Later in the forenoon, Mr. Rogers sent for Harry and Sweetie to come and help dress his Christmas tree; and Christmas night his parlor was filled with poor children, for each of whom some useful gift hung on the tree. Milly was there by Sweetie’s invitation, and Mr. Rogers sent her home in his carriage, with the easiest chair that money could buy for her old lame mother. The tears filled his eyes as Milly thanked him again and again for all his kindness; and, as he shut the door after the last one, he said,—
“Hereafter I will make it always a Merry Christmas for God’s needy ones.”
I am sure he did, for he had Sweetie always near him. He used to call her his “Christmas Sweeting;” and then she would laugh, and say he was her “Golden Sweeting.”
What is better than gold he gave the family: he found patrons for Mrs. Lawson, and customers for the shop, and placed Harry in a mercantile house, where he soon rose to be head clerk. The other children he put at school. Sweetie he never would let go very far out of his sight. He had her thoroughly and usefully educated, and no less than her mother, and brothers, and sister, did he bless the day when “Sweetie’s ship came in”—
A ship which brought for every day
A welcome hope, an added joy,
A something sweet to do or say,
And hosts of pleasures unalloyed,
Its cargo, made of pleasant cares,
Of daily duties to be done,
Of smiles and laughter, songs and prayers,
The glad, bright life of Happy Ones.
Margaret Field.
