It was a rare old house, richly furnished with treasures of art and fancy from all the world over. The breakfast-room was heavily paneled in carved wood and hung with ancient Gobelin tapestry. The threads which the children followed passed back of the large Swiss clock, along the wall under the tapestry, out by the parlor with its Cordova-leather panels, into a picture-hung reception room, and there mounted to the ceiling above, up through a colored glass sky-light. When the children saw that, they scampered through the marble-tiled hall, up the broad polished walnut staircase to the passage above, and there drew up their threads, and started on a new hunt.
From this fresh point of departure the different threads took separate directions. They led hither and thither, the children following, almost holding their breaths with the excitement of pursuit and expectation. Along the corridor walls, under rows of Saracen tiles and Italian majolica and Sèvres porcelain, back of old paintings, through the well-filled library, into and out of closets stored with fishing-tackle and hunting-gear, through rooms spread with Turkish mats and rich with coverings of Persian embroidery, up into the third story, and down along the under side of the banister rail, back to the lower floor, again the threads led the way and the children followed. It was a happy hour for old and young.
By and by the threads came once more to a common point, passing under a closed door out of a rear hall, where a printed placard called on each child to wait until all were together. One by one they came up with beaming faces and bounding hearts. The door was opened. There in the center of the disclosed room were seven mammoth pasteboard Christmas boots, holding from one to three pecks each, marked with the names of the several children, and filled to overflowing. Each child seized a boot, and hurried, as directed, back to the breakfast-room.
Then came new surprises. All hands sat on the floor together. Only one package at a time was opened, that all might enjoy the disclosures to the full. And there were unlooked-for directions on many a package. One child would take a package from her Christmas boot, and, on removing the first wrapper, would find a written announcement that the package was to be handed over to her cousin. A little later, the cousin would be directed to pass along another package to a third one of the party. And so the morning went by. How happy those children were! What life-long memories of enjoyment were then made for them! And how thoroughly the good uncle and aunt enjoyed that morning with its happiness which they had created!
There were elegant and fitting presents found in those Christmas boots; but the charm of that day was in the mysteries of that pursuing chase all over that beautiful house, and in the excitements of prolonged anticipation and wonder. Those children will never have done enjoying that morning. The choicest gifts then received by them had an added value because their generous giver had put so much of himself into their preparation and distribution. And this is but an illustration of a truth that is applicable in the whole realm of efforts at gladdening the hearts of the little ones on Christmas or any other day. It matters not, so far, whether the home be one of abundance or of close limitations, whether the gifts be many or few, costly of inexpensive.
He who would make children happy must do for them and do with them, rather than merely give to them. He must give himself with his gifts, and thus imitate and illustrate, in a degree, the love of Him who gave himself to us, who is touched with the sense of our enjoyments as well as our needs, and who, with all that He gives us, holds out an expectation of some better thing in store for us: of that which passeth knowledge and understanding, but which shall fully satisfy our hopes and longings when at last we have it in possession.
XXX.
GOOD-NIGHT WORDS.
If there is one time more than another when children ought to hear only loving words from their parents, and be helped to feel that theirs is a home of love and gladness, it is when they are going to bed at night. Good-night words to a child ought to be the best of words, as they are words of greatest potency. Yet not every parent realizes this important truth, nor does every child have the benefit of it.