PART III

When old man Trimble stood before the fireplace at midnight that night,

stuffing little parcels into the deep, borrowed stocking, he chuckled

noiselessly, and glanced with affection towards the corner of the room

where his young wife lay sleeping. He was a fat old man, and as he

stood with shaking sides in his loose, home-made pajamas, he would have

done credit to a more conscious impersonation of old Santa himself.

His task finally done, he glanced down at a tall bundle that stood on

the floor almost immediately in front of him, moved back with his hands

resting on his hips, and thoughtfully surveyed it.

“Well, ef anybody had ’a’ told it on me I never would ’a’ believed it,”

he said, under his breath. “The idee o’ me, Ephe Trimble, settin’ up

sech a thing ez that in his house—at my time o’ life.” Then glancing

towards the sleeper, he added, with a chuckle, “an’ ef they’d ’a’

prophesied it I wouldn’t ’a’ believed sech ez _thet_, neither—at my

time o’ life—bless her little curly head.”

He sat down on the floor beside the bundle, clipped the twine, and

cautiously pushed back the wrappings. Then, rising, he carefully set

each piece of the water-set up above the stocking on the mantel. He did

not stop to examine it. He was anxious to get it in place without noise.

It made a fine show, even in the dim, unsteady light of a single taper

that burned in its tumbler of oil close beside the bed. Indeed, when it

arose in all its splendor, he was very much impressed.

“A thing like that ought to have a chandelier to set it off right,”

he thought—“yas, and she’ll have one, too—she’ll have anything she

wants—thet I can give her.”

Sleep came slowly to the old man that night, and even long after his

eyes were closed, the silver things seemed arrayed in line upon his

mental retina. And when, after a long while, he fell into a troubled

slumber, it was only to dream. And in his dream old Judge Robinson’s

mother-in-law seemed to come and stand before him—black dress, side

curls, and all—and when he looked at her for the first time in his

life unabashed—she began to bow, over and over again, and to say with

each salutation, “Be seated”—“be seated”—“be seated,” getting farther

and farther away with each bow until she was a mere speck in the

distance—and then the speck became a spot of white, and he saw that the

old lady had taken on a spout and a handle, and that she was only an

ice-pitcher, tilting, and tilting, and tilting,—while from the yellow

spout came a fine metallic voice saying, “Be seated”—“be seated”—again

and again. Then there would be a change. Two ladies would appear

approaching each other and retreating—turning into two ice-pitchers,

tilting to each other, then passing from tilting pitchers to bowing

ladies, until sometimes there seemed almost to be a pitcher and a lady

in view at the same time. When he began to look for them both at once

the dream became tantalizing. Twin ladies and twin pitchers—but never

quite clearly a lady and a pitcher. Even while the vision tormented him

it held him fast—perhaps because he was tired, having lost his first

hours of sleep.

He was still sleeping soundly, spite of the dissolving views of the

novel panorama, when above the two voices that kept inviting him to

“be seated,” there arose, in muffled tones at first, and then with

distressing distinctness, a sound of sobbing. It made the old man turn

on his pillow even while he slept, for it was the voice of a woman, and

he was tender of heart. It seemed in the dream and yet not of it—this

awful, suppressed sobbing that disturbed his slumber, but was not

quite strong enough to break it. But presently, instead of the muffled

sob, there came a cumulative outburst, like that of a too hard-pressed

turkey-gobbler forced to the wall. He thought it was the old black

gobbler at first, and he even said, “Shoo,” as he sprang from his bed.

But a repetition of the sound sent him bounding through the open door

into the dining-room, dazed and trembling.

Seated beside the dining-table there, with her head buried in her

arms, sat his little wife. Before her, ranged in line upon the table,

stood the silver water-set—her present to him. He was beside her in a

moment—leaning over her, his arms about her shoulders.

“Why, honey,” he exclaimed, “what on earth——”

At this she only cried the louder. There was no further need for

restraint. The old man scratched his head. He was very much distressed.

“Why, honey,” he repeated, “tell its old man all about it. Didn’t it

like the purty pitcher thet its old husband bought for it? Was it too

big—or too little—or too heavy for it to tote all the way out here from

that high mantel? Why didn’t it wake up its lazy ol’ man and make him

pack it out here for it?”

It was no use. She was crying louder than ever. He did not know what to

do. He began to be cold and he saw that she was shivering. There was no

fire in the dining-room. He must do something. “Tell its old man what

it would ’a’ ruther had,” he whispered in her ear, “jest tell him, ef

it don’t like its pitcher——”

At this she made several efforts to speak, her voice breaking in real

turkey-gobbler sobs each time, but finally she managed to wail:

“It ain’t m-m-m-mi-i-i-ne!”

“Not yours! Why, honey. What can she mean? Did it think I bought it

for anybody else? Ain’t yours! Well, I like that. Lemme fetch that lamp

over here till you read the writin’ on the side of it, an’ I’ll show

you whose it is.” He brought the lamp.

“Read that, now. Why, honey! Wh-wh-wh-what in thunder an’ lightnin’!

They’ve done gone an’ reversed it. The fool’s put my name

first—‘Ephraim N. Trimble. From—his——’

“Why Jerusalem jinger!

“No wonder she thought I was a low-down dog—to buy sech a thing an’

mark it in my own name—no wonder—here on Christmus, too. The idee o’

Rowton not seein’ to it thet it was done right——”

By this time the little woman had somewhat recovered herself. Still,

she stammered fearfully.

