TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
CHRISTMAS IN
MODERN STORY
_An Anthology for Adults_
_Edited by_
MAUD VAN BUREN
_and_
KATHARINE ISABEL BEMIS
[Illustration]
THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK LONDON
Copyright, 1927, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_First Printing, September, 1927_
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
PREFATORY NOTE
This volume is the outgrowth of a librarian’s search each holiday
time for stories to meet the ever growing demand from clubs, schools,
societies, and home circles for something “Christmassy” to read aloud.
Several great stories that are read over and over, Christmas after
Christmas, have purposely been omitted. These can be found in other
collections. If our readers gain from this anthology even a little of
the gracious spirit manifested by the authors in the writing of the
stories and again in granting permission to reprint, the compilers can
but feel that their work has been well worth while.
OWATONNA, MINNESOTA,
May 16, 1927.
NOTE OF APPRECIATION
The editors of this volume desire to express their deep appreciation
to the authors and publishers whose permissions for use of copyright
stories have been so courteously and generously granted. Without this
splendid spirit of coöperation this collection of Christmas stories
would have been impossible.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CANDLE IN THE FOREST 3
_Temple Bailey_
CHRISTMAS ON THE SINGING RIVER 22
_Jefferson Lee Harbour_
THE SHEPHERD WHO WATCHED BY NIGHT 38
_Thomas Nelson Page_
CHRISTMAS AT THE TRIMBLES’ 55
_Ruth McEnery Stuart_
THE GIFT OF THE MANGER 77
_Edith Barnard Delano_
GOD REST YOU, MERRY CHRISTIANS 92
_George Madden Martin_
TO SPRINGVALE FOR CHRISTMAS 106
_Zona Gale_
EMMY JANE’S CHRISTMAS 118
_Julia B. Tenney_
DAVID’S STAR OF BETHLEHEM 122
_Christine Whiting Parmenter_
A GOD IN ISRAEL 141
_Norman Duncan_
VAN VALKENBERG’S CHRISTMAS GIFT 171
_Elizabeth G. Jordan_
A BEGGAR’S CHRISTMAS 187
_Edith Wyatt_
A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY 201
_William J. Locke_
A CHRISTMAS CONFESSION 222
_Agnes McClelland Daulton_
THE DAY OF DAYS 235
_Elsie Singmaster_
HOLLY AT THE DOOR 247
_Agnes Sligh Turnbull_
TEACHER JENSEN 267
_Karin Michaelis_
HONORABLE TOMMY 279
_Mary E. Wilkins Freeman_
THE SAD SHEPHERD 301
_Henry van Dyke_
CHRISTMAS BREAD 327
_Kathleen Norris_
CHRISTMAS IN MODERN STORY
THE CANDLE IN THE FOREST[1]
_Temple Bailey_
The Small Girl’s mother was saying, “The onions will be silver, and the
carrots will be gold——”
“And the potatoes will be ivory,” said the Small Girl, and they laughed
together.
The Small Girl’s mother had a big white bowl in her lap, and she was
cutting up vegetables. The onions were the hardest, because one cried a
little over them.
“But our tears will be pearls,” said the Small Girl’s mother, and
they laughed at that and dried their eyes, and found the carrots much
easier, and the potatoes the easiest of all.
Then the Next-Door-Neighbor came in and said, “What are you doing?”
“We are making a beefsteak pie for our Christmas dinner,” said the
Small Girl’s mother.
“And the onions are silver, and the carrots gold, and the potatoes
ivory,” said the Small Girl.
“I am sure I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the
Next-Door-Neighbor. “We are going to have turkey for Christmas, and
oysters, and cranberries and celery.”
The Small Girl laughed and clapped her hands. “But we are going to have
a Christmas pie—and the onions are silver and the carrots gold——”
“You said that once,” said the Next-Door-Neighbor, “and I should think
you’d know they weren’t anything of the kind.”
“But they _are_,” said the Small Girl, all shining eyes and rosy cheeks.
“Run along, darling,” said the Small Girl’s mother, “and find poor
Pussy-Purr-up. He’s out in the cold. And you can put on your red
sweater and red cap.”
So the Small Girl hopped away like a happy robin, and the
Next-Door-Neighbor said,
“She is old enough to know that onions aren’t silver.”
“But they are,” said the Small Girl’s mother, “and the carrots are gold
and the potatoes are——”
The Next-Door-Neighbor’s face was flaming. “If you say that again, I’ll
scream. It sounds silly to me.”
“But it isn’t in the least silly,” said the Small Girl’s mother, and
her eyes were as blue as sapphires, and as clear as the sea; “it is
sensible. When people are poor, they have to make the most of little
things. And we’ll have only a pound of steak in our pie, but the onions
will be silver——”
The lips of the Next-Door-Neighbor were folded in a thin line. “If you
had acted like a sensible creature, I shouldn’t have asked you for the
rent.”
The Small Girl’s mother was silent for a moment, then she said: “I am
sorry—it ought to be sensible to make the best of things.”
“Well,” said the Next-Door-Neighbor, sitting down in a chair with a
very stiff back, “a beefsteak pie is a beefsteak pie. And I wouldn’t
teach a child to call it anything else.”
“I haven’t taught her to call it anything else. I was only trying to
make her feel that it was something fine and splendid for Christmas
day, so I said that the onions were silver——”
“Don’t say that again,” snapped the Next-Door-Neighbor, “and I want the
rent as soon as possible.”
With that, she flung up her head and marched out of the front door, and
it slammed behind her and made wild echoes in the little house.
And the Small Girl’s mother stood there alone in the middle of the
floor, and her eyes were like the sea in a storm.
But presently the door opened, and the Small Girl, looking like a
red-breast robin, hopped in, and after her came a great black cat with
his tail in the air, and he said “Purr-up,” which gave him his name.
And the Small Girl said out of the things she had been thinking,
“Mother, why don’t we have turkey?”
The clear look came back into the eyes of the Small Girl’s mother, and
she said, “Because we are content.”
And the Small Girl said, “What is ‘content’?”
And her mother said: “It is making the best of what God gives us. And
our best for Christmas day, my darling, is a beefsteak pie.”
So she kissed the Small Girl, and they finished peeling the vegetables,
and then they put them with the pound of steak to simmer on the back of
the stove.
After that, the Small Girl had her supper of bread and milk, and
Pussy-Purr-up had milk in a saucer on the hearth, and the Small Girl
climbed up in her mother’s lap and said,
“Tell me a story.”
But the Small Girl’s mother said, “Won’t it be nicer to talk about
Christmas presents?”
And the Small Girl sat up and said, “Let’s.”
And the mother said, “Let’s tell each other what we’d rather have in
the whole wide world——”
“Oh, let’s,” said the Small Girl. “And I’ll tell you first that I want
a doll—and I want it to have a pink dress—and I want it to have eyes
that open and shut—and I want it to have shoes and stockings—and I want
it to have curly hair——”
She had to stop, because she didn’t have any breath left in her body,
and when she got her breath back, she said, “Now, what do you want,
Mother—more than anything else in the whole wide world?”
“Well,” said her mother, “I want a chocolate mouse.”
“Oh,” said the Small Girl scornfully, “I shouldn’t think you’d want
that.”
“Why not?”
“Because a chocolate mouse—why, a chocolate mouse isn’t anything.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” said the Small Girl’s mother. “A chocolate mouse
is Dickory Dock, and Pussy-Cat-Pussy-Cat-Where-Have-You-Been—and it’s
Three-Blind-Mice—and it’s A-Frog-He-Would-a-Wooing-Go—and it’s——”
The Small Girl’s eyes were dancing. “Oh, tell me about it——”
And her mother said: “Well, the mouse is Dickory-Dock ran _up_ the
clock, and the mouse in Pussy-Cat-Pussy-Cat was frightened _under_ a
chair, and the mice in Three-Blind-Mice ran _after_ the farmer’s wife,
and the mouse in A-Frog-He-Would-a-Wooing-Go went _down_ the throat of
the crow——”
And the Small Girl said, “Could a chocolate mouse do all that?”
“Well,” said the Small Girl’s mother, “we could put him _on_ the clock,
and _under_ a chair, and cut his tail _off_ with a carving knife, and
at the very last we could eat him _up_ like a crow.”
The Small Girl shivered deliciously. “And he wouldn’t be a real mouse?”
“No, just a chocolate one, with cream inside.”
“Do you think I’ll get one for Christmas?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Would he be nicer than a doll?”
The Small Girl’s mother hesitated, then told the truth.
“My darling—Mother saved up the money for a doll, but the
Next-Door-Neighbor wants the rent.”
“Hasn’t Daddy any more money?”
“Poor Daddy has been sick so long.”
“But he’s well now.”
“I know. But he has to pay money for doctors, and money for medicine,
and money for your red sweater, and money for milk for Pussy-Purr-up,
and money for our beefsteak pie.”
“The Boy-Next-Door says we’re poor, Mother.”
“We are rich, my darling. We have love, and each other, and
Pussy-Purr-up——”
“His mother won’t let him have a cat,” said the Small Girl, with her
mind still on the Boy-Next-Door. “But he’s going to have a radio.”
“Would you rather have a radio than Pussy-Purr-up?”
The Small Girl gave a crow of derision. “I’d rather have Pussy-Purr-up
than anything else in the whole wide world.”
At that, the great cat, who had been sitting on the hearth with his
paws tucked under him and his eyes like moons, stretched out his
satin-shining length, and jumped up on the arm of the chair beside the
Small Girl and her mother, and began to sing a song that was like a
mill-wheel away off. He purred so long and so loud that at last the
Small Girl grew drowsy.
