Holidays & Celebrations Books

THE WISTFUL HEART IT was long after noon in the far, big, white Northwest. Day was on the wing. Christmas Eve splendidly impended—thank God for unspoiled childish faith and joys of children everywhere! Christmas Eve was fairly within view and welcoming hail, at last, in the thickening eastern shadows. Long Day at its close. Day in a perturbation of blessed unselfishness. Day with its tasks of love... more...

CHAPTER I MOLONEY'S It would be hard to find a pleasanter, more friendly-looking place in all Ardenoo than Moloney's of the Crooked Boreen, where Big Michael and the wife lived, a piece up from the high-road. And well might you call the little causey "crooked" that led to their door! for rough and stony that boreen was, twisting and winding along by the bog-side, this way and that... more...

MRS. BUDLONG'S CHRISTMAS PRESENTS I AT THE SIGN OF THE PIANO LAMP The morning after Christmas Eve is the worst morning-after there is.The very house suffers the headache that follows a prolonged spree.Remorse stalks at large; remorse for the things one gave—and did notgive—and got. Everybody must act a general glee which can be felt only specifically, if at all. Everybody must exclaim about... more...

The maple-bordered street was as still as a country Sunday; so quiet that there seemed an echo to my footsteps. It was four o'clock in the morning; clear October moonlight misted through the thinning foliage to the shadowy sidewalk and lay like a transparent silver fog upon the house of my admiration, as I strode along, returning from my first night's work on the "Wainwright Morning... more...

PREPARATIONS The big brown automobile gave three honks as it swung around the corner from Church Street. Roger Morton, raking leaves in the yard beside his house, threw down his rake and vaulted over the gate. "Good afternoon, sir," he called to his grandfather, saluting, soldier fashion. "Good afternoon, son. I stopped to tell you that those pumpkins are ready for you. If you'll hop... more...

ead on the side and chin uptilted, she held it at arm's-length, turning it now in one direction, now in another, then with deliberation she laid it on the floor. "I have wanted to do it ever since you were sent me; now I am going to." Hands on hips, she looked down on the high-crown, narrow-brim hat of stiff gray felt which was at her feet, and nodded at it with firmness and decision.... more...

THE INVASION His name was Jimsy and he took it for granted that you liked him. That made things difficult from the very start—that and the fact that he arrived in the village two days before Christmas strung to such a holiday pitch of expectation that, if you were a respectable, bewhiskered first citizen like Jimsy's host, you felt the cut-and-dried dignity of a season which unflinching thrift... more...

PART I f you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one! And if you don't like dogs I don't know just what to advise you to do! For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of... more...

f all the strange gatherings that have distinguished Madison Square Garden, the strangest was probably on the occasion, last Christmas, when the now well-known Colonel D. A. Crockett, of Waco, rented the vast auditorium for one thousand dollars, and threw it open to the public. As he is going to do it again this coming Christmas, an account of the con-, in-, and re-ception of his scheme may interest... more...

To my Readers: It will be remembered, doubtless, that the chronicles of my very dear friend, Colonel Carter (published some years ago), make mention of but one festival of importance—a dinner given at Carter Hall, near Cartersville, Virginia; the Colonel’s ancestral home. This dinner, as you already know, was to celebrate two important events—the sale to the English syndicate of the coal lands,... more...