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Title: Christmas Outside of Eden Author: Coningsby Dawson Release Date: April 5, 2005 [EBook #15552] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS OUTSIDE OF EDEN ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
There, seated in the entrance to the cave,
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
the Man saw the Woman, but not the Woman as
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
he had left her.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Christmas Outside of Eden
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
BY Coningsby Dawson
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Author of "The Garden Without Walls," "Carry On," etc.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY Eugene Francis Savage
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
AND COMPANY 1922
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Copyright 1921, By DODD, MEAD
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
AND COMPANY, Inc. 1922
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Contents
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
ILLUSTRATIONS
There, seated in the entrance to
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
the cave, the Man saw the Woman, but not the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Woman as he had left her.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
God had given the Man and Woman no time to
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
pack. He had marched them beyond the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
walls and locked the golden gates of Eden
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
against them forever.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
The Man yawned. "I am still tired. Fetch the horse,
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that he may carry me back to my dwelling."
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
CHRISTMAS OUTSIDE OF EDEN
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
I
This is the story the robins tell as they
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huddle beneath the holly on the Eve of Christmas.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
They have told it every Christmas Eve since the world
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started. They commenced telling it long before
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Christ was born, for their memory goes
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
further back than men’s. The Christmas which they
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
celebrate began just outside of Eden, within sight
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
of its gold-locked doors.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
The robins have only two stories: one for
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Christmas and one for Easter. Their Easter
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
story is quite different. It has to do with how
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
they got the splash of red upon their breasts. It
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
was when God’s son was hanging on the cross.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
They wanted to do something to spare
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
him. They were too weak to pull out the nails from
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
his feet and hands; so they tore their little breasts in
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
plucking the thorns one by one from the crown that
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
had been set upon his forehead. Since then
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
God has allowed their breasts to remain red
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
as a
remembrance
of His gratitude.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
But their Christmas story happened long
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
before, when they weren’t robin red-breasts
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
but only robins. It is a merry, tender sort of story.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
children. If you prefer to hear it first-hand, creep out
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
to the nearest holly-bush on almost any
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
pale and shadowy. If the robins have chosen
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
your holly-bush as their rendezvous and you
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
understand their language, you won’t need to
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
read what I have written. Like all true stories, it is
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
much better told than read. It’s the story of the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
first laugh that was ever heard in earth or heaven. To
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
be enjoyed properly it needs the chuckling twitter of
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
the grown-up robins and the squeaky
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
interruptions
of the baby birds asking questions.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
When they get terrifically excited, they jig up
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
and down on the
holly-branches
and the frozen
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
snow falls with a brittle clatter. Then the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
mother and father birds say, "Hush!" quite
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
suddenly. No one speaks for a full five seconds.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
They huddle closer, listening and holding
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
their breath. That’s how the story ought to be
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
heard, after night-fall on Christmas Eve, when behind
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
darkened windows little boys and girls have gone
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
to bed early, having hung up their very
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
biggest stockings. Of course I can’t tell it that way on
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paper, but I’ll do my best to repeat the precise
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
words in which the robins tell it.
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II
It was very long ago at the beginning
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of all wonders. Sun, moon and stars were new;
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
they wandered about in the clouds uncertainly,
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
calling to one another like ships in a fog. It was
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
the same on earth; neither trees, nor rivers, nor
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
animals were quite sure why they had been
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
created or what was expected of them. They were
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
terribly afraid of doing wrong and they had
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
good reason, for the Man and Woman
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had done wrong and had been locked out of Eden.
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That had happened in April, when the world was
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
three months old. Up to that time everything
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had gone very well. No one had known what fear
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
was. No one had guessed that anything
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existed outside the walls of Eden or that there
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
was such a thing as
wrong-doing.
Animals, trees and
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
rivers had lived together with the Man and
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the Woman in the high-walled garden as a happy
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
family. If they had wanted to know anything,
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they had asked the Man; he had always given them
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answers, even though he had to invent
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
them. They had never dreamt of doubting him—not
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even the Woman. The reason for this had been God.
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Every afternoon God had come stepping
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
down from the sky to walk with the Man through the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
sun-spangled
shadows of the grassy paths. They had
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
heard the kindly rumble of His voice like distant
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
thunder and the little tones of the Man as he
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
asked his questions. At six o’clock regularly
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
God had shaken hands with the Man and
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
climbed leisurely back up the sky-blue stairs that
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
led to Heaven. Because of this the Man had
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gained a reputation among the animals for being wise.
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They had thought of him as God’s friend. He
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
had given orders to
everybody—even
to the Woman; and
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
everyone had been proud to obey him.
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It had been in April the great change
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
had occurred. There had been all kinds of
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
rumours. The first that had been suspected
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
had been when God had failed to come for His
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
customary walk; the next had been when He had
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arrived with His face hidden in anger. The trees of
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Eden had bent and clashed as if a strong wind were
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
blowing. Everything living that was not rooted, had
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
run away to hide.
Nevertheless,
when God had called
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
to the Man, they had tiptoed nearer to listen. The
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trouble had seemed to be about some fruit. God had
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
told the Man that he must not pluck it; he had not
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
only plucked it, but had eaten of it. So had the
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Woman. It had seemed a small matter to
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make such a fuss about. They had supposed
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
that God’s anger would soon blow over and that
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
everything would be again as friendly as before.
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God had given the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Man and Woman no time to pack. He had
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
marched them beyond the walls and locked the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
golden gates of Eden against them
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
forever. And so everything might have been had it
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
not been for the Man. Instead of saying he
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
was sorry, he had started to argue and blame the
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Woman. At that God had refused to speak with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
him longer. He had ordered the Man and Woman
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
and all the animals to leave Eden
immediately.
He had
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given them no time to pack. Lining them up like
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
soldiers, He had numbered them to make
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certain that none were missing and then, with the
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Man and Woman leading, had marched
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
them beyond the walls and locked the golden
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
gates of Eden against them forever.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
Since then all had been privation and
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas Outside of Eden, by Coningsby Dawson.
confusion. The animals, from regarding
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The P..."
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