f/fAinr.'riti resenily. climbing a tree, he did put his hand into the nest, and In! there was hidden a poisonous serpent, that sank its fangs into his flesh. He yuliered terrible agony and. sliding from the free, lay until he died. There we found him." "•Come," the boys said, 'and tell our kins." Mefore the crowned one (hey paused and told ihe story. Rising, he said: "follow me." Silently tbey wend; d their way back to the woods. "Lead us to tho tree," said lb,- child king. And there paused. "Oh. treacherous serpent. 1 com mand thee to come down," he called. And !o! above the nest appeared a venomous head, arid soon the long, gli; toning body of a deadly snake came writhing down the trunk. "Co, suck from that child's hand all the poison thou didst place therein from thy fangs," I" (he amazement of the beholders, who sank on fir the set pent obeyed. Then, drawing away, t writhed in the agony of its own poison and shiveled to fiealn. "Arise," said the child, laying his soft hand on the tar«- or tho ono who n?emod dead. A moment passed. Those nearby looked on breath lessly. 1 hen the face of (lie dead boy broke into a smile, as though he were having pleasant dreams, and he opened his eyes. It is related In the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy that afterward the boy. Simon Zelotes. became one of the diseipies of.l rsus. Of the days and doings of ilie boy .festis in Nazareth (lie loir gospels IHI us comparatively little. It was natural, therefore, that, about this unknown existence of the Adorable Child the Christians of the early church de«-piy pondered and that the rich imaginations of mr dieval times should have woven a vesture of tradition ary lore. The holy family returned from Egypt when Jesus was old enough to walk. In many of the old pictures we see the Divine ( liiitl leading a mule or clinging close to his mother. Ol that early life in the land of the Pyr amids, too, early tradition lias woven a pleasing fabric of legends. Among tl:o oldest of these is the ancient belief that whenever the blessed Mary placed the clothing of the holy babe upon trees to dry the barren limbs burst into bloom. Another is that when Hie child wandered into the for est. where lions and panthers and all manner of wild beasts lived, they enrne forth to do him homage. Still another, that, during the (light from Bethlehem, w( • .tspei. stood erect and free Scot ninjt in join till? . oil-elf xK worship pure- Hut see. h<- cast one look upon the tree Struck to the heart she trembled evermore. It is also told (hat when the holy family came In sight of the sphinx the gicat beast told ti«> eternal se cret, and as they passed the temples the oM gods fell from (heir thrones. And. eomlntr niirh to On. Where stands the house of ria. its mighty trod «"ul in lilack porphyry, prodigious, fen red 4 Fell from his seat Some writers of old say that the holy child never' vent to school. They love to write of his wandering nlr.ne Into the forests and talking to the birds and in seels. And they tell how dumb beasts were endowed with epeech when lie was with them. Many old legends concern the early schooling of the boy Christ. It is related that when a child he was taken to Zaccheus, who began to try to teach him the alphabet '.My teacher," the marvelous boy is said to have littered, "thou wouldst teach me, but I shall teach thee." And then, while the old man listened, thunderstruck. repeated an alphabet which the other had never CAMERON COUNTY PRESS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1909. learned, lie told Zaccheus he had lived from all time and knew all things. s£ae cheus, amazed, declared he could (each the child nothing. Some of the legends, as unworthy as the minds that created them, tell lliat the child struck his teacher dead. Others tell >jf his inflicting playmates with death and blindness. In the world of legendary lore, where one finds stories ingenuously simple and charming, it is to be expected, also, that there are crude and cruel tra ditions. According to some stories, the children of Nazareth must have found Jesus a wonderful playmate. There was hardly Kiiy wish of theirs which he did not fulfill. 'Hie day, it is told, some of the little ones wished for fruit. "Oh, hew T would like an apple!" said one. "And I some figs!" rejoined another. "How I would love some citron and grapes!" quoth u (bird. Jesus looked upon them and they all seeined so hun gry and so anxious that he made a sign in the air and spoke a mystic word. And lo! A green sprout curled from the ground. Pale green leaves burst forth. The plant rose up and up and up. "Oh!" gasped all the children with great wonder, as before their gaze the plant rose, higher and higher, spreading out limbs-growing larger and stronger, and blooming with flowers. Then the tree, as they looked, bore fruit—apples and citrons, and grapes and figs and whatever their hearts wished. Here is another story of those childhood days: A house was being built near (he small and modest home of the holy family. One day a great uproar arose and Joseph, stepping from his carpenter shop, saw that a man had wallen from the roof and had been killed. "Alas! Mary." he said, entering the shop, where Jesus was playing, "a man has fallen and broken his limbs; methinks he is dead." Springing from the floor, the child, with an expression of great solicitude on his face, rushed into the street The little crowd parted before him. lie peered into the white face of the dead man. Then his voice rang clear and sweet: "I say unto thee, arise and do thy work." The dead man's eyes opened, the blood disappeared from ills fire and his injuries healed. And he arose and went back to his task. At another time Jesus was playing with some chil dren on a roof—one of those simple, childish games like that of "tag" to-day. The children were very happy until one, falling at full length, went tumbling over the para pet. A cry