“JINGLE BELLS!”
The Elder’s hired man brought out the sleigh and took Janice, Marty
and Nelson Haley down to the Day house on Hillside Avenue; the Elder
insisted on that. Marty sat in front with the driver, while Nelson and
Janice cowered under the buffalo robes on the rear seat.
There was nothing particularly private in the conversation between the
school teacher and Janice Day during this ride through the storm; yet
it was very illuminating for both of them.
The subject of the Bowmans came up naturally, for Nelson, in telling
of little Lottie Drugg’s adventure, of course mentioned the difficulty
Frank Bowman had gotten into.
“And he seems like a pretty nice fellow, Janice,” said Nelson
generously. “I never really talked with him until to-day. He must be
quite wrapped up in his work to spend so much of his time on it.”
Janice laughed--a happy little laugh. Why! she couldn’t help laughing
now.
“Mr. Bowman is always talking about ‘making good’ with the company,”
she said, “but it’s Phoebe Harrison he wants to make good with. Oh! _I_
know.”
“So he admitted to me,” said Nelson earnestly. “I have an idea he
will succeed, too. She’s an awfully pretty girl. But I am afraid his
sister’s affair isn’t running so smoothly.”
“Her affair? With whom?” asked Janice, choking suddenly, but looking at
him squarely.
“Jim Brainard, a college friend of mine. I don’t know that it pays for
an outsider to interfere in such matters. But Jim is a good fellow and
he is dreadfully fond of Annette, and I thought I might help him. She
likes him, too; but she’s obstinate, likes applause and the attentions
of a whole raft of fellows. So they quarreled just before she came here
to Polktown.
“I believe that’s what has made her act so recklessly and meanly.
Really, she is not as bad as she has painted herself. She could never
make Polktown people believe in her good qualities now, I fear; but she
is going down to New York next week, and she’ll probably stay there.
I know that she is going simply because Jim has returned from a long
business trip that he took for his firm.
“They’ll meet,” concluded Nelson, laughing, “and I have faith that they
will not punish themselves any longer by disagreeing.”
Janice turned to him suddenly, her old frank self. “Tell me,” she
demanded, “didn’t you care at all for Annette?”
“I--should--hope--not!” he gasped. “Why, Janice, I--I----”
“Why did you ask to see her when you were sick?” she continued.
“I didn’t!”
“You did! I was--was there when you asked for her.”
“Well, I was out of my head, wasn’t I?” returned the school teacher,
grimly. “I must have been to want to see Annette Bowman. It was another
person altogether that I wished to see.”
He had leaned close to her and she could see the expression of his face
despite the driving snow.
“You--you mean----”
Her tongue faltered and she blushed furiously. Nelson had taken hold of
her gloved hand and pressed it closely in his own.
“I meant you, Janice!” he whispered.
Marty, on the front seat, suddenly struck into Hopewell Drugg’s late
favorite:
“Jingle bells! jingle bells!
Jingle all the way--
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh-eigh-eigh-eigh!”
They turned into the driveway of the old Day house, and were at home.
Aunt ’Mira would not consent to Nelson’s going home that night. “The
Widder Beasely’ll know you’ve stepped in somewhere,” she said, with
confidence. “This storm ain’t fit for a dog to be out in; and after
your illness, Mr. Haley, you’ve been exposed enough for once’t, I
declare for’t!”
Janice’s eyes shone. Their tender glances, bent upon him in
confirmation of her aunt’s invitation, would have kept Nelson if no
other consideration would.
“Bully!” shouted the exuberant Marty. “If Walky Dexter comes down,
we’ll have a grand game of parchesi.”
Her son declared that Aunt ’Mira “did herself proud” in that supper.
She believed in putting forth her best for the minister or the school
teacher. Fried ham, home smoked; shirred eggs in individual ramikins;
potato chips as crisp and dry as autumn leaves; fluffy biscuit; golden
butter, despite the season, for Aunt ’Mira knew how to use the carrot
juice in just the right amount when she colored it; heaps of brown
doughnuts at either end of the table, “where they’d be handiest”; a
plate piled with wedges of moist, yellow cheese--all this besides a
variety of cake, preserves, pickles, and the inevitable pie. The Widow
Beasely might set a good table; but she could not beat Aunt ’Mira when
the latter set out to do her best.
