Kris

“ He made a pretty picture in his white shirt, brown knee-breeches, and little bare legs, the yellow [27] locks about his shoulders, the rapier in his hand, alert and quite fearless.
He Made A Pretty Picture—Alert and Quite Fearless.
"My sister thinks perhaps you are a wobber, sir; but I think you are Mr. Khwis Kwingle."
"Yes, I am Kris Kringle to-night, and you see I know your names—Alice, Hugh." His cloak fell from him, and he stood smiling, a handsome Chris. "Do not be afraid. Be sure I love little children. Come, let us talk a bit."
"It's all wite, Alice," said the boy. ”

“ She smiled on him through tears—rare things for her. "Every one must bear his own troubles, Hugh. You couldn't help me. You couldn't know, dear, what to burn."
"But I know," said the girl, decisively. "I know. I had a letter once; but Hugh never had a letter. I wish Kris Kringle would take them away this very, very night; and [13] lessons, too, I do. What will he bring us for Christmas, mamma? I know what. I want"—
"A Kris Kringle to take away troubles would suit me well, Alice; I could hang up a big stocking." ”

“ A thing like that doesn’t want any poison upon it.”
“But krises are poisoned.”
“I never saw one that was, and father says he never did. He has asked several of the big men here about them, and they always laugh and say it is nonsense; that the only poison in them is given by a good strong arm. Everybody wears a kris here,” he continued, as he returned the weapon to his waistband. “Perhaps old Jamjah will give you one.”
“I don’t want one,” said Ned. ”

“ There isn’t a wan among ’em as knows the vartue of a bit o’ blackthorn, but they handle their shpears dangerously, and ivery man’s got his nasty ugly skewer in his belt—you know, his kris—and it’s out wid it, and ructions before ye know where ye are.”
“Yes; I saw that every man had his kris,” said Ned, thoughtfully. “But can you stay and look after the boat?” ”

“ Be smart, before it gets dark. I have been watching this ’ere chap for a hour. He has been nodding off to sleep all the time, and now he’s off sound.”
“What of that?”
“Kris, sir,” said the lad; and crossing the floor of the great building, he climbed cleverly up to the thatch and passed out, and Archie heard a faint rustling, and then sat listening in the dark till, after what seemed to be an impossibly short space of time, the rustling began again, and a few minutes afterwards Peter, panting heavily, dropped down on his knees by the subaltern’s side. ”

“ All the same, though, my dear, I should be glad to see you go home.”
“You would, Mrs Smithers?”
“Yes, my dear, for I don’t think it’s nice for English womenkind to be out here amongst these betel-chewing, half-black people, going about in their cotton and silk plaid sarongs, as they call them, and every man with one of those nasty ugly krises stuck in his waist. Krises I suppose they call them because they keep them rolled-up in the creases of their Scotch kilt things. I often lie in bed of a night feeling thankful that I have got a good, big, strong husband to take care of me, bad as he is. ”

“ The name of the good genius who presides over toys and sugar plums was often on my lips, but oftener on the lips of the children.
"Who is Kriss Kringle, mamma?" asked a pair of rosy lips, close to my ear, as I stood at the kitchen table, rolling out and cutting cakes.
I turned at the question, and met the earnest gaze of a couple of bright eyes, the roguish owner of which had climbed into a chair for the purpose of taking note of my doings.
I kissed the sweet lips, but did not answer.
"Say, mamma? Who is Kriss Kringle?" persevered the little one. ”

“ Crawford, when they returned to the sitting-room after lunch, “if I’m to tell stories all day, you certainly should do something, too; it isn’t fair for me to do all the work.”
“I will,” said Kristy laughing; “I’ll listen.”
“Do you call that work?” asked her mother.
“N—o!” said Kristy, thinking a moment. “Well, I’ll tell you! I’ll get my knitting;” and she ran out of the room and in a minute or two came back with some wool and needles with a very little strip of knitting, all done up in a clean towel. ”

“ Ever since, they have dated from the time when they found out who Kriss Kringle was. It is all to no purpose that we pleasantly suggest the possibility of their having dreamed of what they allege to have occurred under their actual vision ”

