Child gone. For Herod had died, and an angel had come in the night and
carried them back to the land of Judea. But the good God blessed those
who had cared that night for the Child.
To the nightingale He said: “Your song shall be the sweetest in all the
world, for ever and ever; and only you shall sing the long night
through.”
To the tree He said: “Little fir-tree, never more shall your branches be
bare. Winter and summer you and your seedlings shall stay green, ever
green.”
Last of all He blessed the brown bird: “Faithful little watcher, from
this night forth you and your children shall have red breasts, that the
world may never forget your gift to the Child of Bethlehem.”
The trapper smiled gravely at David.
“And that, my friend, was the robin.”
“Yes, I know,” said David, simply.
He felt very still and quiet inside, almost as if he had dreamed himself
into the Romany camp beside the fire, and seen with his own eyes the
coming of the Child. It seemed too real, too close to talk about just
then; he even forgot to tell the trapper that he liked it. And then the
trapper’s next words brought him to his feet.
“You are not knowing, it may be, that the night has fallen and the snow
is with it again. Come, I think Nicholas Bassaraba will guide you safely
to your hilltop.”
One glance through the window told David the truth of the words. It was
almost dark outside and snow was very thick in the air.
Silently they put on their garments and fastened their snow-shoes. Then
with the command to keep close at his heels, the trapper led the way up
the trail.
The first thing of which David was conscious was that his strength was
going amazingly fast. It seemed but a moment since he had started, and
the trapper was climbing very slowly; yet David began to find it
unbelievably hard to pull one foot after the other. Gritting his teeth,
he stumbled on a few yards farther. Then he fell, picked himself up, and
fell again. The third time the trapper helped him to his feet, and,
coming behind him, he put a strong hand at David’s back and pushed. They
struggled on this way for another ten minutes until David fell again.
This time it was the trapper’s strength alone which righted him, for
David’s had entirely gone. He stood looking with dazed eyes into the
trapper’s, ashamed and wholly spent.
“It is all right. It is nothing to be ashamed of.” The trapper’s voice
seemed to come from very far away. “You have climbed many lengths
farther than I expected. Now you shall see how Nicholas Bassaraba can
pack a hundred pounds when he is guiding for a friend.”
He stooped and lifted David on his back, drawing the boy’s arms well
over his shoulders, and slipping his own firmly under the boy’s feet.
That was the last David knew until he felt the ground under his feet
again and blinked stupidly at the light Johanna was holding at the open
door of the lodge.
“Laddy, laddy, wherever have ye been?”
He heard the distress in Johanna’s voice even through his own numbness,
and tried to smile reassuringly.
“Barney’s been scouring the hill for ye this half-hour.”
“He has been to visit a friend, and the friend has brought him back
safely,” said the trapper. And without another word he disappeared in
the snow and the darkness.
VIII
THE CHRISTMAS THAT WAS NEARLY LOST
It snowed hard all the next day, so hard that even Barney did not
venture out; and David spent his time between the kitchen, where Johanna
was frosting the Christmas cake, and the woodshed, where Barney was
making the “woodpile look mortal weary.”
David’s mind was full of the happenings of the days that had passed, and
of future plans. Everything had been as fine as a boy could wish, but he
did not want it to stop. Here it was two days before Christmas, and he
was quite sure there was still a lot to be found. The question was,
where should he look for it now that the matter of neighbors had been
exhausted?
As for the plans, they were growing every minute; but he had decided to
say nothing about them to Johanna and Barney until the next day, when
they were full-grown. Of one thing David felt certain: nothing could
keep Christmas away this year. And so when Barney began to tease him on
one of his trips to the woodshed and say that if this weather lasted he
guessed the Christmas present from father would get there about
Washington’s Birthday and that he guessed it would take a Santa Claus
with seven-league boots to make the hilltop this year, David just smiled
and looked very wise. Something was going to happen; he knew perfectly
well that something was going to happen. And so, when it actually did
happen, about half-way between dinner and supper time, he was not nearly
as surprised as Johanna and Barney, who in a way might have expected it.
They were all three startled by a banging on the door and a stamping and
pounding of feet outside. So loud did it sound in the midst of the
silence that David thought there must be at least a dozen men. Great was
his astonishment, therefore, when Barney swung open the door and a
solitary figure stepped in, muffled in fur to the eyes.
