s they flew along.

Where were Gretel and Hans?

Ah, how suddenly joy sometimes comes to an end!

They had skated about an hour, keeping aloof from the others, quite
contented with each other, and Gretel had exclaimed, "Ah, Hans, how
beautiful! How fine! To think that we both have skates! I tell you, the
stork brought us good luck!"--when they heard something!

It was a scream--a very faint scream! No one else upon the canal
observed it, but Hans knew its meaning too well. Gretel saw him turn
white in the moonlight as he busily tore off his skates.

"The father!" he cried. "He has frightened our mother!" And Gretel ran
after him toward the house as rapidly as she could.

The Festival of Saint Nicholas

We all know how, before the Christmas tree began to flourish in the home
life of our country, a certain "right jolly old elf," with "eight tiny
reindeer," used to drive his sleigh-load of toys up to our housetops,
and then bounded down the chimney to fill the stockings so hopefully
hung by the fireplace. His friends called his Santa Claus, and those
who were most intimate ventured to say "Old Nick." It was said that
he originally came from Holland. Doubtless he did, but, if so, he
certainly, like many other foreigners, changed his ways very much after
landing upon our shores. In Holland, Saint Nicholas is a veritable
saint and often appears in full costume, with his embroidered robes,
glittering with gems and gold, his miter, his crosier, and his jeweled
gloves. Here Santa Claus comes rollicking along, on the twenty-fifth of
December, our holy Christmas morn. But in Holland, Saint Nicholas visits
earth on the fifth, a time especially appropriated to him. Early on the
morning of the sixth, he distributes his candies, toys, and treasures,
then vanishes for a year.

Christmas Day is devoted by the Hollanders to church rites and pleasant
family visiting. It is on Saint Nicholas's Eve that their young people
become half wild with joy and expectation. To some of them it is a sorry
time, for the saint is very candid, and if any of them have been bad
during the past year, he is quite sure to tell them so. Sometimes he
gives a birch rod under his arm and advises the parents to give them
scoldings in place of confections, and floggings instead of toys.

It was well that the boys hastened to their abodes on that bright
winter evening, for in less than an hour afterward, the saint made his
appearance in half the h