The First "Long Ago Christmas"

       "Well, if this don't seem like old times!" These were the words we heard from our old friend Felix, the other morning as he waded briskly through the snow on his way down town.

      ''You seem greatly elated this morning," I said as I hustled up alongside. "You appear to have a full head of steam on."

       "Bet your life!" he answered. "Don't this remind you of the wayback days when we were boys? Everything covered up with the same dear, old snow - lovely snow - that used to cover the house and barn and wagon-shed; yes, and was so nicely poised on fence-post, wagon-stake, hen-coop and well-sweep!

       "This same snow that during the winter would pile itself in huge drifts high above the fences, and then pack and freeze solid so that the traveled roads ran over those same fences, and nobody knew it! Why, bless my soul, Frank, I feel as though I had awakened from a long sleep and suddenly came into a full realization of this precious gift of nature! I am so intoxicated by this bracing air that I can hardly restrain myself, and I don't know what minute I may be shouting out and testing my lung capacity to its utmost, so jubilant am I over this snowy counterpane that has been so carefully let down in fleecy folds over our poor shivering earth. Welcome, feathery flakes! May your stay with us be long enough to revive in memory the youthful pleasure we enjoyed in your company!"

       "Hold on to yourself, Felix!" I remarked; "you are becoming sentimental, and Sentimental," he interrupted; "not by a long shot," and before I had time to realize what he was about, there he was, sprawled out on his back by the roadside, arms stretched out, legs well apart, making an exact impression of himself. Then he jumped up, shook off the; snow, and, pointing to the snow image of himself, said: "That little reminder of a trick of my boyhood days is worth to me, this minute, a straight five-dollar bill, and as true as I'm digging the snow out of the back of my neck, I would not take an X for this realistic taste of youth."

       ''I know just how you feel, old boy, for you are well aware I've been there myself and What's this?" he suddenly chimed in, grabbing me by the elbow, "Christmas doings in the shop windows! Well, if this isn't a contrast to what Christmas was when we were boys."

       "I well recollect," he went on, musingly, "the last Christmas week we spent in dear old Maine in 1849. I can see the big fireplace and its rousing fire, spitting the glowing sparks all about and sometimes dropping a coal on the stone hearth. Yes, and there is the settle standing within five feet of the warmth-giving blaze, and containing no less than four expectant 'young ones,' who were seriously contemplating and questioning how Santa Claus was going to gain entrance to the room by way of the chimney with all that fire and smoke and heat, to fill the blue yarn stockings which mother had knit, and which were hanging in a row -

'by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there,'

that is, as soon as they had been snugly tucked away in bed. I can faintly hear mother's voice as I heard it that Christmas night after she had kissed us and bade us go to sleep, singing sweetly, 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night' By the way, Frank, where are we? This all looks strange!"

       "I had about lost my bearings, too. This is the Tenth avenue bridge. Never mind where we are, Felix, let's go  on with our reflections and reminiscences and forget the present for awhile to revel in the past."

       ''All right; just as you say!" and he continued: "As I was about to state, when I was dropping off to sleep, I heard a noise on the roof, and in spite of my determination to keep awake and find out all about it, the next thing I knew it was morning, and I assure you I was not the only one who raced out to the fireplace in abbreviated garments to get my stockings and scamper back to bed, which was rapidly approaching an icy coldness."

       ''Can you guess," he queried, "what those stockings contained? It may be that you can. You were a boy, too, about that time, and probably your experiences were similar to mine.

       "I had two long, twisted doughnuts, an apple and four cookies in the shape of animals that must have come into existence before Noah's time, and to worship whom would have broken no commandment, as they were not made in the 'likeness of anything in the firmament above nor on the earth beneath, nor the waters under the earth.' The shape did not affect their sweetness, however. This was the sum total of our Christmas gifts, but I would be ready to scream with delight, right here and now, if I could once again feel the joy experienced at having been so generously remembered by dear old Santa!

       "Why my dear boy," Felix went on to say, "if I could only enter into the spirit of an old-time snowball match, a slide down the hill on 'bobs' or hogshead staves, a 'catch-on-behind,' or be crowded into an ox sled on the way to singing school - if I could only for one winter, and only one, realize all this, I sincerely believe I should feel as if my cup were full to overflowing.

       "Sentimental, you say? Not a bit of it! Yet how I would enjoy listening to those sweet old songs, 'Bonny Doon,' 'Do They Miss Me at Home, Do They Miss Me?' 'I'll Chase the Antelope Over the Plains,' and 'Lily .Dale,' sung as they were among our companions in singing school, or even in the quiet of the home!"

       "Well, well, Felix, Here we are at the old Citj Hall - pretty long walk for two kids of three-score years, hey? It's not yet nine o'clock, but what a distance we have traveled over Memory's road, and yet we are not very weary, are we?"

       "Weary? I should say not! I may be a crank, my boy, but neither you nor any one else can turn my head from the sweet memories of the past.

       "Good-bye; come over and see us when you are out our way." from O'Brien's Pioneer Memories in Maine.

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