The little seaside village of Sponkannis lies so quietly upon a
protected spot on our Atlantic coast that it makes no more stir in the
world than would a pebble which, held between one's finger and thumb,
should be dipped below the surface of a millpond and then dropped.
About the post-office and the store--both under the same roof--the
greater number of the houses cluster, as if they had come for their
week's groceries, or were waiting for the mail, while toward the west
the dwellings become fewer and fewer, until at last the village blends
into a long stretch of sandy coast and scrubby pine-woods. Eastward
the village ends abruptly at the foot of a windswept bluff, on which no
one cares to build.
Among the last houses in the western end of the village stood two neat,
substantial dwellings, one belonging to Captain Eli Bunker, and the
other to Captain Cephas Dyer. These householders were two very
respectable retired mariners, the first a widower about fifty, and the
other a bachelor of perhaps the same age, a few years more or less
making but little difference in this region of weather-beaten youth and
seasoned age.
Each of these good captains lived alone, and each took entire charge of
his own domestic affairs, not because he was poor, but because it
pleased him to do so. When Captain Eli retired from the sea he was the
owner of a good vessel, which he sold at a fair profit; and Captain
Cephas had made money in many a voyage before he built his house in
Sponkannis and settled there.
When Captain Eli's wife was living she was his household manager. But
Captain Cephas had never had a woman in his house, except during the
first few months of his occupancy, when certain female neighbors came
in occasionally to attend to little matters of cleaning which,
according to popular notions, properly belong to the sphere of woman.
But Captain Cephas soon put an end to this sort of thing. He did not
like a woman's ways, especially her ways of attending to domestic
affairs. He liked to live in sailor fashion, and to keep house in
sailor fashion. In his establishment everything was shipshape, and
everything which could be stowed away was stowed away, and, if
possible, in a bunker. The floors were holystoned nearly every day,
and the whole house was repainted about twice a year, a little at a
time, when the weather was suitable for this marine recreation. Things
not in frequent use were lashed securely to the walls, or perhaps put
out of the way by being hauled up to the ceiling by means of blocks and
tackle. His cooking was done sailor fashion, like everything else, and
he never failed to have plum-duff on Sunday. His well was near his
house, and every morning he dropped into it a lead and line, and noted
down the depth of water. Three times a day he entered in a little
note-book the state of the weather, the height of the mercury in
barometer and thermometer, the direction of the wind, and special
weather points when necessary.
Captain Eli managed his domestic affairs in an entirely different way.
He kept house woman fashion--not, however, in the manner of an ordinary
woman, but after the manner of his late wife, Miranda Bunker, now dead
some seven years. Like his friend, Captain Cephas, he had had the
assistance of his female neighbors during the earlier days of his
widowerhood. But he soon found that these women did not do things as
Miranda used to do them, and, although he frequently suggested that
they should endeavor to imitate the methods of his late consort, they
did not even try to do things as she used to do them, preferring their
own ways. Therefore it was that Captain Eli determined to keep house
by himself, and to do it, as nearly as his nature would allow, as
Miranda used to do it. He swept his doors and he shook his door-mats;
he washed his paint with soap and hot water; he dusted his furniture
with a soft cloth, which he afterwards stuck behind a chest of drawers.
He made his bed very neatly, turning down the sheet at the top, and
setting the pillow upon edge, smoothing it carefully after he had done
so. His cooking was based on the methods of the late Miranda. He had
never been able to make bread rise properly, but he had always liked
ship-biscuit, and he now greatly preferred them to the risen bread made
by his neighbors. And as to coffee and the plainer articles of food
with which he furnished his table, even Miranda herself would not have
objected to them had she been alive and very hungry.
The houses of the two captains were not very far apart, and they were
good neighbors, often smoking their pipes together and talking of the
sea. But this was always on the little porch in front of Captain
Cephas's house, or by his kitchen fire in the winter. Captain Eli did
not like the smell of tobacco smoke in his house, or even in front of
it in summer-time, when the doors were open. He had no objection
himself to the odor of tobacco, but it was contrary to the principles
of woman housekeeping that rooms should smell of it, and he was always
true to those principles.
It was late in a certain December, and through the village there was a
pleasant little flutter of Christmas preparations. Captain Eli had
been up to the store, and he had stayed there a good while, warming
himself by the stove, and watching the women coming in to buy things
for Christmas. It was strange how many things they bought for presents
or for holiday use--fancy soap and candy, handkerchiefs and little
woollen shawls for old people, and a lot of pretty little things which
he knew the use of, but which Captain Cephas would never have
understood at all had he been there.
As Captain Eli came out of the store he saw a cart in which were two
good-sized Christmas trees, which had been cut in the woods, and were
going, one to Captain Holmes's house, and the other to Mother Nelson's.
Captain Holmes had grandchildren, and Mother Nelson, with never a child
of her own, good old soul, had three little orphan nieces who never
wanted for anything needful at Christmas-time or any other time.
Captain Eli walked home very slowly, taking observations in his mind.
