any minute Timothy might get there with Silas in tow. Mis' Sykes was
nervous as a witch over it, an' it was her proposed we set the children
up on the cots an' begin' feedin' 'em right away. I run down the room to
tell Abel, an' then I hed to tell him _why_ we'd best hurry.
"Abel laughs a little when he heard about it.
"'Dear old Timothy,' he says, 'servin' his God accordin' to the dictates
of his own notions. Wait a minute till I release the princess.'
"When he said that, I was afraid he must be telling a worldly story with
royalty in. An' I begun to get troubled myself. But I heard him end it:
'So the Princess found her kingdom because she learnt to love every
living thing. She saved the lives of the hare an' the goldfinch. An'
don't you ever let any living thing suffer one minute and maybe you'll
find out some of the things the Princess knew.' An', royalty or not, I
felt all right about Abel's story-telling after that.
"Then we all brisked round an' begun settin' the children up on the
cots--two or three to a cot, with one of us to wait on 'em. An' both the
little sleepy ones woke up, too. An' when we sliced an' spread the bread
an' dished the hot chicken broth an' see how hungry they all seemed, I
declare if one of us could feel wicked. The little things'd begun to
talk some by then, an' they chatted soft an' looked up at us, an' that
little Mitsy--she'd got so she'd kiss me every time I'd ask her. An' I
was perfectly shameless. I donno's the poor little thing got enough to
eat. But sometimes when things go blue--I like to think about that. I
guess we was all the same. Our principal feelin' was how dear they was,
an' to hurry up before Timothy Toplady got there, an' how we wish't we
hed more milk.
"Then all of a sudden while we was flyin' round, I happened to go past
the front door, an' I heard a noise in the entry. I thought o' Timothy
an' Silas, comin' with sheriffs an' firearms an' I didn't know
what--Silas havin' politics back of him, so; an' I rec'lect I planned,
wild an' contradictory, first about callin' an instantaneous
congregational meetin' to decide which was right, an' then about
telegraphin' to the City for constituted authority to do as we was
doin', an' then about Abel fightin' Timothy an' Silas both, if it come
rilly necessary.
"I got hold o' Mis' Sykes an' Mame Holcomb, an' told 'em quiet.
'Somethin's the matter outside there,' I says to 'em, kind o' warnin',
'an' I thought you two'd ought to know it.' An' we all three come 'round
by the entry door, careless, an listened. An' the noise kep' up, kind o'
soft an' obstinate, an' we couldn't make it out.
"'We'd best go out there an' see,' says Mis' Sykes, low; 'the dear land
knows what men _will_ do.'
"So we watched our chance an' slipped out--an' I guess, for all our high
ways, we was all three wonderin' inside, was we rilly doin' right. You
know your doubts come thick when there's a noise in the entry. But Mis'
Sykes acted as brave as two, an' it was her shut the door to behind us.
"An' there, right by that stone just outside the entry o' the church,
set Mis' Timothy Toplady, _milkin' her Jersey cow_.
"We could just see her, dim, by the light o' the transom. She was on the
secunt pail, an' that was two-thirds full. She hed her back toward us,
an' she didn't hear us. She set all wrapped up in a shawl, a basket o'
cups side of her, an' the Jersey standin' there, quiet an' demure. An'
beyond, in the cut an' movin' acrost the Pump pasture, it was thick with
lanterns.
"But before we three'd hed time to burst out like we wanted to, we sort
o' scrooched back again. Because on the other side o' the cow we heard
Timothy Toplady's voice. He'd just got there, some breathless, an' with
him, we see, was Eppleby.
"'Amanda,' says Timothy, 'what in the Dominion o' Canady air you doin'?'
"'I shouldn't think you would know,' says Mis' Toplady, short. 'You
don't do enough of it.'
"She hed him there. Timothy always _will_ go down to the Dick Dasher an'
shirk the chores.
"'Amanda,' says Timothy, 'you've disobeyed me flat-footed.'
"'No such thing,' s'she, milkin' away like mad for fear he'd use force;
'I ain't carried a drop o' milk here. I've drove it,' she says.
"Timothy groaned.
"'Milkin' in the church,' he says.
"'No, sir,' says Amanda, back at him; 'I'm outside on the sod, an' you
know it.'
"An' then my hopes sort o' riz, because I thought I heard Eppleby
Holcomb laugh soft--sort of a half-an'-half chuckle. Like he'd looked
under the situation an' see it wasn't alike on both sides. An' 't the
same time Mis' Toplady, she changed her way, an',--
"'Timothy,' s'she, 'you hungry?'
