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Show 1 Utfle Sir Galahad CjK 1 A Story With a I I Blessing JKl 1 By PHOEBE GRAY 1 1 1 " 1 1 . alBagsirfg!H,'giaig5K-K:s'Ki:L Copyright by Small, Maynaid & Company SYNOPSIS. 9 "While trundling the clean washing up Clipper Hill Mary Alice Brown is set upon up-on by some mischievous boys, who spill the washing into the dirt. She is rescued and taken to her home in Calvert street by Francis Willett. a Galahad knight. She is punished by her drunken father for returning; without the wash money. Mary Alice wanders away from home, takes a trolley ride into the country and spends the night at the farmhouse of Sam Thomas. Thom-as. In the morning she meets little Charlie Char-lie Thomas, a cripple. Sam takes .Mary Alice home and finds that he and -Mrs. Brown are old acquaintances. Sam takes her and Marv Alice to his home for a visit while I.em Brown, the drunken father, fa-ther, is serving a workhouse sentence. Charlie is made a Galahad knight. Francis Fran-cis visits the farm and is sarcd from drowning by Mary Alice. T.em Brown gets out of jail and goes to work for Sam Thomas as hired man. Francis Willett Is sent away to preparatory school. Mary Alice gets a job in a department store. i 3 Fathers and mothers, too 2 $1 forget sometimes that they I may do things which cause S 1 their children to blush with h I shame. It is one of the great S 5 responsibilities of parenthood for the father and mother to H k keep burning as a strong, I bright flame the faith of their 5 little ones In them. Consider 3 now Mary Alice's case. kI " ggIgT5IgtHliigaLlgll)tlatem!iiKHiwiHlwiigl CHAPTER VI Continued. They did their best to spoil him; he n-as the son of the biggest man in Sheffield. They wondered at his friendship friend-ship for the demure little bundle girl. "Who's this Charlie you and Francis Fran-cis Willett's always talkin' about, Mary Alice?" they would query. "What's the matter with him, is he sick? What, can't walU? Poor little feller! Le's go out and see him some Sunday, girls. Could we, Mary Alice?" They did it, too. Martha made ice cream again, and Charlie had a heavenly heaven-ly afternoon. The girls bubbled and gurgled and exclaimed over his lovely golden hair and his shining blue eyes. "Mary Alice told me all about you." said (Charlie. "You're Grace, and you're Sadie, and you're Minnie." Mary Alice had introduced them as Miss Corrigan and Miss Tifft and Miss Sternheim. "How'd you know, dear?" they chorused. "Mary Alice, she 'scribed you. She says you know another friend o' mine, too. He's Francis Willett." "You bet we do; he's Mary Alice's steady!" Charlie looked puzzled. Mary Alice blushed. "Cut it out, Min." warned Grace. "What's he know about steadies?" Going back to town on the trolley car, Minnie suddenly turned to Mary Alice. "Who'd Charlie mean by the boss and Lem? I guess the boss is his father; fa-ther; but who's Lem?" Mary Alice choked on nothing, clutched her seat, and opened her1 mouth to answer. Just as surely as she lived, she meant to say: "He's my father." But it wouldn't come out. She tried three times; no use. Then she said: "Lem? Oh, Lem. Why he's Mr. Thomas' hired man." It did not salve Mary Alice's conscience con-science to reflect that she had told the exact truth. She lay awake that night trying to square things with herself. Before her, in the dark, floated the face of an indolent. Injured angel, framed in a billowing border of shining, shin-ing, priceless gold, and the eyes were very sad and surprised and accusing. Mary Alice hid her face in the pillow and promised herself and Charlie that she would tell the girls in the morning who Lem really was. So she went to sleep, quite easy in her mind. But you know you can't, somehow, stand up in a sort of pulpit, like an armed fortress, above everybody's head, and shout down that your father is a farmer's hired man. It would be absurd. Mary Alice postponed the revelation indefinitely. You must remember re-member that Mary Alice was, after all, only a little girl, less than thirteen years old. One day the floorwalker brought Mary Alice a letter. It was addressed In pencil, and all the "a's" were very round, and the loop of the "1" rather liberal. The lower part of the "B" was smaller than the second-story part, and the punctuation not unoriginal. Aside from these minor details, it was a good, shipahape letter. "Oh, Mary Alice's got a letter," cried the girls. "Who's it from, honey? Francis, I bet a cooky. You'll let me read It. won't you, Mary Alice? See if he says anything about me in it. Docs he send us his love?" Mary Alice wouldn't open the letter, but tucked it in her apron pocket, and the girls pouted and said she was a mean old thing. The forenoon went haltingly. Up in the girls' ropt room, .it the lunch uc.