CHRISTMAS EVE
AND
CHRISTMAS DAY.

DAILY BREAD.—Page 120.

Christmas Eve

AND

Christmas Day.


Ten Christmas Stories.


By EDWARD E. HALE,
AUTHOR OF "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," ETC.



WITH ILLUSTRATION BY F. O. C. DARLEY.



BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1873.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by

EDWARD E. HALE,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.



CAMBRIDGE:
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

PREFACE.

This is a collection of ten Christmas Stories, some of which have been published before. I have added a little essay, written on the occasion of the first Christmas celebrated by the King of Italy in Rome.

The first story has never before been published.

It is but fair to say that I have not drawn on imagination for Laura's night duty, alone upon her island. This is simply the account of what a brave New-England woman did, under like circumstances, because it was the duty next her hand.

If any reader observes a resemblance between her position and that of a boy in another story in this volume, I must disarm censure, by saying, that she had never heard of him when she was called to this duty, and that I had never heard of her when I wrote his story.

E. E. H.

CONTENTS.

THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

ANOTHER GENERATION.

HERE he comes! here he comes!"

"He" was the "post-rider," an institution now almost of the past. He rode by the house and threw off a copy of the "Boston Gazette." Now the "Boston Gazette," of this particular issue, gave the results of the drawing of the great Massachusetts State Lottery of the Eastern Lands in the Waldo Patent.

Mr. Cutts, the elder, took the "Gazette," and opened it with a smile that pretended to be careless; but even he showed the eager anxiety which they all felt, as he tore off the wrapper and unfolded the fatal sheet. "Letter from London," "Letter from Philadelphia," "Child with two heads,"—thus he ran down the columns of the little page,—uneasily. "Here it is! here it is!—Drawing of the great State Lottery. 'In the presence of the Honourable Treasurer of the Commonwealth, and of their Honours the Commissioners of the Honourable Council,—was drawn yesterday, at the State House, the first distribution of numbers'——here are the numbers,—'First combination, 375–1. Second, 421–7. Third, 591–6. Fourth, 594–1. Fifth,'"—and here Mr. Cutts started off his feet,—"'Fifth, 219–7.' Sybil, my darling! it is so! 219–7! See, dear child! 219–7! 219–7! O my God! to think it should come so!"

And he fairly sat down, and buried his head in his hands, and cried.

The others, for a full minute, did not dare break in on excitement so intense, and were silent; but, in a minute more, of course, little Simeon, the youngest of the tribes who were represented there, gained courage to pick up the paper, and to spell out again the same words which his father had read with so much emotion; and, with his sister Sally, who came to help him, to add to the store of information, as to what prize number 5—219–7—might bring.

For this was a lottery in which there were no blanks. The old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, having terrible war debts to pay after the Revolution, had nothing but lands in Maine to pay them with. Now lands in Maine were not very salable, and, if the simple and ordinary process of sale had been followed, the lands might not have been sold till this day. So they were distributed by these Lotteries, which in that time seemed gigantic. Every ticket-holder had some piece of land