"'I'm nigh starved,' says Timothy. 'It must be eight o'clock,' s'e, 'but
I ain't the heart to think o' that.'
"'No,' s'she, 'so you ain't. Not with them poor babies in there
hungrier'n you be an' nowheres to go.'
"With that she got done milkin' an' stood up an' picked up her two
pails--we could smell the sweet, warm milk from where we was.
"'Timothy,' s'she, 'the worst sacrilege that's done in _this_ world is
when folks turns their backs on any little bit of a chance that the Lord
gives 'em to do good in, like He told 'em. Who was it, I'd like to know,
said, "Suffer little children"? Who was it said, "Feed my lambs"? No
"when" or "where" about that. Just _do it_. An' no occasion to hem an'
haw about it, either. The least you can do for your share in this, as I
see it, is to keep your silence and drive the cow back home. The oven's
full o' bake' sweet potatoes an' they must be just nearin' done.'
"I see Timothy start to wave his arms an' I donno what he would 'a' said
if it hadn't been settled for 'im. For then, like it was right out o'
the sky, the church organ begun to play soft. For a minute we all looked
up, like the Shepherds must of when the voices of the night told 'em the
spirit o' God was in the world, born in a little child. It was Abel,--I
knew right away it was Abel,--an' he was just gentlin' round soft on the
keys, kind o' like he was askin' a blessin' an' rockin' a cradle an'
doin' all the little nice things music can. An' with that Mis' Sykes,
she throws open the church door.
"I'll never forget how it looked inside--all warm an' lamp-lit an' with
them little things bein' fed an' chatterin' soft. An' up in the loft set
Abel, playin' away on the foreign organ before it'd been dedicated. An'
then he begun singin' low--an' there's somethin' about Abel 't you just
_haf_ to listen, whatever he says or does. Even Timothy hed to
listen--though I think he was some struck dumb, too, an' that kep' him
controlled for a minute--like it will. An' Abel sung:--
"'The Lord is my Shepherd--I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me--He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul....'
"An' at the first line, before we'd rilly sensed what it was he said,
every one o' them little children in the midst o' their supper slips off
the edge o' the cots an' kneeled down there on the bare floor, just like
they'd been told to. Oh, wasn't it wonderful? An' yet it wasn't--it
wasn't. We found out, when folks come for 'em the next mornin', it was
the children's prayer that they sung every day o' their lives at their
Good Shepherd's Orphans' Home--soft an' out o' tune an' with all their
little hearts, just as they went ahead an' sung it with Abel, clear to
the end. I guess they didn't know everybody don't kneel down all over
the world when they hear the Twenty-third Psalm.
"Abel seen 'em in the little lookin'-glass over the keyboard. An' when
he'd got done he set there perfectly still with his head down. An' Mis'
Sykes an' Mis' Holcomb an' Eppleby an' I bowed our heads too, out there
in the entry. An' so, after a minute, did Timothy. I couldn't help
peekin' to see.
"An' then, when the children was all a-rustlin' up, Mis' Toplady she
jus' hands her two pails o' milk over to Timothy.
"'You take 'em in,' she says to him, her eyes swimmin'. 'I've come off
without my handkerchief.'
"Timothy looks round him, kind o' helpless, but Eppleby stood there an'
pats him on the arm.
"'Go in--go in, brother,' Eppleby says gentle. 'I guess the church's
been dedicated. I feel like we'd heard the big wind--an' I guess, mebbe,
the Pentecostal tongues.'
"An' Timothy--he's an awful tender-hearted man in spite o' bein' so
notional--Timothy just went on in with the milk, without sayin'
anything. An' Eppleby side of him. An' we 'most shut the door on Silas
Sykes, comin' tearin' up on account o' Timothy leavin' him urgent word
to come, without explainin' why. An' when Silas see the inside o' the
church, all lit up an' chicken supper for the children an' the other two
elders there with the milk, he just rubs his hands an' beams like he see
his secunt term. I donno's it'd ever enter Silas Sykes's head't there
was anything wrong with anything, providin' somebody wasn't snappin' him
up for it. I guess it's like that in politics.
"We took the milk around an', bake' sweet potatoes forgot, Timothy stood
up by the stove, between Eppleby an' Silas, an' watched us--an' the
Jersey must 'a' picked her way home alone. An' Abel, he just set there
to the organ, gentlin' 'round soft on the keys so it made me think o'
God movin' on the face o' the waters. An' movin' on the face of
everything else too, dedicated or not. It was like we'd felt the big
wind, same as Eppleby said. An' somethin' in it kind o' hid, secret an'
holy."
