John Norton the trapper is sitting alone in a log cabin lit only by firelight. He is reading an old Bible and has come across the part where the imminent birth of Jesus is announced by the angels. His only company is two hound dogs who are sitting by the fire with him. He reads the well-known passage to the hounds and then says to them, "Pups, this be Christmas Eve, and I sartinly trust ye be grateful fur the comforts ye have."

Excerpt from How John Norton the Trapper, Kept His Christmas A cabin. A cabin in the woods. In the cabin a great fireplace piled high with logs, fiercely ablaze. On either side of the broad hearth-stone a hound sat on his haunches, looking gravely, as only a hound in a meditative mood can, into the glowing fire. In the centre of the cabin, whose every nook and corner was bright with the ruddy firelight, stood a wooden table, strongly built and solid. At the table sat John Norton, poring over a book, - a book large of size, with wooden covers bound in leather, brown with age, and smooth as with the handling of many generations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.