The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-12-25
A RATHER SERIOUS TALE.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Writes a Christi
mas story With . Serious Side.

- @A
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Writes q Christ
mas Story With . Serious Side.
Into something Of a minor strain OF
Thought I fell p~srforos whom asked TO CON
tribute to this series Of Christmas reminis-
censes. In all the long and lovely list Of
pleasant holidays which life has recorded
for my undeservinR sake ! find not one
which offers "a story" for q strangers ear.
.Ths happiest women, like the happieat
Eliot. So tho happisst holiday tells no tale.
Ono only out of all these Christmas days
has crystallized into narrative material. and
that one was, or seemed at the time Of its
passing to be, a dead and bankrupt loss.
We were in a city whose name IL of no
address ! have long since fo~rgottcn--two
young women, sufficiently familiar wish
dear and comfortable homes. and FORUM
Rteiy or unfortunately, strangers to the
miseries of boarding house life. My friend
was a medical student in . large university
whose code of honor admitted women COR
daily and graduated them well trained. /
WAS there for several reasons. not for the
sake of the medical school. which never
visited except TO accompany my student
home. and Of whose CHASTITY mysteries !
had and have TO this day an irrational hor-
ror. Personal friends on the faculty tried
to lure me into the disseotingro room upon the
ground Of its high value As special culture.
but I would as soon have gone to q slauRh-
ter house OK a prison, for saeh instincts for
reformation of society as l may possess do
not turn in the direction Of the
scalpel. My friend was made of
Drawer and of tougher fibre and she
shouldered her profession without a
qusver, In brief, TO put the matter in a
word, her turn TO dissect her portion of the
material befell her at the holidays. We
put the point to q vote between ns-two
girls and the King Charles spaniel whose
fate it was to share our exile-and decided
by a majority of two against one to sacri-
flee our vacation. speed Christmas in the
steadily through the reeess finish the
anatomical task which frownod before
us. The dog pleaded for the coun-
try-for the great white house. the blazing
open Ares, the dear faces, the pure. fine
air, the big garden, the sweep OF snowlit
to Wachusstt and the sleigh rides through
the wooded roads and dipping hills of plot
uresque Andover. But we sternly took the
hand Of duty, or the thing which bore that
aspect to our minds. and comforted the
dog for his misfortune in belonging to such
conscientious women, and Promised him q
Christmas dinner of fried live, n tried
" loI&Se hoW tp tooASo 49, ~~~
rssolutely stayed By the subject"
TWAS a poor little pauper Irish girl, 1 re-
member-lawful "material. 2v Nobody had
claimed her till the proper time was over,
and now, by the mysterious law of sacrifice,
it fell to her lot, as the last act Of her un-
known earthly story. to teach the solemn
science of life and death to this more for
tunate woman. Years afterward hundreds
of suffering women called her blessed who
compassed her rare power as q healer-I
like to Municipality by the help of that
Irish pauper girl and by the surrender of
those lost holidays.
And here at last ia one of the Christmas
sides OF this sober story; for it had more
tann one.
On Christmas eve we made the best of
our luck, which was the least we could do,
and cave the King Charles q new collar and
a rubber ball and took him to walk with a
string at whose thither end he tugeed. gasp
ing audibly, and dragging us after him at o
dog trot. And We sent of the Christmas
packages and wished we, too, could be tied
up and expressed home prepaid. and sighed
or cried on selves to sleep according to our
nature. and woke. and it was Christmas
morning, an the big boarding house was
astir, tramping restlessly and homelessly
up and down stairg-and where were the
dear, the dearest voices, wishing that our
Christmas might be merry and our souls at
peace?
We came down to breakfast with aching
hearts, but smiling faces, al in holy duty
bound. All she boarders were up, as we
say, by which we mean that they were
down. all but one. an artist, not yet visible.
He bore al ancient and distinguished fam
lily name. hrt he WIS NOT very popular in
our boarding house. one could hardly say
why.
Our landlady's daughter, a pretty. gentle
girl. had ingeniously contrived to lay some
little gift at every plate upon the long ia
ble.i She was pleased with the flutter of
thoughtful effort to give to SO many exiled
people a sense of home, and her young
face flushed with pleasure. T
AS we snt there chatting and smiling and
warming each others homeaick hearts and
hers as we'll as we could for Christmas
sake, the late boarder came down.
merry Christmas. MIR. --n' cried the
landlady's daughter. She turned her sweet
face toward him with a happy, trustful
look. He stood fog an instant black az a
cyclone. Then he broke forth-"Mefry
Christmas / should think! Merry Christ
mas l should say! It's cold enough in my
room to freeze out ="
He mentioned a place to which one Is no,
in the habit of abiding on Christmas day,
and funa himself down to his breakfast
amid a silence such as a man might recall
with a pang upon his dying day.
That night whom l drew the curtain ]
stood for a while and looked with less thar
the usual shudder at the piazza roof where
the Irisn girls heart. in a jar Of alcohol
rested in the cold moonlight. painless and
calm. And / said:
Child of ignorance. sleep we'll. You have
served q nobler end than any man whe
trains his hand to sacred art while his un,
educated soul is groveling in blasphemy"'
And from that day to this | have prayel
a separate holiday prayer-"For oil person.
doomed to board at Christmas time!"
Then, now and forever ii is by what ",
lose that VI learn to valuerwhat We have
From that breakfast hour to this l hav,
known bow to add to my litany. 'Blesl
God for home on Christmas daYf" AND
thus ends the moral of this brief tals-Holi
day Law.
If you are in 9 home stay there. If 70,
have any to go 90 go there, and than
heaven and pray pardon for your souls. il
out of madness. or of folly. or of shat ig
n~orance which is a compound OF both, 20
obey not this sacred clause in life's lon
code. ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD.
AN ACTORS CHRISTMAS.
An Invitation to n Quiet Poker Gam