To the list of things that the Belgians in Crashie Howe do not
understand, along with oatmeal, honey in the comb, and tapioca, must now
be added the Scottish climate. They do not complain, but they are
puzzled, and after sixty-five consecutive hours of rain they wonder
wistfully if it is always like this. We simply dare not tell them the
truth.
By every post we are busy hunting for lost relatives who are scattered
before the shattering fist of the KAISER over Great Britain, Belgium,
Holland and France. We have not been very successful so far, but one or
two we have found, at points as far apart as York and Milford Haven,
and, best of all, we have unearthed a great-grandmother, last seen in an
open coal boat off Ostend, who is now in comfortable quarters in a
village in Ayrshire.
Our language difficulties have not been assisted by the arrival of a
family from Antwerp who talk nothing but Walloon, but, on the other
hand, the progress of the children is now beginning to afford certain
frail lines of communication. The least of them, Élise, can already
count up to twenty in English (with a strong Scoto-Flemish accent), and
so it came about that when I took my little nieces round to pay calls,
relations were at once established on a numerical basis.
"One, two, three," said Sheila, holding out her hand.
"Four," retorted Juliette, gurgling with delight.
"Five, six, seven," shouted Betty.
"Eight, nine?" enquired Juliette....
At the next cottage, where we were all rather shy, we began tentatively
with "One?" But we finally gained so much confidence that by the time we
reached our last visit we ran it up to ten at a single burst, and were
consequently received with open arms.
One of our main concerns has been the Santa Claus question, and that is
a matter which touches us closely, as we have among our number eleven
children of Santa Claus age. There are a good many pitfalls here, and it
is now unfortunately too late to warn other people of the chief of them.
For the fact is--as we found to our amazement--that Santa Claus (you
must, by the way, call him St. Nicholas; after all, it is his proper
name) comes to Belgium and Russia, not on December 25th, but on December
6th. All our attempts to explain this phenomenon by the difference in
the Russian calendar, though ingenious, have failed; it doesn't work out
at all. Still, for some reason, that is how it is, and we cannot but be
grateful to St. Nicholas for this delicate attention to our allies, by
which no doubt they get the pick of the toys, even though we were nearly
let in by him. Indeed Pierre had practically given up hope. He had told
his mother that he was afraid St. Nicholas would never find his way to
Scotland, it was too far.
Then there is another thing which might easily have been overlooked.
It's no use putting out stockings, as we prefer to do in our insular
way; one must put out _shoes_. At first sight it looks as if we in this
country have the pull over our allies here, for one pair of little shoes
does not hold much stuff. But fortunately it is the happy custom in all
lands to allow of overflow to any extent. And finally St. Nicholas never
comes down the chimney; he pops in through the window (which should be
left slightly open at the bottom so that he can get in his thumb and
prize it up). Also he never drove a reindeer in his life. He rides a
horse. And this is of the first importance, for the one condition
attaching to his benevolence is that you must put out a good wisp of hay
for the horse, along with your shoes, or else he will simply pass on and
you will get nothing at all.
Having collected and considered all these facts we were fully prepared
to meet the situation--even down to the small gingerbread animals which
always grace the day--on December 6th, and to deal faithfully with the
little rows of clogs, bulging with hay, which awaited us on St. Nicholas
Eve.
* * * * *
Illustration: _Weary Variety Agent._ "AND WHAT'S _YOUR_ PARTICULAR
CLAIM TO ORIGINALITY?"
_Artiste._ "I'M THE ONLY COMEDIAN WHO HAS SO FAR REFRAINED FROM
ADDRESSING THE ORCHESTRA AS 'YOU IN THE TRENCH.'"
* * * * *