another, for which Deacon Pratt's house was always the place, not
counting the sociables which Jack attended with unfailing regularity.
They would not, any of them, have been quite regular without Jack.
Indeed, many a question of grave church polity had been settled only
after it had been submitted to and passed upon in meeting by Jack. "Is
not that so, Jack?" was a favorite clincher to arguments which, it was
felt, had won over his master. And Jack's groping paw cemented a treaty
of good-will and mutual concession that had helped the village church
over more than one hard place. For there were hard heads and stubborn
wills in it as there are in other churches; and Deacon Pratt, for all
he was a just man, was set on having his way.
And now all this was changed. What had come over the town Jack couldn't
make out, but that it was something serious nobody was needed to
tell him. Folks he used to meet at the gate, going to the trains of
mornings, on neighborly terms, hurried past him without as much as a
look. Deacon Jones, who gave him ginger-snaps out of the pantry-crock
as a special bribe for a hand-shake, had even put out his foot to kick
him, actually kick him, when he waylaid him at the corner that morning.
The whole week there had not been as much as a visitor at the house,
and what with Christmas in town--Jack knew the signs well enough; they
meant raisins and goodies that came only when they burned candles on
trees in the church--it was enough to make any dog cross. To top it
all, his mistress must come down sick, worried into it all, as like as
not, he had heard the doctor say. If Jack's thoughts could have been
put into words as he sat on the porch looking moodily over the road,
they would doubtless have taken something like this shape, that it was
a pity that men didn't have the sense of dogs, but would bear grudges
and make themselves and their betters unhappy. And in the village there
would have been more than one to agree with him secretly.
Jack wouldn't have been any the wiser had he been told that the trouble
that had come to town was that of all things most worrisome, a church
quarrel. What was it about and how did it come? I doubt if any of
the men and women who strove in meeting for principle and conscience
with might and main, and said mean things about each other out of
meeting, could have explained it. I know they all would have explained
it differently, and so added fuel to the fire that was hot enough
already. In fact, that was what had happened the night before Jack
encountered his special friend, Deacon Jones, and it was in virtue of
his master's share in it that he had bestowed the memorable kick upon
him. Deacon Pratt was the valiant leader of the opposing faction.
To the general stress of mind the holiday had but added another cause
of irritation. Could Jack have understood the ethics of men he would
have known that it strangely happens that:
"Forgiveness to the injured does belong,
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong,"
and that everybody in a church quarrel having injured everybody else
within reach for conscience sake, the season of good-will and even the
illness of that good woman, the wife of Deacon Pratt, admittedly from
worry over the trouble, practically put a settlement of it out of the
question. But being only a dog he did not understand. He could only
sulk; and as this went well enough with things as they were in general,
it proved that Jack was, as was well known, a very intelligent dog.
He had yet to give another proof of it, that very day, by preaching to
the divided congregation its Christmas sermon, a sermon that is to this
day remembered in Brownville; but of that neither they nor he, sitting
there on the stoop nursing his grievances, had at that time any warning.
It was Christmas Eve. Since the early Lutherans settled there, away
back in the last century, it had been the custom in the village to
celebrate the Holy Eve with a special service and a Christmas tree; and
preparations had been going forward for it all the afternoon. It was
noticeable that the fighting in the congregation in no wise interfered
with the observance of the established forms of worship; rather, it
seemed to lend a keener edge to them. It was only the spirit that
suffered. Jack, surveying the road from the porch, saw baskets and
covered trays carried by, and knew their contents. He had watched the
big Christmas tree going down on the grocer's sled, and his experience
plus his nose supplied the rest. As the lights came out one by one
after twilight, he stirred uneasily at the unwonted stillness in his
house. Apparently no one was getting ready for church. Could it be that
they were not going; that this thing was to be carried to the last
ditch? He decided to go and investigate.
His investigations were brief, but entirely conclusive. For the second
time that day he was spurned, and by a friend. This time it was the
deacon himself who drove him from his wife's room, whither he had
betaken him with true instinct to ascertain the household intentions.
The deacon seemed to be, if anything, in a worse humor than even Jack
himself. The doctor had told him that afternoon that Mrs. Pratt was a
very sick woman, and that, if she was to pull through at all, she must
be kept from all worriment in an atmosphere which fairly bristled with
it. The deacon felt that he had a contract on his hands which might
prove too heavy for him. He felt, too, with bitterness, that he was an
ill-used man, that all his years of faithful labor in the vineyard went
for nothing because of some wretched heresy which the enemy had devised
to wreck it; and all his humbled pride and his pent-up wrath gathered
itself into the kick with which he sent poor Jack flying back where he
had come from. It was clear that the deacon was not going to church.
Lonely and forsaken, Jack took his old seat on the porch and pondered.
