CHAPTER I.

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CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY.

[Illustration: DAILY BREAD.--PAGE 120.]

CHRISTMAS EVE

AND

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Ten Christmas Stories.

BY EDWARD E. HALE,

AUTHOR OF "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," ETC.

_WITH ILLUSTRATION BY F. O. C. DARLEY_.

BOSTON:

ROBERTS BROTHERS.

1873.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by

EDWARD E. HALE,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

PREFACE.

This is a collection of ten Christmas Stories, some of which have been

published before. I have added a little essay, written on the occasion

of the first Christmas celebrated by the King of Italy in Rome.

The first story has never before been published.

It is but fair to say that I have not drawn on imagination for Laura's

night duty, alone upon her island. This is simply the account of what a

brave New-England woman did, under like circumstances, because it was

the duty next her hand.

If any reader observes a resemblance between her position and that of a

boy in another story in this volume, I must disarm censure, by saying,

that she had never heard of him when she was called to this duty, and

that I had never heard of her when I wrote his story.

E. E. H.

CONTENTS.

THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT 1

CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON 40

ALICE'S CHRISTMAS-TREE 74

DAILY BREAD 98

STAND AND WAIT 140

THE TWO PRINCES 188

THE STORY OF OELLO 205

LOVE IS THE WHOLE 218

CHRISTMAS AND ROME 232

THE SURVIVOR'S STORY 238

THE SAME CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW 263

THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

ANOTHER GENERATION.

"Here he comes! here he comes!"

"He" was the "post-rider," an institution now almost of the past. He

rode by the house and threw off a copy of the "Boston Gazette." Now the

"Boston Gazette," of this particular issue, gave the results of the

drawing of the great Massachusetts State Lottery of the Eastern Lands in

the Waldo Patent.

Mr. Cutts, the elder, took the "Gazette," and opened it with a smile

that pretended to be careless; but even he showed the eager anxiety

which they all felt, as he tore off the wrapper and unfolded the fatal

sheet. "Letter from London," "Letter from Philadelphia," "Child with two

heads,"--thus he ran down the columns of the little page,--uneasily.

"Here it is! here it is!--Drawing of the great State Lottery. 'In the

presence of the Honourable Treasurer of the Commonwealth, and of their

Honours the Commissioners of the Honourable Council,--was drawn

yesterday, at the State House, the first distribution of

numbers'----here are the numbers,--'First combination, 375-1. Second,

421-7. Third, 591-6. Fourth, 594-1. Fifth,'"--and here Mr. Cutts started

off his feet,--"'Fifth, 219-7.' Sybil, my darling! it is so! 219-7! See,

dear child! 219-7! 219-7! O my God! to think it should come so!"

And he fairly sat down, and buried his head in his hands, and cried.

The others, for a full minute, did not dare break in on excitement so

intense, and were silent; but, in a minute more, of course, little

Simeon, the youngest of the tribes who were represented there, gained

courage to pick up the paper, and to spell out again the same words

which his father had read with so much emotion; and, with his sister

Sally, who came to help him, to add to the store of information, as to

what prize number 5--219-7--might bring.

For this was a lottery in which there were no blanks. The old

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, having terrible war debts to pay after

the Revolution, had nothing but lands in Maine to pay them with. Now

lands in Maine were not very salable, and, if the simple and ordinary

process of sale had been followed, the lands might not have been sold

till this day. So they were distributed by these Lotteries, which in

that time seemed gigantic. Every ticket-holder had some piece of land

awarded to him, I think,--but to the most, I fear, the lands were hardly

worth the hunting up, to settle upon. But, to induce as many to buy as

might, there were prizes. No. 1, I think, even had a "stately mansion"

on the land,--according to the advertisement. No. 2 had some special

water-power facilities. No. 5, which Mr. Cutts's ticket had drawn, was

two thousand acres on Tripp's Cove,--described in the programme as that

"well-known Harbor of Refuge, where Fifty Line of Battle Ship could lie

in safety." To this cove the two thousand acres so adjoined that the

programme represented them as the site of the great "Mercantile

Metropolis of the Future."

Samuel Cutts was too old a man, and had already tested too critically

his own powers in what the world calls "business," by a sad satire, to

give a great deal of faith to the promises of the prospectus, as to the

commercial prosperity of Tripp's Cove. He had come out of the Revolution

a Brigadier-General, with an honorable record of service,--with

rheumatism which would never be cured,--with a good deal of paper money

which would never be redeemed, which the Continent and the Commonwealth

had paid him for his seven years,--and without that place in the world

of peace which he had had when these years began. The very severest

trial of the Revolution was to be found in the condition in which the

officers of the army were left after it was over. They were men who had

distinguished themselves in their profession, and who had done their

very best to make that profession unnecessary in the future. To go back

to their old callings was hard. Other men were in their places, and

there did not seem to be room for two. Under the wretched political

system of the old Confederation there was no such rapid spring of the

material prosperity of the country as should find for them new fields in

new enterprise. Peace did any thing but lead in Plenty. Often indeed, in

history, has Plenty been a little coy before she could be tempted, with

her pretty tender feet, to press the stubble and the ashes left by the

havoc of War. And thus it was that General Cutts had returned to his old

love whom he had married in a leave of absence just before Bunker Hill,

and had begun his new life with her in Old Newbury in Massachusetts, at

a time when there was little opening for him,--or for any man who had

spent seven years in learning how to do well what was never to be done

again.

And in doing what there was to do he had not succeeded. He had just

squeezed pork and potatoes and Indian meal enough out of a worn-out farm

to keep Sybil, his wife, and their growing family of children alive. He

had, once or twice, gone up to Boston to find what chances might be open

for him there. But, alas, Boston was in a bad way too, as well as Samuel

Cutts. Once he had joined some old companions, who had gone out to the

Western Reserve in Northern Ohio, to see what opening might be there.

But the outlook seemed unfavorable for carrying so far, overland, a

delicate woman and six little children into a wilderness. If he could

have scraped together a little money, he said, he would buy a share in

one of the ships he saw rotting in Boston or Salem, and try some

foreign adventure. But, alas! the ships would not have been rotting had

it been easy for any man to scrape together a little money to buy them.

And so, year in and year out, Samuel Cutts and his wife dressed the

children more and more plainly, bought less sugar and more molasses,

brought down the family diet more strictly to pork and beans, pea-soup,

hasty-pudding, and rye-and-indian,--and Samuel Cutts looked more and

more sadly on the prospect before these boys and girls, and the life for

which he was training them.

Do not think that he was a profligate, my dear cousin Eunice, because he

had bought a lottery ticket. Please to observe that to buy lottery

tickets was represented to be as much the duty of all good citizens, as

it was proved to be, eleven years ago, your duty to make Havelocks and

to knit stockings. Samuel Cutts, in the outset, had bought his lottery

ticket only "to encourage the others," and to do his honorable share in

paying the war debt. Then, I must confess, he had thought more of the

ticket than he had supposed he would. The children had made a romance

about it,--what they would do, and what they would not do, if they drew

the first prize. Samuel Cutts and Sybil Cutts themselves had got drawn

into the interest of the children, and many was the night when they had

sat up, without any light but that of a pine-torch, planning out the

details of the little colony they would form at the East-ward,--if--if

only one of the ten great prizes should, by any marvel, fall to him. And

now Tripp's Cove--which, perhaps, he had thought of as much as he had

thought of any of the ten--had fallen to him. This was the reason why he

showed so much emotion, and why he could hardly speak, when he read the

numbers. It was because that had come to him which represented so

completely what he wanted, and yet which he had not even dared to pray

for. It was so much more than he expected,--it was the dream of years,

indeed, made true.

For Samuel Cutts had proved to himself that he was a good leader of men.

He knew he was, and many men knew it who had followed him under Carolina

suns, and in the snows of Valley Forge. Samuel Cutts knew, equally well,

that he was not a good maker of money, nor creator of pork and potatoes.

Six years of farming in the valley of the Merrimac had proved that to

him, if he had never learned it before. Samuel Cutts's dream had been,

when he went away to explore the Western Reserve, that he would like to

bring together some of the best line officers and some of the best

privates of the old "Fighting Twenty-seventh," and take them, with his

old provident skill, which had served them so well upon so many

camping-grounds, to some region where they could stand by each other

again, as they had stood by each other before, and where sky and earth

would yield them more than sky and earth have yet yielded any man in

Eastern Massachusetts. Well! as I said, the Western Reserve did not seem

to be the place. After all, "the Fighting Twenty-seventh" were not

skilled in the tilling of the land. They furnished their quota when the

boats were to be drawn through the ice of the Delaware, to assist in

Rahl's Christmas party at Trenton. Many was the embarkation at the "head

of Elk," in which the "Fighting Twenty-seventh" had provided half the

seamen for the transport. It was "the Fighting Twenty-seventh" who cut

out the "Princess Charlotte" cutter in Edisto Bay. But the "Fighting

Twenty-seventh" had never, so far as any one knew, beaten one sword

into one plough-share, nor one spear into one pruning-hook. But Tripp's

Cove seemed to offer a different prospect. Why not, with a dozen or two

of the old set, establish there, not the New Jerusalem, indeed, but

something a little more elastic, a little more helpful, a little more

alive, than these kiln-dried, sun-dried, and time-dried old towns of the

seaboard of Massachusetts? At any rate, they could live together in

Tripp's Cove, as they wintered together at Valley Forge, at Bennett's

Hollow, by the Green Licks, and in the Lykens Intervale. This was the

question which Samuel Cutts wanted to solve, and which the fatal figures

219-7 put him in the way of solving.

"Tripp's Cove is our Christmas present," said Sybil Cutts to her

husband, as they went to bed. But so far removed were the habits of New

England then from the observance of ecclesiastical anniversaries, that

no one else had remembered that day that it was Christmas which was

passing.

CHAPTER II.

TRIPP'S COVE.

Call this a long preface, if you please, but it seems to me best to tell

this story so that I may explain what manner of people those were and

are who lived, live, and will live, at Tripp's Cove,--and why they have

been, are, and will be linked together, with a sort of family tie and

relationship which one does not often see in the villages self-formed or

formed at hap-hazard on the seaside, on the hillside, or in the prairies

of America. Tripp's Cove never became "the Great Mercantile City of the

Future," nor do I believe it ever will. But there Samuel Cutts lived in

a happy life for fifty years,--and there he died, honored, blessed, and

loved. By and by there came the second war with England,--the "Endymion"

came cruising along upon the coast, and picking up the fishing-boats and

the coasters, burning the ships on the stocks, or compelling the owners

to ransom them. Old General Cutts was seventy years old then; but he

was, as he had always been, the head of the settlement at Tripp's,--and

there was no lack of men younger than he, the sergeants or the

high-privates of the "Fighting Twenty-seventh," who drilled the boys of

the village for whatever service might impend. When the boys went down

to Runkin's and sent the "Endymion's" boats back to her with half their

crews dead or dying, faster than they came, old General Cutts was with

them, and took sight on his rifle as quickly and as bravely as the best

of them. And so twenty years more passed on,--and, when he was well nigh

ninety, the dear old man died full of years and full of blessings, all

because he had launched out for himself, left the life he was not fit

for, and undertaken life in which he was at home.

Yes! and because of this also, when 1861 came with its terrible alarm to

the whole country, and its call to duty, all Tripp's Cove was all right.