“Tell me some more about the chocolate mouse,” she said, and nodded,
and slept.
The Small Girl’s mother carried her into another room, put her to bed,
and came back to the kitchen—and it was full of shadows.
But she did not let herself sit among them. She wrapped herself in a
great cape and went out into the cold dusk, with a sweep of wind; heavy
clouds overhead: and a band of dull orange showing back of the trees,
where the sun had burned down.
She went straight from her little house to the big house of the
Next-Door-Neighbor and rang the bell at the back entrance. A maid let
her into the kitchen, and there was the Next-Door-Neighbor, and the two
women who worked for her, and a daughter-in-law who had come to spend
Christmas. The great range was glowing, and things were simmering, and
things were stewing, and things were steaming, and things were baking,
and things were boiling, and things were broiling, and there was the
fragrance of a thousand delicious dishes in the air.
And the Next-Door-Neighbor said: “We are trying to get as much done as
possible to-night. We are having twelve people for Christmas dinner
to-morrow.”
And the Daughter-in-Law, who was all dressed up and had an apron tied
about her, said in a sharp voice, “I can’t see why you don’t let your
maids work for you.”
And the Next-Door-Neighbor said: “I have always worked. There is no
excuse for laziness.”
And the Daughter-in-Law said: “I’m not lazy, if that’s what you mean.
And we’ll never have any dinner if I have to cook it,” and away she
went out of the kitchen with tears of rage in her eyes.
And the Next-Door-Neighbor said, “If she hadn’t gone when she did, I
should have told her to go,” and there was rage in her eyes but no
tears.
She took her hands out of the pan of breadcrumbs and sage, which she
was mixing for the stuffing, and said to the Small Girl’s mother,
“Did you come to pay the rent?”
The Small Girl’s mother handed her the money, and the
Next-Door-Neighbor went upstairs to write a receipt. Nobody asked the
Small Girl’s mother to sit down, so she stood in the middle of the
floor and sniffed the entrancing fragrances, and looked at the mountain
of food which would have served her small family for a month.
While she waited, the Boy-Next-Door came in and he said, “Are you the
Small Girl’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to have a tree?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to see mine?”
“It would be wonderful.”
So he led her down a long passage to a great room, and there was a tree
which touched the ceiling, and on the very top branches and on all the
other branches were myriads of little lights which shone like stars,
and there were gold balls and silver ones, and gold bells and silver
ones, and red and blue and green balls, and red and blue and green
bells—and under the tree and on it were toys for boys and toys for
girls, and one of the toys was a doll in a pink dress!
At that the heart of the Small Girl’s mother tightened, and she was
glad she wasn’t a thief, or she would have snatched at the pink doll
when the boy wasn’t looking, and hidden it under her cape, and run away
with it!
The Boy-Next-Door was saying: “It’s the finest tree anybody has around
here. But Dad and Mother don’t know that I’ve seen it.”
“Oh, don’t they?” said the Small Girl’s mother.
“No,” said the Boy-Next-Door, with a wide grin, “and it’s fun to fool
’em.”
“Is it?” said the Small Girl’s mother. “Now, do you know, I should
think the very nicest thing in the whole wide world would be _not_ to
have seen the tree.”
The Boy-Next-Door stared and said, “Why?”
“Because,” said the Small Girl’s mother, “the nicest thing in the world
would be to have somebody tie a handkerchief around your eyes, as tight,
as tight, and then to have somebody take your hand and lead you in and
out and in and out and in and out, until you didn’t know _where_ you
were, and then to have them untie the handkerchief—and there would be
the tree—all shining and splendid——”
She stopped, but her singing voice seemed to echo and re-echo in the
great room.
The boy’s staring eyes had a new look in them. “Did anybody ever tie a
handkerchief over your eyes?”
“Oh, yes——”
“And lead you in and out, and in and out?”
“Yes.”
“Well, nobody does things like that in our house. They think it’s
silly.”
The Small Girl’s mother laughed, and her laugh tinkled like a bell. “Do
you think it is silly?”
He was eager. “No, I don’t.”
She held out her hand to him. “Will you come and see our tree?”
“To-night?”
“No, to-morrow morning—early.”
“Before breakfast?”
She nodded.
“Gee, I’d like it.”
So that was a bargain, with a quick squeeze of their hands on it.
And the Small Girl’s mother went back to the kitchen, and the
Next-Door-Neighbor came down with the receipt, and the Small Girl’s
mother went out of the back door and found that the orange band which
had burned on the horizon was gone, and that there was just the wind
and the sighing of the trees.
Two men passed her on the brick walk which led to the house, and one of
the men was saying:
“If you’d only be fair to me, Father.”
And the other man said, “All you want of me is money.”
“You taught me that, Father.”
“Blame it on me——”
“You are to blame. You and Mother—did you ever show me the finer
things?”
Their angry voices seemed to beat against the noise of the wind and the
sighing trees, so that the Small Girl’s mother shivered, and drew her
cape around her, and ran on as fast as she could to her little house.
There were all the shadows to meet her, but she did not sit among them.
She made coffee and a dish of milk toast, and set the toast in the oven
to keep hot, and then she stood at the window watching. At last she
saw through the darkness what looked like a star low down, and she knew
that the star was a lantern, and she ran and opened the door wide.
And her young husband set the lantern down on the threshold, and took
her in his arms, and said, “The sight of you is more than food and
drink.”
When he said that, she knew he had had a hard day, but her heart leaped
because she knew that what he had said of her was true.
Then they went into the house together, and she set the food before
him. And that he might forget his hard day, she told him of her own.
And when she came to the part about the Next-Door-Neighbor and the
rent, she said,
“I am telling you this because it has a happy ending.”
And he put his hands over hers and said, “Everything with you has a
happy ending.”
“Well, _this_ is a happy ending,” said the Small Girl’s mother, with
all the sapphires in her eyes emphasizing it. “Because when I went over
to pay the rent I was feeling how poor we were, and wishing that I had
a pink doll for baby, and books for you, and—and—and a magic carpet to
carry us away from work and worry. And then I went into the kitchen of
the big house, and there was everything delicious and delectable, and
then I went into the parlor and saw the tree—with everything hanging on
it that was glittering and gorgeous—and then I came home,” her breath
was quick and her lips smiling, “I came home—and I was glad I lived in
my little house.”
“What made you glad, dearest?”
“Oh, love is here; and hate is there, and a boy’s deceit, and a man’s
injustice. They were saying sharp things to each other—and—and—their
dinner will be a—stalled ox—And in my little house is the faith of a
child in the goodness of God, and the bravery of a man who fought for
his country——”
She was in his arms now.
“And the blessing of a woman who has never known defeat.” His voice
broke on the words.
In that moment it seemed as if the wind stopped blowing, and as if the
trees stopped sighing, and as if there was the sound of a heavenly host
singing——
The Small Girl’s mother and the Small Girl’s father sat up very late
that night. They popped a great bowlful of crisp snowy corn and made
it into balls. They boiled sugar and molasses, and cracked nuts, and
made candy of them. They cut funny little Christmas fairies out of
paper and painted their jackets bright red, with round silver buttons
of the tinfoil that came on a cream cheese. And then they put the balls
and the candy and the painted fairies and a long red candle in a big
basket, and set it away. And the Small Girl’s mother brought out the
chocolate mouse.
“We will put this on the clock,” she said, “where her eyes will rest on
it the first thing in the morning.”
So they put it there, and it seemed as natural as life, so that
Pussy-Purr-up positively licked his chops and sat in front of the
clock as if to keep his eye on the chocolate mouse.
And the Small Girl’s mother said, “She was lovely about giving up the
doll, and she will love the tree.”
“We’ll have to get up very early,” said the Small Girl’s father.
“And you’ll have to run ahead and light the candle.”
Well, they got up before dawn the next morning, and so did the
Boy-Next-Door. He was there on the step, waiting, blowing his hands and
beating them quite like the poor little boys in a Christmas story, who
haven’t any mittens.
But he wasn’t a poor little boy, and he had so many pairs of
fur-trimmed gloves that he didn’t know what to do with them, but he had
left the house in such a hurry that he had forgotten to put them on.
So there he stood on the front step of the little house, blowing on his
hands and beating them. And it was dark, with a sort of pale shine in
the heavens, which didn’t seem to come from the stars or to herald the
dawn; it was just a mystical silver glow that set the boy’s heart to
beating.
He had never been out alone like this. He had always stayed in his warm
bed until somebody called him, and then he had waited until they called
again, and then he had dressed and gone down to breakfast, where his
father scolded because he was late, and his mother scolded because he
ate too fast. But this day had begun with adventure, and for the first
time, under that silver sky, he felt the thrill of it.
Then suddenly some one came around the corner—some one tall and thin,
with a cap on his head and an empty basket in his hands.
“Hello,” he said. “A Merry Christmas.”
It was the Small Girl’s father, and he put the key in the lock, and
went in, and turned on a light, and there was the table set for four.
And the Small Girl’s father said: “You see we have set a place for you.
We must eat something before we go out.”
And the Boy said: “Are we going out? I came to see the tree.”
“We are going out to see the tree.”
Before the Boy-Next-Door could ask any questions, the Small Girl’s
mother appeared with her finger on her lips and said: “Sh-sh,” and then
she began to recite in a hushed voice,
“Hickory-Dickory-Dock——”
Then there was a little cry and the sound of dancing feet, and the
Small Girl in a red dressing-gown came flying in.
