| Show P(f rnt 8alt lake tribune junior 81 First Tree Always Will Be Recalled Origin of Our Christmas Vague Christmas is celebrated each year In every country in memory of the birth of Christ Just when the first Christmas was celebrated Is not known exactly but it is found that as early as the fourth century they spoke of Christmas as being a very old custom No one Is certain Just what day is Christ's birthday Some claim it is January 6 but finally the eastern and western churches agreed on December 25 The Romans held a festival In December when they claim the sun is born anew and some think this has something to do with December 25 being selected as x Chrintmns day While Christmas is celebrated In many different ways in many countries it has come to mean especially in our country a day of Joy gifts and happy family reunions The idea of gifts especially to children seems to have come from the fact that the Three Wise Men presented gifts to the Christ Child SHIRLEY SYRET Cedar City Utah Approximately 200 of the 400 genuine Stradivanus violins existing in the world today are in the United States There Is One More Day v to Buy Books Be Sure to Tell Your rather and Mother to Buy the Book You Want at the DESERET BOOK COMPANY 44 East oa South Temple Let’s Visit Playground For Royalty To Mary Edith Mary Edith was an orphan and tha ahe had been found on the stepa of the Childien’s home on a warm sum-mevening wrapped in a clean worn blanket When she tried (which she often did) to imagine what her own home or parents were like she would finally give up in despair and tell herself (bat like Topay ahe must have Just "growed" Mary Edith waa 12 a quiet girl with a thin face large lad eyes and plain brown hair and on this special day a week before Christmas she aat by a window with a child's magazine opened on her knees to a picture of a very beautiful girl surrounded by a wonderful lot of toys with a gleaming Christmas tree behind her There were other girls in the room all sizes from tiny tots to large girls almost grown but as far as Mary Edith was concerned she was alona on the page of the paper in her lap trying to Imagine Just what it would be like to be the girl Jn the picture just for a day She wondered If it would be wicked to wish so hard that she might be pretty and have a home and loved ones for she knew from experience that when holidays came the orphans that were taken to homes and given presents were the pretty ones As she sat thinking a very large and expensive car with a chauffeur was making Its way toward tha orphanage If ahe could have peeked inside she would have known that the person in it was a middle-ageman who sat reading a certain paragraph in a letter ia hig hand which said ‘‘So I have decided to come home for Christmas after all John as you asked I realize it is selfish of me to hate to spend a Christmas at home since we lost our little daughter last spring but there is something I should like to have you do for me before I come I should arrive on Christmas eve and will not have time to do it myself Go to the orphanage and select a little girl about 12 and arrange to have her come to the house several days early Have Betty's nurse take her uptown and clothe her completely and well Have a tree and have it decorated There are lots of lovely things here In New York that I know will appeal to a little girl of that age Seeing them reminded me that Betty would have been 12 this Christmas gnd I believe she would have liked to have had us do this And — John pick a plain little girl that you are sure Your wilt enjoy a real Christmas loving wife Helen" So it must have been Mary Edith’s guardian angel or fairy that guided John Grey the wealthy banker up to the steps of the orphanage at the very moment Mary Edith lifted her unhappy eyes from the picture to stare out of the window into bis eyes He stood startled for a moment then hurried up the steps and was soon seated In the reception room stating his errand to the kind matron in charge When she took him a little later to the study room he instantly singled out Mary Edith and asked her if she would like to spend Christmas with a lonely couple who had lost their own little girl Her shining eyes were answer enough for she was so excited she could scarcely speak and before she knew it she was in the car bundled under a beautiful warm robe waving goodby to the curious girls at the same window she had looked longingly from The matron bad walked out to the car with her and kissed her goodbye She was a nice person who knew that Mary Edith deserved some special kind of happiness They skimmed along the snowbound streets past shops gayly deco-ate- d with Christmas colors and finally turned into a broad street lined with big beautiful homes like a story book Of course Mary Edith had been kway from the orphanage before sometimes on picnics and trips when all the orphans had been invited by someone but this was her first visit to this particular section of the town which was the richest and it was all very new and fascinating to her At last they drove into a beautiful drive under an arch and a smiling woman opened the door of the car and er album Not only is the picture appropriate to the season but it is suggestive Boys and girls who have cameras can catch baby sister or brother at the tree on Christmas morning and have a lovely little picture with which to commemorate the day DECEMBER 23 193L CHRISTMAS COMES only home she had ever known wai the wide bare walls of tha orphanage in a western city All she knew of herself was that Here is little Peggy Hickey with her very first Christmas tree a picture and a memory she will alwaya tiea9ure This picture of course was taken last Christmas morning and on this Christmas her parents Dr and Mrs D J Hickey will take another picture of Baby Peggy to add to her bunday morning d told her that ahe was to take care of her for the next week She knew that aha was going to like her for aha had such a motherly looking face and she knew too that ahe would like Mr Grey vbo had talked kindly to her all the way and had explained to her why he had come to the orphanage All (or almost all) of Mary Edith’s wildest di earns came true In the busy week that followed She was given a large and lovely