McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-12-25
And similar dialogues of a domestic


character.
But for some months preceding Christ
mas there had been new family in the
old house-two young people who lived
alone and were out of sorts. The man
had nothing to do. He was "a slim, pale,
sickly-looking young fellow and some
one had found out that he was a south
erner, well educated and of good
family, but poor as poverty itself and
likely to starve to death, as he was
proud as well as poor. Every day he
went out looking for work in the aim
less way man gets into when his over
coat is gone and he has to button his
other coat to the chin, and every day
he came back empty handed or with
something that had been acquired on
the border-land between responsibility
and vagabondage- turkey won at
rattle or measure of potatoes that he
had acquired at guessing match.
Life was at this low ebb when Christ
mas came-Christmas, bringing cheer
and light, music, warmth, presents,
hope and jollity to nearly everybody,
but certainly not to the poor family in
the tumble-down house on one corner,
nor to the patrician people who lived in
splendid misery on the other.
What was the matter with them?
Everything. In the first place there
were only two people in the great house;
they had neither chick nor child, nor
bird, nor any living thing about them,
except their own two dry-as-dust selves,
and they got mighty tired of each other
sometimes. Then they both had indi-
gestion, and lived on diet of hot wa
ter and graham toast. Next, their SER
wants robbed and deceived them sys-
tematically, and finally their children
happy little ones-were all dead. Their
young lives had been smothered out I'M
der lace cap-frillS and embroidered
stomachers, and they had gone to a
place where there were no velvet car
pets, or if there were, they were not too
good to play on.
This Christmas morning when the
millionaire got up he looked out of his
plate glass window and cast an enviors
glance al the corner opposite. Jack
Frost had been playing tricks there. He
had sent soft white fall of snow, which
had wrapped its beneficent arms about
the unsightly pile, and it was now trans
figured in the silver flood. The frost
king had made each tiny pane of glass
respondent with castle and turret and
feathery palms, and the rich man &C
knowledged to himself grudgingly that
it was pretty sight: he wanted to buy
that spot, tear the old house down and
do what he chose with the lot; his neigh
Dor had bought one next to him for a
play ground for his children. But
Heaven had given his little ones play
ground on which he had no title or pre-
emption. While he stood looking his |
own family physician, wealthy man,
who had almost retired from the profess |
ion, came out of the old house. He
was walking briskly past, when Mr..
Markham threw open the window and
called to him.
''Good morning, DR.. Farnham. Merry
Christmas! if you can find one, ha! ha!
Returned to practice, see," with a
contemptuous glance at the old corner.
Eyes, said the physician gravely, sit
is rather sad case. Four mouths to
feed and nothing to put in them. How
ever, the same God who sent the ravens
to feed Elijah lives to-day
. Doctor" said Mrs. Markham,
crowding lace breakfast-capped head
out beside her husbands. ''come in and
eat breakfast with us. My appetite is
worse and l want prescription.
Dyspepsia be blowedr' growled the
doctor, who was as gentle as a woman
in the sck-room. eff you want to be
cured of all the ills of life, observe the
eleventh commandment.
Eleventh commandment! Why,