VIII
THE GRANDMA LADIES
Two weeks before Christmas Friendship was thrown into a state of holiday
delight. Mrs. Proudfit and her daughter, Miss Clementina, issued
invitations to a reception to be given on Christmas Eve at Proudfit
House, on Friendship Hill. The Proudfits, who had rarely entertained
since Miss Linda went away, lived in Europe and New York and spent
little time in the village, but, for all that, they remained citizens in
absence, and Friendship always wrote out invitations for them whenever
it gave "companies." The invitations the postmaster duly forwarded to
some Manhattan bank, though I think the village had a secret conviction
that these were never received--"sent out wild to a bank in the City,
so." However, now that old courtesies were to be so magnificently
returned, every one believed and felt a greater respect for the whole
financial world.
The invitations enclosed the card of Mrs. Nita Ordway, and the name
sounded for me a note of other days when, before my coming to Friendship
Village, we two had, in the town, belonged to one happy circle of
friends.
"I thought at first mebbe the card'd got shoved in the envelope by
mistake," said Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I know once I got a
Christmas book from a cousin o' mine in the City, an' a strange man's
card fell out o' the leaves. I sent the card right straight back to her,
an' Cousin Jane seemed rill cut up, so I made up my mind I'd lay low
about this card. But I hear everybody's got 'em. I s'pose it's a sign
that it's some Mis' Ordway's party too--only not enough hers to get her
name on the invite. Mebbe she chipped in on the expenses. Give a third,
like enough."
However that was, Friendship looked on the Christmas party as on some
unexpected door about to open in its path, and it woke in the morning
conscious of expectation before it could remember what to expect.
Proudfit House! A Christmas party! It touched every one as might some
giant Santa Claus, for grown-ups, with a pack of heart's-ease on his
back.
When Mrs. Ordway arrived in the village, the excitement mounted. Mrs.
Nita Ordway was the first exquisitely beautiful woman of the great world
whom Friendship had ever seen--"beautiful like in the pictures of when
noted folks was young," the village breathlessly summed her up. To be
sure, when she and her little daughter, Viola, rode out in the
Proudfits' motor, nobody in the street appeared to look at them. But
Friendship knew when they rode, and when they walked, and what they
wore, and when they returned.
It was a happiness to me to see Mrs. Ordway again, and I sat often with
her in the music room at Proudfit House and listened to her glorious
voice in just the songs that I love. Sometimes she would send for her
little Viola, so that I might sit with the child in my arms, for she was
one of those rare children who will let you love them.
"I like be made some 'tention to," Viola sometimes said shyly. She was
not afraid, and she would stay with me hour-long, as if she loved to be
loved. She was like a little come-a-purpose spirit, to let one pretend.
A day or two after the invitations had been received, I was in my guest
room going over my Christmas list. Just before Christmas I delight in
the look of a guest room, for then the bed is spread with a brave array
of pretty things, and when one arranges and wraps them, the stitches of
rose and blue on flowered fabrics, the flutter of crisp ribbons, and the
breath of sachets make one glad. I was lingering at my task when I heard
some one below, and I recognized her voice.
"Calliope!" I called gladly from the stairs, and bade her come up to me.
Calliope is one of the women in whose presence one can wrap one's
Christmas gifts. She came into the room, bringing a breath of Winter,
and she laid aside her tan ulster and her round straw hat, and
straightway sat down on the rug by the open fire.
"Well said!" she cried contentedly, "a grate fire upstairs! It's one of
the things that never seems real to me, like a tower on a house. I'd as
soon think o' havin' a grate fire up a tree an' settin' there, as in my
chamber. Anyway, when it comes Winter, upstairs in Friendship is just a
place where you go after something in the bureau draw' an' come down
again as quick as you can. I s'pose you got an invite to the party?"
"Yes," I said, "and you will go, Calliope?"
But instead of answering me:--
"My land!" she said, "think of it! A party like that, an' not a
low-necked waist in town, nor a swallow-tail! An' only two weeks to do
anything in, an' only Liddy Ember for dressmaker, an' it takes her two
weeks to make a dress. I guess Mis' Postmaster Sykes has got her. They
say she read her invite in the post-office with one hand an' snapped up
that tobacco-brown net in the post-office store window with the other,
an' out an' up to Liddy's an' hired her before she was up from the
breakfast table. So she gets the town new dress. Mis' Sykes is terrible
quick-moved."
"What will you wear, Calliope?" I asked.
"Me--I never wear anything but henriettas," she said. "I think the
plainer-faced you are, the simpler you'd ought to be dressed. I use' to
fix up terrible ruffled, but when I see I was reg'lar plain-faced I
stuck to henriettas, mostly gray--"
"Calliope," I said resolutely, "you don't mean you're not going to the
Proudfit party?"
