CHAPTER III.

After supper, accordingly, Pat Crehore repaired to certain rendezvous of

the younger life of the neighborhood, known to him, in search of Bill

Floyd. Bill was not at the first, nor at the second, there being indeed

no rule or principle known to men or even to archangels by which Bill's

presence at any particular spot at any particular time could be

definitely stated. But Bill also, in his proud free-will, obeyed certain

general laws; and accordingly Pat found him inspecting, as a volunteer

officer of police, the hauling out and oiling of certain hose at the

house of a neighboring hose company. "Come here, Bill. I got something

to show you."

Bill had already carried home and put in safe keeping a copy of

Routledge's "Robinson Crusoe," which had been given to him.

He left the hose inspection willingly, and hurried along with Pat, past

many attractive groups, not even stopping where a brewer's horse had

fallen on the ground, till Pat brought him in triumph to the gaudy

window of a shoe-shop, lighted up gayly and full of the wares by which

even shoe-shops lure in customers for Christmas.

"See there!" said Pat, nearly breathless. And he pointed to the very

centre of the display, a pair of slippers made from bronze-gilt kid, and

displaying a hideous blue silk bow upon the gilding. For what class of

dancers or of maskers these slippers may have been made, or by what

canon of beauty, I know not. Only they were the centre of decoration in

the shoe-shop window. Pat looked at them with admiration, as he had

often done, and said again to Bill Floyd, "See there, ain't them

handsome?"

"Golly!" said Bill, "I guess so."

"Bill, let's buy them little shoes, and give 'em to her."

"Give 'em to who?" said Bill, from whose mind the Christmas-tree had for

the moment faded, under the rivalry of the hose company, the brewer's

horse, and the shop window. "Give 'em to who?"

"Why, her, I don't know who she is. The gal that made the

what-do-ye-call-it, the tree, you know, and give us the oranges, where

old Purdy was. I say, Bill, it was a mean dirty shame to make such a row

there, when we was bid to a party; and I want to make the gal a present,

for I see her crying, Bill. Crying cos it was such a row." Again, I omit

certain profane expressions which did not add any real energy to the

declaration.

"They is handsome," said Bill, meditatingly. "Ain't the blue ones

handsomest?"

"No," said Pat, who saw he had gained his lodgment, and that the

carrying his point was now only a matter of time. "The gould ones is the

ones for me. We'll give 'em to the gal for a Christmas present, you and

I and Tom Mulligan."

Bill Floyd did not dissent, being indeed in the habit of going as he

was led, as were most of the "rebel rout" with whom he had an hour ago

been acting. He assented entirely to Pat's proposal. By "Christmas" both

parties understood that the present was to be made before Twelfth Night,

not necessarily on Christmas day. Neither of them had a penny; but both

of them knew, perfectly well, that whenever they chose to get a little

money they could do so.

They soon solved their first question, as to the cost of the coveted

slippers. True, they knew, of course, that they would be ejected from

the decent shop if they went in to inquire. But, by lying in wait, they

soon discovered Delia Sullivan, a decent-looking girl they knew, passing

by, and having made her their confidant, so far that she was sure she

was not fooled, they sent her in to inquire. The girl returned to

announce, to the astonishment of all parties, that the shoes cost six

dollars.

"Hew!" cried Pat, "six dollars for them are! I bought my mother's new

over-shoes for one." But not the least did he 'bate of his

determination, and he and Bill Floyd went in search of Tom Mulligan.

Tom was found as easily as Bill. But it was not so easy to enlist him.

Tom was in a regular corner liquor store with men who were sitting

smoking, drinking, and telling dirty stories. Either of the other boys

would have been whipped at home if he had been known to be seen sitting

in this place, and the punishment would have been well bestowed. But Tom

Mulligan had had nobody thrash him for many a day till John Flagg had

struck out so smartly from the shoulder. Perhaps, had there been some

thrashing as discriminating as Jerry Flaherty's, it had been better for

Tom Mulligan. The boys found him easily enough, but, as I said, had some

difficulty in getting him away. With many assurances, however, that they

had something to tell him, and something to show him, they lured him

from the shadow of the comfortable stove into the night.

Pat Crehore, who had more of the tact of oratory than he knew, then

boldly told Tom Mulligan the story of the Christmas-tree, as it passed

after Tom's ejection. Tom was sour at first, but soon warmed to the

narrative, and even showed indignation at the behavior of boys who had

seemed to carry themselves less obnoxiously than he did. All the boys

agreed, that but for certain others who had never been asked to come,

and ought to be ashamed to be there with them as were, there would have

been no row. They all agreed that on some suitable occasion unknown to

me and to this story they would take vengeance on these Tidds and

Sullivans. When Pat Crehore wound up his statement, by telling how he

saw the ladies crying, and all the pretty room looking like a pig-sty,

Tom Mulligan was as loud as he was in saying that it was all wrong, and

that nobody but blackguards would have joined in it, in particular such

blackguards as the Tidds and Sullivans above alluded to.

Then to Tom's sympathizing ear was confided the project of the gold

shoes, as the slippers were always called, in this honorable company.

And Tom completely approved. He even approved the price. He explained to

the others that it would be mean to give to a lady any thing of less

price. This was exactly the sum which recommended itself to his better

judgment. And so the boys went home, agreeing to meet Christmas morning

as a Committee of Ways and Means.

To the discussions of this committee I need not admit you. Many plans

were proposed: one that they should serve through the holidays at

certain ten-pin alleys, known to them; one that they should buy off

Fogarty from his newspaper route for a few days. But the decision was,

that Pat, the most decent in appearance, should dress up in a certain

Sunday suit he had, and offer the services of himself, and two unknown

friends of his, as extra cork-boys at Birnebaum's brewery, where Tom

Mulligan reported they were working nights, that they might fill an

extra order. This device succeeded. Pat and his friends were put on

duty, for trial, on the night of the 26th; and, the foreman of the

corking-room being satisfied, they retained their engagements till New

Year's eve, when they were paid three dollars each, and resigned their

positions.

"Let's buy her three shoes!" said Bill, in enthusiasm at their success.

But this proposal was rejected. Each of the other boys had a private

plan for an extra present to "her" by this time. The sacred six dollars

was folded up in a bit of straw paper from the brewery, and the young

gentlemen went home to make their toilets, a process they had had no

chance to go through, on Christmas eve. After this, there was really no

difficulty about their going into the shoe-shop, and none about

consummating the purchase,--to the utter astonishment of the dealer. The

gold shoes were bought, rolled up in paper, and ready for delivery.

Bill Floyd had meanwhile learned, by inquiry at the chapel, where she

lived, though there were doubts whether any of them knew her name. The

others rejected his proposals that they should take street cars, and

they boldly pushed afoot up to Clinton Avenue, and rang, not without

terror, at the door.

Terror did not diminish when black George appeared, whose acquaintance

they had made at the tree. But fortunately George did not recognize them

in their apparel of elegance. When they asked for the "lady that gave

the tree," he bade them wait a minute, and in less than a minute Alice

came running out to meet them. To the boys' great delight, she was not

crying now.

"If you please, ma'am," said Tom, who had been commissioned as

spokesman,--"if you please, them's our Christmas present to you, ma'am.

Them's gold shoes. And please, ma'am, we're very sorry there was such

a row at the Christmas, ma'am. It was mean, ma'am. Good-by, ma'am."

Alice's eyes were opening wider and wider, nor at this moment did she

understand. "Gold shoes," and "row at the Christmas," stuck by her,

however; and she understood there was a present. So, of course, she said

the right thing, by accident, and did the right thing, being a lady

through and through.

"No, you must not go away. Come in, boys, come in. I did not know you,

you know." As how should she. "Come in and sit down."

"Can't ye take off your hat?" said Tom, in an aside to Pat, who had

neglected this reverence as he entered. And Tom was thus a little

established in his own esteem.

And Alice opened the parcel, and had her presence of mind by this time;

and, amazed as she was at the gold shoes, showed no amazement,--nay,

even slipped off her own slipper, and showed that the gold shoe fitted,

to the delight of Tom, who was trying to explain that the man would

change them if they were too small. She found an apple for each boy,

thanked and praised each one separately; and the interview would have

been perfect, had she not innocently asked Tom what was the matter with

his eye. Tom's eye! Why, it was the black eye John Flagg gave him. I am

sorry to say Bill Floyd sniggered; but Pat came to the front this time,

and said "a man hurt him." Then Alice produced some mittens, which had

been left, and asked whose those were. But the boys did not know.

"I say, fellars, I'm going down to the writing-school, at the Union,"

said Pat, when they got into the street, all of them being in the mood

that conceals emotion. "I say, let's all go."

To this they agreed.

"I say, I went there last week Monday, with Meg McManus. I say, fellars,

it's real good fun."

The other fellows, having on the unfamiliar best rig, were well aware

that they must not descend to their familiar haunts, and all consented.

To the amazement of the teacher, these three hulking boys allied

themselves to the side of order, took their places as they were bidden,

turned the public opinion of the class, and made the Botany Bay of the

school to be its quietest class that night.

To his amazement the same result followed the next night. And to his

greater amazement, the next.

To Alice's amazement, she received on Twelfth Night a gilt valentine

envelope, within which, on heavily ruled paper, were announced these

truths:--

MARM,--The mitins wur Nora Killpatrick's. She lives inn Water

street place behind the Lager Brewery.

Yours to command,

WILLIAM FLOYD.

THOMAS MULLIGAN.

PATRICK CREHORE.

The names which they could copy from signs were correctly spelled.

To Pat's amazement, Tom Mulligan held on at the writing-school all

winter. When it ended, he wrote the best hand of any of them.

To my amazement, one evening when I looked in at Longman's, two years to

a day after Alice's tree, a bright black-eyed young man, who had tied up

for me the copy of Masson's "Milton," which I had given myself for a

Christmas present, said: "You don't remember me." I owned innocence.

"My name is Mulligan--Thomas Mulligan. Would you thank Mr. John Flagg,

if you meet him, for a Christmas present he gave me two years ago, at

Miss Alice MacNeil's Christmas-tree. It was the best present I ever had,

and the only one I ever deserved."

And I said I would do so.

* * * * *

I told Alice afterward never to think she was going to catch all the

fish there were in any school. I told her to whiten the water with

ground-bait enough for all, and to thank God if her heavenly fishing

were skilful enough to save one.

DAILY BREAD.

I.

A QUESTION OF NOURISHMENT.

"And how is he?" said Robert, as he came in from his day's work, in

every moment of which he had thought of his child. He spoke in a whisper

to his wife, who met him in the narrow entry at the head of the stairs.

And in a whisper she replied.

"He is certainly no worse," said Mary: "the doctor says, maybe a shade

better. At least," she said, sitting on the lower step, and holding her

husband's hand, and still whispering,--"at least he said that the

breathing seemed to him a shade easier, one lung seemed to him a little

more free, and that it is now a question of time and nourishment."

"Nourishment?"

"Yes, nourishment,--and I own my heart sunk as he said so. Poor little

thing, he loathes the slops, and I told the doctor so. I told him the

struggle and fight to get them down his poor little throat gave him more

flush and fever than any thing. And then he begged me not to try that

again, asked if there were really nothing that the child would take, and

suggested every thing so kindly. But the poor little thing, weak as he

is, seems to rise up with supernatural strength against them all. I am

not sure, though, but perhaps we may do something with the old milk and

water: that is really my only hope now, and that is the reason I spoke

to you so cheerfully."

Then poor Mary explained more at length that Emily had brought in Dr.

Cummings's Manual[1] about the use of milk with children, and that they

had sent round to the Corlisses', who always had good milk, and had set

a pint according to the direction and formula,--and that though dear

little Jamie had refused the groats and the barley, and I know not what

else, that at six he had gladly taken all the watered milk they dared to

give him, and that it now had rested on his stomach half an hour, so

that she could not but hope that the tide had turned, only she hoped

with trembling, because he had so steadily refused cow's milk only the

week before.

[1] Has the reader a delicate infant? Let him send for

Dr. Cummings's little book on Milk for Children.

This rapid review in her entry, of the bulletins of a day, is really the

beginning of this Christmas story. No matter which day it was,--it was a

little before Christmas, and one of the shortest days, but I have

forgotten which. Enough that the baby, for he was a baby still, just

entering his thirteenth month,--enough that he did relish the milk, so

carefully measured and prepared, and hour by hour took his little dole

of it as if it had come from his mother's breast. Enough that three or

four days went by so, the little thing lying so still on his back in his

crib, his lips still so blue, and his skin of such deadly color against

the white of his pillow, and that, twice a day, as Dr. Morton came in

and felt his pulse, and listened to the panting, he smiled and looked

pleased, and said, "We are getting on better than I dared expect." Only

every time he said, "Does he still relish the milk?" and every time was

so pleased to know that he took to it still, and every day he added a

teaspoonful or two to the hourly dole,--and so poor Mary's heart was

lifted day by day.

