CHRISTMAS IN A BAGGAGE-CAR
Mrs. Jervis and her two children, Ethel and Harry, were on their way
to spend Christmas with the grandmother, who lived in a small town in
Minnesota, three or four hours' journey from Minneapolis, where they
were spending the winter. There had been a good deal of snow, but they
did not think much about it, for they were not used to Minnesota
snowstorms.
It was getting late in the afternoon, and they were tired and anxious
to reach B----before night, when the train--after a good deal of
puffing, and backing, and jerking forward and back--stopped short.
Several of the men went out to see what was the matter. Soon they
began to come back, and one, whose seat was next to Mrs. Jervis, said,
as he took his seat, "It doesn't look much like getting to B----
to-night."
"What is the trouble?" asked Mrs. Jervis.
"Tremendous drifts in the cut," answered Mr. Camp. "Snow falling
faster than ever, and wind piling it up faster than a thousand men
could shovel it out. This cut is a regular snow-trap."
"Can't the engine plow through?" asked Mrs. Jervis anxiously.
"That's what has been tried," said the man; "but the snow is higher
than the smokestack, and packed so tight it's almost solid. We may be
here a week, for all I see, unless the storm holds up and we get
help."
"Oh, mother!" wailed Ethel, "shan't we get to grandmother's for
Christmas?"
"I hope so, Ethel!" said Mrs. Jervis soothingly. "It's three days to
Christmas, you know, and a good deal may happen in three days.
Couldn't we go back?" she asked her neighbor. "If we could get back to
Minneapolis it would be better than staying here," and she glanced
anxiously at her daughter, whose wide, staring eyes were fixed on Mr.
Camp, as if he held her fate in his hands.
"They tried a while ago, you remember," he said; "but the cut we
passed through a mile back is now as bad as this. The fact is, we are
between two cuts, and for all I see are prisoners here till we get
help from outside."
Mrs. Jervis heard this with dismay, and Ethel with despair. She buried
her face in her mother's lap, and shook all over with the violence of
her sobs.
Mrs. Jervis was distressed, for her daughter was just recovering from
a serious illness, and she feared the consequences of such violent
emotion. Her mind worked quickly; if she could only get Ethel
interested in something,--but what could she do shut up in a car? She
spoke again to her neighbor.
"Didn't you say there were some travelers in the next car not so
comfortable as we are?"
"Yes, ma'am," he answered; "a mother and three children, one a baby,
going to Dalton, where the father has just got work. They look poor,
and are not very warmly clad. The conductor says he can't keep two
cars warm; fuel is getting scarce; and he's going to bring them in
here."
"Do you hear that, Ethel?" said her mother anxiously; "there's a baby
coming into our car."
Ethel was usually very fond of babies, but now she could think of
nothing but her disappointment, and only an impatient jerk of her
shoulders showed that she heard.
At this moment the door opened, and the conductor appeared, followed
by the few passengers from the other car, among them the shivering
family with the baby. The mother looked pale and tired, and sank into
the first seat.
Mrs. Jervis rose, obliging Ethel to sit up, and went toward the weary
woman.
"Let me take the baby a while," she said pleasantly; "you look tired
out."
Tears came into the eyes of the poor mother.
"Oh, thank you," she said; "the baby is fretting for her milk; she
won't eat anything I can get for her."
"Of course she won't," said Mrs. Jervis, as she lifted the baby, who,
though poorly dressed, was clean and sweet; "sensible baby! we must
try to get milk for her!" She turned to the conductor.
"Isn't there a farmhouse somewhere about here where some benevolent
gentleman might get milk for a suffering baby?" and she looked with a
smile at the passenger who had been giving the unwelcome news.
"No," said the conductor, "I think not any near enough to be reached
in this storm; but I have an idea that there's a case of condensed
milk in the baggage-car; I'll see," and he hurried out.
"That's a providential baggage-car," said Mrs. Jervis. "How much we
might have suffered but for its fortunate stores!"
"Yes," replied her neighbor gravely; "a fast of a week wouldn't be
very comfortable."
"And jack rabbits are tiptop!" burst in Harry Jervis. His mother
smiled.
"I'm glad you like them, Harry; I should like them better bounding
away over the prairies on their own long legs than served up half
cooked, on a newspaper for plates,--to be eaten with fingers, too,"
she added.
"Fingers were made before forks!" said Harry triumphantly, repeating
an old saying which had been quoted quite often in that car of late.
"Your fingers were not, Harry!" said Mrs. Jervis, laughing. "However,
we have cause to be thankful, even for jack rabbits eaten with our
fingers."
At this moment entered a brakeman with a can of condensed milk. "The
conductor sent this to you, ma'am," he said.
