rown that had
been set upon his forehead. Since then God has allowed their breasts to
remain red as a remembrance of His gratitude.

But their Christmas story happened long before, when they weren't robin
red-breasts but only robins. It is a merry, tender sort of story.
They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their children. If you prefer
to hear it first-hand, creep out to the nearest holly-bush on almost
any Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all pale and shadowy.
If the robins have chosen your holly-bush as their rendezvous and you
understand their language, you won't need to read what I have written.
Like all true stories, it is much better told than read. It's the story
of the first laugh that was ever heard in earth or heaven. To be enjoyed
properly it needs the chuckling twitter of the grown-up robins and the
squeaky interruptions of the baby birds asking questions. When they get
terrifically excited, they jig up and down on the holly-branches and the
frozen snow falls with a brittle clatter. Then the mother and father
birds say, "Hush!" quite suddenly. No one speaks for a full five
seconds. They huddle closer, listening and holding their breath. That's
how the story ought to be heard, after night-fall on Christmas Eve, when
behind darkened windows little boys and girls have gone to bed early,
having hung up their very biggest stockings. Of course I can't tell it
that way on paper, but I'll do my best to repeat the precise words in
which the robins tell it.

II

It was very long ago at the beginning of all wonders. Sun, moon and
stars were new; they wandered about in the clouds uncertainly, calling
to one another like ships in a fog. It was the same on earth; neither
trees, nor rivers, nor animals were quite sure why they had been created
or what was expected of them. They were terribly afraid of doing wrong
and they had good reason, for the Man and Woman had done wrong and had
been locked out of Eden.

That had happened in April, when the world was three months old. Up to
that time everything had gone very well. No one had known what fear was.
No one had guessed that anything existed outside the walls of Eden or
that there was such a thing as wrong-doing. Animals, trees and rivers
had lived together with the Man and the Woman in the high-walled garden
as a happy family. If they had wanted to know anything, they had asked
the Man; he had always given them answers, even though he had to inven