His errand done, John set out on his return. The ghost was gone, the fir tree was a friendly sentinel, the leaves were still playing in the wind. The next day he cut down the fir tree and set it up as a Christmas tree. Spreading some dry leaves beneath it, he said, “Just suppose, mother, I’d let them scare me.”
HE DID NOT HESITATE
In a forest on the banks of the Shenandoah River, in the northern part of Virginia, a party of young surveyors were eating their picnic dinner.
Suddenly they heard the shriek of a woman. “Oh, my boy! my poor little boy is drowning!” rose the cry. The young men sprang to their feet, and rushed toward the river.
A tall youth of eighteen was the first to reach the woman, whom two men were holding back from the water’s edge.
“Oh, sir,” pleaded the woman, as the young man approached; “please help me! My boy is drowning, and these men will not let me go!”
“It would be madness!” exclaimed one of the men. “She would jump into the river, and be dashed to pieces in the rapids.”