THE STORY OF A NIGHT
November, with its bright, bleak skies, sere leaves tossing, sad winds
sobbing, and rains that wept for days and nights together, on dead
flowers and dying grasses, moaned itself away at last, and December
swept into its place with a good rousing snow-storm, merry sleigh-bells,
and bright promises of coming Christmas. The girls coasted and skated,
and made snow-men and snowballs and snow-forts. Joy learned to slide
down a moderate hill at a mild rate without screaming, and to get along
somehow on her skates alone--for the very good reason that Tom wouldn't
help her. Gypsy initiated her into the mysteries of "cannon-firing" from
the great icy forts, and taught her how to roll the huge balls of snow.
Altogether they had a very good time. Not as good as they might have
had, by any means; the old rubs and jars were there still, though of
late they had been somewhat softened. Partly on account of their talk
with Peace; partly because of a certain uncomfortable acquaintance
called conscience; partly because of their own good sense, the girls had
tacitly made up their minds at least to make an effort to live together
more happily. In some degree they succeeded, but they were like people
walking over a volcano; the trouble was not _quenched_; it lay always
smoldering out of sight, ready at a moment's notice to flare up into
angry flame. The fault lay perhaps no more with one than another. Gypsy
had never had a sister, and her brothers were neither of them near
enough to her own age to interfere very much with her wishes and
privileges. Moreover, a brother, though he may be the greatest tease in
existence, is apt to be easier to get along with than a sister about
one's own age. His pleasures and ambitions run in different directions
from the girls; there is less clashing of interests. Besides this,
Gypsy's playmates in Yorkbury, as has been said, had not chanced to be
girls of very strong wills. Quite to her surprise, since Joy had been
her roommate and constant companion, had she found out that
she--Gypsy--had been pretty well used to having her own way, and that
other people sometimes liked to have theirs.
As for Joy, she had always been an only child, and that tells a history.
Of the two perhaps she had the more to learn. The simple fact that she
was brought wisely and kindly, but _thoroughly_, under Mrs. Breynton's
control, was decidedly a revelation to her. At her own home, it had
always been said, from the time she was a baby, that her mother could
not manage her, and her father would not. She rebelled a little at first
against her aunt's authority, but she was fast learning to love her, and
when we love, obedience ceases to be obedience, and becomes an offering
freely given.
A little thing happened one day, showing that sadder and better side of
Joy's heart that always seemed to touch Gypsy.
They had been having some little trouble about the lessons at school; it
just verged on a quarrel, and slided off, and they had treated each
other pleasantly after it. At night Joy was sitting upstairs writing a
letter to her father, when a gust of wind took the sheet and blew it to
Gypsy's feet. Gypsy picked it up to carry it to her, and in doing so,
her eyes fell accidentally on some large, legible words at the bottom of
the page. She had not the slightest intention of reading them, but their
meaning came to her against her will, in that curious way we see things
in a flash sometimes. This was what she saw:
"I like auntie ever so much, and Tom. Gypsy was cross this morning.
She----" and then followed Joy's own version of the morning's dispute.
Gypsy was vexed. She liked her uncle, and she did not like to have him
hear such one-sided stories of her, and judge her as he would.
She walked over to Joy with very red cheeks.
"Here's your letter. I tried not to read it, but I couldn't help seeing
that about me. I don't think you've any business to tell him about me
unless you can tell the truth."
Of course Joy resented such a remark as this, and high words followed.
They went down to supper sulkily, and said nothing to one another for an
hour. After tea, Joy crept up moodily into the corner, and Gypsy sat
down on the cricket for one of her merry talks with her mother. After
she had told her how many times she missed at school that day, what a
funny tumble Sarah Rowe had on the ice, and laughed over "Winnie's
latest" till she was laughed out and talked out too, she sprang into her
lap, in one of Gypsy's sudden outbursts of affection, throwing her arms
around her neck, and kissing her on cheeks, forehead, lips and chin.
"O-oh, what a blessed little mother you are! What _should_ I do without
you?"