It was more than seven years since he had had anything to do with
Christmas, except that on that day he had always made himself a
mince-pie, the construction and the consumption of which were equally
difficult. It is true that neighbors had invited him, and they had
invited Captain Cephas, to their Christmas dinners, but neither of
these worthy seamen had ever accepted any of these invitations. Even
holiday food, when not cooked in sailor fashion, did not agree with
Captain Cephas, and it would have pained the good heart of Captain Eli
if he had been forced to make believe to enjoy a Christmas dinner so
very inferior to those which Miranda used to set before him.
But now the heart of Captain Eli was gently moved by a Christmas
flutter. It had been foolish, perhaps, for him to go up to the store
at such a time as this, but the mischief had been done. Old feelings
had come back to him, and he would be glad to celebrate Christmas this
year if he could think of any good way to do it. And the result of his
mental observations was that he went over to Captain Cephas's house to
talk to him about it.
Captain Cephas was in his kitchen, smoking his third morning pipe.
Captain Eli filled his pipe, lighted it, and sat down by the fire.
"Cap'n," said he, "what do you say to our keepin Christmas this year?
A Christmas dinner is no good if it's got to be eat alone, and you and
me might eat ourn together. It might be in my house, or it might be in
your house--it won't make no great difference to me which. Of course,
I like woman housekeepin', as is laid down in the rules of service fer
my house. But next best to that I like sailor housekeepin', so I don't
mind which house the dinner is in, Cap'n Cephas, so it suits you."
Captain Cephas took his pipe from his mouth. "You're pretty late
thinkin' about it," said he, "fer day after to-morrow's Christmas."
"That don't make no difference," said Captain Eli. "What things we
want that are not in my house or your house we can easily get either up
at the store or else in the woods."
"In the woods!" exclaimed Captain Cephas. "What in the name of thunder
do you expect to get in the woods for Christmas?"
"A Christmas tree," said Captain Eli. "I thought it might be a nice
thing to have a Christmas tree fer Christmas. Cap'n Holmes has got
one, and Mother Nelson's got another. I guess nearly everybody's got
one. It won't cost anything--I can go and cut it."
Captain Cephas grinned a grin, as if a great leak had been sprung in
the side of a vessel, stretching nearly from stem to stern.
"A Christmas tree!" he exclaimed. "Well, I am blessed! But look here,
Cap'n Eli. You don't know what a Christmas tree's fer. It's fer
children, and not fer grown-ups. Nobody ever does have a Christmas
tree in any house where there ain't no children."
Captain Eli rose and stood with his back to the fire. "I didn't think
of that," he said, "but I guess it's so. And when I come to think of
it, a Christmas isn't much of a Christmas, anyway, without children."
"You never had none," said Captain Cephas, "and you've kept Christmas."
"Yes," replied Captain Eli, reflectively, "we did do it, but there was
always a lackment--Miranda has said so, and I have said so."
"You didn't have no Christmas tree," said Captain Cephas.
"No, we didn't. But I don't think that folks was as much set on
Christmas trees then as they 'pear to be now. I wonder," he continued,
thoughtfully gazing at the ceiling, "if we was to fix up a Christmas
tree--and you and me's got a lot of pretty things that we've picked up
all over the world, that would go miles ahead of anything that could be
bought at the store fer Christmas trees--if we was to fix up a tree
real nice, if we couldn't get some child or other that wasn't likely to
have a tree to come in and look at it, and stay awhile, and make
Christmas more like Christmas. And then, when it went away, it could
take along the things that was hangin' on the tree, and keep 'em fer
its own."
"That wouldn't work," said Captain Cephas. "If you get a child into
this business, you must let it hang up its stockin' before it goes to
bed, and find it full in the mornin', and then tell it an all-fired lie
about Santa Claus if it asks any questions. Most children think more
of stockin's than they do of trees--so I've heard, at least."
"I've got no objections to stockin's," said Captain Eli. "If it wanted
to hang one up, it could hang one up either here or in my house,
wherever we kept Christmas."
"You couldn't keep a child all night," sardonically remarked Captain
Cephas, "and no more could I. Fer if it was to get up a croup in the
night, it would be as if we was on a lee shore with anchors draggin'
and a gale a-blowin'."
"That's so," said Captain Eli. "You've put it fair. I suppose if we
did keep a child all night, we'd have to have some sort of a woman
within hail in case of a sudden blow."
Captain Cephas sniffed. "What's the good of talkin'?" said he. "There
ain't no child, and there ain't no woman that you could hire to sit all
night on my front step or on your front step, a-waitin' to be piped on
deck in case of croup."
"No," said Captain Eli. "I don't suppose there's any child in this
village that ain't goin' to be provided with a Christmas tree or a
Christmas stockin', or perhaps both--except, now I come to think of it,
that little gal that was brought down here with her mother last summer,
and has been kept by Mrs. Crumley sence her mother died."
"And won't be kept much longer," said Captain Cephas, "fer I've hearn
Mrs. Crumley say she couldn't afford it."
"That's so," said Captain Eli. "If she can't afford to keep the little
gal, she can't afford to give no Christmas trees nor stockin's, and so
it seems to me, cap'n, that that little gal would be a pretty good
child to help us keep Christmas."
"You're all the time forgettin'," said the other, "that nuther of us
can keep a child all night."
Captain Eli seated himself, and looked ponderingly into the fire.
"You're right, cap'n," said he. "We'd have to ship some woman to take
care of her. Of course, it wouldn't be no use to ask Mrs. Crumley?"