Connecticut western news., 1885-12-09
THE RED LIGHT.
It was Christmas Eye.
A CHRISTMAS STORY.

It was Christmas Eve. Not one of the ideal Christmas Eyes of poets and romance writers, wherein the moon is always at the full, the snow always a-sparkle like pulverized diamonds, and the air always still and cold and clear, but stormy twilight, with the snow driving steadily from the east, the wind raw and biting, and the sky-what you could see of it black as ink.
 But it was Christmas Eve, all the same, and Bertha Hoopor's cheeks were as red as the bitter-sweet berries in the woods as she sat, all wrapped up, in the train that was steaming northward, on her way to spend Christmas with her Aunt Almira Higgins.
 Christmas in the country! To Der tha, who had lived all her life in the brick walls and stone pavements of city, the very words seemed to convey somewhat of cheer and joyousness. And Bertha, as she sat with her eyes closed and her little gloyed hands safely nestled into gray squirrel huff, beheld in her minds eyes great fires of logs roaring up wide-throated chimneys, walls festooned with hem lock boughs and black green tufts of mistletoe; and she had half composed a poem on Christmas and its cherished associations when the ruthless conduc- tor came along for her ticket.
 "How far are we from Montcourt station" she inquired, as sine gave up the bit of pasteboard.
 "Next but one, Miss" said the man, as he hurried on, with his lantern under his arm. Half an hour yet"
 She had never been so far from New York in all her life before. The driving rain in which she had left her home had changed as they progressed northward into the steady fall of snow, which futtered around them like a white waving shroud. But Bertha Hooper cared little for this. Had not Aunt Almira promised to send Zebe- dee, her youngest son, to the station with the pony to meet her on the arrival of the six-forty train from New York? And was not Zebedee to have a lantern with a red glass door to it, so she could identify him at once?
 She was very pretty as she sat in little black velvet toque, with it's curl ing plume of cardinal red and the wine-red ribbon bow at her throat pretty with the bloom and freshness of eighteen. She was dark, with large hazel eyes, almond-shaped and long lasned, clear, rosy bloom on either cheek, and wavy dark hair hanging in silken fringe over her broad, low forehead.
 "Mont -C Court - station p bawleG the breakman, putting in a snow powdered fur cap, and withdrawing il again as quickly as if he had been ; magnified edition of the Jack-in-the box, which children much rejoice at 1T holiday time. And Bertha Hooper knew that she had reached Ter destin ation.
 Stiff and cramped from the lengtf of time in which she had been sitting in one position, she rose up, with little steel -clasped traveling-bag in on hand and dainty silk umbrella in tn other, and made her way to the door.
 All she could see when she stepped out upon the wet and slippery plat form was a blur of driving snow through which the lights of the soli tary little country depot gleamed fit fully; but the next instant somethin, flashed athwart her vision like friendly red eye-and beneath the re Hector over the station door she saw tall looking young man, in a fur trimmed overcoat, seal-skin cap SC iauntily on one side of crop of chest nut curls, and a red-lighted lanter swinging from his left hand, as h stood straining his eyes in the storm darkness, as if to catch sight of som familiar face in the little crowd.
 "Cousin Zebedee r cried Berth; aloud, and she made one spring int the arms of this blonde-whiskere young giant. For had not she an xebedee played dominoes and fox-ant