of gray palomas they swept down the street to the farthest end, where
Enrique hammered and stitched away all day on the shoes of the rich
children.
Manuel stayed behind with Doña Josefa. When the last pair of little
brown feet had disappeared inside the sapateria he said, softly:
“If some one could go out and meet the kings to tell them of this little
street, and how the niños here have never had a Christmas gift, do you
think they might ride hither to-night?”
Doña Josefa shook her head doubtfully.
“If that were possible—But never have I heard of any one who met the
kings on Christmas Eve.”
All day in the city people hurried to and fro. In the great streets
flags were waving from the housetops, and wreaths of laurel, or garlands
of heliotrope and mariposa, hung above the open doorways and in the
windows. Sweetmeat-sellers were crying their wares; and the
Keeper-of-the-City lighted flaming torches to hang upon the gates and
city walls. Everywhere was merrymaking and gladness, for not only was
this Christmas Eve, but the King of Spain was coming to keep his holiday
within the city. Some whispered that he was riding from the North, and
with him rode his cousins, the kings of France and Lombardy, and with
them were a great following of nobles, knights, and minstrels. Others
said the kings rode all alone—it was their wish.
As the sun was turning the cathedral spires to shafts of gold, bands of
children, hand in hand, marched out of the city. They took the road that
led toward the setting sun, thinking it was the East, and said among
themselves, “See, yonder is the way the kings will ride.”
“I have brought a basket of figs,” cried one.
“I have dates in a new panuela,” cried another.
“And I,” cried a third, “I have brought a sack of sweet limes, they are
so cooling.”
Thus each in turn showed some small gift that he was bringing for the
kings. And while they chatted together one child began to sing the sweet
Nativity Hymn. In a moment others joined until the still night air rang
with their happy voices.
“Unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a gift is given.
Hail with holiness the morn,
Kneel before the Prince of Heaven.
Blessed be this day of birth,
God hath given His Son to earth.
Jesu, Jesu, Nene Jesu,
Hallelujah!”
Behind the little hills the sun went down, leaving a million sparks of
light upon the road.
“Yonder come the kings!” the children cried. “See the splendor of their
shining crowns and how the jewels sparkle on their mantles! They may be
angry if they find us out so late; come, let us run home before they see
us.”
The children turned. Back to the city gates they ran, back to their
homes, to the good madres watching for them and their own white beds
ready for them.
But one they left behind them on the road: a little, bare-limbed boy
whose name was Manuel. He watched until the children had disappeared
within the gates, and then he turned again toward the setting sun.
“I have no gift for the kings,” he thought, “but there is fresh green
grass beside the way that I can gather for the camels.”
He stopped, pulled his hands full, and stuffed it in the front of the
little blue vestido that he wore. He followed the road for a long way
until heavy sleep came to his eyes.
“How still it is upon the road! God has blown out His light and soon it
will be dark. I wish I were with the others, safe within the city; for
the dark is full of fearsome things when one is all alone.... Mamita
will be coming home soon and bringing supper for Rosita and me. Perhaps
to-night there will be an almond dulce or pan de gloria—perhaps.... I
wonder will Rosita not forget the little prayer I told her to be always
saying. My feet hurt with the many stones; the night wind blows cold; I
am weary and my feet stumble with me.... Oh, Nene Jesu, listen! I also
make the prayer: ‘Send the three kings before Manuel is too weary and
afraid!’”
A few more steps he took upon the road, and then, as a reed is blown
down by the wind, Manuel swayed, unknowingly for a moment, and slowly
sank upon the ground, fast asleep.
How long he slept I cannot tell you; but a hand on his shoulder wakened
him. Quickly he opened his eyes, wondering, and saw—yes, he saw the
three kings! Tall and splendid they looked in the starlight, their
mantles shimmering with myriad gems. One stood above Manuel, asking what
he did upon the road at that late hour.
Manuel rose to his feet, thrusting his hand inside the shirt for the
grass he had gathered.
“It is for the camels, señor; I have no other gift. But you—you ride
horses this Christmas Eve!”
“Yes, we ride horses. What is that to you?”
“Pardon, señores, nothing. The three kings can ride horses if they wish;
only—we were told you rode on camels from the East.”
“What does the child want?” The voice was kind, but it sounded
impatient, as though the one who spoke had work waiting to be done and
was anxious to be about it.
