Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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gjr7 j ~w, w 11 SWEET CHRIS Oh Christmas chimes! O Christmas timesl The sweetest and the brightest; When hearts beat high and pulses fly. And childhood's steps are lightest! When ruddy cheeks are ruddiest, And red lios like a cherry. OChristmvs near! O Christmas hero! 80 sparkling and so merry! Old 8anta Claus?with ample cause, For children all adore him? While they're asleep, takes many a peep At trun.Ile-beds before him; And then he laughs?not in his sleevo, For that is foil, believe it. Of Christmas toys, for girls and boys, , . And could uot weil receive it. | SMALL PERTA' ;1 CHRP '~T By MAROAR] ^ 9W^T was about nine j / flj o'clock on Christmas ^ve* Small ^SF^Vifc9 Pertaters was ' 9 standing on one ^S|] n IE le?? ^e ?tker \ v twisted around it, ' %TK?-|5f! lookiug into one ^_V7^MH|X ^ of the windows of i ^pmjS Purcell's large bakery. He could >3^L smell the mince. P*e9> ^a*? fresh j from tho oven a ^ short time bafore, j(v had just been P^ced in it. QpL*Hlf "They smells s og ^ bolly good," he v jj) said, giving a j w great sniff. "I wished I had one." Bat he might as well, poor little fel*; low, have wished for the moon (he would have stood as good a chance of getting it), for not one cent was there, ! either in the ragged pockets of his sagged trousers, or the ragged pockets f his ragged coat. (This coat had cmoe been the spring overcoat of some woe twice as big as Small Pertaters, wad it was worn to a fringe all around the bottom from trailing on the ground.) "Fd rather," said Small Pertaters, "have one of them nor any thin* else. Yhey'a meat an' vegetables an' candy an' cake all to wunst, they is. An' how brown their hirers is. I never aeea sich werry brown kivers on a pie aforV' At this moment a gentleman and a lovely fair-haired little girl, followed j bv a small white do?, went into the hop, stayed there a short time, and I coming oat again, hastened up tho^ arenas. Small Pertaters gazed after ' them. "Her hair was jist like shiny gole," he said. "S'peot she has mince pie 5* erery day of her life. But it's no use me stamlin* here. It makes me hungrer an' hungrer look in' at them pies. I'll go home an* eat my sapper; an* tain't erery boy what's got a soup\ hone, with)a )lot of marrer in it an' a hank of gristle an' meat a-hangin' to ( . It, an' a fresh bisonit, an' a cole biled per Later, in his coat tail pocket." . r ' And, turning quickly from the winjjp* 4am, he spied the email white dog Mth had been following the gentleF: -. man and the golden haired child sniffing at the same coat-tail pocket. "Jimmy Jinks!" said Small Pertaters; "if that hog of a dog aint ato hook my bone. An' I sp'eot Itahas more soup bones nor what he f* B9?ws tbm to qo wxtn wnere ne lives, im b'ia nobbj dog, he is. Git oat, jm swell pup." . And the "swell pap," starting to efc out, disoorerod that he had lost j; > ate master and mistress, and ran to ' \ and fro, with nose to the snow-covered V jpnrement, eagerly seeking a trail of . them, for five or ten minutes. Then, giving np in despair, he seated him: aelf before the boy,-, who stood watchlag him, and shaking his muddy little ^ paws, looked np into his face in the moat beseeching manner. i,\ t "It's too bad," said Small Pertaters, r> r~ salting his head with s very dirty Sand. 4'Guess they mnst hare got on tea ear, ole feller; an' the best thing you kin do is to come home with me, an' well look for 'em to-morer." [ i^lpg * *THKT SHELLS BULLY GOOD, * HE SAID." And, as though he understood his i new friend perfectly, the dog trotted : after bin as he went a few blocks down the areune, and turned, first 1 into Thirteenth street, and then into i Qausevoort street. Here the boy ! strode quickly along, whistling cheer- 1 ily, his hands in what was left of his Jtrousers pockets, until he stumbled 1 ? er something that was lying on the 1 sidewalk. Stooping to see what it was, 11 1m found a brown hen, with her legs sticking up straight and stiff. ' ; . "It's got shut out of its lodgm's"' ', Said he, "an' it's froze. Bat p'r'ps : 'iaic't a hull goner. I'll git it loose i an' take it home with ine, anyuow." i So he searched about until he found ' i s atone, with which he broke the ice around the hen, and, setting it free, : v- with the loas of a few feathers, he ! j i\ ,7 5TMAS TIME." Tho good old man will plot and plan Like any groat commander, Or swim deep seas the young to pleaseAs did the brave Leander. Not only packs of jutuplng-jacks Adorn his ample shoulders. But hats and boots and stylish suit* Astonish all beholders. 