The girls were eager for service, and the boys were eager for service.

The girls stood by the boys, and the boys stood by the girls. The

husbands stood by the wives, and the wives stood by the husbands. I do

not mean that there was not many another community in which everybody

was steadfast and true. But I do mean that here was one great family,

although the census rated it as five-and-twenty families,--which had

one heart and one soul in the contest, and which went into it with one

heart and one soul,--every man and every woman of them all bearing each

other's burdens.

Little Sim Cutts, who broke the silence that night when the post-man

threw down the "Boston Gazette," was an old man of eighty-five when they

all got the news of the shots at Fort Sumter. The old man was as hale

and hearty as are half the men of sixty in this land to-day. With all

his heart he encouraged the boys who volunteered in answer to the first

call for regiments from Maine. Then with full reliance on the traditions

of the "Fighting Twenty-seventh," he explained to the fishermen and the

coasters that Uncle Abraham would need them for his web-footed service,

as well as for his legions on the land. And they found out their ways to

Portsmouth and to Charlestown, so that they might enter the navy as

their brothers entered the army. And so it was, that, when Christmas

came in 1861, there was at Tripp's Cove only one of that noble set of

young fellows, who but a year before was hauling hemlock and spruce and

fir and pine at Christmas at the girls' order, and worked in the

meeting-house for two days as the girls bade them work, so that when

Parson Spaulding came in to preach his Christmas sermon, he thought the

house was a bit of the woods themselves. Only one!

And who was he?

How did he dare stay among all those girls who were crying out their

eyes, and sewing their fingers to the bones,--meeting every afternoon in

one sitting-room or another, and devouring every word that came from the

army? They read the worst-spelled letter that came home from Mike Sawin,

and prized it and blessed it and cried over it, as heartily as the

noblest description of battle that came from the pen of Carleton or of

Swinton.

Who was he?

Ah! I have caught you, have I? That was Tom Cutts,--the old General's

great-grandson,--Sim Cutts's grandson,--the very noblest and bravest of

them all. He got off first of all. He had the luck to be at Bull

Run,--and to be cut off from his regiment. He had the luck to hide under

a corn crib, and to come into Washington whole, a week after the

regiment. He was the first man in Maine, they said, to enlist for the

three-years' service. Perhaps the same thing is said of many others. He

had come home and raised a new company,--and he was making them fast

into good soldiers, out beyond Fairfax Court-House. So that the

Brigadier would do any thing Tom Cutts wanted. And when, on the first of

December, there came up to the Major-General in command a request for

leave of absence from Tom Cutts, respectfully referred to Colonel This,

who had respectfully referred it to General That, who had respectfully

referred it to Adjutant-General T'other,--all these dignitaries had

respectfully recommended that the request be granted. For even in the

sacred purlieux of the top Major-General's Head-quarters, it was

understood that Cutts was going home for no less a purpose than the

being married to the prettiest and sweetest and best girl in Eastern

Maine.

Well! for my part I do not think that the aids and their informants were

in the wrong about this. Surely that Christmas Eve, as Laura Marvel

stood up with Tom Cutts in front of Parson Spaulding, in presence of

what there was left of the Tripp's Cove community, I would have said

that Laura was the loveliest bride I ever saw. She is tall; she is

graceful; she has rather a startled look when you speak to her,

suddenly or gently, but the startled look just bewitches you. Black

hair,--she got that from the Italian blood in her grandmother's

family,--exquisite blue eyes,--that is a charming combination with black

hair,--perfect teeth,--and matchless color,--and she had it all, when

she was married,--she was a blushing bride and not a fainting one. But

then what stuff this is,--nobody knew he cared a straw for Laura's hair

or her cheek,--it was that she looked "just lovely," and that she was

"just lovely,"--so self-forgetful in all her ways, after that first

start,--so eager to know just where she could help, and so determined to

help just there. Why! she led all the girls in the village, when she was

only fourteen, because they loved her so. She was the one who made the

rafts when there was a freshet,--and took them all out together on the

mill-pond. And, when the war came, she was of course captain of the

girl's sewing,--she packed the cans of pickles and fruit for the

Sanitary,--she corresponded with the State Adjutant:--heavens! from

morning to night, everybody in the village ran to Laura,--not because

she was the prettiest creature you ever looked upon,--but because she

was the kindest, truest, most loyal, and most helpful creature that ever

lived,--be the same man or woman.

Now had you rather be named Laura Cutts or Laura Marvel? Marvel is a

good name,--a weird, miraculous sort of name. Cutts is not much of a

name. But Laura had made up her mind to be Laura Cutts after Tom had

asked her about it,--and here they are standing before dear old Parson

Spaulding, to receive his exhortation,--and to be made one before God

and man.

Dear Laura! How she had laughed with the other girls, all in a

good-natured way, at the good Parson's exhortation to the young couples.

Laura had heard it twenty times,--for she had "stood up" with twenty of

the girls, who had dared The Enterprise of Life before her! Nay, Laura

could repeat, with all the emphasis, the most pathetic passage of the

whole,--"And above all,--my beloved young friends,--first of all and

last of all,--let me beseech you as you climb the hill of life together,

hand with hand, and step with step,--that you will look beyond the

crests upon its summit to the eternal lights which blaze in the

infinite heaven of the Better Land beyond." Twenty times had Laura heard

this passage,--nay, ten times, I am afraid, had she, in an honest and

friendly way, repeated it, under strict vows of secrecy, to the

edification of circles of screaming girls. But now the dear child looked

truly and loyally into the old man's face, as he went on from word to

word, and only thought of him, and of how noble and true he was,--and of

the Great Master whom he represented there,--and it was just as real to

her and to Tom Cutts that they must look into the Heaven of heavens for

life and strength, as Parson Spaulding wanted it to be. When he prayed

with all his heart, she prayed; what he hoped, she hoped; what he

promised for her, she promised to her Father in heaven; and what he

asked her to promise by word aloud, she promised loyally and eternally.

And Tom Cutts? He looked so handsome in his uniform,--and he looked like

the man he was. And in those days, the uniform, if it were only a

flannel fatigue-jacket on a private's back, was as beautiful as the

flag; nothing more beautiful than either for eyes to look upon. And

when Parson Spaulding had said the benediction, and the Amen,--and when

he had kissed Laura, with her eyes full of tears,--and when he had given

Tom Cutts joy,--then all the people came up in a double line,--and they

all kissed Laura,--and they shook hands with Tom as if they would shake

his hands off,--and in the half-reticent methods of Tripp's Cove, every

lord and lady bright that was in Moses Marvel's parlor there, said,

"honored be the bravest knight, beloved the fairest fair."

And there was a bunch of laurel hanging in the middle of the room, as

make-believe mistletoe. And the boys, who could not make believe even

that they were eighteen, so that they had been left at home, would catch

Phebe, and Sarah, and Mattie, and Helen, when by accident they crossed

underneath the laurel,--and would kiss them, for all their screaming.

And soon Moses Marvel brought in a waiter with wedding-cake, and Nathan

Philbrick brought in a waiter with bride-cake, and pretty Mattie Marvel

brought in a waiter with currant wine. And Tom Cutts gave every girl a

piece of wedding-cake himself, and made her promise to sleep on it. And

before they were all gone, he and Laura had been made to write names

for the girls to dream upon, that they might draw their fortunes the

next morning. And before long Moses Cutts led Mrs. Spaulding out into

the great family-room, and there was the real wedding supper. And after

they had eaten the supper, Bengel's fiddle sounded in the parlor, and

they danced, and they waltzed, and they polkaed to their hearts'

content. And so they celebrated the Christmas of 1861.

Too bad! was not it? Tom's leave was only twenty days. It took five to

come. It took five to go. After the wedding there were but seven little

days. And then he kissed dear Laura good-by,--with tears running from

his eyes and hers,--and she begged him to be sure she should be all

right, and he begged her to be certain nothing would happen to him. And

so, for near two years, they did not see each other's faces again.

* * * * *

CHRISTMAS EVE again!

Moses Marvel has driven out his own bays in his own double cutter to

meet the stage at Fordyce's. On the back seat is Mattie Marvel, with a

rosy little baby all wrapped up in furs, who has never seen his father.

Where is Laura?

"Here she comes! here she comes!" Sure enough! Here is the stage at

last. Job Stiles never swept round with a more knowing sweep, or better

satisfied with his precious freight at Fordyce's, than he did this

afternoon. And the curtains were up already. And there is Laura, and

there is Tom! He is pale, poor fellow. But how pleased he is! Laura is

out first, of course. And then she gives him her hand so gently, and the

others all help. And here is the hero at Marvel's side, and he is

bending over his baby, whom he does not try to lift with his one

arm,--and Mattie is crying, and I believe old Moses Marvel is

crying,--but everybody is as happy as a king, and everybody is talking

at one time,--and all the combination has turned out well.

Tom Cutts had had a hole made through his left thigh, so that they

despaired of his life. And, as he lay on the ground, a bit of a shell

had struck his left forearm and knocked that to pieces. Tom Cutts had

been sent back to hospital at Washington, and reported by telegraph as

mortally wounded. But almost as soon as Tom Cutts got to the Lincoln

Hospital himself, Laura Cutts got there too, and then Tom did not mean

to die if he could help it, and Laura did not mean to have him. And the

honest fellow held to his purpose in that steadfast Cutts way. The blood

tells, I believe. And love tells. And will tells. How much love has to

do with will! "I believe you are a witch, Mrs. Cutts," the doctor used

to say to her. "Nothing but good happens to this good-man of yours."

Bits of bone came out just as they were wanted to. Inflammation kept

away just as it was told to do. And the two wounds ran a race with each

other in healing after their fashion. "It will be a beautiful stump

after all," said the doctor, where poor Laura saw little beauty. But

every thing was beautiful to her, when at last he told her that she

might wrap her husband up as well as she knew how, and take him home and

nurse him there. So she had telegraphed that they were coming, and that

was the way in which it happened that her father and her sister had

brought out the baby to meet them both at Fordyce's. Mattie's surprise

had worked perfectly.

And now it was time for Laura's surprise! After she had her baby in her

own arms, and was on the back seat of the sleigh; after Tom was well

wrapped up by her side, with his well arm just supporting the little

fellow's head; after Mattie was all tucked in by her father, and Mr.

Marvel himself had looked round to say, "All ready?" then was it that

Jem Marvel first stepped out from the stage, and said, "Haven't you one

word for me, Mattie?" Then how they screamed again! For everybody

thought Jem was in the West Indies. He was cruising there, on board the

"Greywing," looking after blockaders who took the Southern route. Nobody

dreamed of Jem's being at Christmas. And here he had stumbled on Tom and

Laura in the New Haven train as they came on! Jem had been sent into New

York with a prize. He had got leave, and was on his way to see the rest

of them. He had bidden Laura not say one word, and so he had watched one

greeting from the stage, before he broke in to take his part for

another.

Oh! what an uproarious Christmas that was when they all came home! No!

Tom Cutts would not let one of them be sad! He was the cheeriest of them

all. He monopolized the baby, and showed immense power in the way of

baby talk and of tending. Laura had only to sit on the side of the room

and be perfectly happy. It was very soon known what the arrivals were.