"But it isn't open!" said Mrs. Jervis in dismay; "and I didn't think
to bring a can-opener. If I had only known of this picnic-party, I
might have provided myself."
"I'll open it," said her neighbor, taking out a pocket knife; "I've
opened many a can in my travels on the plains."
"Don't take off the top," said Mrs. Jervis. "Make two holes in the
cover." He looked up in surprise. She went on: "One to let out the
milk, and the other to let in the air so that it can get out."
"Well, if that isn't an idea!" said the man, a broad grin spreading
over his face. "It takes a woman to think of that contrivance!"
"You see," said Mrs. Jervis, "that keeps the milk in the can clean,
and it pours out as well as if the whole top was off."
"Sure!" said the man; "I'll never forget that little trick; thank you,
ma'am!"
Mrs. Jervis smiled. "You're quite welcome," she said, as she proceeded
to dilute the milk with water from the cooler, and to warm the mixture
on the stove, using her own silver traveling-cup for the purpose.
While she was doing this, she had put the baby on Ethel's lap, saying
quietly, "You hold her a minute till I get the milk ready."
Ethel half grudgingly took the feebly wailing baby; but when the milk
was warmed and the hungry little creature quietly fell asleep in her
arms, she showed no desire to give her up. Mrs. Jervis, having
procured a pillow from the porter,--for this was a sleeping-car,--laid
the sleeping infant on the seat opposite her own.
Meanwhile, the idea she had been all this time seeking--the plan for
giving Ethel something to think of besides herself--had come to her,
and she now suggested it to her daughter, who had stopped crying,
though she still looked very unhappy.
"Ethel," she said, "did you notice those poor children back there?"
"No," said Ethel indifferently.
"Well," said her mother, "I wish you'd go and tell the mother that the
baby is sleeping comfortably, and I'll look after her."
Ethel was accustomed to mind, and though she looked as if she didn't
fancy the errand, she rose and slowly walked through the car to the
back seats where the strangers were seated, delivered her message, and
returned.
"They don't look very comfortable, do they?" said Mrs. Jervis.
"No, indeed!" said Ethel with some interest; "that girl had a little,
old shawl pinned on, and looked half frozen at that."
"I don't suppose they have ever been really comfortable," went on Mrs.
Jervis. "I should like to fix them all up warm and nice for once in
their lives."
Ethel did not reply, but she was thinking.
"I wonder if _they_ were going anywhere for Christmas," she said
slowly.
"They look as if they did not know what Christmas is," answered her
mother. "I don't believe they ever had one."
"It would be fun to fix up a tree for them," said Ethel, who had
enjoyed helping to arrange a Christmas celebration the preceding year
in an orphan asylum; "but of course no one can do anything shut up in
this old car!"
"I'm not so sure about that," said Mrs. Jervis; "a good deal can be
done by willing hands."
"I don't see what!" said Ethel.
"Well," said her mother, "you could at least make the girl a rag-doll
like those you made for the orphans last winter."
"What could I make it of?" asked Ethel somewhat scornfully.
"I have an idea," said Mrs. Jervis. "I think I can get something from
the porter."
Like most persons who set out with determination, Mrs. Jervis overcame
all obstacles. With the consent of the conductor, who assumed the
responsibility for the Company, she bought of the porter a clean
sheet, and a towel with a gay border, and returned to her seat. Out of
her traveling-bag she took sewing implements, and in a short time
Ethel was busily engaged in fashioning a rag-doll. She rolled up a
long strip of the clean cotton for the doll's body, sewing it tightly
in place, and made a similar but much smaller roll for the arms, which
she sewed on to the body in proper position. She marked the features
of the face with a black lead pencil, and then dressed it in a strip
of the towel, leaving the red border as a trimming around the hem of
the dress, and a narrow strip of the same gay border for a sash, which
was tied in a fine bow at the back. On the head, to conceal the raw
edges of the cotton, she made a tiny hood of another piece of the red
border, and though you might not think it, it was really a very
presentable doll.
Meanwhile the idea had spread among the passengers, and other hands
were busy with the same purpose. One elderly lady, who had been
occupying her time knitting with red wool a long, narrow strip
intended to make a stripe in a large afghan, deliberately raveled out
the whole, and, bringing out of her bag a pair of fine needles, set up
some mittens for the cold-looking red hands of the boy.
Another lady passenger produced a small shoulder shawl, which she
proceeded to make--with the help of Mrs. Jervis's needles and
thread--into a warm hood for the little girl. Another lady made of an
extra wrap she carried an ample cloak for the baby, and Mrs. Jervis
resolved to give the thinly dressed mother a large cape she had
brought in case they should ride the last two miles of their journey
in an open sleigh in a snowstorm.
