Once upon a time–so long ago that everybody has forgotten the date–in a city in the north of Europe–with such a hard name that nobody can ever remember it–there was a little seven-year-old boy named Wolff, whose parents were dead, who lived with a cross and stingy old aunt, who never thought of kissing him [...]

Gambit: in chess, an opening move in which something is sacrificed in order to achieve a better position.     “What the hell are you doing here?”     Viscount Greystoke didn’t normally swear at ladies, but if any man had excuse, that day he did. He’d just returned from a neighbour’s house where he’d been accused [...]

The music of children’s laughter and excited voices broke the silence in the room. Jacob and his sister, Emily, had just finished wrapping some presents for their family. Scattered around the floor lay a vision of brightly colored paper, tissue, miles of metallic ribbon, and bags of brilliant bows. All the two could think about [...]

Oh, yes, Piccola knew it was the happy day when the baby Christ was born, and she had been to church on that day and heard the beautiful singing, and had seen the picture of the Babe lying in the manger, with cattle and sheep sleeping round about. Oh, yes, she knew all that very [...]

Piccola lived in Italy, where the oranges grow, and where all the year the sun shines warm and bright. I suppose you think Piccola a very strange name for a little girl; but in her country it was not strange at all, and her mother thought it the sweetest name a little girl ever had. [...]

That evening, at seven, as the moon was rising over the eastern hills, a short, portly Santa Claus stepped out of the dry reeds by the river bank and walked with wonderfully nimble feet, right into the McGinnis’ little back yard. As he neared the small back porch, a dark figure rose to greet him, [...]

“So I went to the boss and I asked him right out what he’d charge me for the three ladies just as they wus, and he ses, ‘Jimmie,’ he ses (I’ve told him me name a dozen times, but he allus calls me ‘Jimmie’), ‘Jimmie,’ he ses, ‘if you’ll come down on Christmas day and [...]

It was an ideal Christmas day. The sun shone brightly but the air was crisp and cold, and snow and ice lay sparkling everywhere. A light wind, the night before, had swept the blue, icebound river clean of scattering snow; and, by two o’clock in the afternoon, the broad bend near Creighton’s mill was fairly [...]

Marcia’s first impulse was to catch up the little fellow and his gift in her arms, and baptize them with a flood of tears from her own overcharged heart! But she hadn’t taught boys in a Mission Sunday school class for nothing;Joe would have thought she had gone crazy, or been struck silly, or was [...]

Presently they went trooping happily downstairs into the dining-room, and she heard father’s voice say: “Good morning, children; I wish you many happy returns of Marcia’s birthday.” What did it all mean? Was she going crazy? Or were they just going to surprise her by some novel way of celebrating her birthday? She arose, and [...]