This lasted till St. Victoria's day. Do you know which day that is? It

is the second day before Christmas; and here, properly speaking, the

story begins.

II.

ST. VICTORIA'S DAY.

St. Victoria's day the doctor was full two hours late. Mary was not

anxious about this. She was beginning to feel bravely about the boy, and

no longer counted the minutes till she could hear the door-bell ring.

When he came he loitered in the entry below,--or she thought he did. He

was long coming up stairs. And when he came in she saw that he was

excited by something,--was really even then panting for breath.

"I am here at last," he said. "Did you think I should fail you?"

Why, no,--poor innocent Mary had not thought any such thing. She had

known he would come,--and baby was so well that she had not minded his

delay.

Morton looked up at the close drawn shades, which shut out the light,

and said, "You did not think of the storm?"

"Storm? no!" said poor Mary. She had noticed, when Robert went to the

door at seven and she closed it after him, that some snow was falling.

But she had not thought of it again. She had kissed him, told him to

keep up good heart, and had come back to her baby.

Then the doctor told her that the storm which had begun before daybreak

had been gathering more and more severely; that the drifts were already

heavier than he remembered them in all his Boston life; that after half

an hour's trial in his sleigh he had been glad to get back to the stable

with his horse; and that all he had done since he had done on foot, with

difficulty she could not conceive of. He had been so long down stairs

while he brushed the snow off, that he might be fit to come near the

child.

"And really, Mrs. Walter, we are doing so well here," he said

cheerfully, "that I will not try to come round this afternoon, unless

you see a change. If you do, your husband must come up for me, you know.

But you will not need me, I am sure."

Mary felt quite brave to think that they should not need him really for

twenty-four hours, and said so; and added, with the first smile he had

seen for a fortnight: "I do not know anybody to whom it is of less

account than to me, whether the streets are blocked or open. Only I am

sorry for you."

Poor Mary, how often she thought of that speech, before Christmas day

went by! But she did not think of it all through St. Victoria's day. Her

husband did not come home to dinner. She did not expect him. The

children came from school at two, rejoicing in the long morning session

and the half holiday of the afternoon which had been earned by it. They

had some story of their frolic in the snow, and after dinner went

quietly away to their little play-room in the attic. And Mary sat with

her baby all the afternoon,--nor wanted other company. She could count

his breathing now, and knew how to time it by the watch, and she knew

that it was steadier and slower than it was the day before. And really

he almost showed an appetite for the hourly dole. Her husband was not

late. He had taken care of that, and had left the shop an hour early.

And as he came in and looked at the child from the other side of the

crib, and smiled so cheerfully on her, Mary felt that she could not

enough thank God for his mercy.

III.

ST. VICTORIA'S DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

Five and twenty miles away was another mother, with a baby born the same

day as Jamie. Mary had never heard of her and never has heard of her,

and, unless she reads this story, never will hear of her till they meet

together in the other home, look each other in the face, and know as

they are known. Yet their two lives, as you shall see, are twisted

together, as indeed are all lives, only they do not know it--as how

should they?

A great day for Huldah Stevens was this St. Victoria's day. Not that she

knew its name more than Mary did. Indeed it was only of late years that

Huldah Stevens had cared much for keeping Christmas day. But of late

years they had all thought of it more; and this year, on Thanksgiving

day, at old Mr. Stevens's, after great joking about the young people's

housekeeping, it had been determined, with some banter, that the same

party should meet with John and Huldah on Christmas eve, with all

Huldah's side of the house besides, to a late dinner or early supper, as

the guests might please to call it. Little difference between the meals,

indeed, was there ever in the profusion of these country homes. The men

folks were seldom at home at the noon-day meal, call it what you will.

For they were all in the milk-business, as you will see. And, what with

collecting the milk from the hill-farms, on the one hand, and then

carrying it for delivery at the three o'clock morning milk-train, on the

other hand, any hours which you, dear reader, might consider systematic,

or of course in country life, were certainly always set aside. But,

after much conference, as I have said, it had been determined at the

Thanksgiving party that all hands in both families should meet at John

and Huldah's as near three o'clock as they could the day before

Christmas; and then and there Huldah was to show her powers in

entertaining at her first state family party.

So this St. Victoria's day was a great day of preparation for Huldah,

if she had only known its name, as she did not. For she was of the kind

which prepares in time, not of the kind that is caught out when the

company come with the work half done. And as John started on his

collection beat that morning at about the hour Robert, in town, kissed

Mary good-by, Huldah stood on the step with him, and looked with

satisfaction on the gathering snow, because it would make better

sleighing the next day for her father and mother to come over. She

charged him not to forget her box of raisins when he came back, and to

ask at the express if anything came up from town, bade him good-by, and

turned back into the house, not wholly dissatisfied to be almost alone.

She washed her baby, gave him his first lunch and put him to bed. Then,

with the coast fairly clear,--what woman does not enjoy a clear coast,

if it only be early enough in the morning?--she dipped boldly and wisely

into her flour-barrel, stripped her plump round arms to their work, and

began on the pie-crust which was to appear to-morrow in the fivefold

forms of apple, cranberry, Marlboro', mince, and squash,--careful and

discriminating in the nice chemistry of her mixtures and the nice

manipulations of her handicraft, but in nowise dreading the issue. A

long, active, lively morning she had of it. Not dissatisfied with the

stages of her work, step by step she advanced, stage by stage she

attained of the elaborate plan which was well laid out in her head, but,

of course, had never been intrusted to words, far less to tell-tale

paper. From the oven at last came the pies,--and she was satisfied with

the color; from the other oven came the turkey, which she proposed to

have cold,--as a relay, or _piece de resistance_, for any who might not

be at hand at the right moment for dinner. Into the empty oven went the

clove-blossoming ham, which, as it boiled, had given the least

appetizing odor to the kitchen. In the pretty moulds in the woodshed

stood the translucent cranberry hardening to its fixed consistency. In

other moulds the obedient calf's foot already announced its willingness

and intention to "gell" as she directed. Huldah's decks were cleared

again, her kitchen table fit to cut out "work" upon,--all the pans and

plates were put away, which accumulate so mysteriously where cooking is

going forward; on its nail hung the weary jigger, on its hook the spicy

grater, on the roller a fresh towel. Everything gave sign of victory,

the whole kitchen looking only a little nicer than usual. Huldah herself

was dressed for the afternoon, and so was the baby; and nobody but as

acute observers as you and I would have known that she had been in

action all along the line and had won the battle at every point, when

two o'clock came, the earliest moment at which her husband ever

returned.

Then for the first time it occurred to Huldah to look out doors and see

how fast the snow was gathering. She knew it was still falling. But the

storm was a quiet one, and she had had too much to do to be gaping out

of the windows. She went to the shed door, and to her amazement saw that

the north wood-pile was wholly drifted in! Nor could she, as she stood,

see the fences of the roadway!

Huldah ran back into the house, opened the parlor door and drew up the

curtain, to see that there were indeed no fences on the front of the

house to be seen. On the northwest, where the wind had full

sweep,--between her and the barn, the ground was bare. But all that

snow--and who should say how much more?--was piled up in front of her;

so that unless Huldah had known every landmark, she would not have

suspected that any road was ever there. She looked uneasily out at the

northwest windows, but she could not see an inch to windward: dogged

snow--snow--snow--as if it would never be done.

Huldah knew very well then that there was no husband for her in the next

hour, nor most like in the next or the next. She knew very well too what

she had to do; and, knowing it, she did it. She tied on her hood, and

buttoned tight around her her rough sack, passed through the shed and

crossed that bare strip to the barn, opened the door with some

difficulty, because snow was already drifting into the doorway, and

entered. She gave the cows and oxen their water and the two night horses

theirs,--went up into the loft and pitched down hay enough for

all,--went down stairs to the pigs and cared for them,--took one of the

barn shovels and cleared a path where she had had to plunge into the

snow at the doorway, took the shovel back, and then crossed home again

to her baby. She thought she saw the Empsons' chimney smoking as she

went home, and that seemed companionable. She took off her over-shoes,

sack, and hood, said aloud, "This will be a good stay-at-home day,"

brought round her desk to the kitchen table, and began on a nice long

letter to her brother Cephas in Seattle.

That letter was finished, eight good quarto pages written, and a long

delayed letter to Emily Tabor, whom Huldah had not seen since she was

married; and a long pull at her milk accounts had brought them up to

date,--and still no John. Huldah had the table all set, you may be sure

of that; but, for herself, she had had no heart to go through the

formalities of lunch or dinner. A cup of tea and something to eat with

it as she wrote did better, she thought, for her,--and she could eat

when the men came. It is a way women have. Not till it became quite

dark, and she set her kerosene lamp in the window that he might have a

chance to see it when he turned the Locust Grove corner, did Huldah once

feel herself lonely, or permit herself to wish that she did not live in

a place where she could be cut off from all her race. "If John had gone

into partnership with Joe Winter and we had lived in Boston." This was

the thought that crossed her mind. Dear Huldah,--from the end of one

summer to the beginning of the next, Joe Winter does not go home to his

dinner; and what you experience to-day, so far as absence from your

husband goes, is what his wife experiences in Boston ten months, save

Sundays, in every year.

I do not mean that Huldah winced or whined. Not she. Only she did think

"if." Then she sat in front of the stove and watched the coals, and for

a little while continued to think "if." Not long. Very soon she was

engaged in planning how she would arrange the table to-morrow,--whether

Mother Stevens should cut the chicken-pie, or whether she would have

that in front of her own mother. Then she fell to planning what she

would make for Cynthia's baby,--and then to wondering whether Cephas was

in earnest in that half nonsense he wrote about Sibyl Dyer,--and then

the clock struck six!

No bells yet,--no husband,--no anybody. Lantern out and lighted. Rubber

boots on, hood and sack. Shed-shovel in one hand, lantern in the other.

Roadway still bare, but a drift as high as Huldah's shoulders at the

barn door. Lantern on the ground; snow-shovel in both hands now. One,

two, three!--one cubic foot out. One, two, three!--another cubic foot

out. And so on, and so on, and so on, till the doorway is clear again.

Lantern in one hand, snow-shovel in the other, we enter the barn, draw

the water for cows and oxen,--we shake down more hay, and see to the

pigs again. This time we make beds of straw for the horses and the

cattle. Nay, we linger a minute or two, for there is something

companionable there. Then we shut them in, in the dark, and cross the

well-cleared roadway to the shed, and so home again. Certainly Mrs.

Empson's kerosene lamp is in her window. That must be her light which

gives a little halo in that direction in the falling snow. That looks

like society.

And this time Huldah undresses the baby, puts on her yellow flannel

night-gown,--makes the whole as long as it may be,--and then, still

making believe be jolly, lights another lamp, eats her own supper,

clears it away, and cuts into the new Harper which John had brought up

to her the day before.

But the Harper is dull reading to her, though generally so attractive.

And when her Plymouth-Hollow clock consents to strike eight at last,

Huldah, who has stinted herself to read till eight, gladly puts down the

"Travels in Arizona," which seem to her as much like the "Travels in

Peru," of the month before, as those had seemed like the "Travels in

Chinchilla." Rubber boots again,--lantern again,--sack and hood again.

The men will be in no case for milking when they come. So Huldah brings

together their pails,--takes her shovel once more and her lantern,--digs

out the barn drift again, and goes over to milk little Carry and big

Fanchon. For, though the milking of a hundred cows passes under those

roofs and out again every day, Huldah is far too conservative to abandon

the custom which she inherits from some Thorfinn or some Elfrida, and

her husband is well pleased to humor her in keeping in that barn always,

at least two of the choicest three-quarter blood cows that he can

choose, for the family supply. Only, in general, he or Reuben milks

them; as duties are divided there, this is not Huldah's share. But on

this eve of St. Spiridion the gentle creatures were glad when she came

in; and in two journeys back and forth Huldah had carried her

well-filled pails into her dairy. This helped along the hour, and just

after nine o'clock struck, she could hear the cheers of the men at last.

