AT THE GATE.
KITTY rubbed her eyes.
Where was she?
She was just at home. She was in the old familiar wood, the entrance
into which she could see from Johnnie’s window. No, there could be no
mistake; there was the pool, its silky mantle of duckweed now glistening
with ice. There, yes, there was the gate shaded by the gnarled elm, its
branches like a candelabrum of snow.
It is the gate of the wood. Kitty flies along the path till she has
reached it. She stands and looks. The dear old home picture is there
before her. She sees the old village street, the sweet-stuff shop is
just round the corner. There is the square tower of the church, covered
with ivy, and there is her home. Over its red-gabled roof the star is
shining in a sky, yellow as a bed of cowslips. There is Johnnie’s
window; the blue curtains are drawn across it. No one is stirring. There
is no one in the garden; the house door is closed; the blinds are all
down. Kitty looks fondly at the dear tranquil scene. It is like the
loveliest dream. She feasts her eyes a moment upon it, then comes in her
heart the question: “Am I in time? What secret does that blue-curtained
window hide? Is Johnnie better or is he—”
Kitty tries to push open the gate. It is locked. She pulls at the latch:
she cannot lift it. She tries to climb over the gate: it seems to grow
higher and higher. She cannot reach the top. Then she hammers with her
little closed fists at the lock, pushing against it with all the
strength of her body.
“Open, open!” she cries.
Will not some one come to open to her?
“Mother, mother!” again cries Kitty with all her might. Will no one
open?
Yes, some one is coming. Is it her mother coming toward her across the
meadow? It is a pale lady robed in white; and as her long fair mantle
trails on the ground a flash of rainbow light glows a moment and then
fades from the snow.
[Illustration]
It is Love. Her face is bright and tender. Her gentle fingers are on the
latch. The Christmas bells are ringing louder and louder.
A great joy seizes Kitty. She is in time! She is in time!
“Have you resisted all the temptations?” asks Love in her gentle
searching voice. “Did you never once lose sight of the star? Did you
never hurt your guardian child, or play with your naughty sprite?”
“If you say that you did everything that you should not have done, you
will not see Johnnie, or hear anything about him. You will have to go
back to Punishment Land,” mutters the sprite.
A cold fear seizes Kitty.
“Tell the truth!” whispers her guardian child.
“I must see Johnnie! Oh! I must see Johnnie! Open the gate!” cries
Kitty.
“Did you resist the temptations?” asks Love again, her fingers remaining
motionless on the latch.
“Do not answer—smile! That will seem good,” whispers the sprite.
The idea strikes Kitty as a happy one. A smile is not telling a
falsehood. She makes an effort as she broadens her lips into what looks
like a grin; she thinks Love’s fingers are beginning to press the latch.
“The smile means a falsehood. Tell the truth!” whispers the guardian
child.
“You have not answered!” again says Love’s voice.
“Open the gate,” entreats Kitty in anguish. “Why are you called Love
when you can stand there and not open the gate for me? I want to see
Johnnie. I want to know if he is alive. Oh! it is Christmas morning.
Open the gate, open the gate!”
Kitty has pushed her hands through the bars as she implores. She has
caught hold of Love’s fingers, and is trying to force her to push up the
latch. But still the strong hands remain motionless.
“Answer!” repeats the gentle, relentless voice.
“Say, how could I have come so far to the end of the journey you set me
if I had not obeyed?” muttered the sprite.
Kitty draws a long breath. That seems a right thing to say. It is not
false, for she is here at the journey’s end.
She begins, “How could I ha—” when she hears the guardian angel’s
whisper:
“Evasion is falsehood. Tell the truth.” Then Kitty falls on her knees.
“Oh, why are you called Love,” she repeats, “when you are so severe? Why
will you keep pressing me with questions? It is Christmas morning! Let
me see Johnnie! Let me see Johnnie!”
But Love answers only: “The day is dawning. You must answer.”
“Answer truly!” whispers the guardian child. “Never mind what happens.
Answer truly.”
Kitty puts her hands over her eyes, not to see that dear home-picture
fade away, that curtained window vanish from her sight without knowing
the secret that it hides concerning Johnnie.
[Illustration]
“I loitered with every temptation,” she says very low but very clearly;
“but my guardian child helped me to escape, till at last I struck it and
drove it away. Then I lost sight of the star, and I played with my
naughty sprite.” Kitty’s voice fails here, and with a sob she stretches
herself down on the snow.