0 Christmas bells, your music tells A tale of joy and gladness 01 llrosiae peace, of sweet increase And not a tale of sadness; For eveu Poverty lifts up Her thousand, thousand voices. And for this time, this one bright time Of goodly cheer, rejoices! .Mrs. II. A. Kidder. BBS PERS' I STMAS PARTY. I S^S1) k fisio 3T EYTIXGB. ?s$ SSjTSS'^s^s^'^g ?y?i x ^*? ** ^ " r' y^"'^ 6^O^JC >U'S'C/ich Jo\>oo^O jZ;^JOVKJ'^1^'.o js4> JQ1^'jC'o went on again, carrying it with liim. | the dog still following. But he had j only gone a block farther, when he ! heard a pitiful mewing come from an ' ash-barrel that stood before a tene- ' mcnt house, and, pecpiug in, he saw ; a black and white kitten sitting on the ! ashes. " 'Pears to me I'm boun' to have a , party tar-night," said Small Pertaters. j "Here's another young friend a-wait- , in' to come home with me. All right, pussy; here goes." And he lifted her ' out of the barrel, and stowed her away inside of his big coat. "There's uothin' mean 'bout me, 'specially roun' Christmas times." A W.l ??\ -nAt^A* minnfA n? fmn V* f\ AUU All ouubugi uiluuvo v* ??t v mw and his three guests had arrived at the end of the street, and the end of, their journey. They had reached: Small Pertaters' home "sweet, sweet j home," indeed, in one sense of the word; for what do you think it was? An old molasses cask lying upon its aide on the wharf, near the river. Getting down on his hands and knees, Small Pertaters, by the aid of a street lamp that stood near by, took a survey of the inside of the cask, and finding no intruder there, crawled in, laid down the hen and kitten, and , then went back for thfe dog, who lingered at the entranoe. "Come in, ole feller," said he coaxingly. But the dog suddenly turned tail,: "MERRY CHRISTMAS, I and vis making off, when Small Pertaters sprang ont and flourished the bone before his nose. The temptation was too much. Master Dog joined the party in the molasses cask; and, when the supper was served, Small Pertaters gave him the larger part of the meat and gristle, and, spreading the marrow as well as he could for it was hard and cold on the biscuit, he lea nan 01 if fo me uiieu, Keeping me | other half and the cold potato for himself. As for the hen, she lay on her back as stiff as erer. "Gness she roust be froze all through," said Small Pertatera; and then, with a sigh, he murmured: "I ain't so werry full as I might bo. Wished I had one of them mince " and fell fast asleep, the cat and dog snuggled up, one each side of him. Bright and early Christmas morning a gentleman and a lovely little girl called upon the owner of the bakery into the window of which Small Pertaters had been looking the night before. "Did you sec anything of a little white dog, after we left your shop last night?" they both asked, in the same breath. "No; I did not, I am sorry to say," was the answer. The tears started to the child's eyes. "Don't cry, dear," said her papa. "We haven't half looked for him yet. We'll find the policeman who was no ., this beat at the time wo lost him, and j very likely he can tell us something 11 about him. If he can't, I'll advertise ! j iu all the papers to-morrow." But, fortunately, the policenan, ! ( whom they soon found, remembered ] seeing a small white dog trotting after | ] a boy, between 9 and 10 o'clock the \ - -1.4 t mgut uciurr. . j ' The boy was Small Pertaters," he *aid, "and that's the reason I didn't I ( as'; anything abont the dog. He's an j j honest, good-hearted little chap, I though he is a reg'lar street-boy, with j ] uo friends except snch as he makes in , the street. They call him 'Small Pertaters' 'cause he's no bigger than a hoy of 6 or 7, though he must be 0 or 10. Put, small as he is, he can beat j j and boy I ever saw at climbing and < lumping. And, as I was saying, when ! ] t saw the dog with him I didn't give J < it a second thought." i "Where does he live?" asked the ' 1 child, eagerly. I i "Most anywhere, I guess, Miss,"j] answered the policeman. "He ain't11 got any reg'lar home.' j' v . i N * . / * -. . Si I'-Vt "And yon can't tall ns -where to find him?" said the gentleman. "My little girl's Christmas won't bo a very merry one unless she gets some tidings of her pet." "Well, sir, you might make a try for it. Go along the norch side of Gansevoort street till you come to the river; Small Pertaters has a sleeping place somewhere in that neighborhood, and maybo you'll meet him coming over to the avenue a looking for his breakfast." So, leaving many thanks and a silver dollar for the oil!cer's baby son behind them, the chill and her father started off again, and, reaching Gansevoort street, turned into it, walking slowly along and watching both sides of the way, when, just as they arrived at the last corner, they met another policeman. ita 11 T% ],A ;n OUiail JL erittlBrs; o?iu 110, *u ?uswer to a question of Mr. Mitchell's (that was the name of the little girl's father). "I guess you'll find him at home." "And is his home near?" asked Dolly (that was the name of the little girl herself). "Right over there," replied the policeman. But, as there was no honso whero he pointed, the gentleman began to langh. "Do you see that molasses cask?" said he. "Well, that's Small Pertalers' home." "What a queer home!" said Dolly; and, running across the street, she stooped and looked into the cask. There lay the poor boy, a piece of carpet wrapped around him, fast asleep. On his breast sat the kitten washing her face, and from his side, with a joyful bark, bounded a little white dog to greet his beloved mistress. The bark awoke the sleeping boy. