The Washington weekly post., 1900-03-27

-6tD NVt1iS - sVA never - ".
even when the sun Was doing his pretti-
est. Bounding biilows of purple and SAT-
from and green and crimson and violet
Tod was only a boy and boys don't 20 in
for that sort OF thing very much. but re
told his mother afterward that IL was all
so gorgeous that il made him feel like
crying.
Take header into the midst Of them
and you'll reach the room where the
Christmases are stored
Tod dived and a moment later found him
self in a room rilled to overfowing with
Christmas trees and Christmas horns and
sleigh bells. and yards upon yards OF good
will.
Now" said his guide, who had become
another being. like the Sunset Boy. only
older, take your choice. You can have
one Christmas or one Fourth. but you
can't have more than one at once. In the
next room are Linoolns days and the
room next to that is filed with Grant S
days"
What's Grants day." asked Tod
oh, that's a holiday that they haven't
begun TO use yet, but when they do they'll
Ind me prepared"
Tod thought he'd like one Christmas,
and he hal no sooner expressed the wish
than be found himself and the Sunset Boy
on a cloud by themselves, surrounded with
all the Christmas presents that a boy ever
wished for. Guns. pistols. marbles, books.
skates, baseball bats. footballs. fencing
loiis coub!e rippers. wheels, kodaks, and
oig hand-organ with a grinning monkey
sitting on it.
Ana candy and fruit until you'd think
OF a doctor. He told the Sunset boy to
pitch in, and all that day he ate and read
and rode and shot holes in distant clouds
and took snapshots OF the Sunset boy an I
taught him how to box. and by nighteall
was the tiredest boy who ever visited a
cloud He had had enough Christmas to
last him three years.
The next morning he woke I'D IN the
Fourth Of July room. and he wanted to
turn over and go to sleep. but the war
rior said that he must choose a holiday
as long as he had been so keen for il. So
ne chose the Fourth because the warrior
had pulled one out OF place, and he didn't
want to disoblige him.
At sight of the heaps of firec-ackers
and Union torpedoes and grasshoDpers
and fiery dragons and cannons his en-
thusiasm returned. and when he and the
cloud with nothing to remind him of
Christmas on it he set out to have fun,
but the premature discharge of a bunch
OF cannon crackers set fire to tie cloud
on which they were sailing. and Ghen the
Sunset boy lad put out the fire with a
rain cloud, he found that all the f1recrack-
ers were wet, and so the morning was
not as noisy as you might have supposed
it would be. In the evening Tod did thor
oughly enjoy himself. Every set piece
you ever heard of was there, and he and
the Sunset boy hung them on the edge of
great bank of clouds that looked por-
tentous and lowering until it was lighted
Up. and then IL resembled fairyland. One
million rockets going off at once make a
spectacle that you don't see every day in
the year and there were long articles In
the earth papers the day after telling
about the shooting stars that had come
ahead of time. But the astronomers were
able to give good reasons for their ap-
pearance, and not a soul imagined that
Tod was at the bottom or rather the top,
of the display
The morning after the Fourth Tod has
a splitting headache. and said he was sick
of holidays, and he'd like to go down to
earth.
His two friends bade him good-by and
he stepped into the basket of the balloon,
and thanks TO little help from heavy
wind cloud that he fastened under the
basket, he reached the earth In a few min
utes, and In the midst of a terrific wind
storm.
When the Sd Of July came the next month
it found people everywhere making prep
arations for the celebration of the Fourth.
but greedy Tod had already celebrated il
UP in Cloudland. and there was no Fourth
! People everywhere slept through that day
and there were some who would have
blessed Tod. but the small boys were fur
ious. They could not explain it. They
went TO bed with all their ammunition
within reach, and when they woke up they
realized that somehow the Fourth had
come and gone and they hadn't fired a
shetland yet it had all disappeared
Tod slept with the rest, but when the
Christmas season same along he hoped
that he could celebrate it. His adventure
was now six months back, and six months
in boys life are a good deal more than
half year. He made his preparations for
Christmas as usual. in common with all
the rest of the boys who make much OF
the great holiday, but it was all to ne pur-
pose. AS your grandparents may have
told you. everybody slept over the glad
season and woke the day after with much
better digestions, but deeply regretting
that they had lost Christmas that they
could never regain.
And Tod felt worse than anybody else
and realized what a pig he had been. He
really cultivated his generosity to good
effect for the next few weeks
But the following year all the holidays
went of with a bang and I've heard my
grandfather say that he believed IL did
folks good TO go without a holiday once In
a while. as they appreciated them bett sr
But | say a place for each holiday, and
every holiday in its place
Copyrighte 1860, BY the author Charles Rsst eli
LoOmiSD