The wrinkles in his brow multiplied and grew deeper as he looked down
the road and saw the Joneses, the Smiths, and the Allens go by toward
the church. When the Merritts had passed, too, under the lamp, he knew
that it must be nearly time for the sermon. They always came in after
the long prayer. Jack took a turn up and down the porch, whined at the
door once, and, receiving no answer, set off down the road by himself.
The church was filled. It had never looked handsomer. The rival
factions had vied with each other in decorating it. Spruce and hemlock
sprouted everywhere, and garlands of ground-ivy festooned walls and
chancel. The delicious odor of balsam and of burning wax-candles was in
the air. The people were all there in their Sunday clothes and the old
minister in the pulpit; but the Sunday feeling was not there. Something
was not right. Deacon Pratt's pew alone of them all was empty, and the
congregation cast wistful glances at it, some secretly behind their
hymn-books, others openly and sorrowfully. What the doctor had said in
the afternoon had got out. He himself had told Mrs. Mills that it was
doubtful if the deacon's wife got around, and it sat heavily upon the
conscience of the people.
The opening hymns were sung; the Merritts, late as usual, had taken
their seats. The minister took up the Book to read the Christmas gospel
from the second chapter of Luke. He had been there longer than most of
those who were in the church to-night could remember, had grown old
with the people, had loved them as the shepherd who is answerable to
the Master for his flock. Their griefs and their troubles were his.
If he could not ward them off, he could suffer with them. His voice
trembled a little as he read of the tidings of great joy. Perhaps it
was age; but it grew firmer as he proceeded toward the end:--
"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good-will toward men.'"
The old minister closed the Book and looked out over the congregation.
He looked long and yearningly, and twice he cleared his throat, only
to repeat, "on earth peace, good-will toward men." The people settled
back in their seats, uneasily; they strangely avoided the eye of their
pastor. It rested in its slow survey of the flock upon Deacon Pratt's
empty pew. And at that moment a strange thing occurred.
Why it should seem strange was, perhaps, not the least strange part of
it. Jack had come in alone before. He knew the trick of the door-latch,
and had often opened it unaided. He was in the habit of attending the
church with the folks; there was no reason why they should not expect
him, unless they knew of one themselves. But somehow the click of the
latch went clear through the congregation as the heavenly message of
good-will had not. All eyes were turned upon the deacon's pew; and they
waited.
Jack came slowly and gravely up the aisle and stopped at his master's
pew. He sniffed of the empty seat disapprovingly once or twice--he had
never seen it in that state before--then he climbed up and sat, serious
and attentive as he was wont, in his old seat, facing the pulpit,
nodding once as who should say, "I'm here; proceed!"
It is recorded that not even a titter was heard from the Sunday-school,
which was out in force. In the silence that reigned in the church was
heard only a smothered sob. The old minister looked with misty eyes
at his friend. He took off his spectacles, wiped them and put them on
again, and tried to speak; but the tears ran down his cheeks and choked
his voice. The congregation wept with him.
"Brethren," he said, when he could speak, "glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good-will toward men! Jack has preached a better
sermon than I can to-night. Let us pray together."
It is further recorded that the first and only quarrel in the
Brownville church ended on Christmas Eve and was never heard of again,
and that it was all the work of Jack's sermon.
MERRY CHRISTMAS IN THE TENEMENTS
It was just a sprig of holly, with scarlet berries showing against the
green, stuck in, by one of the office boys probably, behind the sign
that pointed the way up to the editorial rooms. There was no reason
why it should have made me start when I came suddenly upon it at the
turn of the stairs; but it did. Perhaps it was because that dingy hall,
given over to dust and draughts all the days of the year, was the last
place in which I expected to meet with any sign of Christmas; perhaps
it was because I myself had nearly forgotten the holiday. Whatever the
cause, it gave me quite a turn.
I stood, and stared at it. It looked dry, almost withered. Probably it
had come a long way. Not much holly grows about Printing-House Square,
except in the colored supplements, and that is scarcely of a kind to
stir tender memories. Withered and dry, this did. I thought, with a
twinge of conscience, of secret little conclaves of my children, of
private views of things hidden from mamma at the bottom of drawers,
of wild flights when papa appeared unbidden in the door, which I had
allowed for once to pass unheeded. Absorbed in the business of the
office, I had hardly thought of Christmas coming on, until now it was
here. And this sprig of holly on the wall that had come to remind
me,--come nobody knew how far,--did it grow yet in the beech-wood
clearings, as it did when I gathered it as a boy, tracking through
the snow? "Christ-thorn" we called it in our Danish tongue. The red
berries, to our simple faith, were the drops of blood that fell from
the Saviour's brow as it drooped under its cruel crown upon the cross.