“Oh, Mother, Mother, the mouse is _on_ the clock. The mouse is _on_ the
clock.”
Well, it seemed to the Boy-Next-Door that he had never seen anything
so exciting as the things that followed. The chocolate mouse went _up_
the clock and _under_ the chair—and would have had its tail cut _off_
except that the Small Girl begged to save it.
“I want to keep it as it is, Mother.”
And playing this game as if it were the most important thing in the
whole wide world were the Small Girl’s mother and the Small Girl’s
father, all laughing and flushed, and chanting the quaint old words to
the quaint old music.
The Boy-Next-Door held his breath for fear he would wake up from this
entrancing dream and find himself in his own big house, alone in his
puffy bed, or eating breakfast with his stodgy parents who had never
played with him in his life. He found himself laughing too, and flushed
and happy, and trying to sing in his funny boy’s voice,
“Heigh-o, says Anthony Rowley!”
The Small Girl absolutely refused to eat the mouse. “He’s my darling
Christmas mouse, Mother.”
So her mother said, “Well, I’ll put him on the clock again, where
Pussy-Purr-up can’t get him while we are out.”
“Oh, are we going out?” said the Small Girl, round-eyed.
“Yes.”
“Where are we going?”
“To find Christmas.”
That was all the Small Girl’s mother would tell. So they had breakfast,
and everything tasted perfectly delicious to the Boy-Next-Door. But
first they bowed their heads, and the Small Girl’s father said,
“Dear Christ-Child, on this Christmas morning, bless these children,
and help us all to keep our hearts young and full of love for Thee.”
The Boy-Next-Door, when he lifted his head, had a funny feeling as
if he wanted to cry, and yet it was a lovely feeling, all warm and
comfortable.
For breakfast they each had a great baked apple, and great slices of
sweet bread and butter, and great glasses of milk, and as soon as they
had finished, away they went, out of the door and down into the wood
back of the house, and when they were deep in the wood, the Small
Girl’s father took out of his pocket a little flute and began to play,
and he played thin piping tunes that went flitting around among the
trees, and the Small Girl hummed the tunes, and her mother hummed the
tunes until it sounded like singing bees, and their feet fairly danced,
and the boy found himself humming and dancing with them.
Then suddenly the piping ceased, and a hush fell over the wood. It was
so still that they could almost hear each other breathe—so still that
when a light flamed suddenly in that open space it burned without a
flicker.
The light came from a red candle that was set in the top of a small
living tree. It was the only light on the tree, but it showed the snowy
balls, and the small red fairies whose coats had silver buttons.
“It’s our tree, my darling,” he heard the Small Girl’s mother saying.
Suddenly it seemed to the boy that his heart would burst in his breast.
He wanted some one to speak to him like that. The Small Girl sat high
on her father’s shoulder, and her father held her mother’s hand. It was
like a chain of gold, their holding hands like that and loving each
other——
The boy reached out and touched the woman’s hand. She looked down at
him and drew him close. He felt warmed and comforted. The red candle
burning there in the darkness was like some sacred fire of friendship.
He wished that it would never go out, that he might stand there
watching it, with his small cold hand in the clasp of the Small Girl’s
mother.
It was late when the Boy-Next-Door got back to his own big house. But
he had not been missed. Everybody was up, and everybody was angry. The
Daughter-in-Law had declared the night before that she would not stay
another day beneath that roof, and off she had gone with her young
husband, and her little girl, who was to have had the pink doll on the
tree.
“And good riddance,” said the Next-Door-Neighbor.
But she ate no breakfast, and she went out to the kitchen and worked
with her maids to get the dinner ready, and there were covers laid for
nine instead of twelve.
And the Next-Door-Neighbor kept saying, “Good riddance—good riddance,”
and not once did she say, “A Merry Christmas.”
But the Boy-Next-Door held something in his heart that was warm and
glowing like the candle in the forest, and so he came to his mother and
said,
“May I have the pink doll?”
She spoke frowningly. “What does a boy want of a doll?”
“I’d like to give it to the little girl next door.”
“Do you think I buy dolls to give away in charity?”
“Well, they gave me a Christmas present.”
“What did they give you?”
He opened his hand and showed a little flute tied with gay red ribbon.
He lifted it to his lips and blew on it, a thin piping tune——
“Oh, that,” said his mother scornfully. “Why, that’s nothing but a reed
from the pond!”
But the boy knew it was more than that. It was a magic pipe that made
you dance, and made your heart warm and happy.
So he said again, “I’d like to give her the doll,” and he reached out
his little hand and touched his mother’s—and his eyes were wistful.
His mother’s own eyes softened—she had lost one son that day—and she
said, “Oh, well, do as you please,” and went back to the kitchen.
The Boy-Next-Door ran into the great room and took the doll from the
tree, and wrapped her in paper, and flew out of the door and down the
brick walk and straight into the little house.
When the door was opened, he saw that his friends were just sitting
down to dinner—and there was the beefsteak pie all brown and piping
hot, with a wreath of holly, and the Small Girl was saying,
“And the onions were silver, and the carrots were gold——”
The Boy-Next-Door went up to the Small Girl and said,
“I’ve brought you a present.”
With his eyes all lighted up, he took off the paper in which it was
wrapped, and there was the doll, in rosy frills, with eyes that opened
and shut, and shoes and stockings, and curly hair that was bobbed and
beautiful.
And the Small Girl, in a whirlwind of happiness, said, “Is it really
_my_ doll?”
And the Boy-Next-Door felt very shy and happy, and he said, “Yes.”
And the Small Girl’s mother said, “It was a beautiful thing to do,” and
she bent and kissed him.
Again that bursting feeling came into the boy’s heart and he lifted his
face to hers and said, “May I come sometimes and be your boy?”
And she said, “Yes.”
And when at last he went away, she stood in the door and watched him,
such a little lad, who knew so little of loving. And because she knew
so much of love, her eyes filled to overflowing.
But presently she wiped the tears away and went back to the table. And
she smiled at the Small Girl and at the Small Girl’s father.
“And the potatoes were ivory,” she said. “Oh, who would ask for turkey,
when they can have a pie like this?”
[1] By permission of the author and “Good Housekeeping.”
CHRISTMAS ON THE SINGING RIVER[2]
_Jefferson Lee Harbour_
There was always a crowd in waiting when the stage-coach arrived in
the shabby little mining-camp of Singing River. As a rule, the crowd
assembled on the long, wide platform in front of the post-office, which
was also the stage-office, the hotel, the general store, and the center
from which radiated the social life of the camp. Above the post-office
was a small and dingy hall lighted with dripping tallow candles; and
such public amusements or entertainments as there were in Singing
River were given in this hall. The platform in front of the building
was the favorite “loafing-place” of the miners. The arrival of the
stage-coach was the connecting-link between Singing River and the great
outside world from which the little mining-camp was so far removed.
The nearest railroad station was one hundred miles distant, and there
was no town within fifteen miles any larger than Singing River, which
was but a little hamlet of log-cabins, tents, and slab shanties far
up the mountainside above the little Singing River in the rocky gulch
below. The Singing River was a narrow and shallow stream; but its
crystal-clear waters surged in foamy wavelets around moss-covered
boulders and went singing on so merrily that there was perpetual music
in even the darkest and gloomiest parts of the gulch. But there was ice
over the river for seven months of the year, and then nothing was to be
heard but the dreary sound of the wind as it went moaning or shrieking
up and down the long, dark cañon.
The winters were long and bitter in Singing River. Snow began to fly as
early as the last of September, and it still lay deep in the gulches
and in the narrow, rocky streets of the camp while the wild flowers
were blooming in the far-distant valleys.
But on the December day when this story opens, the stage arrived a full
hour in advance of the usual time, and only a few of the men of the
camp were at the post-office when Dave Hixon, the stage-driver, drew
rein before it, amid the gently falling snow. There were no passengers
on the outside seats, and no inside occupants were to be seen.
Apparently the big stage was empty.
“Light load this trip, Dave,” said big Jim Hart, the postmaster, as he
came out to get the limp and unpromising-looking mail-bag.
“I should say so,” replied Dave, as he took off his wide-brimmed felt
hat and slapped it against the side of the coach to rid it of the snow
that had fallen upon it.
“I reckon travel is about done for this season over the Shoshone trail,
an’ they’ll soon stop sendin’ the coach up here even once a week, an’
then we’ll be clean shut off from everywhere. No passengers this
trip—eh?”
“Only two, an’ there’s so little of them that I reckon they’ve rattled
round like peas in a pod inside there.”
Then Dave leaned far downward and, twisting himself around, called out
to some one within the stage:
“Hello, there, youngsters! You all right?”
A shrill, childish voice replied: “Yes, sir.”
“Well, you’d better crawl out o’ that an’ git in where it’s warmer, an’
git some o’ Ma’am Hickey’s hot supper. Hey, Ma’am Hickey, I’ve fetched
you a kind of a queer cargo!”
This last remark was addressed to a large, round-faced,
motherly-looking woman who had come to the door of the hotel part of
the building with her apron over her head.
“What’s that you say, Dave?” she called out loudly and heartily.
“I say I’ve fetched you a kind of a queer cargo. You just come out an’
see if I hain’t.”
He jumped down from his high driver’s seat and flung open the stage
door as Ma’am Hickey came over to the edge of the roadway. Reaching
into the coach, Dave picked up what appeared to be a round bundle on
the back seat, and set it out in the snow with a buffalo robe around
it. The robe fell to the ground, and there was revealed to the amazed
bystanders a girl of about nine years with big dark eyes that looked
calmly and yet appealingly at the staring group. The next moment Dave
had set a yellow-haired boy of about five years down beside the girl.
