htened than he had
been at any time during the adventure, and ran home screaming. That
afternoon his father went to the scene of battle and took the bear out
of the water. It was very fat and large, and weighed, so Mr. Brent said,
over six hundred pounds.

Balser was firmly of the opinion that he himself was also very fat and
large, and weighed at least as much as the bear. He was certainly
entitled to feel "big"; for he had got himself out of an ugly scrape in
a brave, manly, and cool-headed manner, and had achieved a victory of
which a man might have been proud.

The news of Balser's adventure soon spread among the neighbors and he
became quite a hero; for the bear he had killed was one of the largest
that had ever been seen in that neighborhood, and, besides the gallons
of rich bear oil it yielded, there were three or four hundred pounds of
bear meat; and no other food is more strengthening for winter diet.

There was also the soft, furry skin, which Balser's mother tanned, and
with it made a coverlid for Balser's bed, under which he and his little
brother lay many a cold night, cozy and "snug as a bug in a rug."

385

The selection that follows may serve as an
example of an effective Christmas story in the
latest fashion. It was not written especially
for young people, but neither were many of the
books that now stand on the shelf that holds
their favorites. It is not only one of the
great short stories, but one of the shortest of
great-stories. It is quite worthy of use in
company with Dickens' _Christmas Carol_, Henry
van Dyke's _The Other Wise Man_, and Thomas
Nelson Page's _Santa Claus's Partner_, at the
Christmas season, and it has the advantages of
extreme brevity, a fresh breeziness of style,
surprise in the plot, and romantic interest.
The magi brought various gifts to the Child in
the manger--gold, frankincense, myrrh--but only
one gift, that of love. O. Henry does not often
moralize, but no reader ever finds fault with
his concluding paragraph. The author's real
name was William Sidney Porter. He was born in
Greensboro, N. C., in 1862, and died in New
York City, in 1910, the most widely read of
short-story writers. "The Gift of the Magi" is
taken from the volume called _The Four Million_
by spec