"Mother's darling daughter! What should she do without you?" said Mrs.
Breynton, softly.
But not softly enough. Gypsy looked up suddenly and saw a pale face
peering out at them from behind the curtain, its great eyes swimming in
tears, its lips quivering. The next minute Joy left the room.
There was something dim in Gypsy's eyes as she hurried after her. She
found her crouched upstairs in the dark and cold, sobbing as if her
heart would break. Gypsy put her arm around her.
[Illustration]
"Kiss me, Joy."
Joy kissed her, and that was all that was said. But it ended in Gypsy's
bringing her triumphantly downstairs, where were the lights and the
fire, and the pleasant room, and another cricket waiting at Mrs.
Breynton's feet.
They were very busy after this with the coming Christmas. Joy
confidently expected a five-dollar bill from her father, and Gypsy
cherished faint aspirations after a portfolio with purple roses on it.
But most of their thoughts, and all their energies, were occupied with
the little gifts they intended to make themselves; and herein lay a
difficulty. Joy's father always supplied her bountifully with spending
money; Gypsy's stock was small. When Joy wanted to make a present, she
had only to ask for a few extra dollars, and she had them. Gypsy always
felt as if a present given in that way were no present; unless a thing
cost her some self-denial, or some labor, she reasoned, it had nothing
to do with her. If given directly out of her father's pocket, it was his
gift, not hers.
But then, how much handsomer Joy's things would be.
Thus Gypsy was thinking in her secret heart, over and over. How could
she help it? And Joy, perhaps--possibly--Joy was thinking the same
thing, with a spice of pleasure in the thought.
It was about her mother that Gypsy was chiefly troubled. Tom had
condescendingly informed her, about six months ago, that he'd just as
lief she would make him a watch-case if she wanted to very much. Girls
always would jump at the chance to get up any such nonsense. Be sure she
did it up in style, with gold and silver tape, and some of your blue
alpaca. (Tom's conceptions of the feminine race, their apparel,
occupations and implements, were bounded by tape and alpaca.) So Tom was
provided for; the watch-case was nearly made, and bade fair to be quite
as pretty as anything Joy could buy. Winnie was easily suited, and her
father would be as contented with a shaving-case as with a velvet
dressing-gown; indeed he'd hardly know the difference. Joy should have a
pretty white velvet hair-ribbon. But what for mother? She lay awake a
whole half hour one night, perplexing herself over the question, and at
last decided rather falteringly on a photograph frame of shell-work.
Gypsy's shell-work was always pretty, and her mother had a peculiar
fancy for it.
"_I_ shall give her Whittier's poems," said Joy, in--perhaps
unconsciously, perhaps not--a rather triumphant tone. "I heard her say
the other day she wanted them ever so much. I'm going to get the best
copy I can find, with gold edges. If uncle hasn't a nice one in his
store, I'll send to Boston. Mr. Ticknor'll pick me out the best one he
has, I know, 'cause he knows father real well, and we buy lots of things
there."
Gypsy said nothing. She was rather abashed to hear Joy talk in such
familiar terms of Mr. Ticknor. She was more uneasy that Joy should give
so handsome a present. She sat looking at her silently, and while she
looked, a curious, dull, sickening pain crept into her heart. It
frightened her, and she ran away downstairs to get rid of it.
[Illustration]
A few days after, she was sitting alone working on the photograph case.
It was rather pretty work, though not over-clean. She had cut a
well-shaped frame out of pasteboard, with a long, narrow piece bent back
to serve as support. The frame was covered with putty, and into the
putty she fastened her shells. They were of different sizes, shapes, and
colors, and she was laying them on in a pretty pattern of stars and
crescents. She had just stopped to look at her work, her red lips shut
together with the air of a connoisseur, and her head on one side, like a
canary, when Joy came in.
"Just look here!" and she held up before her astonished eyes a handsome
volume of blue and gold--Whittier's poems, and written on the fly-leaf,
in Joy's very best copy-book hand, "For Auntie, with a Merry Christmas,
from Joy."
