Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-12-24

b.
Darius. l will speak to your fathe
about it,"
The result of the kind and gener
GUS intention of little Lucy was tha
Mrs. Dryden herself went through
the little town with that which Luc,
called "s'cription paper" soliciting
funds for the purchase of til,
Christmas gift Lucy had proposed
to buy with her own small savings
1t was Mrs. Dryden's intention tha
the strange gift should be, as fal
as possible, a gift from the child
rem, and she soon discovered tha
not only the children, but alse
their parents, heartily approved 0
the project she and Lucy had un
dertaken. Nearly all of the peo
pie in the town were poor, br- n,
one refused to put down something
on the "s'cription paper" ever
Mrs. Denny begging to be allowed
to contribute her "widow's mite" tt
the fund.
After several days of canvassing
Mrs. Dryden found herself with The
required sum in hand, and Mr.
Dryden set forth for the town two
days before Christmas to make the
important purchase that was to &C
surprise and delight old Uncle
Darius at the Christmas tree. q On hit
return from the city thsthe gift
MIR. Dryden said:
81 came very near having the
towns great secret discovered by
Uncle Darius himself, turned a
corner not a block from the store
where l bought the leg, and found
myself face to face with Uncle
Darius, He said that he had come
to the city to do little Christ
masing.' l dare say that he was
bent on buying toys for some Of
the poor children of the town. He
never forgets them at Christmas
time"
This was indeed a part of the
cobbler's errand to the city, but
the far more important errand was
the purchase that was to "surprise
the natives" when he appeared with
it strapped to his stump of leg,
He had gone into a book store to
buy a picture book for the Widow
Denny's little Louise, when his eye
caught sight of pile of New Testa-
ments on show case. They were
very prettily bound, and they had
gold lettering on the backs and shin
ing little clasps and gilt-edged leaves.
Uncle Darius picked up one of the
books and examined it. His mental
comment was:
81 don't believe that ever saw q
neater little book than that. Pm
minded TO buy one for little Lucy
Dryden for a Christmas gift; but
then some other little girl like
Lefty Vane or Dorothy Worth o,
Hattie Kicker might think that
was showing partiality if l bought
Lucy one and nobody else. Wonder
if could afford to buy one for all
four of 'em ?''
He asked the price of the books and
then stood before the show case evi.
IDENTIFY making some kind of mental
calculation. He seemed to be in q
state of great indecision, and when
the attendant asked him if he would
like to buy one of the Testaments he
hesitated and said
"Well, l amt quite sure about it,
I'll think about it and come back if /
conclude to get one."
He went out of the store and
walked up and down the street in
state of perplexity. Had he ut
tered his thoughts he would have
said:
"lt'd be a real nice thing to do,
an there amt no gainsayin' that it
would please the children. And
they'd look lovely on the tree.
Then they might do a world of
good. Why, they might even save
human soul. And it would be
something for them to remember
me by when | am gone, which
will surely be before many years.
He sat down on one of the benches
IN a little park, took stub of a
pencil from his vest pocket and an
old envelope from his coat pocket
and proceeded TO do some "tg-
geriu'."
"Iemme see," he said to himself,
"there are fifty-nine children ia the
Sunday school, beside the teachers
and officers. That would make
about sixty-nine in all, an | don't
want to leave any one out if / set
out to do what Pm nightly minded