Back to the long ago wandered my thoughts: to the moss-grown beech
in which I cut my name and that of a little girl with yellow curls,
of blessed memory, with the first jack-knife I ever owned; to the
story-book with the little fir tree that pined because it was small,
and because the hare jumped over it, and would not be content though
the wind and the sun kissed it, and the dews wept over it and told it
to rejoice in its young life; and that was so proud when, in the second
year, the hare had to go round it, because then it knew it was getting
big,--Hans Christian Andersen's story that we loved above all the rest;
for we knew the tree right well, and the hare; even the tracks it left
in the snow we had seen. Ah, those were the Yule-tide seasons, when the
old Domkirke shone with a thousand wax candles on Christmas eve; when
all business was laid aside to let the world make merry one whole week;
when big red apples were roasted on the stove, and bigger doughnuts
were baked within it for the long feast! Never such had been known
since. Christmas to-day is but a name, a memory.
A door slammed below, and let in the noises of the street. The holly
rustled in the draught. Some one going out said, "A Merry Christmas to
you all!" in a big, hearty voice. I awoke from my revery to find myself
back in New York with a glad glow at the heart. It was not true. I had
only forgotten. It was myself that had changed, not Christmas. That was
here, with the old cheer, the old message of good-will, the old royal
road to the heart of mankind. How often had I seen its blessed charity,
that never corrupts, make light in the hovels of darkness and despair!
how often watched its spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion in those
who had, besides themselves, nothing to give! and as often the sight
had made whole my faith in human nature. No! Christmas was not of the
past, its spirit not dead. The lad who fixed the sprig of holly on the
stairs knew it; my reporter's note-book bore witness to it. Witness of
my contrition for the wrong I did the gentle spirit of the holiday,
here let the book tell the story of one Christmas in the tenements of
the poor:--
It is evening in Grand Street. The shops east and west are pouring
forth their swarms of workers. Street and sidewalk are filled with an
eager throng of young men and women, chatting gayly, and elbowing
the jam of holiday shoppers that linger about the big stores. The
street-cars labor along, loaded down to the steps with passengers
carrying bundles of every size and odd shape. Along the curb a string
of pedlers hawk penny toys in push-carts with noisy clamor, fearless
for once of being moved on by the police. Christmas brings a two
weeks' respite from persecution even to the friendless street-fakir.
From the window of one brilliantly lighted store a bevy of mature
dolls in dishabille stretch forth their arms appealingly to a troop of
factory-hands passing by. The young men chaff the girls, who shriek
with laughter and run. The policeman on the corner stops beating his
hands together to keep warm, and makes a mock attempt to catch them,
whereat their shrieks rise shriller than ever. "Them stockin's o' yourn
'll be the death o' Santa Claus!" he shouts after them, as they dodge.
And they, looking back, snap saucily, "Mind yer business, freshy!"
But their laughter belies their words. "They giv' it to ye straight
that time," grins the grocer's clerk, come out to snatch a look at the
crowds; and the two swap holiday greetings.
At the corner, where two opposing tides of travel form an eddy, the
line of push-carts debouches down the darker side street. In its gloom
their torches burn with a fitful glare that wakes black shadows
among the trusses of the railroad structure overhead. A woman, with
worn shawl drawn tightly about head and shoulders, bargains with a
pedler for a monkey on a stick and two cents' worth of flitter-gold.
Five ill-clad youngsters flatten their noses against the frozen pane
of the toy-shop, in ecstasy at something there, which proves to be
a milk wagon, with driver, horses, and cans that can be unloaded.
It is something their minds can grasp. One comes forth with a penny
goldfish of pasteboard clutched tightly in his hand, and, casting
cautious glances right and left, speeds across the way to the door of
a tenement, where a little girl stands waiting. "It's yer Chris'mas,
Kate," he says, and thrusts it into her eager fist. The black doorway
swallows them up.
Across the narrow yard, in the basement of the rear house, the lights
of a Christmas tree show against the grimy window pane. The hare would
never have gone around it, it is so very small. The two children are
busily engaged fixing the goldfish upon one of its branches. Three
little candles that burn there shed light upon a scene of utmost
desolation. The room is black with smoke and dirt. In the middle of the
floor oozes an oil-stove that serves at once to take the raw edge off
the cold and to cook the meals by. Half the window panes are broken,
and the holes stuffed with rags. The sleeve of an old coat hangs out
of one, and beats drearily upon the sash when the wind sweeps over
the fence and rattles the rotten shutters. The family wash, clammy and
gray, hangs on a clothes-line stretched across the room. Under it, at
a table set with cracked and empty plates, a discouraged woman sits
eying the children's show gloomily. It is evident that she has been
drinking. The peaked faces of the little ones wear a famished look.
There are three--the third an infant, put to bed in what was once a
baby carriage. The two from the street are pulling it around to get the
tree in range. The baby sees it, and crows with delight. The boy shakes
a branch, and the goldfish leaps and sparkles in the candle-light.
