“And as we gazed this thing upon, _The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_, Those twain knelt down to the little one. _Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._ “And a marvellous song we straight did hear, _The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_, That slew our sorrow and healed our care.” _Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor._ News of a fair and a marvellous thing, _The snow in the street, and the wind on the door_, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, we sing. _Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. From far away we come to you, To tell of great tidings, strange and true._ Lordings, listen to our Lay Lordings, listen to our lay— We have come from far away To seek Christmas; In this mansion we are told He his yearly feast doth hold: ’Tis to-day! May joy come from God above, To all those who Christmas love. Where the Christmas Toys Come From Almost all the wooden toys come from Germany, where peasants in the mountains of the Tyrol and Bavaria still make them by hand. A herd-boy on the hillside will see that his cattle are safely feeding in a narrow valley which they cannot leave without passing him, and then he will sit on the grass or on a rock and whittle and whistle or jodel as the soft wood shapes itself in his fingers, through a long summer day. And during the winter, while the snow lies deep on the mountain paths, entire families give their time to making Noah’s arks, toy villages with stiff little green trees, toy furniture, carved figures of all kinds. Anything which a man’s knife can make from poplar or plane wood is carved during the long weeks when outdoor work is impossible. At one time whole German villages used to work in their own homes on cheap wooden toys of all kinds. Nowadays, since the invention of the machines by which the simpler forms are made, most of the toy trades have been swept into the factories of German cities. Toy reins, such as you see with tinkling sleigh-bells on them, may be woven elsewhere in New England, but it is fairly certain that the bells at least were made in Connecticut, where the industry is a very old one, and where most of the sleigh-bells in the country have been made, as well as cow-bells and the tiny tinkler on the tea-table. And, naturally, the state in which are so many clock factories produces those toys which are made to go by a winding key.