grossmutter would be when Christmas morning came and she received two
presents made by four little hands she loved, by enacting in dramatic
detail the astonishment which their father would show when he too
should receive a present made by them, we succeeded in awakening in
them sufficient ambition to attempt what was to both of them a
disagreeable task. They had been willing enough to draw, cut, fold,
mold, or paste anything which would serve as an illustration of a
story in which they were interested, or which would revivify some
pleasant personal experience; but to sit down and deliberately draw,
or paint, or sew an object for somebody else, with the thought of
making it pleasant to that person rather than to themselves, was a new
idea.
First one and then the other of us would occasionally sew a flower
upon a picture-frame when the little untrained fingers grew too tired;
or we would adroitly exchange work, letting them bring in a pail of
water from the spring while we put a strip or two in a gay
gold-and-scarlet mat which was to be worked over into a Christmas
present, thus bringing the end of the little task somewhat nearer.
Occasionally, of course, a story would be told of some loving little
child about whom even the fairies sang, because he or she worked hard
to make Christmas gifts for loved ones. Sometimes Margaret would
exclaim: "What do you suppose _the knights_ would say if they should
come riding up the road and see two dear children working away as hard
as they could on their Christmas presents?"
The first two presents, for grossmutter and father, their two nearest
relatives, were finished and daintily folded away in colored tissue
paper, when Margaret had a whispered conversation with them and
suggested that they should surprise me also with a Christmas present,
and I, on a like occasion, proposed to them that they should surprise
her with something at Christmas time. Then followed days of whispered
talk; of sudden hiding of work, or of gleeful shouting: "Go away! You
mustn't come here now!"
Often there would be delighted covering up of the hands and lap at my
approach, or at that of Margaret--scenes so common in the homes of
Kindergarten-trained children, but so delightfully new to these little
Arabs of the desert who had never, in all their short lives before,
felt the dignity of individual, personal possessions which they could
give away.
Our presents finished and mysteriously laid away, the next step was to
lead to the thought of making presents for our next neighbor and his
good wife, whose ranch was about half a mile away. This, of course,
soon led on to the idea of having a Christmas present ready for
_everybody_. There were only about five families in all on the
foothills, but they constituted _everybody_ to the children, whose
world, dear souls, was bounded by the horizon which had its center in
their own home; saving of course, that boundless world into which
Margaret and I had introduced them through pictures and stories, where
lived the mighty kings and queens, giants and genii, fairies and
princesses, prophets and priests, and above all, _the knights_. This
latter world of the imagination was such a grand world that it did not
need presents.
Soon the two happy little hearts were overflowing with the true
Christmas love; and the presents made by their own hands "for
_everybody_" were laid out upon my bed and examined and exclaimed
over. Each of these was again folded up in a bright piece of tissue
paper and tied with a bit of narrow, daintily colored ribbon and
labeled with the name of the person to whom it was to be given. All
these long, busy days were so full of Christmas talks and songs and
stories that they even yet bring back to me the feeling of having
lived them in the midst of a great musical festival.
We had frequent occasion to cross the ranches belonging to our
different neighbors, in our daily tramps over the foothills, and often
met the men at their work or stopped to chat for a moment with the
women in their doorways. At such times, Georgie would look up with a
laughing face and sparkling eyes and say: "We've got somefin' for you
for Christmas, but you mustn't know what it is."
And then, if the inquisitive neighbor would question, he would dance
about and clap his hands, and shake his little head, saying: "No, no,
no! Wait until Christmas comes, and then you shall see it; but we made
it all ourselves."
"'Cept what _they_ did to help us," the more conscientious Lena would
add, as she pointed to Margaret or me.
We had found, as is not uncommon in sparsely settled districts, where
there must necessarily be a struggle for a livelihood, that life among
our neighbors had somewhat narrowed itself down to the material
standpoint, and consequently, as always happens when this is the case,
various frictions had occurred among them, leaving them not always in
quite the neighborly attitude toward each other. But no one was able
to resist the children's joyful over-flowing Christmas love.
