John Norton
HOW
JOHN NORTON THE TRAPPER
KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS
BY
W. H. H. MURRAY
BOSTON:
DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO.
364 AND 365 WASHINGTON STREET.
COPYRIGHT, 1890,
BY DE WOLFE, FISKE & CO.
HOW JOHN NORTON THE TRAPPER
KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS.
I.
A cabin. A cabin in the woods. In the cabin a great fireplace piledhigh with logs, fiercely ablaze. On either side of the broadhearth-stone a hound sat on his haunches, looking gravely, as only ahound in a meditative mood can, into the glowing fire. In the centreof the cabin, whose every nook and corner was bright with the ruddyfirelight, stood a wooden table, strongly built and solid. At thetable sat John Norton, poring over a book,—a book large of size, withwooden covers bound in leather, brown with age, and smooth as with thehandling of many generations. The whitened head of the old man wasbowed over the broad page, on which one hand rested, with theforefinger marking the sentence. A cabin in the woods filled withfirelight, a table, a book, an old man studying the book. This was thescene on Christmas Eve. Outside, the earth was white with snow, and inthe blue sky above the snow was the white moon.
"It says here," said the Trapper, speaking to himself, "it says here,'Give to him that lacketh, and from him that hath not, withhold notthine hand.' It be a good sayin' fur sartin; and the world would be agood deal better off, as I conceit, ef the folks follered the sayin' aleetle more closely." And here the old man paused a moment, and, withhis hand still resting on the page, and his forefinger still pointingat the sentence, seemed pondering what he had been reading. At last hebroke the silence again, saying,—
"Yis, the world would be a good deal better off, ef the folks in itfollered the sayin';" and then he added, "There's another spot in thebook I'd orter look at to-night; it's a good ways furder on, but Iguess I can find it. Henry says that the furder on you git in thebook, the better it grows, and I conceit the boy may be right; forthere be a good deal of murderin' and fightin' in the fore part of thebook, that don't make pleasant readin', and what the Lord wanted to putit in fur is a good deal more than a man without book-larnin' canunderstand. Murderin' be murderin', whether it be in the Bible or outof the Bible; and puttin' it in the Bible, and sayin' it was done bythe Lord's commandment, don't make it any better. And a good deal ofthe fightin' they did in the old time was sartinly without reason andag'in jedgment, specially where they killed the women-folks and theleetle uns." And while the old man had thus been communicating withhimself, touching the character of much of the Old Testament, he hadbeen turning the leaves until he had reached the opening cha