But Babouscka looked at the driving snow, and then inside at her cozy room and the crackling fire. “It is too late for me to go with you, good sirs,” she said, “the weather is too cold.” She went inside again and shut the door, and the old men journeyed on to Bethlehem without her. But as Babouscka sat by her fire, rocking, she began to think about the little Christ Child, for she loved all babies. “To-morrow I will go to find Him,” she said; “to-morrow, when it is light, and I will carry Him some toys.” So when it was morning Babouscka put on her long cloak, and took her staff, and filled her basket with the pretty things a baby would like, gold balls, and wooden toys, and strings of silver cobwebs—and she set out to find the Christ Child. But, oh! Babouscka had forgotten to ask the three old men the road to Bethlehem, and they had travelled so far through the night that she could not overtake them. Up and down the roads she hurried, through woods and fields and towns, saying to whomsoever she met: “I go to find the Christ Child. Where does He lie? I bring some pretty toys for His sake.” But no one could tell her the way to go, and they all said, “Farther on, Babouscka, farther on.” So she travelled on, and on, and on for years and years—but she never found the little Christ Child. They say that old Babouscka is travelling still, looking for Him. When it comes Christmas Eve, and the children are lying fast asleep, Babouscka comes softly through the snowy fields and towns, wrapped in her long cloak and carrying her basket on her arm. With her staff she raps gently at the doors and goes inside and holds her candle close to the little children’s faces. “Is He here?” she asks. “Is the little Christ Child here?” And then she turns sorrowfully away again, crying, “Farther on, farther on.” But before she leaves she takes a toy from her basket and lays it beside the pillow for a Christmas gift. “For His sake,” she says softly and then hurries on through the years and forever in search of the little Christ Child. The Three Kings If you had been a child in Provence when Mistral was a boy, you might perhaps have joined the excited party of curly-headed boys and fair-haired girls in hoods and clacking wooden shoes who went with him to meet the Three Kings, the Wise Men from the East, coming to worship the Holy Child on the night before Epiphany. Mistral told of it long afterwards in this way:— With hearts beating and eyes bright we started forth on the road to Arles, bearing our gifts of welcome, cakes for the Kings, figs for the boy pages, sweet hay for the tired camels. The wind blew cold, the robin and wren hopped shivering in the branches of the leafless trees. The fields were empty except for perhaps an old woman picking up sticks, or a ragged snail-gatherer under the hedge. “Where are you going so late, my little ones?” some one would ask.