DOLLY'S ADVENTURE.
And, after all, Dolly was there! Yes, she was. Human nature, which
runs wild with the oldest of us at times, was too strong for poor
little Dolly.
Can any of us look back to the earlier days of our mortal pilgrimage
and remember the helpless sense of desolation and loneliness caused
by being forced to go off to the stillness and darkness of a solitary
bed far from all the beloved voices and employments and sights of
life? Can we remember lying, hearing distant voices, and laughs of
more fortunate, older people, and the opening and shutting of distant
doors, that told of scenes of animation and interest from which we
were excluded? How doleful sounded the tick of the clock, and how
dismal was the darkness as sunshine faded from the window, leaving
only a square of dusky dimness in place of daylight!
All who remember these will sympathize with Dolly, who was hustled
off to bed by Nabby the minute supper was over, that she might have
the decks clear for action.
"Now be a good girl; shut your eyes, and say your prayers, and go
right to sleep," had been Nabby's parting injunction as she went out,
closing the door after her.
The little head sunk into the pillow and Dolly recited her usual
liturgy of "Our Father who art in Heaven," and "I pray God to bless
my dear father and mother and all my dear friends and relations, and
make me a good girl;" and ending with
"'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"
But sleep she could not. The wide, bright, wistful blue eyes lay
shining like two stars towards the fading light in the window,
and the little ears were strained to catch every sound. She heard
the shouts of Tom and Bill and the loud barking of Spring as they
swept out of the door; and the sound went to her heart. Spring--her
faithful attendant, the most loving and sympathetic of dogs, her
friend and confidential counsellor in many a solitary ramble--Spring
had gone with the boys to see the sight, and left her alone. She
began to pity herself and cry softly on her pillow. For awhile she
could hear Nabby's energetic movements below, washing up dishes,
setting back chairs, and giving energetic thumps and bangs here and
there, as her way was of producing order. But by and by that was all
over, and she heard the loud shutting of the kitchen door and Nabby's
voice chatting with her attendant as she went off to the scene of
gaiety.
In those simple, innocent days in New England villages nobody thought
of locking house doors at night. There was in those times no idea
either of tramps or burglars, and many a night in summer had Dolly
lain awake and heard the voices of tree-toads and whippoorwills
mingling with the whisper of leaves and the swaying of elm boughs,
while the great outside door of the house lay broad open in the
moonlight. But then this was when everybody was in the house and
asleep, when the door of her parents' room stood open on the front
hall, and she knew she could run to the paternal bed in a minute for
protection. Now, however, she knew the house was empty. Everybody had
gone out of it; and there is something fearful to a little lonely
body in the possibilities of a great, empty house. She got up and
opened her door, and the "tick-tock" of the old kitchen clock for
a moment seemed like company; but pretty soon its ticking began to
strike louder and louder with a nervous insistancy on her ear, till
the nerves quivered and vibrated, and she couldn't go to sleep.
She lay and listened to all the noises outside. It was a still,
clear, freezing night, when the least sound clinked with a metallic
resonance. She heard the runners of sleighs squeaking and crunching
over the frozen road, and the lively jingle of bells. They would come
nearer, nearer, pass by the house, and go off in the distance. Those
were the happy folks going to see the gold star and the Christmas
greens in the church. The gold star, the Christmas greens, had all
the more attraction from their vagueness. Dolly was a fanciful little
creature, and the clear air and romantic scenery of a mountain town
had fed her imagination. Stories she had never read, except those in
the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress, but her very soul had vibrated
with the descriptions of the celestial city--something vague, bright,
glorious, lying beyond some dark river; and Nabby's rude account of
what was going on in the church suggested those images.
Finally a bright thought popped into her little head. She could see
the church from the front windows of the house; she would go there
and look. In haste she sprang out of bed and dressed herself. It was
sharp and freezing in the fireless chamber, but Dolly's blood had a
racing, healthy tingle to it; she didn't mind cold. She wrapped her
cloak around her and tied on her hood and ran to the front windows.
