The Potato Child and Others | Page 9

knows who needs them
most, and naught must be lost or wasted.
"Where was I in the story, children?"
"The baby on the hay, sweet mother."
"Ah, yes, I mind me now. I took him in my arms. To me no child had
ever looked the same. But now, a marvel! The rock stable, which
before had seemed dark indeed, lighted only by our dim lamps,
suddenly shone full of light. I raised my eyes, and there, before and
above me, seemingly through a rent in the roof, I beheld a most large
and luminous star. Verily, I had not seen the opening in the roof when I
had lain me down, but now I could do naught else but look from my
baby's face beside me, along the floods of light to the star before.
"And now, without, rose a cry: 'We are come to behold the King. We
are guided.' And, entering the stable, clad in their coats of sheepskin,
with their slings and crooks yet in their hands, came shepherds, I
cannot now recall the number."
"I had wrapped my babe in his clothes, and had lain him in his manger.
And now it was so that as soon as their eyes fell upon his face, they
sank to their knees and worshiped him."
"'Heard you not,' spake a white-bearded shepherd to me; 'heard you not,
young Mother Mary, the angels' song?'"
"'Meseems I have long heard it, and can hear naught else, good father,'
I answered."
"To us it came,' he said, 'in the first watch of this night, and with it
music not of earth.'"
"Afterward came the learned ones from the Eastern countries, - I know
not now the land. The gifts they brought him made all the place seem
like a king's palace; and with all their gifts they gave him worship
also."
"And I lay watching it all. And it shall be always so, I thought."
"But these, though wise men, were not of our race, and could not
follow the guiding star with our faith. Wherefore, so much stir had they

made throughout the kingdom, inquiring publicly concerning this, your
brother, that, through the jealousy of Herod, great was the trouble and
misery that fell upon the innocent after their going."
"But hearken, children; I hear even now your father and your brother
coming from their work. Place quickly the gifts within the basket."
It is a gentle figure that bends among mother and children, and a tender
voice that questions:
"Shall I bear forth the gifts?"
"They are ready now, my son. Even this moment thy brother James
placed the last within the basket, but canst thou not partake of the
evening meal before thou goest with them? Thou art but a lad, to go
forth alone after a day of toil."
"Nay, but I must be about the Master's work; and, look, the stars are
rising. I should tarry not, for they who toil long rest early."
"For whom is thy service to-night, my son? Last birth-night it was to
the sorrowing; before that to the blind, and even yet to the deaf and the
lame. And whither tend thy footsteps now?"
"To the tempted ones, mother."
"And thou shalt stay their feet, dear boy, for rememberest not the
Immanuels of last year? How the sorrowful found strange, staying joy
in their hearts? How the blind said, as thou named their gifts, and
placed them in their hands, that it seemed they could straightway
behold them? How even the dumb gave forth pleasant sounds like
music from their helpless tongues? and how even the lame well-nigh
leaped from their lameness, for the light of thy young face? But when
thou comest to thy crown and throne thou needest not got forth alone
upon thy birth-night, but send out thy gifts with love and plenty."
"I know not, my mother."
"But all will be thine? What said the angel: 'The Lord God shall give
unto him the throne of his father David; and of his kingdom there shall
be no end!' It may be soon, we know not, for lo! King David was but a
boy, and at his daily toil, when he was called to reign over the house of
Jacob. Forget not, thou art born the King."
"Oh, gladden not thy heart, loved mother, with this joy. I seek not to
behold the future, but I see not in this world my kingdom, for the rose
blossoms I pluck from out the hedge-rows fall; and it is their thorn
branch that ever within my hands twines into a crown."

Here ends The Potato Child and Others by Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury.
The frontispiece after a bas-relief by Elizabeth Ferrea. Published by
Paul Elder & Company and done into a book