



Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: John Norton]





HOW

JOHN NORTON THE TRAPPER

KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS



BY

W. H. H. MURRAY




BOSTON:

DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO.

364 AND 365 WASHINGTON STREET.




COPYRIGHT, 1890,

BY DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO.




HOW JOHN NORTON THE TRAPPER
  KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS.




I.

A cabin.  A cabin in the woods.  In the cabin a great fireplace piled
high with logs, fiercely ablaze.  On either side of the broad
hearth-stone a hound sat on his haunches, looking gravely, as only a
hound in a meditative mood can, into the glowing fire.  In the centre
of the cabin, whose every nook and corner was bright with the ruddy
firelight, stood a wooden table, strongly built and solid.  At the
table sat John Norton, poring over a book,--a book large of size, with
wooden covers bound in leather, brown with age, and smooth as with the
handling of many generations.  The whitened head of the old man was
bowed over the broad page, on which one hand rested, with the
forefinger marking the sentence.  A cabin in the woods filled with
firelight, a table, a book, an old man studying the book.  This was the
scene on Christmas Eve.  Outside, the earth was white with snow, and in
the blue sky above the snow was the white moon.

"It says here," said the Trapper, speaking to himself, "it says here,
'Give to him that lacketh, and from him that hath not, withhold not
thine hand.'  It be a good sayin' fur sartin; and the world would be a
good deal better off, as I conceit, ef the folks follered the sayin' a
leetle more closely."  And here the old man paused a moment, and, with
his hand still resting on the page, and his forefinger still pointing
at the sentence, seemed pondering what he had been reading.  At last he
broke the silence again, saying,--

"Yis, the world would be a good deal better off, ef the folks in it
follered the sayin';" and then he added, "There's another spot in the
book I'd orter look at to-night; it's a good ways furder on, but I
guess I can find it.  Henry says that the furder on you git in the
book, the better it grows, and I conceit the boy may be right; for
there be a good deal of murderin' and fightin' in the fore part of the
book, that don't make pleasant readin', and what the Lord wanted to put
it in fur is a good deal more than a man without book-larnin' can
understand.  Murderin' be murderin', whether it be in the Bible or out
of the Bible; and puttin' it in the Bible, and sayin' it was done by
the Lord's commandment, don't make it any better.  And a good deal of
the fightin' they did in the old time was sartinly without reason and
ag'in jedgment, specially where they killed the women-folks and the
leetle uns."  And while the old man had thus been communicating with
himself, touching the character of much of the Old Testament, he had
been turning the leaves until he had reached the opening chapters of
the New, and had come to the description of the Saviour's birth, and
the angelic announcement of it on the earth.  Here he paused, and began
to read.  He read as an old man unaccustomed to letters must
read,--slowly and with a show of labor, but with perfect contentment as
to his progress, and a brightening face.

"This isn't a trail a man can hurry on onless he spends a good deal of
his time on it, or is careless about notin' the signs, fur the words be
weighty, and a man must stop at each word, and look around awhile, in
order to git all the meanin' out of 'em--yis, a man orter travel this
trail a leetle slow, ef he wants to see all there is to see on it."

Then the old man began to read:--

"'Then there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly
host,'--the exact number isn't sot down here," he muttered; "but I
conceit there may have been three or four hunderd,--'praisin' God and
singin', Glory to God in the highest, and on 'arth, peace to men of
good will.'  That's right," said the Trapper.  "Yis, peace to men of
good will.  That be the sort that desarve peace; the other kind orter
stand their chances."  And here the old man closed the book,--closed it
slowly, and with the care we take of a treasured thing; closed it,
fastened the clasps, and carried it to the great chest whence he had
taken it, putting it away in its place.  Having done this, he returned
to his seat, and, moving the chair in front of the fire, he looked
first at one hound, and then at the other, and said, "Pups, this be
Christmas Eve, and I sartinly trust ye be grateful fur the comforts ye
have."

He said this deliberately, as if addressing human companions.  The two
hounds turned their heads toward their master, looked placidly into his
face, and wagged their tails.

[Illustration: The two hounds turned their heads toward their master.]