“R-r-r-owton ain’t never s-s-s-saw that pitcher. It come from

L-l-l-awson’s, d-d-down at Washin’ton, an’ I b-brought it for

y-y-y-you!”

“Why, honey-darlin’—” A sudden light came into the old man’s eyes. He

seized the lamp and hurried to the door of the bed-chamber, and looked

in. This was enough. Perhaps it was mean—but he could not help it—he

set the lamp down on the table, dropped into a chair, and fairly howled

with laughter.

“No wonder I dremp’ ol’ Mis’ Meredy was twins!” he screamed. “Why,

h-h-honey,” he was nearly splitting his old sides—“why, honey, I ain’t

seen a thing but these two swingin’ pitchers all night. They’ve been

dancin’ before me—them an’ what seemed like a pair o’ ol’ Mis’ Meredys,

an’ between ’em all I ain’t slep’ a wink.”

“N-n-either have I. An’ I dremp’ about ol’ Mis’ M-m-m-eredy, too. I

dremp’ she had come to live with us—an’ thet y-y-you an’ me had moved

into the back o’ the house. That’s why I got up. I couldn’t sleep easy,

an’ I thought I might ez well git up an’ see wh-wh-what you’d brought

me. But I didn’t no mor’n glance at it. But you can’t say you didn’t

sleep, for you was a-s-s-snorin’ when I come out here——”

“An’ so was you, honey, when I ’ranged them things on the mantel. Lemme

go an’ git the other set an’ compare ’em. That one I picked out is

mighty purty.”

“I’ll tell you befo’ you fetch ’em thet they’re exactly alike”—she

began to cry again—“even to the p-p-polar bear. I saw that at a glance,

an’ it makes it s-s-so much more ridic’——”

“Hush, honey. I’m reely ashamed of you—I reely am. Seems to me ef

they’re jest alike so much the better. What’s the matter with havin’ a

pair of ’em? We might use one for butter-milk.”

“Th-that would be perfectly ridiculous. A polar bear’d look like a fool

on a buttermilk pitcher. N-n-no, the place for pitchers like them is in

halls, on tables, where anybody comin’ in can see ’em, an’ stop an’ git

a drink. They couldn’t be nothin’ tackier’n pourin’ buttermilk out of

a’ ice-pitcher.”

“Of co’se, if you say so, we won’t—I jest thought maybe—or, I tell you

what we might do. I could easy take out a panel o’ banisters out of the

side po’ch, an’ put in a pair o’ stair-steps, so ez to make a sort o’

side entrance to the house, an’ we could set one of ’em in _it_. It

would make the pitcher come a little high, of co’se, but it would set

off that side o’ the house lovely, an’ ef you say so——

“Lemme go git ’em all out here together.”

As he trudged in presently loaded up with the duplicate set he said, “I

wonder ef you know what time it is, wife?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the wall.

“Don’t look at that. It’s six o’clock last night by that. I forgot

to wind her up. No, it’s half-past three o’clock—that’s all it is.”

By this time he had placed his water-set beside hers upon the table.

“Why, honey,” he exclaimed, “where on earth? I don’t see a sign of a’

inscription on this—an’ what is this paper in the spout? Here, you read

it, wife, I ain’t got my specs.”

“Too busy to mark to-day—send back after Christmas—sorry.

“ROWTON.”

“Why, it—an’ here’s another paper. What can this be, I wonder?”

“To my darling wife, from her affectionate husband.”

The little wife colored as she read it.

“Oh, that ain’t nothin’ but the motter he was to print on it. But ain’t

it lucky thet he didn’t do it? I’ll change it—that’s what I’ll do—for

anything you say. There, now. Don’t that fix it?”

She was very still for a moment—very thoughtful. “An’ affectionate is

a mighty expensive word, too,” she said, slowly, glancing over the

intended inscription, in her husband’s handwriting. “Yes. Your pitcher

don’t stand for a thing but generosity—an’ mine don’t mean a thing but

selfishness. Yes, take it back, cert’nly, that is ef you’ll get me

anything I want for it. Will you?”

“Shore. They’s a cow-topped butter-dish an’ no end o’ purty little

things out there you might like. An’ ef it’s goin’ back, it better be

a-goin’. I can ride out to town an’ back befo’ breakfast. Come, kiss

me, wife.”

She threw both arms around her old husband’s neck, and kissed him on

one cheek and then on the other. Then she kissed his lips. And then, as

she went for pen and paper, she said: “Hurry, now, an’ hitch up, an’

I’ll be writin’ down what I want in exchange—an’ you can put it in yo’

pocket.”

In a surprisingly short time the old man was on his way—a heaped basket

beside him, a tiny bit of writing in his pocket. When he had turned

into the road he drew rein for a moment, lit a match, and this is what

he read:

My dear Husband,—I want one silver-mounted brier-wood pipe and a

smoking set—a nice lava one—and I want a set of them fine overhauls

like them that Mis Pope give Mr. Pope that time I said she was too

extravagant, and if they’s any money left over I want some nice

tobacco, the best. I want all the price of the ice-set took up even

to them affectionate words they never put on.

Your affectionate and loving wife,

KITTY.

When Ephraim put the little note back in his pocket, he took out his

handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

Her good neighbors and friends, even as far as Simpkinsville and

Washington, had their little jokes over Mis’ Trimble’s giving her

splendor-despising husband a swinging ice-pitcher, but they never knew

of the two early trips of the twin pitcher, nor of the midnight comedy

in the Trimble home.

