The other presents were similar articles, and were received, as they
were given, with much tender feeling. But at this moment, as Dick was on
the top of the flight of steps, handing down a red apple from the tree,
a slight catastrophe occurred.

The first I was conscious of was the angry hiss of steam. In a moment I
perceived that the steam-boiler, from which the tavern was warmed, had
exploded. The floor beneath us rose, and we were driven with it through
the ceiling and the rooms above,--through an opening in the roof into
the still night. Around us in the air were flying all the other contents
and occupants of the Star and Eagle. How bitterly was I reminded of
Dick's flight from the railroad track of the Ithaca & Owego Railroad!
But I could not hope such an escape as his. Still my flight was in a
parabola; and, in a period not longer than it has taken to describe it,
I was thrown senseless, at last, into a deep snow-bank near the United
States Arsenal.

Tender hands lifted me and assuaged me. Tender teams carried me to the
City Hospital. Tender eyes brooded over me. Tender science cared for me.
It proved necessary, before I recovered, to amputate my two legs at the
hips. My right arm was wholly removed, by a delicate and curious
operation, from the socket. We saved the stump of my left arm, which was
amputated just below the shoulder. I am still in the hospital to recruit
my strength. The doctor does not like to have me occupy my mind at all;
but he says there is no harm in my compiling my memoirs, or writing
magazine stories. My faithful nurse has laid me on my breast on a
pillow, has put a camel's-hair pencil in my mouth, and, feeling almost
personally acquainted with John Carter, the artist, I have written out
for you, in his method, the story of my last Christmas.

I am sorry to say that the others have never been found.

THE SAME CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW.

The first Christmas in New England was celebrated by some people who
tried as hard as they could not to celebrate it at all. But looking back
on that year 1620, the first year when Christmas was celebrated in New
England, I cannot find that anybody got up a better _fete_ than did
these Lincolnshire weavers and ploughmen who had got a little taste of
Dutch firmness, and resolved on that particular day, that, whatever else
happened to them, they would not celebrate Christmas at all.

Here is the story as William Bradford tells it:

"Ye 16