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, opened j them, saw a lovelv face looking in at I him, heard a sweet voice call "Merry j Christmas, Small Pertatera," and scrambled, winking and blinking, out into the sunlight. "Jiminy Jinks! if I didn't think you was one of them Christmas angels, fust," he said, with a curious mixture of shyness and boldness. "Then I 'membered 'twas you I seen last night I comin* out of a mince pie I mean a baker shop. An' I foun' your little dorg, an' I picked up a kitten an' a froze chicking. Jiminy Jenks! if she ain't melted," he exclaimed, as the hen came slowly walking out of the cask. "An* I went halves with my supper an' had a regular Christmas party." "I'm over so much obliged to you," SMALL PERTATER3.'* said Dolly; "and we'd like to have yon come to onr house and have a Christmas dinner. Wouldn't we, papa?" she added, turning to her father, who now stood beside her. "Indeed we would, replied the , fattier. | "I don't look good enough," stammered Small Pertaters, glancing at his ragged clothes. "But yon are good enough, all the same," said Dolly. "Any boy that'll take home a lost dog and cat and chickeu, when his home's nothing but a big barrel, and give them their supper, when he don't know where he'll get his breakfast next morning, is good enough to go anywhere. And you cap bring your company with you." And off they all started the little girl carrying the chicken in her arms, the dog running gayly by her side, ! Small Pertaters following with the struggling hen hugged close to his breast. And after they reached the gentleman's house it wasn't long before the unexpected visitor had had a warm bath and a warm breakfast, and only a little longer before he found liimself dressed in new clothes from bead to foot. | And thft n*?xt dav a briffht-faced. neat-looking lad tacked a paper, on which was printed the words "To Let," on the big molasses cask that lay on the wharf, and then, stepping back- j ward a few steps, lie made a flying j leap over it, aud ran away from his old street lifo forever. Leather Unlucky at Christina*. Christmas being the period in which gifts are numerous it scema rather jurious that it should be thought un- ; lucky to bring shoes or leather arti cles into the house at this period but ' mob things are forbidden in an English county. In another it is counted unlucky to briug any holly into the [louse before Christmas Eve, and in London it must all be burned on I Twelfth Day morni^' -. s. . .r .nr .* ' .* ORK SHOPS, f ie Great City's Counters fgfo iy Things. most anything fi UlU heavy clothing, honsehohl furniture, kitchen utensils, to tiny gimcrack toys can be bought. Ten cents is tho prevailing price for ? HOW NEW V $20,000,000 Fass Over tl ^ ' For Holida Some person with a love for large figures has said that in Christmas week 520,000,000 is handed over counters of this city as tribute to Santa Claus, says a New York correspondent. That sum may sound suspiciously great, and the statistician might be charged with the evil of exaggeration, but when it is remembered that gifts for 3,000, 000 of people are purchased hero $20,000,000 do not seem too large for the total. An average of a trifle over $8 per person is large, or small, according to the financial rank ot the reader, and in New York it is particularly difficult to strike a fair average, because of the extremes of poverty and wealth. The Fifth avenue millionaire gives his wife a $30,000 diamond necklace, while the father of the east side brings joy to the heart of the child of the tenements with a gaudily painted tencent toy. One Christmas, a half a dozen years ago, William K. Vanderbilt gave his wife, now Mrs. Belmont, a pearl neeklaeo that cost him $1,500,000 togather the fifteen feet of stringed pearls together. That same Christmas ii :i,i e 1 ill Ul C I Lit I LI UUf UUllU 1UUUU UUIIjUV 1U J El HOW NEW I a nickel toy. Christmases back John D. Rockefeller sent a check for $100,000 to the Fifty-seventh Street Baptist chnrch as a holiday offering, and the Bame day the organ grinder of Mulberry Bend dfopped a couple of coppers in the plate of the Italian church in Roosevelt street. So much for the extremes of Christmas giving in New York. Fully one-half of the. Christmas shopping is done the day and the night , before Christmas; not one-half financially, but numerically. Tho moderately poor, the poor and the very poor j must wait until the very last minute . to tret their small funds toorathar for 0 - - r " O I the great event. The money gift of . the employer to the bread winner of ( the family is made the day before Christmas, and often times