And this, if you have but little,
Is what I would say to you:
Make all you can of that little
Do all the good you can do.

And though your gifts may be humble,
Let no little child, I pray,

Find only an empty stocking

On the morn of the Christmas Day!

We hung up our stockings together,

My brother Joe and I;

I hung mine in the chimney corner,
And Joe hung his close by.

But when we got up in the morning,
Joe found, to his surprise,

That his stocking held a large wax doll
With curls and sweet brown eyes.

A set of nice china tea dishes,

And silver thimble, too;

Joe said: "Well, this is the strangest thing! Santa must think I'm you."

The gifts that I found by my stocking
Were all things for a boy.

A drum, a trumpet, a chest of tools,
And a steam engine toy.

We thought it was very strange indeed,

My brother Joe and I;

And we could not quite make up our minds Whether to laugh or cry.

But mamma said we'd better exchange

And Santa would not mind.

She said he was getting very old
And just a little blind.

Then papa said, "I made a mistake,"
And mamma said, "Hush! dear."

But papa said, "I turned off the gas;
"I'll leave it on next year."

But next time we hang up our stockings

I'll put our names to show

Which of the stockings belongs to me

And which to brother Joe.

Louisa May Alcott has made her name dear to all boys and girls who like to read good stories. She is the children's favorite author. Millions have read her stories and have been made better by reading them.

I am sure you will be glad to see her sweet, kindly face, and to learn something about this charming woman, who has written so many delightful stories for children.

One morning, when she was a very little girl, she looked up from the breakfast table, and said:

"I love everybody in this whole world."

She used to feed her dolls, send them to school, give them medicine when they were sick, and punish them when they were bad.

She was very fond of pets, and she always had cats, dogs, and birds around her. She nursed them when they were sick, and when they died she dug graves for them and buried them with great ceremony.

When she was a little girl, she used to sit for hours at a time looking at pictures and making up stories about them. Her father was her teacher. He was a good man and a good teacher. But he was not successful in making money. He was poor, and was often in debt.

In one of her letters, she says: "In summer we lived much as the birds did, on our fruit and bread and milk. The sun was our fire, and the sky our roof. But the best of the dear old fairy stories made the reading hour the pleasantest of the day."

The greater part of her life was spent in Concord, Massachusetts. Her home there was very pleasant, for the yard was full of trees and flowers, and the house was large and roomy. And best of all, there was a big barn back of the house, where the children played merry games. Up in the loft a stage was built on which the children acted "Cinderella," " Cinderella," "Jack and the Beanstalk," and other plays, which Louisa arranged for them from the stories she had heard or read.

Sometimes they dressed up in all sorts of curious