She ran out again with the ready lighted lantern to the shed-door,--in

an instant had on her boots and sack and hood, had crossed to the barn,

and slid open the great barn door,--and stood there with her

light,--another Hero for another Leander to buffet towards, through the

snow. A sight to see were the two men, to be sure! And a story, indeed,

they had to tell! On their different beats they had fought snow all day,

had been breaking roads with the help of the farmers where they could,

had had to give up more than half of the outlying farms, sending such

messages as they might, that the outlying farmers might bring down

to-morrow's milk to such stations as they could arrange, and, at last,

by good luck, had both met at the depot in the hollow, where each had

gone to learn at what hour the milk-train might be expected in the

morning. Little reason was there, indeed, to expect it at all. Nothing

had passed the station-master since the morning express, called

lightning by satire, had slowly pushed up with three or four engines

five hours behind its time, and just now had come down a messenger from

them that he should telegraph to Boston that they were all blocked up at

Tyler's Summit,--the snow drifting beneath their wheels faster than they

could clear it. Above, the station-master said, nothing whatever had yet

passed Winchendon. Five engines had gone out from Fitchburg eastward,

but in the whole day they had not come as far as Leominster. It was very

clear that no milk-train nor any other train would be on time the next

morning.

Such was, in brief, John's report to Huldah, when they had got to that

state of things in which a man can make a report; that is, after they

had rubbed dry the horses, had locked up the barn, after the men had

rubbed themselves dry, and had put on dry clothing, and after each of

them, sitting on the fire side of the table, had drunk his first cup of

tea, and eaten his first square cubit of dipped-toast. After the

dipped-toast, they were going to begin on Huldah's fried potatoes and

sausages.

Huldah heard their stories with all their infinite little details; knew

every corner and turn by which they had husbanded strength and life; was

grateful to the Corbetts and Varnums and Prescotts and the rest, who,

with their oxen and their red right hands, had given such loyal help for

the common good; and she heaved a deep sigh when the story ended with

the verdict of the failure of the whole,--"No trains on time to-morrow."

"Bad for the Boston babies," said Reuben bluntly, giving words to what

the others were feeling. "Poor little things!" said Huldah, "Alice has

been so pretty all day." And she gulped down just one more sigh,

disgusted with herself, as she remembered that "if" of the

afternoon,--"if John had only gone into partnership with Joe Winter."

IV.

HOW THEY BROKE THE BLOCKADE.

Three o'clock in the morning saw Huldah's fire burning in the stove, her

water boiling in the kettle, her slices of ham broiling on the gridiron,

and quarter-past three saw the men come across from the barn, where they

had been shaking down hay for the cows and horses, and yoking the oxen

for the terrible onset of the day. It was bright star-light

above,--thank Heaven for that. This strip of three hundred thousand

square miles of snow cloud, which had been drifting steadily cast over a

continent, was, it seemed, only twenty hours wide,--say two hundred

miles, more or less,--and at about midnight its last flecks had fallen,

and all the heaven was washed black and clear. The men were well rested

by those five hours of hard sleep. They were fitly dressed for their

great encounter and started cheerily upon it, as men who meant to do

their duty, and to both of whom, indeed, the thought had come, that life

and death might be trembling in their hands. They did not take out the

pungs to-day, nor, of course, the horses. Such milk as they had

collected on St. Victoria's day they had stored already at the station,

and at Stacy's; and the best they could do to-day would be to break open

the road from the Four Corners to the station, that they might place as

many cans as possible there before the down-train came. From the house,

then, they had only to drive down their oxen that they might work with

the other teams from the Four Corners; and it was only by begging him,

that Huldah persuaded Reuben to take one lunch-can for them both. Then,

as Reuben left the door, leaving John to kiss her "good-by," and to tell

her not to be alarmed if they did not come home at night,--she gave to

John the full milk-can into which she had poured every drop of Carry's

milk, and said, "It will be one more; and God knows what child may be

crying for it now."

So they parted for eight and twenty hours; and in place of Huldah's

first state party of both families, she and Alice reigned solitary that

day, and held their little court with never a suitor. And when her

lunch-time came, Huldah looked half-mournfully, half-merrily, on her

array of dainties prepared for the feast, and she would not touch one of

them. She toasted some bread before the fire, made a cup of tea, boiled

an egg, and would not so much as set the table. As has been before

stated, this is the way with women.

And of the men, who shall tell the story of the pluck and endurance, of

the unfailing good-will, of the resource in strange emergency, of the

mutual help and common courage with which all the men worked that day

on that well-nigh hopeless task of breaking open the highway from the

Corners to the station? Well-nigh hopeless, indeed; for although at

first, with fresh cattle and united effort, they made in the hours,

which passed so quickly up to ten o'clock, near two miles headway, and

had brought yesterday's milk thus far,--more than half way to their

point of delivery,--at ten o'clock it was quite evident that this sharp

northwest wind, which told so heavily on the oxen and even on the men,

was filling in the very roadway they had opened, and so was cutting them

off from their base, and, by its new drifts, was leaving the roadway for

to-day's milk even worse than it was when they began. In one of those

extemporized councils, then,--such as fought the battle of Bunker Hill,

and threw the tea into Boston harbor,--it was determined, at ten

o'clock, to divide the working parties. The larger body should work back

to the Four Corners, and by proper relays keep that trunk line of road

open, if they could; while six yoke, with their owners, still pressing

forward to the station, should make a new base at Lovejoy's, where, when

these oxen gave out, they could be put up at his barn. It was quite

clear, indeed, to the experts that that time was not far distant.

And so, indeed, it proved. By three in the afternoon, John and Reuben

and the other leaders of the advance party--namely, the whole of it, for

such is the custom of New England--gathered around the fire at

Lovejoy's, conscious that after twelve hours of such battle as Pavia

never saw, nor Roncesvalles, they were defeated at every point but one.

Before them the mile of road which they had made in the steady work of

hours was drifted in again as smooth as the surrounding pastures, only

if possible a little more treacherous for the labor which they had

thrown away upon it. The oxen which had worked kindly and patiently,

well handled by good-tempered men, yet all confused and half dead with

exposure, could do no more. Well, indeed, if those that had been stalled

fast, and had had to stand in that biting wind after gigantic effort,

escaped with their lives from such exposure. All that the men had gained

was that they had advanced their first depot of milk--two hundred and

thirty-nine cans--as far as Lovejoy's. What supply might have worked

down to the Four Corners behind them, they did not know and hardly

cared, their communications that way being well-nigh cut off again. What

they thought of, and planned for, was simply how these cans at Lovejoy's

could be put on any downward train. For by this time they knew that all

trains would have lost their grades and their names, and that this milk

would go into Boston by the first engine that went there, though it rode

on the velvet of a palace car.

What train this might be, they did not know. From the hill above

Lovejoy's they could see poor old Dix, the station-master, with his wife

and boys, doing his best to make an appearance of shovelling in front of

his little station. But Dix's best was but little, for he had but one

arm, having lost the other in a collision, and so as a sort of pension

the company had placed him at this little flag-station, where was a roof

over his head, a few tickets to sell, and generally very little else to

do. It was clear enough that no working parties on the railroad had

worked up to Dix, or had worked down; nor was it very likely that any

would before night, unless the railroad people had better luck with

their drifts than our friends had found. But, as to this, who should

say? Snow-drifts are "mighty onsartain." The line of that road is in

general northwest, and to-day's wind might have cleaned out its gorges

as persistently as it had filled up our crosscuts. From Lovejoy's barn

they could see that the track was now perfectly clear for the half mile

where it crossed the Prescott meadows.

I am sorry to have been so long in describing thus the aspect of the

field after the first engagement. But it was on this condition of

affairs that, after full conference, the enterprises of the night were

determined. Whatever was to be done was to be done by men. And after

thorough regale on Mrs. Lovejoy's green tea, and continual return to her

constant relays of thin bacon gilded by unnumbered eggs; after cutting

and coming again upon unnumbered mince-pies, which, I am sorry to say,

did not in any point compare well with Huldah's,--each man thrust many

doughnuts into his outside pockets, drew on the long boots again, and

his buckskin gloves and mittens, and, unencumbered now by the care of

animals, started on the work of the evening. The sun was just taking his

last look at them from the western hills, where Reuben and John could

see Huldah's chimney smoking. The plan was, by taking a double hand-sled

of Lovejoy's, and by knocking together two or three more,

jumper-fashion, to work their way across the meadow to the railroad

causeway, and establish a milk depot there, where the line was not half

a mile from Lovejoy's. By going and coming often, following certain

tracks well known to Lovejoy on the windward side of walls and fences,

these eight men felt quite sure that by midnight they could place all

their milk at the spot where the old farm crossing strikes the railroad.

Meanwhile, Silas Lovejoy, a boy of fourteen, was to put on a pair of

snow-shoes, go down to the station, state the case to old Dix, and get

from him a red lantern and permission to stop the first train where it

swept out from the Pitman cut upon the causeway. Old Dix had no more

right to give this permission than had the humblest street-sweeper in

Ispahan, and this they all knew. But the fact that Silas had asked for

it would show a willingness on their part to submit to authority, if

authority there had been. This satisfied the New England love of law, on

the one hand. On the other hand, the train would be stopped, and this

satisfied the New England determination to get the thing done any way.

To give additional force to Silas, John provided him with a note to Dix,

and it was generally agreed that if Dix wasn't ugly, he would give the

red lantern and the permission. Silas was then to work up the road and

station himself as far beyond the curve as he could, and stop the first

down-train. He was to tell the conductor where the men were waiting with

the milk, was to come down to them on the train, and his duty would be

done. Lest Dix should be ugly, Silas was provided with Lovejoy's only

lantern, but he was directed not to show this at the station until his

interview was finished. Silas started cheerfully on his snow-shoes; John

and Lovejoy, at the same time, starting with the first hand-sled of the

cans. First of all into the sled, John put Huldah's well-known can, a

little shorter than the others, and with a different handle. "Whatever

else went to Boston," he said, "that can was bound to go through."

They established the basis of their pyramid, and met the three new

jumpers with their makers as they went back for more. This party

enlarged the base of the pyramid; and, as they worked, Silas passed them

cheerfully with his red lantern. Old Dix had not been ugly, had given

the lantern and all the permission he had to give, and had communicated

some intelligence also. The intelligence was, that an accumulated force

of seven engines, with a large working party, had left Groton Junction

downward at three. Nothing had arrived upward at Groton Junction; and,

from Boston, Dix learned that nothing more would leave there till early

morning. No trains had arrived in Boston from any quarter for

twenty-four hours. So long the blockade had lasted already.

On this intelligence, it was clear that, with good luck, the down-train

might reach them at any moment. Still the men resolved to leave their

milk, while they went back for more, relying on Silas and the "large

working party" to put it on the cars, if the train chanced to pass

before any of them returned. So back they fared to Lovejoy's for their

next relay, and met John and Reuben working in successfully with their

second. But no one need have hurried; for, as trip after trip they built

their pyramid of cans higher and higher, no welcome whistle broke the

stillness of the night, and by ten o'clock, when all these cans were in

place by the rail, the train had not yet come.

John and Reuben then proposed to go up into the cut, and to relieve poor

Silas, who had not been heard from since he swung along so cheerfully

like an "Excelsior" boy on his way up the Alps. But they had hardly

started, when a horn from the meadow recalled them, and, retracing their

way, they met a messenger who had come in to say that a fresh team from

the Four Corners had been reported at Lovejoy's, with a dozen or more

men, who had succeeded in bringing down nearly as far as Lovejoy's

mowing-lot near a hundred more cans; that it was quite possible in two

or three hours more to bring this over also,--and, although the first

train was probably now close at hand, it was clearly worth while to

place this relief in readiness for a second. So poor Silas was left for

the moment to his loneliness, and Reuben and John returned again upon

their steps. They passed the house where they found Mrs. Lovejoy and

Mrs. Stacy at work in the shed, finishing off two more jumpers, and

claiming congratulation for their skill, and after a cup of tea

again,--for no man touched spirit that day nor that night,--they

reported at the new station by the mowing-lot.

And Silas Lovejoy--who had turned the corner into the Pitman cut, and so

shut himself out from sight of the station light, or his father's

windows, or the lanterns of the party at the pyramid of cans--Silas

Lovejoy held his watch there, hour by hour, with such courage as the

sense of the advance gives boy or man. He had not neglected to take the

indispensable shovel as he came. In going over the causeway he had

slipped off the snow-shoes and hung them on his back. Then there was

heavy wading as he turned into the Pitman cut, knee deep, middle deep,

and he laid his snow-shoes on the snow and set the red lantern on them,

as he reconnoitred. Middle deep, neck deep, and he fell forward on his

face into the yielding mass. "This will not do, I must not fall like

that often," said Silas to himself, as he gained his balance and threw

himself backward against the mass. Slowly he turned round, worked back

to the lantern, worked out to the causeway, and fastened on the shoes

again. With their safer help he easily skimmed up to Pitman's bridge,

which he had determined on for his station. He knew that thence his

lantern could be seen for a mile, and that yet there the train might

safely be stopped, so near was the open causeway which he had just

traversed. He had no fear of an up-train behind him.

