Show empty little there was a pair of stockings to hang up at our house last christmas a pair of stockings with a hole worn in one little foot and the heel worn thin in the other this year there are none to hang up last year we hunted toy stores and confectionery confectioners ers for tho newest and nicest things for our boy this year we pass the gay windows with bowed heads and aching hearts I 1 see tears in my cifes blue eyes as we pass some happy mother with a blue or white little hand held tightly in her own while the merry little lad at her side looks laughingly up in her face and tells her all his hopes and plans for the christmas day 1 cannot keep my own lips from trembling or my tear dimmed eyes from looking at that dear little fellow with the blue eyes and the golden curls perched high on hin fathers shoulder so that he can look over the heads of the crowd standing in front of a gay toy store I 1 held my own boy so last year he walked these same gay streets with his little hand in his mothers he rode home on my lap in taci horse cars that day before christmas he climbed up and put his tirma j around my neck to whisper to me a wonderful seki fc the secret always was 1 I lub you papa and after we had coaxed him into bis night clothes that night and after we had heard his little prayers with the final god bless papa and mamma we put him to bed and filled the two stockings so full and piled high hig h the chair on which they hung We could not sleep for thinking of would doand say when tho christmas morning came this year we rode home alone in the car we sat silently in our little parlor my wife tried to read a new copy of her favorite magazine but I 1 could see that her eyes were closed I 1 behind its pages I 1 said ifould go out on the porch and but my cigar was not lighted in the whole hour I 1 remained without they were having a christmas tree corroy for roy neighbors the street I 1 could sea that tree ith the pretty boy dancing around it I 1 knew and felt that he was safe in ohp arms of tho one who carries the young lambs in his bosby that greater love than mine was around him a love that could forever shield him from all trials and sorrows but I 1 could not hely crying out my baby my boy 1 want you for myself the curtain of oar parlor was up a few inches and I 1 could see my wife on her knees and what did she have in her hands kissing them again and again with sobs and tears the little stockings we hung up last christmas eve perhaps we will as the neighbors say outgrow it by and byor get used to it but this is the first we have had to live through since the baby died my wife carries this little verse in her pocketbook pocket book we shall roam on the banks of the river of peace and dwell on its crystal tide and one of the joys of our heaven will be our sweet little boy that died |