"Sleep, little one, the day is done,
Why do you wake so long?"
"Oh, Mother dear, I seem to hear
A wondrous angel song!"

"Not so, my son, my precious one,
'T was but the wind you heard,
Or drowsy call of dreaming bird,
Or osiers by the streamlet stirred
Beneath the hillside trees;

Some bleating lamb that 's gone astray, Or traveler singing on his way

His weariness to ease.

Rest, little son, till night is done
And gloomy darkness flees."

Yet while she spoke, the shepherds ran
In haste the road along,

To find the Mother and the Babe,
For they had heard the Song.

"Rest, little son, the night 's begun,
Why do you toss and sigh?"
"A brighter star than others are
O'er yon low roof hangs nigh."
"Not so, my son, my darling one,
I see no gleaming star

That shines more bright than others are;
'T is but a lamp that burns afar,
Or glow-worm's wandering spark;
Some shepherd's watch-fire in the night,
Or traveler's torch that blazes bright
To cheer him through the dark.
Sleep, little son, till night is done
And upward springs the lark."

Yet while she spoke, three kings had come,
Three kings who rode from far,
To lay their gifts at Jesus' feet,
For they had seen the Star.

-Annie Johnson Flint.

ACROSS the sunlit swale came stalking cautiously a whitetail doe with her fivemonths' fawn stepping daintily at her side, the weanling showing a curious, long, whitish scar on its flank. Before emerging from the dark recesses of the wood, they had stood in the spruce tangle at the forest's edge for several minutes, the doe searching the open with eyes and nose and ears, her fawn as motionless as herself in obedience to an unspoken command.

The mother deer was in mighty fear of human kind, but it is doubtful if the fawn would have evidenced any great terror had one of the tribe appeared, for the same recent experience from which sprang the doe's overpowering dread of man had left the fawn with as great a curiosity concerning him. Early in the spring the doe, driven by wolves, had, in her extremity, leaped among the pasturing herd of a

settler, and the cattle, alarmed by her abrupt advent and catching the fever of her fear, had raced to the barn-yard. The doe and her fawn, which had followed at her heels, tolled along by the rush, soon found themselves in a strange, fenced enclosure, and, falling exhausted from their terrific effort, had been captured and imprisoned within a calf-pen by the backwoods farmer. The man had acted on impulse, and, once the pair was safely railed in, wondered what he should do with them, his first thought naturally being of the venison they would provide for his table.

The next day, however, his young son, coming early to the pen to feed and make overtures to the captives, was overjoyed by the sight of the fawn, and thenceforth he devoted himself to cultivating the friendship of the agile and beautiful creature.

One morning, some days later, the boy,

peering into the pen, was cut short in his salutations by the sight of a red gash in the flank of the baby deer. The fawn had torn his side deeply, but not dangerously, on a protruding splinter, and the crimson streak in his delicate coat smote the child's heart with horror and sympathy. He lifted the latch of the pen door, which could be fastened only on the outside, and ran to comfort his wounded protégé. The doe backed into the far corner, trembling with terror, then suddenly sprang for the opening, bowling the child over in her rush. At her bleat of command the fawn dashed after her, maternal authority overcoming whatever of reluctance he may have felt in deserting the kind little twolegged animal, and the boy, rising bewildered and with the hot tears springing to his eyes, emerged from the pen just in time to glimpse the two gracefully leaping forms disappearing over the crest of a rise in mid-pasture. With her white flag guiding the youngling, the freed mother deer streaked for the friendly cover that loomed invitingly before her eyes, and quickly doe and fawn were swallowed up in the cool, dim sanctuary of the forest.

SEVERAL years passed, and in the settlements a "scar-sided buck" began to achieve a reputation beyond that of any of his fellows. Known and recognized both by the livid mark on his right flank and the immense size to which he grew, he became famous throughout the Swiftwater country. He was credited either with possessing uncanny craft or the gift of uncommonly good luck, for no magnificently antlered head was more coveted, or more assiduously hunted, than the one that reared itself proudly on his broad, powerful shoulders. And frequently something more than desire to possess the finest head they had known inspired the efforts of the hunters of the region. His depredations on the fields and truck patches of the scattered farmsteads periodically sent irate backwoods farmers on his trail vowing to exterminate this despoiler of their crops.. But these usually returned without having seen the big buck, or else, if they caught

a glimpse of him, he got himself so swiftly out of sight that no chance offered for a successful shot.

That the buck knew the difference between a man unarmed and a man with a gun was an opinion shrewdly held by one young hunter, who kept this view to himself for reasons of his own. Probably some early experience in being creased by a bullet from one of those fire-spouting, loudvoiced sticks that men sometimes carried had brought an idea into the buck's head. Dogs did not seem to excite any great terror in him, and on numerous occasions he had turned on those that followed his trail and driven them off. But usually he accepted the challenge and gave them an exhilarating run, and, when the game palled, broke his trail craftily and left the dogs to plod back home foot-sore and chopfallen.

The history of "Old Scarside," which was the name by which the great buck finally came to be known, was familiar to the settlement folk. Laban Knowles, the farmer who had imprisoned the doe and fawn, and his son Lonny held themselves his sponsors; indeed, Lonny maintained. that the buck belonged to him, and always was driven to white anger by the often expressed designs on the deer's life.

Lonny desired above all things that his big buck, who only a few years before, as a captive fawn, had plainly shown his willingness to be friends with him, should live unharmed. Old Scarside, magnificent and storied buck whitetail of the Swiftwater country, had responded to his voice and nuzzled his hand when both were hardly more than babies! The intimate association, unfortunately, had been terminated after all too brief a life, else surely it would have progressed to a thorough understanding; but the friendship so begun still held with one of the parties to it, and the boy's assumption of proprietorship in the biggest deer of the region was known to all the inhabitants of the border country.

Lonny Knowles was by way of becoming a top-notch woodsman, and his skill as a marksman with his twenty-two rifle was a