So Silas walked back and forth, and sang, and spouted "pieces," and

mused on the future of his life, and spouted "pieces" again, and sang in

the loneliness. How the time passed, he did not know. No sound of clock,

no baying of dog, no plash of waterfall, broke that utter stillness. The

wind, thank God, had at last died away; and Silas paced his beat in a

long oval he made for himself, under and beyond the bridge, with no

sound but his own voice when he chose to raise it. He expected, as they

all did, that every moment the whistle of the train, as it swept into

sight a mile or more away, would break the silence; so he paced, and

shouted, and sang.

"This is a man's duty," he said to himself: "they would not let me go

with the fifth regiment,--not as a drummer boy; but this is duty such as

no drummer boy of them all is doing. Company, march!" and he "stepped

forward smartly" with his left foot. "Really I am placed on guard here

quite as much as if I were on picket in Virginia." "Who goes there?"

"Advance, friend, and give the countersign." Not that any one did go

there, or could go there; but the boy's fancy was ready, and so he

amused himself during the first hours. Then he began to wonder whether

they were hours, as they seemed, or whether this was all a wretched

illusion,--that the time passed slowly to him because he was nothing but

a boy, and did not know how to occupy his mind. So he resolutely said

the multiplication-table from the beginning to the end, and from the end

to the beginning,--first to himself, and again aloud, to make it slower.

Then he tried the ten commandments. "Thou shalt have none other Gods

before me:" easy to say that beneath those stars; and he said them

again. No, it is no illusion. I must have been here hours long! Then he

began on Milton's hymn:--

"It was the winter wild,

While the heaven-born child,

All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies."

"Winter wild, indeed," said Silas aloud; and, if he had only known it,

at that moment the sun beneath his feet was crossing the meridian,

midnight had passed already, and Christmas day was born!

"Only with speeches fair

She wooes the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow."

"Innocent, indeed," said poor Silas, still aloud, "much did he know of

innocent snow!" And vainly did he try to recall the other stanzas, as he

paced back and forth, round and round, and began now to wonder where his

father and the others were, and if they could have come to any

misfortune. Surely, they could not have forgotten that he was here.

Would that train never come?

If he were not afraid of its coming at once, he would have run back to

the causeway to look for their lights,--and perhaps they had a fire. Why

had he not brought an axe for a fire? "That rail fence above would have

served perfectly,--nay, it is not five rods to a load of hickory we left

the day before Thanksgiving. Surely one of them might come up to me with

an axe. But maybe there is trouble below. They might have come with an

axe--with an axe--with an axe--with an--axe"--"I am going to sleep,"

cried Silas,--aloud again this time,--as his head dropped heavily on the

handle of the shovel he was resting on there in the lee of the stone

wall. "I am going to sleep,--that will never do. Sentinel asleep at his

post. Order out the relief. Blind his eyes. Kneel, sir. Make ready.

Fire. That, sir, for sentinels asleep." And so Silas laughed grimly, and

began his march again. Then he took his shovel and began a great pit

where he supposed the track might be beneath him. "Anything to keep warm

and to keep awake. But why did they not send up to him? Why was he here?

Why was he all alone? He who had never been alone before. Was he alone?

Was there companionship in the stars,--or in the good God who held the

stars? Did the good God put me here? If he put me here, will he keep me

here? Or did he put me here to die! To die in this cold? It is cold,--it

is very cold! Is there any good in my dying? The train will run down,

and they will see a dead body lying under the bridge,--black on the

snow, with a red lantern by it. Then they will stop. Shall I--I

will--just go back to see if the lights are at the bend. I will leave

the lantern here on the edge of this wall!" And so Silas turned, half

benumbed, worked his way nearly out of the gorge, and started as he

heard, or thought he heard, a baby's scream. "A thousand babies are

starving, and I am afraid to stay here to give them their life," he

said. "There is a boy fit for a soldier! Order out the relief! Drum-head

court-martial! Prisoner, hear your sentence! Deserter, to be shot!

Blindfold,--kneel, sir! Fire! Good enough for deserters!" And so poor

Silas worked back again to the lantern.

And now he saw and felt sure that Orion was bending downward, and he

knew that the night must be broken; and, with some new hope, throwing

down the shovel with which he had been working, he began his soldier

tramp once more,--as far as soldier tramp was possible with those

trailing snow-shoes,--tried again on "No war nor battle sound," broke

down on "Cynthia's seat" and the "music of the spheres;" but at

last,--working on "beams," "long beams," and "that with long beams,"--he

caught the stanzas he was feeling for, and broke out exultant with,--

"At last surrounds their sight,

A globe of circular light

That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed;

The helmed cherubim

And sworded seraphim

Are seen in glittering ranks--"

"Globe of circular light--am I dreaming, or have they come!"--

Come they had! The globe of circular light swept full over the valley,

and the scream of the engine was welcomed by the freezing boy as if it

had been an angel's whisper to him. Not unprepared did it find him. The

red lantern swung to and fro in a well-practised hand, and he was in

waiting on his firmest spot as the train _slowed_ and the engine passed

him.

"Do not stop for me," he cried, as he threw his weight heavily on the

tender side, and the workmen dragged him in. "Only run slow till you are

out of the ledge: we have made a milk station at the cross-road."

"Good for you!" said the wondering fireman, who in a moment understood

the exigency. The heavy plough threw out the snow steadily still, in ten

seconds they were clear of the ledge, and saw the fire-light shimmering

on the great pyramids of milk-cans. Slower and slower ran the train,

and by the blazing fire stopped, for once, because its masters chose to

stop. And the working party on the train cheered lustily as they tumbled

out of the cars, as they apprehended the situation, and were cheered by

the working party from the village.

Two or three cans of milk stood on the embers of the fire, that they

might be ready for the men on the train with something that was at least

warm. An empty passenger car was opened and the pyramids of milk-cans

were hurried into it,--forty men now assisting.

"You will find Joe Winter at the Boston station," said John Stevens to

the "gentlemanly conductor" of the express, whose lightning train had

thus become a milk convoy. "Tell Winter to distribute this among all the

carts, that everybody may have some. Good luck to you. Good-by!" And the

engines snorted again, and John Stevens turned back, not so much as

thinking that he had made his Christmas present to a starving town.

V.

CHRISTMAS MORNING.

The children were around Robert Walter's knees, and each of the two

spelled out a verse of the second chapter of Luke, on Christmas morning.

And Robert and Mary kneeled with them, and they said together, "Our

Father who art in heaven." Mary's voice broke a little when they came to

"daily bread," but with the two, and her husband, she continued to the

end, and could say "thine is the power," and believe it too.

"Mamma," whispered little Fanny, as she kissed her mother after the

prayer, "when I said my prayer up stairs last night, I said 'our daily

milk,' and so did Robert." This was more than poor Mary could bear. She

kissed the child, and she hurried away.

For last night at six o'clock it was clear that the milk was sour, and

little Jamie had detected it first of all. Then, with every one of the

old wiles, they had gone back over the old slops; but the child, with

that old weird strength, had pushed them all away. Christmas morning

broke, and poor Robert, as soon as light would serve, had gone to the

neighbors all,--their nearest intimates they had tried the night

before,--and from all had brought back the same reply; one friend had

sent a wretched sample, but the boy detected the taint and pushed it,

untasted, away. Dr. Morton had the alarm the day before. He was at the

house earlier than usual with some condensed milk, which his wife's

stores had furnished; but that would not answer. Poor Jamie pushed this

by. There was some smoke or something,--who should say what?--it would

not do. The doctor could see in an instant how his patient had fallen

back in the night. That weird, anxious, entreating look, as his head lay

back on the little pillow, had all come back again. Robert and Robert's

friends, Gaisford and Warren, had gone down to the Old Colony, to the

Worcester, and to the Hartford stations. Perhaps their trains were doing

better. The door-bell rang yet again. "Mrs. Appleton's love to Mrs.

Walter, and perhaps her child will try some fresh beef-tea." As if poor

Jamie did not hate beef-tea; still Morton resolutely forced three

spoonfuls down. Half an hour more and Mrs. Dudley's compliments. "Mrs.

Dudley heard that Mrs. Walter was out of milk, and took the liberty to

send round some very particularly nice Scotch groats, which her brother

had just brought from Edinburgh." "Do your best with it, Fanny," said

poor Mary, but she knew that if Jamie took those Scotch groats it was

only because they were a Christmas present. Half an hour more! Three

more spoonfuls of beef-tea after a fight. Door-bell again. Carriage at

the door. "Would Mrs. Walter come down and see Mrs. Fitch? It was really

very particular." Mary was half dazed, and went down, she did not know

why.

"Dear Mrs. Walter, you do not remember me," said this eager girl,

crossing the room and taking her by both hands.

"Why, no--yes--do I?" said Mary, crying and laughing together.

"Yes, you will remember, it was at church, at the baptism. My Jennie and

your Jamie were christened the same day. And now I hear,--we all know

how low he is,--and perhaps he will share my Jennie's breakfast. Dear

Mrs. Walter, do let me try."

Then Mary saw that the little woman's cloak and hat were already thrown

off,--which had not seemed strange to her before,--and the two passed

quietly up stairs together; and Julia Fitch bent gently over him, and

cooed to him, and smiled to him, but could not make the poor child

smile. And they lifted him so gently on the pillow,--but only to hear

him scream. And she brought his head gently to her heart, and drew back

the little curtain that was left, and offered to him her life; but he

was frightened, and did not know her, and had forgotten what it was she

gave him, and screamed again; and so they had to lay him back gently

upon the pillow. And then,--as Julia was saying she would stay, and how

they could try again, and could do this and that,--then the door-bell

rang again, and Mrs. Coleman had herself come round with a little white

pitcher, and herself ran up stairs with it, and herself knocked at the

door!

The blockade was broken, and

THE MILK HAD COME!

* * * * *

Mary never knew that it was from Huldah Stevens's milk-can that her boy

drank in the first drop of his new life. Nor did Huldah know it. Nor

did John know it, nor the paladins who fought that day at his side. Nor

did Silas Lovejoy know it.

But the good God and all good angels knew it. Why ask for more?

And you and I, dear reader, if we can forget that always our daily bread

comes to us, because a thousand brave men and a thousand brave women are

at work in the world, praying to God and trying to serve him, we will

not forget it as we meet at breakfast on this blessed Christmas day!

STAND AND WAIT.

I.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

"They've come! they've come!"

This was the cry of little Herbert as he ran in from the square stone

which made the large doorstep of the house. Here he had been watching, a

self-posted sentinel, for the moment when the carriage should turn the

corner at the bottom of the hill.

"They've come! they've come!" echoed joyfully through the house; and the

cry penetrated out into the extension, or ell, in which the grown

members of the family were, in the kitchen, "getting tea" by some

formulas more solemn than ordinary.

"Have they come?" cried Grace; and she set her skillet back to the

quarter-deck, or after-part of the stove, lest its white contents

should burn while she was away. She threw a waiting handkerchief over

her shoulders, and ran with the others to the front door, to wave

something white, and to be in at the first welcome.

Young and old were gathered there in that hospitable open space where

the side road swept up to the barn on its way from the main road. The

bigger boys of the home party had scattered half-way down the hill by

this time. Even grandmamma had stepped down from the stone, and walked

half-way to the roadway. Every one was waving something. Those who had

no handkerchiefs had hats or towels to wave; and the more advanced boys

began an undefined or irregular cheer.

But the carryall advanced slowly up the hill, with no answering

handkerchief, and no bonneted head stretched out from the side. And, as

it neared Sam and Andrew, their enthusiasm could be seen to droop, and

George and Herbert stopped their cheers as it came up to them; and

before it was near the house, on its grieved way up the hill, the bad

news had come up before it, as bad news will,--"She has not come, after

all."

It was Huldah Root, Grace's older sister, who had not come. John Root,

their father, had himself driven down to the station to meet her; and

Abner, her oldest brother, had gone with him. It was two years since she

had been at home, and the whole family was on tiptoe to welcome her.

Hence the unusual tea preparation; hence the sentinel on the doorstep;

hence the general assembly in the yard; and, after all, she had not

come! It was a wretched disappointment. Her mother had that heavy,

silent look, which children take as the heaviest affliction of all, when

they see it in their mother's faces. John Root himself led the horse

into the barn, as if he did not care now for anything which might happen

in heaven above or in earth beneath. The boys were voluble in their

rage: "It is too bad!" and, "Grandmamma, don't you think it is too bad?"

and, "It is the meanest thing I ever heard of in all my life!" and,

"Grace, why don't you say anything? did you ever know anything so mean?"