“Burrrrrrrrrrr!” boomed the figure, and then he swept off his cap and
made a laughing bow.
“Hello, Johanna! Hello, Barney! You never thought I would remind you
right in the midst of a Christmas blizzard of that promise you made last
summer. Come now, did you?”
“Holy St. Patrick!” gasped Johanna.
“Mr. Peter!” ejaculated Barney. “But how in the name of all the saints
did ye ever make it in this storm?”
The man laughed again.
“Just the usual nerve of the tenderfoot. I left my painting-kit, bag,
and canvases with the station-agent. He has promised to send them up if
the storm ever stops. And I made a wager with him—a gallon can of next
spring’s syrup against a box of cigars—that I’d be here by four o’clock.
What’s the time?”
He had his things off by this time and was looking at his watch.
“Aha! Ten minutes to the good! If your wires are not down, Barney, I’ll
call him up. He’ll be wanting to get ready to tap that maple-tree.”
The next moment they could hear his voice booming at the telephone.
“Yes, siree. Here I am, and not even my breath frozen. No, you needn’t
be sending out that snow-plow after me just yet. Only get my things up
here as soon as you can. All right!”
Another instant he was back in the room again, vigorously shaking
Johanna’s and Barney’s hands.
“Yes, here I am, to paint those snow canvases I’ve been going to do so
long, and to dodge Christmas.”
Then it was that for the first time he became conscious of David in the
window recess.
“Bless my soul! Who’s this, Johanna?”
Johanna explained, and David came forward and held out an eager hand. He
liked this Mr. Peter tremendously, in spite of his last remark, and he
was no end glad he had come.
The man returned David’s greeting with equal cordiality, while he
screwed up his face into a comical expression of mock disgust.
“And I came up here to dodge Christmas! Say, young man, do you think
it’s possible for any person to get away from Christmas with a boy
around?”
“I hope not,” laughed David.
“You don’t mean to tell me that Christmas hasn’t grown into a very
tiresome, shabby affair that we would all escape from if we only had the
courage? You don’t believe there is anything in it nowadays, do you,
except the beastly grind of paying your friends back and thanking your
lucky stars it doesn’t happen oftener than once a year?”
“I certainly do, sir.” David spoke as one with authority.
The man rubbed his hands together thoughtfully and his eyes twinkled.
“I see. Johanna and Barney have gone off to fix a bed for me somewhere,
so suppose we discuss this matter thoroughly. I’ll tell you my personal
feelings and you can tell me yours. In the end, maybe we’ll compromise!”
He led the way to the window-seat and spread himself out comfortably in
one corner; David curled up in the one opposite.
“To begin with,” and the man pounded his knee emphatically, “Christmas
is responsible for a very bad economic condition. Every one spends more
money than he has; that’s very bad. Next, you generally put your money
into articles that are neither useful nor beautiful; you give your
maiden aunt handkerchiefs and she has ten dozen of them already put by
in her closet, while you send a box of candy to the janitor’s little
girl, who can’t go out because she hasn’t any shoes to wear. Now if I
could borrow an invisible cloak and go around a week before Christmas,
peeping in on all the folks that need things and finding out just what
they need, and then come back on Christmas Eve and drop the gifts unseen
beside their doors—well, that might make Christmas seem a little less
shabby. But as it is, I’m not going to give away an inch of foolish
Christmas this year. And I’m not going to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to a
solitary soul.”
“Maybe you’ll forget,” laughed David. “Now, is it my turn?”
Mr. Peter nodded.
“Well, I’ve found out, just lately, that Christmas isn’t things—it’s
thoughts. And I’ve an idea how to make a bully Christmas this year out
of nothing.”
He hunched up one knee and clasped his arms about it.
“You see, I used to think that you couldn’t have Christmas without all
the store fixings and lots of presents, just as you do. And when I first
came ’way up here I thought it was just naturally ‘good-by, Christmas.’
Then something happened.”
“Suppose you tell me what. We might make a better compromise if I
understood just what did happen.”
David considered him thoughtfully. Johanna had said while he was out at
the telephone that Mr. Peter was a painter, a bachelor chap with no one
in particular belonging to him, and David wondered if he would really
understand. As Johanna had often said, “There are some things you just
can’t put through a body’s head.”