After the adventures of the afternoon Nelson, at least, did full
justice to the meal. And all through it they redescribed their
adventures to each other. The loss of little Lottie in the snow brought
this comment from Uncle Jason:
“I swow! I dunno nobody who needs a wife more’n Hopewell, if only to
keep that young’un in leash. She’s as wild as a hawk.”
“I hope Mr. Bowman isn’t badly hurt,” said Janice. “He is so anxious
about that bridgework.”
“He’s a nice feller to work for,” volunteered Marty. Then, wistfully:
“I’d love to have his job. I think being a civil engineer is about the
nicest thing a feller can do.”
“Huh!” grunted his father, who had been hearing a good deal of this
sort of talk of late, “you l’arn to be civil now; time enough to git to
be an engineer when you air older.”
“Mr. Bowman is a fine fellow, I think myself,” Nelson hastened to say,
covering up this little family bickering. “I never knew him at all till
we were out in the storm together to-day. He has pluck all right.”
“And I should say you had a-plenty,” Aunt ’Mira cried frankly. “I
b’lieve after what you have been through this afternoon, you’d ought
to go to bed purty soon after supper. I’ll iron the best room bed, and
Jason’ll put the heater in there.”
But a chorus of objections from the young folk vetoed this plan. Even
Janice thought it an unnecessary precaution, Mr. Haley was so well now.
“And what my nurse says, goes!” declared Nelson, laughing. “Janice is a
famous sick-room attendant, as I can testify.”
“I believe you, Mr. Haley,” agreed Aunt ’Mira. “She can jest charm away
a headache. She’s a capable gal, if I do say it as shouldn’t, bein’ her
aunt. Me an’ Jason air jes as proud as Punch of her.”
Janice ran out of the room for a fresh supply of biscuit, and to hide
her blushes.
“Janice is the bulliest girl that ever was,” chimed in Marty. “If there
was more girls like her I’d mebbe think of marryin’, myself.”
This statement caused a general laugh.
The men folk sat before the base-burner in the sitting-room and talked
about other severe storms while Janice and her aunt cleared the table
and washed the supper dishes. By and by there was a great stamping and
blowing on the porch.
“Marty,” said his father, taking the pipe from his mouth, “that’s
either a whale come aboard, or Walky Dexter. Go give him a hand with
the broom. Your mother won’t want all that fresh snow on her clean
kitchen floor.”
It was Walky. Despite the howling storm, he had come down the hill for
his weekly evening call at the old Day house.
“Gosh all fish-hooks!” he exclaimed, coming into the sitting-room
at last. “This is the wust storm we’ve had since seventy-two, Jason.
’Member that?”
“Sure, the time Job Eldridge got snowed-up in a bear’s den,” declared
Uncle Jason quickly.
“Jest the same--jest the same,” said Walky, his eyes sparkling as he
rubbed his great, red hands in the heat of the glowing stove.
“In a bear’s den!” ejaculated Marty. “Was the bear at home?”
Walky was chuckling hugely. “You’d oughter as’t Job,” he said. “He had
a-plenty to say about it arterward. Ain’t that so, Jason? He talked
voluminous on that subject for the rest of his endurin’ life!”
“Tell us about it, do, Walky,” urged Janice, taking up the last piece
of fancy-work she expected to finish before Christmas.
Aunt ’Mira came in, too, and sat down under the lamp. Walky Dexter
began slowly to expand; he dearly loved the sound of his own voice, as
Janice had frequently told him.
“Wal,” began Walky, “Job was the laziest man that ever drew on a pair
of boots! He worked for ’Linus Webster one winter, up on the back
of this very mountain, gettin’ out timbers for this very _Constance
Colfax_ that frets the waters of this very lake. You kin see the boat
is some aged, and that we need a new one, railroad competition, or no
railroad competition, eh, Jason?”