And Parson Spaulding came in, and his wife. Of course the Cuttses had

been there already. Then everybody came. That is the simplest way of

putting it. They all would have wanted to come, because in that

community there was not one person who did not love Laura and Tom and

Jem. But whether they would have come, on the very first night, I am not

sure. But this was Christmas Eve, and the girls were finishing off the

meeting-house just as the stage and the sleigh came in. And, in a

minute, the news was everywhere. And, of course, everybody felt he might

just go in to get news from the fleet or the army. Nor was there one

household in Tripp's Cove which was not more or less closely represented

in the fleet or the army. So there was really, as the evening passed, a

town-meeting in Moses Marvel's sitting-room and parlor; and whether

Moses Marvel were most pleased, or Mrs. Marvel, or Laura,--who sat and

beamed,--or old General Simeon Cutts, I am sure I do not know.

That was indeed a merry Christmas!

But after that I must own it was hard sledding for Tom Cutts and for

pretty Laura. A hero with one blue sleeve pinned neatly together, who,

at the best, limps as he walks, quickens all your compassion and

gratitude;--yes! But when you are selecting a director of your lumber

works, or when you are sending to New York to buy goods, or when you are

driving a line of railway through the wilderness, I am afraid you do not

choose that hero to do your work for you. Or if you do, you were not

standing by when Tom Cutts was looking right and looking left for

something to do, so that he might keep the wolf from the door. It was

sadly like the life that his great-grandfather, Samuel Cutts, led at the

old farm in old Newbury after the old war. Tom lost his place when he

went to the front, and he could not find it again.

Laura, sweet girl, never complained. No, nor Moses Marvel. He never

complained, nor would he complain if Tom and his wife and children had

lived with him till doomsday. "Good luck for us," said Moses Marvel, and

those were many words for him to say in one sentence. But Tom was proud,

and it ground him to the dust to be eating Moses Marvel's bread when he

had not earned it, and to have nothing but his major's pension to buy

Laura and the babies their clothes with, and to keep the pot a-boiling.

Of course Jem joined the fleet again. Nor did Jem return again till the

war was over. Then he came, and came with prize-money. He and Tom had

many talks of going into business together, with Tom's brains and Jem's

money. But nothing came of this. The land was no place for Jem. He was a

regular Norse man, as are almost all of the Tripp's Cove boys who have

come from the loins of the "Fighting Twenty-seventh." They sniff the

tempest from afar off; and when they hear of Puget Sound, or of Alaska,

or of Wilkes's Antarctic Continent, they fancy that they hear a voice

from some long-lost home, from which they have strayed away. And so

Laura knew, and Tom knew, that any plans which rested on Jem's staying

ashore were plans which had one false element in them. The raven would

be calling him, and it might be best, once for all, to let him follow

the raven till the raven called no more.

So Jem put his prize-money into a new bark, which he found building at

Bath; and they called the bark the "Laura," and Tom and Laura Cutts went

to the launching, and Jem superintended the rigging of her himself; and

then he took Tom and Laura and the babies with him to New York, and a

high time they had together there. Tom saw many of the old army boys,

and Laura hunted up one or two old school friends; and they saw Booth in

Iago, and screamed themselves hoarse at Niblo's, and heard Rudolphsen

and Johannsen in the German opera; they rode in the Park, and they

walked in the Park; they browsed in the Astor and went shopping at

Stewart's, and saw the people paint porcelain at Haighwout's; and, by

Mr. Alden's kindness, went through the wonders of Harper's. In short,

for three weeks, all of which time they lived on board ship, they saw

the lions of New York as children of the public do, for whom that great

city decks itself and prepares its wonders, albeit their existence is

hardly known to its inhabitants.

Meanwhile Jem had chartered the "Laura" for a voyage to San Francisco.

And so, before long, her cargo began to come on board; and she and Tom

and the babies took a mournful farewell, and came back to Tripp's Cove

again, to Moses Marvel's house. And poor Tom thought it looked smaller

than ever, and that he should find it harder than ever to settle down to

being of no use to anybody, and to eat Moses Marvel's bread,--without

house or barn, or bin or oven, or board or bed, even the meanest, of his

own. Poor Tom! and this was the reward of being the first man in Maine

to enter for three years!

And then things went worse and worse. Moses Marvel was as good and as

taciturn as ever. But Moses Marvel's affairs did not run as smoothly as

he liked. Moses held on, upon one year's cutting of lumber, perfectly

determined that lumber should rise, because it ought to; and Moses paid

very high usury on the money he borrowed, because he would hold on.

Moses was set in his way,--like other persons whom you and I know,--and

to this lumber he held and held, till finally the bank would not renew

his notes. No; and they would not discount a cent for him at Bangor, and

Moses came back from a long, taciturn journey he had started on in

search of money, without any money; and with only the certainty that if

he did not mean to have the sheriff sell his lumber, he must sell it for

himself. Nay! he must sell it before the fourth of the next month, and

for cash; and must sell at the very bottom of a long falling market!

Poor Moses Marvel! That operation served to show that he joined all the

Cutts want of luck with the Marvel obstinacy. It was a wretched

twelvemonth, the whole of it; and it made that household, and made Tom

Cutts, more miserable and more.

Then they became anxious about the "Laura," and Jem. She made almost a

clipper voyage to California. She discharged her cargo in perfect order.

Jem made a capital charter for Australia and England, and knew that from

England it would be easy to get a voyage home. He sailed from

California, and then the letters stopped. No! Laura dear, no need in

reading every word of the ship-news in the "Semi-weekly Advertiser;" the

name of your namesake is not there. Eight, nine, ten months have gone

by, and there is no port in Christendom which has seen Jem's face, or

the Laura's private signal. Do not strain your eyes over the

"Semi-weekly" more.

No! dear Laura's eyes will be dimmed by other cares than the ship-news.

Tom's father, who had shared Tom's wretchedness, and would gladly have

had them at his home, but that Moses Marvel's was the larger and the

less peopled of the two,--Tom's father was brought home speechless one

day, by the men who found him where he had fallen on the road, his yoke

of oxen not far away, waiting for the voice which they were never to

hear again. Whether he had fallen from the cart, in some lurch it made,

and broken his spine, or whether all this distress had brought on of a

sudden a stroke of paralysis, so that he lost his consciousness before

he fell, I do not know. Nor do I see that it matters much, though the

chimney-corners of Tripp's Cove discuss the question quite eagerly to

this hour. He lay there month after month, really unconscious. He smiled

gently when they brought him food. He tried to say "Thank you," they

thought, but he did not speak to the wife of his bosom, who had been the

Laura Marvel of her day, in any different way from that in which he

tried to speak to any stranger of them all. A living death he lay in as

those tedious months went by.

Yet my dear Laura was as cheerful, and hopeful, and buoyant as ever. Tom

Cutts himself was ashamed to brood when he got a sight of her. Mother

Cutts herself would lie down and rest herself when Laura came round,

with the two children, as she did every afternoon. Moses Marvel himself

was less taciturn when Laura put the boys, one at one side, one at the

other, of his chair, at the tea-table. And in both of those broken

households, from one end to the other, they knew the magic of dear

Laura's spells. So that when this Christmas came, after poor Mr. Cutts

had been lying senseless so long,--when dear Laura bade them all take

hold and fit up a Christmas-tree, with all the adornments, for the

little boys, and for the Spaulding children, and the Marvel cousins, and

the Hopkinses, and the Tredgolds, and the Newmarch children,--they all

obeyed her loyally, and without wondering. They obeyed her, with her own

determination that they would have one merry Christmas more. It seems a

strange thing to people who grew up outside of New England. But this was

the first Christmas tree ever seen at Tripp's Cove, for all such

festivities are of recent importation in such regions. But there was

something for every child. They heaped on more wood, and they kept a

merry Christmas despite the storm without. This was Laura's will, and

Laura had her way.

And she had her reward. Job Stiles came round to the door, when he had

put up his horses, and called Tom out, and gave him a letter which he

had brought from Ellsworth. And Tom read the letter, and he called Laura

to read it. And Laura left the children, and sat at the kitchen table

with him and read it, and said, "Thank God! this is a Christmas present

indeed. Could any thing in this world be better?"

This is the letter:--

JOHN WILDAIR TO TOM CUTTS.

DEAR TOM,--I am just back from Washington. I have seen them all,

and have done my best, and have failed. They say and I believe

that the collectorship was promised to Waters before the old

man's death,--that Waters had honest claims,--he has but one

leg, you know,--and that it must go to him. As for the

surveyorship, the gift of that is with Plumptre. And you know

that I might as well ask the Pope to give me any thing as he.

And if he hates anybody more than me, why it is your wife's

father. So I could do nothing there.

Let me say this, though it seems nothing. If, while we are

waiting to look round, you like to take the Bell and Hammer

Light-house, you may have the place to-morrow. Of course I know

it is exile in winter. But in summer it is lovely. You have your

house, your stores, two men under you (they are double lights),

and a thousand dollars. I have made them promise to give it to

no one till they hear from me. Though I know you ought not take

any such place, I would not refuse it till I let you know. I

send this to Ellsworth for the stage-driver to take, and you

must send your answer by special messenger, that I may telegraph

to Washington at once.

I am very sorry, dear Tom, to have failed you so. But I did my

best, you know. Merry Christmas to Laura and the babies.

Truly yours,

JOHN WILDAIR.

PORTLAND, Dec. 24, 1868.

That was Laura and Tom's Christmas present. An appointment as

light-house keeper, with a thousand a year!

* * * * *

BUT even if they had made Tom a turnpike keeper, they would not have

made Laura a misanthrope. He, poor fellow, gladly accepted the

appointment. She, sweet creature, as gladly accepted her part of it.

Early March saw them on the Bell and Hammer. April saw the early flowers

come,--and May saw Laura with both her babies on the beach, laughing at

them as they wet their feet,--digging holes in the sand for them,--and

sending the bigger boy to run and put salt upon the tails of the peeps

as they ran along the shore. And Tom Cutts, when his glass was clear to

his mind, and the reflectors polished to meet even his criticism, would

come down and hunt up Laura and the children. And when she had put the

babies to sleep, old Mipples, who was another of the descendants of the

"Fighting Twenty-seventh," would say, "Just you go out with the Major,

mum, and if they wake up and I can't still them, I'll blow the horn."

Not that he ever did blow the horn. All the more certain was Laura that

she could tramp over the whole island with Tom Cutts, or she could sit

and knit or sew, and Tom could read to her, and these days were the

happiest days of her married life, and brought back the old sunny days

of the times before Fort Sumter again. Ah me! if such days of summer and

such days of autumn would last forever!

But they will not last forever. November came, and the little colony

went into winter quarters. December came. And we were all double-banked

with sea-weed. The stoves were set up in-doors. The double doors were

put on outside, and we were all ready for the "Osprey." The "Osprey" was

the Government steamer which was to bring us our supplies for the

winter, chiefly of colza oil,--and perhaps some coal. But the "Osprey"

does not appear. December is half gone, and no "Osprey." We can put the

stoves on short allowance, but not our two lanterns. They will only run

to the 31st of January, the nights are so long, if the "Osprey" does not

come before then.

That is our condition, when old Mipples, bringing back the mail, brings

a letter from Boston to say that the "Osprey" has broken her

main-shaft, and may not be repaired before the 15th of January,--that

Mr. Cutts, will therefore, if he needs oil, take an early opportunity to

supply himself from the light at Squire's,--and that an order on the

keeper at Squire's is enclosed.

