"A Merry Christmas, Bob !" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist 5 your struggling family. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!" Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, 10 as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, 15 God Bless Us, Every One! HELPS TO STUDY. Biographical: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English prose writer. When a mere boy his father, a poor man holding a government clerkship, moved to London, where Charles afterwards lived and wrote. His education was limited, but he became a reporter for a London newspaper. Here his powers of observation and description brought him marked success in writing character sketches. Before Dickens was thirty he was the most popular writer in England. He twice visited America, the second time in 1867, when he gave public readings from his own works. His vivid imagination and keen human sympathy give his writings a peculiar interest. One of the best known of Dickens's stories is "A Christmas Carol," from which "Scrooge's Christmas" has been selected. Notes and Questions. What do you learn about Scrooge from his conversation with his nephew? What traits of character did he show when asked to give to the poor? How did he treat his clerk at the PART II KING ARTHUR STORIES Some say that the age of chivalry is past. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, or a man or woman left to say, “I will redress that wrong or spend my life in the attempt." CHARLES KINGSLEY, PART II. KING ARTHUR STORIES. INTRODUCTION Among the earliest delights of every boy or girl are the fairy tales and hero legends that have been told and re-told for countless ages and which for old or young never lose their charm. Every people has its collections of these old stories, dim memories of its infancy, which reflect its own early life. Such stories live because the people treasure them and demand to hear them again and again. A warlike people, for instance, will thus preserve stories of fighting heroes and cruel monsters; the far northern peoples will have myths of storm-gods, heroes who battle with frost-kings, and mist-giants; while the pastoral peoples of the south give us benign deities who dwell in majesty on purple mountain heights, and their heroes after death are translated to the starry heavens. The ancient Britons, looking out from their peaceful little island with its rich plains and beautiful mountains and protecting seas, and wondering about the great unknown world beyond, pictured a fairy realm like to the world about them, only transfigured and filled with enchanted cities, fairy forests, miraculous fountains, and peopled by friendly fairies and magicians. About the beginning of our Christian era the Romans came among them for a time, teaching them obedience to law and respect for justice. The severity of the Roman rule was tempered by the teaching of the missionaries who soon followed, proclaiming the higher kingdom of the spirit wherein peace and love and mercy should reign forever. Then came barbarian hordes from over the North Sea, rudely dispelling these happy visions. But even out of this peaceful people |