Manuel heard and felt all this wondering. “What if there is not time for
them to come, or gifts enough!” He laid an eager, pleading hand on one
king’s mantle.
“I can hold the horses if you will come this once. It is a little street
and hard to find, señores; I thought perhaps you would leave a
present—just one little present for the children there. You told the
Christ-child you would give to every child. Don’t you remember? There
are many of us who have never had a gift—a Christmas gift.”
“Do you know who we are?”
Manuel answered, joyfully: “Oh yes, Excellencias, you are the Three
Christmas Kings, riding from Bethlehem. Will you come with me?”
The kings spoke with one accord, “Verily, we will.”
One lifted Manuel on his horse; and silently they rode into the city.
The Keeper slumbered at the gates; the streets were empty. On, past the
houses that were garlanded they went unseen; and on through the great
streets until they came to the little street at last. The kings
dismounted. They gave their bridles into Manuel’s hand, and then,
gathering up their precious mantles of silk and rich brocade, they
passed down the little street. With eyes that scarce believed what they
saw, Manuel watched them go from house to house, saw them stop and feel
for the shoes between the gratings, the shoes loaned by Enrique, the
cobbler, and saw them fill each one with shining gold pieces.
In the morning Manuel told the story to the children as they went to
spend one golden doblon for toys and candy and sugared cakes. And a gift
they brought for Doña Josefa, too; a little figure of the Holy Mother
with the Christ-child in her arms.
And so the promise made in Bethlehem was made again, and to a little
child; and it was kept. For many, many years, long after Manuel was
grown and had niños of his own, the kings remembered the little street,
and brought their gifts there every Christmas Eve.
There was a long silence after David had finished retelling the story to
Barney and Johanna that night. The wind was howling outside and beating
the snow in hard cakes against the windows.
“Sure, it’s up to some one to keep heart in those two till spring
comes,” Johanna said at last. “Think o’ coming up here from one o’ them
sizzling-hot places. Holy St. Patrick!”
“Aye, and a sick boy and a woman—the frail kind, I’m thinking, not used
to lifting her hand to anything heavy.”
Barney got up and peered out.
“Well, if the snow’s not over our heads the morrow I can beat my way
there and keep their fires going for another day.”
David got up and joined Barney, sliding a grateful hand through his.
“That would be bully! You know his mother said if they could only keep
the big fire going on the open porch and get him out there again she was
sure he’d begin to get better. It’s been the cold and the staying
indoors that has put him back. Do you think, Barney, do you think—You
know I could take my turn at it.”
“Sure and ye can, laddy. Wait till the morrow and we’ll see what we can
do—the two of us.”
VII
THE TRAPPER’S TALE OF THE FIRST BIRTHDAY
The snow was still falling steadily next morning and David came down to
breakfast with an anxious face.
“Now don’t be worrying, laddy,” was Barney’s reassuring greeting. “It
takes a powerful lot o’ snow to keep a man housed on these hills when he
has something fetching him out.”
And Johanna, coming in with her hands full of steaming griddle-cakes,
brought more encouragement.
“Sure, it’s a storm, but not too fierce for a strong man like Barney to
brave for them that’s in trouble. And I’ve a can of good soup jelly and
a fresh-baked loaf of bread and some eggs for ye to fetch with ye.”
“Oh!” David dug his two hands down deep in his pockets and smiled
ecstatically. “I suppose—it’s too bad going for me.” He appealed to
Barney.
“Aye, it is that! Wait till afternoon. The storm may break by then and
ye could get out for a bit. But there’s too much weather afoot for a
little lad just now.”
So David watched Barney make ready alone. Johanna’s things were bundled
and strapped on his back that his two arms might be free. Then he made
fast his snow-shoes—it was no day for skees—and pulling his fur parka
down to cover all but his eyes he started off. He looked like a man of
the northland. David watched him out of sight, and then he and Johanna
fell to the making of a mammoth Christmas cake. There were nuts to be
cracked and fruits to be chopped; all good boy work, as Johanna said,
and he was glad to be busy.
At noon Barney returned with great news. He had left the South-Americans
comfortable and happy. Alfredo was back on his open porch with a
monstrous fire roaring up the outside chimney and wood enough stacked
within their reach for them to keep it going for a week. The mother had
wept over Johanna’s gifts. They had lived for days on canned things and
stale bread; and she had blessed them all in what Barney had termed
“Spanish lingo.”