To bring a cask of oil from Squire's is no difficult task to a Tripp's

Cove man. It would be no easy one, dear reader, to you and me. Squire's

is on the mainland,--our nearest neighbor at the Bell and Hammer,--it

revolves once a minute, and we watch it every night in the horizon. Tom

waited day by day for a fine day,--would not have gone for his oil

indeed till the New Year came in, but that Jotham Fields, the other

assistant, came down with a fever turn wholly beyond Laura's management,

and she begged Tom to take the first fine day to carry him to a doctor.

To bring a doctor to him was out of the question.

"And what will you do?" said Tom.

"Do? I will wait till you come home. Start any fine day after you have

wound up the lights on the last beat,--take poor Jotham to his mother's

house,--and if you want you may bring back your oil. I shall get along

with the children very well,--and I will have your dinner hot when you

come home."

Tom doubted. But the next day Jotham was worse. Mipples voted for

carrying him ashore, and Laura had her way. The easier did she have it,

because the south wind blew softly, and it was clear to all men that the

run could be made to Squire's in a short two hours. Tom finally agreed

to start early the next morning. He would not leave his sick man at his

mother's, but at Squire's, and the people there could put him home. The

weather was perfect, and an hour before daylight they were gone. They

were all gone,--all three had to go. Mipples could not handle the boat

alone, nor could Tom; far less could one of them manage the boat, take

the oil, and see to poor Jotham also. Wise or not, this was the plan.

An hour before daylight they were gone. Half an hour after sunrise they

were at Squire's. But the sun had risen red, and had plumped into a

cloud. Before Jotham was carried up the cliff the wind was northwest,

and the air was white with snow. You could not see the house from the

boat, nor the boat from the house. You could not see the foremast of

the boat from your seat in the stern-sheets, the air was so white with

snow. They carried Jotham up. But they told John Wilkes, the keeper at

Squire's, that they would come for the oil another day. They hurried

down the path to the boat again, pushed her off, and headed her to the

northeast determined not to lose a moment in beating back to the Bell

and Hammer. Who would have thought the wind would haul back so without a

sign of warning?

"Will it hold up, Simon?" said Tom to Mipples, wishing he might say

something encouraging.

And all Simon Mipples would say was,--

"God grant it may!"

* * * * *

And Laura saw the sun rise red and burning. And Laura went up into the

tower next the house, and put out the light there. Then she left the

children in their cribs, and charged the little boy not to leave till

she came back, and ran down to the door to go and put out the other

light,--and as she opened it the blinding snow dashed in her face. She

had not dreamed of snow before. But her water-proof was on, she pulled

on her boots, ran quickly along the path to the other light, two

hundred yards perhaps, climbed the stairway and extinguished that, and

was at home again before the babies missed her.

For an hour or two Laura occupied herself with her household cares, and

pretended to herself that she thought this was only a snow flurry that

would soon clear away. But by the time it was ten o'clock she knew it

was a stiff north-wester, and that her husband and Mipples were caught

on shore. Yes, and she was caught with her babies alone on the island.

Wind almost dead ahead to a boat from Squire's too, if that made any

difference. That crossed Laura's mind. Still she would not brood. Nay,

she did not brood, which was much better than saying she would not

brood. It crossed her mind that it was the day before Christmas, and

that the girls at Tripp's were dressing the meeting-house for dear old

Parson Spaulding. And then there crossed her mind the dear old man's

speech at all weddings, "As you climb the hill of life together, my dear

young friends," and poor Laura, as she kissed the baby once again, had

courage to repeat it all aloud to her and her brother, to the infinite

amazement of them both. They opened their great eyes to the widest as

Laura did so. Nay, Laura had the heart to take a hatchet, and work out

to leeward of the house, into a little hollow behind the hill, and cut

up a savin bush from the thicket, and bring that in, and work for an

hour over the leaves so as to make an evergreen frame to hang about

General Cutts's picture. She did this that Tom might see she was not

frightened when he got home.

_When_ he got home! Poor girl! at the very bottom of her heart was the

other and real anxiety,--_if_ he got home. Laura knew Tom, of course,

better than he knew himself, and she knew old Mipples too. So she knew,

as well as she knew that she was rubbing black lead on the stove, while

she thought these things over,--she knew that they would not stay at

Squire's two minutes after they had landed Jotham Fields. She knew they

would do just what they did,--put to sea, though it blew guns, though

now the surf was running its worst on the Seal's Back. She knew, too,

that if they had not missed the island, they would have been here, at

the latest, before eleven o'clock. And by the time it was one she could

no longer doubt that they had lost the island, and were tacking about

looking for it in the bay, if, indeed, in that gale they dared to tack

at all. No! Laura knew only too well, that where they were was beyond

her guessing; that the good God and they two only knew.

"Come here, Tom, and let me tell you a story! Once there was a little

boy, and he had two kittens. And he named one kitten Muff, and he named

one kitten Buff!"--

Whang!

What was that?

"Tom, darling, take care of baby; do not let her get out of the cradle,

while mamma goes to the door." Downstairs to the door. The gale has

doubled its rage. How ever did it get in behind the storm-door outside?

That "_whang_" was the blow with which the door, wrenched off its

hinges, was flung against the side of the wood-house. Nothing can be

done but to bolt the storm-door to the other passage, and bolt the outer

window shutters, and then go back to the children.

"Once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens, and he named one

Minna, and one Brenda"--

"No, mamma, no! one Muff, and one"--

"Oh, yes! my darling! once there was a little boy, and he had two

kittens, and he named one Buff, and one Muff. And one day he went to

walk"--

Heavens! the lanterns! Who was to trim the lamps? Strange to say,

because this was wholly out of her daily routine, the men always caring

for it of course, Laura had not once thought of it till now. And now it

was after one o'clock. But now she did think of it with a will. "Come,

Tommy, come and help mamma." And she bundled him up in his thickest

storm rig. "Come up into the lantern." Here the boy had never come

before. He was never frightened when he was with her. Else he might well

have been frightened. And he was amazed there in the whiteness; drifts

of white snow on the lee-side and the weather-side; clouds of white snow

on the south-west sides and north-east sides; snow; snow everywhere;

nothing but whiteness wherever he looked round.

Laura made short shift of those wicks which had burned all through the

night before. But she had them ready. She wound up the carcels for their

night's work. Again and again she drew her oil and filled up her

reservoirs. And as she did so, an old text came on her, and she wondered

whether Father Spaulding knew how good a text it would be for

Christmas. And the fancy touched her, poor child, and as she led little

Tom down into the nursery again, she could not help opening into the

Bible Parson Spaulding gave her and reading:--

"'But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the

bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.' Dear Tommy, dear

Tommy, my own child, we will not sleep, will we? 'While the bridegroom

tarried,' O my dear Father in Heaven, let him come. 'And at midnight

there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet

him;'" and she devoured little Tommy with kisses, and cried, "We will

go, my darling, we will go, if he comes at the first hour,--or the

second,--or the third! But now Tommy must come with mamma, and make

ready for his coming." For there were the other lamps to trim in the

other tower, with that heavy reach of snow between. And she did not dare

leave the active boy alone in the house. Little Matty could be caged in

her crib, and, even if she woke, she would at best only cry. But Tom was

irrepressible.

So they unbolted the lee-door, and worked out into the snow. Then poor

Laura, with the child, crept round into the storm. Heavens! how it

raged and howled! Where was her poor bridegroom now? She seized up Tom,

and turned her back to the wind, and worked along, go,--step sideway,

sideway, the only way she could by step,--did it ever seem so far

before? Tommy was crying. "One minute more, dear boy. Tommy shall see

the other lantern. And Tommy shall carry mamma's great scissors up the

stairs. Don't cry, my darling, don't cry."

Here is the door;--just as she began to wonder if she were dreaming or

crazy. Not so badly drifted in as she feared. At least she is under

cover. "Up-a-day, my darling, up-a-day. One, two, what a many steps for

Tommy! That's my brave boy." And they were on the lantern deck again,

fairly rocking in the gale,--and Laura was chopping away on her stiff

wicks, and pumping up her oil again, and filling the receivers, as if

she had ever done it till this Christmas before. And she kept saying

over to herself,--

"Then those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps."

"And I will light them," said she aloud. "That will save another walk at

sundown. And I know these carcels run at least five hours." So she

struck a match, and with some little difficulty coaxed the fibres to

take fire. The yellow light flared luridly on the white snow-flakes, and

yet it dazzled her and Tommy as it flashed on them from the reflectors.

"Will anybody see it, mamma?" said the child. "Will papa see it?" And

just then the witching devil who manages the fibres of memory, drew from

the little crypt in Laura's brain, where they had been stored unnoticed

years upon years, four lines of Leigh Hunt's, and the child saw that she

was Hero:--

"Then at the flame a torch of fire she lit,

And, o'er her head anxiously holding it,

Ascended to the roof, and, leaning there,

Lifted its light into the darksome air."

If only the devil would have been satisfied with this. But of course she

could not remember that, without remembering Schiller:--

"In the gale her torch is blasted,

Beacon of the hoped-for strand:

Horror broods above the waters,

Horror broods above the land."

And she said aloud to the boy, "Our torch shall not go out, Tommy,--come

down, come down, darling, with mamma." But all through the day horrid

lines from the same poem came back to her. Why did she ever learn it!

Why, but because dear Tom gave her the book himself; and this was his

own version, as he sent it to her from the camp in the valley,--

"Yes, 'tis he! although he perished,

Still his sacred troth he cherished."

"Why did Tom write it for me?"

"And they trickle, lightly playing

O'er a corpse upon the sand."

"What a fool I am! Come, Tommy. Come, Matty, my darling. Mamma will tell

you a story. Once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens. And he

named one Buff and one Muff"-- But this could not last for ever. Sundown

came. And then Laura and Tommy climbed their own tower,--and she lighted

her own lantern, as she called it. Sickly and sad through the storm, she

could see the sister lantern burning bravely. And that was all she could

see in the sullen whiteness. "Now, Tommy, my darling, we will come and

have some supper." "And while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered

and slept." "Yes, 'tis he; although he perished, still his sacred troth

he cherished." "Come, Tommy,--come Tommy,--come, Tommy, let me tell you

a story."

But the children had their supper,--asking terrible questions about

papa,--questions which who should answer? But she could busy herself

about giving them their oatmeal, and treating them to ginger-snaps,

because it was Christmas Eve. Nay, she kept her courage, when Tommy

asked if Santa Claus would come in the boat with papa. She fairly

loitered over the undressing them. Little witches, how pretty they were

in their flannel nightgowns! And Tommy kissed her, and gave her--ah

me!--one more kiss for papa. And in two minutes they were asleep. It

would have been better if they could have kept awake one minute longer.

Now she was really alone. And very soon seven o'clock has come. She does

not dare leave the clock-work at the outer lantern a minute longer. Tom

and Mipples wind the works every four hours, and now they have run five.

One more look at her darlings. Shall she ever see them again in this

world? Now to the duty next her hand!

Yes, the wind is as fierce as ever! A point more to the north, Laura

notices. She has no child to carry now. She tumbles once in the drift.

But Laura has rolled in snow before. The pile at the door is three feet

thick. But she works down to the latch,--and even her poor numb hand

conquers it,--and it gives way. How nice and warm the tower is! and how

well the lights burn! Can they be of any use this night to anybody? O my

God, grant that they be of use to him!