“There you air!” said Dave, the stage-driver. “Got ’commodations for
this lady an’ gent, Ma’am Hickey?”
“Well, I’ll make ’commodations for ’em, if I have to turn you out o’
your bed to do it,” said Ma’am Hickey, as she dropped to her knees
before the little boy and took him into her arms, saying as she did so:
“Why, bless your heart an’ soul, little feller! I declare if it don’t
feel sweet to git a child into my arms once more! An’ whose boy air
you, anyhow?”
“Papa’s,” replied the boy, shyly, with a slight quivering of his lips
and an attempt to release himself from Ma’am Hickey’s embrace.
“An’ where is papa, honey?”
“Here.”
Ma’am Hickey looked around toward the men as if expecting some of
them to come forward and claim the child; but they too were looking
around inquiringly as the crowd grew in numbers, attracted by the
news of the arrival of the stage. Noting the boy’s quivering lips and
half-frightened look in the presence of all those strangers, his sister
stepped toward him and patted his head gently with her mittened hand,
saying as she did so:
“There, there; don’t you cry, Freddy. Sister will take care of you;
yes, she will.”
“Where did you little folks come from?” asked Ma’am Hickey, rising to
her feet with the little boy in her arms.
“From Iowa, ma’am.”
“Ioway!” exclaimed Ma’am Hickey. “You don’t ever mean to tell me that
you have come all the way from Ioway to this place all by your lone
selves?”
The girl nodded her head and said:
“Yes, we did. We had a letter to the conductors on the trains telling
them where we were going, and we got along all right; didn’t we,
Freddy?”
The little boy nodded his head solemnly, too much awed by his strange
surroundings to speak.
“Well, if that don’t beat anything I ever heard of!” exclaimed Ma’am
Hickey. “If I’d been your ma you wouldn’t’ve done it!”
The little girl kept looking into the faces of the men who crowded
about them, and said:
“I don’t see my papa anywhere. He said that he would be here when the
stage got here with us; but I don’t see him at all.”
“What is your papa’s name, deary?”
“Richard Miller.”
The men looked at each other blankly. Some of them opened and closed
their mouths without uttering a sound. Big “Missouri Dan” uttered
an exclamation under his breath. Ma’am Hickey held up one finger
warningly. Then she stooped and kissed the little girl on the brow, and
said gently:
“You come right into the house with me, little folks. I’ll get you a
real nice hot supper, an’ then I think you’d best go right to bed
after your long ride.”
When the cabin door had closed behind them, Big Dan said to the miners
around him:
“Well, if this ain’t what I call a state of affairs! To think of them
poor little tots trailin’ ’way out here from back in Ioway only to find
their daddy a day in his grave! Cur’us how things turns out!”
“What’s to be done?” asked a long, lank, red-whiskered man called “Cap.”
“Shore enough,” drawled out an elderly man who had been chewing the end
of his long gray mustache reflectively.
“I move that we go over to my shack an’ talk the matter over,” said Big
Dan; and, without waiting for his motion to be voted upon, he started
toward his cabin, a small log affair a short distance around the rocky
road. The men around the post-office followed Big Dan, and, when they
were in his cabin, seated on benches and nail-kegs or sprawling on
buffalo robes in front of the fire in the big open fire-place, one of
the men said:
“What does all this mean, anyhow? You know that I’ve just come down
from Mount Baldy, an’ all this is Greek to me.”
“Well, it’s just this-a-way,” replied Dan. “Three days ago a man come
into camp on foot from over towards Roarin’ Fork. He was so sick when
he got here he could hardly speak, an’ ’bout all we got outo’ him was
that his name was Miller. Pneumonia had set in mighty hard, an’ in less
than two hours after he got here he couldn’t speak at all, an’ he
didn’t live twelve hours. We laid him under that little clump o’ pines
down near the bend in the Singin’ River not ten hours ago; an’ now here
in comes the stage with that boy an’ gal, ev’dently the prop’ty o’ this
same Miller, who ain’t here to meet ’em, an’ who won’t ever meet ’em in
this world. It goes without sayin’ that they ain’t got no ma. If they
had, she’d never let ’em come trailin’ off out here all by theirselves.
It’s mighty tough on ’em.”
“That’s right,” agreed the man called Cap. “I’m old an’ tough as ever
they make ’em, but I ain’t fergot my own childhood so fur as not to
’preciate just how them pore little young uns will feel when they
reelize the sitooation. I feel fer ’em.”
“So do I,” said a stalwart fellow of about thirty-five years. “I’ve got
a couple o’ little folks o’ my own back East, an’ that boy reminds me a
sight o’ my own little chap.”
The men were still discussing the strange and sad occurrence, and the
question of the future of the children was still unsettled, when the
door of the cabin opened and Ma’am Hickey appeared. Her eyes were red
and her voice was unsteady as she said:
“I just run over to say one thing, boys, an’ that’s this: Don’t one of
you dast to breathe a word to them pore little darlin’s about where
their pa is until after Christmas. They’re not to know that they are
orphans until after that time. Their ma died last spring, an’ their
pa sent for ’em to come out here to him. It’s a mighty rough place to
fetch ’em to, but the little girl says that an aunt of hers was to
come on from California an’ be with ’em this winter, an’ their pa wrote
that he would likely go on to California in the spring—pore man! He’s
gone on now to a country that’s furder away than that!”
She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand before adding:
“It jest about broke my heart to hear them two pore little things
talkin’ about Christmas, an’ wonderin’ what their pa would have for
’em, while I was undressin’ ’em for bed. An’ I made up my mind that
they shouldn’t know a thing about what has happened until after
Christmas; an’, what’s more, some o’ you men kin jest stretch your long
legs hoofin’ it over to Crystal City to git ’em some toys an’ things
to make good my promise to ’em that if they hung up their stockin’s
Christmas eve they’d find ’em full next mornin’. Now you boys remember
that mum is the word in regard to their pa. Leave it to me to pacify
’em in regard to his not comin’ for ’em. They’re the cunnin’est little
things I ever saw, an’ it’s jest too terrible that this trouble has had
to befall ’em!”
When good Ma’am Hickey had gone back to the hotel, Big Dan slapped his
great rough palms together and said:
“I tell you what, boys! Let’s give them two little unfortinists a jolly
good Christmas! I’m fairly sp’ilin’ for somethin’ to do, an’ I’ll hoof
it over to Crystal City an’ git a lot o’ Christmas gimcracks for ’em.”
“I’ll keep you company,” said Joe Burke, the man who had two little
ones of his own back East. “Travelin’ on snow-shoes over the mountain
passes at this time o’ the year is ruther dangerous, an’ it’s not best
to start out on a trip alone. Then I guess I know more about what would
please the youngsters than you would, Dan.”
“I ain’t ever took occasion to mention it before, but I happen to
know a little about what children like, my own self, seein’ as I have
had two o’ my own,” replied Big Dan. “They both died the same week.
It happened nearly forty years ago, but these two little wayfarers
stragglin’ into camp this way brings it all back to me.”
No one in the camp had ever heard Big Dan speak so solemnly, and there
was silence in the room when he added:
“I reckon I know enough about children to know that a big doll with
these here open-and-shet kind o’ eyes allus takes the fancy of a little
gal, an’ that a boy allus likes somethin’ that’ll make a racket. But
I’ll be glad o’ your comp’ny, Joe.”
Ma’am Hickey appeared again before the conference came to an end.
“They’re cuddled up in bed in each other’s arms, cheek to cheek, the
pore little dears,” she said. “I pacified ’em in regard to their pa
without tellin’ any actual fib, an’ they went to sleep content. The
little boy’s tongue went like a trip-hammer when he finally got it
unloosened, and he jabbered away fast enough. But most he talked about
was Christmas. He’s set his heart on a steam-engine that will go ‘choo,
choo, choo,’ an’ if you boys can find such a thing in Crystal City,
you buy it an’ fetch it along with you, an’ I’ll foot the bill. The
little girl is doll-crazy, like most little girls, so you must get her
one, or more than one. An’ of course you’ll lay in plenty o’ candy;
an’ if you can lug home a turkey or two on your backs I’ll get up a
Christmas supper for ’em to eat after we’ve had the tree.”
“The tree?” said one of the men, inquiringly.
“Yes, _sir_; the tree! Of course them little folks must have a tree.
They say they want one, an’ why shouldn’t they have it, with the finest
Christmas trees in the world right at hand here in the mountains?”
“Where you goin’ to have the tree, I’d like to know?” said a burly
miner.
“In the hall over the post-office.”
“Well, if you ain’t plannin’ a reg’lar jamboree!”
“Course I am!” replied Ma’am Hickey. “Got any objections?”
“Better keep ’em to yourself if you have,” said Big Dan. “For what
Ma’am Hickey an’ them two little youngsters says—goes.”
“That settles it,” said Ma’am Hickey, with a laugh.
Crystal City was a long distance from Singing River, and the mountain
trails were hard and dangerous to travel at that time of the year. The
stage would not make another trip until after Christmas, and it might
be a month before it returned after it left the camp.
Big Dan and Joe Burke set off at daybreak the morning after the arrival
of the two little wayfarers. The men had “chipped in” for the purchase
of “gimcracks” for the tree, and they had been so generous that Big Dan
said just before he started for Crystal City:
“We’ll have to have the biggest pine we kin git for the tree. You chaps
have it all set up in the hall by the time we git back.”
