Penny and the Christmas Star/ by Helen Vrazee-Bower
“ O-o-o-h!” 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.” Penny wanted to ask him more but he seemed so serious and wise that she was afraid to bother him too much. He and his companions all seemed to be carrying packages and finally she became brave enough to ask him what they were. “ Gifts for the King,” he answered. “Mine is gold and the other two are frankincense and myrrh.” “ Can’t you see the King without presents?” asked Penny. “ No doubt, no doubt. But I should not want to go before Him empty-handed. Should you?” Penny thought a moment. “ Then I had better get down and not go any farther,” she said, “ I haven’t any present.” “As you like; but you could find one, you know.” “ Could I really? Where? Would you wait while I look?” “ No,” the Wise Man answered, “ I couldn’t do that. 1 must be on my way.” “ But could you tell me where to look?” asked Penny, wistfully. “No, I couldn’t do that either. Each one must find his own gift.” “Well, let me down then,” said Penny, “ and I will start looking.” As the man lifted her down from the camel he said gently, “There is nothing so golden as the heart of a little child,” and he rode away. As the second Wise Man passed, holding his present of frankincense, he leaned down from his camel as he whispered. “ There is no incense sweeter than a little girl’s prayer,” and he too was gone. The third Wise Man looked at her for a very long time indeed. “My gift of myrrh is valuable,” he said, “ But there is nothing so precious as obedience.” He smiled at her, and then he departed with the other two. Penny stood alone in the starry silence of the desert and thought, and thought. She longed very much to find a gift for the King, but she wanted to see her mother, too. She remembered what the last man had said about obedi ence, and she had come away from home without telling her mother. She turned about and started back. “ They must be far away by now,” she said, thinking of the Wise Men as she hurried along. “And I suppose I shall never see them again. I did so wish to find a gift for the King and go with them to take it to Him. But I shall never see the King now.” Suddenly she felt a hand upon her shoulder. And she looked up to see if, after all, the Wise Men had returned. But they hadn’t. The face she was gazing into was more wise and more tender than any. She was looking into the face of her best Friend. “Why, it’s You!” Penny said, and slipped her hand into the hand of Jesus. “Happy Birthday!” “ Don’t you mean ‘Merry Christmas’ ?” another familiar voice asked, with a laugh. Penny opened her eyes slowly, (Continued on page 45) “ On what?” asked Penny. “ On you— entirely on you.”
e t e r ,” Penny called softly, “Are you asleep?” “Not yet.” “What do you think we’ll get for Christmas?” “ Oh, whatever we asked for, I suppose. 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 bom in Bethlehem of Judea . . I kept thinking about that first birthday of Jesus. They say we celebrate Christ mas to honor His birth, but it seems as though we think more of ourselves than we do of Him. When He was bom, 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 looking into the darkness of her quiet little room, but she was not afraid. Beyond the dark out line of the window 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 luster 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 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 window and out upon the shining path. The world was very beautiful all around her. The trees wore silver leaves; the little birdhouses 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, Penny walked down a silver path wherever the star led her. They passed Susan’s house, the post office, and the school which she and Peter attended. (Penny was just getting 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 miles all around her and Penny walked between silver sand dunes. She did not know how long she had been traveling when she saw some 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, besides, 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 jogging along 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.”
DECEMBER, 1959
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