arose. Peering over the stone wall, (he face of Jesus turned white—his little playmate was dead Imagine his distress when the parents of the child ap peared and accused Jesus of having pushed the little playmate over the wall! Imagine the anguish of Joseph and Mary at the grave accusation! Then Jesus, turning to the dead child, called: "Zeno! Zeno! Arise! Arise. Zeno, and tell them if 1 cast thee down." And 7.6n0 arose, laughing, clasping and kissing th« hand Of Jesus, murmuring tenderly, gratefully: "No, no! Thou didst not cast me down." I'ntil his manhood, when he began his mission, it ia believed he piled the trade of carpenter. Many, indeed, are the stories of his life in {he carpenter shop of Naz areth. Many are the tales they tell of the wonderful things he made when he was but a little boy. Precocious he must have been, and early he became indispensable to bis foster father, Joseph. Joseph, we learn, from lliese legends, was none too good a carpenter—that is, judged by the modern stand ards of carpentering. Often he would cut pieces of wood that were too long or too short: for his means of meas urement were faulty. What, then, did Jesus do but take the wood and stretch it or shorten it to the desired length. People told Slransro talon of those hid days—now, at his toil, roucninf; a plank, it stretched to rightful length. Or shortened at his will—the dead wood quick To live ajyaln and serve him. I In those days, it is related, Joseph was awarded a commission to make a throne for a king at Jerusalem. It was to be an elaborate affair, as all thrones are, with great arms and twisted legs and grotesque carvings—one of those things only kings like to sit in. Jesus spent much time watching Joseph hewing and carving the wood. Joseph worked patiently from morn ing until night ,and the work required two whole years. And then, imagine the poor carpenter's disappointment when it was taken to Jerusalem and he discovered that it was too small for its place. Alas! he had made a grave error. Yes, they had given him the right dimensions, but, as it often happened, itnd carpenters do still, he made the mistake. Two en tire years of labo? wasted! The poor man was discon srJnle. "Hut why wee pest thou?" asked •lesus, who was with him. "This is readily amended. Re at peace." Then he directed Joseph to hold one. end of the throne, while he took hold of the other. Both pulled, and behold! the throne assumed the proper size. One Sabbath morning, with a half-dozen playmates, the child Jesus, one old legend runs, went to play by the banks of the River .Tor dan. There had been a heavy rain the night before, and the tall trees were still dripping and the sand was wet. Sitting on the sand, the little ones began to fashion, children wise, animals of various kinds. Jesus, fashioning dogs and cats and all manner of wild things, raised his hand and spoke—and, 10, the animals of sand lived and moved. The children shouted. Their laughter of delight rang through the fresh morning air. Some of the animals ran away, others were changed into sand again. Then digging his small hands In to the sand, the child said: "I'll make 12 sparrows." And he sat them in a row be fore his?. By this time several Pharisees. ,vho had seen the children playing happily on the Sabbath, returned with Joseph, whom they said should censure Jesus. "Thou are breaking the Sabbath my child," said the old man. The child pondered, looked at the birds of his creation, then rising, he Clapped His bands an<3 In! They chirruped, spread their wlngsr. and Hi w away. in these old legends there Is a great deal of the fanciful, the leg end of the boy and the animals of sand shows the quaint, conceits of the early Christians, who delighted in miracles and whose imagination was excited by this unknown period of the Saviour's life. One can well imagine him as a child wandering away from Nazar eth, all alone, and sitting by the Jordan or forest streams and com muning of the great things that came to him. He could not have been like oth er children, for he was wise beyond his years. One can see him, as fair as ihe lilies and roses them selves, caressing the flowers as he parsed by in the meadows of Ju dea, and of his sitting crowned in an aureole of sunbeams, listening to the divine rapture of the birds singing their morning hymns. He must of fen have been alono for with the petty quarrels of the other children of the town, with the little rivalries of his relatives, he could have had little sympathy- Doubtless as a child, his poet's soui soared into the skies, and his seer'« vision saw the future In the cumu lus clouds. All great souls live alone, and ars lonely in the midst of men. About a beautiful life humanity loves to build legends, and the simple life which leads to spir itual greatness must to men be made unusual with a halo of miracles. Many stories are told of the child Jesus having raised people from the dead in the little known days of his childhood. It is related, 100, that when his parents took him to Jerusalem —on the same journey when he had the famous discussion with the learned doctors in the temple—he paused at the sight of Jerusalem, and a spir it of prophecy revealed to him its doom. Prophetic Beethoven. lias anyone remarked on the startling resemblance to the sharp toot of a motor horn of those four-times repeated double notes in Beethoven's "Second Symphony," which demonstrates how a great imaginative genius may be far ahead of his contemporaries? The classic example 1# Shakespeare and the telegraph. When these familiar notes are heard in the symphony the audience may be seen to look anxiously over the shoulder and prepare to cut and. run.—London Chronicle. . All Going Out. Judge (sternly)— Three times in a month! What do you make of this, sir? Rastus (apologetically)—' Deed I doan make nuffin". You fellows up here seem to be de only ones dat get any "cuni ary profit out of hauling me up.—Puck. 13