When the Yule Log Burns

CONTENTS

PART I

IN WHICH WE LIGHT A YULE-LOG

CHAPTER

I Kindlings

II Wishing Sparks

III By the Fire

IV Embers

PART II

IN WHICH WE LIGHT THE NEW LOG WITH THE EMBERS OF THE OLD

I The Fire Again

II It Blazes Higher

III The Log at Dawn

IV The Log at Twilight

Part One

In Which We Light a Yule Log

When the Yule Log Burns

I

Kindlings

Polly, the Doctor's old white mare, plodded slowly along the snowy
country road by the picket fence, and turned in at the snow-capped
posts. Ahead, roofed with the ragged ermine of a newly-fallen snow, the
Doctor's old-fashioned house loomed gray-white through the snow-fringed
branches of the trees, a quaint iron lantern, which was picturesque by
day and luminous and cheerful by night, hanging within the square,
white-pillared portico at the side. That the many-paned, old-fashioned
window on the right framed the snow-white head of Aunt Ellen Leslie, the
Doctor's wife, the old Doctor himself was comfortably aware--for his
kindly eyes missed nothing.

He could have told you with a reflective stroke of his grizzled beard
that the snow had stopped but an hour since, and that now through the
white and heavy lacery of branches to the west glowed the flame-gold of
a winter sunset, glinting ruddily over the box-bordered brick walk, the
orchard and the comfortable barn which snugly housed his huddled cattle;
that the grasslands to the south were thickly blanketed in white; that
beyond in the evergreen forest the stately pines and cedars were
marvelously draped and coiffed in snow. For the old Doctor loved these
things of Nature as he loved the peace and quiet of his home.

So, as he turned in at the driveway and briskly resigned the care of
Polly to old Asher, his seamed and wrinkled helper, the Doctor's eyes
were roving now to a corner, snug beneath a tattered rug of snow, where
by summer Aunt Ellen's petunias and phlox and larkspur grew--and now to
the rose-bushes ridged in down, and at last to his favorite winter nook,
a thicket of black alders freighted with a wealth of berries. How
crimson they were amid the white quiet of the garden! And the brightly
colored fruit of the barberry flamed forth from a snowy bush like the
cheerful elf-lamps of a wood-gnome.

"1017486142"

When the Yule Log Burns