"Uncle sent to Boston for me, and got it, and he promised on his word
'n' honor, certain true, black and blue, he wouldn't let Auntie know a
single sign of a thing about it. Isn't it splendid?"
"Ye-es," said Gypsy, slowly.
"Well! I don't think you seem to care much."
Gypsy looked at her shell-work, and said nothing. For the second time
that dull, curious pain had crept into her heart. What did it mean? Was
it possible that she was _envious_ of Joy? Was it _possible_?
The hot crimson rushed to Gypsy's cheeks for shame at the thought. But
the thought was there.
She chanced to be in Peace Maythorne's room one day when the bustle of
preparation for the holidays was busiest. Peace hid something under the
counterpane as she came in, flushing a little. Gypsy sat down in her
favorite place on the bed, just where she could see the cripple's great
quiet eyes--she always liked to watch Peace Maythorne's eyes--and in
doing so disturbed the bedclothes. A piece of work fell out: plain, fine
sewing, in which the needle lay with a stitch partially taken.
"Peace Maythorne!" said Gypsy, "you've been doing it again!"
"A little, just to help aunt, you know. A little doesn't hurt me,
Gypsy."
"Doesn't hurt you? Peace, you know better. You know you never sew a
stitch but you lie awake half the night after it with the pain."
Peace did not contradict her. She could not.
"Help your aunt!" Gypsy went on vehemently; "she oughtn't to let you
touch it. She hasn't any more feeling than a stone wall, nor half as
much, I say!"
"Hush, Gypsy! Don't say that. Indeed I'd rather have the pain, and help
her a little, once in a while, when my best days come and I can; I had,
really, Gypsy. You don't know how it hurts me--a great deal more than
this other hurt in my back--to lie here and let her support me, and I
not do a thing. O Gypsy, you don't know!"
Something in Peace Maythorne's tone just then made Gypsy feel worse than
she felt to see her sew. She was silent a minute, turning away her face.
"Well, I suppose I don't. But I say I'd as lief have a stone wall for an
aunt; no, I will say it, Peace, and you needn't look at me." Peace
looked, notwithstanding, and Gypsy stopped saying it.
"Sometimes I've thought," said Peace, after a pause, "I might earn a
little crocheting. Once, long ago, I made a mat out of ends of worsted I
found, and it didn't hurt me hardly any; on my good days it wouldn't
honestly hurt me at all. It's pretty work, crocheting, isn't it?"
"Why don't you crochet, then," said Gypsy, "if you must do anything?
It's ten thousand times easier than this sewing you're killing yourself
over."
"I've no worsteds, you know," said Peace, coloring; and changed the
subject at once.
Gypsy looked thoughtful. Very soon after she bade Peace good-bye, and
went home.
That night she called her mother away alone, and told her what Peace had
said.
"Now, mother, I've thought out an idea."
"Well?"
"You mustn't say no, if I tell you."
"I'll try not to; if it is a sensible idea."
"Do I _ever_ have an idea that isn't sensible?" said Gypsy, demurely. "I
prefer not to be slandered, if you please, Mrs. Breynton."
"Well, but what's the idea?"
"It's just this. Miss Jane Maythorne is a heathen."
"Is that all?"
"No. But Miss Jane Maythorne _is_ a heathen, and ought to cut off her
head before she lets Peace sew. But you see she doesn't know she's a
heathen, and Peace will sew."
"Well, what then?"
"If she will do something, and won't be happy without, then I can't help
it, you see. But I can give her some worsteds for a Christmas present,
and she can make little mats and things, and you can buy them. Now,
mother, isn't that nice?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Breynton, after a moment's thought. "It is a very good
plan. I think Joy would like to join you. Together, you can make quite a
handsome present out of it."
"I don't want Joy to know a thing about it," said Gypsy, with a decision
in her voice that amounted almost to anger.
"Why, Gypsy!"
"No, not a thing. She just takes her father's money, and gives lots of
splendid presents, and makes me ashamed of all mine, and she's glad of
it, too. If I'm going to give anything to Peace, I don't want her to."