As for poor Grace herself, she was quite beyond saying anything. All the

treasured words she had laid up to say to Huldah; all the doubts and

hopes and guesses, which were secret to all but God, but which were to

be poured out in Huldah's ear as soon as they were alone, were coming

up one by one, as if to choke her. She had waited so long for this

blessed fortnight of sympathy, and now she had lost it. Grace could say

nothing. And poor grandmamma, on whom fell the stilling of the boys, was

at heart as wretched as any of them.

Somehow, something got itself put on the supper-table; and, when John

Root and Abner came in from the barn, they all sat down to pretend to

eat something. What a miserable contrast to the Christmas eve party

which had been expected!

The observance of Christmas is quite a novelty in the heart of New

England among the lords of the manor. Winslow and Brewster, above

Plymouth Rock, celebrated their first Christmas by making all hands work

all day in the raising of their first house. It was in that way that a

Christian empire was begun. They builded better than they knew. They and

theirs, in that hard day's work, struck the key-note for New England for

two centuries and a half. And many and many a New Englander, still in

middle life, remembers that in childhood, though nurtured in Christian

homes, he could not have told, if he were asked, on what day of the

year Christmas fell. But as New England, in the advance of the world,

has come into the general life of the world, she has shown no inaptitude

for the greater enjoyments of life; and, with the true catholicity of

her great Congregational system, her people and her churches seize, one

after another, all the noble traditions of the loftiest memories. And so

in this matter we have in hand; it happened that the Roots, in their

hillside home, had determined that they would celebrate Christmas, as

never had Roots done before since Josiah Root landed at Salem, from the

"Hercules," with other Kentish people, in 1635. Abner and Gershom had

cut and trimmed a pretty fir-balsam from the edge of the Hotchkiss

clearing; and it was now in the best parlor. Grace, with Mary Bickford,

her firm ally and other self, had gilded nuts, and rubbed lady apples,

and strung popped corn; and the tree had been dressed in secret, the

youngsters all locked and warned out from the room. The choicest turkeys

of the drove, and the tenderest geese from the herd, and the plumpest

fowls from the barnyard, had been sacrificed on consecrated altars. And

all this was but as accompaniment and side illustration of the great

glory of the celebration, which was, that Huldah, after her two years'

absence,--Huldah was to come home.

And now she had not come,--nay, was not coming!

As they sat down at their Barmecide feast, how wretched the assemblage

of unrivalled dainties seemed! John Root handed to his wife their

daughter's letter; she read it, and gave it to Grace, who read it, and

gave it to her grandmother. No one read it aloud. To read aloud in such

trials is not the custom of New England.

Boston, Dec. 24, 1848.

DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--It is dreadful to disappoint you all,

but I cannot come. I am all ready, and this goes by the carriage

that was to take me to the cars. But our dear little Horace has

just been brought home, I am afraid, dying; but we cannot tell,

and I cannot leave him. You know there is really no one who can

do what I can. He was riding on his pony. First the pony came

home alone; and, in five minutes after, two policemen brought

the dear child in a carriage. His poor mother is very calm, but

cannot think yet, or do anything. We have sent for his father,

who is down town. I try to hope that he may come to himself; but

he only lies and draws long breaths on his little bed. The

doctors are with him now; and I write this little scrawl to say

how dreadfully sorry I am. A merry Christmas to you all. Do not

be troubled about me.

Your own loving

HULDAH.

P.S. I have got some little presents for the children; but they

are all in my trunk, and I cannot get them out now. I will make

a bundle Monday. Good-by. The man is waiting.

This was the letter that was passed from hand to hand, of which the

contents slowly trickled into the comprehension of all parties,

according as their several ages permitted them to comprehend. Sam, as

usual, broke the silence by saying,--

"It is a perfect shame! She might as well be a nigger slave! I suppose

they think they have bought her and sold her. I should like to see 'em

all, just for once, and tell 'em that her flesh and blood is as good as

theirs; and that, with all their airs and their money, they've no

business to"--

"Sam," said poor Grace, "you shall not say such things. Huldah has

stayed because she chose to stay; and that is the worst of it. She will

not think of herself, not for one minute; and so--everything happens."

And Grace was sobbing beyond speech again; and her intervention

amounted, therefore, to little or nothing. The boys, through the

evening, descanted among themselves on the outrage. Grandmamma, and at

last their mother, took successive turns in taming their indignation;

but, for all this, it was a miserable evening. As for John Root, he took

a lamp in one hand, and "The Weekly Tribune" in the other, and sat

before the fire, and pretended to read; but not once did John Root

change the fold of the paper that evening. It was a wretched Christmas

eve; and, at half-past eight, every light was out, and every member of

the household was lying stark awake, in bed.

* * * * *

Huldah Root, you see, was a servant with the Bartletts, in Boston. When

she was only sixteen, she was engaged at her "trade," as a vest-maker,

in that town; and, by some chance, made an appointment to sew as a

seamstress at Mrs. Bartlett's for a fortnight. There were any number of

children to be clothed there; and the fortnight extended to a month.

Then the month became two months. She grew fond of Mrs. Bartlett,

because Mrs. Bartlett grew fond of her. The children adored her; and she

kept an eye to them; and it ended in her engaging to spend the winter

there, half-seamstress, half-nurse, half-nursery-governess, and a little

of everything. From such a beginning, it had happened that she had lived

there six years, in confidential service. She could cook better than

anybody in the house,--better than Mrs. Bartlett herself; but it was not

often that she tried her talent there. On a birthday perhaps, in August,

she would make huckleberry cakes, by the old homestead "receipt," for

the children. She had the run of all their clothes as nobody else did;

took the younger ones to be measured; and saw that none of the older

ones went out with a crack in a seam, or a rough edge at the foot of a

trowser. It was whispered that Minnie had rather go into the sewing-room

to get Huldah to "show her" about "alligation" or "square-root," than

to wait for Miss Thurber's explanations in the morning. In fifty such

ways, it happened that Huldah--who, on the roll-call of the census-man,

probably rated as a nursery-maid in the house--was the confidential

friend of every member of the family, from Mr. Bartlett, who wanted to

know where "The Intelligencer" was, down to the chore-boy who came in to

black the shoes. And so it was, that, when poor little Horace was

brought in with his skull knocked in by the pony, Huldah was--and

modestly knew that she was--the most essential person in the stunned

family circle.

While her brothers and sisters were putting out their lights at New

Durham, heart-sick and wounded, Huldah was sitting in that still room,

where only the rough broken breathing of poor Horace broke the sound.

She was changing, once in ten minutes, the ice-water cloths; was feeling

of his feet sometimes; wetting his tongue once or twice in an hour;

putting her finger to his pulse with a native sense, which needed no

second-hand to help it; and all the time, with the thought of him, was

remembering how grieved and hurt and heart-broken they were at home.

Every half-hour or less, a pale face appeared at the door; and Huldah

just slid across the room, and said, "He is really doing nicely, pray

lie down;" or, "His pulse is surely better, I will certainly come to you

if it flags;" or "Pray trust me, I will not let you wait a moment if he

needs you;" or, "Pray get ready for to-morrow. An hour's sleep now will

be worth everything to you then." And the poor mother would crawl back

to her baby and her bed, and pretend to try to sleep; and in half an

hour would appear again at the door. One o'clock, two o'clock, three

o'clock. How companionable Dr. Lowell's clock seems when one is sitting

up so, with no one else to talk to! Four o'clock at last; it is really

growing to be quite intimate. Five o'clock. "If I were in dear Durham

now, one of the roosters would be calling,"--Six o'clock. Poor Horace

stirs, turns, flings his arm over. "Mother--O Huldah! is it you? How

nice that is!" And he is unconscious again; but he had had sense enough

to know her. What a blessed Christmas present that is, to tell that to

his poor mother when she slides in at daybreak, and says, "You shall go

to bed now, dear child. You see I am very fresh; and you must rest

yourself, you know. Do you really say he knew you? Are you sure he knew

you? Why, Huldah, what an angel of peace you are!"

So opened Huldah's Christmas morning.

* * * * *

Days of doubt, nights of watching. Every now and then the boy knows his

mother, his father, or Huldah. Then will come this heavy stupor which is

so different from sleep. At last the surgeons have determined that a

piece of the bone must come away. There is the quiet gathering of the

most skilful at the determined hour; there is the firm table for the

little fellow to lie on; here is the ether and the sponge; and, of

course, here and there, and everywhere, is Huldah. She can hold the

sponge, or she can fetch and carry; she can answer at once if she is

spoken to; she can wait, if it is waiting; she can act, if it is acting.

At last the wretched little button, which has been pressing on our poor

boy's brain, is lifted safely out. It is in Morton's hand; he smiles and

nods at Huldah as she looks inquiry, and she knows he is satisfied. And

does not the poor child himself, even in his unconscious sleep, draw

his breath more lightly than he did before? All is well.

"Who do you say that young woman is?" says Dr. Morton to Mr. Bartlett,

as he draws on his coat in the doorway after all is over. "Could we not

tempt her over to the General Hospital?"

"No, I think not. I do not think we can spare her."

The boy Horace is new-born that day; a New Year's gift to his mother. So

pass Huldah's holidays.

II.

CHRISTMAS AGAIN.

Fourteen years make of the boy whose pony has been too much for him a

man equal to any prank of any pony. Fourteen years will do this, even to

boys of ten. Horace Bartlett is the colonel of a cavalry regiment,

stationed just now in West Virginia; and, as it happens, this

twenty-four-year-old boy has an older commission than anybody in that

region, and is the Post Commander at Talbot C. H., and will be, most

likely, for the winter. The boy has a vein of foresight in him; a good

deal of system; and, what is worth while to have by the side of system,

some knack of order. So soon as he finds that he is responsible, he

begins to prepare for responsibility. His staff-officers are boys too;

but they are all friends, and all mean to do their best. His

Surgeon-in-Charge took his degree at Washington last spring; that is

encouraging. Perhaps, if he has not much experience, he has, at least,

the latest advices. His head is level too; he means to do his best, such

as it is; and, indeed, all hands in that knot of boy counsellors will

not fail for laziness or carelessness. Their very youth makes them

provident and grave.

So among a hundred other letters, as October opens, Horace writes

this:--

TALBOT COURT HOUSE, VA.,

Oct. 3, 1863.

DEAR HULDAH,--Here we are still, as I have been explaining to

father; and, as you will see by my letter to him, here we are

like to stay. Thus far we are doing sufficiently well. As I have

told him, if my plans had been adopted we should have been

pushed rapidly forward up the valley of the Yellow Creek;

Badger's corps would have been withdrawn from before Winchester;

Wilcox and Steele together would have threatened Early; and

then, by a rapid flank movement, we should have pounced down on

Longstreet (not the great Longstreet, but little Longstreet),

and compelled him to uncover Lynchburg; we could have blown up

the dams and locks on the canal, made a freshet to sweep all the

obstructions out of James River, and then, if they had shown

half as much spirit on the Potomac, all of us would be in

Richmond for our Christmas dinner. But my plans, as usual, were

not asked for, far less taken. So, as I said, here we are.

Well, I have been talking with Lawrence Worster, my

Surgeon-in-Charge, who is a very good fellow. His sick-list is

not bad now, and he does not mean to have it bad; but he says

that he is not pleased with the ways of his ward-masters; and it

was his suggestion, not mine, mark you, that I should see if one

or two of the Sanitary women would not come as far as this to

make things decent. So, of course, I write to you. Don't you

think mother could spare you to spend the winter here? It will

be rough, of course; but it is all in the good cause. Perhaps

you know some nice women,--well, not like you, of course; but

still, disinterested and sensible, who would come too. Think of

this carefully, I beg you, and talk to father and mother.

Worster says we may have three hundred boys in hospital before

Christmas. If Jubal Early should come this way, I don't know how

many more. Talk with mother and father.

Always yours,

HORACE BARTLETT.

P. S. I have shown Worster what I have written; he encloses a

sort of official letter which may be of use. He says, "Show this

to Dr. Hayward; get them to examine you and the others, and then

the government, on his order, will pass you on." I enclose this,

because, if you come, it will save time.

Of course Huldah went. Grace Starr, her married sister, went with her,

and Mrs. Philbrick, and Anna Thwart. That was the way they happened to

be all together in the Methodist Church that had been, of Talbot Court

House, as Christmas holidays drew near, of the year of grace, 1863.

She and her friends had been there quite long enough to be wonted to the

strangeness of December in the open air. On her little table in front of

the desk of the church were three or four buttercups in bloom, which she

had gathered in an afternoon walk, with three or four heads of

hawksweed. "The beginning of one year," Huldah said, "with the end of

the other." Nay, there was even a stray rose which Dr. Sprigg had found

in a farmer's garden. Huldah came out from the vestry, where her own bed

was, in the gray of the morning, changed the water for the poor little

flowers, sat a moment at the table to look at last night's memoranda,

and then beckoned to the ward-master, and asked him, in a whisper, what

was the movement she had heard in the night,--"Another alarm from

Early?"

