Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-12-22
A Christmas Sketch.


whose first sharp frosts had been fol
lowed by an Indian summer of We
more ethereal mildness, and the fiat
tering warmth of the later fall, which
remained unbroken to the very eve Of
Christmas, had suddenly given way
to a savage burst of cold. Winter
seemed to rouse himself, shake his
shaggy limbs and assert his power
The wind howled, the freezing pond
cracked again, incautious foxes bur-
riedly sought their caves, and the fine
snow flew through the branches of
the forest. In the town the merchants
who had languidly made their prep
aratlons for the approaching holidays
now rubbed their hands with an air
of brisk satisfaction, added to their
shelves fresh toys, books, hardware
and ribbons, and We'd with one an
other in puppets and window wreaths,
for Christmas buying goes merrily
only to the sound of sleigh bells.
Vast numbers of stiffened fowls, with
honey and game, had been brought
to market by ruddy-cheeked farmers;
and in front of the butchers shop,
which was trimmed with ropes of
ground pine,a huge boar's head hung
grinning with holly between its chops.
High on the mountain which rear
ed its bald polished forehead to the
east of the village two hungry, terri
! fed creatures might have been found
wandering in the snow as the night
drew on. The one was a yearling
| heifer, which had left its pasture, and
at the prompting of some wild row.
ing instinct chosen the scant heritage
of these solitary passes to the safe
shelter of its masters fields and stan
chions the other was a homeless hui
man child. The little heifer, indeed.
had been sought for many days,
tempted with meal and salt, decoyed
with lanterns, and followed with loud |
haIloos into the wilder recesses of the
forest; but the child had been pur-
sued only by few angry murmurs-
accusations of ingratitude and vague
threats of possible punishment.
Little Maria Henly was an orphan,
and at nine years old had been bound
out as a servant to two old people
who could hardly have hoped to see
her complete her twenty-first year.
She had been fond of the brusque
but kind-hcarted old gentleman and
his bustling wife; but when they
both died, within a week of each 9th
er, leaving her to meet alone the
harsh words and cruel exactions Of
the black-browed cousin to whom the
property fell, the poor little bond
maid found her lot uncomfortable, and
very early one morning she had gath
cred her belongings together and fed,
throwing herself into the great I'M
known arms of the outside world, de-
termined, if all other chances failed,
to find her way back to the orphans
home, whose kind matron had won
the chief pinnacle in her heart.
One hardly knows which is the more
helpless or pitiful figure-the little
yearling, whose glossy black and white
coat is roughened with briars and
sown with innumerable burrs, her
delicate legs scratched and torn with
scrambling through thorny under
brush, her sides fallen in, and her
pretty head sharpened by hunger as
she lifts it to give utterance to pro-
longed and infantile bleat, or the
child, whose small pinched face in
the sorrel hood is strained in look
of anxious bewilderment, and the
bright brown eyes just clouding with
terrified tears 1t has been difficult
three days march, which has tried
her strength and exhausted her slen-
der supplies, and now IN attempting
to shorten her path she has lost her
bearings among these snow-covered
hills, and is every moment penetrat-
ing deeper into the mountain.
Suddenly she stops; the dark form
approaching stops too, and answers
her startled cry with half-human
sob. They have seen each other, and
Maria grasps her bundle more tightly
and advances a step, while the heifer,
who has lost the fine spirit of indie
pendence which led her to undertake
a wandering life, plunges out from
the obsurity of the hemlocks and
thrusts a cold nozzle into the numb
little hand. 1t has been a strange
experience for the petted calf, the
high bred offspring of a beautiful
herd, whose pedigree can be traced
among famous names, and for whom
a reward was offered in all the papers.
She has, couched her limbs on the
chilly moss, or on the leaves at the ,,
bottom of stony gulches, till her TANKS /
at sunrise glistened with frosty dews; ;
the charcoal clearings and short /
reaches of upland pasture have af
forded her many mouthful of wilted
heritage, wild appIe-trees have cast
down their knotty fruit to her, and l
she has browsed at nightfall on bitter
evergreen boughs. If she could speak {
she wodld tell of the dreamlike days |
when she advanced to the very edge
of the wilderness, and stretched out
l.