Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1914-12-11

"What's the new little boys name?"
asked Tab.
Nobody knew. That would be some
thing to find out.
well" Tab said. tomorrow morn
ing. right after breakfast. I'm going
to bring Theophilus Thistledown down
and lend him to him."
"Ain't we going to bury Sandy Claus
right after brea kfast?" demanded Gus.
sic.
And all the children, ever little EN-
lily, answered:
"No; let's not"
They all went on together and enter
ed Mary's gate. Those within, hearing
the singing, had opened the door, and
they brought them through that deep
arch of warmth and light. Afterward
no one could remember whether or not
the greeting had been Merry Christ
mas but there could have been no
installing what everybody meant.
y =
At his gate in the street wall lined
Will ODON OONCd AldC0 allo huADCA
ries Ebenezer Rule waited In the dark
for his two friends to come back. He
had found Kate Kerr in his kitchen
methodically making a jar of Christ.
mas cookies. C"You've got to eat, If
it is Christmas" she had defended
herself in a whisper, And to her
stupefaction he had dispatched her ia
Mary Chayah's with her entire Christ
mas baking in a basket.
Il don't believe they've got near
enough for all the folks ! see going"
he explained 1t.
While he went within doors he had
left the hobbyhorse in the snow close
to the wall. and he came back there
to wait. The street had emptied. BY
now every o had gone to Mary
Chayah's. Once he caught the CLEAN
of lanterns down the road and heard
children's voices singing. For some
time he heard the singing, and after
it had stopped he fancied that be
heard it. Startled, he looked up into
the wide night lying serene above the
town and not yet become vexed by
the towns shadows and interrupted by
their lights. 1t was as if the singing
came from up there. But the night
Kept its way of looking steadily be-
yond him.
1t came to Ebenezer that the night
had not always been SO unconscious
of his presence. The one long ago. for
example, when he had slept beneath
this wall and dreamed that he had a
kingdom; those other nights when he
had wandered abroad with his star
glass. Then the night used to be
something else. 1t had seemed to meet
him, to admit him. Now he knew,
and for a long time had known, that
when he was abroad in the night he
was there, so to say, without his per-
mission. AS for men, he could not
tell when relation with them had
changed, when he had begun to think
OF them as among the externals, but he
knew that now he ran along the sur
face Of them and let them go. He
never met them as Others" as be-
longing to countless equations OF which
he was one term, and they playing
that wonderful, near role of "other."
Thus he had got along, as If his own
i~ndividuation were the only one that
had ever occurred and as if all the
mass of mankind-and the night and
the day-were undifferentiated from
some substance all inimical.
Then this vast egoism had heard it.
self expressed in the mention CT
Bruce's baby-the third generation.
But by the great sorcery wherewith
nature has protected herself. this mann
moth sense of self, when 1t extends
unto the next generations, becomes a
keeper of the race. Ebenezer had been
touched, relaxed, d~isIntegrated. Here
was an interest outside himself which
was yet no external. Vast, level reach
es lay about that fact and all long