"No, Miss; not an alarm. I saw the Colonel's orderly as he passed. He

stopped here for Dr. Fenno's case. There had come down an express from

General Mitchell, and the men were called without the bugle, each man

separately; not a horse was to neigh, if they could help it. And really,

Miss, they were off in twenty minutes."

"Off, who are off?"

"The whole post, Miss, except the relief for to-day. There are not fifty

men in the village besides us here. The orderly thought they were to go

down to Braxton's; but he did not know."

Here was news indeed! news so exciting that Huldah went back at once,

and called the other women; and then all of them together began on that

wretched business of waiting. They had never yet known what it was to

wait for a real battle. They had had their beds filled with this and

that patient from one or another post, and had some gun-shot wounds of

old standing among the rest; but this was their first battle if it were

a battle. So the covers were taken off that long line of beds, down on

the west aisle, and from those under the singers' seat; and the sheets

and pillow-cases were brought out from the linen room, and aired, and

put on. Our biggest kettles are filled up with strong soup; and we have

our milk-punch, and our beef-tea all in readiness; and everybody we can

command is on hand to help lift patients and distribute food. But there

is only too much time. Will there never be any news? Anna Thwart and

Doctor Sprigg have walked down to the bend of the hill, to see if any

messenger is coming. As for the other women, they sit at their table;

they look at their watches; they walk down to the door; they come back

to the table. I notice they have all put on fresh aprons, for the sake

of doing something more in getting ready.

Here is Anna Thwart. "They are coming! they are coming! somebody is

coming. A mounted man is crossing the flat, coming towards us; and the

doctor told me to come back and tell." Five minutes more, ten minutes

more, an eternity more, and then, rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat, the mounted

man is here. "Wagons right behind. We bagged every man of them at

Wyatt's. Got there before daylight. Colonel White's men from the Yellows

came up just at the same time, and we pitched in before they knew

it,--three or four regiments, thirteen hundred men, and all their guns."

"And with no fighting?"

"Oh, yes! fighting of course. The colonel has got a train of wagons down

here with the men that are hurt. That's why I am here. Here is his

note." Thus does the mounted man discharge his errand backward.

DEAR DOCTOR,--We have had great success. We have surprised the

whole post. The company across the brook tried hard to get away;

and a good many of them, and of Sykes's men, are hit; but I

cannot find that we have lost more than seven men. I have

nineteen wagons here of wounded men,--some hurt pretty badly.

Ever yours, H.

So there must be more waiting. But now we know what we are waiting for;

and the end will come in a finite world. Thank God, at half-past three,

here they are! Tenderly, gently. "Hush, Sam! Hush, Caesar! You talk too

much." Gently, tenderly. Twenty-seven of the poor fellows, with

everything the matter, from a burnt face to a heart stopping its beats

for want of more blood.

"Huldah, come here. This is my old classmate, Barthow; sat next me at

prayers four years. He is a major in their army, you see. His horse

stumbled, and pitched him against a stone wall; and he has not spoken

since. Don't tell me he is dying; but do as well for him, Huldah,"--and

the handsome boy smiled,--"do as well for him as you did for me." So

they carried Barthow, senseless as he was, tenderly into the church; and

he became E, 27, on an iron bedstead. Not half our soup was wanted, nor

our beef-tea, nor our punch. So much the better.

Then came day and night, week in and out, of army system, and womanly

sensibility; that quiet, cheerful, _homish_, hospital life, in the

quaint surroundings of the white-washed church; the pointed arches of

the windows and the faded moreen of the pulpit telling that it is a

church, in a reminder not unpleasant. Two or three weeks of hopes and

fears, failures and success, bring us to Christmas eve.

* * * * *

It is the surgeon-in-chief, who happens to give our particular Christmas

dinner,--I mean the one that interests you and me. Huldah and the other

ladies had accepted his invitation. Horace Bartlett and his staff, and

some of the other officers, were guests; and the doctor had given his

own permit that Major Barthow might walk up to his quarters with the

ladies. Huldah and he were in advance, he leaning, with many apologies,

on her arm. Dr. Sprigg and Anna Thwart were far behind. The two married

ladies, as needing no escort, were in the middle. Major Barthow enjoyed

the emancipation, was delighted with his companion, could not say enough

to make her praise the glimpses of Virginia, even if it were West

Virginia.

"What a party it is, to be sure!" said he. "The doctor might call on us

for our stories, as one of Dickens's chiefs would do at a Christmas

feast. Let's see, we should have

THE SURGEON'S TALE;

THE GENERAL'S TALE;

for we may at least make believe that Hod's stars have come from

Washington. Then we must call in that one-eyed servant of his; and we

will have

THE ORDERLY'S TALE.

Your handsome friend from Wisconsin shall tell

THE GERMAN'S TALE.

I shall be encouraged to tell

THE PRISONER'S TALE.

And you"--

"And I?" said Huldah laughing, because he paused.

"You shall tell

THE SAINT'S TALE."

Barthow spoke with real feeling, which he did not care to disguise. But

Huldah was not there for sentiment; and without quivering in the least,

nor making other acknowledgment, she laughed as she knew she ought to

do, and said, "Oh, no! that is quite too grand, the story must end with

THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SPECIAL RELIEF'S

TALE.

It is a little unromantic to the sound; but that's what it is."

"I don't see," persisted the major, "if Superintendent of Special Relief

means Saint in Latin, why we should not say so."

"Because we are not talking Latin," said Huldah. "Listen to me; and,

before we come to dinner, I will tell you a story pretty enough for

Dickens, or any of them; and it is a story not fifteen minutes old.

"Have you noticed that black-whiskered fellow, under the gallery, by the

north window?--Yes, the same. He is French, enlisted, I think, in New

London. I came to him just now, managed to say _etrennes_ and _Noel_ to

him, and a few other French words, and asked if there were nothing we

could do to make him more at home. Oh, no! there was nothing; madame

was too good, and everybody was too good, and so on. But I persisted. I

wished I knew more about Christmas in France; and I staid by. 'No,

madame, nothing; there is nothing. But, since you say it,--if there were

two drops of red wine,--_du vin de mon pays, madame_; but you could not

here in Virginia.' Could not I? A superintendent of special relief has

long arms. There was a box of claret, which was the first thing I saw in

the store-room the day I took my keys. The doctor was only too glad the

man had thought of it; and you should have seen the pleasure that red

glass, as full as I could pile it, gave him. The tears were running down

his cheeks. Anna, there, had another Frenchman; and she sent some to

him: and my man is now humming a little song about the _vin rouge_ of

Bourgogne. Would not Mr. Dickens make a pretty story of that for

you,--'THE FRENCHMAN'S STORY'?"

Barthow longed to say that the great novelist would not make so pretty a

story as she did. But this time he did not dare.

You are not going to hear the eight stories. Mr. Dickens was not there;

nor, indeed, was I. But a jolly Christmas dinner they had; though they

had not those eight stories. Quiet they were, and very, very happy. It

was a strange thing,--if one could have analyzed it,--that they should

have felt so much at home, and so much at ease with each other, in that

queer Virginian kitchen, where the doctor and his friends of his mess

had arranged the feast. It was a happy thing, that the recollections of

so many other Christmas homes should come in, not sadly, but pleasantly,

and should cheer, rather than shade the evening. They felt off

soundings, all of them. There was, for the time, no responsibility. The

strain was gone. The gentlemen were glad to be dining with ladies, I

believe: the ladies, unconsciously, were probably glad to be dining with

gentlemen. The officers were glad they were not on duty; and the

prisoner, if glad of nothing else, was glad he was not in bed. But he

was glad for many things beside. You see it was but a little post. They

were far away; and they took things with the ease of a detached command.

"Shall we have any toasts?" said the doctor, when his nuts and raisins

and apples at last appeared.

"Oh, no! no toasts,--nothing so stiff as that."

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" said Grace. "I should like to know what it is to

drink a toast. Something I have heard of all my life, and never saw."

"One toast, at least, then," said the doctor. "Colonel Bartlett, will

you name the toast?"

"Only one toast?" said Horace; "that is a hard selection: we must vote

on that."

"No, no!" said a dozen voices; and a dozen laughing assistants at the

feast offered their advice.

"I might give 'The Country;' I might give 'The Cause;' I might give 'The

President:' and everybody would drink," said Horace. "I might give

'Absent friends,' or 'Home, sweet home;' but then we should cry."

"Why do you not give 'The trepanned people'?" said Worster, laughing,

"or 'The silver-headed gentlemen'?"

"Why don't you give 'The Staff and the Line'?" "Why don't you give

'Here's Hoping'?" "Give 'Next Christmas.'" "Give 'The Medical

Department; and may they often ask us to dine!'"

"Give 'Saints and Sinners,'" said Major Barthow, after the first outcry

was hushed.

"I shall give no such thing," said Horace. "We have had a lovely dinner;

and we know we have; and the host, who is a good fellow, knows the first

thanks are not to him. Those of us who ever had our heads knocked open,

like the Major and me, do know. Fill your glasses, gentlemen; I give you

'the Special Diet Kitchen.'"

He took them all by surprise. There was a general shout; and the ladies

all rose, and dropped mock courtesies.

"By Jove!" said Barthow to the Colonel, afterwards, "It was the best

toast I ever drank in my life. Anyway, that little woman has saved my

life. Do you say she did the same to you?"

III.

CHRISTMAS AGAIN.

So you think that when the war was over Major Barthow, then

Major-General, remembered Huldah all the same, and came on and persuaded

her to marry him, and that she is now sitting in her veranda, looking

down on the Pamunkey River. You think that, do not you?

Well! you were never so mistaken in your life. If you want that story,

you can go and buy yourself a dime novel. I would buy "The Rescued

Rebel;" or, "The Noble Nurse," if I were you.

After the war was over, Huldah did make Colonel Barthow and his wife a

visit once, at their plantation in Pocataligo County; but I was not

there, and know nothing about it.

Here is a Christmas of hers, about which she wrote a letter; and, as it

happens, it was a letter to Mrs. Barthow.

HULDAH ROOT TO AGNES BARTHOW.

VILLERS-BOCAGE, Dec. 27, 1868.

... Here I was, then, after this series of hopeless blunders,

sole alone at the _gare_ [French for station] of this little

out-of-the-way town. My dear, there was never an American here

since Christopher Columbus slept here when he was a boy. And

here, you see, I was like to remain; for there was no

possibility of the others getting back to me till to-morrow, and

no good in my trying to overtake them. All I could do was just

to bear it, and live on, and live through from Thursday to

Monday; and, really, what was worst of all was that Friday was

Christmas day.

Well, I found a funny little carriage, with a funny old man who

did not understand my _patois_ any better than I did his; but he

understood a franc-piece. I had my guide-book, and I said

_auberge_; and we came to the oddest, most outlandish, and

old-fashioned establishment that ever escaped from one of Julia

Nathalie woman's novels. And here I am.

And the reason, my dear Mrs. Barthow, that I take to-day to

write to you, you and the Colonel will now understand. You see

it was only ten o'clock when I got here; then I went to walk,

many _enfans terribles_ following respectfully; then I came

home, and ate the funny refection; then I got a nap; then I went

to walk again, and made a little sketch in the churchyard: and

this time, one of the children brought up her mother, a funny

Norman woman, in a delicious costume,--I have a sketch of

another just like her,--and she dropped a courtesy, and in a

very mild _patois_ said she hoped the children did not trouble

madame. And I said, "Oh, no!" and found a sugar-plum for the

child and showed my sketch to the woman; and she said she

supposed madame was _Anglaise_.

I said I was not _Anglaise_,--and here the story begins; for I

said I was _Americaine_. And, do you know, her face lighted up

as if I had said I was St. Gulda, or St. Hilda, or any of their

Northmen Saints.

"Americaine! est-il possible? Jeannette, Gertrude, faites vos

reverences. Madame est Americaine."

And, sure enough, they all dropped preternatural courtesies. And

then the most eager enthusiasm; how fond they all were of _les

Americaines_, but how no _Americaines_ had ever come before! And

was madame at the Three Cygnets? And might she and her son and

her husband call to see madame at the Three Cygnets? And might

she bring a little _etrenne_ to madame? And I know not what

beside.

I was very glad the national reputation had gone so far. I

really wished I were Charles Sumner (pardon me, dear Agnes),

that I might properly receive the delegation. But I said, "Oh,

certainly!" and, as it grew dark, with my admiring _cortege_

whispering now to the street full of admirers that madame was

_Americaine_, I returned to the Three Cygnets.

