IN THE CHRISTMAS WOODS. 



WHEN Nature decides that her Christmas 

 gift to us shall be a rain-storm, she does 

 not send any niggardly shower. It is 

 raining in earnest ; not the swift, drench- 

 ing downpour of earlier winter, that washes the 

 earth of its summer garb of dust, nor the small 

 rain upon the tender grass of Springtime, but a 

 steady, penetrating descent of water from a leaden- 

 gray sky, with the wind in the South. It is good 

 for all day. My farmer neighbor cocks a shrewd 

 eye skywards and says it is " raining twenty-dollar- 

 gold-pieces," and he ought to know. 



From my window I watch the beneficent down- 

 pour and think of the white, feathery snowflakes 

 that, in my Eastern home, always made Christmas 

 day seem to me so much more the orthodox festival 

 than rain can possibly do ; yet it may have rained on 

 that first Christmas day when Hope was born into 

 the world. It could not have been snowing. Nor 

 could the rainstorm, if there was one, have been 

 more inviting than this one seems. The drops 

 chasing one another down the outside of the pane 

 strike the glass with a little musical tinkle that 

 summons me abroad. It may not be prudent to 

 venture, but it is a good thing, at times, not to be 