-.i:. Mary Alio,1 sinle off In a corner and eagerly slit the envelope with a hairpin. This is what she read: Saint Michael's School. Lake Valley. Pear Mary Alice: Well here I am at last In a prep school. It is a dandy placo and there are most two hundred ft Uow here and we are all going to the same college. . . . Well I thought I would write you Mary Alice abouta very particular matter on account of it is so near Christmas. I have a swell idea. First chance you get you go to the Art department of your store and pick out a nice drawing outfit. I thought of it In our drawing class how it was just the thing to give Charlie Thomas it would amuse him. I can just imagine him sit-! sit-! ting there poor fellow. He and I are fel-. fel-. low Galahads so I want to be remembered I 1o him and you must have a share in it. ; We will give it to him together. Put a j card on It from I.ady Mary Alice and Sir Francis Willett greetings brother Knight. I guess it will tickle him. I would not bother you but I won't be home Christmas, Christ-mas, T am invited to Walrus Farquhar's house for the holidays and mother and father say I can go. So that is all. From your devoted sir Knight. F. WILLETT. P. S. Father says Uncle Billy Jackson is coming home right after New Year. Second P. S. I forgot. You can have them charge the drawing outfit to father. , CHAPTER VII. The Bestest Christmas. Christinas at the Thomas farm was always Charlie's day. This year he was a year older and a year wiser. Somewhere in the course of twelve , months Charlie had discovered, con-, con-, sciously, the thing that can make ev-! ev-! ery one of three hundred and sixty-five j days a Christmas. Perhaps it had been i between the covers of his beloved "Story of Sir Galahad" on that first day Mary Alice had read it to him. Christmas at the farm had meant a little love feast, with three to partake. par-take. Now it meant something more the open door of hospitality, the sharing shar-ing of one's blessings. Charlie, with Martha's help, sent out his invitations. Will you please come to our party on Christmas night? We are going to have a tree and a turkey. It weighs seventeen pounds. Commences at six o'clock. Very respectfully yours. CHARLES B. THOMAS. Sam and Martha had some misgivings misgiv-ings about the Willetts. "I wouldn't know what to do to entertain en-tertain them swells," said Martha. "Still, if Charlie wants 'em, I'll do my Pro k&Mp, "A Reg'lar Ripsnorter, Five Reels, Called 'The Panther's Eye."' best. Mr. Willett's fine; I wouldn't mind him so much. But Mrs. Willett's different. She'd embarrass me to pieces." "Oh, I don't know," said Sam, trying to be encouraging. "We're's good's them; Willett was poorer'n I am once." Yet It was with distinct relief that ye Thomases read Mrs. Willett's gracious gra-cious and cordial answer to Charlie's invitation. They were to spend Christmas Christ-mas with Mrs. Willett's people. If Francis were to be at home, it would be different; he would have been delighted. de-lighted. She regretted very much, and so forth and so on. "Thank goodness," said Martha. "Then it'll be just us and the Browns." Sam gave Charlie five dollars to shop with, and the little boy. very deprecating depre-cating and apologetic, declined to take anyone but Mary Alice into his confidence confi-dence regarding his purchases. And so the great night finally came. As modern Christmases go. the weather weath-er and the amount of snow were quite up to specifications. The fine, clean snow lay in gentle, billowing drifts, sparkling in the rays of a whacking big moon, and the air bit and tingled. Oh. it was some Christmas! In the sitting-room the table was all set. The bright coals in the heater glowed through the squares of mica, and on its top apples in a pan sputtered sput-tered and siz.led. Oiling the room with a sugary odor. "Pon't light the lamp just yet. mum-mee," mum-mee," said Charlie. "I can't see out the window if you do." So he sat looking down the snowy road, all patched and shadow barred in the slant moonlight. To Martha it seemed as if her hoy. there in the pale . glow from the window, were surrounded surround-ed and glorified by the soft aura from his golden head. She went into the kitchen and lwste.1 the turkey, which crackled and popped in its own savori-ness. savori-ness. Came the far. thin clanging of a gong. The Sheffield trolley, approacb-! approacb-! inu' the end of the line, slid into view j with shining rectangles of light, rock-' rock-' ing and dipping. Then it stopped, and Charlie knew that passengers were stepping down Into the snow. In five minutes Mary Alice and Mrs. Brown and Baby Dick would cover the distance dis-tance to the house. Mary Alice would be hauling her brother tucked up warmly in a oap box on a fifty-cent sled. Out In the kitchen rose the Boss' voice, loud and hearty: "Hullo, there, Lem, old scout! All dolled up! Say, you've got a nosebleed, nose-bleed, ain't ye? Gosh, no! It's that red necktie. You sure scare't me. How long ye be'n home? 1 didn't 6ee ye drive into the yard. Bring a paper? Shucks. I forgot. 