In a short time it was settled among us all that the Christmas
celebration should take place at Georgie's and Lena's home, and that
all the neighbors should be present on Christmas Eve to see the
lighting of the Christmas tree, which Margaret and I had decided was
to be as gorgeous as our limited resources could make it.
In a little while first one and then another neighbor volunteered to
help decorate the house; one offering to saw off and bring to us
branches from an unusually beautiful pepper-tree; another volunteered
his services in going to town for anything we might need; and a good
housewife recalled the days when she was young and asked if we would
like to have her make some ginger-bread boys and girls and animals to
hang on the tree, and so on. Before long the children's spirit of
enthusiasm and love for others had spread throughout our small
foothill world, and everywhere we went we were greeted with smiles,
significant nods, and occasional whispered conversations.
A few days before Christmas came, one of our foothill neighbors
stopped us on the road to suggest that he should go down, on Christmas
Eve, to the mesa below and bring up two little English children whose
home had been saddened by the death of their father a few weeks
before, and whose mother, being a stranger in California, had no
friends to whom to go. Thus was the Christmas spirit overflowing the
foothills and spreading on to the farther districts. Then some one
else thought of a man and his wife and young baby who lived about six
miles up the cañon, and they, too, were invited. All small grudges
were forgotten and seemingly swallowed up in the coming festivities.
The contagion of love is as great as the contagion of disease or
crime. Each time we finished a bit of trimming for the tree, which was
yet to be selected, it had now to be taken down to be shown to Mrs.
Middlin. As we passed the old wood-chopper he would make some light,
laughing remark, and we occasionally stopped at his side to sing to
him a new Christmas song which the children had just learned. He would
at such times lay down his axe, and his wrinkled old face would become
bright with the light of his far-away youth, as he looked down into
the children's happy, eager eyes; and he usually sent us on our way
with some such remark as, "Well, them children air great ones," or
else it would be, "Children will be children. I used to be that way
myself." The half-invalid woman, whom pain had made fretful and
nervous, and who had been in the habit of declaring that all children
were a nuisance and ought to be kept in their homes, could not resist
Georgie's roguish shout, "I got somefin' for you Christmas! You must
be sure to come up to see the Christmas tree." On the eventful day she
actually did come with all the rest and brought with her some
home-made candy, such as she used to make when she was a girl some
forty odd years before.
This drawing together round the Christmas thought, each and every one
making an effort to add something to the joy of the occasion, proved
what every true lover of humanity believes, that deep down in each
human heart is love and a desire to be loved, is joy in seeing others
happy, and the greater joy of serving others.
In return for this unexpected volunteer addition to our plans for the
children, Margaret and I contrived some trifle or joke for each man
member of the community. To one it was a bundle of toothpicks done up
in fancy tissue paper. To another it was a Mexican tamale. To a young
fellow who worked on one of the ranches it was a candy sweetheart. For
each of the women we made some trifle in the way of needle-book,
iron-holder, or the like, as we wanted the children to have the
pleasure of seeing their elders go up to the tree and receive gifts as
well as themselves.
Three days before the Christmas Eve party the two children and their
father, Margaret and I, went up the cañon to let the children select a
small fir-tree for the Christmas tree. As we came triumphantly driving
through a neighbor's ranch on our way home with the little tree in the
back of the wagon, the children shouted out with great glee: "Come
out! Come out! and see the tree! See the tree! Here it is! Here it is!
The really, really Christmas tree!" And out came both gray-haired old
neighbors, almost as much pleased as the children.
