1886 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 27, 1919 
Margaret Adams closed up her type¬ 
writer desk, straightened the pens and 
pencils, put away a few stray letters, took 
a final look around to see that everything 
was in order, and then put on her hat 
and coat ready to go home. 
She was alone in the office, for it was 
the day before Christmas, and everyone 
else had left) as early as possible. They 
all seemed to have special places to go and 
last important things to do—all except 
Margaret. She had packed a box of mod¬ 
est Christmas gifts some days before for 
a large family of refractory nieces and 
nephews, and she had no other Christmas 
shopping to do—no pleasant, mysterious 
eleventh-hour errands. She walked slowly 
down the stairs, instead of taking the ele¬ 
vator filled with noisy, laughing, pretty 
stenographers from the offices on the floor 
above. 
At the corner of Wabash avenue and 
Jackson boulevard she paused, wondering 
which way to go. A block ahead was 
Michigan avenue, Chicago’s fairyland of 
lights and music, with its wonderful shop 
windows and throngs of gayly dressed 
people. A block behind her was State 
street, filled with the laughing, pushing 
hoi-polloi of Chicago, all good-natured 
all laden with bundles, each one eager to 
get home. The heart of Chicago is State 
street, and its brain is Michigan boule¬ 
vard. 
It was snowing hard, and the wind 
came driving down Jackson boulevard in 
a sleety gale as Margaret made her way 
down that street towards the Art Insti¬ 
tute. Once there she shook the snow off 
as well as she could, and made her way 
through the almost empty exhibition 
rooms. Not a very enlivening way to 
spend Christmas Eve, but painting was 
the great passion of her life, and she 
would have spent every day at the Insti¬ 
tute from morning till night if she could 
have had her way; but as every happy, 
healthy wholesouled girl feels the gnaw¬ 
ing need of bread and butter once in a 
while, so stern necessity chained Margaret 
to the drudgery of the typewriter, but 
every day found a dollar or two added to 
the hoard for drawing lessons which was 
growing steadily under the pile of hand¬ 
kerchiefs in her bureau drawer. 
After a few minutes she stopped before 
a picture and gazed at it intently. It 
was just the sort of picture that a home¬ 
less person would stop and look at on 
Christmas Eve—a driving snowstorm and 
a quaint, old-fashioned farmhouse with 
welcoming lights shining from every win¬ 
dow. “The Lights of Home” was the 
name. 
Margaret took a small sketchbook and 
pencil out of her muff, and settling her¬ 
self comfortably on one of the leather 
seat's in the middle of the room she be¬ 
gan to copy the picture. She had spent 
many hours copying pictures, and by this 
means had acquired considerable skill. 
So absorbed did she become in her 
work that she did not notice a tall, some¬ 
what shabby young man, who after watch¬ 
ing her intently for a few minutes, sat 
down on the seat beside her. Nor did she 
notice that she had unconsciously stopped 
copying, and was putting into her draw¬ 
ing a picture of the little house in the 
country where she had lived as a child. 
“Oh !” she said suddenly, as a flood of 
tender x-ecollections came back to her, 
“Oh, I didn’t mean to do that.” Then she 
realized that she had spoken out loud and 
that an unknown shabby young man was 
answering her. 
“Didn’t mean to do what?” he said. 
“Why,” said Margaret hesitatingly, “I 
was copying the picture ‘The Lights of 
Home,’ and without thinking I made it 
into a picture of the place where I lived 
when I was a little girl. I suppose-” 
she added, “because it is Christmas Eve, 
it makes one think of home.” She smiled 
a little wistfully as she said it, and bend¬ 
ing over her drawing added a few un¬ 
necessary lines that he might not see the 
tears in her eyes. 
“Don’t,” he said sharply. “You’re spoil¬ 
ing it. It was all right the way it was 
before.” 
The Lights of Home 
By Esther Forbes 
Being the story of liow tioo lonesome wanderers in Chicago spent Christmas Eve 
“You are an artist! then?” said the girl Over the door he had printed “St. Vin- 
timidly. “Oh, I wonder if you could tell cent’s Orphan Asylum.” “Now you 
me about my pictures—the other copies I know,” he repeated, “what Christmas 
have made. I know they are wrong, and means to me. I guess I must have been 
The Old Farmhouse Rome. 
I do so want to know how to make them 
right.” 
He laughed a little. “Well, some folks 
can call me an artist, and I can usually 
born there. Anyway, it’s the only place 
I ever knew anything about.” 
“Our Lord was born in a stable,” said 
Margaret softly, “and yet He had always 
sell my pictures. They happen to be the Christmas spirit in Ilis heart.” She 
popular just now, but) the folks that buy colored up a little as she said it, for she 
them don’t know anything about pictures was unaccustomed to talking about her 
Asleep Before the Open Fire. 
really. They wouldn’t know the difference 
between a Corot and a futurist nightmare. 
