Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-09

Not least upon the busy magnate s
table is his shopping list.
rron;nps. six dollar a week sales
.;rls s;t in their five dollar a week hall
soJrooms, with their aching feet in q
.nb If hot water and their aching fingers
tm.v su With baby ribboned coat hangers
aud onJ' silk needle book tokens of fule-
tide affection.
Even as it lowered In manger, the
rhristmas spirit a perennial lily upon
tho sooty face of the world, blooms out
NV ~ tbp slack heap of mems rife and
strife. :,
Tn tbe hearts of children it is pod
slled with their first happiness
Down from a sky the color OF coid
dish water, q cloak of swift snow, 1ell
unon the city, muffiing its voice IKE
hand held against its mouth: Chlldreh
who had never before beheld a whltc
Christmas leaped with the JOY or IL:
sudden army OF men WIN plue laces
onJ no oyercoats sprang. full grown and
armed with shovels, from out the storm.
@itr marks Law etched in sudden finery,
Mon coming up out of the canyon of
Wall street remembered that it was
Christmas and felt for bauble money.
At early dusk and through the white
dance of the white storm the city slid
its 100000 packs off its 4,00o,oOo
hacks and turned homeward. Pedes-
trisns with the shoppers light in their
eyes bent into the furry and darted for
surface cars and subways. 'Commut-
org laden with bundles and with tick
cts between their teeth, rushed for early
trains.
Women with bearing down bundles
and babies wedged through the crowd
fighting for trains and place. Boys in
cadet uniforms and boarding school
girls homeward bound thrust forward
their shining faces as if into the to-
morrow. A tight tangle of business
men passed single file through d trel-
Used gateway and on down to lower
level A messenger with a tipsy spray
Of holly stuck upright in his cap
vhacked with folded newspaper at a
fellow messenger swift legs and dart
ed In, and around the knees of the
crowd. A prodigal hesitated, then
bought a second class ticket for home.
Two nuns hurried softly on missions
Of Christmas.
The low thunder of thousand feet:
tired feet, eager feet; fat feet, shabby
feet; young feet, callous feet; arched
and archess feet. Voices that rose like
wind to gale. A child dragged by the
arm and whimpering. A group of
shawled strangers intercnanging sharp
jargon.
Within the marble mausoleum of a
waiting room, its benches lined with
the Kaleidoscope faces of the travelling
public, train announcer beloved a
paen of tracks and stations.
At the onyx and nickel plated peri
odcal stand men in passing snatched
their evening paper from off the stack
on the counter, Topping down, their
pennies as they ran. In the glow of
spray of red and white electric bulbs,
In a bower of the instants pretty girl
periodical covers, and herself the most
vivid Of them all, Miss Marjorie Clark
caught a hastily flung copper coin on
the fly, her laughter mounting with it.
''Whoops, a-lan
Good catch, kiddo.' +
"Oh, you Charley boy, who was you
pitching for last season."
The Reds. because that's your col
or"
"Say. If you're going to catch that
four eighteen you'v got to break some
body's speed limit between here and
track ten. Run along. Charley boy,
and Merry Christmas.
But Mr., Charles Scully swung to a
halt, poured his armful of packages
into wire basket of six city post
.card-views for ten cents. swung open
his overcoat with sprinkling of snow
on its slick mapped velvet collar, lifted
his small black mustache in a smile.
BLACK eyes, I'd miss three trains for
you"
There's not another until the four
forty"
Il should worry. Anyway, for all
Know you've changed your mind and
are coming out with me tonight, little
one
The quick blood ran up into her
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