The whole carload, with nothing to occupy them, soon caught the
enthusiasm; and before the day was over, nearly every one was doing
what could be done with such limited means to make a pleasant
Christmas for the little family occupying so quietly the back section
in the car, and feeling so out of place among the well-to-do
passengers.
Not only were articles for their comfort made, but toys for the
children. Many a man, in the intervals of shoveling snow, at which
each man took his turn, called up the resources of boyhood, and
whittled precious things out of wood; a whistle and a toy sled for the
boy; a cradle made of a cigar box, with rockers nailed on with pins,
for the girl, and fitted with bedding from her mother's sheet by
Ethel, with a piece of the shoulder shawl for coverlid.
Even Harry wanted to help, and begged his mother for an empty spool,
out of which he could make a real top which would spin. Mrs. Jervis
had no empty spool, but she took the largest one she had, wound off
the thread on a card, and gave it to him, and he whittled out a
beautiful top.
All these things could be done in the same car with the family, for
they were very shy, and kept strictly to the last compartment, where
the conductor had placed them.
As Christmas day drew near, the question of a tree began to be
considered, for Ethel could not entertain the idea of Christmas
without one. She consulted the porter, who entered into the spirit of
the thing warmly, and as he had noticed some trees not far back, near
the track, he managed to cut off a large branch from one. Shaking it
free from the snow, he set it up in a box, under Ethel's directions,
making it stand steadily upright with chunks of coal packed in the box
around it, and it really looked something like a tree, though it was
entirely bare of leaves, for it was not an evergreen.
The baggage-car was decided upon for the celebration, and all day
before Christmas Ethel and Harry, as well as most of the passengers by
turns, were very busy there. Ethel covered the box of coal with the
remains of the sheet; candles for the tree, with all their ingenuity,
they were unable to manage, but a fine effect was produced by a
brilliant red lantern, which a brakeman lent for the occasion, placed
in among the branches.
All the gifts--and they were surprisingly numerous--were hung about
the tree, and the bare spaces filled up with paper ladders and rings
of dancing dolls and long curling tassels and fringes, all of which
Ethel cut with the scissors out of newspapers. These last decorations
were added with locked doors, only the porter being allowed to see
them.
It was really a very effective show, though so odd, and after the
passengers had enjoyed their evening meal of jack rabbits roasted
before the fire, with dry crackers for bread, and water to drink, they
were all invited by the smiling colored porter to proceed to the
baggage-car.
The Grey family, for whom all this had been done, were gallantly
escorted by the porter himself, who even carried the baby, now bright
and smiling on its diet of condensed milk.
The baggage-car presented a gay appearance, brilliantly lighted by
many brakeman's lanterns. Trunks were stowed away in one end, except
those needed for seats, and in a few moments the women and children
were seated, while all the men of the train stood around behind them,
even to the weary-looking engineer who had been working so hard these
two days and nights for their release.
The surprise and delight of the Grey children knew no bounds; and when
they found that all these treasures were for them, their ecstasies
were beyond control; they laughed and shouted almost like other
children, as they had never in their lives done before.
As for the mother, she was simply overcome; tears of happiness ran
down her face, and as each gift was placed in her lap, she could only
grasp the hand of the giver,--she could not speak.
And what of Ethel! No one would have known her for the unhappy-faced
maiden who had so lamented their plight. All this time she had been
the moving spirit in the whole matter. She had worked hard herself,
and inspired others to work, too. She was rosy and happy on this
evening, her eyes bright and shining; and when her mother placed in
her hand her own Christmas gift, which she had been secretly carrying
to grace the tree at Grandma's, her happiness overflowed, and she
exclaimed:--
"Why! I almost forgot the party to-night at Grandma's!"
At the close of the evening, as the party were about to return to
their car, the conductor rapped for silence, and announced--as the
best gift of the evening--that help had come from outside and cut
through the drifts, so that before morning they would be able to take
up their journey.
It was a very happy-faced Ethel who, the next morning, jumped out of
the sleigh which had brought them up from the station, and ran to kiss
her grandmother and aunts and cousins, brought together from great
distances for the happy Christmas time. And after all, she didn't miss
the tree, either, for, although Christmas had passed, all the party
begged to defer the tree till the Jervis family arrived; and there it
stood at that moment, all ready for lighting.
Nothing of this was told to the Jervis children, however, till after
supper was over, when Grandmother invited the whole company to go into
the room where it stood, lighted from the top twig to the pedestal it
stood on, and hung full of beautiful gifts.
* * * * *
"That's a nice story," said Kristy; "it was lovely of them to save the
tree for Ethel. It isn't bedtime yet," she went on suggestively, as
her mother busied herself with her work.
"No; it isn't bedtime; but you must have had enough stories for one
day, Kristy."
"No, indeed! I never have enough!" said Kristy warmly.
"Well, here's another, then, and it's true, too." And Mrs. Crawford
began.