She has wound them now. She has floundered into the snow again. Two or

three falls on her way home,--but no danger that she loses the line of

march. The light above her own house is before her. So she has only to

aim at that. Home again! And now to wait for five hours,--and then to

wind that light again--at midnight!

"And at midnight there was a cry made"--"oh dear!--if he would come,--I

would not ask for any cry!"--

* * * * *

And Laura got down her choice inlaid box, that Jem brought her from

sea,--and which held her treasures of treasures. And the dear girl did

the best thing she could have done. She took these treasures out.--You

know what they were, do not you? They were every letter Tom Cutts ever

wrote her--from the first boy note in print,--"Laura,--these hedgehog

quills are for you. I killed him. TOM." And Laura opened them all,--and

read them one by one, each twice,--and put them back, in their order,

without folding, into the box. At ten she stopped,--and worked her way

upstairs into her own lantern,--and wound its works again. She tried to

persuade herself that there was less wind,--did persuade herself so. But

the snow was as steady as ever. Down the tower-stairs again,--and then a

few blessed minutes brooding over Matty's crib, and dear little Tom who

has kicked himself right athwart her own bed where she had laid him.

Darlings! they are so lovely, their father must come home to see them!

Back then to her kitchen fire. There are more of dear Tom's letters yet.

How manly they are,--and how womanly. She will read them all!--will she

ever dare to read them all again?

Yes,--she reads them all,--each one twice over,--and his soldier

diary,--which John Wildair saved and sent home, and, as she lays it

down, the clock strikes twelve. Christmas day is born!--

"And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh."

Laura fairly repeated this aloud. She knew that the other carcel must be

wound again. She dressed herself for the fight thoroughly. She ran in

and trusted herself to kiss the children. She opened the lee-door

again, and crept round again into the storm,--familiar now with such

adventure. Did the surf beat as fiercely on the rocks? Surely not. But

then the tide is now so low! So she came to her other tower, crept up

and wound her clock-work up again, wiped off, or tried to wipe off, what

she thought was mist gathering on the glasses, groped down the stairway,

and looked up on the steady light above her own home. And the Christmas

text came back to her. "The star went before them, and stood above the

place where the young child was."

"A light to lighten the Gentiles,--and the glory of my people Israel!"

"By the way of the sea,"--and this Laura almost shouted aloud,--"Galilee

of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and

to them who sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up."

"Grant it, merciful Father,--grant it for these poor children!" And she

almost ran through the heavy drifts, till she found the shelter again of

her friendly tower. Her darlings had not turned in their bed, since she

left them there.

And after this Laura was at rest. She took down her Bible, and read the

Christmas chapters. It was as if she had never known before what

darkness was,--or what the Light was, when it came. She took her Hymn

Book and read all the Christmas Hymns. She took her Keble,--and read

every poem for Advent and the hymn for Christmas morning. She knew this

by heart long ago. Then she took Bishop Ken's "Christian Year,"--which

Tom had given for her last birthday present,--and set herself bravely to

committing his "Christmas Day" to memory:--

"Celestial harps, prepare

To sound your loftiest air;

You choral angels at the throne,

Your customary hymns postpone;"

and thus, dear girl, she kept herself from thinking even of the wretched

Hero and Leander lines, till her clock struck three. Upstairs then to

her own tower, and to look out upon the night. The sister flame was

steady. The wind was all hushed. But the snow was as steady, right and

left, behind and before. Down again, one more look at the darlings, and

then, as she walked up and down her little kitchen, she repeated the

verses she had learned, and then sat down to--

"You with your heavenly ray

Gild the expanse this day;

"You with your heavenly ray

Gild--the expanse--this day;

"You--with--your--heavenly--ray"--

Dear Laura, bless God, she is asleep. "He giveth his beloved sleep."

* * * * *

Her head is thrown back on the projecting wing of grandmamma's tall

easy-chair, her arms are resting relaxed on its comfortable arms, her

lips just open with a smile, as she dreams of something in the kingdom

of God's heaven, when, as the lazy day just begins to grow gray, Tom,

white with snow to his middle, holding the boat's lantern before him as

he steals into her kitchen, crosses the room, and looks down on

her,--what a shame to wake her,--bends down and kisses her!

Dear child! How she started,--"At midnight there is a cry made, Behold,

the bridegroom cometh,"--"Why, Tom! Oh! my dearest, is it you?"

* * * * *

"Have I been asleep on duty?" This was her first word when she came

fairly to herself.

"Guess not," said old Mipples, "both lanterns was burning when I come

in. 'Most time to put 'em out, Major! 'Keepers must be diligent to save

oil by all reasonable prevision.'"

"Is the north light burning?" said poor Laura. And she looked guiltily

at her tell-tale clock.

"Darling," said Tom, reverently, "if it were not burning, we should not

be here."

And Laura took her husband to see the babies, not willing to let his

hand leave hers, nor he, indeed, to let hers leave his. Old Mipples

thought himself one too many, and went away, wiping his eyes, to the

other light. "Time to extinguish it," he said.

But before Tom and Laura had known he was gone, say in half an hour,

that is, he was back again, hailing them from below.

"Major! Major! Major! An English steamer is at anchor in the cove, and

is sending her boat ashore."

Tom and Laura rushed to the window; the snow was all over now, and they

could see the monster lying within half a mile. "Where would they be,

Miss Cutts, if somebody had not wound up the lamps at midnight? Guess

they said 'Merry Christmas' when they see 'em." And Laura held her

breath when she thought what might have been. Tom and Mipples ran down

to the beach to hail them, and direct the landing. Tom and Mipples shook

the hand of each man as he came ashore, and then Laura could see them

hurrying to the house together. Steps on the landing; steps on the

stairway,--the door is open, and,--not Tom this time,--but her dear lost

brother Jem, in the flesh, and in a heavy pea-coat.

"Merry Christmas! Laura!"

* * * * *

"Laura," said Jem, as they sat at their Christmas dinner, "what do you

think I thought of first, when I heard the cable run out so like blazes;

when I rushed up and saw your yellow lanterns there?"

"How should I know, Jem?"

"'They that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them the light hath

shined.'"

"But I did not think it was you, Laura."

CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.

I.

I always give myself a Christmas present. And on this particular year

the present was a Carol party,--which is about as good fun, all things

consenting kindly, as a man can have.

Many things must consent, as will appear. First of all there must be

good sleighing,--and second, a fine night for Christmas eve. Ours are

not the carollings of your poor shivering little East Angles or South

Mercians, where they have to plod round afoot in countries where they do

not know what a sleigh-ride is.

I had asked Harry to have sixteen of the best voices in the chapel

school to be trained to eight or ten good Carols without knowing why. We

did not care to disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the

24th of December should break up the spree before it began. Then I had

told Howland that he must reserve for me a span of good horses, and a

sleigh that I could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed.

Howland is always good about such things, knew what the sleigh was for,

having done the same in other years, and doubled the span of horses of

his own accord, because the children would like it better, and "it would

be no difference to him." Sunday night as the weather nymphs ordered,

the wind hauled round to the northwest and everything froze hard. Monday

night, things moderated and the snow began to fall steadily,--so

steadily;--and so Tuesday night the Metropolitan people gave up their

unequal contest, all good men and angels rejoicing at their

discomfiture, and only a few of the people in the very lowest _Bolgie_,

being ill-natured enough to grieve. And thus it was, that by Thursday

evening was one hard compact roadway from Copp's Hill to the

Bone-burner's Gehenna, fit for good men and angels to ride over, without

jar, without noise and without fatigue to horse or man. So it was that

when I came down with Lycidas to the chapel at seven o'clock, I found

Harry had gathered there his eight pretty girls and his eight jolly

boys, and had them practising for the last time,

"Carol, carol, Christians,

Carol joyfully;

Carol for the coming

Of Christ's nativity."

I think the children had got inkling of what was coming, or perhaps

Harry had hinted it to their mothers. Certainly they were warmly

dressed, and when, fifteen minutes afterwards, Howland came round

himself with the sleigh, he had put in as many rugs and bear-skins as if

he thought the children were to be taken new born from their respective

cradles. Great was the rejoicing as the bells of the horses rang beneath

the chapel windows, and Harry did not get his last _da capo_ for his

last carol. Not much matter indeed, for they were perfect enough in it

before midnight.

Lycidas and I tumbled in on the back seat, each with a child in his lap

to keep us warm; I was flanked by Sam Perry, and he by John Rich, both

of the mercurial age, and therefore good to do errands. Harry was in

front somewhere flanked in likewise, and the twelve other children lay

in miscellaneously between, like sardines when you have first opened

the box. I had invited Lycidas, because, besides being my best friend,

he is the best fellow in the world, and so deserves the best Christmas

eve can give him. Under the full moon, on the snow still white, with

sixteen children at the happiest, and with the blessed memories of the

best the world has ever had, there can be nothing better than two or

three such hours.

"First, driver, out on Commonwealth Avenue. That will tone down the

horses. Stop on the left after you have passed Fairfield Street." So we

dashed up to the front of Haliburton's palace, where he was keeping his

first Christmas tide. And the children, whom Harry had hushed down for a

square or two, broke forth with good full voice under his strong lead in

"Shepherd of tender sheep,"

singing with all that unconscious pathos with which children do sing,

and starting the tears in your eyes in the midst of your gladness. The

instant the horses' bells stopped, their voices began. In an instant

more we saw Haliburton and Anna run to the window and pull up the

shades, and, in a minute more, faces at all the windows. And so the

children sung through Clement's old hymn. Little did Clement think of

bells and snow, as he taught it in his Sunday school there in

Alexandria. But perhaps to-day, as they pin up the laurels and the palm

in the chapel at Alexandria, they are humming the words, not thinking of

Clement more than he thought of us. As the children closed with

"Swell the triumphant song

To Christ, our King,"

Haliburton came running out, and begged me to bring them in. But I told

him, "No," as soon as I could hush their shouts of "Merry Christmas;"

that we had a long journey before us, and must not alight by the way.

And the children broke out with

"Hail to the night,

Hail to the day,"

rather a favorite,--quicker and more to the childish taste perhaps than

the other,--and with another "Merry Christmas" we were off again.

Off, the length of Commonwealth Avenue, to where it crosses the

Brookline branch of the Mill-Dam,--dashing along with the gayest of the

sleighing-parties as we came back into town, up Chestnut Street, through

Louisburg Square,--we ran the sleigh into a bank on the slope of

Pinckney Street in front of Walter's house,--and, before they suspected

there that any one had come, the children were singing

"Carol, carol, Christians,

Carol joyfully."

Kisses flung from the window; kisses flung back from the street. "Merry

Christmas" again with a good-will, and then one of the girls began

"When Anna took the baby,

And pressed his lips to hers"--

and all of them fell in so cheerily. O dear me! it is a scrap of old

Ephrem the Syrian, if they did but know it! And when, after this, Harry

would fain have driven on, because two carols at one house was the rule,

how the little witches begged that they might sing just one song more

there, because Mrs. Alexander had been so kind to them, when she showed

them about the German stitches. And then up the hill and over to the

North End, and as far as we could get the horses up into Moon Court,

that they might sing to the Italian image-man who gave Lucy the boy and

dog in plaster, when she was sick in the spring. For the children had,

you know, the choice of where they would go; and they select their best

friends, and will be more apt to remember the Italian image-man than

Chrysostom himself, though Chrysostom should have "made a few remarks"

to them seventeen times in the chapel. Then the Italian image-man heard

for the first time in his life

"Now is the time of Christmas come,"

and

"Jesus in his babes abiding."