room so big that it almost frightened her to be alone in it but because the kind nurse Rose wss alwsvs near she soon forgot her tews They shopped almost endleesly and on one exciting trip to town Mary Edith had a permanent ware! She hardly knew herself when ahe saw the curly haired little girl that atared back at her from the stlrrsr — - She had not been too busy to wonder how the iovely lady whose picture she hid seen would like her She had also seen many pictures of the little daughter who had died of pneumonia and as she had been blond blue eyed and beautiful ahe was secretly filled with despair for ahe felt sura Mr Grey had made an error in selecting her and that ahe should tell him of Barbara or Jeanne or aome of the good looking girls at the orphanage who were more like the picture Christmas eve came all too soon and after Mr Grey had gone to meet the train ahe aat anxiously in the broad living room by the fireplace Soon Rose came in laden with bundles and then two men came bringing In the most perfect Christmas tree she had ever seen! Rose smiled at her and Mid "Mr Grey left word that if you wished you ware to help decorate the tree and be hopes we will have it done by the time he and Mrs Grey get back He said they would particularly like to have you put the star on top as Mi£s Betty always liked to do that” It took an hour of decorating arranging and rearranging to get the tree to suit them and Mary Edith had just placed the star on top of the tree and stood back to look at her work when the car drove in the drive In her excitement over decorating the tree she had forgotten to listen for them and did not hear the couple come up on the porch and into the hall The servants had quietly moved the ladder and empty boxes and switched on the tree lights and left the room Mary Edith had seated herself st the foot of the tree and gazed at it with such eager longing that tho hoped that all the rest of her life she would be able to close her eyes and see the beautiful sight She did not know that the door had opened softly and that Mr and Mrs Grey had been watching her finally a soft sob caused her to raise her eyes and she rose quickly to her feet her whole heart pleading from her big brown eyes that the lovely lady in furs looking at ber so sweetly would not be disappointed in her The lovely lady came quickly across the room and ' gathered her into her arms and held her as if she would never let her go She knew too that she never wanted to leave But afraid that they would think her ungrateful she resolved to be as nice as she could and never let them know she had wanted to stay here always Instead of just for Christmas She lifted shy eyes to the lovely lady and said “I hope we ‘have trimmed the tree to suit you” and was instantly happy to hear “My dear I couldn’t have done better” After she had been tucked into bed by the lovely lady's gentle hands and told to go quickly to sleep so that nothing could spoil the glad Christmas they were going to have the lovely lady went quietly down the stairs to her husband who stood by the Christmas tree deep in thought She said to him “John how could you have imagined this child is plain! When I first saw her sweet face in front of the tree I knew I should never be happy without her May we keep her always?" And when he had promised to arrange for an adoption at once he said "I have been hoping yon would want her too for 1 have learned to love her" So while they talked of a glowing future that Included Mary Edith always she slept on in her big bed and Even if Paris has yielded the palm is still worth a viait if only for the excursions to Versailles and the forest of rontaine-bla- u Veras illee always attracts Its quota of visitors and next year there are to be fetes there also dances concerts in the palace and billets and pageants by moonlight In the glorious park where once kings and their courts played gaily without thought of the momentous days ahead And so there will be many who will visit Versailles duilng these fete days if only to dream back into the past and try to reconstruct the magnificent days of the courts of the Louis' from - the thirteenth to the !iccii"u And to bring back the pathetic Marie Antoinette who played milkmaid in the model dairy at Petit Trianon where previously Louis XV had given magnificent dinner parties presided over by the Du Barry where opened up and yielded the famous tables slrMdy laid from the floor below Retiring HMery Or one can project oneself back in the past by strolling through the perk to the Bosquet de la Reine the Queen's dell where the lady who Marie Antoinette in the affair of the queen's necklace met the unfortunate Cardinal de Rohan at nightfall And apart from these pages of history which in themselves are worth reliving there Is much of beauty and interest in glorious Versailles the playground of kings who built their downfall even as they built their hunting lodges and palace and laid out their gardens leaving Louis XVI to foot the bill and pay it m be mounted the scaffold to the guillotine The great palace was built to hold 10000 people and its long facade toward the gardens has 375 windows The formal gardens are filled with statuary and the immense park is like a forest The palace Is now a museum a museum filled with so much treasure that it is wise first to have session for gaiety to London It ' ji ( r A A f tr ' ! J liSu cvj4 3I X Versailles feantaiaa at night with a good guidebook marking the things that one wishes particulaily to see If you are romantic you will visit the tiny apartment of Mane Antoinette and the room where poor Louis XVI unmindful of the doom to come upon him played at being blacksmith There are the tools as mute but paThen there 1s the thetic evidence wigrootn and bathroom of Louis XIV which shows up rather badly in contrast to the simple but efficient bathrooms of today Eor bathing was a ceremony a rife not for the commoner but only fop the elect who could afford to build for themselves palaces and lay out parks at the country’s cost TEMPLE MANNING the stars watched overhead If she had been awake and listening she would have heard some Christmas carolers tinging as they passed by “Peace on earth Good will to men SHIRLEY SYRETT Cedar City Utah |
