Ten minutes after Mary Chavah had left her house, every window was
lighted, a fire was kindled in the parlour, and neighbours came from the
dark and fell to work at the baskets they had brought.
It was marvelous what homely cheer arose. The dining-room table,
stretched at its fullest length and white-covered, was various with the
yellow and red of fruit and salads, the golden brown of cake and rolls,
and the mosaic of dishes. The fire roared in the flat-topped stove on
whose "wings" covered pans waited, and everywhere was that happy stir
and touch and lift, that note of preparation which informs a time as
sunshine or music will strike its key.
"My land, the oven--the warming oven. Mary ain't got one. However will
we keep the stuff hot?" Mis' Winslow demanded. "What time is it?"
"We'd ought to had my big coffee-pot. We'd ought to set two going. I
donno why I didn't think of it," Mis' Moran grieved.
"Well," said Mis' Mortimer Bates, "when the men get here--if they ever
_do_ get here--we'll send one of 'em off somewheres for the truck we
forgot. What time is it?"
"Here comes a whole cartload of folks," Mis' Moran announced. "I hope
and pray they've got the oysters--they'd ought to be popped in the
baking oven a minute. What time did you say it is?"
"It's twenty minutes past seven," Mis' Winslow said, pushing her hair
straight back, regardless of its part, "and we ain't ready within 'leven
hundred miles."
"Well, if they only all get here," Mis' Bates said, ringing golden and
white stuffed eggs on Mary's blue platter; "it's their all being here
when she gets here that I want. I ain't worried about the supper--much."
"The road's black with folks," Mis' Moran went on. "I'm so _deadly_
afraid I didn't make enough sandwiches. Oh, I donno why it wasn't given
me to make more, I'm sure."
"Who's seeing to them in the parlour? Who's getting their baskets out
here? Where they finding a place for their wraps? Who's lighting the
rest of the lamps? What time is it?" demanded Mis' Winslow, cutting her
cakes.
"Oh," said Mis' Bates from a cloud of brown butter about the cooking
stove, "I donno whether we've done right. I donno but we've broke our
word to the Christmas paper. I donno whether we ain't going to get
ourselves criticized for this as never folks was criticized before."
Mis' Moran changed her chair to the draughtless corner back of the
cooking stove and offered to stir the savoury saucepan.
"I know it," she said, "I know it. We never planned much in the first
start. It grew and it grew like it grew with its own bones. But mebbe
there's some won't believe that, one secunt."
Mis' Winslow straightened up from the table and held out a hand with
fingers frosting-tipped.
"Well," she said, with a great period, "if we _have_ broke our word to
the Christmas paper, I'd rather stand up here with my word broke this
way than with it kept so good it hurt me. Is it half-past seven yet?"
"I wish Ellen Bourne was here," Mis' Bates observed. "She sent her salad
dressing over and lent her silver and her Christmas rose for the
table--but come she would not. I wonder if she couldn't come over now
if we sent after her, last minute?"
Simeon Buck, appearing a few minutes later at the kitchen door to set a
basket inside, was dispatched for Ellen Bourne, the warming oven, and
the coffee-pot, collectively. He took with him Abel Ames, who was
waiting for him without. And it chanced that they knocked at the
Bournes' door just after Ben Helders had driven away with the little
boy, so that the men found the family still in the presence of the
little tree.
"Hello," said Simeon, aghast, "Christmassing away all by yourselves,
I'll be bound, like so many thieves. I rec'lect not seeing your names on
the paper."
"No, I didn't sign," Ellen said. "I voted against it that night at the
town meeting, but I guess nobody heard me."
"Well," said Simeon, "and so here you've got a Christmas of your own
going forward, neat as a kitten's foot--"
"Ain't you coming over to Mary Chavah's?" Abel broke in with a kind of
gentleness. "All of you?"
Ellen smote her hands together.
"I meant to go over later," she said, "and take--" She paused. "I
thought we'd all go over later," she said. "I forgot about it. Why, yes,
I guess we can go now, can't we? All three of us?"
Abel Ames stood looking at the tree. He half guessed that she might have
dressed it for no one who would see it. He looked at Ellen and ventured
what he thought.
"Ellen," he said, "if you ain't going to do anything more with that tree
to-night, why not take some of the things off, and have Matthew set it
on his shoulder, and bring it over to Mary's for the boy that's
coming?"