mother Lapp wraps the baby snug
and warm in skins and lays it down there. Then the father Lapp piles
the snow around and over the baby, when they go into the church and
leave the baby in the snow. So common is this that sometimes there are
twenty or thirty babies, down to the little wee-est ones, buried in
snow around the church.

You might think the babies would suffocate, but they do not, nor do
they freeze. In fact, the snow does not make them cold. For when it
covers anyone all over, if they have clothes enough on, so the snow
will not melt and wet them, it will keep them warm. And as the little
Lapland babies are not strong enough to knock the snow away and let in
the cold, they just lie there safe and warm and go to sleep.

When church is out the father Lapp goes to the spot where his baby is,
puts his hands down into the snow, pulls the baby our and shakes the
snow off it; then the reindeer is unfastened, father and mother tuck
themselves and the baby in the sleigh, and over the snow away they
trot home again.--_Written for Dew Drops by Adele E. Thompson._

* * * * *

MOTHER HULDA'S FEATHER BED.

How many children know what the boys and girls of far-off Norway
sometimes think when they see the dainty, feathery snowflakes flying
softly and silently through the air? I don't think there are many of
you who do know, so I will tell you the story.

If we were there when they have the first snowstorm of the season we
could hear them shouting gleefully to each other: "See! oh, see!
Mother Hulda is shaking her feather bed."

There is a story about this Mother Hulda and her feather bed that is
told to the little ones there. She lives, it is said, far, far above
this busy world, with the clouds for her home, the sun for a lamp and
fire.

She is always very busy, and especially so at the beginning of the
winter, for then she has to unpack her great feather bed, and after
that is done she spends all of her time shaking it. Indeed she shakes
it so much that she wears many holes in it, through which the feathers
fly in all directions. The wind catches them up and carries them
gently to the earth, where they cover the bare limbs of the trees,
making them beautiful, and where they spread lightly on the ground and
protect the roots of the flowers from the cold winter winds.

Mother Hulda does not tire of shaking her bed until the warmer spring
winds begin to blow; then she packs it away