THE BABY!

"By George!" screamed Pattie Batch; "it _ith_ a baby!"

"Your baby," John Fairmeadow whispered. "God's Christmas gift--to you."

Pattie Batch--adorable, young mother!--reverently approached, and,
bending with parted lips, eyes shining, and hands laid upon her
trembling heart, for the first time gazed content upon the little face.
She lifted, then--and with what awe and tenderness!--the tiny mortal
from the warm basket, and pressed it, with knowing arms, against her
warmer, softer young breast. "My baby!" she crooned, her lips close to
its ear; "my little baby--my own little baby!"

[Illustration]

End of Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve at Swamp's End, by Norman Duncan

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE AT SWAMP'S END ***

***** This file should be named 27612.txt or 27612.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/6/1/27612/

Produced by David Edwards, Greg Bergquist and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
dist