HE was just discouraged, and that was the whole of it. He sat close to the stove, leaned his ragged elbow on his knee, and his cheek on a rather sooty hand, and gave himself up to troubled thought, the two books which had slipped from him, lying unheeded on the floor.

Let them lie there; what was the use in trying to study? Here was the third evening this week that he had been held, after hours, when he wanted to go to the night school and find out how to do that example! He might just as well give up first as last.

There was a loud stamping outside, and the door of the little flag station burst open, letting in a rush of spiteful winter air.

“Halloo!” said a boy of about fourteen, muffled to his eyes in fur.

“Halloo yourself,” said the boy by the stove, without changing his position more than was necessary to glance up.

“Has the six o’clock freight gone down yet?”

“Not as I know of; I wish she would be about it; I’ve been waiting on her now an hour after time.”

“Lucky for me she is behind, though; I guess I can catch a ride into town on her, can’t I? I’ve been out to Windmere, and missed the five o’clock mail; I set out to foot it, but it is rather rough walking against this wind; especially when you have to walk on ice. I’d rather be toted in on the freight, than to try it. Do you suppose they will give me a lift?”

“You can sit down and wait, and try for it, if you like,” and the boy glanced toward a three-legged stool.

“I’d give you this chair only it hasn’t any bottom,” he said, with a dreary attempt at a smile.

“The stool is all right. Do you have to wait every night for the freight?”

“No; not much oftener than every other night; it isn’t my business to wait at all, but as often as three times a week the fellow in charge wants me to do that, or something else, after I’m off duty.”

“So you fill up the time with reading; that’s a good idea. What have you here?”

The visitor stooped and picked up the fallen books.

“Arithmetic and History! You are studying, eh? Well, now, I call that industrious. Where do you go to school?”

“Nowhere. I pretend to go to the evening class at the Twenty-third Street Station, and sometimes I get there twice in the week, and sometimes only once. It’s a discouraging kind of studying. I’ve been after one example for two weeks and can’t get it.”

“Whereabouts are you? Ho! that old fellow; I remember him. I can show you about it, there’s just a mean little catch to it; but you’ve done well to get so far along.”

Then the two heads bent over the book, and over the row of figures on the margin of a freight bill; and presently the face of the discouraged boy lighted with a smile; he saw through the “catch.” Then there was a little talk between the two.

Ralph Westwood learned that the boy was an orphan; was working at the freight depot beyond his strength and on very small pay, because times were hard, and boys plenty; that he had a little sister in the Orphans’ Home, and the ambition of his life was to learn, and become a scholar, and earn money to support the little sister. He went to school regularly while mother lived, and worked between times to help support himself; and mother wanted him to be a scholar, and thought it was in him, but she had been dead for two years, and things were growing worse with him, and sometimes he was discouraged.

Then the freight came, and Ralph Westwood caught his ride into town, and had only time to say:—

“Don’t give it up, Charlie; who knows what may happen? Christmas is coming.”

“Christmas!” said Charlie to himself with a bitter smile; what could that bring to him but more work, because of an extra train, and late hours and scanty fare, and not even time to run up to the “Home” and see little Nell? Didn’t he remember how it was last Christmas?

As for Ralph Westwood he waited only to brush the snow from his clothes, and wash away the stains of soot from his hands, which must have been left when he shook hands with Charlie, then he sought a handsome library where a gentleman sat reading. Here he did not even wait to reply to the cordial “Good evening!” which greeted him, save as his polite bow was a reply, then he dashed into business. “Uncle Ralph! I have found your boy for you.”

“Indeed! that is quick work! Where did you find him?”

“I blundered on him; the very one. I didn’t know why I should have missed the five o’clock train, and he didn’t know why he should have to do overwork to-night. I hope we shall both have a glorious reason why it worked out before our eyes.”

Then he drew a low chair in front of the lovely grate fire, and told his story.

That was three weeks before Christmas. A great deal can be done in three weeks. Ralph Westwood and his Uncle Ralph did a great deal, and, at the end of the time, knew almost more about Charlie Watson than he knew of himself.

The end of it all, or, more properly speaking, the beginning of it all, came to Charlie on Christmas eve: an invitation to Dr. Westwood’s elegant home, to meet seven boys, all of whom were in the Sabbath-school class which Charlie had just joined.

I wish I had time to tell you about the dinner-table to which they all sat down. Roast turkey, of course, and cranberry sauce, and chicken-pie, and jellies and tarts, and all the elegancies of an elegant dinner, the like of which none of them had ever seen before. At each plate was a bouquet of roses. Think of roses at Christmas, for eight hard-working, homeless boys!

Some people might think they didn’t like those roses with all their hearts; but some people don’t understand some boys. Slipped into each bouquet was a slip of paper which said on it “Merry Christmas!” in beautiful writing, and then followed wonderful things. One paper was a receipt for a year’s house rent, for one of the boys who lived with his mother, and had hard work to meet the landlord’s agent each month. Another had an order on a certain tailor for a full suit of clothes, such as it could be plainly seen he very much needed: every one had something. When Charlie Watson read his, he turned red and pale by turns, and stammered and trembled, and knew not what to say.

It was longer than the others, and it took him some time to understand it all; but at last he made out that he was to enter the Fort Street Grammar School as a pupil, on the Tuesday after New Year’s, and that his home was to be at Dr. Westwood’s office, which he was expected to keep in order, in return for his board and clothes.

What an amazing chance had come to him! Do you wonder that he trembled and stammered?

But, after all, I don’t know that he was any happier than Ralph Westwood, who hovered about him in great satisfaction, and in one of the pauses of his duties as assistant host, found a chance to murmur, “I say, Charlie, aren’t you rather glad the six o’clock freight was late, that night?”