"I think Joy has taken a great fancy to Peace. She would enjoy giving
her something very much," said Mrs. Breynton, gravely.
"I can't help it. Peace Maythorne belongs to me. It would spoil it all
to have Joy have anything to do with it."
"Worsted are very expensive now," said her mother; "you alone cannot
give Peace enough to amount to much."
"I don't care," said Gypsy, resolutely, "I want to do one thing Joy
doesn't."
Mrs. Breynton said nothing, and Gypsy went slowly from the room.
"I wish we could give Peace Maythorne something," said Joy, an hour
after, when they were all sitting together. Mrs. Breynton raised her
eyes from her work, but Gypsy was looking out of the window.
When the girls went up to bed, Gypsy was very silent. Joy tried to laugh
and plague and scold her into talking, but it was of no use. Just before
they went to sleep, she spoke up suddenly:
"Joy, do you want to give something to Peace Maythorne?"
"Splendid!" cried Joy, jumping up in bed to clap her hands, "what?"
Gypsy told her then all the plan, a little slowly; it was rather hard.
Perhaps Joy detected the hesitation in her tone. Joy was not given to
detecting things with remarkable quickness, but it was so plain that she
could not very well help it.
"I don't believe you want me to give any of it."
"Oh, yes," said Gypsy, trying to speak cordially, "yes, it will be
better."
It certainly was better she felt. She went to sleep, glad it was settled
so.
When the girls came to make their purchases, they found that Gypsy's
contribution of money would just about buy the crochet-needles and
patterns. The worsteds cost about treble what she could give. So it was
settled that they should be Joy's gift.
Gypsy was very pleasant about it, but Joy could not help seeing that she
was disappointed. So then there came a little generous impulse to Joy
too, and she came one day and said:
"Gypsy, don't let's divide the things off so, for Peace. It makes my
part the largest. Besides, the worsteds look the prettiest. Let's just
give them together and have it all one."
There is a rare pleasure in making a gift one's self, without being
hampered by this "all-together" notion, isn't there?--especially if the
gift be a handsome one, and is going where it is very much needed. So as
Joy sat fingering the pile of elegant worsteds, twining the brilliant,
soft folds of orange, and crimson, and royal purple, and soft,
wood-browns about her hands, it cost her a bit of a struggle to say
this. It seems rather a small thing to write about? Ah, they are these
_bits of_ struggles in which we learn to fight the great ones; perhaps
these bits of struggles, more than the great ones, make up life.
"You're real good," said Gypsy, surprised; "I think I'd rather not. It
isn't really half of it mine, and I don't want to say so. But it's just
as good in you."
At that moment, though neither of them knew it was so, one thought was
in the heart of both. It was a sudden thought that came and went, and
left a great happiness in its place (for great happiness springs out of
very little battles and victories),--a memory of Peace Maythorne's
verse. The good Christmas time would have been a golden time to them, if
it taught them in ever so small, imperfect ways, to prefer one another
"in honor."
One day before it came a sudden notion seemed to strike Gypsy, and she
rushed out of the house in her characteristic style, as if she were
running for her life, and down to Peace Maythorne's, and flew into the
quiet room like a tempest.
"Peace Maythorne, what's your favorite verse?"
"Why, what a hurry you're in! Sit down and rest a minute."
"No, I can't stop. I just want to know what your favorite verse is, as
quick as ever you can be."
"Did you come down just for that? How queer! Well, let me see."
Peace stopped a minute, her quiet eyes looking off through the window,
but seeming to see nothing--away somewhere, Gypsy, even in her hurry
stopped to wonder where.
"I think--it isn't one you'd care much about, perhaps--I think I like
this. Yes, I think I _can't help_ liking it best of all."
Peace touched her finger to a page of her Bible that lay open. Gypsy,
bending over, read:
"And the inhabitants shall not say I am sick."
When she had read, she stooped and kissed Peace with a sudden kiss.