"See, sister!" he pipes; "see Santa Claus!" And they clap their hands
in glee. The woman at the table wakes out of her stupor, gazes around
her, and bursts into a fit of maudlin weeping.
The door falls to. Five flights up, another opens upon a bare attic
room which a patient little woman is setting to rights. There are only
three chairs, a box, and a bedstead in the room, but they take a deal
of careful arranging. The bed hides the broken plaster in the wall
through which the wind came in; each chair-leg stands over a rat-hole,
at once to hide it and to keep the rats out. One is left; the box
is for that. The plaster of the ceiling is held up with pasteboard
patches. I know the story of that attic. It is one of cruel desertion.
The woman's husband is even now living in plenty with the creature
for whom he forsook her, not a dozen blocks away, while she "keeps the
home together for the childer." She sought justice, but the lawyer
demanded a retainer; so she gave it up, and went back to her little
ones. For this room that barely keeps the winter wind out she pays four
dollars a month, and is behind with the rent. There is scarce bread in
the house; but the spirit of Christmas has found her attic. Against
a broken wall is tacked a hemlock branch, the leavings of the corner
grocer's fitting-block; pink string from the packing-counter hangs on
it in festoons. A tallow dip on the box furnishes the illumination. The
children sit up in bed, and watch it with shining eyes.
"We're having Christmas!" they say.
The lights of the Bowery glow like a myriad twinkling stars upon
the ceaseless flood of humanity that surges ever through the great
highway of the homeless. They shine upon long rows of lodging-houses,
in which hundreds of young men, cast helpless upon the reef of the
strange city, are learning their first lessons of utter loneliness;
for what desolation is there like that of the careless crowd when all
the world rejoices? They shine upon the tempter setting his snares
there, and upon the missionary and the Salvation Army lass, disputing
his catch with him; upon the police detective going his rounds with
coldly observant eye intent upon the outcome of the contest; upon
the wreck that is past hope, and upon the youth pausing on the verge
of the pit in which the other has long ceased to struggle. Sights
and sounds of Christmas there are in plenty in the Bowery. Balsam
and hemlock and fir stand in groves along the busy thoroughfare, and
garlands of green embower mission and dive impartially. Once a year
the old street recalls its youth with an effort. It is true that it
is largely a commercial effort; that the evergreen, with an instinct
that is not of its native hills, haunts saloon-corners by preference;
but the smell of the pine woods is in the air, and--Christmas is not
too critical--one is grateful for the effort. It varies with the
opportunity. At "Beefsteak John's" it is content with artistically
embalming crullers and mince-pies in green cabbage under the window
lamp. Over yonder, where the mile-post of the old lane still
stands,--in its unhonored old age become the vehicle of publishing the
latest "sure cure" to the world,--a florist, whose undenominational
zeal for the holiday and trade outstrips alike distinction of creed and
property, has transformed the sidewalk and the ugly railroad structure
into a veritable bower, spanning it with a canopy of green, under which
dwell with him, in neighborly good-will, the Young Men's Christian
Association and the Jewish tailor next door.
In the next block a "turkey-shoot" is in progress. Crowds are trying
their luck at breaking the glass balls that dance upon tiny jets of
water in front of a marine view with the moon rising, yellow and big,
out of a silver sea. A man-of-war, with lights burning aloft, labors
under a rocky coast. Groggy sailormen, on shore leave, make unsteady
attempts upon the dancing balls. One mistakes the moon for the target,
but is discovered in season. "Don't shoot that," says the man who loads
the guns; "there's a lamp behind it." Three scared birds in the window
recess try vainly to snatch a moment's sleep between shots and the
trains that go roaring overhead on the elevated road. Roused by the
sharp crack of the rifles, they blink at the lights in the street, and
peck moodily at a crust in their bed of shavings.
The dime museum gong clatters out its noisy warning that "the lecture"
is about to begin. From the concert hall, where men sit drinking beer
in clouds of smoke, comes the thin voice of a short-skirted singer,
warbling, "Do they think of me at home?" The young fellow who sits
near the door, abstractedly making figures in the wet track of the
"schooners," buries something there with a sudden restless turn, and
calls for another beer. Out in the street a band strikes up. A host
with banners advances, chanting an unfamiliar hymn. In the ranks
marches a cripple on crutches. Newsboys follow, gaping. Under the
illuminated clock of the Cooper Institute the procession halts, and
the leader, turning his face to the sky, offers a prayer. The passing
crowds stop to listen. A few bare their heads. The devoted group, the
flapping banners, and the changing torch-light on upturned faces, make
a strange, weird picture. Then the drum-beat, and the band files into
its barracks across the street. A few of the listeners follow, among
them the lad from the concert hall, who slinks shamefacedly in when he
thinks no one is looking.