But the old man often recalls it, and as he sits in his front hall

smoking his silver-mounted pipe, and shaking its ashes into the lava

bowl that stands beside the ice-pitcher at his elbow, he sometimes

chuckles to himself.

Noticing his shaking shoulders as he sat thus one day his wife turned

from the window, where she stood watering her geraniums, and said:

“What on earth are you a-laughin’ at, honey?” (She often calls him

“honey” now.)

“How did you know I was a-laughin’?” He looked over his shoulder at her

as he spoke.

“Why, I seen yo’ shoulders a-shakin’—that’s how.” And then she added,

with a laugh, “An’ now I see yo’ reflection in the side o’ the

ice-pitcher, with a zig-zag grin on you a mile long—yo’ smile just

happened to strike a iceberg.”

He chuckled again.

“Is that so? Well, the truth is, I’m just sort o’ tickled over

things in general, an’ I’m a-settin’ here gigglin’, jest from pure

contentment.”

[4] From “Moriah’s Mourning” by Ruth McEnery Stuart. By permission of

Harper & Brothers.

THE GIFT OF THE MANGER[5]

_Edith Barnard Delano_

Christine’s frail body bent slightly forward to meet the force of the

gale. She kept her face lowered, shielded by her muff; yet now and

again she raised it for an instant to glance upward at Norwood, with a

bright flash of the eyes and a gleam of teeth. Invariably he met the

look and warmed to it as to a flame, smiled back, or shook his head. To

speak in the face of such a gale was all but impossible, yet once or

twice she bent close enough to call in her sweet, high tones, “I love

it! I adore it!”

It was at such times that he shook his head. He was keen enough for

adventure, good sport enough to meet it halfway, to make the utmost of

it when it came; but this—the snow, the early fall of night, the upward

climb over roads tantalizingly but half remembered—this was more than

he had counted upon, and, truly, more than he wanted. He was beginning

to wonder whether, even for Christine’s sake, the journey were a wise

one.

They had planned, weeks earlier, to take the noon train as far as

River Junction, where his father, with the pair of sturdy grays, was

to meet them for the eight-mile drive to the old home farm over the

hills. But young doctors cannot always keep their best-laid plans, and

Christine had waited in vain at the station while Norwood officiated at

an entrance into the world and an exit therefrom—the individuals most

concerned in both instances taking their own time. Christine, waiting

beside the suit-cases, boxes, and parcels, whose number and variety of

shapes unmistakably proclaimed Christmas gifts, had watched the express

pull out of the station. Then, with a dull pounding at her temples and

a barely controlled choking in her throat, she had gathered up the

Christmas impedimenta and gone home. Norwood found her there an hour

later, still dressed as for the journey, and sobbing wildly in a heap

at the foot of the bed—his Christine, to whose courage during the past

ten months his very soul had done homage many a time.

“I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!” she had sobbed out at last, when

the tenderness of his arms had begun to soothe her outburst of grief.

“To be with your father and mother, to make Christmas for the poor old

darlings, to work and keep busy all day—that was bad enough; but I

could have done that——”

“I know, dear, I know,” he said, holding her firmly, his professional

sense alive to every pulse in the racked body.

“But to stay here, where Teddy was last year—I cannot, I cannot!”

“Christine!” he besought her.

“Oh, Ned, I have seen him watch me tie up every parcel—I have heard him

on the stairs—I have caught myself wondering which toys he would wish

for this Christmas—and he isn’t here! I cannot bear it! I cannot stay

here without him! I want my boy, my little boy—my baby! It is Christmas

eve—and I want my boy!”

And this was his Christine who, during the ten months since the child

had died, had faced the world and her husband with her head held high,

with a smile on her lips and courage in the clasp of her hand! Not

once before to-day had he heard her cry out in grief or rebellion—his

Christine!

“Then we will not stay here,” he said. “We will go to the farm whether

we have missed the train or not! We will go to the end of the world, or

beyond it, if that will help!”

“Ned! What do you mean?” she cried, drawing back from his clasp to look

up into his face.

“It is only a matter of sixty miles or so, and it isn’t yet two

o’clock; we can make it with the big car!”

She sprang to her feet with a choking laugh, her hands on her throat,

her eyes shining like stars of hope.

“Hurry!” she cried; and in scarcely half an hour they were on their

way, the multitude of the Christmas bundles tumbled, helter-skelter,

into the tonneau, she fur-clad and glowing beside him.

The big “sixty” stood up to its task, and the first part of the journey

was as nothing. It had been one of those winters when autumn prolongs

itself into December, when people begin to talk of a green Christmas,

and the youngsters feel almost hopeless about sleds and skates; but

to-day, Christmas eve, the children’s hopes had revived; a sudden

drop in temperature, a leaden sky, an unwonted briskness among the

sparrows—it might not be a green Christmas, after all.

That was one of the little things that Christine talked about along the

way; and when the first few flakes of snow came wavering down she held

out her muff, as if trying to catch them all, and laughed.

“Oh, see, Ned! We’ll snowball each other to-morrow!”

But he had replied, “Let’s hope that we shall have to postpone the

snow-balling until we get to the farm, anyway. By Jove! I had forgotten

how steep these roads were!”