From that time until Christmas Gypsy was very busy in her own room with
her paint box, all the spare time she could find. On Christmas Eve she
went down just after dusk to Peace Maythorne's room, and called Miss
Jane out into the entry.
"This is for Peace, and I made it. I don't want her to see a thing about
it till she wakes up in the morning. Could you please to fasten it up on
the wall just opposite the bed where the sun shines in? sometime after
she's gone to sleep, you know."
Miss Jane, somewhat bewildered, took the thing that Gypsy held out to
her, and held it up in the light that fell from a neighbor's half-open
door.
It was a large illuminated text, painted on Bristol board of a soft gray
shade, and very well done for a non-professional artist. The letters
were of that exquisite shade known by the artists as _smalt_ blue, edged
heavily with gold, and round them a border of yellow, delicate sprays of
wheat. Miss Jane spelled out in German text:
"And the Inhabitants shall not say I am Sick."
"Well, thank you. I'll put it up. Peace never gets asleep till terrible
late, and I'm rather worn out with work to lie awake waitin' till she
is. But then, if you want to surprise her--I s'pose she _will_ be
dreadful tickled--I guess I'll manage it someways."
Perhaps Miss Jane was softened into being obliging by her coming
holiday; or perhaps the mournful, longing words touched something in her
that nothing touched very often.
Gypsy and Joy were not so old but that Christmas Eve with its little
plans for the morrow held yet a certain shade of that delightful
suspense and mystery which perhaps never hangs about the greater and
graver joys of life. I fancy we drink it to the full, in the hanging up
of stockings, the peering out into the dark to see Santa Claus come down
the chimney (perfectly conscious that that gentleman is the most
transparent of hoaxes, but with a sort of faith in him all the while; we
_may_ see him if we can lie awake long enough--who knows?) the falling
asleep before we know it, and much against our will, the waking in the
cold, gray, mysterious dawn, and pattering about barefoot to "catch" the
dreaming and defenseless family.
"I'm going to lie awake all night," Gypsy announced, as she stood
brushing out her bright, black hair; "then I'll catch you, you see if I
don't."
"But I'm going to lie awake, too," said Joy. "I was going to last
Christmas, only--I didn't."
"Sit up and see the sun dance, like Patty."
"Well, let's. I never was awake all night in my whole life."
"Nor I," said Gypsy. "I came pretty near it once, but I somehow went to
sleep along at the end."
"When was that?"
"Why, one time I had a dream, and went clear over to the Kleiner Berg
Basin, in my sleep, and got into the boat."
"You did!"
"I guess I did. The boat was unlocked and the oars were up at the barn,
and so I floated off, and there I had to stay till Tom came in the
morning."
"Why, I should have been scared out of my seventeen senses," said Joy,
creeping into bed. "Didn't you scream?"
"No. That wouldn't have done any good. See here, Joy, if you find me
going to sleep, pinch me, will you?"
"Oh, yes," said Joy, with alacrity. "I shall be awake, I know."
There was a silence. Gypsy broke it by turning her head over on the
pillow with a whisk, and opening her eyes savagely, quite indignant to
find them shut.
"Joy."
No answer.
"Joy, you're going----"
Joy's head turned over with another whisk.
"No, I'm not. I'm just as wide awake as ever I was."
Another silence.
"Gypsy!"
Gypsy jumped.
"_You're_ going to sleep."
"It isn't any such thing," said Gypsy, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"I wonder if it isn't most morning," said Joy, in a tone of cheerful
indifference.
"Most morning! Mother'd say we'd been in bed just ten minutes, I
suppose."
Joy stifled a groan, and by dint of great exertions turned it into a
laugh.
"All the longer to lie awake. It's nice, isn't it?"
"Ye-es. Let's talk. People that sit up all night talk, I guess."
"Well, I guess it would be a good plan. You begin."
"I don't know anything to say."
"Well, I'm sure I don't."
Silence again.
"Joy Breynton."
"We-ell?"
"I guess I'll keep awake just as well if I--shut up--my eyes. Don't
you--"
That was the end of Gypsy's sentence, and Joy never asked for the rest
of it. Just about an hour and a half after, Gypsy heard a noise, and was
somewhat surprised to see Joy standing up with her head in the washbowl.
