AMONG THE HOLLY-BUSHES.
ND who is this, looking out from amid the holly-bushes, this cold winter day? Whose sweet, merry, roguish face is this? She is wrapped up warm; she has gloves on her hands, and a nice thick hood on her head.
It is my niece Clara. She has been out with her brothers and the men to gather holly and evergreen for Christmas. First they cut down a little pine for the Christmas-tree. It was not so very little either; for it was twenty feet high.
There was snow on the ground, and they had a sledge on which to pile the hemlock-boughs, the evergreens, and the holly. Clara saw a squirrel run up a tree, and called to her brothers to look; but they were not quick enough to see it.
Then she spied a hollow place by the side of a hill, and going to look at it, she found it was a little pond of ice. It was smooth as glass, and she and her brothers had a nice time sliding on it.
Clara was sorry when it got to be twelve o'clock, and it was time to go home. The sledge was piled up with boughs, and the oxen wanted their dinner. Yes, they must go.
But when Clara was nestled in her little bed that night, and had said her prayers, this was her thought, "Oh, I never shall forget this happy, happy day; the bright, bracing air, so sweet and clear; the mild, soft sunshine; the smell of the pines; the frolic on the pond; the ride on the sledge; the little snowbirds that came in a flock when I began to feed them. Oh, I never shall forget it; no, never, never-r-r, nev—;" And with this last word half uttered, my little niece fell asleep.
EMILY CARTER.