“You sure you got that list o’ things I wrote down for you?” asked
Ma’am Hickey. “Men ain’t got any kind of a mem’ry when it comes to
shoppin’.”
“I got the list right here in this pocket,” replied Dan, patting his
broad chest. “If we have good luck we’ll be back by noon day after
to-morrow, an’ that night is Christmas eve, so you’ll want the tree all
ready. Did the little folks sleep good?”
“They never stirred; but once the little boy laughed out in his sleep
an’ said somethin’ about a steam-engine. Both of the children are
sleepin’ yet.”
An hour later the children were up and were eating their breakfast in
Ma’am Hickey’s cozy kitchen, which was also the dining-room of the
hotel.
“Will my papa come to-day?” asked Freddy, as he helped himself to a hot
doughnut.
“Don’t worry none about your papa, deary,” Ma’am Hickey said. “We’ll
see to you all right. Let’s talk about Christmas.”
“I never talked so much about Christmas in all the born days of my life
as I talked about it in them two days,” said Ma’am Hickey, afterward.
“It was the only way I could git their minds off their pa.”
Ma’am Hickey’s account of the Christmas tree at Singing River is so
much more interesting than any account I could give of it, that I think
it best to let her tell about it in her own way:
“You see, Big Dan an’ Joe Burke got back all right the middle of the
afternoon the day before Christmas. They looked like a pair o’ pack
peddlers, an’ they were about fagged out, for they had had a hard time
of it pullin’ up over the mountain trails in a snow-storm. Joe said he
didn’t think he could have dragged himself another mile for love nor
money. He had two big turkeys on his back besides a great lot of other
things.
“Well, the men in the camp had been busy, too. They had cut a big pine
an’ set it up in the hall over the post-office, an’ the way they had
dec’rated the hall with evergreen was beautiful. You couldn’t see an
inch of the ugly bare logs nor of the bare rafters. They set to an’
scrubbed the floor an’ washed the winders, an’ strung up a lot o’ red,
white and blue buntin’ I happened to have in the house, an’ I tell you
the little old hall did look scrumptious. I kep’ the children in the
kitchen with me, where I was makin’ pies an’ cake an’ doughnuts most
o’ the time. I give ’em dough to muss with, an’ let ’em scrape the
cake-dishes, an’ tried to keep ’em interested all the time, so they
wouldn’t ask about their pa.
“When Big Dan an’ Joe got back the other men had a great time riggin’
up the tree. We was afeerd they wouldn’t be able to buy Christmas-tree
candles in Crystal City; but, my land! they got about ten dozen of ’em,
an’ no end o’ tinsel an’ shiny balls an’ things to hang on the tree,
an’ a lot o’ little flags to stick in among the evergreen dec’rations.
We had no end o’ common taller candles on hand, an’ the men were
perfectly reckless with ’em. I reckon they put as many as two hundred
of ’em up around the room. An’ what did they do but go an’ rig Big Dan
up as Santy Claus! They wrapped him up in a big bearskin one o’ the
boys had, an’ put about a quart o’ flour on his long, bushy whiskers
to whiten ’em, an’ they put a big fur cap on his head, and he did look
for all the world like Santy his own self. Yes; an’ he had a string
o’ sleigh-bells they got at the stage-office stable; an’ them boys
ackshully cut a hole in the roof so Santy Claus could come down through
it! La, if you want things carried through regardless, you let a lot
o’ Rocky Mountain boys take it in hand. They won’t stop at nothin’. I
reckon they’d h’isted off the hull roof if it had been necessary to
make the appearance of Santy true to life. Such fun as the boys had
over it all! An’ of all the capers they cut up! Seemed like they was
all boys once more! Me an’ Ann Dickey an’ Mary Ann Morris were the only
women in the camp, an’ we had our hands full gittin’ up the Christmas
supper we intended havin’ after the tree. Mind you, there wasn’t a
child in camp but just them two pore little orphans, an’ all that
fuss was on their account. If you think rough miner boys can’t have
the kindest o’ hearts, you just remember that. Every man seemed to be
tryin’ to outdo the others in doin’ somethin’ for them little folks.
“Well, I jest wisht you could have seen them children when the time
come for ’em to go up to the hall an’ see their tree! Little Freddy
he give a yell o’ joy that most split our ears, an’ he just stood an’
clapped his hands, while his sister kep’ sayin’, ‘How lovely it is!
Oh, isn’t it beautiful?’ Then Freddy he screeches out: ‘Oh, there’s my
choo-choo engine! Goody!’ An’ how little Elsie’s eyes did shine when
she saw no less than _three_ dolls on the tree for herself! There was
enough stuff on that tree for a hull Sunday-school, for the men had
been that reckless in sendin’ to Crystal City for things.
“Then I wisht you could have seen those children when Big Dan come
in all rigged up as Santy Claus! That was the cap-sheaf o’ the hull
proceedin’s! First we heard his bells outside, an’ him callin’ out,
‘Whoa, there!’ like as if he was talkin’ to his reindeers. Then he clim
up the ladder the boys had set outside, an’ presently down he come
through the hole in the roof. I jest thought little Fred’s eyes would
pop clean out o’ his head when that part o’ the show come off! An’ what
fun there was when old Santy went around givin’ the boys all sorts of
ridiculous presents! He give old Tim Thorpe a tiny chiny doll, an’
big Jack Ross a jumpin’-jack, an’ Ben Anderson a set o’ little pewter
dishes; an’ he fetched me a great big old pipe, when they knowed I
hated the very sight o’ one. I tell you, it was real fun!
“Well, the things had all been distributed, an’ the children were
loaded down with presents, an’ me an’ the two other women were about
to go downstairs to take up the supper, when the door of the hall
opened, and a strange man stepped in. When he saw the children he give
a kind of a little outcry, an’ the next minute he was down on his knees
before ’em, with an arm around each child, an’ he was kissin’ first one
an’ then the other. We all jest stared at each other when little Elsie
clapped her hands together and said:
“‘Why, papa!’
“An’ that’s jest who it was! The man named Miller who had died a few
days before was a cousin o’ the children’s pa. It seemed that his
cousin o’ the name of Miller had been sent to meet the children,
because their pa had been sick an’ wasn’t hardly strong enough to come
away over to Singin’ River for them. He lived in a little camp only
about twenty miles away, but it was a hard road to travel for a well
man, even. So this cousin he come, an’, from all we could make out,
he had lost his way in a storm, an’ had laid out a night an’ got so
chilled it had brought on pneumonia. When he didn’t come back with the
children after two or three days, their pa got oneasy, an’ he set out
himself to see what was the matter. He wasn’t hardly fit to travel,
but he come anyhow, an’ he was all tuckered out when he got to Singin’
River. Then he was so nervous an’ kind o’ wrought up that no one
thought it to his shame that he jest broke clean down an’ laughed an’
cried by turns, kind o’ hystericky like, over the children.
“We did have the best time at the supper! A storm had come up, an’
the wind was roarin’ an’ howlin’ in the cañon an’ up an’ down the
Singin’ River, an’ the sleet was dashin’ ag’in’ the winder-lights; but
that jest made it seem more cheery an’ comfortable in the cabin, with
a roarin’ fire o’ pine-knots in the big fireplace at one end o’ the
cabin, an’ the teakettle singin’ on my big shinin’ stove at the other
end. Mr. Miller he set between the two children, an’ he’d hug an’ kiss
’em between times. We made him stay two whole weeks in Singin’ River
to rest up an’ git real well, an’ then a hull passel o’ the boys went
with him to git the children home. The boys rigged up a sled, an’ tuk
turns drawin’ Elsie an’ Freddy over the trails an’ away up over Red
Bird Mountain. I reckon it was a ride they won’t ever forgit; an’ none
of us that were there will ever in this world forgit that Christmas on
the Singin’ River.”
[2] Reprinted from “St. Nicholas Magazine” with permission.
THE SHEPHERD WHO WATCHED BY NIGHT[3]
_Thomas Nelson Page_
The place had nothing distinguished or even perhaps distinctive about
it except its trees and the tapering spire of a church lifting above
them. It was not unlike a hundred other places that one sees as one
travels through the country. It called itself a town; but it was
hardly more than a village. One long street, now paved on both sides,
climbed the hill, where the old post-road used to run in from the
country on one side and out again on the other, passing a dingy, large
house with whitewashed pillars, formerly known as the tavern, but now
calling itself “The Inn.” This, with two or three cross-streets and
a short street or two on either side of the main street, constituted
“the town.” A number of good houses, and a few very good, indeed, sat
back in yards dignified by fine trees. Three or four churches stood on
corners, as far apart apparently as possible. Several of them were much
newer and fresher painted than the one with the spire and cross; but
this was the only old one and was generally spoken of as “The Church,”
as the rector was meant when the people spoke of “the preacher.” It
sat back from the street, in a sort of sordid seclusion, and near
it, yet more retired, was an old mansion, also dilapidated, with a
wide porch, much decayed, and to the side and a little behind it, an
out-building or two, one of which was also occupied as a dwelling. The
former was the rectory, and the smaller dwelling was where the old
woman lived who took care of the rectory, cleaned up the two or three
rooms which the rector used since his wife’s death, and furnished
him his meals. It had begun only as a temporary arrangement, but it
seemed to work well enough and had gone on now for years and no one
thought of changing it. If an idea of change ever entered the mind of
any one, it was only when the old woman’s grumbling floated out into
the town as to the tramps who would come and whom the preacher would
try to take care of. Then, indeed, discussion would take place as to
the utter impracticability of the old preacher and the possibility of
getting a younger and liver man in his place. For the rest of the time
the people were hopeless. The old preacher was not only past his prime
but his usefulness. Yet what could they do? No one else wanted him, and
they could not turn him out. He was saddled on them for life. They ran
simply by the old propulsion; but the church was going down, they said,
and they were helpless. This had been the case for years and now as the
year neared its close it was the same.