“Don’t you remember them?” she asked. “Have you forgotten your way?”

He got the teasing note in her tone. “That’s all right,” he said, “but

it has been many years since I came this way; and roadsides have a way

of changing, even in Vermont; and with this storm coming along worse

every minute, I am not anxious to negotiate them by dark.”

“’Fraid cat,” she laughed, and then cried: “Oh, see! The snow is

coming! It’s coming, coming, coming!”

It had come, indeed, on the wings of a quick, wild gust; its particles

cut like bits of ice, and presently flew in swirling eddies beside the

car and in front of it, and, for all their speed, built itself into

little drifts wherever a curve or crevice or corner made a possible

lodging-place. It pierced their barrier of windshield and curtains, and

heaped itself on their fur wrappings, until swept away again by a new

fierce breath of the storm. Then it was that Christine’s cheeks flamed,

but she bent forward to meet the force of the wind, and now and again

turned to call up to Norwood that she loved it.

Night fell almost with the swiftness of a stage curtain, blotting out

the distant hills, the pastures, the fields, and scattered houses;

blotting out at last even the roadsides, its blackness emphasized by

the ever-swirling, steadily descending snow. Once or twice Norwood

stopped the car and got out to reconnoiter. Christine felt his

uneasiness by means of that sixth sense of wifehood; yet all the while,

by another of wifehood’s endowments, she rested secure, serene in the

feeling that all was well and must continue well with her man at the

wheel; while side by side with his own feeling of uneasiness, Norwood

was proud of his wife’s courageous serenity, unaware in his masculine

simplicity that her courage had its fount of being in himself.

Nobly the big car responded to their demand upon it, yet they had gone

not more than a few miles beyond the last recognized sign-post when

it began to show symptoms of reluctance, of distress. Norwood muttered

under his breath, and once more Christine turned a laughing face toward

him.

“It’s a real adventure,” she cried. “I do believe you are lost!”

Norwood’s answering laugh held no merriment. “You are not so bad at

guessing,” he remarked, dryly. “Suppose you try to guess the way!”

Her keen eyes were peering forward through the veil of snow. “Here we

come! I think I see a house ahead of us,” she said. “We can ask our way

of the people who live there.”

“They won’t know,” said Norwood, with a man’s pessimism. “Probably

foreigners. Half the old places around here are bought up by people who

can’t speak English and don’t know anything when they can.”

“Oh, you just don’t want to ask questions,” said Christine. “Men always

hate to! I never can see why!”

The day had held many things for him; now his nerves were beginning to

jump. “All right, we’ll ask,” he said, shortly.

The car, in its inanimate way, seemed glad enough to stop. “I will run

in and ask,” said Christine, and Norwood was already busy over some of

the mysterious attentions men love to bestow upon their engines.

“All right,” he said, without raising his head.

But in a moment she was back. “It isn’t a house, Ned! It’s only a

barn!”

Still bent over his engine, he replied: “House probably across the

road. They often fix them that way up here.”

But in another moment or two she was calling to him, above the voice

of the gale: “Ned! Ned! There has been a fire! It must have been quite

lately, for the snow melts as it falls on the place where the house

was! How horrible to think of those poor people, burned out just before

Christmas.”

At that he stood up. “Burned out, is it? They may be camping in the

barn. We’ll see if we can’t rout them out.”

He went back a step or two and reached over to his horn, sending forth

one honking, raucous blast after another. “That ought to fetch them,”

he said.

There was, indeed, an answering sound from the barn—trampling of hoofs,

the suffering call of an unmilked cow. Christine went toward the denser

blackness, which was the door.

“Hoo—hoo!” she cried. “Is any one here?”

She held a little pocket flash-light in her hand, and threw its light

here and there through the interior darkness. Norwood, still busy with

his engine, was not aware when she went within; he was busy with mind

and fingers. But all at once he sprang into a fuller activity—the

activity of the man who hears the one cry that would recall him from

another world; his wife had called to him, had cried aloud a wordless

message which held wonder and fear, bewilderment, and—a note of joy?

He ran around the car into the open doorway of the barn. The air of

the vast space within was redolent with the scent of stored hay, the

warm, sweet breath of beasts, the ghost of past summers, the promised

satisfaction of many a meal-time. He could hear the movement of the

animals in the stalls; the roof of the barn arched far above in

cavelike darkness; in a quick flash of memory there came to him the

story of another cave where patient beasts were stabled; and this was

Christmas eve....

Far back in the gloom there shone a tiny light. He was curiously

breathless. “Christine!” he called, a quick, foolish fear clutching at

his heart, “Christine!”

She answered with another wordless call that was partly an exclamation

of wonder, partly a crooning. Blundering forward, he could see the dim

outline of a form—Christine’s form—kneeling in the dimness that was

sparsely lighted by the pocket-light which she had dropped on the floor

beside her. It was scarcely more than the space of a breath before he

was at her side, yet in that space there had arisen another cry—a cry

which he, the doctor, had also heard many times before. He felt as

though he were living in a dream—but a dream as old as time.

“Ned, it’s a baby! Look! Here, alone, in the manger!”

It was, truly, a manger beside which she knelt; and she held gathered

closely in her arms a child which was now crying lustily. Norwood

spoke, she answered, and together they bent over the little form. It

had been warmly wrapped in an old quilt; it was dressed in a queer

little dress of brilliant pink, with strange, dark woolen underthings

the like of which Christine had never seen before. Its cradle had

been warm and safe, for all the gale without, and it had slept there

peacefully in the manger until the honking horn and this strange woman

had brought it back to a world of very cruel hunger.