"What _are_ you doing?"
"Oh, just dipping my head into the water. They say it helps keep people
awake."
"Oh--well. See here; we haven't talked much lately, have we?"
"No. I thought I wouldn't disturb you."
Gypsy made a ghastly attempt to answer, but couldn't quite do it.
At the end of another indefinite period Joy opened her eyes under the
remarkable impression that Oliver Cromwell was carrying her to the
guillotine in a cocoa-nut shell; it was really a very remarkable
impression, considering that she had been broad awake ever since she
came to bed. As soon as her eyes were opened she opened her mouth
likewise--to gasp out a little scream. For something very tall and
white was sitting on the bedpost with folded arms.
"Why, Gypsy Breynton!"
"What?"
"What are you up there for?"
"Got up so's to keep awake. It's real fun."
"Why, how your teeth chatter. Isn't it cold up there?"
"Ra-ther. I don't know but I _might_ as well come down."
"I wonder," muttered Gypsy, drowsily, just as Joy had begun in very
thrilling words to request Oliver Cromwell to have mercy on her, and was
about preparing to jump out of the cocoa-nut shell into Niagara Falls,
"I wonder what makes people think it's a joke to lie awake."
"I don't believe they do," said Joy, with a tinge in her voice of
something that, to say the least, was not hilarious.
"Yes they do," persisted Gypsy; "all the girls in novels lie awake all
night and cry when their lovers go to Europe, and they have a real nice
time. Only it's most always moonlight, and they talk out loud. I always
thought when I got large enough to have a lover, I'd try it."
Joy dropped into another dream, and, though not of interest to the
public, it was a very charming dream, and she felt decidedly cross,
when, at the end of another unknown period Gypsy woke her up with a
pinch.
"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"
"What are you merry Christmassing for? That's no fair. It isn't morning
yet. Let me alone."
"Yes, it is morning too. I heard the clock strike six ever so long ago.
Get up and build the fire."
"I don't believe it's morning. You can build it yourself."
"No, it's your week. Besides, you made me do it twice for you your last
turn, and I shan't touch it. Besides, it _is_ morning."
Joy rose with a groan, and began to fumble for the matches. All at once
Gypsy heard a very fervent exclamation.
"What's the matter?"
"The old thing's tipped over--every single, solitary match!"
Gypsy began to laugh.
"It's nothing to laugh at," chattered Joy; "I'm frozen almost to death,
and this horrid old fire won't do a thing but smoke."
Gypsy, curled up in the warm bed, smothered her laugh as best she could,
to see Joy crouched shivering before the stove-door, blowing away
frantically at the fire, her cheeks puffed out, her hands blue as
indigo.
"There!" said Joy, at last; "I shan't work any more over it. It may go
out if it wants to, and if it don't it needn't."
She came back to bed, and the fire muttered and sputtered a while, and
died out, and shot up again, and at last made up its mind to burn, and
burned like a small volcano.
"What a noise that fire makes! I hope it won't wake up mother. Joy,
don't it strike you as rather funny it doesn't grow light faster?"
"I don't know."
"Get up and look at the entry clock; you're on the front side."
Poor Joy jumped out shivering into the cold again, opened the door
softly, and ran out. She came back in somewhat of a hurry, and shut the
door with a bang.
"Gypsy Breynton!"
"What?"
"If I _ever_ forgive you!"
"What is the matter?"
"It's _just twenty-five minutes past eleven_!"
[Illustration]
Gypsy broke into a ringing laugh. Joy could never bear to be laughed at.
"_I_ don't see anything so terrible funny, and I guess you wouldn't if
you'd made that old--"
"Fire; I know it. Just to think!--and you shivering and blowing away at
it. I never heard anything so funny!"
"I think it was real mean in you to wake me up, any way."
"Why, I thought I heard it strike six as much as could be. Oh, dear, oh,
dear!"
Joy couldn't see the joke. But the story of that memorable night was not
yet finished.
