Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net CHRISTMAS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: "MARY FILLED HER ARMS WITH HAY AND TURNED TO THE MANGER"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRISTMAS A STORY BY ZONA GALE AUTHOR OF "THE LOVES OF PELLEAS AND ETARRE" "FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEON V. SOLON New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1912 All rights reserved ----------------------------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE McCLURE PUBLICATIONS, INCORPORATED. COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1912. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ILLUSTRATIONS "Mary filled her arms with hay, and turned to the manger" Frontispiece FACING PAGE "He stood looking at it from part way across the road" 76 "Across the still fields came flashing the point of flame" 110 "The children began to sing, 'Go bury Saint Nicklis'" 150 "Their way led east between high banks of snow" 200 "The three men stepped into the lamplight" 240 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRISTMAS I It was in October that Mary Chavah burned over the grass of her lawn, and the flame ran free across the place where in Spring her wild flower bed was made. Two weeks later she had there a great patch of purple violets. And all Old Trail Town, which takes account of its neighbours' flowers, of the migratory birds, of eclipses, and the like, came to see the wonder. "Mary Chavah!" said most of the village, "you're the luckiest woman alive. If a miracle was bound to happen, it'd get itself happened to you." "I don't believe in miracles, though," Mary wrote to Jenny Wing. "These come just natural--only we don't know how." "That _is_ miracles," Jenny wrote back. "They do come natural--we don't know how." "At this rate," said Ellen Bourne, one of Mary's neighbours, "you'll be having roses bloom in your yard about Christmas time. For a Christmas present." "I don't believe in Christmas," Mary said. "I thought you knew that. But I'll take the roses, though, if they come in the Winter," she added, with her queer flash of smile.