Norwood laughed aloud as its little waving, seeking fists closed on

one of his fingers. “Good healthy youngster,” he said; “three or four

months old, I should say.” Then he added, “Hey, old man, where are your

folks?”

At that Christine held the baby more closely to her breast. “Oh, I

suppose it does belong to some one,” she said. “But, oh, Ned, I found

it! Here in the manger—like the Christ-child! It seemed to me that I

found something I had lost, something of my own!”

Norwood felt the danger of this sort of talk, as he mentally termed it,

and hastened to interrupt. “Sure you found it!” he said. “That’s just

what the baby is trying to tell you, among other things. He cries as if

he were starved. Can’t you keep him quiet? Lord! how he yells!”

But Christine had sprung to her feet with the baby still held closely

to her in all its strange wrappings. She was staring into the blackness

of the barn. There must have been a new sound, for Norwood also turned

quickly.

“Who’s there?” he called. He had taken Christine’s light from the

floor and now flashed it toward the sound.

“All a-right! I mak-a de light,” a voice called; and with the careless

noisiness of one who feels himself at home, the new-comer stumbled

toward a shelf near the door and presently succeeded in lighting a

dingy lantern. It revealed him to be, as Norwood had foreseen, a person

distinctly un-American; and as they drew nearer his features disclosed

themselves, though undoubtedly old, as of that finished adherence to

type which is the result, perhaps, of the many-centuries-old Latin

ideal of human perfection—the type as distinct and clear-cut as a

Neapolitan cameo.

“Well,” said Norwood, jocularly, “quite a fire here, I see!”

The Italian raised shoulders and palms in that gesture of his race,

alike disclaiming all responsibility and at the same time imploring the

blessings of a benign Providence. “Oh, de fire, de fire! He burn all

up; he burn up everyt’ing!”

By gesture and broken words he made the story plain. “Dis-a morn’

Maria send-a me to River—you know, River. I tak-a de horse; I go. I

come back. I see-a de smoke, de smoke away up. I whip-a de horse. I

come! _Dio mio!_ De smoke! He flame up, up. I whip-a de horse. I come

to de hill. I see Maria run out of de house wit’ de babee in her arm.

She tak-a de babee to de barn and she run-a back. She run-a back to

Stefano. Stefano he in bed. He in bed one mont’, two mont’, t’ree

mont’—no can move. I whip-a de horse some more. I jump down. I t’ink I

go too for Stefano. _Ma! Dio mio!_” Again the gesture imploring Heaven.

“De house, de floor, he go, he come down. Maria, Stefano, all—all come

down, all go! _Dio!_”

He had made it graphic enough. They could see the quick tragedy of it,

the wild rush of the mother taking her baby to its cradled safety in

the manger, her dash back to the bedridden husband, the flames, the

quickly charred timbers of the old house, the crashing fall....

Christine could feel the blood rush back to her heart; her forehead,

her lips, were as cold as if an icy hand had been laid upon them; she

trembled, and strained the baby to herself as if it could still the

sympathetic pain at her heart. Norwood, seeing her distress, moved

closer, drew her into the curve of his arm; her head bent to his

shoulder, and he could feel her silently crying. Before the revelation

of the pitiful tragedy they were momentarily speechless; then Norwood

began to question the man.

“But the neighbors? Why did no one come to help?”

The sidewise bend of his head, the opening fingers of his gesture,

spoke as plainly as the Italian’s words. “No neighbor! Far away over de

mount’. No can-a see! Far away!”

“He means that the nearest neighbors were too far off to see the fire,”

Norwood explained. “It’s likely enough, in these hills!” Again he

asked: “But the barn? Why didn’t the barn burn, too?”

“No burn-a de barn; de wind dat-a way—” He made an expressive gesture.

“De wind-a blow! De barn no burn.”

“That’s plain enough,” said Norwood. “Well, I am mighty sorry for you,

my friend. What can we do to help you? What are you going to do with

the baby?”

The old man seemed to become aware for the first time of the child in

Christine’s arms. “Where you fin’-a heem?” he asked.

“My wife found him, back there in the manger where the poor mother laid

him for safety, I suppose. What are you going to do with him?”

“Me not-a do! He not-a my babee!”

“Good Lord, man! He is some relation to you, isn’t he? Your grandchild,

perhaps?”

“_Ma!_ No-o! Maria, Stefano, come from Ascoli! Me”—tapping his breast

in a magnificent gesture—“Me _Siciliano_!”

Christine looked up and gave a little eager cry. “You are not related?

He isn’t your baby, then, and you don’t want him?”

“Wait, dear! Make sure, first, before you set your hopes too high.”

Norwood understood what was passing in her mind, and he added to the

old man: “You are not related? What are you doing here, then?”

Again the typical shrug. “Stefano no can work; he much-a seeck! Me come

along. Maria, Stefano, dey tell-a me, ‘You stay mak-a de mon. Stefano

get-a well, you can-a go!’ So me stay, two week, t’ree week, maybe!”

Norwood thought quickly in silence for a moment; then he asked the man,

“Do you know where Squire Norwood lives?”

The man nodded vigorously: “Big-a house, white house; over dere—two,

t’ree mile.”

“Can you show us the way?”