“Quite right, Walky,” agreed Uncle Jason, “greasing the wheels” of
Walky’s speech.
“We was all comin’ home nights from the wood-lot, ’cause ’twas easier
than buildin’ a camp and hirin’ a cook, and all. Besides, we misjedged
’Linus’ supplies. Time before he’d hired a gang to go lumberin’ he’d
supplied weevilly flour and wormy pork,” explained the story-teller.
“It come on to snow ’bout the time we was hitchin’-in after takin’ our
noon snack, just siftin’ down through the treetops like an old lady
siftin’ powdered sugar on a ’lection-day cake,” and Walky smacked his
lips. “But it gathered fast. We soon see we was goin’ to be snowed up
there in the woods if we didn’t light out for home soon.”
“Did it snow as hard as it does to-night, Walky?” asked Marty, the
curious.
“Jest as hard, I reckon. Hard enough, anyway. But Job Eldridge didn’t
believe it’d be much more’n a squall. He never did have the sense of
a mite! He was on the choppin’ gang and he wanted to keep on. Us that
had teams up there jest hooked up aour chains and lit out for home. If
it snowed like that in the timber, we knowed it would be as bad ag’in
outside.
“Now, Job wouldn’t come at first. Then he found he was left alone at
the choppin’ and that, I reckon, scare’t him. It snowed hard enough to
scare anybody. He started for home an hour behind us.
“There he showed poor jedgement ag’in,” said Walky. “There was
somethin’ that resembled a shack handy, and he might have gone in there
and staid hived up till the wust was over.
“But no. That wouldn’t do for Job. He was as panicky inside as though
he’d eat a sour apple with the Jamaica ginger ten miles away. He set
off runnin’ through the wood, not follerin’ the wagon road even, but
tryin’ to cut across’t and ketch up with us.
“Must ha’ got twisted around purty soon,” continued the narrator.
“Reckon he follered a trail like a corkscrew, Jason, to find that old
holler maple, eh?”
“Must have,” agreed Uncle Jason, broadly smiling.
“Anyway, he come plumb upon it. He was as scare’t as a cat then. The
holler offered refuge, and he plumped in. The wind was a-howlin’, and
the trees a-writhin’, and the snow a-suckin’ into the holler, though
’twas on the lee side. So Job, he scrouged back inter the dark--an’ he
come upon somethin’ there.”
“Oh!” gasped Janice, for the suggestion of the bear’s presence,
hibernating in the hollow tree for the winter, could not be mistaken.
Marty and even Nelson were round-eyed.
“It was somethin’ hairy and warm--and it moved,” said Walky hoarsely.
“My soul! ye oughter heard Job tell about it. Make yer hair stand right
up on end!”
“You’re making ours stand out like the quills on the fretful porcupine,
Mr. Dexter,” interposed Nelson.
“Did the bear bite him?” demanded Marty, too impatient to wait longer
for the dénouement.
“No,” said Walky, shaking his head, and preternaturally grave.
“No? What kind of a bear was that?” asked the boy, in disgust.
“You reckless boy!” cried Janice. “You wouldn’t want the bear to bite
the poor man, would you?”
“Wal----”
“Go on, do, Walky!” urged the girl, eagerly. “Why didn’t it bite him,
as Marty wants to know?”
“Didn’t have no teeth,” chuckled Walky.
“_What?_” was the chorused expression of his listeners.
“A bear as old as that?” gasped Janice.
“’Twarn’t very old,” said Walky, his eyes twinkling; “but it didn’t
have no head, neither.”
“A dead bear!” shrieked Marty.
“Nop. ’Twas a buffaler robe of ’Linus Webster’s that he throwed in
there, and Job wrapped himself up in it and slept as warm as toast all
night long,” and Walky broke into one of his loud guffaws over the way
in which he had fooled them all.