The tree was fastened between two boards, and then with great ceremony
we marched in a procession into the little best room which their
grandmother usually kept shut and unused, and placed it upon the table
in the center of the room. Then began the exciting, and to the
children most charming, work of decorating it with strings of popcorn
and cranberries; and fancy chains made with the scarlet and blue, gilt
and silver paper which loving hearts in the far-away Chicago had sent,
helped make gorgeous our little tree. Some fancy pink and pale blue
papers which had come from the drug store had been carefully saved for
the occasion. Onto these we pasted narrow strips of the gold and
silver paper, and "Chinese lanterns" were made, much to the delight of
the children. Each afternoon we decorated the tree with the work which
had been done in the morning, and then danced around it and sang songs
to it, and told it stories about other little Christmas trees which
had made other little children happy.
One day Georgie improvised a song, and like the poet of old, danced in
rhythm to the melody which he himself created to the tune of
"Heigh-ho, the way we go." The words were as follows:
"Miss Margaret and I
We wish we could fly,
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, under the Christmas tree.
We sing now for joy,
The girl and the boy,
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, under the Christmas tree."
He had undoubtedly caught the rhythm, and perhaps the refrain, from
some verses which Margaret had written about our mountain home, and
whose refrain was "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, under the greenwood-tree." But
I was much pleased to see his original application of the idea, and
his feeling of the fitness of the festival occasion for improvised
verse. It seemed to bubble out of the fullness of his joy just as many
a refrain and love song of old was born on festival occasions; so
close is the child akin to the child race.
Some time before this Margaret had brought from her mysterious trunk a
small and very beautiful copy of the Mother and Child which forms the
center of Correggio's great picture, "The Holy Night," and Lena had
sewed a round picture frame, designed by Margaret, with a gold star on
the upper corner and a modest little violet on the lower, symbolic, it
seemed to me, of the exaltation and humility which that picture so
marvelously portrays. It was to be a joint gift from Margaret and Lena
to the dear old grossmutter. The children had both sat and studied the
two beautiful faces, so luminous with light; and Margaret had
explained to them that the light came from the dear baby's face and
shone into that of the mother because this dear little Christ Child
had just come from God and the mother knew it.
"That is what makes her so happy," said Georgie, and Margaret
answered, "Yes, that is what makes every good mother happy when she
looks into her baby's face," and Georgie had accepted this somewhat
broad interpretation of the picture with one of his significant nods.
So far as we could ascertain, the children had as yet no training
whatever in biblical lore, and our plan had been that we would speak
only in general terms of the Bible story of Christmas until after they
had experienced the love and joy of service and giving. Then we would
tell them why not only their little world, but the whole great big
world of Christendom celebrated the day with such joy. But suddenly
one evening, as we were returning from our hilltop scramble, Lena
said, "Grossmutter knows all about the dear little Christ Child, and
she says the angels knew that He was coming."
"Let's sit down here by this rock," said Georgie, "and then you can
tell us all about it." He had implicit faith that Margaret could tell
him all about anything he wished to know, so he never hesitated to make
the demand.
We sat down on the ground, with sky above us radiant and glowing in
sunset's splendor, and Margaret told, as I had never heard it told
before, of the watching of the shepherds and of the coming of the
angels, and when she came to the part, "and as the shepherds raised
their bodies up from the ground and listened and listened, the far-away
music came nearer and nearer, and then they saw that the music was the
singing of countless numbers of beautiful angels, and that the bright
light which had slowly spread over the whole heavens came from the
beauty of their faces; the whole sky seemed full of them, and they were
all singing joyfully the first Christmas song that was ever heard on
earth," Georgie rose from his half-reclining position and coming close
to Margaret placed his hands upon her shoulder and said, eagerly: "Sing
it! Sing it! Sing it just as the angels sang it!"
She afterwards told me that she would have given five years of her life
to have had Patti's voice for just that one hour. She quietly replied:
"I cannot sing it, Georgie, as the angels sang it. No one on earth can
sing it as the angels sang it on the first glad Christmas night, but we
can know what they meant to tell the shepherds."
He turned his face away from her with a look of disappointment, and his
eyes wandered far over the hills to the glowing sky, then quickly
turning toward us, he said, "Maybe the Christmas angels will come now.
Let us listen and see if we can hear them."