the extent , of that gift determines the scope of the Christmas shopping for the family. \gain if Christmas comes near the . end of the week, as it does this year, , many will get their week's pay on rhursday night. Another potent reason for delaying the shopping to the last minute is that ;hings are cheaper on Cliristmas Eve than earlier in the week. Toys and ?ames and clothing have suffered from ;he rough handling, there are rips and :ears which, however, can be easily jewed up; paint bas been scraped off, ?arts of games lost and numerous >ther mishaps have occurred, all of vhich induces the shop owner to make i material reducation in his prices. Vgaiu, he does not want to carry a liugle piece of his Christmas stock >ver for a year, as he loses the use of he monsy. So ho is eager to mark hings down to the real cost, or a trifle >elow, if needs be, to gat rid of them. People who have to watch the peulies are quick to recognize these ad autage". So Christmas Eve is the preat shopping time for the lower >art of town and the East side. Vesey itreet is the Christmas Eve stamping p-ound ox the old First and Fourth Carders. The people for the most mrt of this district esteem themselves ucky if they can spend $2, and as this mm has to supply the Christmas diuier, as well as to bring Santa Claus o an abnormally large family of j hildren, sharp bargaining must be, t lone. ? Push carts line the streets from i Jroadway to the North River, and al- j i the average run of things, and at a squeeze this can be brought down to nine, or even eight cents. Grand street is tho centre of the great East side. The Bowery boy buys the Bowery girl a ninety-ninecent diamond ring there, and she reciprocates by purchasing a sevencaret, seventy-niue-cent diamond stud. Women with seven or eight children toddling along in open-mouthed wonder manago to get through the alarming crush with their trancelike charges in some remarkable way. A man with a hobby horse on one shoulder, a velocipede in his hand, a Christmas tree under his arm, big dolls sticking out of every pocket, a dozen packages held in some miraculous manner in tho other hand, stops and buys a five pound box of candy for forty cents, stows it away somehow, and goes on as ? happy as the millionaire riding through the Park in his victoria. Tough girls not above sneaking a WW ORE SPENDS ITS MILLIONS FOB HOUD roll of ribbon under their wraps, were it not for the hordes of detectives which fill the stores of Grand street, 1 I it. 1! 1L . M iL.* 1 x uuy wj tue limit ox meir purses, out I buy sharply. "I am going to buy a bennie for ] Jimmie," says one to her friend. < "Say, mister," to the floor -walker, t "where do I buy der bennie?" < "Hey?" "Der bennie? What floor is youse i selling them on?" ] "The bennie?" < "Yes, yer hungry-looking guy, der t bennie. Don't yer spose I'se got de ] prioe? I want to buy a bennie like 1 dis." Here she caught hold of a man 1 wearing a blue overcoat and held the < coat for the others inspection. i "Oh, a coat?on the fifth floor, t front." 1 "What d'ye ti'Dk of dat? Do gny t didn't know what a bennie was. He t must be now on Grand street." Then r Ihey take tho elevator and she tells OLDEST LITE he man to let her off "where dere s iellin' de bennies." | i: Fourteenth street and Sixth avenue ; a 3 where the biggest part of the city, i li a goodly section of Brooklyn, a larga part of Jersey and a big portion of all the suburban towns within fifty mild* of New York do their shopping. Biggest Sweet Potato Grown. A Kans.13 farmer, John Graham, of Abilene, ha3 grown a sweet potato ^ which Jhe says is the largest in the ?. world. It is twenty-five inches in circumference and nine inches in length. It weighs nine and three-quarters pounds. N TVThread*. .''V In certain parts of China the young T>! women wear their hair in a long, single plait, with which is intertwined a strand of bright scarlet thread, which denotes them to be marriageable. AY GIFTS.? WrDP BADM IKJ IBf* S Ladle* Tfho Claim to Be the Oldest Lit* las Twin* In the Country. The claim of the Newell brother?, of J Missouri, that thej are the oldest pair <\ jf twins in the country, will not hold, iccording to a correspondent of tha Chicago Times-Herald. Mrs. H. H. Johnson, recently of Kankakee, Hi., ind now of Omaha, Neb., and Mrs. * David Noggle, of Janesville, Wis., are -} me month older. These ladies are ;ke twin children?Folly M. and Anna . VI.?of Benjamin and Ennice Mosher Lewis, and were born at Bristol, N. Y.,' May 29, 1815. They were the youngsst of fifteen children. The twins vent to Milan, Ohio, when about leventeen, married there, and in 1837, Mrs. Noggle came to Wisconsin to lire * he life of a pioneer. Mrs. Nogglo is \ woman of native ability and con tell & uany interesting tales of early life in kVisconsin. She is the mother of c* - " - } even children. Tlie sisters are both a fall possession of their faculties ud are as active as women of sistyive. I : t "