Alas! Little Wolff knew by experience that his old miser of an aunt
would send him to bed supperless, but, with childlike faith and certain
of having been, all the year, as good and industrious as possible, he
hoped that the Christ-Child would not forget him, and so he, too,
planned to place his wooden shoes in good time in the fireplace.
Midnight mass over, the worshippers departed, eager for their fun, and
the band of pupils always walking two and two, and following the
teacher, left the church.
Now, in the porch and seated on a stone bench set in the niche of a
painted arch, a child was sleeping--a child in a white woollen garment,
but with his little feet bare, in spite of the cold. He was not a
beggar, for his garment was white and new, and near him on the floor
was a bundle of carpenter's tools.
In the clear light of the stars, his face, with its closed eyes, shone
with an expression of divine sweetness, and his long, curling, blond
locks seemed to form a halo about his brow. But his little child's
feet, made blue by the cold of this bitter December night, were pitiful
to see!
The boys so well clothed for the winter weather passed by quite
indifferent to the unknown child; several of them, sons of the notables
of the town, however, cast on the vagabond looks in which could be read
all the scorn of the rich for the poor, of the well-fed for the hungry.
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