“Things happen ’way up here in the hills that would never happen in the
city, never in a hundred years,” he began, slowly; and then, gaining
courage from the painter’s nod of comprehension, he told all about
everything. Of course he could not tell all the stories as they had been
told to him—there was not time—but he told about them, and particularly
about the “heathen.”
“And that isn’t all,” he finished, breathlessly. “I’ve a great plan for
to-morrow night, if Johanna and Barney and you will help.”
“We might make that the compromise,” smiled Mr. Peter. “What is it?”
David told, and when he had quite finished, the man beside him nodded
his head as if he approved.
“What does Johanna say?” he asked.
“I haven’t told her yet.”
“Well, we’ll ask Johanna and Barney to-night. Now let’s hunt them up and
find out when supper is going to be ready. I’m as hungry as a bear.”
But before the plans were unfolded to Barney and Johanna that evening
Mr. Peter told a story. He offered it himself as something he had picked
up once upon a time, he could not remember just where. He said it was
not the kind of a story he would ever make up in the wide world, but he
thought it just the kind David might make up.
And here it is as the painter told it two nights before Christmas:
It was four o’clock on Christmas morning and Santa Claus was finishing
his rounds just as the milkman was beginning his. Santa had been over to
Holland and back again where he had filled millions of little Dutch
shoes that stood outside of windows and doors; he had climbed millions
of chimneys and filled millions of American stockings, not to mention
the billions and trillions of Christmas trees that he had trimmed and
the nurseries he had visited with toys too large for stockings. And now,
just as the clock struck four, he had filled his last stocking and was
crawling out of the last chimney onto the roof where the eight reindeer
were pawing the snow and wagging their stumps of tails, eager to be off.
Santa Claus heaved a sigh of relief as he shook the creases out of the
great magic bag that was always large enough to hold all the toys that
were put into it. The bag was quite empty now, not even a gum-drop or a
penny whistle was left; and Santa heaved another sigh as he tucked it
under the seat of his sleigh and clambered wearily in.
“By the two horns on yonder pale-looking moon,” quoth he, “I’m a
worn-out old saint and I am glad Christmas is over. Why, I passed my
prime some thousand years ago and any other saint would have taken to
his niche in heaven long before this.” And he heaved a third sigh.
As he took up the reins and whistled to his team he looked anything but
the jolly old saint he was supposed to be; and if you had searched him
from top to toe, inside and out, you couldn’t have found a chuckle or a
laugh anywhere about him.
Away went the eight reindeer through the air, higher and higher, till
houses looked like match-boxes and lakes like bowls of water; and it
took them just ten minutes and ten seconds to carry Santa safely home to
the North Pole. Most generally he sings a rollicking song on his
homeward journey, a song about boys and toys and drums and plums, just
to show how happy he is. But this year he spent the whole time grumbling
all the grumbly thoughts he could think of.
“It’s a pretty state of affairs when a man can’t have a vacation in
nearly five hundred years. Christmas every three hundred and sixty-five
days and have to work three hundred and sixty-four of them to get things
ready. What’s more, every year the work grows harder. Have to keep up
with all the scientific inventions and all the new discoveries. Who’d
have thought a hundred years ago that I should have to be building toy
aeroplanes and electric motors? And the girls want dolls’ houses with
lights and running water! I declare I’m fairly sick of the sight of a
sled or a top, and dolls and drums make me shiver. I’d like to do
nothing for a whole year, I tell you—nothing! It’s a pretty how d’ y’ do
if the world can’t get along for one year without a Christmas. What’s to
prevent my taking a vacation like any other man? Who’s to prevent me?”
The reindeer had stopped outside of Santa’s own home and he threw the
reins down with a jerk while he tried his best to look very gruff and
surly.
“Suppose I try it. By the Aurora Borealis, I _will_ try it!”
And then and there Santa Claus began his vacation.
He closed up his workshop, locked the door, and hung the key in the
attic. He turned his reindeer loose and told them to go south where they
could get fresh grass, for he would not need them for a year and a day.