Then we listened silently until the light began to fade out of the
evening sky, and Margaret said: "I can tell you what the words were
which the angels sang, and perhaps we can feel their song down in our
hearts."
And then slowly and reverently she repeated the old, yet ever new,
message to mankind: "Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth, good
will to men!" And gently added, by way of explanation, that good will
to men meant that we were all brothers and sisters in God's sight, and
that this was one of the great things which the dear Christ Child came
to teach us. "And this," she added, "is why we celebrate His birthday
by making gifts for 'everybody.'" Both children nodded assent in a
matter-of-course way. They, dear little hearts, did not yet know the
schisms and discords that sometimes separate brothers and sisters, and
to them it was a matter of course, that men should accept the angelic
message.
As we walked home, Georgie skipping and dancing along in front, sang,
"I love everybody! I love everybody! I am so happy! I am so happy! I
love everybody!"
"So do I, Georgie," said Margaret, earnestly; and I think for the time
being, at least, all of us felt the true Christmas spirit. That motto
from Froebel's "Mother-Play-Songs" came into my mind with a new meaning:
"Would'st thou unite the child for aye with thee,
Then let him with the Highest One thy union see
By every noble thought thy heart is fired,
The young child's soul will surely be inspired.
And thou can'st no better gift bestow,
Than union with the Eternal One to know."
We quickened our steps as we neared home, and all four of us sang
softly--
"In another land and clime,
Long ago and far away."
The morning of Christmas Eve brought to us our friend, Mrs. Brown, who
had a Kindergarten in a neighboring town. Her contribution to the
festive occasion was a box of fifty small wax candles, and we proceeded
at once to add the final touches for the evening entertainment. A
frieze had already been made around the walls of the room with branches
of the pepper-tree, whose feathery green leaves and coral-colored
branches of berries made a beautiful decoration. Large bunches of the
dark green eucalyptus had been sawed off and so arranged that they made
frames of the green around the two windows whose white curtains the
good grossmutter had washed and ironed the day before. In the center of
the room was the Christmas tree on which hung the treasures worked by
little hands. The red, green, and yellow candles were fastened in the
safer parts of the horizontal branches; others were placed around the
table on candlesticks made of ripe oranges; and a row of these golden
candlesticks was also placed upon the edge of a wooden shelf which had
held the grossmutter's German Bible. The ugly woolen cover of the shelf
was entirely concealed by soft green ferns. A pound or two of candy had
been purchased by the father, and this the dear old grandmother, with
trembling but eager hands, showed us how to tie up with strings of
worsted and fasten to the tree, "just as they used to do in the
faterland," she explained to the children. Her joy over the whole
affair was, if anything, greater than that of the little ones. She
insisted that Mrs. Brown, Margaret, and I should be her guests at the
noonday dinner; and her appreciation of our work was shown by the
killing of the fatted goose, and by boiling and baking and stewing, in
true German fashion, about three times the quantity of food which we
could possibly consume. During the getting ready of this dinner she
bustled in and out of the little parlor, sometimes throwing her arms
around the children and exclaiming, "Oh, Chorgie! Chorgie! Dis is just
like a Christmas in the old country! Just tink of it! Just tink of it!
Mine kinder are to have a German Christmas! A real German Christmas!"
Then, as if fearing that her emotions should be taken for weakness, she
buffeted them severely with her hand and pushed them to one side with
the words, "Keep out of de way! Don't talk so much! You are little
nuisances anyhow!" but with so much love in the tone that the rebuking
words were unheeded. Again, she would come into the room and stand with
her hands resting upon her hips and gaze silently, with unspeakable
satisfaction, at the busy scene before her.
In making our plans for the evening, Margaret turned and said in a tone
of quiet respect: "Frau Zorn, we will, of course, expect you to stand
with the children and us, and receive the guests. It is your party, you
know, as well as the children's. We are merely helping to get it
ready."
"Oh, mein dear! Mein dear!" exclaimed the old lady, evidently much
pleased with the unexpected prominence which was to be given to her.
