Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1905 — A Merry Chistmas To Young Folks [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Merry Chistmas To Young Folks

CHRISTMAS tide has come again and all the little children are thinking about Santa Clans, and some are wondering if he will come to their house this time. There is hardly any reason for any child to believe that he will not come. A good many things change in this w’orld, but on Christmas Eve merry old Sauta Claus is always heard of —his hair as white, his nose as red, as ever; his bag of toys just as full; his cry down the chimney of "Any good children here?” just as loud. Kris Kringle’ is another name for Santa Claus, and a very good name, too; and stockings are not the only things that hold toys. Little German peasant children often set their wooden shoes on the hearth on Christmas eve, pretty sure of a cake and a toy; for children, however poor their parents may be, are made much of in Germany. And in some places in Europe a curious thing happens. The mother, the father and the rest of the family sit about the tire together on Christmas eve. All the room is tidy. The children, half hopeful, half terrified, draw close to mother, father, or grandmothers, as they hear a sound of trumpets or horns outside. Then the mother says; “What can this be?” and opens the door. As she does so, a number of very strange looking figures come in—amongst them one person dressed in white, with wings, and a great basket in his hand, and an-

other in black, with a bunch of rods. “God bless you all,” says the figure in white. “Are there any good children here ?” “Are there any bad children here?” asks the black figure. “My children are all pretty good,” the mother answers. "I am glad to hear it,” says the white visitor. “I have gifts here for good children.” “Stop!” the black figure cries; “they are not good. Hans struck his brother yesterday. Gretchen does not know her catechism, and I’etra broke a piece from the Sunday cake as it sat to cool on the window sill. I' will leave rods to whip them with.” The children begin to cry. The white

figure spreads out his hands and says: “The little ones will be better next year.” Then he takes one of the rods from the black visitor and drives him out. The visitors play on the instruments they have brought, and the whole family sing Christmas hymns. The angelic visitor then empties his basket on the table, and leaves there a great number of iced cakes, gilded nuts, gingerbread horses, and wooden toys, and then departs. The mother tells the children to be good all the year, lest the rod should really be left for them on the next Christmas, and all have supper and go to bed. Christmas day is a happy one for most children all over the Christian world, and I hope that because this is so they will remember that this day is kept because eighteen hundred and eigh-ty-one years ago Jesus, who said “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,” was first a babe in his mother's arms. —Mary Kyle L>allas in the New York Ledger.