They have all gone now, and the house is very still. For the first time
this evening I can hear the familiar sound of the December wind
blustering about the house, complaining at closed doorways, asking
questions at the shutters; but here in my room, under the green reading
lamp, it is warm and still. Although Harriet has closed the doors,
covered the coals in the fireplace, and said good-night, the atmosphere
still seems to tingle with the electricity of genial humanity.
The parting voice of the Scotch Preacher still booms in my ears:
"This," said he, as he was going out of our door, wrapped like an Arctic
highlander in cloaks and tippets, "has been a day of pleasant bread."
One of the very pleasantest I can remember!
I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd
into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.
As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through
the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me
unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:
"Why, this is Christmas Day!"
How the discovery makes one bound out of his bed! What a new sense of
life and adventure it imparts! Almost anything may happen on a day like
this--one thinks. I may meet friends I have not seen before in years.
Who knows? I may discover that this is a far better and kindlier world
than I had ever dreamed it could be.
[Illustration: "Merry Christmas, Harriet!"]
So I sing out to Harriet as I go down:
"Merry Christmas, Harriet"--and not waiting for her sleepy reply I go
down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then
I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around
the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted
snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and
it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily
with my wooden shovel, clearing out a pathway to the gate.
Cold, too; one of the coldest mornings we've had--but clear and very
still. The sun is just coming up over the hill near Horace's farm. From
Horace's chimney the white wood-smoke of an early fire rises straight
upward, all golden with sunshine, into the measureless blue of the
sky--on its way to heaven, for aught I know. When I reach the gate my
blood is racing warmly in my veins. I straighten my back, thrust my
shovel into the snow pile, and shout at the top of my voice, for I can
no longer contain myself:
"Merry Christmas, Harriet."
Harriet opens the door--just a crack.
"Merry Christmas yourself, you Arctic explorer! Oo--but it's cold!"
And she closes the door.
Upon hearing these riotous sounds the barnyard suddenly awakens. I hear
my horse whinnying from the barn, the chickens begin to crow and cackle,
and such a grunting and squealing as the pigs set up from behind the
straw stack, it would do a man's heart good to hear!
"It's a friendly world," I say to myself, "and full of business."
I plow through the snow to the stable door. I scuff and stamp the snow
away and pull it open with difficulty. A cloud of steam arises out of
the warmth within. I step inside. My horse raises his head above the
stanchion, looks around at me, and strikes his forefoot on the stable
floor--the best greeting he has at his command for a fine Christmas
morning. My cow, until now silent, begins to bawl.
I lay my hand on the horse's flank and he steps over in his stall to let
me go by. I slap his neck and he lays back his ears playfully. Thus I go
out into the passageway and give my horse his oats, throw corn and
stalks to the pigs and a handful of grain to Harriet's chickens (it's
the only way to stop the cackling!). And thus presently the barnyard is
quiet again except for the sound of contented feeding.
Take my word for it, this is one of the pleasant moments of life. I
stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction
how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look
up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn
crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with
its mow full of hay--all the gatherings of the year, now being expended
in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit
of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to
close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives.
All the morning as I went about my chores I had a peculiar sense of
expected pleasure. It seemed certain to me that something unusual and
adventurous was about to happen--and if it did not happen offhand, why I
was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you know
the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before
breakfast on a morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that
heaven still has gifts in store for you!)--when I went in to breakfast,
I fancied that Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just then
(hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the
best solvent of secrecy is patience.
"David," said Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
"No--well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extraordinary adventure was
about to happen!"
"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment--I was all ready for them."
"Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to
have the Scotch Preacher and his wife?"
"But I've got such a _good_ dinner."
"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it: it must be eaten! You
may depend upon me to do my duty."
"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in,"
said Harriet ruefully.
I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this
problem, but Harriet was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes
fixed reflectively on the coffeepot. I watched her for a moment, then I
remarked:
"There aren't any."
"David," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly
appreciated in my own household. You thought of highways, didn't you?
Then you thought of the poor; especially the poor on Christmas day; then
of Mrs. Heney, who isn't poor any more, having married John Daniels; and
then I said, 'There aren't any.'"
Harriet laughed.
"It has come to a pretty pass," she said "when there are no poor people
to invite to dinner on Christmas day."
"It's a tragedy, I'll admit," I said, "but let's be logical about it."
"I am willing," said Harriet, "to be as logical as you like."
"Then," I said, "having no poor to invite to dinner we must necessarily
try the rich. That's logical, isn't it?"
"Who?" asked Harriet, which is just like a woman. Whenever you get a
good healthy argument started with her, she will suddenly short-circuit
it, and want to know if you mean Mr. Smith, or Joe Perkins's boys, which
I maintain is _not_ logical.
"Well, there are the Starkweathers," I said.
"David!"
"They're rich, aren't they?"
"Yes, but you know how they live--what dinners they have--and besides,
they probably have a houseful of company."
"Weren't you telling me the other day how many people who were really
suffering were too proud to let anyone know about it? Weren't you
advising the necessity of getting acquainted with people and finding
out--tactfully, of course--you made a point of tact--what the trouble
was?"
"But I was talking of _poor_ people."
"Why shouldn't a rule that is good for poor people be equally as good
for rich people? Aren't they proud?"
"Oh, you can argue," observed Harriet.
"And I can act, too," I said. "I am now going over to invite the
Starkweathers. I heard a rumor that their cook has left them and I
expect to find them starving in their parlour. Of course they'll be very
haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
"Christmas," I said.
I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
as fail.'"
So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
was soft I strode through the drifts. And the air went to one's head
like wine!
So I tramped past the Pattersons'. The old man, a grumpy old fellow, was
going to the barn with a pail on his arm.
"Merry Christmas," I shouted.
He looked around at me wonderingly and did not reply. At the corners I
met the Newton boys so wrapped in tippets that I could see only their
eyes and the red ends of their small noses. I passed the Williams's
house, where there was a cheerful smoke in the chimney and in the window
a green wreath with a lively red bow. And I thought how happy everyone
must be on a Christmas morning like this! At the hill bridge who should
I meet but the Scotch Preacher himself, God bless him!
"Well, well, David," he exclaimed heartily, "Merry Christmas."