And then we came up Hanover Street and stopped under Mr. Gerry's chapel,

where they were dressing the walls with their evergreens, and gave them

"Hail to the night,

Hail to the day";

and so down State Street and stopped at the Advertiser office, because,

when the boys gave their "Literary Entertainment," Mr. Hale put in their

advertisement for nothing, and up in the old attic there the

compositors were relieved to hear

"Nor war nor battle sound,"

and

"The waiting world was still."

Even the leading editor relaxed from his gravity, and the "In General"

man from his more serious views, and the Daily the next morning wished

everybody a merry Christmas with even more unction, and resolved that in

coming years it would have a supplement, large enough to contain all the

good wishes. So away again to the houses of confectioners who had given

the children candy,--to Miss Simonds's house, because she had been so

good to them in school,--to the palaces of millionnaires who had prayed

for these children with tears if the children only knew it,--to Dr.

Frothingham's in Summer Street, I remember, where we stopped because the

Boston Association of Ministers met there,--and out on Dover Street

Bridge, that the poor chair-mender might hear our carols sung once more

before he heard them better sung in another world where nothing needs

mending.

"King of glory, king of peace!"

"Hear the song, and see the Star!"

"Welcome be thou, heavenly King!"

"Was not Christ our Saviour?"

and all the others, rung out with order or without order, breaking the

hush directly as the horses' bells were stilled, thrown into the air

with all the gladness of childhood, selected sometimes as Harry happened

to think best for the hearers, but more often as the jubilant and

uncontrolled enthusiasm of the children bade them break out in the most

joyous, least studied, and purely lyrical of all. O, we went to twenty

places that night, I suppose! We went to the grandest places in Boston,

and we went to the meanest. Everywhere they wished us a merry Christmas,

and we them. Everywhere a little crowd gathered round us, and then we

dashed away far enough to gather quite another crowd; and then back,

perhaps, not sorry to double on our steps if need were, and leaving

every crowd with a happy thought of

"The star, the manger, and the Child!"

At nine we brought up at my house, D Street, three doors from the

corner, and the children picked their very best for Polly and my six

little girls to hear, and then for the first time we let them jump out

and run in. Polly had some hot oysters for them, so that the frolic was

crowned with a treat. There was a Christmas cake cut into sixteen

pieces, which they took home to dream upon; and then hoods and muffs on

again, and by ten o'clock, or a little after, we had all the girls and

all the little ones at their homes. Four of the big boys, our two

flankers and Harry's right and left hand men, begged that they might

stay till the last moment. They could walk back from the stable, and

"rather walk than not, indeed." To which we assented, having gained

parental permission, as we left younger sisters in their respective

homes.

II.

Lycidas and I both thought, as we went into these modest houses, to

leave the children, to say they had been good and to wish a "Merry

Christmas" ourselves to fathers, mothers, and to guardian aunts, that

the welcome of those homes was perhaps the best part of it all. Here

was the great stout sailor-boy whom we had not seen since he came back

from sea. He was a mere child when he left our school years on years

ago, for the East, on board Perry's vessel, and had been round the

world. Here was brave Mrs. Masury. I had not seen her since her mother

died. "Indeed, Mr. Ingham, I got so used to watching then, that I cannot

sleep well yet o' nights; I wish you knew some poor creature that wanted

me to-night, if it were only in memory of Bethlehem." "You take a deal

of trouble for the children," said Campbell, as he crushed my hand in

his; "but you know they love you, and you know I would do as much for

you and yours,"--which I knew was true. "What can I send to your

children?" said Dalton, who was finishing sword-blades. (Ill wind was

Fort Sumter, but it blew good to poor Dalton, whom it set up in the

world with his sword-factory.) "Here's an old-fashioned tape-measure for

the girl, and a Sheffield wimble for the boy. What, there is no boy? Let

one of the girls have it then; it will count one more present for her."

And so he pressed his brown-paper parcel into my hand. From every house,

though it were the humblest, a word of love, as sweet, in truth, as if

we could have heard the voice of angels singing in the sky.

I bade Harry good-night; took Lycidas to his lodgings, and gave his wife

my Christmas wishes and good-night; and, coming down to the sleigh

again, gave way to the feeling which I think you will all understand,

that this was not the time to stop, but just the time to begin. For the

streets were stiller now, and the moon brighter than ever, if possible,

and the blessings of these simple people and of the grand people, and of

the very angels in heaven, who are not bound to the misery of using

words when they have anything worth saying,--all these wishes and

blessings were round me, all the purity of the still winter night, and I

didn't want to lose it all by going to bed to sleep. So I put the boys

all together, where they could chatter, took one more brisk turn on the

two avenues, and then, passing through Charles Street, I believe I was

even thinking of Cambridge, I noticed the lights in Woodhull's house,

and, seeing they were up, thought I would make Fanny a midnight call.

She came to the door herself. I asked if she were waiting for Santa

Claus, but saw in a moment that I must not joke with her. She said she

had hoped I was her husband. In a minute was one of these contrasts

which make life, life. God puts us into the world that we may try them

and be tried by them. Poor Fanny's mother had been blocked up on the

Springfield train as she was coming on to Christmas. The old lady had

been chilled through, and was here in bed now with pneumonia. Both

Fanny's children had been ailing when she came, and this morning the

doctor had pronounced it scarlet fever. Fanny had not undressed herself

since Monday, nor slept, I thought, in the same time. So while we had

been singing carols and wishing merry Christmas, the poor child had been

waiting, and hoping that her husband or Edward, both of whom were on the

tramp, would find for her and bring to her the model nurse, who had not

yet appeared. But at midnight this unknown sister had not arrived, nor

had either of the men returned. When I rang, Fanny had hoped I was one

of them. Professional paragons, dear reader, are shy of scarlet fever. I

told the poor child that it was better as it was. I wrote a line for Sam

Perry to take to his aunt, Mrs. Masury, in which I simply said: "Dear

mamma, I have found the poor creature who wants you to-night. Come back

in this carriage." I bade him take a hack at Barnard's, where they were

all up waiting for the assembly to be done at Papanti's. I sent him over

to Albany Street; and really as I sat there trying to soothe Fanny, it

seemed to me less time than it has taken me to dictate this little story

about her, before Mrs. Masury rang gently, and I left them, having made

Fanny promise that she would consecrate the day, which at that moment

was born, by trusting God, by going to bed and going to sleep, knowing

that her children were in much better hands than hers. As I passed out

of the hall, the gas-light fell on a print of Correggio's Adoration,

where Woodhull had himself written years before,

"Ut appareat iis qui in tenebris et umbra mortis positi sunt."

"Darkness and the shadow of death" indeed, and what light like the light

and comfort such a woman as my Mary Masury brings!

And so, but for one of the accidents, as we call them, I should have

dropped the boys at the corner of Dover Street, and gone home with my

Christmas lesson.

But it happened, as we irreverently say,--it happened as we crossed Park

Square, so called from its being an irregular pentagon of which one of

the sides has been taken away, that I recognized a tall man, plodding

across in the snow, head down, round-shouldered, stooping forward in

walking, with his right shoulder higher than his left; and by these

tokens I knew Tom Coram, prince among Boston princes. Not Thomas Coram

that built the Foundling Hospital, though he was of Boston too; but he

was longer ago. You must look for him in Addison's contribution to a

supplement to the Spectator,--the old Spectator, I mean, not the

Thursday Spectator, which is more recent. Not Thomas Coram, I say, but

Tom Coram, who would build a hospital to-morrow, if you showed him the

need, without waiting to die first, and always helps forward, as a

prince should, whatever is princely, be it a statue at home, a school at

Richmond, a newspaper in Florida, a church in Exeter, a steam-line to

Liverpool, or a widow who wants a hundred dollars. I wished him a merry

Christmas, and Mr. Howland, by a fine instinct, drew up the horses as I

spoke. Coram shook hands; and, as it seldom happens that I have an empty

carriage while he is on foot, I asked him if I might not see him home.

He was glad to get in. We wrapped him up with spoils of the bear, the

fox, and the bison, turned the horses' heads again,--five hours now

since they started on this entangled errand of theirs,--and gave him his

ride. "I was thinking of you at the moment," said Coram,--"thinking of

old college times, of the mystery of language as unfolded by the Abbe

Faria to Edmond Dantes in the depths of the Chateau d'If. I was

wondering if you could teach me Japanese, if I asked you to a Christmas

dinner." I laughed. Japan was really a novelty then, and I asked him

since when he had been in correspondence with the sealed country. It

seemed that their house at Shanghae had just sent across there their

agents for establishing the first house in Edomo, in Japan, under the

new treaty. Everything looked promising, and the beginnings were made

for the branch which has since become Dot and Trevilyan there. Of this

he had the first tidings in his letters by the mail of that afternoon.

John Coram, his brother, had written to him, and had said that he

enclosed for his amusement the Japanese bill of particulars, as it had

been drawn out, on which they had founded their orders for the first

assorted cargo ever to be sent from America to Edomo. Bill of

particulars there was, stretching down the long tissue-paper in

exquisite chirography. But by some freak of the "total depravity of

things," the translated order for the assorted cargo was not there. John

Coram, in his care to fold up the Japanese writing nicely, had left on

his own desk at Shanghae the more intelligible English. "And so I must

wait," said Tom philosophically, "till the next East India mail for my

orders, certain that seven English houses have had less enthusiastic and

philological correspondents than my brother."

I said I did not see that. That I could not teach him to speak the

Taghalian dialects so well, that he could read them with facility before

Saturday. But I could do a good deal better. Did he remember writing a

note to old Jack Percival for me five years ago? No, he remembered no

such thing; he knew Jack Percival, but never wrote a note to him in his

life. Did he remember giving me fifty dollars, because I had taken a

delicate boy, whom I was going to send to sea, and I was not quite

satisfied with the government outfit? No, he did not remember that,

which was not strange, for that was a thing he was doing every day.

"Well, I don't care how much you remember, but the boy about whom you

wrote to Jack Percival, for whose mother's ease of mind you provided the

half-hundred, is back again,--strong, straight, and well; what is more

to the point, he had the whole charge of Perry's commissariat on shore

at Yokohama, was honorably discharged out there, reads Japanese better

than you read English; and if it will help you at all, he shall be here

at your house at breakfast." For as I spoke we stopped at Coram's door.

"Ingham," said Coram, "if you were not a parson, I should say you were

romancing." "My child," said I, "I sometimes write a parable for the

Atlantic; but the words of my lips are verity, as all those of the

Sandemanians. Go to bed; do not even dream of the Taghalian dialects; be

sure that the Japanese interpreter will breakfast with you, and the next

time you are in a scrape send for the nearest minister. George, tell

your brother Ezra that Mr. Coram wishes him to breakfast here to-morrow

morning at eight o'clock; don't forget the number, Pemberton Square, you

know." "Yes, sir," said George; and Thomas Coram laughed, said "Merry

Christmas," and we parted.

