Bertha's Christmas Vision: An Autumn Sheaf

Name: Bertha's Christmas Vision: An Autumn Sheaf
Author: Alger, Horatio, Jr.

Alger, Horatio, Jr.

Children's poetry, American; Children's stories, American

[Illustration: “The little girl looked up gratefully, and thanked him for
what she regarded as an act of kindness to herself.”

P. 11.]




[Illustration:

    BERTHA’S
    CHRISTMAS VISION

    AN
    AUTUMN SHEAF

    BY HORATIO ALGER JR.

    BOSTON, BROWN, BAZIN, & CO.
]




                                BERTHA’S
                            CHRISTMAS VISION:
                            An Autumn Sheaf.

                          BY HORATIO ALGER, JR.

                                 BOSTON:
                       BROWN, BAZIN, AND COMPANY,
                         94, WASHINGTON STREET.
                                  1856.

       Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
                           HORATIO ALGER, JR.,
     In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
                             Massachusetts.

                                 BOSTON:
                     PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,
                           22, SCHOOL STREET.




DEDICATION.


To my Mother.

As I turn over the pages of this my first book, and mark here and there
a name which use has made familiar, I feel the more, that, but for your
sympathy and encouragement, much would still remain unwritten. With me
you have sorrowed over the untimely death of “Little Charlie.” “Bertha,”
with her precious gifts,—whereof so many stand in need,—has grown to you
and me not a child of fancy, but a living presence. “Little Floy,” and
the “Child of the Street,” will recall, to your mind as to mine, the
touching lines of Mrs. Browning:—

    “Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers!
        Ere the sorrow comes with years?
    They are leaning their young heads against their mothers;
        And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
    The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
        The young birds are chirping in the nest;
    The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
        The young flowers are blowing toward the West:
    But the young, young children, O my brothers!
        They are weeping bitterly,—
    They are weeping in the play-time of the others,
        In the country of the free.
    They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
        And their looks are sad to see;
    For the man’s grief abhorrent draws and presses
        Down the cheeks of infancy.”

To you, then, I dedicate this book,—which is partly yours, in spirit, if
not in deed,—confident, that, whatever may be its shortcomings in the
eyes of others, it will find a kindly welcome at your hands.




CONTENTS.


                                                            Page.

    LITTLE FLOY; OR, HOW A MISER WAS RECLAIMED                 1

    MY CASTLE                                                 34

    MISS HENDERSON’S THANKSGIVING DAY                         38

    LITTLE CHARLIE                                            53

    BERTHA’S CHRISTMAS VISION                                 55

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Bertha's Christmas Vision: An Autumn Sheaf

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