Later in the day Gretchen carried the fresh, green boughs to the old sick man by the mill, and on her way home stopped to enjoy the Christmas toys of some other children that she knew, never once wishing they were hers.  When she reached home she found that the little bird had gone to sleep.  Soon, however, he opened his eyes and stretched his head up, saying just as plain as a bird can say: 

“Now, my new friends, I want you to give me something more to eat.”  Gretchen gladly fed him again, and then, holding him in her lap, she softly and gently stroked his gray feathers until the little creature seemed to lose all fear of her.  That evening Granny taught her a Christmas hymn and told her another beautiful Christmas story.  Then Gretchen made up a funny little story to tell the birdie.  He winked his eyes and turned his head from side to side in such a droll fashion that Gretchen laughed until the tears came.

As Granny and she got ready for bed that night, Gretchen put her arms softly around Granny’s neck, and whispered:  “What a beautiful Christmas we have had today, Granny.  Is there anything more lovely in all the world than Christmas?”

“Nay, child, nay,” said Granny, “not to such loving hearts as yours.”

[*] Reprinted by permission of the author from her collection, “Christmastide.”  Published by the Chicago Kindergarten College.

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD[*]

By Maud Lindsay

The shepherd was sick and the shepherd’s wife looked out from her door with anxious eyes.  “Who will carry the sheep to the pasture lands today?” she said to her little boy Jean.

“I will,” cried Jean, “I will.  Mother, let me.”

Jean and his father and mother lived long ago in a sunny land across the sea, where flowers bloom, and birds sing, and shepherds feed their flocks in the green valleys.  Every morning, as soon as it was light, Jean’s father was up and away with his sheep.  He had never missed a morning before, and the sheep were bleating in the fold as if to say, “Don’t forget us today.”

The sheep were Jean’s playfellows.  There was nothing he liked better than to wander with them in the pleasant pastures, and already they knew his voice and followed at his call.

“Let the lad go,” said his old grandfather.  “When I was no older than he I watched my father’s flock.”

Jean’s father said the same thing, so the mother made haste to get the little boy ready.

“Eat your dinner when the shadows lie straight across the grass,” she said as she kissed him good-bye.

“And keep the sheep from the forest paths,” called his sick father.

“And watch, for it is when the shepherd is not watching that the wolf comes to the flock,” said the old grandfather.

“Never fear,” said little Jean.  “The wolf shall not have any of my white lambs.”

They were white sheep and black sheep and frolicsome lambs in the shepherd’s flock, and each one had a name of its own.  There was Babbette, and Nannette, and Pierrot, and Jeannot,—­I cannot tell them all, but Jean knew every name.