Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1893-12-22


from a gorgeous Christmas tree. Nora
Ellis was managing the evening fes-
tivities. She had been busy for days
and DAYS with trips to town and jour-
neys to the school house.
In the midst of it all Nora had
thought now and then what Christmas
meant and her heart was gentle, as
hearts should be, when her fancy con-
iured up the star in the East; when
that finer ear which neverbends to less
than heavenly music caught the
rhythm of that anthem which filled the
sky one distant night in a distant land.
Yet one thorn troubled her. She tried
to forget Ed Morrow and their quarrel,
but the thought would come back and
confront her. She remembered how
happy she was in the summer time,
when she walked with him along this
same plain road and thrilled as good
girl will when the angel of true love
He had wandered away with the sun, as
the summer ended, and she heard of
him now and then from friends who
drove to Hendricks County. Once or
twice he had drifted up to the borders
of her neighborhood, but she never
saw him. Rumor, that agile assassin,
declared he was "going with" Eliza
Raines, and honest Nora could wonder,
in the midst of her pain, what he found
in the girl to'admire. He would come
to the Christmas tree, and she must
suffer in silence while that brazen
creature sated her eyes with looking
upon her.
Everything was as ready as it could
be at the school-house. The day had
filed the eye of Christmas lovers.
Snow lay deep upon the ground, and
through it the sleigh tracks had beat
en- like sort of canal between high
banks of white. Sleighbells rung a
greeting to laughing parties, rich with
life and hungry for enjoyment. Nora
only managed the manager, sending
the Sunday-school superintendent upon
the narrow stage to ask for order and
announce successively the programme
numbers.
In Indiana we always aimed to min
gle some portion Of the intellectual
with all our carnivals. There were
debating societies and the sreading
part" at singing schools; they were
declamations and original essays at
every gathering, till the sun of compo-
sition waxed warm and full in the
season Of revivals. Tonight, be-
sides the distribution of presents,
there we're songs in which Nora
had trained the children: recitations
in which the children had mostly
trained themselves; q tableau or two
and a jubilant chorus. Nora, looking
through a peep hole in the curtain, saw
Ed Morrow sitting close up to the front,
but far away from the women. If he
came with that girl he had done the
II <1Srnr 0k
to shift for herself in q stranger COM
pany and pushed his way to the point
most near the woman whose heart had
followed him in all his wanderings. He
could not see her and she stood for .
moment until time came for the outer
curtain to rise, filling her hungry eyes
with the blessed picture Of his stalwart
frame perched up there little higher
than the rest, his handsome face laugh.
ing above brilliant scarf, his bearded
lips parting to return greeting from
some of the farmer boys. For Ed was
favorite everywhere. Then she
moved aside into what might be called
the dressing-room, while the children
sang:
In a manger. laid 30 lowly,
Came the Prince OF Peace to earth;
While choir Of angels holy
Sang to celebrate his birth
She tried to forget the man out
there beyond the curtain; tried to Join
her heart with the swinging rhythm
of the carol; tried to think Of that
older, better time when q still and
starry night like this brought the era
Of love, not the season Of pain. She
was in the far, chill corner Of the
room, for the moment alone. The
whole busy house was behind her. Be-
fore was the frost-painted window,
which curtained the outer night and
hid its glory from her brimminR ewes.
She was as distant from all familiar
scenes as Judea's plains were distant
from this humble celebration of their
Christmas birth. And she wrote his