There it was, to be sure--the little church with its sharp-pointed
windows every pane of which was sending streams of light across the
glittering snow. There was a crowd around the door, and men and boys
looking in at the windows. Dolly's soul was fired. But the elm-boughs
a little obstructed her vision; she thought she would go down and
look at it from the yard. So down stairs she ran, but as she opened
the door the sound of the chant rolled out into the darkness with a
sweet and solemn sound:
"_Glory be to God on high; and on earth peace, good will towards
men._"
Dolly's soul was all aglow--her nerves tingled and vibrated; she
thought of the bells ringing in the celestial city; she could no
longer contain herself, but faster and faster the little hooded form
scudded across the snowy plain and pushed in among the dark cluster
of spectators at the door. All made way for the child, and in a
moment, whether in the body or out she could not tell, Dolly was
sitting in a little nook under a bower of spruce, gazing at the star
and listening to the voices:
"_We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we
give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, Heavenly King,
God, the Father Almighty._"
Her heart throbbed and beat; she trembled with a strange happiness
and sat as one entranced till the music was over. Then came reading,
the rustle and murmur of people kneeling, and then they all rose
and there was the solemn buzz of voices repeating the Creed with a
curious lulling sound to her ear. There was old Mr. Danforth with his
spectacles on, reading with a pompous tone, as if to witness a good
confession for the church; and there was Squire Lewis and old Ma'am
Lewis; and there was one place where they all bowed their heads and
all the ladies made courtesies--all of which entertained her mightily.
When the sermon began Dolly got fast asleep and slept as quietly as
a pet lamb in a meadow, lying in a little warm roll back under the
shadows of the spruces. She was so tired and so sound asleep that she
did not wake when the service ended, lying serenely curled up, and
having perhaps pleasant dreams. She might have had the fortunes of
little Goody Two-Shoes, whose history was detailed in one of the few
children's books then printed, had not two friends united to find her
out.
Spring, who had got into the slip with the boys, and been an equally
attentive and edified listener, after service began a tour of
investigation, dog-fashion, with his nose; for how could a minister's
dog form a suitable judgment of any new procedure if he was
repressed from the use of his own leading faculty? So, Spring went
round the church conscientiously, smelling at pew-doors, smelling of
the greens, smelling at the heels of gentlemen and ladies, till he
came near the door of the church, when he suddenly smelt something
which called for immediate attention, and he made a side dart into
the thicket where Dolly was sleeping, and began licking her face
and hands and pulling her dress, giving short barks occasionally,
as if to say, "Come, Dolly, wake up!" At the same instant Hiel, who
had seen her from the gallery, came down just as the little one was
sitting up with a dazed, bewildered air.
"Why, Dolly, how came you out o' bed this time o' night! Don't ye
know the nine o'clock bell's jest rung?"
Dolly knew Hiel well enough--what child in the village did not! She
reached up her little hands saying in an apologetic fashion,
"They were all gone away, and I was so lonesome!"
Hiel took her up in his long arms and carried her home, and was just
entering the house-door with her as the sleigh drove up with Parson
Cushing and his wife.
"Wal, Parson, your folks has all ben to the 'lumination--Nabby and
Bill and Tom and Dolly here; found her all rolled up in a heap like
a rabbit under the cedars."
"Why, Dolly Cushing!" exclaimed her mother. "What upon earth got you
out of bed this time of night? You'll catch your death o' cold."
"I was all alone," said Dolly, with a piteous bleat.
"Oh, there, there, wife; don't say a word," put in the Parson. "Get
her off to bed. Never mind, Dolly, don't you cry;" for Parson Cushing
was a soft-hearted gentleman and couldn't bear the sight of Dolly's
quivering under lip. So Dolly told her little story, how she had
been promised a sugar dog by Nabby if she'd be a good girl and go to
sleep, and how she couldn't go to sleep, and how she just went down
to look from the yard, and how the music drew her right over.
"There, there," said Parson Cushing, "go to bed, Dolly; and if Nabby
don't give you a sugar dog, I will.
"This Christmas dressing is all nonsense," he added, "but the child
's not to blame--it was natural."
"After all," he said to his wife the last thing after they were
settled for the night, "our little Dolly is an unusual child. There
were not many little girls that would have dared to do that. I shall
preach a sermon right away that will set all this Christmas matter
straight," said the doctor. "There is not a shadow of evidence that
the first Christians kept Christmas. It wasn't kept for the first
three centuries, nor was Christ born anywhere near the 25th of
December."