“_Si!_”

“Then come on! We will give you a lift and a place to sleep in.”

He led his wife and the child, now sleeping, as many centuries before

another had led a woman and a sleeping babe; the beauty and wonder and

mystery of it was not changed, not lessened because he led them through

the snow on a modern dispeller of distance, instead of through burning

wastes on a patient beast. She had taken the child from a manger on

this Christmas eve; and it seemed a very gift of God.

The distance to Squire Norwood’s house was only a matter of a few

miles; yet it must have been an hour later when the two old people

stood framed in the lamp-lighted door, hurriedly opened in response to

the call of the motor’s horn.

“What’s this? what’s this?” his father’s hearty voice called out.

“Thought ye were coming by train, and mother just broke down and cried

when I come back without ye.”

Bareheaded, the snow no whiter than his hair, he stepped out toward the

dark, big shape of the car, which loomed enormous through the falling

snow; then he turned to stare after the shape which moved so swiftly

past him and up to the shelter of the old wife’s arms. Doubtless

there were hurried words, questions, answers; but the fact of the mere

existence of the baby seemed to be enough for the two women—one so

lately new to grief, the other so nearly beyond it for all time. They

stopped, then passed within; the lighted doorway was empty.

“I swan! Where’d ye get that baby?” the old man asked of his son.

Norwood explained; his father was quick with self-reproach that such a

tragedy had transpired so near, while he, the friendly “Squire” of the

countryside, should have been all unaware of it.

“Summer-time I might have driven home that way; mother and me often

stopped to see how Stefano was coming along. But winters we always use

the state road. It’s longer, but better going. Sho! Mother will feel

dreadful bad. She got to be real fond of Mareea, what with the baby

coming, and after. Mareea used to tell as how they hadn’t any folks,

poor young things!”

“Are you sure of that?” asked Norwood, sharply. “Could not

Christine—could we have the baby?”

His father’s eyes held a sharp question, then became quickly misty. “I

_am_ sure; but as selectman I can make it sure for ye beyond question.”

The men’s hands clasped; the squire coughed, and Norwood’s doctor-sense

was aroused.

“Why, father, you are standing here without your hat! You go right in,

and I’ll put the car in the barn. I guess we can give this man shelter

over Christmas, can’t we?”

It was, perhaps, some three hours later, after his mother had worn out

all her persuasion in trying to coax them to eat to four times their

capacity; and after they had exhausted every detail of talk about

the fire and the tragedy; and after they had disposed the beribboned

parcels to be opened in the morning; and after Norwood had lifted his

mother fairly off the floor in his good-night “bear hug”—it was after

all of this that Norwood followed Christine up to the big south room,

with its white-hung four-poster, and found her kneeling over the old

mahogany cradle which had been his own. The old clock in the hall below

struck twelve.

Christine arose, and laid her cheek against her husband’s arm. “It is

Christmas,” she said; and the baby, sleeping, smiled.

[5] Reprinted from “Harper’s Magazine” by special permission of Edith

Barnard Delano. All rights reserved by the author.

GOD REST YOU, MERRY CHRISTIANS[6]

_George Madden Martin_

It was the night before Christmas. Any Christian must have known

it, apart from the calendar, by reason of a driving, haunting sense

of things yet undone, and a goaded gathering together of exhausted

faculties for a final sprint towards the accomplishing of all before

the dawning of The Day.

Because we long have associated certain things with Christmas we have

come to believe them integrant. The blended odor of orange peel,

lighted tapers, and evergreens rushing upon us as the Church door opens

means Christmas, even as much as the murmuring voices of the children

within, each pew a variegated flower-bed of faces up-lifted to the

light and tinsel of a giant tree.

Aromatic odors, other than frankincense and myrrh, mean Christmas,

cedar, spices; and certain flavors, an almond kernel laid against a

raisin and crushed between molars to the enravishment of the palate,

seem to belong to Christmas; the translucent olive of preserved citron,

exuding sugared richness, suggests Christmas, together with the

crinkled layers of the myriad-seeded, luscious-hearted fig; blazing

brandy means Christmas, and the velvet smoothness of egg, cream and Old

Bourbon blended, seems part of Christmas too.

But because the average Christian is an unreasoning creature, and, like

the ox, bending his neck to the yoke because the yoke offers, plods

the way along unquestioning beneath it, the preceding mad rush means

Christmas too, and the feverish dream wherein, for instance, the long

strand of embroidery silk forever pulls through, unknotted. And it is

expected that the bones should ache at Christmas, and the flesh cry out

for weariness, and the brain be fagged to the excluding of more than a

blurred impression of The Day when it is come.

In the Rumsey household the celebration of the festival began on

Christmas Eve with a family gathering of children and grandchildren.

There is a certain wild, last hour, preceding the moment of gracious

and joyous bestowal, made up of frenzied haste and exhaustion. It was

that hour now.

“Anne Rumsey calls it the tears and tissue-paper stage,” was told as

evidence of Anne’s singular attitude towards the ways of the Christian

world about her.

