Litchfield enquirer., 1873-02-06
From Old and New. THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT. A Christmas Story,
 BY E. E. HALE.
 tCoacluded. CHAPTER III.  ANOTHER CHRISrNAS
MOTHER CHRISTMAS.

ANO4uLh Aa1s1o1AAo'
 1 Christmas Eve again
 l Moses Marvel has driven out his own
 boys, in his own double cutter, to meet
 the stage at Fordyce's. On the back seat
 is Matte Marvel with :. rosy little baby
 all wrapped up ill fannels and ill furs,
 who is the little Tom Cutts who has never seen his own father Where is Laura? Here she comes! here she comes. :" 1 Sure enough; here IS the stage at last. l Job Stiles never swept round with more l knowing sweep than this afternon. And the curtains were up already; and there IS Laura; and there Is Tom! He is pale, poor fellow. But how pleased he is! Laura is out first, of course. And then she gives him her hand so gently, and the others all help. And here is the hero at Marvel's side; and he IS bending over his baby, whom lie dares not try to lift with his one arm; and Hattie and old Moses Marvel are crying: but everybody is as happy as king, and everybody IS talking at one time, and all the combina- tion has turned out well.
 Tom Cutts had had hole made through his left thigh, so that they despaired of his life. And, as he lay on the ground 8 bit of shell had struck his left forearm and knocked that to pei"es. Tom Cutts had been sent back to hospital at Washington, and reported by telegraph as mortally wounded. But almost as soon as Tom Cutts got to the Lincoln Hospital himself, Laura CuttS got there too, aid then Tom did not mean to die if he could help 1t, and Laura did not mean to have him. And the honest fellow held to his pur pose in that steadfast Cutts way. The blood tells, believe; and love tells; and will tells. How much love has to do with will! II believe you are a wltch Mrs. Cutts," the doctor used to say to her. Nothing but good happens to this good man of yours. Bits or bone came out just as they were wanted to. Inflammation kept away just as it was told to do. And the two wounds ran race with each oth- CT in healing after their fashion" Ut will be beautiful stump after all, said the doctor, where poor Laura saw little beauty. But everything was beautiful to her when at last he told her that she might wrap up her husband as well as she knew how, and take him home and nurse him there. So she had telegraph ed that they were coming, and that was the way in which 1t happened that her fa- ther and her sister had brought out the baby 10 meet them both at Fordyce's Mattie's surprise had worked perfectly.
 And now 1t was time for Laura's sur prise. After she had her baby ill her own arms, and was on the back seat of the sleigh after Tom was well wrapped up byiher side, with his well arm just SUD- porting the little fellows head; after Mat tie was all tucked in by her father, and Mr. Marvel himself had looked round to say, "All ready! then was 1t that Jem vol &r.of c%n 4hf, cfn and s,.id, Haven't you one word for me, Mattie? ?" Then how they screamed again; for everybody thought Jem was in the West Indies. He was cruising there, on board the Gray Wing" looking after blockaders who took the Southern route. Nobody dreamed of Jem's being at Christ mas. And here he had stumbled on Tom and Laura i'll the New Haven train as they came on! Jem had been sent to New York with prize. He had got leave and was On his way to>see the rest of them. He had bidden Laura not to say one word, and so he had watched one greeting from the stage, before he broke in to take his part for another.
 o! what an uproarious Christmas that was when they all came home! No !- Tom Cutts would not let one of them be sad He was the chesriest of them all. He monopolized the baby,-and showed immense power in the way of babytalk and of tending. Laura had only to sit on the side of the room and be perfectly hap py. It was very soon known what the ar rivals were. And Parson Spaulding came in and his wife. Of course the Cuttses had been there already. Then everybody came. That is the simplest way of put ting it. They all would have been want ed to come, because in that community there was not one person who did not love Laura and Tom and Jem. But whether they would have come, on the very first night, am not sure. But this was Christmas Eye,-and the girls were finishing off the meeting house just as the stage and sleigh came in And, in min- ute, the news was everywhere. And of course everybody felt he might just go i'll to get news from the fleet or the army. Nor was there one homested in Tripps Cove which was not more or less closely represented in the fleet or the army. So there was, really, as the evening parted, a town-meeting in Moses Marveps sitting room and parlor,-and whether Moses Marvel were most pleased, or Mrs Mar vel, or Laura, who sat and beamed,- ,-or old General Simeon Cutts, am sure I do not know.
 That was indeed a merry Christmas
 But after that I must own 1t was hard sledding for Tom Cutts and for pretty Laura A hero with one blue sleeve pin ned neatly together, who at the best, imps as he walks, quickens all your com passion and gratitude, yes. But when you are selecting director of your lum- ber-works, or when you are sending to k1 xxrl,o driving line of railway through the will that hero to do your work for you. Or If you do, you were not standing by when Tom Cutts was looking right and left for something to do, so that he might keep the wolf from the door. It was sadly like the life that his great-grandfather, Sam uel Cutts, led at the old farm ill old New bury after the old war. Tom lost his place, when he went to the front, and he could not find it again.
 Laura, sweet girl, never complained, no, nor Moses Marvel, he never complain ed, nor would he complain if Tom and his wife and children had lived with him till doomsday. Good luck for us" said Moses; and those were many words for him to say in one sentence, But Tom was proud, and 1t ground him to the dust to be eating Moses Marvel's bread when he had not earned t,-and to have noth- ing but his majors pension to buy Lau- "a and the babies their clothes with, and to keep the pot a-boiling.
 Of course Jem joined the fleet again till the war was over. Then he came, and came with prize-money. He and Tom had many talks of going into business to- gether with Toms brains and Jem's mon ey. But nothing came of this. The land was no place for Jem. He was regular Norseman, as are almost all of the Tripp's Cove boys, who have come from the loins
 of the lighting Twenty-Seventh. They
 sniff the tempest afar of, ,-and when they
 hear of Puget Sound. or of Alaska, or of
 Wilkes's Antarctic Continent, they fancy
 that they have strayed away And so
 Laura knew and Tom knew that any plans
 which rested on Jem's staying ashore
 were plans which had one false element Ill them. The raven would he callino