4M THB KINO’S BUSINESS 1UN I O R KING' S BUS INESS Penny nnd the Christmas Star
By HELEN FRAZEE-BOWER
P ETER,” Penny c a l l e d Softly, “Are you asleep?” “Not yet.” •"What do you think we’ll get for Christmas?” “Oh, whatever we asked for, I sup pose. We usually do,” Peter answered. “ And we usually ask, too,” Penny added. “You know something, Peter? When Mother was reading the Bible tonight (you remember the place: ‘Now when Jesus was born in Bethle hem of Judea . . .’) I kept thinking about that first birthday of Jesus. They say we celebrate Christmas to honor His birth, but it seems as though we think more of ourselves than we do of Him.. When He was born, everyone came bringing Him gifts; now it seems like we get all the presents and nobody thinks of Him at all. It did make me a little ashamed. Did you feel ashamed too, Peter?” There was no answer, for Peter was sound asleep. Penny lay there look ing into the darkness of her quiet little room, but she was not afraid. Beyond the dark outline of the win dow frame, the sky was thick with stars, and their beauty grew until it filled all the darkness. There was one star, brighter and more beautiful than all the rest, that shone with such lus ter that it made a silvery path right down to her window sill. It was such a wonderful shining path, that Penny thought it would be great fun to walk upon it. But of course she couldn’t do
miles all around her and Penny walk ed between silver sand dunes. She did not know how long she had been traveling when she saw three men on camels coming across the sand. They drew up beside her and offered her a ride. Penny remembered how her mother had told her never to ride with strangers, but these men looked so wise and kind and, be sides, she had always wanted to ride on a camel! So before she knew it she was seated between two silvery humps on the lead camel and they were jog ging along over the desert sand. The men kept going on the shining path she had been following .and Penny was glad of that. She hated to turn away from the Star. “Where are you going?” she asked timidly of the man whose camel she was riding. “We are going to find the King.” “O-o-o-oh!” gasped Penny, “The King! Really? Where does He live?” "We do not know, but we have seen His Star in the east and we are on our way to worship Him.” “W ill I get to see Him, too?” asked Penny. “ Perhaps,” the man answered. “That depends.”
that, for she was just a little girl in her nightgown and it was Christmas Eve and she must go to sleep. But the Star kept smiling down at her and reaching its long fingers of light to her. Presently she reached out her own little fingers to meet his. They closed upon hers and she felt herself being drawn right through the win dow and out upon the shining path. The world was very, beautiful all around her. The trees wore silver leaves; the little birdhouse in the garden had silver gables; even the crimson berries on the holly bush by the gate were silver now. And in the midst of all these shining things, Pen ny walked down a silver path wher ever the Star led her. They passed Susan’s house, the post- office, and the school which she and Peter attended. (Penny was just get ting ready to stick her tongue out at it, when the Star looked down at her in such a knowing fashion that she closed her lips quickly and the Star winked at her as though it were saying, “Now that’s my good girl,” and they went on and on.) They passed everything that she had ever known; they walked far beyond the edge of the city, until they came, at last, to a great desert. It stretched for
“On what?” asked Penny.’ “On you—entirely on you.”
Penny wanted to ask him more but he seemed so serious and wise that she was afraid to bother him toe
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