That day was a new era in Maggie’s life, and unmindful of the bitter cold which struck through her thin garments and made her shiver involuntarily, she hurried home to Bennie with the picture card she had received and the wonderful story she had heard of Jesus’ birthday and the baby born among the cows and oxen in that far off manger in Bethlehem. Wonderingly Bennie listened, asking innumerable questions about the child; was he ever cold, or hungry, and was he afraid of the cattle, and did his father get drunk and thrash him? To all these inquiries Maggie answered no decidedly, but when Bennie asked if he really could hear what every body said and would give them what they wanted, Maggie was doubtful. She thought, however, they better try it, and so the two forlorn little ones knelt down as Maggie said they did in church and tried to pray. But neither knew what to say and when Bennie suggested that his sister ought to know “’cause she’d been to meetin’,” she answered, “I know they said Our Father, I am sure of that.” But Bennie scoffed at this idea, “That baby in the hay our father! Why, pa is drunk down to the grocery!” As well as she could, Maggie explained, drawing some from her imagination, some from what Miss Morgan had told her, and some from faint remembrances of a time when her mother, who died at Bennie’s birth, had taught her of God and Heaven. Half convinced, half doubtful still, Bennie tried again, and said, “Our Father, if you is my father, and was oncet a little boy like me, give me something to eat and some gooder trouses and shoes, and a pair of lines on the tree when you have your birth night.” “For Christ’s sake; say that,” Maggie whispered, and Bennie rejoined, “Who’s he! I shan’t do it. I’m not goin’ to get ’em mixed, I’ll stick to Our Father.” And surely the good Father, who is so kind and pitiful to the little ones, heard that prayer of the ignorant child, and would in His own time and way answer it. CHAPTER II. BENNIE’S FIRST CHRISTMAS.