“ And for mamma too, and for papa, cos we's all good little chillen, if we is poor. Yes, indeed, Ole Kriss is coming with his reindeer. And he'll bring me a horse with pink shoes on; and you'll have a piano—a really piano, ye know; and mamma, she'll have two little glass s'ippers, and—and—"
"OLE KRISS IS COMING WITH HIS REINDEER."
Little Scrubby stopped chattering just there, and laid her head down on poor old Lucy's kind bosom. ”

“ Of course I have tried my best to find her parents, for, if living, they must be nearly crazy about her.”
“Surely they must,” said Mrs. Crawford; “she is a darling.”
“Well!” interrupted Uncle Tom, looking at his watch, “time is passing; is Kristy to have her story?”
With a smile at his pretended anxiety, Kate began.
CHAPTER XVI HOW KATE FOUND A BABY I had been spending the winter, as you know, with my sister in San Francisco, going to school, and I was expecting to come home in a few days when the thing happened. ”

“ He projected his thoughts beyond the immediate future to the bright burning of the Oholo System, the atomic prairie fire skipping from sun to sun at the core, leaving the planets ashes—while isolated, the periphery worlds would one by one capitulate to Knoug power, to Knoug will, and become infected with Destiny. ”

“ Walt was outside the ship. His feet planted firmly, he waited. The four advancing mutants were not yet adjusted to the space disorientation. Behind them, the tip of the Washington Monument loomed starkly white above the trees.
Walt's anger rose to an even greater fury. He knew how Julia had felt as a child: the hot, impotent flare of rage; the senseless desire to throw something; to smash and destroy something; to disprove helplessness by some savage action. ”

“ The ground fell away and Parr was on his way to Denver.
Almost immediately, with the pressure still on his mind but fading swiftly, he fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed of treason, while, in the background ominous clouds shifted and gathered to darken the sun of his native planet. Finally, all was a starless black except for half-forgotten faces which paraded before him, telling his treason with hissing tongues in words he could not quite grasp the meaning of.
The air of Denver was clear and bright—crystal clear, drawing in the mountains, opening up the sky like a bent back box top. ”

“ He wanted to explain how the frontier does things to people. He wanted to explain how society is a tight little box that keeps everything locked up and hidden, but how society breaks down and becomes fluid in the stars, and how people explode and forget what they learned in civilization, and how everything is unstable. ”

“ This he wanted to say to Hertha: No matter how far you go, the thing that gets you is that there's nothing that cares; no matter how far, the thing is that nothing cares; the thing is that nothing cares. ”

“ Neju toyed with a new grass shoot, rubbing it between his fingers. He rumbled deep in his chest to break the silence. "We must move further into the forest. Wait for the god-men and the demons to go away. We cannot fight." ”

“ They hurried, and dry things rustled and startled animals fled. From time to time they grunted at each other, more for encouragement, more as protest against the tangle of vines than for communication. ”

“ The streets were empty except for their car and a turret-like Mobile Sweeper whose gutter broom whispered against the curb. A light here and there in a window heralded the end of sleep. A lone car crossed at an intersection ahead, moving slowly as if fatigued by a night-long vigil.
The sun seemed reluctant to plunge the world into daylight; it balanced on the horizon in indecision. The moon was high and tiny and rode the growing blueness with a ghostlike pallor.
Herb, leaning forward tensely, thought: Suppose Bud isn't there? Suppose he's somewhere else?
"Turn left up here," Norma said. ”

“ Neju began to speak. He spoke slowly. "I have just seen the god-men chase and kill. They are controlled by demons that cannot be appeased. One has only to hear them—the hate in their voices—to know." He swallowed and looked around at the green brilliant foliage and listened to the life movements in the trees. "I said that we should move away into the forest.... But now.... I cannot think like a demon, but I somehow see that ... unlike the Old Gods ... the demons will not leave us to the world in peace. They are creatures of hate, who will hunt us out, little by little, and destroy us all...." ”

