OH, it was Puck! I saw him yesternight Swung up betwixt a phlox-top and the rim Of a low crescent moon that cradled him, Whirring his rakish wings with all his might, And pursing his wee mouth, that dimpled white And red, as though some dagger keen and slim Had stung him there, while ever faint and dim His eerie warblings piped his high delight; Till I, grown jubilant, shrill answer made, At which, all suddenly, he dropped from view; And peering after, ’neath the everglade, What was it, do you think, I saw him do? I saw him peeling dewdrops with a blade Of starshine sharpened on his bat-wing shoe. _James Whitcomb Riley_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _THE REVENGE OF ST. NICHOLAS._ A TALE FOR THE HOLYDAYS. EVERYBODY knows that in the famous city of New York, whose proper name is New Amsterdam, the excellent St. Nicholas—who is worth a dozen St. George’s and dragons to boot, and who, if every tub stood on its right bottom, would be at the head of the seven champions of Christendom—I say, everybody knows the excellent St. Nicholas, in holyday times, goes about among the people in the middle of the night, distributing all sorts of toothsome and becoming gifts to the good boys and girls in this his favourite city. Some say that he comes down the chimneys in a little Jersey waggon; others, that he wears a pair of Holland skates, with which he travels like the wind; and others, who pretend to have seen him, maintain that he has lately adopted a locomotive, and was once actually detected on the _Albany_ railroad. But this last assertion is looked upon to be entirely fabulous, because St. Nicholas has too much discretion to trust himself in such a new-fangled jarvie; and so I leave this matter to be settled by whomsoever will take the trouble. My own opinion is that his favourite mode of travelling is on a canal, the motion and speed of which aptly comport with the philosophic dignity of his character. But this is not material, and I will no longer detain my readers with extraneous and irrelevant matters, as is too much the fashion with our statesmen, orators, biographers, and story-tellers.