“Sure, ye needn’t be fearing about them longer, laddy; they’ve the
hearts back in them again, and, what’s more, they’ll stay there, I’m
thinking.”
As Barney had prophesied, the snow stopped at noon; and after dinner
David set forth on his last quest. Warnings from Johanna and Barney
followed him out of the lodge: not to be going far—and to mind well his
trail. All of which he promised. It was not so very far to the trapper’s
and the trail was as plain as the hillside itself.
There was no sign of the locked-out fairy, and David expected none.
There was but one path left to take. Why should any one come to show him
the way? Although the trail lay down the hill David’s going was very
slow. He sank deep at every step and where the drifts were high he had
to make long detours, which nearly doubled the distance. When he reached
the hut at last he met the trapper at his very door-sill. The pack on
his back looked full, and David guessed he had just been down to the
village for supplies. He eyed David with a grave concern through the
opening in his parka; and David wondered whether the rest of the face
would be grave, or kind, or forbidding.
“Nicholas Bassaraba has few visitors, but you are welcome.”
The voice was gruff but not unkindly, and the trapper pushed open the
door of his hut and motioned David inside. They stood stamping the snow
from their boots; and then the trapper lifted his hood and David saw
that he was not at all like the Grimm picture of Bluebeard. He was dark
and swarthy-skinned, to be sure, but he wore no beard—only a small
mustache—and his eyebrows were not heavy and sinister-looking and his
mouth was almost friendly. If the line of gravity should break into a
smile David felt sure it would be a very friendly smile. The trapper
proceeded to remove the rest of his outer garments and David did the
same. When the operation was over they stood there facing each other
solemnly—a very large, foreign-looking man and a small American boy.
“Come! This is a day to sit close to the fire and to smoke, if one is
big. If one happens to be small, there is—let me see—I think there is
chocolate.”
The trapper opened a small cupboard and drew out a tinfoiled package
which he tossed over to David; then from his pocket he brought a pipe
and a pouch. He held the pipe empty between his teeth, while he rebuilt
the fire that was low on the hearth. When the fresh wood began to snap
he drew up a chair for each of them, close, and proceeded to fill his
pipe.
David gazed curiously about the room. It was large and it seemed to
serve as kitchen, dining-room, sleeping and living quarters, all
combined. The end where they sat by the open fireplace was for living
and sleeping; the two comfortable chairs, the table with a reading-lamp,
the small case with books, and the couch plainly told this. At the other
end was a cookstove, the cupboard, water-pails, dish-rack, frying-pans
and pots hanging against the wall, and a rough pine table with a
straight chair. The walls were covered with skins and guns,
cartridge-belts, and knives of all descriptions. Altogether David found
it a very interesting place, almost as interesting as the man who lived
there. His eyes came back to the trapper, who again was considering him
gravely.
“It’s a bully good place for a man to live in,” was David’s enthusiastic
comment.
“It is good enough for one who must live a stranger, in a strange land.”
For all his rough clothes and his calling, the man spoke more like a
scholar than a backwoodsman; David had noticed that the first time he
had spoken. He spoke with as educated a tongue as his own father; there
was a slight foreign twist to it, that was the only difference.
“Where is your country?”
David asked it simply, not out of idle curiosity, but to place the man
at home in his own mind.
“My country? Ah, what used to be my country is a little place, not so
big as this one state of yours. It is somewhere near the blue
Mediterranean, but it is nearer to Prussia. Bah! What does it matter?
Nicholas Bassaraba knows no country now but the woods; no people but
those.” He pointed to the skins on the walls.
“And you kill them!” The accusation was out before David realized it was
even on his tongue.
“Ah, what would you have me do? I must live. Is that not so? And is it
not better to live on the creatures of the woods than on one’s
fellow-men? I kill only what I need for sustenance; for the rest I hurt
not one.”
There was a hidden fierceness back of the soft voice and David felt
immediately apologetic:
“Excuse me! Of course it’s all right. I only thought when you spoke of
them as your people, and then pointed to their pelts hung around, it
sounded sort of barbaric. Sort of like the Indians showing off their
scalps, or the headhunters showing their skulls.”
The trapper smiled, and the smile was friendly.
