ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE POITER
It's Christmas Eve in Hollywood, and a child star has a
wonderful secret to share with her friend Henry
TO
COME UNTO
ME
By ROBERT NATHAN
Author of "Portrait of Jennie"
"Let's pray," Lettice told Henry, certain that she knew who the baby was.
That year there were very few
houses for rent anywhere, and peo
ple lived wherever they could. Only the
rich were able to buy an entire house,
with wood and plaster walls, a rose
garden, and a bathroom.
Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve both rich and
poor enjoyed the spirit of the season; for the
rich gave each other gifts,' and the poor were
delighted with the sight of the Christinas trees
which, painted white, blue, and even green, and
decorated with colored lights, twinkled every
where along the public highways.
At the house of a very famous man a party
was in progress. Since this man was the presi
dent of a motion-picture studio, his guests were
for the most part motion-picture actors and
actresses, which is to. say that they were the
most beautiful and famous people in the world.
This did not make them as happy as might have
been expected ; and they joined in the singing of
Christmas carols with hearts no less lonely and
empty than those of poor people who also wished
to be loved.
Among these famous and beautiful people,
were two children, Henry and Lettice. Every
body in the world knew what they looked
like, what they talked like, what their favorite
games were, what they wore, and what they
liked to eat. But what no one knew was what
was in their hearts because their hearts were
the hearts of children.
And so, while the fiddles scraped, while the
great singers sang, and while the footmen passed
about among the guests with glasses of cham
pagne and punch and little sandwiches in the
shape of snowflakes and crescent moons and
gingersnaps for the children, Lettice went tip
toeing to Henry in one corner of the great room
and asked him, "What are you doing?"
To which Henry replied, "Nothing."
However, nothing to a child is so crowded
with dreams as nothing. And so, when Lettice
said, "I know a wonderful secret," Henry fol
lowed her out of the room and down the long
hall and out into the garden, prepared for all
the beautiful things without a name which he
had been dreaming about.
But all he saw at the end of the garden was a
kind of stable, with a little light over the door.
"I don't think that's so wonderful," he said.
"That's because you don't know," said Lettice.
"Don't know what?" asked Henry.
IN answer, Lettice opened the door of the
stable. And there, lying in a crib made of an
old manger, was a baby.
"Now what do you think?" said Lettice tri
umphantly. "I don't think it's wonderful at all."
"Do you think maybe it's Baby Jesus?" asked
Lettice.
"I don't know," said Henry. "I never saw it
before."
"I wish it was Baby Jesus," said Lettice, "be
cause then we could pray."
"You can pray if you want to," said Henry,
"on account of you wouldn't know who it was
till afterward anyhow."
"I can say Now-I lay me' and the Lord's
Prayer," said Lettice.
"All right," said Henry. "I don't mind."
So the two children knelt on the floor of the
tool shed, in front of the baby, whose father
and mother, having no other place to live at the
moment, were helping the cook at the big house
wash dishes in return for a place to stay.
"Our Father which art in Heaven," said Let
tice. "Hallowed be Thy name . . ."
AND all around them as they knelt, the invis
ible air was peopled with the unseen faces of
the past, with saints and captains, beggars and
kings, with the smiling children, the dreaming
children into whose hands, year after year, God
had delivered His world, into whose hearts, end
lessly renewed, He had put His love, into whose
keeping He had given His Son.
For it is in the hands of the children that all
things are placed, both good and evil, the poem
and the sword, the knowledge of distant worlds,
the hope of peace, and the fruitfulness of earth.
"I pray the Lord my soul to keep."
In the big house they sang "O Little Star of
Bethlehem," and Lettice's mother and Henry's
father wondered where they were. And in the
kitchen the two new helpers smiled at each
other across the soapy water. They did not ex
pect very much for their child. Perhaps he
might grow up to be a good carpenter.
Excerpted from "Stories of Christ ond Christmas," edited by Edward Wogeaknecht, 1963; used by permission of David McKay Co.
COVER:
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