“ The neat, clean houses, set in the forest at intervals, individual proud flower beds a dot in the smooth, close cropped lawns. The sky, bright blue with sunset on the horizon (through the trees) gold and purple, and the air, clean, perfumery. Adults moved around their homes, puttering in the gardens, mending the tiny spots where mending was required; their faces were bright eyed, young, peaceful, but wise with the wisdom of experience.
"We're a lot alike," Clyde said after a while. ”

“ Then he wanted to explain the surge, the restlessness of the men at the frontier. Different men, he thought; from the womb of civilization, but unlike their brothers. The men who pushed out and out. Searching, always searching. He was afraid to find out if their reasons were the same as his. For himself, he had seen a thousand planets and a thousand new life-forms. ”

“ Norma insisted.
"Norma," Bud said. "You know how I feel about you. You know I'd do anything in the world for either of you. Anything within my power. All you need do is ask. Money, anything. But this ... this.... We're proud. Mankind is proud." His heart swelled with the beauty of renunciation and righteousness. "We're too proud, too independent, too free. I would not be willing to sacrifice those great, eternal truths, those historic principles that are the foundation of our way of life, that have made America great: dignity, pride, self reliance...." ”

“ Dimly, persistently, doggedly, stubbornly the ego, the self—that small spark of assertiveness and awareness—struggled to arrange and order, to reason and make sense of—to unify and master—the knowledge it possessed. ”

“ She was tired; but out of the exhaustion, the weariness, the fatigue, she suddenly realized with startling clarity, like the chime of a great, flawless bell, ringing hope and promise: That it will come; the next development of man will come, lies waiting in the future (near or far) to be born, to be born: will come. ”

“ Neju said. "If it is what you wish, I will lead you."
"We only do what we must," one said.
Neju looked them over carefully. "We will eat, and then we will leave. We will travel to the village of the god-men. Each of you will bring an instrument upon which to make noise to frighten the demons and hearten the god-men." ”

“ Neju considered this gravely.
"We must give the god-men heart," the native continued. "They must take courage from us. Together with the god-men, we can defeat the demons. If the Old Gods do not help us, the god-men must."
Neju still listened; only his arms moved, restlessly.
"First we must show the god-men that we are not afraid of demons."
Neju waited.
"All of us, children, females, the old, all, must go toward their village, beating drums, crying encouragement. We must show no fear. The god-men will take heart." ”

“ Parr watched them go by and then at a short distance swung in behind them. He touched the focus weapon in his right hand pocket, a crystal-like disk with one side tapering to a central point. It was a short-range weapon, palm aimed, fired with an equally exerted pressure on the lateral sides.
Even with his mind closed Parr could catch ripples of Oholo thought: amusement, sympathy, appreciation. For a moment he was afraid that he had been mistaken somehow, for again there was the elusiveness, an unreality he could not account for in terms of the situation. ”

“ George went down and the starman stepped across him to the control panel. His resentment had been accumulating for a life time. He had just sabotaged two ships and sent his fellow starmen to death at the orders of the Oligarch; and he must have known (even if he told himself otherwise) that he, too, would not return to Brionimar: that alone of all who had been on the surface of Earth, the Oligarch would survive. But even in this knowledge, he had still remained loyal, caught like Herb, like his whole civilization, by the specter of chaos and held helpless. ”

“ She wanted to say, "Look, Clyde, let's just go on laughing like we have been. Let's laugh and laugh. And not talk very much. Not about things like death. I like you when you're a little boy and laughing. I'm afraid of you when you're a man and not laughing." But she said, "It's nice today, don't you think so?" ”

“ Clyde's mother bent forward. "Why don't you admit you're as old as I am?" she said.
"No, no, no," Margy moaned. "I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!"
"Now, now...."
"Let me alone!" Margy said. "Let me alone!" She felt life flow back into her empty body. "Why won't you ever let me alone?"
Mr. Hershey pushed a button.
"I don't hurt you," Margy said. And her eyes were wild, now, and her mouth twisted in shame and anguish. "I don't hurt anybody." She began to sob. "Please," she choked. "I just want to be young. That's all right, isn't it, to want to be young? That's all I want. Honest, that's all." ”