What hast thou seen?
And the deep musical voices of the shepherds answer:—
“Deep in a manger, a little child,
On the dry straw, slumbered and smiled.”
So they move slowly, carrying a little fruit, a measure of grain, a pair of pigeons, to where the priest stands waiting to bless their simple gifts and lay them at the foot of the altar.
The Christchild and the Pine Tree
On the Holy Night when the Christchild was born, the earth lay very near to heaven; all the world was at peace, and there was no noise of war to keep men on earth from hearing the angels sing.
Animals and birds and trees alike were glad because of the coming of the Holy Babe, and like the shepherds and the Wise Men came to bring to Him their gifts. Most of all the little pine tree beside the road longed to take something to the Christchild.
The cedars, instead of pointing their branches upward in pointed slender trees, spread their branches wide, as Cedars of Lebanon do to this day, and bent low to shelter the Mother and Child. But the little pine was too small to shelter anything, and though he stretched and stretched, he was not even tall enough to keep the sun out of the eyes of the Wonderful Babe. He was barely tall enough for the wind to make a whispering sound in the tips of his little branches.
The thorn, although it was midwinter, suddenly blossomed out and brought its white flowers to make a coverlet for the Child’s cradle. And the little pine tree tried so hard to blossom that pine-needles came out in tufts all over him, but that was all; only the wind through his branches now sounded like a sigh.