Such was the talk as they finished dressing the church for Christmas
and made their way homeward—the few who still took interest enough to
help in this way. They felt sorry for the old man, who had been much
in their way during the dressing, but sorrier for themselves.
This had been a few days before Christmas and now it was Christmas eve.
The old rector sat at his table trying to write his Christmas sermon.
He was hopelessly behindhand with it. The table was drawn up close to
the worn stove, but the little bare room was cold, and now and then
the old man blew on his fingers to warm them, and pushed his feet
closer to the black hearth. Again and again he took up his pen as if
to write, and as often laid it down again. The weather was bitter and
the coal would not burn. There was little to burn. He wore his old
overcoat, to save fuel. Before him on the table, amid a litter of other
books and papers, lay a worn Bible and a prayer-book open, and beside
them a folded letter on which his eye often rested. Outside, the wind
roared, shaking the doors, rattling the windows, and whistling at the
key-holes. Now and then the sound of a passing vehicle was borne in on
the wind, and at intervals came the voices of boys shouting to each
other as they ran by. The old man did not hear the former, but when
the boys shouted he listened till they had ceased, his thoughts turned
to the past and to the two boys whom God had given him and had then
taken back to Himself. His gray face wore a look of deep concern, and,
indeed, of dejection, and his eye wandered once more to the folded
letter on the table. It was signed “A Friend,” and it was this which
was responsible for the unwritten Christmas sermon. It was what the
world calls an anonymous letter and, though couched in kindly terms, it
had struck a dagger into the old man’s heart. Yet he could not but say
that in tone and manner it was a kind act. Certainly it had told the
truth, and if in tearing a veil from his eyes it had stunned him, why
should he not face the truth!
He took the letter up again and reread it, not that he needed to read
it, for he knew it by heart. Every sentence was seared into his memory.
He reread it hoping to find some answer to its plain, blunt, undeniable
statements, but he found none. It was all true, every word, from the
ominous beginning which stated that the writer felt that he had “a
clear duty to perform,” down to the close when with a protestation of
good-will he signed himself the old man’s friend.
“You must see, unless you are blind,” ran the letter, “that your church
is running down, and unless you get out and let the congregation secure
a new and younger man, there will soon be no congregation at all left.
No men come to church any longer and many women who used to come now
stay away. You are a good man, but you are a failure. Your usefulness
is past.” Yes, it was true, he was a failure. His usefulness was past.
This was the reason doubtless that no Christmas things had come this
year—they wanted to let him know. It pained him to think it, and he
sighed.
“You spend your time fooling about a lot of useless things,” continued
the anonymous friend, “visiting people who do not come to church, and
you have turned the rectory into a harbor for tramps.
“You cannot preach any longer. You are hopelessly behind the times.
People nowadays want no more doctrinal points discussed; they want to
hear live, up-to-date, practical discourses on the vital problems of
the day. Such as the Rev. Dr. —— delivers. His church is full.” This
also was true. He was no longer able to preach. He had felt something
of this himself. Now it came home to him like a blow on the head, and
a deeper pain was the conviction which, long hovering about his heart,
now settled and took definite shape, that he ought to get out. But
where could he go? He would have gone long since if he had known where
to go. He could not go out and graze like an old horse on the roadside.
There was no provision made for such as he. No pensions were provided
by his church for old and disabled clergymen, and the suggestion made
in the letter had no foundation in his case: “You must or, at least,
you should have saved something in all this time.”
This sounded almost humorous and a wintry little smile flickered for
a moment about the wrinkled mouth. His salary had never been over six
hundred dollars and there were so many to give to. Of late, it had been
less than this amount and not all of this had been paid. The smile
died out and the old man’s face grew grave again as he tried to figure
out what he could do. He thought of one or two old friends to whom he
could write. Possibly, they might know some country parish that would
be willing to take him, though it was a forlorn hope. If he could but
hold on till they invited him, it would be easier, for he knew how
difficult it was for a clergyman out of a place to get a call. People
were so suspicious. Once out, he was lost.
At the thought, a picture of a little plot amid the trees in the small
cemetery on the hill near the town slipped into his mind. Three little
slabs stood there above three mounds, one longer than the others. They
covered all that was mortal of what he had loved best on earth. The old
man sighed and his face in the dim light took on an expression very
far away. He drifted off into a reverie. Ah, if they had only been
left to him, the two boys that God had sent him and had then taken
back to Himself, and the good wife who had borne up so bravely till
she had sunk by the wayside! If he were only with them! He used to be
rebellious at the neglect that left the drains so deadly, but that was
gone now. He leant forward on his elbows and gradually slipped slowly
to his knees. He was on them a long time, and when he tried to rise
he was quite stiff; but his face had grown tranquil. He had been in
high converse with the blessed of God and his mind had cleared. He
had placed everything in God’s hands, and He had given him light. He
would wait until after Christmas and then he would resign. But he would
announce it next day. The flock there should have a new and younger and
abler shepherd. This would be glad tidings to them.
He folded up the letter and put it away. He no longer felt wounded by
it. It was of God’s ordaining and was to be received as a kindness, a
ray of light to show him the path of duty. He drew his paper toward him
and, taking up his pen, began to write rapidly and firmly. The doubt
was gone, the way was clear. His text had come to his mind.
“_And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night, and lo, the Angel of the Lord
came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.
And they were sore afraid. And the Angel said unto them: Fear not,
for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall
be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David
a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto
you. You shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a
manger._”
Unfolding the story, he told of the darkness that had settled over
Israel under the Roman sway and the formalism of the Jewish hierarchy
at the time of Christ’s coming, drawing from it the lesson that God
still had shepherds watching over His flocks in the night to whom
He vouchsafed to send His heavenly messengers. On and on he wrote,
picturing the divine mission of the Redeemer and His power to save
souls, and dwelling on Christmas as the ever recurrent reminder of
“the tender mercy of our God whereby the Day Spring from on High hath
visited us.”
Suddenly he came to a pause. Something troubled him. It came to him
that he had heard that a woman in the town was very sick and he had
intended going to see her. She had had a bad reputation; but he had
heard that she had reformed. At any rate she was ill. He paused and
deliberated. At the moment the wind rattled the shutters. She did not
belong to his flock or, so far as he knew, to any flock, and once when
he had stopped her on the street and spoken to her of her evil life,
she had insulted him. She had told him that he had better look after
his own people instead of lecturing her. He turned back to his paper,
pen in hand; but it was borne in on him that he was writing of watching
over the flock by night and here he was neglecting one of his Father’s
sheep. He laid aside his pen, and rising, took down his old hat and
stick, lit his lantern, turned down his lamp, and, shuffling through
the bare, narrow passage, let himself out at the door. As he came out
on to the little porch to step down to the walk, the wind struck him
fiercely and he had some difficulty in fastening the door with its
loose lock; but this done he pushed forward. The black trees swayed and
creaked above him in the wind, and fine particles of snow stung his
withered cheeks. He wondered if the shepherds in the fields ever had
such a night as this for their watch. He remembered to have read that
snow fell on the mountains of Judea. It was a blustering walk. The wind
felt as if it would blow through him. Yet he stumbled onward.
At length he reached the little house on a back street in the worst
part of the village, where he had heard the sick woman lived. A light
glimmered dimly in an upper window and his knocking finally brought
to the door a woman who looked after her. She was not in a good humor
at being disturbed at that hour, for her rest had been much broken of
late; but she was civil and invited him in.
In answer to his question of how her patient was, she replied shortly:
“No better; the doctor says she can’t last much longer. Do you want to
see her?” she added presently.
The old rector said he did and she waved toward the stair. “You can
walk up.”
As they climbed the stair she added: “She said you’d come if you knew.”
The words made the old man warmer. And when she opened the door of
the sick-room and said, “Here’s the preacher, as you said,” the faint
voice of the invalid murmuring, “I hoped you’d come,” made him feel yet
warmer.
He was still of some use even in this parish.
Whatever her face had been in the past, illness and suffering had
refined it. He stayed there long, for he found that she needed him.
She unburdened herself to him. She was sorry she had been rude to him
that time. She had been a sinful woman. She said she had tried of late
to live a good life, since that day he had spoken to her, but she now
found that she had not. She had wanted to be a believer and she had
gone to hear him preach one day after that, but now she did not seem
to believe anything. They told her that she must repent. She wanted to
repent, but she could not feel. She was in the dark and she feared she
was lost. The old man had taken his seat by her side, and he now held
her hand and soothed her tenderly.
“Once, perhaps,” he said doubtfully, “though God only knows that, but
certainly no longer. Christ died for you. You say you wanted to change,
that you tried to ask God’s pardon and to live a better life even
before you fell ill. Do you think you could want this as much as God
wanted it? He put the wish into your heart. Do you think He would now
let you remain lost? Why, He sent His Son into the world to seek and to
save the lost. He has sent me to you to-night to tell you that He has
come to save you. It is not you that can save yourself, but He, and if
you feel that it is dark about you, never mind—the path is still there.
One of the old Fathers has said that God sometimes puts His children to
sleep in the dark.”
“But I have been—You don’t know what I have been,” she murmured. The
old man laid his hand softly on her head.