“Youth is ever quick to accuse and as quick to forgive. I know. It is
hard for you to understand how I can make them my friends through the
long summer; and then, when winter comes and there is a price on their
fur, trap them and kill them. But Nicholas Bassaraba kills only enough
to bring him in the bare needs of life, and then only for one half the
year. For the rest, I am a guide; I carry the packs for the gentlemen
campers; I build their fires; I draw their water.”
The smile changed to a contemptuous curl of the lips. “Such it is to be
a man locked out of his own country.”
David watched him uncomfortably for an instant. Then he laughed—he could
not help it.
“You’re not the only one. There are two more of us; and I don’t know but
what you’d call the flagman another, and Uncle Joab, and maybe the
South-Americans, too. You see, I’m just sort of locked out, but the
others are truly locked out.” And David launched into an account of
himself and of what he knew of the others, all but the fairy.
“And is that all? I thought you said there was another person,” reminded
the trapper.
David blushed consciously. Not that there was the slightest reason for
blushing. He certainly felt no shame in his acquaintanceship with the
locked-out fairy. It was rather the feeling of shyness in having to put
it all into words, and there was always the uncertainty of how a
stranger would take it. You never could tell how people were going to
take fairies, anyhow. Besides, maybe there were no fairies in what had
been this man’s country.
“The other is not exactly a person,” David began, slowly, “not exactly.
Say, did you ever see a fairy?”
A look of amazement filled the face of the trapper. It seemed to well up
from his eyes and burst forth from his mouth.
“You mean the little people?” he asked at last. “The nixies and the
dwarfs and the kobolds, that live under the earth and play pranks on us
unsuspecting mortals?”
David nodded.
“Sort of. Have you ever seen one?”
The trapper shook his head vehemently.
“Well, _I_ have!” And without in the least understanding why he was
doing it David told the story of the locked-out fairy.
When he had finished, the trapper was smiling again.
“Ah, the poor manikin! And here there are three, five, seven of us, all
locked out from our homelands; and here was I, Nicholas Bassaraba,
thinking I was the only one to feel the homesickness. Bah! Sometimes a
man is a fool!”
He thought a minute.
“And you say he wore the squirrel coat—the very one I missed from the
shed door where it was drying? And all the time I think it was the
African from the lumber-camp who takes it.”
He laughed aloud and stretched his arms out with a little cry of
pleasure.
“Ah, it is good, very good, for one outcast to clothe another. To-night
I must put out some bread and honey, as my people used to for the little
spirits; the manikin may be hungry.”
“Tell me,” said David, suddenly, “do your people have any
stories—stories of Christmas?”
“Christmas!”
The trapper repeated it—almost as if it were a strange word to him.
“Wait a minute—keep very still. I will see can I think back a story of
Christmas.”
David sat without stirring, almost without breathing, as the trapper
puffed silently at his pipe. He puffed the bowl quite empty, then
knocking the ashes clean out of his pipe he put it back in his pocket
again and looked up at David with the old grave look.
“There is a people in our country who are called wanderers; some say
they have been wanderers for two thousand years. You call them gipsies
or Egyptians; we call them ‘Tzigan.’ Now, they are vagabonds, for the
most part, dirty, thieving rascals, ready to tell a fortune or pick a
pocket, as the fancy takes them; but—it was not always so. Some say that
they have been cursed because they feared to give shelter to Mary and
Joseph and the Child when the King of Judea forced them to flee into
Egypt. But the gipsies themselves say that this is not true; and this is
the story the Tzigan mothers tell their children on the night of
Christmas, as they sit around the fire that is always burning in the
heart of a Romany camp.”
It was winter—and twelve months since the gipsies had driven their
flocks of mountain-sheep over the dark, gloomy Balkans, and had settled
in the southlands near to the Ægean. It was twelve months since they had
seen a wonderful star appear in the sky and heard the singing of angelic
voices afar off.
They had marveled much concerning the star until a runner had passed
them from the South bringing them news that the star had marked the
birth of a Child whom the wise men had hailed as “King of Israel” and
“Prince of Peace.” This had made Herod of Judea both afraid and angry
and he had sent soldiers secretly to kill the Child; but in the night
they had miraculously disappeared—the Child with Mary and Joseph—and no
one knew whither they had gone. Therefore Herod had sent runners all
over the lands that bordered the Mediterranean with a message forbidding
every one giving food or shelter or warmth to the Child, under penalty
of death. For Herod’s anger was far-reaching and where his anger fell
there fell his sword likewise. Having given his warning, the runner
passed on, leaving the gipsies to marvel much over the tale they had
heard and the meaning of the star.
