Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-12-24
Her Christmas Secret.
Helen Forrest Graves in Peoples Home
Journal.

l shall never spend any more
Christmases away from home, my
dear" said Aunt Chrystenah.
She sat knitting by the kitchen fire,
her mild eyes fixed on the snow-fakes,
which were fiuttering like tiny white
butterflies against the window panes.
Out in the distance, beyond the square
wooden turret of TraXall church, she
could see the crooked white stone under
which lay her old husband, with leafiess
roseS-yines tangled above his coffin-li
After all, what was there to wait for?
Don't talk so, Aunt Chrystenah, -"
said Mrs. John Jones, who had come
down from New York to see her aunt,
and also, if the truth must be told, TO
try and borrow little money from her.
for Aunt Chrystenah had laid up some
thing, and her niece had an exceeding
great longing to be able, this Christmas
day, to give little present to her pa
tient, handwriting young husband.
mo, Janey," said the old lady, I'm
obliged to you for the invite, all the
same as ii | went. But I'm too stiff in
the bones and hard in the hearing to
take such comfort away from home
nowadays. You'll have to keep your
Christmas without me, | guess, this
year. And as for lending you money,
I've but one answer to make, and that
is no."
ooh, Aunt Chrystenahr
81 mean to leave you all I've got"
explained Aunt Chrystenah, zone O
these days But not till I'm done with
it myself. If | begin lending it to you
in driblets, there won't be nothin left
of il. It's all put away, safe and sound,
and it'll be yours some day"
Janey thanked Aunt Chrystenah,
with a sickening at her heart never
theless She fully appreciated the old
ladys kind intentions; but CHI if she
could only have known how far-far
more acceptable a little of that money
would be nOwi
Il would pay you back in a very short
time. Aunt Chrystenah" said she,
eff"
mo, you wouldn't said the old
woman, because you won't have the
chance, and that settles the matter.
And now, if you've a mind to go up
stairs in the garnet and get that old
shepherds plaid shawl l used to wear
in the days when | was able to go
to meeting. you're welcome to it for a
Christmas present. 1t can be dyed,
and will make real nice shawl"
THANK you, Aunt Chrystenah," said
the young wife, rather spiritlessly
She went slowly up the garnet stairs
into the great hollow, echoing space,
odd little semi-circular windows at
either end, where she had been used
to play as a child.
Directly ait the head of the stairs
stood a great wooden chest painted
blue which had belonged to some sea
faring member of the Jenkins family
She opened it with something akin to
awe-in her childhood's days it had
been a penal OffenSe to NEEDLE with
the big blue chest and searched
among it's lavender-scented treasures
for the plaid shawl AS she turned
over the various articles something
chinked under her hand, and, to her
Amusement, it proved to be an old
gray yarn stocking, full of twenty
dollar gold pieces, laid carefully among
homespun blankets and thriftily pre-
served articles of Iongpast wear.
fancy, Janey! you amt a-lookin'
in the blue chist, be you?" 1t was
Aunt Chrystenah voice calling from
the foot of the chairway. It's in that
ohist o draws clear out under the
caves, close to the old spinning wheel
and swifts"
Yes Aunt Chrystenah."
Janey Jones started away like
guilty creature, and presently she came
downstairs with the old shepherds
plaid shawl over her arm.
It's very nice. Aunt Chrystenah, 5"
said she. and | thank you very much
for it,
The first thing that Mrs. Jones did
when she came back to the gloomy
little city fiat that represented home to
her, was to go around to the jewelers.
on Third Avenue and purchase the
seal ring with the onyx setting which
she had so coveted for John. She
loved John so dearly she IOnged to see
him decked out like other clerks in
the bank with something which should
prove that he, too, was not utterly for
gotten at Christmas. And, after all
she was only borrowing from Aunt
Chrystenah-takin what would one
day be her own. What harm could
there be in that?
And yet, Mrs. Jones had reckoned
without her conscience. and that grim
sentinel uprOse in her heart when she
least expected it. And as Christmas
approached, with the shop-windows
garlanded with holly and red berries
and the house-roofs glistening with
snow, Mrs. Jones was a miserable wo-
man.
If only she could in some way. earn
twenty dollars to pay back that money
to Aunt Chrystenah's blue chest before
Christmas,
"A thief! thief she kept repeating
to herself. That's what | am, People
dent know it when they pass me in
the streets. The children in my Sun
d8y-school class don't mistrust it when
they stand at my knee John don't
dream of it when he tells me what a
neat thrifty wife l am-but I know it
all the timer'
Well keep Christmas in a small