boy. "Here, you General Superintendent out there in the office!" sings
he, cheerily, "send some one down to Washington Market this instant, to
find out whether or not any of those luscious anatomical western turkies
that I saw in the barrels this morning are left yet. If the commercial
hotels down-town haven't taken them all, buy every remaining barrel at
once! Not a man nor boy in this Company's service shall go home to-night
without his Christmas dinner in his hand! Lively, now, Mr. JONES! and
just oblige me by picking out one of the birds for yourself, if you can
find one at all less blue than the rest. It's Christmas Eve, sir; and
upon my word I'm really sorry our boys have to work to-morrow as usual.
Ah! it's hard to be poor, JONES! A merry Christmas to us all. Here's my
carriage come for me." And even in returning to their homes from their
daily avocations, on Christmas Eve, how the most grasping, penurious
souls of men will soften to the world's unfortunate! Who is this poor
old lady, looking as though she might be somebody's grandmother, sitting
here by the wayside, shivering, on such an Eve as this? No home to
go?--Relations all dead?--Eaten nothing in two days?--Walked all the way
from the Woman's Rights Bureau in Boston?--Dear me! _can_ there be so
much suffering on Christmas Eve? I must do something for her, or my own
good dinner to-morrow will be a reproach to me. "Here! Policeman! just
take this poor old lady to the Station-House, and give her a good warm
home there until morning. There! cheer-up, Aunty; you're all right
_now._ This gentleman in the uniform has promised to take care of you.
Merry Christmas!"--Or, when at home, and that extremely bony lad, in the
thin summer coat, chatters to you, from the snow on the front-stoop,
about the courage he has taken from Christmas Eve to ask you for enough
to get a meal and a night's-lodging--how differently from your ordinary
style does a something soft in your breast impel you to treat him. "No
work to be obtained?" you say, in a light tone, to cheer him up. "Of
course there's none _here,_ my young friend. All the work here at the