But they beat him playing parchesi, and it was a happy if rather
noisy evening spent in the old Day house sitting-room. By and by Aunt
’Mira brought on the unfailing doughnuts and cheese, and Uncle Jason
went down to the cellar in his thick woolen socks, which he had been
steaming on the footrail of the stove while he nodded in his chair,
and brought up a jug of cider that had been kept sweet by some secret
method, and also a milk-pan of baldwin apples.
Janice and Marty got out the popper and the corn. Nelson made his
fingers sore shelling the sharp-pointed kernels from the cobs, while
Marty shook the popper over the fire in the kitchen range. Janice
skimmed two pans of milk--each skimming, a “blanket” of thick, pale
yellow lusciousness.
With bowls of cream and hot popcorn and the other goodies, they
“managed to make out” a supper, as Aunt ’Mira depreciatingly said. The
storm howled outside and when Walky was sped as the parting guest, it
was into a world of swirling, raging snow that almost smothered the
light of his lantern. He did not bother with the gate, but walked out
of the yard over the fence into Hillside Avenue.
“A good night to be in-doors,” said Uncle Jason, coming back to the
fire. “I’m glad the critters air all well housed.”
“One sure thing, Broxton Day hasn’t got it as bad as this down there
where he is, Janice,” said her aunt, consolingly. “It’s most always
summer there, ain’t it?”
“I guess they have some bad weather where Daddy is,” confessed Janice.
“I--I wish he were here.”
“Crickey! so do I,” agreed Marty. “I bet he could tell us something
interesting.”
“Better than Walky’s bear stories?” laughed Nelson.
There was a little silence. The wind sounded as though it were choking
to death in the chimney. Aunt ’Mira sighed.
“I do hope there’s nobody out in this storm,” she said. “We got lots o’
marcies to be thankful for.”
“We have that!” agreed her husband. “This is a pretty good Christmas.”
Janice smiled as she bent to thread her needle. Her mind had flashed
back to the many, many complaining comments that had fallen from the
lips of her uncle and aunt when first she had come to live with them.
How their circumstances and outlook on life had changed!
“And they have done it all themselves,” she murmured. “Only--they don’t
know it!”
Nelson was watching her. Her nimble fingers played a pretty dance among
the colored silks. She looked up to see him watching her, and her
countenance was immediately glorified.
“Crickey!” drawled Marty, not understanding, “Janice is gittin’
prettier and prettier all the while.”
“That’s worth a Christmas present, sure enough, Marty,” she told him,
laughing happily.
Uncle Jason yawned frankly and reached to take the big Bible down from
its usual place on the corner of the mantel. Janice and her aunt put
away their work. They all gathered closer about the stove as the head
of the house opened The Book.
He read of that First Christmas and they listened with that feeling
of growing tenderness which a reverent perusal of the story always
induces. While the snow blanketed the Vermont village, they listened
again to the happenings of that wondrous night in Palestine; and if the
blizzard blew without, and the mountain shivered in the storm, their
hearts within were warm and their souls comforted.
The reading ended, and Uncle Jason led in the evening prayer. Aunt
’Mira bustled about with the old-fashioned warming-pan. They took their
candles and separated. Half an hour later when the big clock in the
hall hoarsely struck the hour of eleven it seemed to have the old Day
house to itself, for all the inmates were asleep.
* * * * *
The blizzard blew itself out before Christmas Eve. The whole town
turned out to shovel paths and plow out the roadway. For there was to
be an occasion of much moment at the Union Church.
Polktown did not often have a church wedding--or a wedding of any kind
as for that. Mr. Middler’s marriage fees would never make him rich.
There were no invitations sent out; Hopewell and Miss ’Rill had nobody
but friends in the town and the entire congregation was welcome. Nor
did any, as Walky Dexter said, but the lame, the halt and the blind
fail to get to the church on Christmas Eve.
The Girls’ Guild had their entertainment in the afternoon; several of
the smaller girls were to act with little Lottie as flower-girls at the
wedding. And when the procession came in from the vestry and started
down the aisle, it was a very pretty one indeed.
