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“And now, without, rose a cry: ‘We are come to behold the King. We are guided.’ And, entering the stable, clad in their coats of sheepskin, with their slings and crooks yet in their hands, came shepherds, I cannot now recall the number.”

“I had wrapped my babe in his clothes, and had lain him in his manger. And now it was so that as soon as their eyes fell upon his face, they sank to their knees and worshiped him.”

“‘Heard you not,’ spake a white-bearded shepherd to me; ‘heard you not, young Mother Mary, the angels’ song?'”

“‘Meseems I have long heard it, and can hear naught else, good father,’ I answered.”

“To us it came,’ he said, ‘in the first watch of this night, and with it music not of earth.'”

“Afterward came the learned ones from the Eastern countries, – I know not now the land. The gifts they brought him made all the place seem like a king’s palace; and with all their gifts they gave him worship also.”

“And I lay watching it all. And it shall be always so, I thought.”

“But these, though wise men, were not of our race, and could not follow the guiding star with our faith. Wherefore, so much stir had they made throughout the kingdom, inquiring publicly concerning this, your brother, that, through the jealousy of Herod, great was the trouble and misery that fell upon the innocent after their going.”

“But hearken, children; I hear even now your father and your brother coming from their work. Place quickly the gifts within the basket.”

It is a gentle figure that bends among mother and children, and a tender voice that questions:

“Shall I bear forth the gifts?”

“They are ready now, my son. Even this moment thy brother James placed the last within the basket, but canst thou not partake of the evening meal before thou goest with them? Thou art but a lad, to go forth alone after a day of toil.”

“Nay, but I must be about the Master’s work; and, look, the stars are rising. I should tarry not, for they who toil long rest early.”

“For whom is thy service to-night, my son? Last birth-night it was to the sorrowing; before that to the blind, and even yet to the deaf and the lame. And whither tend thy footsteps now?”

“To the tempted ones, mother.”

“And thou shalt stay their feet, dear boy, for rememberest not the Immanuels of last year? How the sorrowful found strange, staying joy in their hearts? How the blind said, as thou named their gifts, and placed them in their hands, that it seemed they could straightway behold them? How even the dumb gave forth pleasant sounds like music from their helpless tongues? and how even the lame well-nigh leaped from their lameness, for the light of thy young face? But when thou comest to thy crown and throne thou needest not got forth alone upon thy birth-night, but send out thy gifts with love and plenty.”

“I know not, my mother.”

“But all will be thine? What said the angel: ‘The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and of his kingdom there shall be no end!’ It may be soon, we know not, for lo! King David was but a boy, and at his daily toil, when he was called to reign over the house of Jacob. Forget not, thou art born the King.”

“Oh, gladden not thy heart, loved mother, with this joy. I seek not to behold the future, but I see not in this world my kingdom, for the rose blossoms I pluck from out the hedge-rows fall; and it is their thorn branch that ever within my hands twines into a crown.”