It was Christmas Day, and Toddy and Tita were alone. Papa and mamma had gone out West to see their was ill. They had promised to be home for Christmas , but a big snow had blocked the railroad nurse was afraid the train would be delayed until the day after Christmas . What a dull Christmas for two little in the great city house, with only the servants! They felt so lonely that nurse let them the big drawing-room instead of in the nursery, so they arranged all the chairs in a row, it was a snowed-up train. Tita was the conductor, and Toddy was the passengers. Just as they midst of it, they heard music in the street, and, running to the window, they saw a singing and beating a tambourine.
“ Why,” said Tita, “his feet are all bare!”
“ Dess he hanged up an’ his shoes, too,” said Toddy.
“ Let’s open the window and ask him.”
But the great window was reach, so they took papa’s cane and pushed it tip. The little boy smiled, but they could he said, so they told him to come in,
and ran to open the big front door. He little frightened at first, but the carpet felt warm to his poor bare feet.
He told them that Guido, and that he had come from Italy, which is a much warmer country than ours, and was very poor, so poor that he had no shoes, and had to go singing from house a few pennies to get some dinner. And he was so hungry.
“ Poor little boy!” said Tita. away, and we’re having a pretty sad Christmas , but we’ll try to make it nice for you.”
So they and Guido sang to them. Then the folding doors rolled back, and there was the dining-room and set, and Thomas, the black waiter, smiling, just as if it had been a big dinner party two very little girls. Nurse said: “Well, I never!” when she saw Guido, but she felt so the lonely little girls that she let him come to the table. And such a dinner as He had never had one like it before. “It is a fairy tale,” he said.
Just as dessert door opened and in rushed mamma and papa; the train had gotten in, after all. They were to see their darlings happy instead of moping that they gave them each some extra kisses. You sure little Guido never went hungry and barefoot after that. Long afterward he would say: “That was
That night, after Tita had said her prayers, she said:
“ Mamma, I know something. Whenever you feel sad and you will just find somebody sadder and lonelier than yourself and cheer them up, it will make
And I think that that was the very best kind of a Christmas lesson of love. Don’t you?
ETHELDRED B. BARRY.
Tags:happy, tree, Kids, dinner, party, christmas
Loading ...