It was time we were all in bed, especially these boys. But glad

enough am I as I write these words that the meeting of Coram set us

back that dropped-stitch in our night's journey. There was one more

delay. We were sweeping by the Old State House, the boys singing

again, "Carol, carol, Christians," as we dashed along the still

streets, when I caught sight of Adams Todd, and he recognized me. He

had heard us singing when we were at the Advertiser office. Todd is

an old fellow-apprentice of mine,--and he is now, or rather was that

night, chief pressman in the Argus office. I like the Argus

people,--it was there that I was South American Editor, now many

years ago,--and they befriend me to this hour. Todd hailed me, and

once more I stopped. "What sent you out from your warm steam-boiler?"

"Steam-boiler, indeed," said Todd. "Two rivets loose,--steam-room

full of steam,--police frightened,--neighborhood in a row,--and we

had to put out the fire. She would have run a week without hurting a

fly,--only a little puff in the street sometimes. But there we are,

Ingham. We shall lose the early mail as it stands. Seventy-eight

tokens to be worked now." They always talked largely of their edition

at the Argus. Saw it with many eyes, perhaps; but this time, I am

sure, Todd spoke true. I caught his idea at once. In younger and more

muscular times, Todd and I had worked the Adams press by that

fly-wheel for full five minutes at a time, as a test of strength; and

in my mind's eye, I saw that he was printing his paper at this moment

with relays of grinding stevedores. He said it was so. "But think of

it to-night," said he. "It is Christmas eve, and not an Irishman to

be hired, though one paid him ingots. Not a man can stand the grind

ten minutes." I knew that very well from old experience, and I

thanked him inwardly for not saying "the demnition grind," with

Mantilini. "We cannot run the press half the time," said he; "and the

men we have are giving out now. We shall lose all our carrier

delivery." "Todd," said I, "is this a night to be talking of ingots,

or hiring, or losing, or gaining? When will you learn that Love rules

the court, the camp, and the Argus office." And I wrote on the back

of a letter to Campbell: "Come to the Argus office, No. 2 Dassett's

Alley, with seven men not afraid to work"; and I gave it to John and

Sam, bade Howland take the boys to Campbell's house,--walked down

with Todd to his office,--challenged him to take five minutes at the

wheel, in memory of old times,--made the tired relays laugh as they

saw us take hold; and then,--when I had cooled off, and put on my

Cardigan,--met Campbell, with his seven sons of Anak, tumbling down

the stairs, wondering what round of mercy the parson had found for

them this time. I started home, knowing I should now have my Argus

with my coffee.

III.

And so I walked home. Better so, perhaps, after all, than in the lively

sleigh, with the tinkling bells.

"It was a calm and silent night!--

Seven hundred years and fifty-three

Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was queen of land and sea!

No sound was heard of clashing wars,--

Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars

Held undisturbed their ancient reign

In the solemn midnight,

Centuries ago!"

What an eternity it seemed since I started with those children singing

carols. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary, Rome, Roman senators, Tiberius,

Paul, Nero, Clement, Ephrem, Ambrose, and all the singers,--Vincent de

Paul, and all the loving wonder-workers, Milton and Herbert and all the

carol-writers, Luther and Knox and all the prophets,--what a world of

people had been keeping Christmas with Sam Perry and Lycidas and Harry

and me; and here were Yokohama and the Japanese, the Daily Argus and its

ten million tokens and their readers,--poor Fanny Woodhull and her sick

mother there, keeping Christmas too! For a finite world, these are a

good many "waits" to be singing in one poor fellow's ears on one

Christmas tide.

"'Twas in the calm and silent night!--

The senator of haughty Rome,

Impatient urged his chariot's flight,

From lordly revel, rolling home.

Triumphal arches gleaming swell

His breast, with thoughts of boundless sway.

What recked the _Roman_ what befell

A paltry province far away,

In the solemn midnight,

Centuries ago!

"Within that province far away

Went plodding home a weary boor;

A streak of light before him lay,

Fallen through a half-shut stable door

Across his path. He passed,--for naught

Told _what was going on within_;

How keen the stars, his only thought,

The air how calm and cold and thin,

In the solemn midnight,

Centuries ago!"

"Streak of light"--Is there a light in Lycidas's room? They not in bed!

That is making a night of it! Well, there are few hours of the day or

night when I have not been in Lycidas's room, so I let myself in by the

night-key he gave me, ran up the stairs,--it is a horrid seven-storied,

first-class lodging-house. For my part, I had as lief live in a steeple.

Two flights I ran up, two steps at a time,--I was younger then than I am

now,--pushed open the door which was ajar, and saw such a scene of

confusion as I never saw in Mary's over-nice parlor before. Queer! I

remember the first thing that I saw was wrong was a great ball of white

German worsted on the floor. Her basket was upset. A great

Christmas-tree lay across the rug, quite too high for the room; a large

sharp-pointed Spanish clasp-knife was by it, with which they had been

lopping it; there were two immense baskets of white papered presents,

both upset; but what frightened me most was the centre-table. Three or

four handkerchiefs on it,--towels, napkins, I know not what,--all brown

and red and almost black with blood! I turned, heart-sick, to look into

the bedroom,--and I really had a sense of relief when I saw somebody.

Bad enough it was, however. Lycidas, but just now so strong and well,

lay pale and exhausted on the bloody bed, with the clothing removed from

his right thigh and leg, while over him bent Mary and Morton. I learned

afterwards that poor Lycidas, while trimming the Christmas-tree, and

talking merrily with Mary and Morton,--who, by good luck, had brought

round his presents late, and was staying to tie on glass balls and

apples,--had given himself a deep and dangerous wound with the point of

the unlucky knife, and had lost a great deal of blood before the

hemorrhage could be controlled. Just before I entered, the stick

tourniquet which Morton had improvised had slipped in poor Mary's

unpractised hand, at the moment he was about to secure the bleeding

artery, and the blood followed in such a gush as compelled him to give

his whole attention to stopping its flow. He only knew my entrance by

the "Ah, Mr. Ingham," of the frightened Irish girl, who stood useless

behind the head of the bed.

"O Fred," said Morton, without looking up, "I am glad you are here."

"And what can I do for you?"

"Some whiskey,--first of all."

"There are two bottles," said Mary, who was holding the candle,--"in the

cupboard, behind his dressing-glass."

I took Bridget with me, struck a light in the dressing-room (how she

blundered about the match), and found the cupboard door locked! Key

doubtless in Mary's pocket,--probably in pocket of "another dress." I

did not ask. Took my own bunch, willed tremendously that my account-book

drawer key should govern the lock, and it did. If it had not, I should

have put my fist through the panels. Bottle of bedbug poison; bottle

marked "bay rum"; another bottle with no mark; two bottles of Saratoga

water. "Set them all on the floor, Bridget." A tall bottle of Cologne.

Bottle marked in MS. What in the world is it? "Bring that candle,

Bridget." "Eau destillee. Marron, Montreal." What in the world did

Lycidas bring distilled water from Montreal for? And then Morton's clear

voice in the other room, "As quick as you can, Fred." "Yes! in one

moment. Put all these on the floor, Bridget." Here they are at last.

"Bourbon whiskey." "Corkscrew, Bridget."

"Indade, sir, and where is it?" "Where? I don't know. Run down as quick

as you can, and bring it. His wife cannot leave him." So Bridget ran,

and the first I heard was the rattle as she pitched down the last six

stairs of the first flight headlong. Let us hope she has not broken her

leg. I meanwhile am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon

corks, and the blade of my own penknife on the other side.

"Now, Fred," from George within. (We all call Morton "George.") "Yes, in

one moment," I replied. Penknife blade breaks off, fork pulls right out,

two crumbs of cork come with it. Will that girl never come?

I turned round; I found a goblet on the washstand; I took Lycidas's

heavy clothes-brush, and knocked off the neck of the bottle. Did you

ever do it, reader, with one of those pressed glass bottles they make

now? It smashed like a Prince Rupert's drop in my hand, crumbled into

seventy pieces,--a nasty smell of whiskey on the floor,--and I, holding

just the hard bottom of the thing with two large spikes running

worthless up into the air. But I seized the goblet, poured into it what

was left in the bottom, and carried it in to Morton as quietly as I

could. He bade me give Lycidas as much as he could swallow; then showed

me how to substitute my thumb for his, and compress the great artery.

When he was satisfied that he could trust me, he began his work again,

silently; just speaking what must be said to that brave Mary, who seemed

to have three hands because he needed them. When all was secure, he

glanced at the ghastly white face, with beads of perspiration on the

forehead and upper lip, laid his finger on the pulse, and said: "We will

have a little more whiskey. No, Mary, you are overdone already; let Fred

bring it." The truth was that poor Mary was almost as white as Lycidas.

She would not faint,--that was the only reason she did not,--and at the

moment I wondered that she did not fall. I believe George and I were

both expecting it, now the excitement was over. He called her Mary, and

me Fred, because we were all together every day of our lives. Bridget,

you see, was still nowhere.

So I retired for my whiskey again,--to attack that other bottle. George

whispered quickly as I went, "Bring enough,--bring the bottle." Did he

want the bottle corked? Would that Kelt ever come up stairs? I passed

the bell-rope as I went into the dressing-room, and rang as hard as I

could ring. I took the other bottle, and bit steadily with my teeth at

the cork, only, of course, to wrench the end of it off. George called

me, and I stepped back. "No," said he, "bring your whiskey."

Mary had just rolled gently back on the floor. I went again in despair.

But I heard Bridget's step this time. First flight, first passage;

second flight, second passage. She ran in in triumph at length, with a

_screw-driver_!

"No!" I whispered,--"no. The crooked thing you draw corks with," and I

showed her the bottle again. "Find one somewhere and don't come back

without it." So she vanished for the second time.

"Frederic!" said Morton. I think he never called me so before. Should I

risk the clothes-brush again? I opened Lycidas's own drawers,--papers,

boxes, everything in order,--not a sign of a tool.

"Frederic!" "Yes," I said. But why did I say "Yes"? "Father of Mercy,

tell me what to do."

And my mazed eyes, dim with tears,--did you ever shed tears from

excitement?--fell on an old razor-strop of those days of shaving, made

by C. WHITTAKER, SHEFFIELD. The "Sheffield" stood in black letters out

from the rest like a vision. They make corkscrews in Sheffield too. If

this Whittaker had only made a corkscrew! And what is a "Sheffield

wimble"?

Hand in my pocket,--brown paper parcel.

"Where are you, Frederic?" "Yes," said I, for the last time. Twine off!

brown paper off. And I learned that the "Sheffield wimble" was one of

those things whose name you never heard before, which people sell you in

Thames Tunnel, where a hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a

_corkscrew_ fold into one handle.

"Yes," said I, again. "Pop," said the cork. "Bubble, bubble, bubble,"

said the whiskey. Bottle in one hand, full tumbler in the other, I

walked in. George poured half a tumblerful down Lycidas's throat that

time. Nor do I dare say how much he poured down afterwards. I found that

there was need of it, from what he said of the pulse, when it was all

over. I guess Mary had some, too.

This was the turning-point. He was exceedingly weak, and we sat by him

in turn through the night, giving, at short intervals, stimulants and

such food as he could swallow easily; for I remember Morton was very

particular not to raise his head more than we could help. But there was

no real danger after this.

As we turned away from the house on Christmas morning,--I to preach and

he to visit his patients,--he said to me, "Did you make that whiskey?"

"No," said I, "but poor Dod Dalton had to furnish the corkscrew."

