Judge — December 23, 1893 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

424 STORY OF A KANSAS CHRISTMAS-TREE. + +O PEAKING of Christmas-trees,” be- gan Mr, Sarsfield. Now no one had said a word about Christmas-trees. In fact the conversation had turned to the widow Grimes’s prospective marriage to the widower Dinsmore, But that was Sarsfield’s way of introducing a subject. It always seemed as if he tried to throw the responsibility of broaching a new topic upon some one else. This is all by way of explanation, for Sarsfield went right on : peaking of Christmas-trees, when I was in Kansas I was superintendent of a Sunday-school in the town of Bellefield. The company looked surprised and Sarsfield stopped. In his recitals he had figured in many situations of trust and posts of honor, but this was his first ap- pearance as superintendent of a Sunday- school. After the silent surprise had died away Sarsfield resume “It was a Sunday-school not too well provided with this world's goods. When Christmas came around I wanted to give the chil- dren a treat of candy and a Christmas-tree, but it wasn't possible to raise the money. We could have got a tree in the woods near by, but a Christmas-tree without sweet fruit is a cheer- less sort of thing. But as we couldn't have a tree we decided to have a Christmas entertain- ment anyhow, The children all learned verses and recitations and the like, and the pastor - rigged up a little Christmas speech and I prepared a Ramey suitable address, and some of the musical people came O0n | Sue —‘* Papa paid my dressmaker's bill to-day.” “SOhyjyest He—"Is he in the house ?” . He—** Then’ I guess I'll go. to help out the programme. Well, we'd got as far as the pastor's speech when the door burst open and a man rushed in an’ told us to run, for a cyclone was coming. We got out mighty quick, and made for the nearest cyclone-cellar. There we stayed till the twister had gone by, and we rose to the surface expecting that the church had been carried away. It wasn’t, though. The church was right there, and standing upright in front of the door was as fine a Christmas-tree as one could wish to see. It was sort of planted in a barrel so it wouldn't fall over, and just loaded down with candy and trim- mings. We got to investigating, and we found from the printed labels on the boxes that the tree had come all the way from Effingham, forty miles away. The cyclone had carried it gently and dropped it right where it would do the most good. Of course there was no way to send it back, so we just appropriated the Christ- BARN-YARD SOCIETY. mas fixings and went on with the treat, We found soon ng Seng‘ A% COND: Don't you admire Miss Ida Down, that the church which belonged to the Christmas-tree “"” Sins, van Cont—="" Not at all, Chanty —she doesn’t had been dropped just over the county line, about belong to our set.” * That springing-board business gighteen miles away, in a badly damaged condition, looked easy enough at Barnum's to- fay en pole oh Gy aed ork “But cyclones ain't always that obliging. Another that I mind of—but what are you fellows all leaving three summersaults in the air. — for? I'm just going to tell you—hang it all! if they ain't all out of hearing.” - On. yuna WILLIAM HENRY SIVITER, ‘That's it—now for a good run and. a spring—and. a gol-darn i EASY ENOUGH. comicbooks.com