Now on that day that marked the end of the twelve months since the star
had shone the gipsies said among themselves: “Dost thou think that the
star will shine again to-night? If it were true, what the runner said,
that when it shone twelve months ago it marked the place where the Child
lay it may even mark His hiding-place this night. Then Herod would know
where to find Him, and send his soldiers again to slay Him. That would
be a cruel thing to happen!”
The air was chill with the winter frost, even there in the southland,
close to the Ægean; and the gipsies built high their fire and hung their
kettle full of millet, fish, and bitter herbs for their supper. The king
lay on his couch of tiger-skins and on his arms were amulets of heavy
gold, while rings of gold were on his fingers and in his ears. His tunic
was of heavy silk covered with a leopard cloak, and on his feet were
shoes of goat-skin trimmed with fur. Now, as they feasted around the
fire a voice came to them through the darkness, calling. It was a man’s
voice, climbing the mountains from the south.
“Ohe! Ohe!” he shouted. And then nearer, “O—he!”
The gipsies were still disputing among themselves whence the voice came
when there walked into the circle about the fire a tall, shaggy man,
grizzled with age, and a sweet-faced young mother carrying a child.
“We are outcasts,” said the man, hoarsely. “Ye must know that whosoever
succors us will bring Herod’s vengeance like a sword about his head. For
a year we have wandered homeless and cursed over the world. Only the
wild creatures have not feared to share their food and give us shelter
in their lairs. But to-night we can go no farther; and we beg the warmth
of your fire and food enough to stay us until the morrow.”
The king looked at them long before he made reply. He saw the weariness
in their eyes and the famine in their cheeks; he saw, as well, the holy
light that hung about the child, and he said at last to his men:
“It is the Child of Bethlehem, the one they call the ‘Prince of Peace.’
As yon man says, who shelters them shelters the wrath of Herod as well.
Shall we let them tarry?”
One of their number sprang to his feet, crying: “It is a sin to turn
strangers from the fire, a greater sin if they be poor and friendless.
And what is a king’s wrath to us? I say bid them welcome. What say the
rest?”
And with one accord the gipsies shouted, “Yea, let them tarry!”
They brought fresh skins and threw them down beside the fire for the man
and woman to rest on. They brought them food and wine, and goat’s milk
for the Child; and when they had seen that all was made comfortable for
them they gathered round the Child—these black gipsy men—to touch His
small white hands and feel His golden hair. They brought Him a chain of
gold to play with and another for His neck and tiny arm.
“See, these shall be Thy gifts, little one,” said they, “the gifts for
Thy first birthday.”
And long after all had fallen asleep the Child lay on His bed of skins
beside the blazing fire and watched the light dance on the beads of
gold. He laughed and clapped His hands together to see the pretty sight
they made; and then a bird called out of the thicket close by.
“Little Child of Bethlehem,” it called, “I, too, have a birth gift for
Thee. I will sing Thy cradle song this night.” And softly, like the
tinkling of a silver bell and like clear water running over mossy
places, the nightingale sang and sang, filling the air with melodies.
And then another voice called to him:
“Little Child of Bethlehem, I am only a tree with boughs all bare, for
the winter has stolen my green cloak, but I also can give Thee a birth
gift. I can give Thee shelter from the biting north wind that blows.”
And the tree bent low its branches and twined a rooftree and a wall
about the Child.
Soon the Child was fast asleep, and while He slept a small brown bird
hopped out of the thicket. Cocking his little head, he said:
“What can I be giving the Child of Bethlehem? I could fetch Him a fat
worm to eat or catch Him the beetle that crawls on yonder bush, but He
would not like that! And I could tell Him a story of the lands of the
north, but He is asleep and would not hear.” And the brown bird shook
its head quite sorrowfully. Then it saw that the wind was bringing the
sparks from the fire nearer and nearer to the sleeping Child.
“I know what I can do,” said the bird, joyously. “I can catch the hot
sparks on my breast, for if one should fall upon the Child it would burn
Him grievously.”
So the small brown bird spread wide his wings and caught the sparks on
his own brown breast. So many fell that the feathers were burned; and
burned was the flesh beneath until the breast was no longer brown, but
red.