at all a small pudding for a large family. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up; apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily, Bob proposed:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!". Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. Then he gave another toast.

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it!" "My dear,” said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day.” "It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such a stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full fiveand-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his

collar, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord “was much about as tall as Peter"; at which Peter pulled up his collar so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts went round and round; and by and by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well-dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. What made the Cratchits a happy family? Suppose the pudding had been stolen, or had not been "done enough," or had broken "in turning out"-would it have made any real difference in their happiness? Explain.

2. Guess how the complete story ends. What effect does the Cratchits' Christmas dinner have on Scrooge, the miser? Does Tiny Tim get well and strong? Does Bob Cratchit get an increase in salary? Ask your teacher to read you the rest of the Christmas Carol, from which this selection is taken.

3. Read aloud the passages which best describe Mrs. Cratchit, Mr. Cratchit, Tiny Tim, Master Peter.

4. Volunteer work for a class committee: a dramatization of the story. Before dramatizing it, answer these questions:

a. Should the entire Christmas Carol be used, or only the part given in this book? If the entire Carol is used, how many scenes should be in the play?

b. What stage "properties" are needed?

c. What part of the story should be told by acting? What part by conversation?

d. Can the words of Dickens be used for the dialogue?

e. Should Scrooge and the Good Spirit be brought in?

f. How should each character dress? Are special costumes and "makeups" necessary?

g. How much time is needed?

5. Explain how this story illustrates Van Dyke's "Home Song."

ADDITIONAL READINGS. — I. "Christmas in the Old South," T. N. Page, in The Old South. 2. A Christmas at Mt. Vernon," G. Hunt, in Century Magazine, 55: 188–195. 3. Christmas in Legend and Story, E. S. Smith and A. I. Hazeltine.

3. SNOW-BOUND

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

When almost sixty years of age, Whittier wrote this poem about his boyhood home in New England. Of the family which he describes only two members were then living, he and his brother. The first part of the poem, not printed here, describes the snowstorm, which held the family, snow-bound, within the old farmhouse.

I. BUILDING THE FIRE

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled with care our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,-
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,

Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.

II. THE FIRESIDE CIRCLE

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast

Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed.
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.
What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.

O Time and Change! - with hair as gray
As was my sire's that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone

Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now,
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust
(Since He who knows our need is just)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees

The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,

And Love can never lose its own!

Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog's wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper's hut and Indian camp;
Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Cochecho town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle's eggs he got,