She hides her face. She will not see the mist of Punishment Land rise,
and blot out that loved familiar scene. She closes her ears, not to hear
the tramp of the restless feet, the sobbings and cries of the children
there.
What sound pierces through the silence and reaches muffled through the
hands pressed tightly against her ears? She removes them and listens. It
is the sound of bells, Christmas bells. Louder and louder, clearer and
clearer they ring. The happy chimes fill all the air. Somebody strokes
her hair with a caressing touch, a voice whispers, “Good old Kitsy; good
old Kitsy!”
Kitty looks up. It is her guardian child who is bending over her; with
Johnnie’s eyes he looks at her; he is smiling; his wings sparkle; his
rainbow dress is like woven fire; his hair shines like a tiny sun about
his head.
“You have been out on Christmas Eve,” he whispers; “the night when all
the goblins are abroad, when the good and evil spirits walk the earth.
But it is the night when love is strongest, and keeps those safe who are
true. Look! look! the night has passed; the holy morning has dawned, and
you are home.”
“Home!” cries Kitty, starting to her feet.
Yes, the familiar scene is still there—the old street, the dear
red-roofed home, the window with the curtains drawn across it. The fog
dims the scene no longer. Love is unseen; but the gate is standing open,
wide open, and a great web of hoar-frost hangs on the latch. For a
moment Kitty remains stupidly gazing. She cannot believe it. Then she
runs past the gate out into the road uttering a loud cry, “Johnnie!
Johnnie!”
Then again another cry, “Johnnie!”
It seems to her that a weak voice answers, “Kitty! Kitty!”
Does that faint voice come out of the star? Does it speak out of the sky
to her?
Kitty looks up: her foot trips; she falls—not to the ground, but down,
down, down, and still that voice tinkles in her ear, “Kitty! Kitty!”
Then
* * * * *
“Kitty! Kitty! Merry Christmas, Kitty!” It was Johnnie’s voice.
A tiny face peeped down at her from white wrappings and shawls, laughing
at her as from a hood of snow.
[Illustration]
Yes, it was Johnnie—Johnnie wrapped up like an Esquimaux; wrapped out of
all shape; a bundle of white wool in their mother’s arms.
She, too, was smiling down upon her little girl.
Kitty had fallen down, down, and while falling had lost all sense of
everything except that voice, and now here she was back again in her own
bed as if nothing had happened. Oh! what cannot Love do?
Kitty started up, and before she could say a word Johnnie was put into
her arms, tucked up into the bed beside her, and their mother told her
that Johnnie had slept through the night, and that he had turned the bad
corner of his illness. “He begged so hard to be allowed to wake you up
by calling out ‘Merry Christmas,’ I could not refuse him,” continued the
mother, shedding tears of gladness. “Christmas Day has brought a
blessing.”
“Happy Christmas to everybody!” said their father, now putting his head
into the room. He looked as if he would like to say something that would
make everybody laugh. But instead of that he paused and said instead, in
a very husky voice, “God bless little Johnnie!”
“That’s what I say,” cried nurse, whisking a tear away with the corner
of her apron. “I thought it was going to be the most miserable Christmas
Day that ever was, but Johnnie getting better makes it as different—as
different—as if this was a Christmas-box come down to this house from
heaven.”
Just then who should begin to whistle but the bullfinch? His cage was in
a dark corner, and at the sound of that unexpected note Johnnie clapped
his tiny hands and crowed with delight. Kitty laughed and cried
together. And if the bullfinch did not mean, by bursting into song at
that moment, to say, “Happy Christmas to all the world, and God bless
little Johnnie, and all the children in it!” I don’t know what it meant,
and I give up guessing.
* * * * *
“Oh, Johnnie!” said Kitty in a whisper, when she was left alone with her
little brother, “something wonderful happened last night. It is like a
story.”
“Is it as wonderful as the story of the blue rose?” asked Johnnie in
another whisper.
“E-ver, e-ver so much more wonderful! And it is true,” answered Kitty
very low and with a nod that conveyed a great deal more than her words.
“It was Christmas Eve. I went out, and all the goblins and the elves
were out. I saw them and talked to them, but there was Love also taking
care of everybody who tried to be good. It is the night when Love has
most power, and I saw my guardian child, and my naughty self in the
shape of a sprite, and—But hush! some one is coming, and it is a
secret.”
[Illustration]
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.