The faint, gray morning really came at last, and the girls awoke in good
earnest, ready and glad to get up.
"I feel as if I'd been pulled through a knothole," said Joy.
"I slept with one eye open all the time I did sleep," said Gypsy,
drearily. "I know one thing. I'll never try to lie awake as long as I
live."
"Not when you have a lover go to Europe?"
"Not if I have a dozen lovers go to Europe. How is that fire going to be
built, I'd like to know?--every stick of wood burned out last night."
There was no way but to go down into the wood-shed and get some. It was
yet early, and quite dark.
"Go the back stairs," said Gypsy, "so's not to wake people up."
Joy opened the door, and jumped, with a scream that echoed through the
silent entry.
"Hush-sh! What is the matter?"
"A--a--it's a _ghost_!"
"A ghost! Nonsense!"
Gypsy pushed by trembling Joy and ran out. She, too, came back with a
jump, and, though she did not scream, she did not say nonsense.
"What _can_ it be?"
It certainly did look amazingly like a ghost. Something tall and white
and ghastly, with awful arm extended. The entry was very dark.
Joy sprang into bed and covered up her face in the clothes. Gypsy stood
still and winked fast for about a minute. Then Joy heard a fall and a
bubbling laugh.
"That old Tom! It's nothing but a broom-handle and a sheet. Oh, Joy,
just come and see!"
After that, Joy declared she wouldn't go to the wood-shed alone, if she
dressed without a fire the rest of her life. So Gypsy started with her,
and they crept downstairs on tiptoe, holding their very breath in their
efforts to be still, the stairs creeking at every step. Did you ever
_particularly_ want stairs to keep still, that they didn't creak like
thunder-claps?
The girls managed to get into the wood-shed, fill their basket, and
steal back into the kitchen without mishap. Then came the somewhat
dubious undertaking of crawling upstairs in darkness that might be felt,
with a heavy and decidedly uncertain load of wood.
"I'll go first and carry the basket," said Gypsy. "One can do it easier
than two."
So she began to feel her way slowly up.
"It's black as Egypt! Joy, why don't you come?"
"I'm caught on something--oh!" Down fell something with an awful crash
that echoed and reechoed, and resounded through the sleeping house. It
was succeeded by an utter silence.
"What is it?" breathed Gypsy, faintly.
"The clothes-horse, and _every one of Patty's clean clothes_!"
Scarcely were the words off from Joy's lips, when Gypsy, sitting down on
the stairs to laugh, tipped over her basket, and every solitary stick of
that wood clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, thumped through the
banisters, bounced on the floor, rolled into the corners, thundered
against the cellar door. I don't believe you ever heard such a noise in
all your life.
Mr. and Mrs. Breynton ran from one direction, Tom from another, Winnie
from a third, and Patty, screaming, in fearful _dishabille_, from the
attic, and the congress that assembled in that entry where sat Gypsy
speechless on one stair, and Joy on another, the power fails me to
describe.
But this was the end of that Christmas night.
It should be recorded that the five-dollar bill and the portfolio with
purple roses on it were both forthcoming that day, and that Gypsy
entirely forgot any difference between her own little gifts and Joy's.
This was partly because she had somehow learned to be glad in the
difference, if it pleased Joy; partly because of a certain look in her
mother's eyes when she saw the picture-frame. Such a look made Gypsy
happy for days together.
That Christmas was as merry as Christmas can be, but the best part of it
all was the sight of Peace Maythorne's face as she lay twining the
gorgeous worsteds over her thin fingers, the happy sunlight touching
their colors of crimson, and royal purple, and orange, and woodland
brown, just as kindly as it was touching the new Christmas jewels over
which many another young girl in many another home sat laughing that
morning.
But Gypsy long remembered--she remembers now with dim eyes and
quivering smile--how Peace drew her face down softly on the pillow,
pointing to the blue and golden words upon the wall, and said in a
whisper that nobody else heard:
"That is best of all. Oh, Gypsy, when I woke up in the morning and found
it!"