She clasped her hands and held them, palms outward, over her mouth, and
her eyes twinkled above them.
"No, sir," she said, "I can't go. You'll laugh at me!" she defended.
"Don't you tell!" she warned. And finally she told me.
"Day before yesterday," she said, "I went into the City. An' I come out
on the trolley. An' I donno what possessed me,--I ain't done it for
months,--but when we crossed the start of the Plank Road, I got off an'
went up an' visited the Old Ladies' Home. You know I've always thought,"
she broke off, "--well, you know I ain't a rill lot to do with, an' I
always had an i-dee that mebbe sometime, when I got older, I might--"
I nodded, and she went on.
"Well, I walked around among 'em up there--canary birds an' plants an'
footstools--an' the whole thing fixed up so cheerful that it's pitiful.
Red wall-paper an' flowered curtains an' such, all fair yellin' at you,
'We're cheerful--cheerful--cheerful!' till I like to run. An' it come
over me, bein' so near Christmas an' all, what would they do on
Christmas? So I asked a woman in a navy-blue dress, seein' she flipped
around like she was the flag o' the place.
"'The south corridor,' she answers,--them's the highest payin"--Calliope
threw in, "'chipped in an' got up a tree, an' there's gifts for all,'
s'she. 'The west corridor'--them's the local city ones--'all has friends
to take 'em away for the day. The east corridor'--they're from farther
away an' middlin' well-to-do--'all has boxes comin' to 'em from off. But
the north corridor,' s'she, scowlin' some, 'is rather a trial to us.'
"An' I was waitin' for that. The north corridor is all charity old
ladies, paid for out o' the fund; an' the president o' the home has just
died, an' the secretary's in the old country on a pleasure trip, an' the
board's in a row over the policy o' the home, an' the navy-blue matron
dassent act, an' altogether it looked like the north corridor was goin'
to get a regular mid-week Wednesday instead of a Christmas. An' I up an'
ast' her to take me down to see 'em."
It was easy to see what Calliope had done, I thought: she had promised
to spend Christmas Eve over there in the north corridor, reading aloud.
"They was nine of 'em," she went on, "nice old grandma ladies, with
hands that looked like they'd ought to 'a' been tyin' little aprons an'
cuttin' out cookies an' squeezin' somebody else's hand. There they set,
with the wall-paper doin' its cheerfulest, loud as an insult,--one of
'em with lots o' white hair, one of 'em singin' a little, some of 'em
tryin' to sew or knit some. My land!" said Calliope, "when we think of
'em sittin' up an' down the world--with their arms all empty--an'
Christmas comin' on--ain't it a wonder--Well, I stayed 'round an' talked
to 'em," she went on, "while the navy-blue lady whisked her starched
skirts some. She seemed too busy 'tendin' to 'em to give 'em much
attention. An' they looked rill pleased when I talked to 'em about their
patchwork an' knittin', an' did they get the sun all day, an' didn't the
canary sort o' shave somethin' off'n the human ear-drum, on his tiptop
notes? An' when I said that, Grandma Holly--her with lots o' white
hair--says:--
"'I donno but it does,' she says, 'but I don't mind; I'm so thankful to
see somethin' around that's _little an' young_.'
"That sort o' landed in my heart. It's just what I'd been thinkin' about
'em.
"'Little, young things,' s'I, sort o' careless, 'make a lot o' racket,
you know.'
"At that old Mis' Burney pipes up--her that brought up her daughter's
children an' her son-in-law married again an' turned her out:--
"'I use' to think so,' she says quiet; 'the noise o' the children use'
to bother me terrible. When they reely got to goin' I use' to think I
couldn't stand it, my head hurt me so. But now,' s'she, 'I get to
thinkin' sometimes I wouldn't mind a horse-fiddle if some of 'em played
it.'
"'They're lots o' company, the little things,' says old Mis'
Norris--she'd kep' mislayin' her teeth an' the navy-blue lady had took
'em away from her that day for to teach her, so I couldn't hardly
understand what she said. 'Mine was named Ellen an' Nancy,' I made out.
"'Some o' you remember my Sam,'--Mis' Ailing speaks up then, an' she
begun windin' up her yarn an' never noticed she was ravellin' out her
mitten,--'he was an alderman,' she was goin' on, but old Mis' Winslow
cuts in on her:--
"'It don't matter what he was when he was man-grown,' s'she. 'Man-grown
can get along themselves. It's when they're little bits o' ones,' she
says.
