“I will show you something fine,” suddenly said Sky-High, after he had gazed for some time.

He went down and unlocked his great chest.  He spoke to Mrs. Van Buren’s friends on the verandah as he came back.  “Sky-High, he is going to fire a star!  Look this side!”

He called to all as he “fired the star.”  The company saw a dark, swift object ascending.  It was soon lost to sight, and then appeared a wonder—­a new star high in the heavens, that burned a long time with a steady flame and grew.  How beautiful it was!  At last it began to descend.  When near the earth it burst into a hundred stars of seven colors.  In all Boston there was no firework as wonderful as Sky-High’s.

The day after he began to inquire about the next American holiday.

Mrs. Van Buren told him about Thanksgiving Day.  Then she told him of Christmas, and how the Christmas festival was kept.  She related the story of the birth of the Christ Child, and of the Bethlehem star, of the singing angels in the sky, of the Magi, and the manger; of the presents of gold and myrrh and nard.  She told him how that now all people of “good will” made presents to each other like the magi to the Christ Child.

“So will Sky-High make you presents on the Christ Child day, then, he has good will.  You have treated him as though he were no servant but a prince.”

Charlie and Lucy told him of the Christmas-tree, and the plays under the misletoe.  Their mother ordered misletoe from Florida every year, for Christmas decorations, from a plantation which their father owned near Tampa, a plantation of grape-fruit groves.  She had a mistle-thrush among her caged birds, that always sang very sweetly when she hung it under the newly-gathered waxy misletoe.

From that time on, the little Chinaman dreamed of Christmas.  One day he said to Mrs. Van Buren, “You will surely let Sky-High come up-stairs on the night of the Christmas-tree?”

“Yes, yes, you shall come up-stairs with us, and you shall hear the Christmas thrush sing under the misletoe.”

Sky-High’s heart fluttered, not at what he hoped to see, but at the thought of the presents that he hoped to make.

Shortly before Christmas Mrs. Van Buren went to her little servant to pay him his wages, for he had accepted no payment as yet.

“Keep it all for me,” he said, as usual; “I will ask for it when I need it.”

Mrs. Van Buren was very much surprised.  “Young people in this country,” said she, “think they need a little money before Christmas day to buy presents.”

“Sky-High needs none.  He will make you presents on the Christ Child day.  He has them now in his chest.”

Mrs. Van Buren could not but wonder what the presents would be.  Everything that Sky-High did had a surprise in it.  All things that came out of the chest were of an astonishing character.

“And I will serve you the tea that you have not yet tasted,” added the little servant.  “On the Christ Child night I will make in the cup the tea that came from the eyelashes of the Dharma.  And afterwards I will tell you the story of the Dharma.”