However, that’s the way I earn a living, 
such as it is.” 
Unthinkingly he sketched a few lines 
on a blank page in her book. Then he be¬ 
came more interested, and the girl 
watched him with rapt shining eyes. 
“There,” he said, when the sketch was 
done, “There’s where I lived when I was 
a child. Now you know how much 
Christmas means to me.” 
The picture was of a straight ugly 
building with long steps and many win¬ 
dows, and a high board fence in the rear. 
innermost feelings. The man looked at 
her curiously and did not reply for a few 
moments. Then he said a little gruffly, 
“Give me your book, child, and we’ll see 
what we can make of it.” He turned the 
pages idly, and now and then a gleam of 
interest lighted his weary eyes. Talent 
she undoubtedly had. He could see that, 
but the pictures were crude and full of 
mistakes. Her lack of training was sadly 
apparent. The six o’clock closing bell 
sounded, and they both started. “We’ll 
have to go now,” said the girl. “It’s clos¬ 
ing time. I’m so sorry.” 
They walked down the broad stairs to¬ 
gether, and at the door the man said 
abruptly, “Where are you going now?” 
“Why, I’m going to stop and get sup¬ 
per, and then I’m going home.” 
“Home,” he said, “I thought you didn’t 
live at home.” 
She laughed. “Well, I call it that be¬ 
cause it’s where my things are. It’s a 
girls’ club on the South Side, and it’s 
really quiet homelike.” 
“Hum-m, supper, sounds pretty good, I 
can’t remember when I ate last.” 
Margaret looked at him, and noted his 
gaunt spare frame and thin square-jawed 
face. She saw that his clothes were old 
and his cuffs frayed. 
“Oh,” she said, “I — I believe you’re 
hungry. Would you like to eat supper 
with me? You’ve been so kind. I can’t 
bear to think of you going home hungry.” 
She blushed at her own temerity but 
stood her ground. “Please,” she insisted. 
“It’s Christmas Eve and I would like to 
have you ever so riuch.” 
He consented with a whimsical twinkle 
in his eye, and they went together to a 
quiet little restaurant far down on Michi¬ 
gan avenue, and seated across from her 
unknown companion, Margaret begun to 
wonder if it were really she who had 
done this thing. To talk to a stranger 
was bad enough, but to invite him to 
dinner was unheard of. Still, the man 
was hungry, and no one ought to be hun¬ 
gry on Christmas Eve. 
ne took her sketch book, and together 
they went over the drawings, he criticiz¬ 
ing and correcting, she drinking in every 
word. It was the first time in her life 
she had expert criticism on her work. 
“Child.” he said finally, handing the 
hook back to her. “I think you have real 
talent. You could by hard work make 
yourself into a successful artist, at least 
what the world calls successful, but it 
isn’t worth it. Fame won’t bring you 
happiness.” 
He sighed as he spoke, and Margaret 
thought he looked old and unhappy. “You 
can take my word for it. When I was 
as young as you I built air-castles too, 
and dreamed dreams of fame—but I’ve 
lost all my illusions now. There’s nothing 
to them any more.” 
“You musn’t talk that way,” said Mar¬ 
garet, flushing pink in her excitement. 
“It isn’t right. You’re young too, and 
you’ve got years and years to live and 
keep on doing wonderful things. Why— 
just to be living is wonderful. I feel as 
if I ought to thank God every day just 
for letting me live and I—I want you to 
feel that way too.” 
He laughed dryly. “Life’s never given 
me much,” he said, “An orphan asylum 
for a childhood memory, and after that 
years of hard work—other things—oh, 
I’ve been successful as success goes, but 
that isn’t enough. You’ll know what I 
mean after a few years, when you’re a 
well-known artist) and success comes to 
you. You’ll get over your illusions fast 
enough.” 
“I don’t know what you mean,” she 
answered, “but if I thought painting beau¬ 
tiful pictures for the world to look at and 
enjoy would make me hard and cold and 
cynical, I’d never draw another line— 
I’d—I’d typewrite till I die.” 
He looked at her challengiugly. “I’ll 
make a bargain with you,” he said. “I’ll 
teach you all I know about drawing and 
help you all I can, if you will help me to 
get back my lost illusions.” 
With shining eyes and flushed cheeks 
she accepted the challenge. “I’ll prove to 
you,” she said, “that happiness and suc¬ 
cess can go hand in hand.” 
The waiter brought the check and Mar¬ 
garet took out her pocketbook. She had 
almost forgotten that this man who had 
offered her so much was really a beggar, 
dependent upon her for his dinner. But 
he put his hand over hers and said kind¬ 
ly, “Never mind; you thought I was hun¬ 
gry, and so I was, but I couldn’t let you 
pay for my dinner.” 
Margaret sat silent and confused. He 
had looked so tired, so poor and so lone¬ 
some that out of the kindness of her 
(Continued on page 1894.) 
