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Home > Christmas Stories
The Lone Scout's Christmas
A Christmas Story for Boys
Every boy likes snow on Christmas Day, but there is such
a thing as too much of it. Henry Ives, alone in the long railroad coach,
stared out of the clouded windows at the whirling mass of snow with
feelings of dismay. It was the day before Christmas, almost Christmas Eve.
Henry did not feel any too happy, indeed he had hard work to keep down a
sob. His mother had died but a few weeks before and his father, the
captain of a freighter on the Great Lakes, had decided, very reluctantly,
to send him to his brother who had a big ranch in western Nebraska.
Henry had never seen his uncle or his aunt. He did not know what kind of
people they were. The loss of his mother had been a terrible blow to him
and to be separated from his father had filled his cup of sorrow to the
brim. His father's work did not end with the close of navigation on the
lakes, and he could not get away then although he promised to come and see
Henry before the ice broke and traffic was resumed in the spring.
The long journey from the little Ohio town on Lake Erie to western
Nebraska had been without mishap. His uncle's ranch lay far away from the
main line of the railroad on the end of the branch. There was but one
train a day upon it, and that was a mixed train. The coach in which Henry
sat was attached to the end of a long string of freight cars. Travel was
infrequent in that section of the country. On this day Henry was the only
passenger.
The train had been going up-grade for many miles and had just about
reached the crest of the divide. Bucking the snow had become more and more
difficult; several times the train had stopped. Sometimes the engine
backed the train some distance to get headway to burst through the drift.
So Henry thought nothing of it when the car came to a gentle stop.
The all-day storm blew from the west and the front windows of the car were
covered with snow so he could not see ahead. Some time before the
conductor and rear brakeman had gone forward to help dig the engine out of
the drift and they had not come back.
Henry sat in silence for some time watching the whirling snow. He was sad;
even the thought of the gifts of his father and friends in his trunk which
stood in the baggage compartment of the car did not cheer him. More than
all the Christmas gifts in the world, he wanted at that time his mother
and father and friends.
"It doesn't look as though it was going to be a very merry Christmas for
me," he said aloud at last, and then feeling a little stiff from having
sat still so long he got up and walked to the front of the car.
It was warm and pleasant in the coach. The Baker heater was going at full
blast and Henry noticed that there was plenty of coal. He tried to see out
from the front door; but as he was too prudent to open it and let in the
snow and cold he could make out nothing. The silence rather alarmed him.
The train had never waited so long before.
Then, suddenly, came the thought that something very unusual was wrong. He
must get a look at the train ahead. He ran back to the rear door, opened
it and standing on the leeward side, peered forward. The engine and
freight cars were not there! All he saw was the deep cut filled nearly to
the height of the car with snow.
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