THE OLD LANTERN hung on a wooden peg on the kitchen door, looking untidy and forsaken. Dust covered his paint, and a cobweb dangled from his rusty handle. Once he had stood on the kitchen dresser, with his paint shining and his glass polished and a box of matches beside him, ready for use on dark nights, but now that electric torches were in fashion he was forgotten.

“Look at that funny old lantern hanging on the door,” the youngest member of the family remarked one day. “I’m glad we don’t use lanterns now. Torches are much nicer.”

On Christmas Eve, however, a change came about for the lantern, as you shall hear.

The family were going carol-singing in the evening, and as there was no moon they were wondering how they would find their way across the snow to the village.

“My battery has run out,” one of them exclaimed.

“Mine is getting low,” another one said.

“We can’t keep torches burning all the time we are singing,” piped up the youngest.

Then Grandfather had a splendid idea.

“Why not take the old lantern?” he suggested. “Tie it to a pole, as we did in the old days. If you put in a fresh piece of candle it will last you all the evening.”

So the lantern was taken down and put on the table. His paint was cleaned, and his glass polished till it glowed. Then a bright-red candle was fixed into the holder, and he was tied to the end of a long pole.

When the children were ready the door was opened, and the procession stepped out into the frozen snow, with the old lantern nodding gaily from the top of the pole.

Tramp, tramp, scrunch, scrunch, they went, all the way to the village street, where they stood in a little group, with the lantern in the centre, shining out across the snow.

“See amid the winter snow,” chanted the children, while the old lantern beamed and swayed in time to the music.

Windows were flung open, and pennies and threepenny-bits, and even sixpences tied up in coloured paper, were thrown out. Then doors were unlatched, and the carol-singers were handed sweets and oranges and ginger-nuts.

“Look at that lantern,” a passer-by remarked. “It reminds me of the days when I was a boy. We always carried a lantern on a pole when we went carol-singing.”

At last the last carol was sung, and the little party made their way home, feeling sleepy but very happy.

“Well, you've had a good time, I can see,” said Grandfather, as he welcomed them indoors. “The lantern has done well, to be sure. It is burning as brightly as ever. I think I’ll put it back on the dresser, right in the corner where it always used to stand. Maybe it will come in useful another day.”

 

THE SNOW CASTLE

ONE OF THE MOST amazing things ever built in snow was made in this country. It was near Christmas in the year 1886, and for two days and two nights the snow had fallen without ceasing up in Yorkshire. Near the town of Settle it was twenty feet deep in some, places, and no one could get to work in the fields and quarries.

As he watched children playing at snowballs and making snowmen, one of the quarry-workers had an idea.

“Why not make a big snow-castle to pass the time and to entertain the children?” he said to his fellow-workers.

His friends thought it was a good idea, and they took their spades and shovels and started making a great snow-castle, the like of which was never seen before. It was built just like a real castle, except that it was made of snow.

The main hall was big enough to hold two hundred people, and tall enough for a man on horseback to ride round it. There were smaller rooms branching off the main hall, all lit by dozens of candles. People came from near and far to see the wonderful sight and one day a party was held for the children of the town. Inside the hall of the snow-castle tables were laid and the children sat down to a feast that they must have remembered all their lives.

Whilst the frost held, the castle of snow was quite safe. The roof was held up with rafters of wood. But as soon as there were signs of a thaw, the men knocked the castle down to prevent accidents. One day the sun came out, and the wonderful snow-castle vanished just like a magic castle in a fairy-tale book.

 

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