What matter if the organist got her numbers mixed and started to play
“See the Conquering Hero Comes” instead of the usual “Here Comes the
Bride”? As Marty observed, it might have been a whole lot worse; Mrs.
Ebbie Stewart was awfully absent-minded.
But the wedding was a pronounced success. Miss ’Rill, in her pretty,
modest dress, and with her pink cheeks and fluffy hair, looked as sweet
as any girl bride who had ever walked up the aisle of the old church.
And during the last few months Hopewell had positively been growing
younger.
Even Mrs. Scattergood could not cast gloom over the occasion. She found
herself being congratulated after the ceremony by those who could not
at first get to the bride and groom to shake hands with them. Everybody
seemed to think it was such an eminently fitting wedding that even this
opinionated old lady was swept away from the foundations of her former
belief.
“Wal, wal!” she sniffed, wiping her eyes, and speaking to Janice. “I
guess I don’t know nothin’. I must be gittin’ old. Nobody agrees with
me that this is the foolishest marriage that ever happened in this
town.”
“I should hope not, Mrs. Scattergood,” cried Janice, gaily. “I think
it’s just lovely!”
“I’m behind the times then,” grumbled Mrs. Scattergood, shaking her
head. “I’m a-goin’ home and sew up the slit in this dress o’ mine. I’m
too old ter foller the fashions. Thank heaven! I didn’t try ter dance
with this game leg.”
But Aunt ’Mira did not consider that the wedding made her feel old. She
had dragged Uncle Jason out to it, dressed in his old wrinkled black
suit. Her own gay apparel made him look particularly shabby.
“It’s his own fault,” she declared to her niece. “He ain’t bought a new
suit in ten year. But he’s a-goin’ to now. I’m a-goin’ to liven his old
bones up--you see if I don’t!”
Which prophecy seemed likely to be fulfilled when, after the reception
in the church, Mr. and Mrs. Day joined the closer friends of the happy
pair at the Drugg place. There was supper, and speech-making, and
reiterated congratulations.
The floor of the shop had been cleared, and offered a good-sized space
for dancing. After the opening number, a square dance, when Hopewell
and his bride led the figure, the storekeeper seized his own fiddle and
played for the dancers.
There was a sudden explosion of expostulations in a corner and Uncle
Jason was heard to announce: “I snum! yeou air bound to make a fule of
me, Almiry, as well as of yerself.”
“We both of us hev been foolish long enough, Jason,” declared the heavy
lady, with conviction. “We been gittin’ old afore our time. No more
of it! Come on! Git up here with yer lawful wife an’ put yer best fut
for’ard. Yeou useter be the best dancer in Polktown; now show the folks
what yeou kin do.”
And, hilariously, yet perhaps with some moist eyes among them, the
company gathered to see Aunt ’Mira lead her reluctant spouse out upon
the floor. Aunt ’Mira was radiant--and wonderfully dressed! There was
no younger feeling person in the house when Hopewell struck up a reel
and Mr. and Mrs. Jason Day led the figure.
Janice and Nelson Haley danced in the same set, and were very happy. So
did Frank Bowman and his sister, the latter welcomed for her brother’s
sake if not for her own.
Uncle Jason began to get livened up. He found he had not forgotten
the figures. When his wife was breathless he insisted upon dancing
with Mrs. Scattergood, the lugubrious. Then he seized upon Janice, and
finally he danced with the bride before the time came to go home.
The party broke up at an early hour, for the morrow’s morn was
Christmas and, therefore, a busy one. It was a brilliant moonlight
night as the merrymakers left the old store on the side street and
struck out along the well-shoveled paths on their homeward way.
Janice and the school teacher were behind her aunt and uncle as they
came out--the last of the company to leave. Miss ’Rill was briskly
putting out the lamps in the store windows. But from the rear came the
scraping of the old fiddle to the lilt of a lively tune again, and
Janice and Nelson stepped off through the snow to the tune of
“Jingle bells! Jingle bells!
Jingle all the way.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.