Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1881-12-24

OhSJ SSC OhboC HotClual pOChClo NCll
stuffed with parched nuts and long
shiney stick candy. "Take your
han outen dar. faint time yit fur
gemmen of stability to begin on 'em;
by and-by de doors of Krismus II
swing open, den yen see sights an
wake snakes, niger in pea patch,
yaw yaw yaw !"
Everybody is happy; everybody is
"~scrouging." No, not everybody.
See that poor pinched face and little
nose flattened against the window.
With what eager eyes she gazes on
that doll. Perhaps she never had
one in all her life, and the reporter,
turning to the little stranger wishes
to know.
"No, sir; that is" she explained,
''none that l could call my own"
A girl eight years old, in a city,
and never had a doll 81 could call
my own"
Now we hold that dolls are as
much a necessity in a little girls life
as meat and bread and clothing.
Every bit. Think of a boy who new
er enjoyed a jack knife or a top,
growing up to be a man; and the
necessity for the doll is ven greater
in the heart of the girl. That in
stinct of maternal love-that yearn-
ing for some wee bit of a weakling
she can call her Own-does not need
to be developed; it asserts itself
from infancy. 1t is a craving which
Is gratified only by the doll in child
hood; afterward, in womanhood, by
the child of her heart. That instinct
which bends over the little waxen
idol of to-day, is the same which in
after years will follow the child of
her heart all over the world. Swept
away by passion that child may be,
it matters not; bearing with him the
fragments of the shattered roof-tree,
though he may, yet that mother will
be with him, a Ruth through all his
life, and a Rachael at his death.
"None that you can call your
own. Then why don't you buy one +?
Do you like that little fellow in the
window ?"
ooh yes sir" she answered, tears
gathering in her large blue eyes as
she turned her head away. "But
it's worth a dollar and mamma only
gave me fifty cents"
The vision of ourown childhood
of a little mound In the ~churchyard,
of a pair of blue eyes and haxen
curls that faded long ago--that droop.
ed-faded-died.
And the reporter, oblivious of
every thing else-oblivious of that
twenty cents due at M~athaei's, of
the broken slate with the ugly letters
continental" chalked on the frag-
ments-oblivious of how often that
shattered slate had been turned on
him within the past week-run his
hand deep down in his breeches'
pocket, and drew out that proven
bal ''bottom dollar" And he
would have done 1.-THE would have
don. tiff a thousand debtors had
clanked their claims at his back.
Just to read human nature in
"a Christmas eve crowd of boys and
girls.
Here is a little timid, sensible,
we'll behaved fellow of seven years.
He don't push, crowd, assert his
rights as if no me else had any.
But see his opposite-that other
little rascal, crowding his elders off
the sidewalk, diving under and be-
tween this mans legs, butting the
other in the stomach, his eyes glar-
ing with a greedy eagerness, and his
ears sticking out from under his cap
like a great Welsh rabbit. He'll be
a railroad monopolist one day per-
haps, while his better, the former,
will retire to the modest, yet honor
able position of an editor.
Here goes n on the alter of
whose heart seems naught but the
smouldering embers of long ago
Christmas joys. He seems not to
see or feel anything special in the
day or its associations. Long ago,
his hopes, like the paternal roof-tree