Then he made himself comfortable beside his fire, and brought out all
the books and the papers he had been wanting to read for the last fifty
years or more, and settled down to enjoy himself. He never gave one
thought to the world or what it would do without him; therefore, it
never occurred to him to wonder if the news would get in the papers. But
you know and I know that in time everything that happens gets into the
papers; so the news spread at last all over the world that Santa Claus
was taking a vacation and that there would be no Christmas next year.
And what do you think happened then?
First of all the Christmas trees stopped growing. “What’s the use?” they
whispered one to another. “We sha’n’t be wanted this year, so we needn’t
work to put out new shoots or keep especially green and smart-looking.”
And the holly and the mistletoe heard them, and they said: “Well, why
should we bother, either, to get our berries ready as long as we shall
not be needed for decoration? Making berries takes a lot of time, and we
might just as well spend it gossiping.”
Next, the storekeepers began to grumble, and each said to himself,
“Well, if Christmas isn’t coming this year why should I spend my time
making my shop-windows gay with gifts and pretty things?” And the pastry
cooks and the confectioners said they certainly would not bother making
plum-puddings, Christmas pies, or candy canes.
Soon the children heard about it. For a long while they would not
believe it, not until Christmas-time came round again. But when they saw
the Christmas trees looking so short and shabby, and the Christmas
greens without their berries, and the streets quiet and dull, and the
shop-windows without the pretty things in them, they grew sober and
quiet, too. And in less time than I can tell you the whole world grew
stuffy and stupid and silent and unlovely. Yes, the whole world!
Now, in a very small house in a very small town that stands just midway
between the North Pole and the equator and half-way between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans (you can find the town for yourself on any map if you
look for it with these directions) there lived a small boy. He was
sturdy and strong, and he had learned two great lessons—never to be
afraid and never to give up. He saw what was happening all over the
world, because everybody believed that Christmas had been lost, and he
said one day to his mother:
“Mother, little mother, I’ve been thinking this long while if Santa
Claus could see how things are going with every one down here he would
bring Christmas back, after all. Let me go and tell him?”
“Boy, little boy,” said his mother, “tell me first how you will find
your way there. Remember there are no sign-posts along the road that
leads to Santa Claus.”
But the boy squared his shoulders and took a firm grip of his pockets
and said he, “Why, that’s easy! I’ll ask the way and keep on till I get
there.”
In the end his mother let him go. As he walked along slowly he
questioned everything he passed—birds, grass, winds, rain, river, trees.
All these he asked the fastest road to Santa Claus; and each in turn
showed him the way as far as he knew it. The birds flew northward,
singing for him to follow after; the grass swayed and bent and made a
beaten path for him; the river carried him safely along its banks in the
tiniest shell of a boat, while the winds blew it to make it go faster.
Each horse or donkey that he met carried him as far as he could; and
every house door was opened wide to him, and the children shared with
him their bowls of bread-and-milk or soup. And wherever he passed, both
the children and the grownups alike called after him, “You’ll tell him;
you’ll make Santa Claus come and bring our Christmas back to us!”
I cannot begin to tell you the wonderful things that happened to the
boy. He traveled quickly and safely, for all that it was a long road
with no sign-posts marking the way; and just three days before Christmas
he reached the North Pole and knocked at Santa Claus’s front door. It
was opened by Santa himself, who rubbed his eyes with wonder.
“Bless my red jacket and my fur boots!” he cried in astonishment. “If it
isn’t a real, live boy! How did you get here, sirrah?”
The boy told him everything in just two sentences; and when he had
finished he begged Santa to change his mind and keep Christmas for the
children.
“Can’t do it. Don’t want to. Couldn’t if I did. Not a thing made.
Nothing to make anything of. And you can’t have Christmas without toys
and sweets. Go look in that window and see for yourself.” And the old
saint finished quite out of breath.
The boy went over to the window Santa had pointed out and, standing on
tiptoe, peered in. There was the workshop as empty as a barn in the
spring. Spiders had built their webs across the corners and mice
scampered over the floors, and that was all. The boy went slowly back to
Santa and his face looked very sad.
“Listen to this,” he said, and he took a seashell from his pocket and
held it close to old Santa’s ear. “Can you hear anything?”
Santa listened with his forehead all puckered up and a finger against
his nose.
