New-York tribune., 1898-12-25
TWAS CHRISTMAS TIME.* y


They laugh about this story in the Michigan
woods. They say it good joke
People do not realize that life histories are
written on jokes Henry " made a we-turned
remark and changed the religion of a nation as
well his
But now when yule-logs. carols and loving
cups are going out of fashion. and men look on
curates as being nice sort of people who have
adopted a profession and carry il out. they
think that the practical a-impOrtant fact OF
making enough to live is the matter that
concerns the majority.
This story, that smacks a little. perhaps. OF
the olden time, may be worth repeating 1t
may be well that shall not altogether for
get that We have grandmothers. The young
and maidens of Michigan like TO tell 1t
these long winter nights as the fire burns low,
for ii is one of the State legends; there has got
to be something to talk about. Love is not
all lingering lovelooks even in Michigan.
Years ago. no matter how many. for the
parties are still alive. when Detroit was town
and people lived who remembered when Hull
capitulated, there was girl
An ordinary, everyday sort of girl as we
would look on at present. but in the Michigan
woods she was talked about They didn't meet
girls every day when the Michigan pinewoods
first made monaires and the wolverine was
rampant.
In the upper peninsula an English half-pay
officer and younger SON and with the other af-
nictions that primogeniture entails on our British
cousins had settled He had some crude ideas
about eking out an existence by hunting. A
half years income suficed to build the loghouse,
q mortgage to bring his library Of Fielding,
smollett and Dickens and there he and his
vod lun1h 1hor m
hunters of half a State laughed at the English
lord" and went miles out of their road for a
glimpse of his blue-e eyed daughter
II was when the century had half -waned and
was Christmas Eve.
The girl had been reading Christmas stores.
Three months Of a modern ladies' college would
have cured her OF that but she was young.
She hadn't advantages and had all sorts Of old
fashioned notions about Christmas from her
ovn kindly heart and Messrs. Fielding ana
Smol,ett half of which, thank God, she didn I
understand.
On thcsc December nights the old father toid
the eighteen year-old woman whom, father-like'
ne looked upon a child Christmas stories OF MS
fatherIand Her sweet young voice Joihed WIN
his ouaverng tones in the lonely house IN 'he
Wilderness in the dear old hymns that spoke Oh
peace on earth and goodwin toward men
II WAS Christmas Eve in Pete Lavelies ium-
her shanty few miles away FlVe sa'ohs vi
alcohol Of the most vitriolic KIND was the ceh'ie
of interest to the thirty or forty woodsinen.
shantyman is generally very good or very pad
With high wines. forty over proof ne is genera
y very bad And Pete Lavene was de'erhlheo
4, Kill Jack Dempsey The said Jack Dempsey
ras the deposed foreman. and naturally ihe re-
,ati,ns between him and his successor "e''
strained with the alcohol percolatlhg through
their veins Ike raging fire
When Dempsey called l'aveiie' MS c"'ei' os /"
name that reflected on the honor oi MS "a'e'
nal ancestry something that riVermah never
foreives the rest Of the crowd looKed OUT io
developments Lavelle was French-'ahaa'aN
fran the Northern Lakes with more 'hah Il
suspicion of Huron blood he got angry anu
drew his hunting knife. Dempsey, OF i''sh raw