And I went down to the chapel to preach. The sermon had been lying ready

at home on my desk,--and Polly had brought it round to me,--for there

had been no time for me to go from Lycidas's home to D Street and to

return. There was the text, all as it was the day before:--

"They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his

brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the

goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote

the anvil."

And there were the pat illustrations, as I had finished them yesterday;

of the comfort Mary Magdalen gave Joanna, the court lady; and the

comfort the court lady gave Mary Magdalen, after the mediator of a new

covenant had mediated between them; how Simon the Cyrenian, and Joseph

of Arimathea, and the beggar Bartimeus comforted each other, gave each

other strength, common force, _com-fort_, when the One Life flowed in

all their veins; how on board the ship the Tent-Maker proved to be

Captain, and the Centurion learned his duty from his Prisoner, and how

they "_All_ came safe to shore," because the New Life was there. But as

I preached, I caught Frye's eye. Frye is always critical; and I said to

myself, "Frye would not take his illustrations from eighteen hundred

years ago." And I saw dear old Dod Dalton trying to keep awake, and

Campbell hard asleep after trying, and Jane Masury looking round to see

if her mother did not come in; and Ezra Sheppard, looking, not so much

at me, as at the window beside me, as if his thoughts were the other

side of the world. And I said to them all, "O, if I could tell you, my

friends, what every twelve hours of my life tells me,--of the way in

which woman helps woman, and man helps man, when only the ice is

broken,--how we are all rich so soon as we find out that we are all

brothers, and how we are all in want, unless we can call at any moment

for a brother's hand,--then I could make you understand something, in

the lives you lead every day, of what the New Covenant, the New

Commonwealth, the New Kingdom is to be."

But I did not dare tell Dod Dalton what Campbell had been doing for

Todd, nor did I dare tell Campbell by what unconscious arts old Dod had

been helping Lycidas. Perhaps the sermon would have been better had I

done so.

But, when we had our tree in the evening at home, I did tell

all this story to Polly and the bairns, and I gave Alice her

measuring-tape,--precious with a spot of Lycidas's blood,--and

Bertha her Sheffield wimble. "Papa," said old Clara, who is the

next child, "all the people gave presents, did not they, as they

did in the picture in your study?"

"Yes," said I, "though they did not all know they were giving them."

"Why do they not give such presents every day?" said Clara.

"O child," I said, "it is only for thirty-six hours of the three hundred

and sixty-five days, that all people remember that they are all brothers

and sisters, and those are the hours that we call, therefore, Christmas

eve and Christmas day."

"And when they always remember it," said Bertha, "it will be Christmas

all the time! What fun!"

"What fun, to be sure; but, Clara, what is in the picture?"

"Why, an old woman has brought eggs to the baby in the manger, and an

old man has brought a sheep. I suppose they all brought what they had."

"I suppose those who came from Sharon brought roses," said Bertha. And

Alice, who is eleven, and goes to the Lincoln School, and therefore

knows every thing, said,--"Yes, and the Damascus people brought Damascus

wimbles."

"This is certain," said Polly, "that nobody tried to give a straw, but

the straw, if he really gave it, carried a blessing."

ALICE'S CHRISTMAS-TREE.

CHAPTER I.

Alice MacNeil had made the plan of this Christmas-tree, all by herself

and for herself. She had a due estimate of those manufactured trees

which hard-worked "Sabbath Schools" get up for rewards of merit for the

children who have been regular, and at the last moment have saved

attendance-tickets enough. Nor did Alice MacNeil sit in judgment on

these. She had a due estimate of them. But for her Christmas-tree she

had two plans not included in those more meritorious buddings and

bourgeonings of the winter. First, she meant to get it up without any

help from anybody. And, secondly, she meant that the boys and girls who

had anything from it should be regular laners and by-way farers,--they

were to have no tickets of respectability,--they were not in any way to

buy their way in; but, for this once, those were to come in to a

Christmas-tree who happened to be ragged and in the streets when the

Christmas-tree was ready.

So Alice asked Mr. Williams, the minister, if she could have one of the

rooms in the vestry when Christmas eve came; and he, good saint, was

only too glad to let her. He offered, gently, his assistance in sifting

out the dirty boys and girls, intimating to Alice that there was dirt

and dirt; and that, even in those lowest depths which she was plunging

into, there were yet lower deeps which she might find it wise to shun.

But here Alice told him frankly that she would rather try her experiment

fairly through. Perhaps she was wrong, but she would like to see that

she was wrong in her own way. Any way, on Christmas eve, she wanted no

distinctions.

That part of her plan went bravely forward.

Her main difficulty came on the other side,--that she had too many to

help her. She was not able to carry out the first part of her plan, and

make or buy all her presents herself. For everybody was pleased with

this notion of a truly catholic or universal tree; and everybody wanted

to help. Well, if anybody would send her a box of dominos, or a

jack-knife, or an open-eye-shut-eye doll, who was Alice to say it should

not go on the tree? and when Mrs. Hesperides sent round a box of Fayal

oranges, who was Alice to say that the children should not have oranges?

And when Mr. Gorham Parsons sent in well-nigh a barrel full of

Hubbardston None-such apples, who was Alice to say they should not have

apples? So the tree grew and grew, and bore more and more fruit, till it

was clear that there would be more than eighty reliable presents on it,

besides apples and oranges, almonds and raisins galore.

Now you see this was a very great enlargement of Alice's plan; and it

brought her to grief, as you shall see. She had proposed a cosey little

tree for fifteen or twenty children. Well, if she had held to that, she

would have had no more than she and Lillie, and Mr. Williams, and Mr.

Gilmore, and John Flagg, and I, could have managed easily, particularly

if mamma was there too. There would have been room enough in the chapel

parlor; and it would have been, as I believe, just the pretty and

cheerful Christmas jollity that Alice meant it should be. But when it

came to eighty presents, and a company of eighty of the unwashed and

unticketed, it became quite a different thing.

For now Alice began to fear that there would not be children enough in

the highways and by-ways. So she started herself, as evening drew on,

with George, the old faithful black major-domo, and she walked through

the worst streets she knew anything of, of all those near the chapel;

and, whenever she saw a brat particularly dirty, or a group of brats

particularly forlorn, she sailed up gallantly, and, though she was

frightened to death, she invited them to the tree. She gave little

admittance cards, that said, "7 o'clock, Christmas Eve, 507 Livingstone

Avenue," for fear the children would not remember. And she told Mr.

Flagg that he and Mr. Gilmore might take some cards and walk out toward

Williamsburg, and do the same thing, only they were to be sure that they

asked the dirtiest and most forlorn children they saw. There was a

friendly policeman with whom Alice had been brought into communication

by the boys in her father's office, and he also was permitted to give

notice of the tree. But he was also to be at the street door, armed

with the strong arm of "The People of New York," and when the full quota

of eighty had been admitted he was to admit no more.

Ah me! My poor Alice issued her cards only too freely. Better indeed, it

seemed, had she held to her original plan; at least she thought so, and

thinks so to this day. But I am not so certain. A hard time she had of

it, however. Quarter of seven found the little Arabs in crowds around

the door, with hundreds of others who thought they also were to find out

what a "free lunch" was. The faithful officer Purdy was in attendance

also; he passed in all who had the cards; he sent away legions, let me

say, who had reason to dread him; but still there assembled a larger and

larger throng about the door. Alice and Lillie, and the young gentlemen,

and Mrs. MacNeil, were all at work up stairs, and the tree was a perfect

beauty at last. They lighted up, and nothing could have been more

lovely.

"Let them in!" said John Flagg rushing to the door, where expectant

knocks had been heard already. "Let them in,--the smallest girls

first!"

"Smallest girls," indeed! The door swung open, and a tide of boy and

girl, girl and boy, boy big to hobble-de-hoy-dom, and girl big to

young-woman-dom, came surging in, wildly screaming, scolding, pushing,

and pulling. Omitting the profanity, these are the Christmas carols that

fell on Alice's ear.

"Out o' that!" "Take that, then!" "Who are you?" "Hold your jaw!"

"Can't you behave decent?" "You lie!" "Get out of my light!" "Oh,

dear! you killed me!" "Who's killed?" "Golly! see there!" "I say, ma'am,

give me that pair of skates!" "Shut up--" and so on, the howls being

more and more impertinent, as the shepherds who had come to adore became

more and more used to the position they were in.

Young Gilmore, who was willing to oblige Alice, but was not going to

stand any nonsense, and would have willingly knocked the heads together

of any five couples of this rebel rout, mounted on a corner of the

railing, which, by Mr. Williams's prescience had been built around the

tree, and addressed the riotous assembly.

They stopped to hear him, supposing he was to deliver the gifts, to

which they had been summoned.

He told them pretty roundly that if they did not keep the peace, and

stop crowding and yelling, they should all be turned out of doors; that

they were to pass the little girls and boys forward first, and that

nobody would have any thing to eat till this was done.

Some approach to obedience followed. A few little waifs were found, who

in decency could be called _little_ girls and boys. But, alas! as she

looked down from her chair, Alice felt as if most of her guests looked

like shameless, hulking big boys and big girls, only too well fitted to

grapple with the world, and only too eager to accept its gifts without

grappling. She and Lillie tried to forget this. They kissed a few little

girls, and saw the faintest gleam of pleasure on one or two little

faces. But there, also, the pleasure was almost extinct, in fear of the

big boys and big girls howling around.

So the howling began again, as the distribution went forward. "Give me

that jack-knife!" "I say, Mister, I'm as big as he is," "He had one

before and hid it," "Be down, Tom Mulligan,--get off that fence or I'll

hide you," "I don't want the book, give me them skates," "You sha'n't

have the skates, I'll have 'em myself--" and so on. John Flagg finally

knocked down Tom Mulligan, who had squeezed round behind the tree, in an

effort to steal something, and had the satisfaction of sending him

bellowing from the room, with his face covered with blood from his nose.

Gilmore, meanwhile, was rapidly distributing an orange and an apple to

each, which, while the oranges were sucked, gave a moment's quiet. Alice

and the ladies, badly frightened, were stripping the tree as fast as

they could, and at last announced that it was all clear, with almost as

eager joy as half an hour before they had announced that it was all

full. "There's a candy horn on top, give me that." "Give me that little

apple." "Give me the old sheep." "Hoo! hurrah, for the old sheep!" This

of a little lamb which had been placed as an appropriate ornament in

front. Then began a howl about oranges. "I want another orange." "Bill's

got some, and I've got none." "I say, Mister, give me an orange."

To which Mister replied, by opening the window, and speaking into the

street,--"I say, Purdy, call four officers and come up and clear this

room."

The room did not wait for the officers: it cleared itself very soon on

this order, and was left a scene of wreck and dirt. Orange-peel trampled

down on the floor; cake thrown down and mashed to mud, intermixed with

that which had come in on boots, and the water which had been slobbered

over from hasty mugs; the sugar plums which had fallen in scrambles, and

little sprays of green too, trodden into the mass,--all made an aspect

of filth like a market side-walk. And poor Alice was half crying and

half laughing; poor Lillie was wholly crying. Gilmore and Flagg were

explaining to each other how gladly they would have thrashed the whole

set.

The thought uppermost in Alice's mind was that she had been a clear, out

and out fool! And that, probably, is the impression of the greater part

of the readers of her story,--or would have been the impression of any

one who only had her point of view.