moky and I screamed:

"Help! Murder! Put out that fire lest you want to burn me up!"

Then I heard papa stamping on the wood and mamma calling out:

"Where's Billy? Where is my chile?"

Next Tommy woke up and began to cry and everything was terrible,
specially the pains all over me. Then papa called out very stern:

"William, if you are in that chimney come down at once!" and I
answered, cryin', that I would if I could, but I was stuck and couldn't.

Then I heard papa gettin' dressed, and pretty soon he and John from the
stable went up on the roof and let down ropes what I put around me and
they hauled me up.

It was jes' daylight and I was all black and sooty and scratched and my
arm was broken.

Everybody scolded me excep' mamma. I had spoiled my sister's white rug
and broken all of Tommy's toys, and the snow what went in through the
scuttle melted and marked the parlor ceiling, besides I guess it cost
papa a good deal to get my arm mended. Nobody would believe that I had
jes' meant to make some fun for Tommy, and my arm and all my bruised
places hurt me awful for a long time. If I live to be a million I am
never goin' to play Santa Claus ag'in.

CHRISTMAS IN POGANUC.

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS.

Can any of us look back to the earlier days of our mortal pilgrimage and
remember the helpless sense of desolation and loneliness caused by being
forced to go off to the stillness and darkness of a solitary bed far
from all the beloved voices and employments and sights of life? Can we
remember lying, hearing distant voices, and laughs of more fortunate,
older people and the opening and shutting of distant doors, that told of
scenes of animation and interest from which we were excluded? How
doleful sounded the tick of the clock, and how dismal was the darkness
as sunshine faded from the window, leaving only a square of dusky
dimness in place of daylight!

All who remember these will sympathize with Dolly, who was hustled off
to bed by Nabby the minute supper was over, that she might have the
decks clear for action.

"Now be a good girl; shut your eyes, and say your prayers, and go right
to sleep," had been Nabby's parting injunction as she went out, closing
the door after her.

The little head sunk into the pillow, and Dolly recited her usual
liturgy of "Our Father who art in heaven," and "I pray God to bless my
dear father and mother and all my dear friends and relations, and ma