The Little Folks Give A Christmas Present
December 24th, 1920

As Christmas drew near there were many mysterious bundles hidden away in the tiny houses beneath the rose bush the Teenie Weenie village stood.

The little folks always gave presents to each other, and they usually made them with their own tiny hands.

The Cook, Gogo, and the Lady of Fashion usually looked after the Christmas candy, and this year they made three thimbles full of various kinds of delicious sweets.

"I wish we could make candy for every boy and girl in the world," said the kind hearted little Lady of Fashion as she scraped one of the tiny candy pans which had been set out on the back porch to cool. "Christmas is the time when folks ought to be doing something nice for each other."

Tilly Titter, the English sparrow, who sat on a bush near by, listened to the Lady of Fashion with all her ears, and as the little lady turned to enter the Teenie Weenie kitchen the sparrow hopped onto the ground near the porch.

"I say!" cried the sparrow. "I quite agree with you. I like to do things for folks, but a poor sparrow can't do much."

"Why, Tilly!" exclaimed the Lady of Fashion. "You are always doing things for folks."

"Well, there is one thing I'd like to do," said the bird. "Maybe you folks could do hit, for hit's something I couldn't possibly do if I had twenty bills and wings."

"Tell us," shouted several of the Teenie Weenies who had gathered around the bird.

"Well, hit's this," said the bird. "There's a family that lives down in that old box car beside the railroad track. They are 'aving a 'ard time to get along. The father is sick, and the mother is not able to work all the time, so I think the little boy of the family is not going to 'ave much of a Christmas if some kind person don't help."

"0, dear!" cried the Lady of Fashion. "Can't we do something?"

"Of c-o-u-r-s-e," answered the bird. "I was just coming to that. The other day I was sitting on the clothes line right near the door, and I heard the little boy ask 'is father if 'e could 'ave a pair of ice skates for Christmas. The boy's father told him that they couldn't afford them, and the look of disappointment on the child's face nearly broke my 'eart."

"Me know where skates!" cried Zipp, who had been listening to the bird's story. "Me know where we can get skates. Skates much too little for boy who owns them. He gottie new pair, and we can get old skates and give to poor little boy.

"You'd be doin' a 'eap of good if you could get those skates over to the little boy," cried Tillie.

All the Teenie Weenies were greatly excited about getting the skates for the poor little boy, and several of the little people went over to the house where the skates were to see what could be done.

The skates were in good condition, and except for a little rust they were almost as good as new ones.

"It will be an awful job to move them," said the General. "They must weigh nearly fifty Teenie Weenie tons."

"It won't be so hard to move the skates," said the Old Soldier. "We can rig up some out runners and move the skate on its own runner."

"What's an out runner?" asked the Dunce.

"Why, an out runner is a piece of board attached to the skate, which runs along the ground on each side of the skate runner, and keeps the skate from falling over on its side," answered the Old Soldier.

The Teenie Weenies hurried back to the shoe house where they set to work making the runners so the skates could be moved.

The little fellows cut two long runners out of an old ruler, and collecting several pieces of wire, pulleys, and ropes they set out to move the skates.

First, the skates had to be pulled out of the wood house where they lay, and this took great deal of pulling and lifting, but after several hours of hard work the task was finally accomplished.

The runners were next fixed to one of the skates with the wire, and in a little time the Teenie Weenies started the heavy skate sliding over the soft snow.

Several of the little men pulled at a long rope, which was fastened to the front end of the skate, while the rest pushed.

It was slow work, for the skate was mighty heavy, but just-before dark on Christmas Eve the little Chaps brought the skate to the box car where the little boy lived.

The little fellows spent almost the whole night in bringing up the other skate, in fact, it was just getting light on Christmas morning when they pulled the skates up on the step before the box car door.

The Teenie Weenies were too tired and cold to wait and see the little boy find his skates, but Tilly was sitting on a tree near by and she saw it all.

"My dears!" cried the sparrow as she sat on the toe of the shoe house telling the Teenie Weenies how much joy their gift had brought to the little boy. "It would 'ave done your 'earts good to see that little fellow when 'e saw those skates on the door step. He just let out one yell and 'e gathered the skates up and ran into the house with 'em. I flew up on the window sill and there the little chap sat before the stove huggin' those skates to his breast and cryin' and laughin' at the same time. 'Is face sort of looked like the flowers when they 'ave the dew and the sunshine on 'em in the early morning."

Old Soldier Tells A Story – February 21st, 1915

"B-R-R-R, but it's cold out," said the Cowboy, as he shook the snow from his coat and hung it on the hook behind the teenie weenie door.

"Yes, sir, she's going to freeze pretty hard tonight," remarked the General.

"It's 15 below zero," added the Cook. "I looked at the thermometer just a few minutes ago."

"You don't say so," cried the Old Soldier. "That's the coldest it has been for a good many years. I remember about twenty years ago when it was 17 degrees below zero. I'll never forget that night. I was almost frozen to death."

"Tell us about it, tell us about it," cried several of the Teenie Weenies.

"Well," began the Old Soldier, as he lighted his teenie weenie pipe, "I was in the army at the time, and the captain sent me and three other men out to get some food. We were camped near a big house, and climbing up the steps we crawled under the door, and soon made our way to a cupboard.

"After a great deal of trouble we climbed to a shelf, and right in the middle of it stood a big pan of milk. We couldn't find any food where we were, but soon I crawled up on the edge of the pan, and saw over on the other side some cookies.

"I noticed the milk was frozen, and when I put my foot on the ice to see if' it would hold me, I found it was not strong enough. We couldn't get around the pan, as it stuck out over the edge of the shelf and touched the back of the cup board on the other side.

"'Say', yelled one of the men, 'there's a box of matches here. Why can't we make a raft out of them and float it across?'

"‘That's a great idea,' I cried. 'We'll do it.'

"Very soon we lashed several matches together with some thread I happened to have in my pocket, and, after much trouble, we got the raft onto the milk. Everything went all right until we got in the center of the pan, when we were suddenly caught in an ice jam. The raft was smashed, and it was the greatest wonder in the world we weren't all drowned. We managed to get out, and when we got back to camp our clothes were frozen to us, and we were as stiff as boards."

"How perfectly awful," cried the Lady of Fashion, with tears of sympathy in her lovely eyes.

"Yes, it was a pretty bad fix to be in, but we weren't really hurt," said the Old Soldier, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe.

"Well, we'd better all be going to bed," yawned the General. "Cook, you put the dog out in the woodshed - be sure he has plenty of straw tonight. I'll carry that sleepy headed Dunce up to bed."

Soon the teenie weenie house was quite dark, and all the Teenie Weenies were in the land of teenie weenie dreams.