even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain. When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically. "If Jim does n't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do-oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?" At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops. Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered; "Please God, make him think I am still pretty." The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two-and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves. Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face. Della wriggled off the table and went for him. "Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I could n't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out againyou won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice -what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you." "You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor. "Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?" Jim looked about the room curiously. "You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy. "You need n't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you-sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?" Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year-what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table. "Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first." White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat. For there lay The Combs-the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims-just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone. But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!" And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!” Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. "Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it." Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled. "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on." The magi, as you know, were wise men-wonderfully wise men-who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrews, Jane, The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children. Bertelli, Luigi, The Prince and His Ants. Brown, Dr. John, Rab and His Friends. Bullen, Frank, The Cruise of the Cachelot. Burgess, Thorton W., Old Mother West Wind Stories. Burroughs, John, Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers. Wake Robin. Chapman, William G., Green-Timber Trails: Wild Animal Stories of the Upper Fur Country. Ford, Sewell, Horses Nine. Hawkes, Clarence, Shaggycoat. Hudson, W. H., A Little Boy Lost. Jordan, David Starr, Science Sketches. Kellogg, Vernon L., Insect Stories. Nuova, the New Bee. Kingsley, Charles, Madame How and Lady Why. Kipling, Rudyard, Just-So Stories. The Jungle Book (Two Series). London, Jack, The Call of the Wild. Long, William J., Wood-Folk Comedies. A Little Brother to the Bear. Miller, Olive Thorne, The Children's Book of Birds. Mills, Enos A., Scotch. The Thousand Year Old Pine. Muir, John, Stickeen. Our National Parks. · Ollivant, Alfred, Bob, Son of Battle. "Ouida" (Louisa de la Ramée), Mouflou. The Dog of Flanders. Paine, Albert Bigelow, Hollow-Tree Nights and Days. Arkansaw Bear. Potter, Beatrix, Peter Rabbit. Benjamin Bunny. Roberts, Charles G. D., Kings in Exile. Children of the Wild. Saunders, Marshall, Beautiful Joe. Sègur, Sophie, Comtesse de, The Story of a Donkey. Seton, Ernest Thompson, Wild Animals at Home. The Biography of a Grizzly. Sharp, Dallas Lore, Beyond the Pasture Bars. A Watcher in the Woods. Terhune, Albert Payson, Lad: A Dog. Thoreau, Henry David, A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. Walton, Izaak, The Compleat Angler. White, Gilbert, The Natural History of Selborne. The three books that stand at the end of this brief list are probably not ones that any teacher would recommend indiscriminately to pupils of the grades. They are the greatest of the classic books in nature literature and, in a way, constitute the goal of nature lovers. SECTION IX. NATURE LITERATURE INTRODUCTORY What it is. In recent years teachers have heard much talk about "nature study" in the grades. The demand for this study has led publishers to print many so-called "nature books" that have neither scientific fact nor literary worth to justify their existence. Confusion may be avoided and time may be saved if teachers will remember that nature literature, as here defined, is a form of literature, and that its purpose therefore is primarily to present truth (not necessarily facts) in an entertaining way. The selections in this section are not intended to furnish material for a scientific study of nature. They are nature literature. Some of them present scientific facts that add to the literary worth by making the stories more entertaining, but the selections are given because they illustrate various types of nature literature and the work of famous writers of nature literature, not because they present scientific facts. Some types of nature literature. One of the oldest forms of nature literature is the beast tale in which animals are represented as talking and acting like human beings. Stories of this type entertain while they reveal the general nature of various kinds of animals. Fables should not be called nature literature, because their chief purpose is to criticize the follies of human beings. Some of the Negro folk tales that Joel Chandler Harris collected are nature literature of this type. Beast tales, however, are not all old. Stories by such modern authors as Thornton W. Burgess and Albert Bigelow Paine, who are represented in this section, may be called beast tales. They are popular in the primary grades. Another type of nature literature, quite different from that just discussed, has been produced during the last century by students of nature who endeavor to hold strictly to facts in their writing. This may be called realistic nature literature. Henry Thoreau, John Burroughs, Olive Thorne Miller, and Dallas Lore Sharp may be mentioned as writers of this kind of literature. As we read their books, we usually feel that they are endeavoring to relate incidents as they actually occurred. Also we recognize that they are great students of nature, for they perceive details that we might not notice and they draw or suggest conclusions that we may accept as true, although we might never think of drawing the conclusions. Nature literature of this kind may be no less entertaining than fairy tales, for it may, in a pleasing way, reveal wonders in nature. The selections by Dallas Lore Sharp and Olive Thorne Miller in this section are of this kind. Most of the writings of Henry Thoreau and John Burroughs are in a style too difficult for pupils in the grades. A third type may be called nature romance. Its purpose is both to entertain and to awaken sympathy and love for animals. Stories of this kind, like other romances, idealize the characters and may have a strong appeal to the emotions. |