"Well, Billy Sewall, have you taken your young friend home and put him
to bed?"
The questioner was Ralph Fernald, sitting with the rest of the
family--or those members of it who were not still attending to the wants
of little children--before the fireplace, talking things over. They had
been there for nearly an hour, since the service, but Sewall had only
just come in.
"I've taken him home," Sewall replied. "But there was no putting him to
bed. I think he'll sit up till morning--too happy to sleep, the fine old
man."
They had saved the big armchair for him, in the very centre of the
circle, but he would have none of it. He went over to a corner of the
inglenook, and dropped upon the floor at his sister Margaret's feet,
with his arm upon her knee. When somebody protested Guy interfered in
his defence.
"Let him alone," said he. "He gets enough of prominent positions.
If he wants to sit on the fence and kick his heels a while, let him.
He's certainly earned the right to do as he pleases to-night. By
George!--talk about magnificent team-work! If ever I saw a sacrifice
play I saw it to-night."
Sewall shook his head. "You may have seen team-work," said he, "though
Mr. Blake was the most of the team. But there was no sacrifice play on
my part. It was simply a matter of passing the ball to the man who could
run. I should have been down in four yards--if I ever got away at all."
John Fernald looked at his wife with a puzzled smile. "What sort o' talk
is that?" he queried. Then he went on: "I suppose you boys are giving
the credit to Elder Blake--who ought to have it. But I give a good deal
to William Sewall, whose eyes were sharp enough to see what we've been
too blind to find out--that the old man was the one who could deal with
us and make us see light on our quarrel. He did make us see it! Here
I've been standing off, pluming myself on being too wise to mix up in
the fuss, when I ought to have been doing my best to bring folks
together. What a difference it does make, the way you see a thing!"
He looked round upon the group, scanning one stirred face after another
as the ruddy firelight illumined them. His glance finally rested on his
daughter Nan. She too sat upon the floor, on a plump red cushion, with
her back against her husband's knee. Somehow Nan and Sam were never far
apart, at times like these. The youngest of the house of Fernald had
made perhaps the happiest marriage of them all, and the knowledge of
this gave her father and mother great satisfaction. The sight of the
pair, returning his scrutiny, with bright faces, gave John Fernald his
next comment.
"After the preachers, I guess Nancy and Samuel deserve about the most
credit," he went on. "It was the little girl's idea, and Sam stood by
her, right through." He began to chuckle. "I can see Sam now, towing
those two old fellows up to the pulpit. I don't believe they'd ever have
got there without him. There certainly is a time when a man's hand on
your arm makes it a good deal easier to go where you know you ought to
go."
"It would have taken more than my hand to tow them away," said Sam
Burnett, "after they found out how it felt to be friends again. Nobody
could come between them now, with an axe."
"The music helped," cried Nan, "the music helped more than anything,
except the sermon. Think how Margaret worked over that!--and Carolyn
over that crazy little old organ! And Guy and Ed and Charles hung all
those greens----"
"I tacked the pulpit stair-carpet," put in Oliver, gravely. "While
you're assigning credit, don't forget that."
"I stoked those stoves," asserted Ralph. "That left-hand
one--Christopher! --I never saw a stove like that to hand out smoke
in your face. But the church was warm when I got through with 'em."
"You all did wonderfully well," came Mother Fernald's proud and happy
declaration.
"All but me," said a voice, from the centre of the group. It was a voice
which nobody had ever expected to hear in an acknowledgment of failure
of any sort whatsoever, and all ears listened in amazement.
"I did nothing but discourage everybody," went on the voice, not quite
evenly. "I believe I'm apt to do that, though I never realized it
before. But when that wonderful old man was speaking it came to me,
quite suddenly, that the reason my husband's family don't like me
better--is--because--it is my nature always to see the objections to a
thing, and to discourage people about it, if I can. I--want to tell you
all that--I'm going to try to help, not hinder, from now on."
There was never a deeper sincerity than breathed in these astonishing
words from Marian, Oliver's wife. Astonishing, because they all
understood, knowing her as they did--Oliver was oldest, and had been
first to marry--what a tremendous effort the little speech had cost her,
a proud woman of the world, who had never seemed to care whether her
husband's family loved her or not, so that they deferred to her.
For a moment they were all too surprised and touched--for there is
nothing more touching than humility, where it is least expected--to
speak. Then Ralph, who sat next Marian, brought his fist down on his
knee with a thud.
"Bully for you!" said he.
Upon Marian's other side her husband's mother slipped a warm, delicate
hand into hers. Nan, leaning past Sam's knee, reached up and patted her
sister-in-law's lap. Everybody else smiled, in his or her most friendly
way, at Oliver's wife; and Oliver himself, though he said nothing, and
merely continued to stare fixedly into the fire, looked as if he would
be willing to tack pulpit stair-carpets for a living, if it would help
to bring about such results as these.
"Marian's right in calling him a 'wonderful old man.'" Guy spoke
thoughtfully. "He got us all--Fernalds as well as Tomlinsons and
Frasers. He hit me, square between the eyes, good and hard--but I'm
glad he did," he owned, with characteristic frankness.
They all sat gazing into the fire in silence, for a little, after that,
in the musing way of those who have much to think about. And by and by
Father Fernald pulled out his watch and scanned it by the wavering
light.
"Bless my soul!" he cried. "It's close on to twelve o'clock! You
children ought to be in bed--oughtn't they, Mother?"
There was a murmur of laughter round the group, for John Fernald was
looking at his wife over his spectacles in just the quizzical way his
sons and daughters well remembered.
"I suppose they ought, John," she responded, smiling at him. "But you
might let them sit up a little longer--just this once."
He looked them over once more--it was the hundredth time his eyes had
gone round the circle that night. It was a goodly array of manhood and
womanhood for a father to look at and call his own--even William Sewall,
the brother of his son's wife, seemed to belong to him to-night. They
gave him back his proud and tender glance, every one of them, and his
heart was very full. As for their mother--but her eyes had gone down.
"Well," he said, leaning over to clasp her hand in his own, as she sat
next him, "I guess maybe, just this once, it won't do any harm to let
'em stay up a little late, They're getting pretty big, now.... And it's
Christmas Night."
[Music: Piano or choral arrangement of "Silent Night"]