| Summary: | Newsletter of the North Dakota School for the Deaf. THE NORTH DAKOTA BANNER Invlfc of sleigh-bells, and a lonoj white board. The children cried out, ‘‘Oh!*’ The ^irls tittered,and ?*bi'iol<eci with excitement, mid the boys hiughod arid clapped their hands. Then ‘‘Sandy” made a little speech about being glad to see Ub all, but UkS he bad many other places to ‘visit, and as there were a. great many presents tc* distribute, he guessed he’d have to ask some of the many pretty girls to help him. So he called upon Betty Burtch and Hattie Knapp—and I for one admired his taste, for they were the most popular maids of the school. Th6y came up blushing, and a little bewildered by the blaze of publicity thus blown upon them. But their native dignity asserted itself, and the distribution of the presents began. I have a notion now that the fruit upon the tree was mostly bags of popcorn and “corny copias” of cand\, but as my brother and I stood there that night and saw everybody, even the rowdiest boy. getting somet hing we felt aggrieved and rebellious. We forgot that we had come from afar— we only know that we were being left out. But suddenly in the midst of our gloom, my brother's name was called, and a lovely girl with a gentle smile handed him a bag of popcorn. My heart glowed with gratitude. Somebody had thought of us; and when she came to me, saving sweetly, “Here's, something for you,” I had not wo' ds to thank her. This happened nearly forty years ago. but. her smile, her outstretched ha mi, her sympathetic eyes, are, vividly before me as I write. She was sorry for the sbockheaded bov who stood against the wall, and her pity made the little box of candy a casket of pearls. The fact, that I swallowed the jewels on the road home does not take from the reality of my adoration. At last 1 bad to take my final glimpse' of that wondrous tree, and l well remember the walk home. My brother and I traveled in wordless companionship. The moon was sinking toward the west, and the snow crust gleamed with a milion fairy lamps. The sentinel watchdogs barked from, lonely faim-houses, and the wolves answered from the ridges. Now and then sleighs passed us with lovers silting two apt} two, and the bells on their horses had the remote music of romance to us whose boots drummed like clogs of wood upon the icy road. Our house was dark as we approached and entered it, but how deliciously warm it seemed after the pitiless wind! I confess we made straight for the cupboard for a mince pie, a doughnut and a bowl of milk. As I write this there stands in my library a thick-branched, beautifully tapering fir tree covered with the gold and purple apples of Hesperides, together with crystal ice-points, green and red and yellow candles, clusters of gilded grapes, wreaths of metallic frost, and glittering angels swinging in ecstasy; but I doubt if mv children will ever know the keen pleasure (that is almost pain) which came to my brother and to me in those Christmas days when an orange was not a breakfast fruit, but a casket of incense and of spice, a message from the sunlands of the South. That was our compensation — vve brought to our Christmastime a keen appetite and empty hands. And the lesson of it all is, if we are seeking a lesson, that it is better to give to those who want than to those for whom “we ought to do something because they <lid something for us last year.”—By Hamlin- Garland in the Ladies' If a me Jo anal. An Arctic Christmas Tree. At the most westerly point on this continent Cape Prince of Wales, in Boring Strait, there is an Eskimo village, so distant and desolate is' the place that it is seldom hoard from oftener than once in two years. Remote as it is however, the Christian religion has reached it, and some of the practices of Christian lands have become established among the natives- A few years ago a missionary made his home among tLiese Eskimos. Theirs is a monotonous existence—hunting, fishing, eating and sleeping. The more the missionary saw of it, the more he longed to enliven it. Christmas seemed to oher a chance. He decided to have a Christmas tree. In a region where stunted bushels are the nearest approach to trees, a difficulty •presented itself at the start, but a great drift, log found on the shore was pressed into service. It was taken into the little chapel and covered with green moss, and the branches of bushes were nailed to it. The foliage was made of green cloth, and the tree whou finished probably was the strangest that Father Christmas had ever beheld. On Christmas eve the little church was quite full. Men, women children, in their suits of skin, crowded every nook and corner. Noue was happier than the missionary when he told the old, old story of the Star in the East and the Babe horn in the manger. When he had finished, a hymn was sung in a hearty fashion, and then all interest was centered in the prettily lighted, well-laden Christmas tree. Tools, knives, scissors, fishing-tackle, cotton cloth and woolen garments, and other presents peculiarly acceptable to the assembled crowd, were distributed, ami with many expressions of delight, the recipients went oft to their dvigours. There was little feeling of dreariness left in that desolate region, for happy hearts make a happy home, even if the home be but a winter dugout; and these Eskimos all felt something, at least, of the joy that the season of Christ's birth brings.— The Youth's Cortipanvm. J* Jm No Dinner For Him Rear Admiral Osterhaus, at a luncheon in New York, said of a naval disappointment: “ It was as disappointing as absent-minded Ihsons1 Christmas dinner, “ Ibson, you know, ran absentmind-edly one Christamas night into the res. taurant of a railway station and asked: ** * Look here, waiter, did you say 1 had twenty minutes to wait, or that it was twenty minutes to eightP “The Tipperary waiter stopped carving a turkey long enough to reply: “ ‘ I said nay t her. 1 said ye had twenty minutes to ate. But that was nineteen minutes ago. There’s yer train w his tin1 fur ye now.' Selected. Just Recompense. One night, a short time before Christmas, three years old Harold added the following to his usual petition: “And dear God, bless Santa Claus, and tell him if lie will bring me a Boston terror, a gun. some soldiers, and either a little donkey or a little brother, I’ll be a good boy.” “Why. Harold, “reproved his mother, “you should not expect pay for being good.” Harold was silent for a minute, then brightening, said, “Well, Mama, you would'nt have mo good for nothing, would youV'—Selected. j* 1 THIS IS THE YEAR § j that shows .the difference between good T 2 farming and poor farminer, You can K 3 make and save money by studying the fci 3 causes for success of onr most-prosperous fr ■2 farmers and applying the results of their Zr J* experience to your owu farm operations. - if The Dakota Farmer, of Aberdeen, S. D., -5; 2 makes a business of seeking out and ^ ■3 analyzing these causes and presenting the 3 results to its readers. Thousands of 3 farmers have found in the eolumnsof this fr, ■3 gr-.*at paper the ideas that have made | them prosperous. You can get three free ■%. % copies by sending your name and address' % -a on a postal. fc -3 *
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