word. She knew him instantly. The flush of rosy color, tin- light in her eyes, tho jov she could not stiile after all those hungry dragging years of loneliness, conjured hack all. and more than all, the glamour of their youth. " I tick ('apt. Marazion, whul has brought you here?” “Take the future instead, now, dearest. And, Sylvia, when Buntie saw that dashing colonel, she wanted to kiss the dear little man.”—London Truth. Shine, Stars, To-Night. Shine, stars, to-night! Shine clear and bright! Make earth and heaven to glow: Shinn as you did that Christmas night Long centuries ago. Light hill and valley as the dawn, Make all the darkness bright, For Christ, the Saviour, lias been born And Is with us to-night. —Frank H. Sweet, in Detroit Free Press. The Pessimist’s Christmas. “How did your Christ inns presents suit you?” asked the optimist of the pessimist. “Well,” was the reply of the sail one, "I didn’t receive the things I expected to get; I hut tln-n I had no hopes of getting them.”—• I’itUhurgli Chronicle Telegraph, HRTSTMAS comes but once a year.” Well, gosh all fish-hooks! who ’At had the Christ mas bills to pay 'Id ever ask fer two. Or, three, or four, or any more ’an what we have to-day? There may be some, but say, by gum! I ain’t built that a-way. I’ve got to git a sled for Ned, and buy a doll fer Nan, And tiooks and toys and lots of joys fer little crippled Dan, Fer he can’t go about, you know, like other boys, and run. And that is why we all must try to help him have his fun. And ’Liza—how these girls come up!—she don't want dolls no more— She’s got a beau—it can’t be so!—a clerkin’ in a store; But after all, she’s ’bout as tall as was her mother when We fell in love—we’re In it yet—lots deep er now than then. And so a year 'at didn’t bring a Christmas, seems to me, ’Ld be about the saddest thing a mortal man could see, Fer who would miss the Christmas bliss because there’s bills to pay? There may be some, but say, by gum! I ain't built that-a-way. —Nixon Waterman, in L. A. W. Bulletin. ACTING IN TIME. 1 3 Jones—Why have you given up smoking. Holt? Holt—Well, you see it is near Christmas, and I was afraid my wife might buy me a- box of cigars of her own choice.—Detroit Free Press. BROTHER JIM. The “ Boy ” Had a Hecrt “ Digger'll a Balloon.” “Here’s th’ rcgalcr (Jhris’mas box from brother Jim,” said Farmer Oatley, exultant ly, as he dropped the heavy package to the floor in front of the grate. “Never knowed Jim ter fail yit. That boy’s got a heart bigger’n a balloon.” "Boy,” broke in Mrs. Oatley, who always had a siege of wiping her glasses when that box came. “Why, Will’atn, he’s as old as you be.” “That’s a far,’ me an’ Jim’s twins, but I kin never think of him ’cept as th’ little skeezix that used ter w’allop me when we was kids. Cm 'us how that hoy turned out. Pap uster alius say that Jim was too shif’- less ter live, and once th’ ole man got so mad he said he guessed he’d just buy Jim a liddle an’ turn him out fur ter hunt his own paster. Jim said he didn’t care fur no fiddle, but he guessed he could flax ’round fur hisself, an’ he did.” “Yes, he’s dune remarkable. But it don’t seem quite right fur us to take so much frum him when we give him to little.” “Don't you worry a minute’bout Jim. If you didn’t sen’ him nuthin’ but a big ap ple fur Ghris’mas he’d feel a durn sight bettcr’n ifyou’d try ter put on frills send- in’ him suthin’ you couldn't afford. 1 know Jim. lies tickled n’inost ter death when he’s gettiu’ this box ready ter send. J kin jist hear him tellin’ his folks an’ all them servants how this thing is fur Sister Ruth, an’ this n fur ole Bill, an’ this'n fur Tom, an this u fur little Billy, an’ so on right through. \ ou kin bet Jim never forgets nobody. He beats all. Never had a dicker with Jim in my life he didn't knock th’ spots right offen me. Why he come dog gone near gittin’ your frum me, Ruth.” 'J hen he stopped drawing nails long enough to take a bear hug and kiss the blushing Ruth.—Detroit Free Press. ANOTHER ALTERED WILL. r Little Alice—Mamma says she ain’t going ! to gi\ e you ini t long lor ('liristinas the year. Papa’s Maiden Sister—Oh, she isn t, ch? Why not? Little Alice—Cause the present she give j you last year was worth twice as much a* I what you give us.—Cleveland Leader.