'Course they ain't n6 evenin' papers on a holiday. Set down. Well, go 'long in 'f you'd rather. He's watchin' out down the road for the folks." Lem had been to town that afternoon, after-noon, alone. Sam had let him take the horse and sleigh. So far in the matter of trusting his hired man he had not heretofore gone. It was. tc Rum's way of thinking, the supreme test. If Lem could, on this day of all others, run the gantlet of bright and beckoning windows, dodging the sinister sin-ister hospitality that, despite the gentler gen-tler influences, can turn Christmas into a milestone of bitterness and regret, re-gret, and return to the farm clear-eyed clear-eyed and clean-breathed, Sam would feel that a great measuiv of success bad been won. Nobody but Sam knew with what misgivings he had permitted permit-ted the experiment. To Lem, least of all, had he voiced the faintest distrust. Lem knew. Heavy, sluggish, stoical, Lem was no fool. He was just a big. hulking boy. placed on his honor. To Sam the safe return of Lem marked this as the great Christmas of Christmases. He had made a man out of little more than the dust of the road. He wondered, in ail intended reverence, rever-ence, If the Creator didn't feel something some-thing of the same warm exultation when he saw clean-limbed young Adam-rise and salute his Maker. There might be presents and presents, bicycles bi-cycles and bullion, but Sam's gift was greater than all; he had given back to manhood a foundered soul. "Hullo, Charlie-boy," said Lem. He pulled a chair close and sat down by the little hoy in the dusk. "How're you feelin'?" "Great," said Charlie. "F'r goodness' good-ness' sakes, Lem, wherever have you been all afternoon?" "Sheffield." "What for? The stores aren't open. You couldn't buy anythin'." "That's all right: I had a putty good time, all the same." "Tell me, Lem." "Give a guess." Charlie thought hard; then he laughed triumphantly. ' "Aw. gosh. Lem! I know! A pitcher show." "Kee-rect!" cried Lem. "It was a bird, too. Seen a reg'lar rip-snorter. five reels. Name of it was 'The Panther's Pan-ther's Eye.' It was a bird!" "Oh, Lem, I nisht I could see a pitcher show. Ne' mind. I will pretty ' soon. I had a dream last night; it was , another one about me bein' well. It's comin' true, too. God's got some . kinder plan. I don't know what it is, , but I bet it's goin' to work. Say, Lem, tell me 'bout that tiger-eye pitcher show." "Ain't got time," said Lem, hurriedly hurried-ly rising. "Look who's comin'." Lem tramped out and Charlie saw him, bareheaded and coatless, meet Mrs. Brown and Mary Alice and pick up his son from the soap box. "Lem's changed a terrible lot," thought Charlie. "I wonder what was the matter with him when he first come here." Even with such an unusually delightful delight-ful host as Charlie, the Thomases' Christmas dinner was not essentially unlike other contemporary affairs of the same kind. Everybody ate too much, and talked and laughed and joked and ate some more. Little Dlck finished his bottle and was brought out to sit in a borrowed high chair and test some new dental equipment ou a colossal drumstick. And then three tilings happened that suddenly lifted this Christmas out of the category of common or garden Christmases and set it up. apart and distinct, just as Its own turkey jutted mountainously up out of the foothills of surrounding vegetables. A loud volley of startling explosions in the yard made everybody jump: wheels ground squeakily upon hard-packed hard-packed snow. Sam went to the side door, parleyed in muffled tones, cried, "Thanks; good night." and returned with a great, flatfish packing case. Sam and Lem strewed the sitting room carpet with excelsior and paper and strings until Martha was quite put out at the muss. "For goodness' sake, what's all them tools and things?" demanded the Boss. "Gosh, ma! This big board 'd be first rate to roll your butter on. What's them little dullickers? Look at the lead pencils." "I know, I know," cried Charlie, ecstatically. ec-statically. "It's a reg'lar drawrin' out-lit. out-lit. Who do you s'pose " When grown-ups, with their jt; aches and selfishness and d is- r, ! if- appointments and appetites, for- j.: j';ij get that human beings are only j;i j a small part of a very great uni- j:! ;;; verse and lose their faith in the l'ij Creator there remains to us who ;:: know some of them the beauti- Q ful trust of little children in God hi !!;i and his love. (TO lii: ClIXTl.M'KIX) Worry and Grow Thin. "What is Mrs. Twobble doing these days to reduce her weight?" "Oh. she just worries about it." "That beats rolling on the floor. She : couldn't hit upon a better plan." j |