Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-12-24

guests assembling; and there a group
/ of handsome girls, all hooded and fur
| booted, and all chattering at once. trip
ped lightly off to some near neighbours
house, where, woe upon the single man
| who saw them enter-artful witches!
we'll they knew tin glow.
| But, if you had judged from the NUM-
| bers of people on their way to friendly
gatherings, you might have thought
| that no one was at home to give them
welcome when they got there. instead
of every house expecting company, and
piling UP it's fires half chimney high.
Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted!
How it barred it's breadth of breast, and
opened its capacious palm, and tloated
on, outpouring, with a generous hand,
its bright and harmless mirth on every
thing within its reach! The very lamp
lighter, who ran on before, dotting the
dusky street with specks of light, and
who was dressed to spend the evening
somewhere, laughed out loudly as the
Spirit passed, tho little kenned the
lamplig'hter that he had any company
but Christmas!
And now, without word of warning
from the Ghost, they stood upon bleak
and desert moor, where monstrous
masses of rude stone were cast about.
as tho il were the burial place of giants;
and water spread itself wheresoever 1T
listed, or would have done SO. but for
the frost that held 1T prisoner; and
nothing grew but moss and furze, and
coarse, rank grass. Down in the west
the setting sun had left a streak of fiery
red. which glared upon the desolation
for an instant like a sullen eye, and,
frowning lower, lower lower yet, was
lost in the thick gloom of darkest
night.
What place is this?' asked Scrooge.
"a place where miners live, who labor
in the bowels of the EARTH" returned
the Spirit But they know me. See!'
A light shone from the window of a
hut, and swiftly they advanced towards
it. Passing thru the wall of mud and
stone, they found cheerful company
assembled round a glowing fire. An
old, old man and woman, with their
children and their children's children,
and another generation beyond that, all
decked out gayly in their holiday attire.
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose
above the bowling of the wind upon the
barren waste, was singing them a
Christmas song,-it had been a very old
song when he was a boy,--and from
time to time they Joined In the chorus.
So surely as they raised their voices,
the old man got quite blithe and loud;
and SO surely as they stopped, his vigor
sank again.
The Spirit did not tarry here, but
bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing
on above the moor, sped-whither? Not
to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror,
looking back. he saw the last of the
land a frightful range of rocks. behind
them; and his ears were deafened by
and roared, and ragged among the dread
full caverns it had worn land iercely
tried to undermine the earth.
Built upon dismal reef of sunken
rocks, some league or so from shore, on
which the waters chafed and dashed,
the wild year thru, there stood a soli-
tary lighthouse. Great heaps Of sea
weeds chung to it's base. and storm birds
born of the wind, one might suppose,
as sea weed of the water-rose and fell
about it, like the waves they skinned.
But even here, two men who watched
the light had made fire, that thru the
loophole in the thick stone wall shed out
a ray of brightness on the awful sea.
Joining their horny hands over the
rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in
their can of grog; and one of them, the
elder, too, with his face all damaged
and SCARED with hard weather, as the
figure head of an old ship might be,
struck up sturdy song that was like
gale in itself.
Again the Ghost sped on, above the
black and heaving sea,-on, on.-until,
being far away, as he told Scrooge,
from any shore, they lighted on ship.
They stood beside the helmsman at the
wheel, the lockout in the bow, the Off
GERS who had the watch; dark, ghostly
figures in their several stations; but
every man among them hummed o
Christmas tune, or had a Christmas
thought, or spoke below his breath to
his companion of some bygone Christi
mas day, with homeward hopes belong
ing to 1t. And every man on board,
waking or sleeping, good or bad, had
had a kinder word for one another on
that day than on any day in the year;
festivities; and had remembered those
he cared for at a distance, and had
known that they delighted to remember
him.
1t was great surprise to Scrooge,
while listening to the moaning of the
wind, and thinking what a solemn thing
it was to move on thru the lonely dark
ness over an unknown abyss, whose
depths were secrets as profound as
death,-it was a great surprise to
Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a
hearty laugh. 1t was a much greater
surprise to Scrooge to recognize 1t as
his own nephew's, and to find himself
in a bright, dry, cleaning room, with
the Spirit standing smiling by his side,
and looking at that same nephew with
approving affability!
.'IIa, hal" laughed Serooge's nephew.
"Ha, ha, hal"
If you should happen, by any unlikely
chance, to know a man more blest in a
laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all / can
say is, I should like to know him, too.
him to me, and I'll cultivate
his acquaintance.
1t Is a fair, even handed, noble adj
justment of things, that, while there is
infection in disease and sorrow, there
is nothing in the world so irresistibly
as laughter and good humor.
When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this
way, holding his sides, rolling his head,
and twisting his face into the most ex-
contortions, Scrooge's niece,
by marriage, laughed as heartily as he.
And their assembled friends, being not