The boy who brought Christmas

								

branch? Dixie and me’s done lost the trail!”
“Gee up,” the old man reached for his whip and was soon upon the
sandy terra firma of the other side, submissively awaiting his
grandson’s pleasure.
“Here, sir, here!” The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an
equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself
through the weedy border. “Now foller, old boy; foller I say!”
The gesture of the grimy little hand was imperative, and Dixie
sniffed among the dried weeds; then, closely nosing the ground,
circled among the cart wheels but, baffled, squatted whimpering upon
his haunches.
“You-all trackin’ a rabbit, Grover Cleveland?” The old man
facetiously scrutinized both dog and boy.
In the North Carolina mountains there were in the time of my story
and still are many namesakes of the great democrat, but our little
hero was recognized far and wide as the child of the party. A sturdy,
clear-eyed, true-hearted little mountaineer, the party was proud of
him and no one ever gave him anything less than his full Christian
name.
He was an orphan and grandmotherless; he and his grandfather lived
alone, with no woman to keep them comfortable. These facts alone
would have secured for him abundant sympathy from a simple-hearted,
kindly people; but, in addition to these titles to favour, his
grandfather was respected as an upright man and one of the oldest and
richest residents of the county, owning many acres of land—not of
richest quality to be sure—but as good as any for enumeration. So for
miles around the child was welcomed into every mountain cabin, and no
home so poor that he was permitted to leave it without some token of
its owner’s kindly interest, a pair of home-spun, home-knit stockings
or mittens or a needed patch upon jacket or trousers.
He was a very small boy to be out in the woods alone with his dog;
for, though the sunny slopes were warm, deciduous foliage lay
rustling or sodden upon the ground and snow whitened the shaded
clefts and hollows of the higher peaks. His old soft hat covered
only the back of his head and in front of it a fringe of blond
hair bristled aggressively above blue eyes that scintillated with
excitement. He wore clumsy copper-toed shoes and warm stockings
wrinkled about his ankles, the dangling ends of the parti-coloured
strings that gartered them showing below the short patched trousers.
“No!” he cried disdainfully, as if he had years ago lost interest
in small game, “it’s old Sandy Claus! Cap’n Wiley says he’s got a
den somewheres up on the Bald. He’s been down to the Pistopals’
meetin’-house and left ’em a whole pack of things and they’re a-goin’
to hang every last one of ’em on to a tree; and a-Chrisamus all the