hey got a good deal of fun out of fighting. But
the sporting side of the affair ceased to appeal to them when they were
compelled to recognize the seriousness of their predicament. They were
absolutely cut off from supplies at a season when food was running
short. They had to sneak out at night at the risk of capture to get
anything to eat at all. They had a sick woman on their hands who cried
not for food, but for delicacies. Instead of gathering strength, she
grew steadily weaker. And then there was the matter of sleep; it was as
scarce as food. They hardly snatched a wink of it. When they weren't on
guard or fighting, they were soothing her fretfulness, foraging for her
or thinking up some new method of keeping her warm. It was damp in the
cave; sunlight rarely tiptoed farther than the entrance. It didn't take
them long to discover that the hyena's coat had been as dearly purchased
as the forbidden fruit that had lost them the garden. Peace, which they
might have concluded in the early days, was now entirely out of the
question. Even an offer to return the hyena's coat wouldn't have made
any impression. They had carried hostilities too far; there wasn't an
animal whom they had not wounded and who wasn't mad with them clean
through from the point of his nose to the tip of his tail. Often and
often, standing in the entrance to his cave, the Man would gaze
longingly across the bronzy roof of the forest to the distant shining of
the padlocked gates of Eden. He was farther than ever from the garden
now with its tranquil blessedness. If only he hadn't learnt to steal!
Stealing had been the cause of his downfall--first the forbidden fruit
and then the hyena's coat. If he had been less enterprising and more
obedient, he would still have been the friend of God. After a wakeful
night he crept to the entrance to discover that the worst thing of all
had happened.

"A worse thing!" you exclaim. "I thought you were going to tell us a
cheerful Christmas story."

And so I am: but all the unfortunate part comes first--that's the way
the robins tell it. If you'll be patient and read on, you'll find this
is the very cheerfullest story that was ever told in earth or heaven.
You may not have noticed that we've not yet come to the first laugh. The
Woman has smiled and the hyena has scoffed; but no one has laughed. It's
when we come to the first laugh that the happiness commences.

V

The worst thing of all that the Man discove