Without further words she bustled out of the room, and in about a
half-hour called to Margaret and me to come up into the little attic
above. There we found her on her knees before an old horsehair trunk
out of which she had taken a black and gray striped silk gown of the
fashion of about twenty years before; also a soft white silk neck
handkerchief. In an embarrassed tone, looking half-ashamed, half-proud,
she said: "I had laid dem away for my burying clothes, but I can wear
dem to-night, if you tink it best."
"Certainly," exclaimed Margaret; "that dress is just the thing, and the
pretty white handkerchief will make you look young again. I am so glad
you have them. I will come in time to arrange your hair and I have a
wee bit of a lace handkerchief which I know how to fix into a cap, just
such as my own grandmother used to wear, and you will be the handsomest
part of the whole Christmas entertainment." Then she added in great
glee: "Don't let the children see the dress until after you put it on.
It will be such a lovely surprise for them."
The old woman's face showed how keen this simple pleasure was to her as
she softly patted the dress, straightening here and there a bit of its
old-fashioned trimming, and then laid it gently into the trunk until
the appointed hour should come.
The morning work was at last ended, including our most conscientious
endeavors to do justice to the elaborate dinner. We locked the door of
the little parlor fearing that the temptation to meddle with the wax
candles might be too great to be resisted. Handing the key to Frau Zorn
and giving our "Christmas kiss" to each of the children, somewhat tired
we went back to our little cabin to rest until the evening. We had
promised to come early so as to be there before the first guests should
arrive, and just before starting out on our return Margaret quietly
gathered a basketful of beautiful La France roses which were blossoming
in bewildering profusion near our doorstep.
"What are you going to do with those?" I asked. "Make every man and
woman who comes to-night feel that he or she is in true festival
attire," she answered, smiling. And sure enough as each guest came in,
Lena, by Margaret's instructions, asked the privilege of pinning a
Christmas rose upon the man's coat and the woman's dress. The smile
with which the unaccustomed decoration was accepted showed the wisdom
of Margaret's plan. An added festivity came over the scene, and each
individual felt himself or herself duly decorated for the occasion.
When the man from the cañon beyond arrived with his wife and the little
three-months-old baby, Georgie's face was a study worthy of Raphael's
brush; confusion, surprise, pleasure, joy were all commingled, as
looking up to Margaret, he exclaimed, "Why, Miss Marg't! We are going
to have a _real, truly baby_ at our Christmas time!" Then, lowering his
voice, "Perhaps it will be like the Christ baby and we can see the
light shining from it just as the shepherds saw it."
The guests had been invited into the little dining-room which was the
usual sitting-room of the family, and the parlor was kept closed. At a
signal from Margaret, the father of the two children walked forward,
and throwing the door open, invited the guests to walk in. It was
lighted entirely by the wax candles, which gave that peculiar mellow
light suggestive of silent and reverent feeling that the Roman Catholic
Church has been wise enough to seize upon and make use of.
The hilarious laughter and somewhat awkward jokes which had been going
on ceased for the time being. When all were seated on the benches and
the improvised seats which had been brought in, Margaret and the
children sang two or three Christmas songs. Then, as a surprise to the
rest of us, they clustered around the dear old grossmutter and the
four, bowing, joined in a German hymn of praise and thanksgiving. This
was intended as a surprise to the father and to me, and was indeed a
surprise to all of us, as none of the neighbors had ever heard the dear
old woman sing.
Then came the distribution of presents, and the laughter and jokes and
fun such as happy hearts improvise and enjoy. One neighbor had brought
an old-fashioned hat-box labeled "For Lena and Georgie." When opened,
out sprang two frisky little kittens that, in a frightened fashion,
scampered away under the protecting skirts of some of the women, but
were soon captured and caressed with delight by the little owners. The
same thoughtful neighbor had brought two little chickens for the little
English children from the mesa below. They were less lively, but were
tenderly cared for by the children.