And in the evening they all came. Really, you should see the

pretty basket they brought for an _etrenne_. I could not guess

then where they got such exquisite flowers; these lovely

stephanotis blossoms, a perfect wealth of roses, and all

arranged with charming taste in a quaint country basket, such as

exists nowhere but in this particular section of this quaint old

Normandy. In came the husband, dressed up, and frightened, but

thoroughly good in his look. In came my friend; and then two

sons and two wives, and three or four children: and, my dear

Agnes, one of the sons, I knew him in an instant, was a man we

had at Talbot Court House when your husband was there. I think

the Colonel will remember him,--a black-whiskered man, who used

to sing a little song about _le vin rouge_ of Bourgogne.

He did not remember me; that I saw in a moment. It was all so

different, you know. In the hospital, I had on my cap and apron,

and here,--well, it was another thing. My hostess knew that they

were coming, and had me in her largest room, and I succeeded in

making them all sit down; and I received my formal welcome; and

I thanked in my most Parisian French; and then the conversation

hung fire. But I took my turn now, and turned round to poor

Louis.

"You served in America, did you not?" said I.

"Ah, yes, madame! I did not know my mother had told you."

No more did she, indeed; and she looked astonished. But I

persevered,--

"You seem strong and well."

"Ah, yes, madame!"

"How long since you returned?"

"As soon as there was peace, madame. We were mustered out in

June, madame."

"And does your arm never trouble you?"

"Oh, never, madame! I did not know my mother had told you."

New astonishment on the part of the mother.

"You never had another piece of bone come out?"

"Oh, no, madame! how did madame know? I did not know my mother

had told you!"

And by this time I could not help saying, "You Normans care

more for Christmas than we Americans; is it not so, my brave?"

And this he would not stand; and he said stoutly, "Ah, no,

madame! no, no, _jamais_!" and began an eager defence of the

religious enthusiasm of the Americans, and their goodness to all

people who were good, if people would only be good. But still he

had not the least dream who I was. And I said,--

"Do the Normans ever drink Burgundy?" and to my old hostess,

"Madame, could you bring us a flask _du vin rouge de

Bourgogne_?" and then I hummed his little chanson, I am sure

Colonel Barthow will remember it,--"_Deux--gouttes--du vin rouge

du Bourgogne._"

My dear Mrs. Barthow, he sprang from his chair, and fell on his

knees, and kissed my hands, before I could stop him. And when

his mother and father, and all the rest, found that I was the

particular _soeur de la charite_ who had had the care of dear

Louis when he was hurt, and that it was I he had told of that

very day,--for the thousandth time, I believe,--who gave him

that glass of claret, and cheered up his Christmas, I verily

believe they would have taken me to the church to worship me.

They were not satisfied,--the women with kissing me, or the men

with shaking hands with each other,--the whole _auberge_ had to

be called in; and poor I was famous. I need not say I cried my

eyes out; and when, at ten o'clock, they let me go to bed, I was

worn out with crying, and laughing, and talking, and listening;

and I believe they were as much upset as I.

Now that is just the beginning; and yet I see I must stop. But,

for forty-eight hours, I have been simply a queen. I can hardly

put my foot to the ground. Christmas morning, these dear

Thibault people came again; and then the _cure_ came; and then

some nice Madame Perrons came, and I went to mass with them;

and, after mass, their brother's carriage came; and they would

take no refusals; but with many apologies to my sweet old

hostess, at the Three Cygnets, I was fain to come up to M.

Firmin's lovely _chateau_ here, and make myself at home till my

friends shall arrive. It seems the poor Thibaults had come here

to beg the flowers for the _etrenne._ It is really the most

beautiful country residence I have seen in France; and they live

on the most patriarchal footing with all the people round them.

I am sure I ought to speak kindly of them. It is the most

fascinating hospitality. So here am I, waiting, with my little

_sac de nuit_ to make me _aspettabile_; and here I ate my

Christmas dinner. Tell the Colonel that here is "THE TRAVELLER'S

TALE;" and that is why the letter is so long.

Most truly yours,

HULDAH ROOT.

IV.

ONE CHRISTMAS MORE.

This last Christmas party is Huldah's own. It is hers, at least, as much

as it is any one's. There are five of them, nay, six, with equal right

to precedence in the John o' Groat's house, where she has settled down.

It is one of those comfortable houses which are still left three miles

out from the old State House in Boston. It is not all on one floor; that

would be, perhaps, too much like the golden courts of heaven. There are

two stories; but they are connected by a central flight of stairs of

easy tread (designed by Charles Cummings); so easy, and so stately

withal, that, as you pass over them, you always bless the builder, and

hardly know that you go up or down. Five large rooms on each floor give

ample room for the five heads of the house, if, indeed, there be not

six, as I said before.

Into this Saints' Rest, there have drifted together, by the eternal law

of attraction,--Huldah, and Ellen Philbrick (who was with her in

Virginia, and in France, and has been, indeed, but little separated from

her, except on duty, for twenty years), and with them three other

friends. These women,--well, I cannot introduce them to you without

writing three stories of true romance, one for each. This quiet, strong,

meditative, helpful saint, who is coming into the parlor now, is Helen

Touro. She was left alone with her baby when "The Empire State" went

down; and her husband was never heard of more. The love of that baby

warmed her to the love of all others; and, when I first knew her, she

was ruling over a home of babies, whose own mothers or fathers were

not,--always with a heart big enough to say there was room for one more

waif in that sanctuary. That older woman, who is writing at the

Davenport in the corner, lightened the cares and smoothed the daily

life of General Schuyler in all the last years of his life, when he was

in the Cabinet, in Brazil, and in Louisiana. His wife was long ill, and

then died. His children needed all a woman's care; and this woman

stepped to the front, cared for them, cared for all his household, cared

for him: and I dare not say how much is due to her of that which you and

I say daily we owe to him. Miss Peters, I see you know. She served in

another regiment; was at the head of the sweetest, noblest, purest

school that ever trained, in five and twenty years, five hundred girls

to be the queens in five hundred happy and strong families. All of these

five,--our Huldah and Mrs. Philbrick too, you have seen before,--all of

them have been in "the service;" all of them have known that perfect

service is perfect freedom. I think they know that perfect service is

the highest honor. They have together taken this house, as they say, for

the shelter and home of their old age. But Huldah, as she plays with

your Harry there, does not look to me as if she were superannuated yet.

"But you said there were six in all."

Did I? I suppose there are. "Mrs. Philbrick, are there five captains in

your establishment, or six?"

"My dear Mr. Hale, why do you ask me? You know there are five captains

and one general. We have persuaded Seth Corbet to make his home

here,--yes, the same who went round the world with Mrs. Cradock. Since

her death, he has come home to Boston; and he reports to us, and makes

his head-quarters here. He sees that we are all right every morning; and

then he goes his rounds to see every grandchild of old Mr. Cradock, and

to make sure that every son and daughter of that house is 'all right.'

Sometimes he is away over night. This is when somebody in the whole

circle of all their friends is more sick than usual, and needs a man

nurse. That old man was employed by old Mr. Cradock, in 1816, when he

first went to housekeeping. He has had all the sons and all the

daughters of that house in his arms; and now that the youngest of them

is five and twenty, and the oldest fifty, I suppose he is not satisfied

any day until he has seen that they and theirs, in their respective

homes, are well. He thinks we here are babies; but he takes care of us

all the more courteously."

"Will he dine with you to-day?"

"I am afraid not; but we shall see him at the Christmas-tree after

dinner. There is to be a tree."

You see, this house was dedicated to the Apotheosis of Noble Ministry.

Over the mantel-piece hung Raphael Morghen's large print of "The

Lavatio," Caracci's picture of "The Washing of the Feet,"--the only copy

I ever saw. We asked Huldah about it.

"Oh, that was a present from Mr. Burchstadt, a rich manufacturer in

Wuertemberg, to Ellen. She stumbled into one of those villages when

everybody was sick and dying of typhus, and tended and watched and

saved, one whole summer long, as Mrs. Ware did at Osmotherly. And this

Mr. Burchstadt wanted to do something, and he sent her this in

acknowledgment."

On the other side was Kaulbach's own study of Elizabeth of Hungary,

dropping her apron full of roses.

"Oh! what a sight the apron discloses;

The viands are changed to real roses!"

When I asked Huldah where that came from, she blushed, and said, "Oh,

that was a present to me!" and led us to Steinler's exquisite "Good

Shepherd," in a larger and finer print than I had ever seen. Six or

eight gentlemen in New York, who, when they were dirty babies from the

gutter, had been in Helen Touro's hands, had sent her a portfolio of

beautiful prints, each with this same idea, of seeking what was lost.

This one she had chosen for the sitting-room.

And, on the fourth side, was that dashing group of Horace Vernet's,

"Gideon crossing Jordan," with the motto wrought into the frame, "Faint,

yet pursuing." These four pictures are all presents to the "girls," as I

find I still call them; and, on the easel, Miss Peters had put her copy

of "The Tribute Money." There were other pictures in the room; but these

five unconsciously told its story.

The five "girls" were always all together at Christmas; but, in

practice, each of them lived here only two-fifths of her time. "We make

that a rule," said Ellen laughing. "If anybody comes for anybody when

there are only two here, those two are engaged to each other; and we

stay. Not but what they can come and stay here if we cannot go to them."

In practice, if any of us in the immense circles which these saints had

befriended were in a scrape,--as, if a mother was called away from home,

and there were some children left, or if scarlet fever got into a house,

or if the children had nobody to go to Mt. Desert with them, or if the

new house were to be set in order, and nobody knew how,--in any of the

trials of well-ordered families, why, we rode over to the Saints' Rest

to see if we could not induce one of the five to come and put things

through. So that, in practice, there were seldom more than two on the

spot there.

But we do not get to the Christmas dinner. There were covers for four

and twenty; and all the children besides were in a room upstairs,

presided over by Maria Munro, who was in her element there. Then our

party of twenty-four included men and women of a thousand romances, who

had learned and had shown the nobility of service. One or two of us were

invited as novices, in the hope perhaps that we might learn.

Scarcely was the soup served when the door-bell rang. Nothing else ever

made Huldah look nervous. Bartlett, who was there, said in an aside to

me, that he had seen her more calm when there was volley firing within

hearing of her store-room. Then it rang again. Helen Touro talked more

vehemently; and Mrs. Bartlett at her end, started a great laugh. But,

when it rang the third time, something had to be said; and Huldah asked

one of the girls, who was waiting, if there were no one attending at the

door.

"Yes 'm, Mr. Corbet."

But the bell rang a fourth time, and a fifth.

"Isabel, you can go to the door. Mr. Corbet must have stepped out."

So Isabel went out, but returned with a face as broad as a soup-plate.

"Mr. Corbet is there, ma'am."

Sixth door-bell peal,--seventh, and eighth.

"Mary, I think you had better see if Mr. Corbet has gone away."

Mary returns, face one broad grin.

"No, ma'am, Mr. Corbet is there."

Heavy steps in the red parlor. Side door-bell--a little gong, begins to

ring. Front bell rings ninth time, tenth, and eleventh.

Saint John, as we call him, had seen that something was amiss, and had

kindly pitched in with a dissertation on the passage of the Red-River

Dam, in which the gravy-boats were steamships, and the cranberry was

General Banks, and the aids were spoons. But, when both door-bells rang

together, and there were more steps in the hall, Huldah said, "If you

will excuse me," and rose from the table.

"No, no, we will not excuse you," cried Clara Hastings. "Nobody will

excuse you. This is the one day of the year when you are not to work.

Let me go." So Clara went out. And after Clara went out, the door-bells

rang no more. I think she cut the bell-wires. She soon came back, and

said a man was inquiring his way to the "Smells;" and they directed him

to "Wait's Mills," which she hoped would do. And so Huldah's and Grace's

stupendous housekeeping went on in its solid order, reminding one of

those well-proportioned Worcester teas which are, perhaps, the crown and

glory of the New England science in this matter. I ventured to ask Sam

Root, who sat by me, if the Marlborough were not equal to his mother's.

And we sat long; and we laughed loud. We talked war and poetry and

genealogy. We rallied Helen Touro about her housekeeping; and Dr.

Worster pretended to give a list of Surgeons and Majors and

Major-Generals who had made love to Huldah. By and by, when the grapes

and the bonbons came, the sixteen children were led in by Maria Munro,

who had, till now, kept them at games of string and hunt the slipper.

And, at last, Seth Corbet flung open the door into the red parlor to

announce "The Tree."

