le children were sitting by the fire one cold winter's night.
All at once they heard a timid knock at the door, and one ran to
open it.

There, outside in the cold and the darkness, stood a child with no
shoes upon his feet and clad in thin, ragged garments. He was
shivering with cold, and he asked to come in and warm himself.

"Yes, come," cried both the children; "you shall have our place by the
fire. Come in!"

They drew the little stranger to their warm seat and shared their
supper with him, and gave him their bed, while they slept on a hard
bench.

In the night they were awakened by strains of sweet music and, looking
out, they saw a band of children in shining garments approaching the
house. They were playing on golden harps, and the air was full of
melody.

Suddenly the Stranger Child stood before them; no longer cold and
ragged, but clad in silvery light.

His soft voice said: "I was cold and you took Me in. I was hungry, and
you fed Me. I was tired, and you gave Me your bed. I am the Christ
Child, wandering through the world to bring peace and happiness to all
good children. As you have given to Me, so may this tree every year
give rich fruit to you."

So saying, He broke a branch from the fir tree that grew near the
door, and He planted it in the ground and disappeared. But the branch
grew into a great tree, and every year it bore wonderful golden fruit
for the kind children.

[*] From "For the Children's Hour," by Bailey and Lewis. Used by
permission of the authors and the publishers--Milton Bradley Company.

LITTLE JEAN[*]

A Christmas Story

Long ago, and far from here, in a country with a name too hard to
pronounce, there lived a little boy named Jean. In many ways, he was
just like the boys here, for there are many Johns over here, are there
not? Then too, Jean lived with his auntie, and some of our boys do
that too. His father and mother were dead, and that is true here
sometimes, isn't it? But in some ways things were quite different with
Jean. In the first place his auntie was very, very cross, and she
often made him climb up his ladder to his little garret room to go to
sleep on his pallet of straw, without any supper, save a dry crust.
His stockings had holes in the heels, and toes and knees, because his
auntie never had time to mend them, and his shoes would have been worn
out all the time if they had not been such strong wooden shoes--for in
that country the boys all wore wo