“He not only forgave the Magdalen, for her love of Him, but He
vouchsafed to her the first sight of His face after His resurrection.”
“I see,” she said simply.
A little later she dozed off, but presently roused up again. A bell
was ringing somewhere in the distance. It was the ushering in of the
Christmas morn.
“What is that?” she asked feebly.
He told her.
“I think if I were well, if I could ever be good enough, I should like
to join the church,” she said. “I remember being baptized—long ago.”
“You have joined it,” he replied.
Just then the nurse brought her a glass.
“What is that?” she asked feebly.
“A little wine.” She held up a bottle in which a small quantity
remained.
It seemed to the old preacher a sort of answer to his thought. “Have
you bread here?” he asked the young woman. She went out and a moment
later brought him a piece of bread.
He had often administered the early communion on Christmas morning,
but never remembered a celebration that had seemed to him so real and
satisfying. As he thought of the saints departed this life in the faith
and fear of God, they appeared to throng about him as never before, and
among them were the faces he had known and loved best on earth.
It was toward morning when he left; as he bade her good-by he knew he
should see her no more this side of Heaven.
As he came out into the night the snow was falling, but the wind had
died down and he no longer felt cold. The street was empty, but he no
longer felt lonely. He seemed to have got nearer to God’s throne.
Suddenly, as he neared his house, a sound fell on his ears. He stopped
short and listened. Could he have been mistaken? Could that have been
a baby’s cry? There was no dwelling near but his own, and on that
side only the old and unoccupied stable in the yard whence the sound
had seemed to come. A glance at it showed that it was dark and he was
moving on again to the house when the sound was repeated. This time
there was no doubt of it. A baby’s wail came clear on the silence of
the night from the unused stable. A thought that it might be some poor
foundling flashed into his mind. The old man turned and, stumbling
across the yard, went to the door.
“Who is here?” he asked of the dark. There was no answer, but the
child wailed again and he entered the dark building, asking again,
“Who is here?” as he groped his way forward. This time a voice almost
inarticulate answered. Holding his dim little lantern above his head,
he made his way inside, peering into the darkness, and presently, in a
stall, on a lot of old litter, he descried a dark and shapeless mass
from which the sound came. Moving forward, he bent down, with the
lantern held low, and the dark mass gradually took shape as a woman’s
form seated on the straw. A patch of white, from which a pair of eyes
gazed up at him, became a face and, below, a small bundle clasped to
her breast took on the lines of a babe.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, breathless with astonishment. She
shook her head wearily and her lips moved as if to say, “I didn’t mean
any harm.” But no sound came. She only tried to fold the babe more
warmly in her shawl. He took off his overcoat and wrapped it around
her. “Come,” he said firmly. “You must come with me,” he added kindly;
then, as she did not rise, he put out his hand to lift her, but,
instead, suddenly set down the lantern and took the babe gently into
his arms. She let him take the child, and rose slowly, her eyes still
on him. He motioned for her to take the lantern and she did so. And
they came to the door. He turned up the walk, the babe in his arms, and
she going before him with the lantern. The ground was softly carpeted
with snow, the wind had died down, but the clouds had disappeared
and the trees were all white, softly gleaming, like dream-trees in a
dream-land. The old man shivered slightly, but not now with cold. He
felt as if he had gone back and held once more in his arms one of those
babes he had given back to God. He thought of the shepherds who watched
by night on the Judean hills. “It must have been such a night as this,”
he thought.
As they reached his door he saw that some one had been there in his
absence. A large box stood on the little porch and beside it a basket
filled with things. So he had not been forgotten after all. The milkman
also had called and for his customary small bottle of milk had left one
of double the usual size. When he let himself in at the door, he took
the milk with him. So the shepherds might have done, he thought.
It was long before he could get the fire to burn; but in time this
was accomplished; the room grew warm and the milk was warmed also.
The baby was quieted and was soon asleep in its mother’s lap. And as
the firelight fell from the open stove on the child, in its mother’s
arms before the stove, the old man thought of a little picture he had
once seen in a shop window. He had wanted to buy it, but he had never
felt that he could gratify such a taste. There were too many calls on
him. Then, as she appeared overcome with fatigue, the old man put
her with the child in the only bed in the house that was ready for an
occupant and, returning to the little living-room, ensconced himself
in his arm-chair by the stove. He had meant to finish his sermon, but
he was conscious for the first time that he was very tired. But he was
also very happy. When he awoke he found that it was quite late. He
had overslept and though his breakfast had been set out for him, he
had time only to make his toilet and to go to church. The mother and
child were still asleep in his room, the babe folded in her arm, and he
stopped only to gaze on them a moment and to set the rest of the milk
and his breakfast where the young mother could find it on awaking. Then
he went to church, taking his half-finished sermon in his worn case.
He thought with some dismay that it was unfinished, but the memory of
the poor woman and the midnight communion, and of the young mother and
her babe, comforted him; so he plodded on bravely. When he reached
the church it was nearly full. He had not had such a congregation in
a long time. And they were all cheerful and happy. The pang he had
had as he remembered that he was to announce his resignation that day
was renewed, but only for a second. The thought of the babe and its
mother, warmed and fed in his little home, drove it away. And soon he
began the service. He had never had such a service. It all appeared to
him to have a new meaning. He felt nearer to the people in the pews
than he ever remembered to have felt. They were more than ever his
flock and he more than ever their shepherd. More, he felt nearer to
mankind, and yet more near to those who had gone before—the innumerable
company of the redeemed. They were all about him, clad all in white,
glistering like the sun. The heavens seemed full of them. When he
turned his eyes to the window, the whole earth seemed white with them.
The singing sounded in his ears like the choiring of angels. He was now
in a maze. He forgot the notice he had meant to give and went straight
into his sermon, stumbling a little as he climbed the steps to the
pulpit. He repeated the text and kept straight on. He told the story
of the shepherds in the fields watching their flocks when the Angel of
the Lord came upon them, and told of the Babe in the manger who was
Christ the Lord. He spoke for the shepherds. He pictured the shepherds
watching through the night and made a plea for their loneliness and the
hardship of their lives. They were very poor and ignorant. But they had
to watch the flock and God had chosen them to be His messengers. The
wise men would come later, but now it was the shepherds who first knew
of the birth of Christ the Lord. He was not reading as was his wont. It
was all out of his heart and the eyes of all seemed to be on him—of all
in pews and of all that innumerable host about him.
He was not altogether coherent, for he at times appeared to confuse
himself with the shepherds. He spoke as if the message had come to him,
and after a while he talked of some experiences he had had in finding
a child in a stable. He spoke as though he had really seen it. “And
now,” he said, “this old shepherd must leave his flock; the message has
come for him.”
He paused and looked down at his sermon and turned the leaves slowly,
at first carefully and then almost aimlessly. A breath of wind blew in
and a few leaves slid off the desk and fluttered down to the floor.
“I have been in some fear lately,” he said, “but God has appeared
to make the way plain. A friend has helped me, and I thank him.” He
looked around and lost himself. “I seem to have to come to the end,”
he said, smiling simply with a soft, childish expression stealing over
and lighting up his wan face. “I had something more I wanted to say,
but I can’t find it and—I can’t remember. I seem too tired to remember
it. I am a very old man and you must bear with me, please, while I
try.” He quietly turned and walked down the steps, holding on to the
railing. As he stooped to pick up a loose sheet from the floor he sank
to his knees, but he picked it up. “Here it is,” he said with a tone of
relief. “I remember now. It is that there were shepherds abiding in the
fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and the light came
upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round them and they were sore
afraid, and the Angel said unto them:
“‘_Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy
which shall be unto all people; for unto you is born this day in the
City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord._’”
They reached him as he sank down and, lifting him, placed him on a
cushion taken from a pew. He was babbling softly of a babe in a stable
and of the glory of the Lord that shone round about them. “Don’t you
hear them singing?” he said. “You must sing too; we must all join
them.” At the suggestion of some one, a woman’s clear voice struck up,
“_While shepherds watched their flocks by night_,” and they sang it
through as well as they could for sobbing. But before the hymn was
ended the old shepherd had joined the heavenly choir and gone away up
into Heaven.
As they laid him in the chamber on the hill opening to the sunrise, the
look in his face showed that the name of that chamber was Peace.
* * * * *
They talk of him still in his old parish, of the good he did, and of
his peaceful death on the day that of all the year signified birth and
life. Nothing was even known of the mother and babe. Only there was
a rumor that one had been seen leaving the house during the morning
and passing out into the white-clad country. And at the little inn in
the town there was vague wonder what had become of the woman and her
baby who applied for shelter there that night before and was told that
there was no place for her there, and that she had better go to the old
preacher, as he took in all the tramps.
[3] From “The Land of the Spirit”; copyright, 1913, by Charles
Scribner’s Sons. By permission of the publishers.
CHRISTMAS AT THE TRIMBLES’[4]
_Ruth McEnery Stuart_
PART I
TIME: Daylight, the day before Christmas.
PLACE: Rowton’s store, Simpkinsville.
_First Monologue, by Mr. Trimble_:
“Who-a-a, there, ck, ck, ck! Back, now, Jinny! Hello, Rowton! Here we
come, Jinny an’ me—six miles in the slush up to the hub, an’ Jinny with
a unweaned colt at home. Whoa-a-a, there!
“It’s good Christmus don’t come but once’t a year—ain’t it, Jinny?
“Well, Rowton, you’re what I call a pro-gressive business man, that’s
what you are. Blest ef he ain’t hired a whole row o’ little niggers
to stand out in front of ’is sto’e an’ hold horses—while he takes his
customers inside to fleece ’em.
