The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-12-30
A RATHER SERIOUS TALE.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Writes n Christ.
mas Story with a Serious Side.

/ A2s cEOEy WIFI u SSTtOUS tStOe.
Into something OF a minor strain of
thought fell perforce when asked to
contribute to this series of Christmas
"reminiscences. In all the long and
lovely list of pleasant holidays which
life has recorded for my undeserving
sake / find not ono which offers "a
story for strangers ear. ''The hap
piest women, Ike the heppiest nations,
have 10 history" said George Eliot. So
the happiest holiday tells no tales,
One only out of all these Christmas days
has crystallized into narrative mate
rial, and that one was, or seemed at the
time of its passing to be, dead and
bankrupt loss
We were in a city whose name is of no
consequence, at a boarding house whose
address l have long since forgotten
two young women, sufficiently familiar
with dear and comfortable homes,
and, fortunately or unfortunately,
strangers to the miseries Of board
ing-house life. My friend was a
medical student in a large uni
versity whose code of honor admitted
women cordially and graduated them
well trained. was there for several
reasons, not for the sake OF the medical
school, which never visited except Co
accompany my student home, and of
whose CHASTITY mysteries 1 had and
have to this day an irrational horror.
Personal friends on the faculty tried to
lure me into the dissecting room upon
the ground of its high value as special
culture, but / would as soon have gone
to a slaughter house or prison, for
such instincts for reformation Of So
cietv SIS ! NAV possess do not turn in
the diroction Of <he Sca1pei My friend
was made of drawer and of tougher fiber
and she shouldered her profession with
cut a guaVer. In brief, to put tbs
matter in q word, her turn to
diSsect her portion of the ma
terial" befell her at the holidays.
We put the point to vote between
us-two girls, and our dog, the King
Charles spaniel whose fate it was to
share our exiie-and decided by ma
jority of two against one 70 sacrifice
our vacation, spend Christmas in the
boarding house, and by working Steadi-
ly through the recess finish the anatom-
zeal task which frowned before u.s.
The dog pleaded for the country-for
the Cre8+ white house, the blazing open
fires, the dear faces, the pure, fine air.
the big garden. the sweep Of snowlit
fields, the glorious horizon, the reach
ings to Washusett and sleigh rides
through the wooded roads and dipping
hills of picturesque 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 con-
scientious women, and promised him a
Christmas dinner of fried liver, and
tried to forget how it looked in Ando-
yer, and resolutely stayed by 1.-The sub
ject-"
1t was a poor little pauper Irish girl,
I remember-lawful material" No
body had claimed her till the proper
time was over, and now, by the mys-
FERROUS law of sacrifice, it fell to her
lot, as the last act of her unknown
earthly story, to teach the solemn
science of lie and death to this more
fortunate woman. Years afterward
hundreds of suffering women called her
blessed who compassed her rare power
as a healer-I like to think-partly by
the help of that Irish parper girl
and by the surrender of those lost
holidays
And here at last is one Of the Christ
mas sides of this sober story; for it had
more than one.
On Christmas eve we made the best OF
our luck. which was the least we could
do and gave the King Charles new
collar and rubber ball and took him 10
walk with string at whose thither
end he tugged, gasping audibly, and
dragging US after him at a dog trot
And we sent off the Christmas packages
and wished we, too, could be ued up
and expressed home prepaid, and sighed
or cried ourselves to sleep according TO
our nature, and woke: and II was Christ
mas morning, and the big boarding
house was astir, tramping restlsssly
and honelessly up and down stairs
and where were the dear. the dearest
voices, wishing that our Christmas
might be merry aud our souls at peace?
We csR2o down 70 breakfast with ach-
ing hearts, but smiling faces, as IN hols
duty bound. All the boart.ers were up,
as we say. by which we mean that they !
were down. all but one. an artist not