“And I am sure I don’t know what I’ve done to have any one as queer as

Anne for my child,” Mrs. Rumsey, handsome, imposing, on her knees by

the bed tying parcels, was saying to her married daughter, Florrie,

come home with her babies for Christmas. “There’s no one prides

themselves more on the conventional than I do, and I am sure you

never did an unconventional thing in your life. But I suppose every

family has to have its black sheep, not”—hastily at Florrie’s horrified

disclaimer—“not that I mean that, of course—Florrie, how you take one

up!—nor ugly duckling exactly, either, for Anne is the handsomest

of you all—what did I tie in this package, do you know? I’m sure I

don’t—but that a child of mine should thus deliberately each year stand

apart, outside the Christmas spirit, while others—it almost looks as

if I had not brought my children up with a proper regard for sacred

things.”

Down-stairs, in the big, circular hallway, Anne Rumsey, outstretched in

a long wicker chair, lay gazing into the fire. It was nice to lie there

and watch the flames and listen to the crackle of the logs. Hickory

logs seem to belong to Christmas. Anne’s grandfather, years ago, in the

country, used to bring in hickory logs for Christmas. Anne had provided

these for to-night herself. She had gone to a place in the country she

knew of, and walked over to a farm and negotiated for them. She had

waited a week for some member of her family to find time from shopping

to make the jaunt with her, and then had gone alone. It was ideal

December weather; the snow crunched under foot, the sky was brilliant,

a top-knotted cardinal bird and a jay on a thorn-hedge against the blue

looked at her as she passed along the road. It was good to be alive.

Her mother was testy that night at dinner. Her handsome face was

flushed to floridness beneath her gray pompadour. “I’m sure I haven’t

time to know whether the weather is perfect or not, if I half do my

duty for my family at Christmas. For Heaven’s sake, Anne, don’t be so

aggressively high-spirited; it gets on my nerves.”

And to-night, Christmas Eve, Anne lay looking into the fire. It was

nice to know it was snowing outside those drawn curtains, it made one

love their warmth and crimson more, and snow seems part of Christmas.

That morning she had put holly about, idling over the pleasure of

trying it here, there. Now she reveled in the color and cheer about

her. She had dressed for the evening with a sort of childlike and

smiling gaiety, slowly and pleasurably, because the dress seemed part

of the season and the joy, and in the scarlet gown looked some dryad of

the holly-tree herself, or some Elizabethan’s concept of the Twelfth

Night spirit.

The outer door behind her opened to a latch-key and closed.

“Is that you, Daddy?” called Anne. “Come to the blaze and warm.”

“I can’t,” confessed the big-headed, square little man, struggling

out of his overcoat; “I’m a disheveled wreck and I’ve got to dress

for dinner, I suppose. What time do you look for ’em all around? God

bless my soul, Anne, it’s good to see somebody composed and enjoying

themselves. I’ve been looking for something for the grandchildren.”

“You said you were too busy, didn’t really have time——”

“Yes, yes, I did, I know I did, but——”

“—at the eleventh hour you rushed out; what did you buy, Daddy?”

“Just a trifle, a trifle around,” confessed John Rumsey hastily, moving

towards the stairway; “just a trifle—been putting greenery around,

Anne? It looks nice—but I’m worried by a sort of after-recollection.

Didn’t I give Florrie’s boy a silver cup before, some time or other?”

Anne laughed; a teasing, yet a provoking laugh, too, it was. “Sort of

mile-stones on the road to Dover, little John’s mugs will be, won’t

they, father? This will make the——”

John Rumsey, with a plunge up the steps, sent back a sort of frenzied

snort.

“Change your shoes,” called Anne after him; “it’s slushy down street, I

know. I laid your clothes out; the buttons are in.”

“Thank the Lord!” John Rumsey’s voice came back. “I’ve been fighting my

way through mobs, I’m exhausted.”

The dear, blessed, grizzle-headed little Daddy! It was he who, after

the long pull, had made hickory fires and crimson hangings and silver

mugs possible. The girl’s eyes softened to almost maternal tenderness.

The dear, square-set, grizzled little Daddy!

Anne stretched her strong, young length in the chair and consciously

luxuriated in the warmth, the richness, the beauty around her.

“It is like a hymn, the colors,” she was thinking.

Again a door opened, somewhere above this time, and protesting

childish voices came down the stairway, the voices of sister Florrie’s

babies come for Christmas. Anne’s eyes deepened as she listened,

laughingly, yet broodingly.

It was sister Florrie answering:

“Now go on down to Norah, John Rumsey, and take your little sister. Go

on! I’ll lose my mind if you say another word about Santy Claus; go on,

I’ve got all that bed full of things to tie up yet——”

“But you said—” expostulated a small voice, the voice of little John

Rumsey.

“I don’t care what I said—” a door closed violently.

A wail arose on the silence, the injured cry of Mary Wingate, the baby.

“Shut up, can’t you,” the fraternal tones of small John were heard

requesting, “and come on.” Feet pattered along the hall as towards a

rear stairway. “But she said afore we came to Grandpa’s, she did,” the

voice of little John was reiterating as it grew fainter, “when she got

time she’d tell me what Santy Claus looked like when she was little,

afore his whiskers got white.”

Anne down-stairs laughed through merry yet fierce eyes. Babies belong

to Christmas. Yet they could not come down here to her because of the

decorations and the preparations which Florrie would not permit them to

see beforehand.

Anne waxed hot in her soul, for babies belong to Christmas, or, rather,

Christmas belongs to babies, and she loved babies. They are so honest,

so unconquered, they look at the adult and its inconsistencies so

uncompromisingly. So do boys, and she loved boys too. Babies and

boys are the honestest things in life. Had Anne but known it, there

was much of baby and of boy in her own nature; she attacked nobody’s

convictions, only stood to her own. It gives one large liberty if one

will be honest to self.