“Humph! It sounds like somebody crying away off.”
“It’s the children,” said the little boy, “as I heard them while I
passed along the road that brought me here. And do you know why they
were crying? Because there are no trees to light, no candles to burn, no
stockings to hang, no carols to sing, no holly to make into wreaths—no
gladness anywhere. And they are very frightened because Christmas has
been lost.”
Then Santa did the funniest thing. He blew his nose so hard that he blew
tears into his eyes and down his cheeks.
“Fee, fi, fo, fum—I’m a stupid old fool!” said he. “It’s too late to do
Christmas alone this year; but I might—yes, I might—get help. The world
is full of spirits who love the children as much as I do. If they will
lend me a hand, this once, we might do it.”
Then he went into his house and brought out his wonderful magic whistle
that calls the reindeer; and he blew it once, twice, three times; and
the next instant the eight were bounding over the snow toward him.
“Go!” he commanded. “Go as quickly as ever you can to all the spirits of
the earth, water, and air, and tell them Santa Claus needs their help
this year to bring back Christmas to the children.”
Away flew the reindeer, and in less time than it takes a cloud to scud
across the sky they were back again and with them the most wonderful
gathering that has ever been seen since the world was made. There were
giants from Norway and trolls from Sweden; there were dwarfs and elves
from the mines of Cornwall and fairies from the hills of Ireland; there
were brownies from Scotland and goblins from Germany; the Yule nisse and
the skrattle from Denmark; and fairy godmothers from everywhere. And
from the ocean came the mermaids and the mermen; and from the rivers and
brooks came nixies and nymphs and swan maidens. And they all came eager
to help. Santa Claus brought down from the attic the key of the workshop
and soon everybody was busy at his own particular craft. Not a word was
spoken, and for those three days not a soul rested or slept.
The dwarfs and the elves made hammers and planes and saws, knives and
slates, trumpets and drums, rings and pins and necklaces of precious
stones, for they are the oldest metalworkers under the sun. And the
fairies are the finest spinners; and they spun cloth of silk, ribbons
and fine laces, yes, and flaxen hair for dolls. The leprechaun, who is
the fairy cobbler, made slippers of all colors and sizes from
baby-dolls’ shoes to real little girls’ party slippers and boys’
skating-boots. The giants cut down trees and sawed them into logs and
boards while the trolls made them into boats and houses, sleds and beds
and carriages. The mermaids gathered shells and pearls for beads; the
brownies stitched and sewed and dressed the dolls that Santa himself had
made. I don’t know what the nixies made, unless it was the sea-foam
candy.
There was one little goblin too little to know how to do anything, and
as no one had time to teach him he wandered about, very unhappy, until a
bright idea popped into his head. Then away he scuttled down to the
timber-lands to tell the Christmas trees to hurry up and try to grow a
bit, because the children would need them, after all.
Well, the long and short of it was that on Christmas Eve everything was
finished; and never since Santa Claus was a lad himself had there been
such an array of toys. They were so fine and they shone so bright that
the children going to bed that night said to one another, “Look up
yonder and see the Northern Lights!”
The toys were at last packed in the sleigh and the boy climbed in on the
seat next to Santa, and they were just driving away when a wee old Irish
fairy woman stepped up with a great bundle.
“’Tis stockings,” said she. “I’ve knitted one for every child, for I
knew well the poor things would never be hanging up their own this
night.”
So it happened that the Christmas that was nearly lost was found, after
all, and when the children woke up in the morning they saw their
stockings full of toys and the tall green trees all trimmed and waiting
for them. And when Santa reached the North Pole again, very tired and
sleepy, but not at all grumbly, he heard a noise that sounded like
running brooks and singing birds and waving grasses and blowing winds
all wrapped up together; and he said to himself:
“Dear,dear me! what can that be? It sounds very like the laughter of
little children all over the world.”
And that is precisely what it was.
When he had finished, Mr. Peter leaned over and whispered to David; and
David cleared his throat as if he were going to make a long speech. Then
he told his plan to Barney and Johanna and asked them would they do it.
“The heathens!” was all Johanna said; but she sounded distinctly
surprised, almost shocked.
“Why not?” said Barney. “Mind, your calling them that doesn’t make them
it. And what if they were? Is that any reason?”