“Come here, Pop-Eyes, you third feller, an’ ketch aholt o’ Jinny’s
bridle. I always did like pop-eyed niggers. They look so God-forsaken
an’ ugly. A feller thet’s afflicted with yo’ style o’ beauty ought to
have favors showed him, an’ that’s why I intend for you to make the
first extry to-day. The boy thet holds my horse of a Christmus Eve
always earns a dollar. Don’t try to open yo’ eyes no wider—I mean what
I say. How did Rowton manage to git you fellers up so early, I wonder.
Give out thet he’d hire the first ten that come, did he? An’ gives each
feller his dinner an’ a hat.
“I was half afeered you wouldn’t be open yet, Rowton—but I was
determined to git ahead o’ the Christmus crowd, an’ I started by
starlight. I ca’culate to meet ’em all a-goin’ back.
“Well, I vow, ef yo’ sto’e don’t look purty. Wish she could see it.
She’d have some idee of New York. But, of co’se, I couldn’t fetch her
to-day, an’ me a-comin’ specially to pick out her Christmus gif’. She’s
jest like a child. Ef she s’picions befo’ hand what she’s a-goin’ to
git, why, she don’t want it.
“I notice when I set on these soap-boxes, my pockets is jest about even
with yo’ cash-drawer, Rowton. Well, that’s what we’re here for. Fetch
out all yo’ purties, now, an’ lay ’em along on the counter. You know
_her_, an’ she ain’t to be fooled in quality. Reckon I _will_ walk
around a little an’ see what you’ve got. I ain’t got a idee on earth
what to buy, from a broach to a barouche. Let’s look over some o’ yo’
silver things, Rowton. Josh Porter showed me a butter-dish you sold him
with a silver cow on the led of it, an’ I was a-wonderin’ ef, maybe,
you didn’t have another.
“That’s it. That’s a mighty fine idee, a statue like that is. It
sort o’ designates a thing. D’rec’ly a person saw the cow, now, he’d
s’picion the butter inside the dish. Of co’se, he’d know they wouldn’t
hardly be hay in it—no, ez you say, ‘nor a calf.’ No doubt wife’ll
be a-wantin’ one o’ these cow-topped ones quick ez she sees Josh’s
wife’s. She’ll see the p’int in a minute—of the cow, I mean. But, of
co’se, I wouldn’t think o’ gittin’ her the same thing Josh’s got for
Helen, noways. We’re too near neighbors for that. Th’ ain’t no fun in
borryin’ duplicates over a stile when company drops in sudden, without
a minute’s warnin’.
“No, you needn’t call my attention to that tiltin’ ice-pitcher. I
seen it soon ez I approached the case. Didn’t you take notice to me
a-liftin’ my hat? That was what I was a-bowin’ to, that pitcher was.
No, that’s the thing wife hankers after, an’ I know it, an’ it’s the
one thing I’ll never buy her. Not thet I’d begrudge it to her—but to
tell the truth it’d pleg me to have to live with the thing. I wouldn’t
mind it on Sundays or when they was company in the house, but I like
to take off my coat, hot days, an’ set around in my shirt-sleeves, an’
I doubt ef I’d have the cheek to do it in the face of sech a thing as
that.
“Fact is, when I come into a room where one of ’em is, I sort o’ look
for it to tilt over of its own accord an’ bow to me an’ ask me to ‘be
seated.’
“You needn’t to laugh. Of co’se, they’s a reason for it—but it’s so.
I’m jest that big of a ninny. Ricollec’ Jedge Robinson, he used to have
one of ’em—jest about the size o’ this one—two goblets an’ a bowl—an’
when I’d go up to the house on a errand for pa, time pa was distric’
coroner, the jedge’s mother-in-law, ol’ Mis’ Meredy, she’d be settin’
in the back room a-sewin’; an’ when the black gal would let me in the
front door she’d sort o’ whisper: ‘Invite him to walk into the parlor
and be seated.’ I’d overhear her say it, an’ I’d turn into the parlor,
an’ first thing I’d see’d be that ice-pitcher. I don’t think anybody
can _set down_ good, noways, when they’re ast to ‘be seated,’ an’ when,
in addition to that, I’d meet the swingin’ ice-pitcher half way to the
patent rocker, I didn’t have no mo’ consciousness where I was a-settin’
than nothin’. An’ like ez not the rocker’d squawk first strain I put
on it. She wasn’t no mo’n a sort o’ swingin’ ice-pitcher herself, ol’
Mis’ Meredy wasn’t—walkin’ round the house weekdays dressed in black
silk, with a lace cap on her head, an’ half insultin’ his company thet
he’d knowed all his life. I did threaten once-t to tell her, ‘No, thank
you, ma’am, I don’t keer to be seated—but I’ll _set down_ ef it’s
agreeable,’ but when the time would come I’d turn round an’ there’d be
the ice-pitcher. An’ after that I couldn’t be expected to do nothin’
but back into the parlor over the Brussels carpet an’ chaw my hat-brim.
But, of co’se, I was young then.
“Reckon you’ve heerd the tale they tell on Aleck Turnbull the day he
went there in the old lady’s time. She had him ast into the cushioned
sanctuary—an’ Aleck hadn’t seen much them days—an’ what did he do but
gawk around an’ plump hisself down into that gilt-backed rocker with a
tune-playin’ seat in it, an’, of co’se, quick ez his weight struck it,
it started up a jig tune, an’ they say Aleck shot out o’ that door like
ez ef he’d been fired out of a cannon. An’ he never did go back to say
what he come after. I doubt ef he ever knew.
“How much did you say for the ice-pitcher, Rowton? Thirty dollars—an’
you’ll let me have it for—hush, now, don’t say that. I don’t see
how you could stand so close to it an’ offer to split dollars. Of
co’se I ain’t a-buyin’ it, but ef I was I wouldn’t want no reduction
on it, I’d feel like ez ef it would always know it an’ have a sort
of contemp’ for me. They’s suitableness in all things. Besides, I
never want no reduction on anything I buy for _her_, someways. You
can charge me reg’lar prices an’ make it up on the Christmus gif’
she buys for me—that is, ef she buys it from you. Of co’se it’ll be
charged. That’s a mighty purty coral broach, that grape-bunch one,
but she’s so pink-complected, I don’t know ez she’d become it. I like
this fish-scale set, myself, but she might be prejerdyced ag’in’ the
idee of it. You say she admired that hand-merror, an’ this pair o’
side-combs—an’ she ’lowed she’d git ’em fur my Christmus gif’ ef she
dared? But, of co’se, she was jokin’ about that. Poor little thing, she
ain’t never got over the way folks run her about that side-saddle she
give me last Christmus, though I never did see anything out o’ the way
in it. She knew thet the greatest pleasure o’ my life was in makin’ her
happy, and she was jest simple-hearted enough to do it—that’s all—an’ I
can truly say thet I ain’t never had mo’ pleasure out of a Christmus
gif’ in my life than I’ve had out o’ that side-saddle. She’s been so
consistent about it—never used it in her life without a-borryin’ it of
me, an’ she does it so cunnin’. Of co’se I don’t never loand it to her
without a kiss. They ain’t a cunnin’er play-actor on earth ’n she is,
though she ain’t never been to a theatre—an’ wouldn’t go, bein’ too
well raised.
“You say this pitcher wasn’t there when she was here—no, for ef it
had ’a’ been, I know she’d ’a’ took on over it. Th’ ain’t never been
one for sale in Simpkinsville before. They’ve been several of ’em
brought here by families besides the one old Mis’ Meredy presided
over—though that was one o’ the first. But wife is forever a-pickin’
out purty patterns of ’em in catalogues. Ef that one hadn’t ’a’ give
me such a setback in my early youth I’d git her this, jest to please
her. Ef I was to buy this one, it an’ the plush album would set each
other off lovely. She’s a-buyin’ _it_ on instalments from the same man
thet enlarged her photograph to a’ ile-painted po’trait, an’ it’s a
dandy! She’s got me a-settin’ up on the front page, took with my first
wife, which it looks to me thet if she’d do that much to please me,
why, I might buy almost anything to please her, don’t it? Of co’se I
don’t take no partic’lar pleasure in that photograph—but she seems
to think I might, an’ no doubt she’s put it there to show thet she
ain’t small-minded. You ricollec’ Mary Jane was plain-featured, but
Kitty don’t seem to mind that ez much ez I do, now thet she’s gone an’
her good deeds ain’t in sight. I never did see no use in throwin’ a
plain-featured woman’s looks up to her _post mortem_.
“This is a mighty purty pitcher, in my judgment, but to tell the truth
I’ve made so much fun o’ the few swingin’ pitchers thet’s been in this
town that I’d be ashamed to buy it, even ef I could git over my own
obnoxion to it. But of co’se, ez you say, everybody’d know thet I done
it jest to please her—an’ I don’t know thet they’s a more worthy object
in a married man’s life than that.
“I s’pose I’ll haf to git it for her. An’ I want a bold, outspoke
dedication on it, Rowton. I ain’t a-goin’ about it shamefaced. Here,
gimme that pencil. Now, I want this inscription on it, word for word.
I’ve got to stop over at Paul’s to git him to regulate my watch, an’
I’ll tell him to hurry an’ mark it for me, soon ez you send it over.
“Well, so long. Happy Christmus to you an’ yo’ folks.
“Say, Rowton, wrap up that little merror an’ them side-combs an’ send
’em along, too, please. So long!”