14 THE STEP-LADDER. guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. 3. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carying-knife, prepared to plunge it into the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board; and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried hurrah! There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there was ever such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone on the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alonetoo nervous to bear witness-to take the pudding up and bring it in. 4. Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it while they were merry with the goose! A supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were supposed. Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered, flushed, but smiling proudly, with the pudding like a speckled cannonball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-aquartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. 5. Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for so large a family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. 6. At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass: two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle. 7. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: "A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!" Which all the family re-echoed. God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. Charles Dickens. A LAUGHING SONG. I. WHEN the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; 2. When the meadows laugh with lively green, And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene; When Mary, and Susan, and Emily, With their sweet round mouths sing, "Ha, ha, he!" 3. When the painted birds laugh in the shade, THE BROWN THRUSH. I. "THERE'S a merry brown thrush sitting up in a tree, He's singing to me! He's singing to me!" Hush! Look! In my tree, I'm as happy as happy can be!'" 2. And the brown thrush keeps singing: "A nest, do you see, And five eggs, hid by me in the juniper-tree? boy, Or the world will lose some of its joy. Now I'm glad! Now I'm free! And I always shall be, If you never bring sorrow to me." 3. So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree, To you and to me, to you and to me; And he sings all the day, little girl, little boy, "Oh, the world's running over with joy! But long it won't be, Don't you know? Don't you see? Unless we are good as good can be!" Lucy Larcom. THE FOUNTAIN. I. INTO the sunshine, Leaping and flashing 2. Into the moonlight, Whiter than snow, 3. Into the starlight, Rushing in spray, 4. Ever in motion, Blithesome and cheery, Never aweary; 5. Glad of all weathers, Still seeming best, |