Sure enough, there was the tree, as the five saints had prepared it for

the invited children,--glorious in gold, and white with wreaths of

snow-flakes, and blazing with candles. Sam Root kissed Grace, and said,

"O Grace! do you remember?" But the tree itself did not surprise the

children as much as the five tables at the right and the left, behind

and before, amazed the Sainted Five, who were indeed the children now. A

box of the _vin rouge de Bourgogne_, from Louis, was the first thing my

eye lighted on, and above it a little banner read, "Huldah's table." And

then I saw that there were these five tables, heaped with the Christmas

offerings to the five saints. It proved that everybody, the world over,

had heard that they had settled down. Everybody in the four

hemispheres,--if there be four,--who had remembered the unselfish

service of these five, had thought this a fit time for commemorating

such unselfish love, were it only by such a present as a lump of coal.

Almost everybody, I think, had made Seth Corbet a confidant; and so,

while the five saints were planning their pretty tree for the sixteen

children, the North and the South, and the East and the West, were

sending myrrh and frankincense and gold to them. The pictures were hung

with Southern moss from Barthow. Boys, who were now men, had sent coral

from India, pearl from Ceylon, and would have been glad to send ice from

Greenland, had Christmas come in midsummer; there were diamonds from

Brazil, and silver from Nevada, from those who lived there; there were

books, in the choicest binding, in memory of copies of the same word,

worn by travel, or dabbled in blood; there were pictures, either by the

hand of near friendship, or by the master hand of genius, which brought

back the memories, perhaps, of some old adventure in "The

Service,"--perhaps, as the Kaulbach did, of one of those histories which

makes all service sacred. In five and twenty years of life, these women

had so surrounded themselves, without knowing it or thinking of it, with

loyal, yes, adoring friends, that the accident of their finding a fixed

home had called in all at once this wealth of acknowledgment from those

whom they might have forgotten, but who would never forget them. And, by

the accident of our coming together, we saw, in these heaps on heaps of

offerings of love, some faint record of the lives they had enlivened,

the wounds they had stanched, the tears they had wiped away, and the

homes they had cheered. For themselves, the five saints--as I have

called them--were laughing and crying together, quite upset in the

surprise. For ourselves, there was not one of us who, in this little

visible display of the range of years of service, did not take in

something more of the meaning of,--

"He who will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

The surprise, the excitement, the laughter, and the tears found vent in

the children's eagerness to be led to their tree; and, in three minutes,

Ellen was opening boxes, and Huldah pulling fire-crackers, as if they

had not been thrown off their balance. But, when each boy and girl had

two arms full, and the fir balsam sent down from New Durham was nearly

bare, Edgar Bartlett pointed to the top bough, where was a brilliant

not noticed before. No one had noticed it,--not Seth himself,--who had

most of the other secrets of that house in his possession. I am sure

that no man, woman, or child knew how the thing came there: but Seth

lifted the little discoverer high in air, and he brought it down

triumphant. It was a parcel made up in shining silvered paper. Seth cut

the strings.

It contained twelve Maltese crosses of gold, with as many jewels, one in

the heart of each,--I think the blazing twelve of the Revelations. They

were displayed on ribbons of blue and white, six of which bore Huldah's,

Helen's, Ellen Philbrick's, Hannah's, Miss Peters's, and Seth Corbet's

names. The other six had no names; but on the gold of these was

marked,--"From Huldah, to ----" "From Helen, to -----" and so on, as if

these were decorations which they were to pass along. The saints

themselves were the last to understand the decorations; but the rest of

us caught the idea, and pinned them on their breasts. As we did so, the

ribbons unfolded, and displayed the motto of the order:--

"Henceforth I call you not servants, I have called you friends."

It was at that Christmas that the "ORDER OF LOVING SERVICE" was born.

THE TWO PRINCES.

A STORY FOR CHILDREN.

I.

There was a King of Hungary whose name was Adelbert.

When he lived at home, which was not often, it was in a castle of many

towers and many halls and many stairways, in the city of Buda, by the

side of the river Donau.

He had four daughters, and only one son, who was to be the King after

him, whose name was Ladislaus. But it was the custom of those times, as

boys and girls grew up, to send them for their training to some distance

from their home, even for many months at a time, to try a little

experiment on them, and see how they fared; and so, at the time I tell

you of, there was staying in the castle of Buda the Prince Bela, who

was the son of the King of Bohemia; and he and the boy Ladislaus studied

their lessons together, and flew their kites, and hunted for otters, and

rode with the falconers together.

One day as they were studying with the tutor, who was a priest named

Stephen, he gave to them a book of fables, and each read a fable.

Ladislaus read the fable of the

SKY-LARK.

The sky-lark sat on the topmost bough of the savy-tree, and was waked by

the first ray of the sun. Then the sky-lark flew and flew up and up to

the topmost arch of the sky, and sang the hymn of the morning.

But a frog, who was croaking in the cranberry marsh, said, "Why do you

take such pains and fly so high? the sun shines here, and I can sing

here."

And the bird said, "God has made me to fly. God has made me to see. I

will fly as high as He will lift me, and sing so loud that all shall

hear me."

* * * * *

And when the little Prince Ladislaus had read the fable, he cried out,

"The sky-lark is the bird for me, and I will paint his picture on my

shield after school this morning."

Then the Prince Bela read the next fable,--the fable of the

WATER-RAT.

A good beaver found one day a little water-rat almost dead. His father

and mother had been swept away by a freshet, and the little rat was

almost starved. But the kind beaver gave him of her own milk, and

brought him up in her own lodge with her children, and he got well, and

could eat, and swim, and dive with the best of them.

But one day there was a great alarm, that the beavers' dam was giving

way before the water. "Come one, come all," said the grandfather of the

beavers, "come to the rescue." So they all started, carrying sticks and

bark with them, the water-rat and all. But as they swam under an old

oak-tree's root, the water-rat stopped in the darkness, and then he

quietly turned round and went back to the hut. "It will be hard work,"

said he "and there are enough of them." There were enough of them. They

mended the dam by working all night and by working all day. But, as

they came back, a great wave of the freshet came pouring over the dam

and, though the dam stood firm, the beavers were swept away,--away and

away, down the river into the sea, and they died there.

And the water-rat lived in their grand house by himself, and had all

their stores of black-birch bark and willow bark and sweet poplar bark

for his own.

* * * * *

"That was a clever rat," said the Prince Bela. "I will paint the rat on

my shield, when school is done." And the priest Stephen was very sad

when he said so; and the Prince Ladislaus was surprised.

So they went to the play-room and painted their shields. The shields

were made of the bark of hemlock-trees. Ladislaus chipped off the rough

bark till the shield was white, and made on the place the best sky-lark

he could paint there. And Bela watched him, and chipped off the rough

bark from his shield, and said, "You paint so well, now paint my

water-rat for me." "No," said Ladislaus, though he was very

good-natured, "I cannot paint it well. You must paint it yourself." And

Bela did so.

II.

So the boys both grew up, and one became King of Hungary, and one was

the King of the Bohemians. And King Ladislaus carried on his banner the

picture of a sky-lark; and the ladies of the land embroidered sky-larks

for the scarfs and for the pennons of the soldiers, and for the motto of

the banner were the Latin words "Propior Deo," which mean "Nearer to

God." And King Bela carried the water-rat for his cognizance; and the

ladies of his land embroidered water-rats for the soldiers; and his

motto was "Enough."

And in these times a holy man from Palestine came through all the world;

and he told how the pilgrims to the tomb of Christ were beaten and

starved by the Saracens, and how many of them were dying in dungeons.

And he begged the princes and the lords and ladies, for the love of God

and the love of Christ, that they would come and rescue these poor

people, and secure the pilgrims in all coming time. And King Ladislaus

said to his people, "We will do the best we can, and serve God as He

shows us how!" And the people said, "We will do the best we can, and

save the people of Christ from the infidel!" And they all came together

to the place of arms; and the King chose a hundred of the bravest and

healthiest of the young men, all of whom told the truth, and no one of

whom was afraid to die, and they marched with him to the land of Christ;

and as they marched they sang, "Propior Deo,"--"Nearer to Thee."

And Peter the Hermit went to Bohemia, and told the story of the cruel

Saracens and the sufferings of the pilgrims to King Bela and his people.

And the King said, "Is it far away?" And the Hermit said, "Far, far

away." And the King said, "Ah, well,--they must get out as they got in.

We will take care of Bohemia." So the Hermit went on to Saxony, to tell

his story.

And King Ladislaus and his hundred true young men rode and rode day by

day, and came to the Mount of Olives just in time to be at the side of

the great King Godfrey, when he broke the Paynim's walls, and dashed

into the city of Jerusalem. And King Ladislaus and his men rode together

along the Way of Tears, where Christ bore the cross-beam upon his

shoulder, and he sat on the stone where the cross had been reared, and

he read the gospel through again; and there he prayed his God that he

might always bear his cross bravely, and that, like the Lord Jesus, he

might never be afraid to die.

III.

And when they had all come home to Hungary, their time hung very heavy

on their hands. And the young men said to the King, "Lead us to war

against the Finns, or lead us to war against the Russ."

But the King said, "No! if they spare our people, we spare their people.

Let us have peace." And he called the young men who had fought with him,

and he said, "The time hangs heavy with us; let us build a temple here

to the living God, and to the honor of his Son. We will carve on its

walls the story we have seen, and while we build we will remember Zion

and the Way of Tears."

And the young men said, "We are not used to building."

"Nor am I," said the King; "but let us build, and build as best we can,

and give to God the best we have and the best we know."

So they dug the deep trenches for the foundations, and they sent north

and south, and east and west for the wisest builders who loved the Lord

Christ; and the builders came, and the carvers came, and the young men

learned to use the chisel and the hammer; and the great Cathedral grew

year by year, as a pine-tree in the forest grows above the birches and

the yew-trees on the ground.

And once King Bela came to visit his kinsman, and they rode out to see

the builders. And King Ladislaus dismounted from his horse, and asked

Bela to dismount, and gave to him a chisel and a hammer.

"No," said the King Bela, "it will hurt my hands. In my land we have

workmen whom we pay to do these things. But I like to see you work."

So he sat upon his horse till dinner-time, and he went home.

And year by year the Cathedral grew. And a thousand pinnacles were built

upon the towers and on the roof and along the walls; and on each

pinnacle there fluttered a golden sky-lark. And on the altar in the

Cathedral was a scroll of crimson, and on the crimson scroll were

letters of gold, and the letters were in the Latin language, and said

"Propior Deo," and on a blue scroll underneath, in the language of the

people they were translated, and it said, "Nearer to Thee."

IV.

And another Hermit came, and he told the King that the Black Death was

ravaging the cities of the East; that half the people of Constantinople

were dead; that the great fair at Adrianople was closed; that the ships

on the Black Sea had no sailors; and that there would be no food for the

people on the lower river.

And the King said, "Is the Duke dead, whom we saw at Bucharest; is the

Emperor dead, who met me at Constantinople?"

"No, your Grace," said the Hermit, "it pleases the Lord that in the

Black Death only those die who live in hovels and in towns. The Lord has

spared those who live in castles and in palaces."

"Then," said King Ladislaus, "I will live as my people live, and I will

die as my people die. The Lord Jesus had no pillow for his head, and no

house for his lodging; and as the least of his brethren fares so will I

fare, and as I fare so shall they."

So the King and the hundred braves pitched their tents on the high land

above the old town, around the new Cathedral, and the Queen and the

ladies of the court went with them. And day by day the King and the

Queen and the hundred braves and their hundred ladies went up and down

the filthy wynds and courts of the city, and they said to the poor

people there, "Come, live as we live, and die as we die."

And the people left the holes of pestilence and came and lived in the

open air of God.

And when the people saw that the King fared as they fared, the people

said, "We also will seek God as the King seeks Him, and will serve Him

as he serves Him."

And day by day they found others who had no homes fit for Christian men,

and brought them upon the high land and built all together their tents

and booths and tabernacles, open to the sun and light, and to the smile

and kiss and blessing of the fresh air of God. And there grew a new and

beautiful city there.

And so it was, that when the Black Death passed from the East to the

West, the Angel of Death left the city of Buda on one side, and the

people never saw the pestilence with their eyes. The Angel of Death

passed by them, and rested upon the cities of Bohemia.

V.

And King Ladislaus grew old. His helmet seemed to him more heavy. His

sleep seemed to him more coy. But he had little care, for he had a

loving wife, and he had healthy, noble sons and daughters, who loved

God, and who told the truth, and who were not afraid to die.

But one day, in his happy prosperity, there came to him a messenger

running, who said in the Council, "Your Grace, the Red Russians have

crossed the Red River of the north, and they are marching with their

wives and their children with their men of arms in front, and their

wagons behind, and they say they will find a land nearer the sun, and to

this land are they coming."

And the old King smiled; and he said to those that were left of the

hundred brave men who took the cross with him, "Now we will see if our

boys could have fought at Godfrey's side. For us it matters little. One

way or another way we shall come nearer to God."