Little Folks' Christmas Stories and Plays

by Unknown

It was a desolate scene, but the children seemed to have forgotten it. They were gazing spellbound at the lad in their midst, their minds so full of the picture he was describing that the snowy fields before them and the miserable camp behind them seemed miles away. Instead, they saw what the boy saw as he looked straight before him, gazing into space with a light upon his face as if he were beholding the radiant scene of which he spoke.

“There were angels,” he was saying in a clear, thrilling voice, “hundreds of them, all with glistening wings and faces as light as the sunshine. They made the dark night as bright as day, and when the shepherds saw them they were frightened. But the angels said, ‘Fear not,’ and told them to go to a stable in the city near by, where, lying in a manger, they would find a baby King. So the shepherds hurried up the steep path to the city, carrying the lambs in their arms, and the sky echoed with the angels’ song. It was the gladdest night in the whole world.”

“But that is not all!” cried the children. “Tell us about the wonderful star and the men on camels.”

“Listen,” said the story-teller, although every child was already listening with all his might, “listen to what I am going to tell you to-day. It is the most marvelous thing you have ever heard. In ten days Christmas will be here, although the folks at the camp are so busy and lonesome they have forgotten it. But when I asked my mother how we could ever have a Christmas tree in this far-away place like we used to at home, she said that perhaps”—here the lad, Carl, paused a moment, and again he gazed into the distance, his face glowing, “perhaps,” he continued mysteriously, “the glorious star would shine again here to guide, not the wise men on camels, but us—the children—to the birthplace of a little baby!”

“Shall we see the angels too?” questioned a girl, her voice trembling with excitement. “Will the dark sky be bright and full of singing like you said?” demanded another, and “Will the shepherds be there? And the camels? And the men with precious gifts?” asked others.

“Perhaps so,” answered Carl; he did not know, he only knew that they must watch every night now for a new glorious star. Of course that would be the beginning of it all, the beginning of the most wonderful Christmas that had happened since the angels sang to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem.

A shrill whistle blew, the call for supper, and the children ran back over the snowy path to the big shack where the men met for meals. They were all seated, talking angrily, when the children entered. One of the men, a leader among them, had just read aloud a letter from the owner of the mine. Such a small amount of gold had been found, the letter said, that unless more was discovered within ten days, the mine would be closed. Also, as the miners had been working on part shares, their wages would be very small, barely enough to pay for their trips back to their homes. A murmur of anger and ugly threats ran around the room. The men had traveled to this desolate spot with the dream of going back rich for life and now, after months of hard, dangerous labor, they would return poorer than when they came. Before the eyes of many of them arose pictures of bare homes where their families were struggling bravely against illness and poverty, counting the days until the miners returned with pockets full of gold.

“As beggars we will never go back!” cried one man. “Better blow up the mine with us in it than see our children starve!” cried another, and then the children, whose fathers were the few who had brought their families with them, rushed into the room, their faces bright with the great hope in their hearts. “Ten days from now will be Christmas!” cried one little lad. “And something wonderful will happen then!” cried another. The men turned upon them savagely. “If any child talks of Christmas again, I’ll give him a licking that will make him forget the day,” exclaimed one man, and another growled, “Ten days from now we’ll all be beggars. Is that what you call ‘something wonderful’ happening?”

To the children, Carl’s story began to seem an idle dream. How could a baby King, a glorious Christ Child, come to this miserable spot, or an angel’s song ring through a camp where, as the night went on, the noise of fighting and swearing echoed more and more wildly?

With a despairing hope of still finding the gold within ten days, the miners went out to their work morning after morning before dawn, and evening after evening they returned, utterly discouraged. It was small wonder that their faces grew rough and fierce and the children crept fearfully out of their way. Their own fathers were even more wretched than the others, for the small wages would not pay the return trip of a whole family and, after ten days were over, they could not live on with no food in that desolate camp. Starvation stared them in the face, and the coming of Christmas meant nothing to them.