"'Little!' says Grandma Holly. 'Is it little you mean? Well, my Amy's
two little feet use' to be swallowed up in my hand--so,' she says,
shuttin' her hand over to show us.
"Well, so they went on. I give you my word I stood there sort o'
grippin' up on my elbows. I'd always known it was so--like you do know
things are so. But somehow when you come to _feel_ they're so, that's
another thing. And I was feelin' this in my throat 'bout as big as an
orange. I'd thought their hands looked like they'd ought to be tyin' up
little aprons, but I never thought o' the hands bein' rill lonesome to
do the tyin', an' thinkin' about it, too. An' now I understood 'em like
I see 'em for the first time, rill face to face. Somehow, we ain't any
too apt to look at people that way," said Calliope. "You see how I mean
it.
"Then comes the navy-blue woman an' says it's time for their hot milk,
an' they all looked up, kind o' hopeful. An' I see that the navy-blue
one had got 'em trained into the i-dee that hot milk was an event. She
didn't like to hev 'em talk much about the past, she told me, when she
see what we was speakin' of, because it gener'lly made some of 'em cry,
an' the i-dee was to keep the spirit of the home bright an' cheerful.
'So I see,' s'I, dry. An' there was Christmas comin' on, an' nothin' to
break the general cheerfulness but hot milk. "Well," Calliope said, "I
s'pose you'll think I'm terrible foolish, but I couldn't help what I
done--"
"I don't wonder at it," said I, warmly; "you promised to spend Christmas
Eve with them and read aloud to them, didn't you, Calliope?"
"No!" Calliope cried; "I didn't do that. I should think they'd be sick
to death o' bein' read aloud to. I should think they'd be sick to death
bein' cheered up by their surroundin's. No--I invited the whole nine of
'em to come over an' spend Christmas Eve with me."
"Calliope!" I cried, "but how--"
"I know it," she exclaimed, "I know it. But they're all well an' hardy.
The charity corridor ain't expected in the infirmary much. An' Jimmy
Sturgis is goin' to bring 'em over free in the closed 'bus--I'll fill it
with hot bricks an' hot flat-irons an' bed-quilts. An' my land! you'd
ought to see 'em when I ask' 'em. I don't s'pose they'd had an invite
out in years. The navy-blue lady looked like I'd nipped a mountain off'n
her shoulders, too. An' now," said Calliope, "what on top o' this earth
will I do with 'em when I get 'em here?"
What indeed? I left my task and sat by her on the rug before the fire,
and we talked it over. But all the while we talked, I could see that she
was keeping something back--some plan of which she was doubtful.
"I ain't no money to spend, you know," she said, "an' I won't let
anybody else spend any for me, for this. Folks has plans enough o' their
own without mine. But I kep' sayin' to myself, all the way home when my
knees give down at the i-dee of what I was goin' to do: 'Calliope, the
Lord says, "_Give._" An' He meant you to give, same's those that hev
got. He didn't say, "Everybody give but Calliope, an' she ain't got
much, so she'd ought to be let off." He said, "_Give._"' An' He didn't
mention all nice things, same's I'd like to give, an' most everybody
does give--" she nodded toward my bed, brave with its Christmas array.
"He didn't mention givin' _things_ at all. An' so," said Calliope, "I
thought o' somethin' else."
She sat with brooding eyes on the fire, her hands clasped about her
knees.
"The Lord Christ," said Calliope, "didn't hev nothin' of His own. An'
yet He just give an' give an' give. An' somehow I got the _i_-dee," she
finished, glancing up at me shyly, "that mebbe Christmas ain't really
all in your stocking foot, after all. I ain't much to spend, and mebbe
that sounds some like sour grapes. But it seems like a good many
beautiful things is free to all, an' that they's ways to do. Well, I've
thought of a way--"
"Calliope," I said, "tell me what you have really planned for the
old-lady party. You _have_ planned?"
"Well, yes," she said, "I hev. But mebbe you'll think it ain't anything.
First I thought o' tea, an' thin bread-an'-butter sandwiches--it seems
some like a party when you get your bread thin. An' I've got apples in
the house we could roast, an' corn to pop over the kitchen fire. But
then I come to a stop. For I ain't nothin' else, an' I've spent every
cent I _can_ spend a'ready. But yet I did want to show 'em somethin'
lovely--an' differ'nt from what they see, so's it'd seem as if somebody
cared, an' as if they'd been _in Christmas_, too. An' all of a sudden it
come to me, why not invite in a few little children o' somebody's here
in Friendship? So's them old grandma ladies--"
She shook her head and turned away.
"I expec'," she said, "you think I'm terrible foolish. But wouldn't that
be givin', don't you think? _Would_ that be anything?"