The footsteps of the babies, sent to some nether world, died away.

“Yet Christmas is meant for babies, or, rather, Christmas means A Baby.”

The girl rose. There were rooms opening around the hallway. It was at

times such as this, with married sisters and brothers arriving with

their families and laughter and jollity, that one loved it so, the

space, and the beauty, and the means. At times such as Christmas one

paused and thought about it all. The dear Daddy who had given it to

them!

Anne crossed to one of the arched spaces and, pulling a curtain aside,

went in. She left the hangings apart. The tree, glittering with scarlet

and gold, and hung with delightful woolly lambs and Noah’s Arks and

such like toys, would show joyously through the opening. And why not?

Since it was her tree, for the tree had come to be her part and she had

pottered around the whole happy, uninterrupted morning adorning it,

since it was her tree it should stand unconcealed from first to last

for its purpose—beauty, revel, festivity.

On salvers upon a table near the tree were bowls of glass and silver

heaped with dates, figs, tamarinds, sweet pastes, nougats—luscious

things that seemed to bring close, far-away Orient climes.

There seemed, too, in the colors and the appointments of the room, an

Oriental sumptuousness pervading. Anne loved it, and laving in it, lent

herself to it and stood with half-closed lids and parted lips, hands

straight at sides, letting fancy be ravished, until she seemed to see——

Against an indigo sky wherein a star burned clear, three swift-footed,

shadowy creatures swinging across sandy wastes, each uncouth back

bearing in silhouette against the blue, a turbaned rider, eyes shielded

by hand, gazing ahead——

Her eyes opened. It was lavish, the richness about her. There came a

distaste. It was a simple and pastoral life those Orient Jewish people

led. She had been there, she and Daddy, one delightful runaway journey

together. Afterward her father had marked passages in a book and

brought it to her, wherein it was put as neither he nor she could put

it.

Now she walked to a bookcase, and taking out a slim volume, hunted

passages, and finding them, read blissfully:

A total indifference to ... the vain appanage of the comfortable

which our drearier countries make necessary to us, was the

consequence of the sweet and simple life lived in Galilee.... The

countries which awaken few desires are the countries of idealism

and poesy. The accessories of life are there insignificant compared

with the pleasure of living.... The embellishment of the house is

superfluous, for it is frequented as little as possible.... This

contempt, when it is not caused by idleness, contributes greatly to

the elevation of the soul.

Anne, hunting passages, drew a long breath. She could love it too, the

simple life of certain poverties.

We see the streets where Jesus played when a child in the stony

paths or little crossways which separate the dwellings. The house of

Joseph doubtless much resembled those poor shops lighted by the door,

serving at once for shop, kitchen, and bedroom, having for furniture

a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay pots, and a

painted chest.

Where the little Jesus played! The eyes of Anne, lifting from the

page, sought a niche where, in a golden frame, hung a picture, royal

in indigo, purple and scarlet. It was a copy, but it was an honest

one. The Baby’s head seemed verily to rest, to press, into the curve

of Mary’s arm. The little head! And the brooding, jealous ecstasy in

Mary’s face, and the little hand Mary was playfully uplifting! Was she

dreaming great, beautiful dreams for the little son’s life to come?

Does every woman dream mighty deeds for her man-child’s doing? And this

Baby’s hand, uplifted there by Mary’s finger, the hand of the little

Galilean peasant whose carpenter-father’s house boasted a few mats, one

or two clay pots, and a painted chest: this little hand was to lift the

human ideal out of materialism and set it above earthly things, and

behold! nineteen hundred years are gone, and still that ideal shines

high, clear, a star against the dome of Time, and wise men, following

its leading, still are journeying, eyes shielded by hand, as they gaze

ahead——

Mary’s little son, the peasant baby!

There was an opened piano in the room. Anne crossed to it. On her lips

was a smile, an exultant, a jealous smile. She could feel the little

head pressing into the curve of Mary’s arm.

Her fingers sought the keys. The notes were rich and deep and full;

they filled the room and poured out into the hallway and rose——

Above stairs, from his own doorway, John Rumsey, struggling with the

last details of a toilet, stood looking into his wife’s room. He was

a big-headed, even a belligerent little man, but he stood as though

hesitating once, twice, before speaking what was on his mind to say.

“Mary,” he had begun.

Mrs. Rumsey scarcely turned from the mêlée of jeweler’s boxes, ribbons,

packages, surrounding her. “I can’t listen now; I’ve forgotten whom I

could have meant this for——”

“But, Mary——”

“Heavens, John, don’t distract me; I have to dress yet——”

“Call Anne to help you.”

“Not at all,” with some asperity; “if Anne can so separate herself from

the Christmas spirit as to abjure the preparing of any gifts herself,

she’ll not be called on——”

“Mamma”—it was Florrie speaking from her room across the hall—“did you

ever order the flowers for the dinner table?” appearing as she ended.

Mrs. Rumsey arose the picture of imposing and tragic despair. A small

figure turned from between the curtains, where he was drawing figures

on the moisture gathering on the pane. It was little John Rumsey.

“Aunt Anne went out and got them,” he said. “They are roses, they’re

red.”

Now there were certain things destined to swell the portion of little

John, as yet unwrapped.

“How did that child get in here?” demanded John’s grandmamma testily,

even sharply; “now go on out. Didn’t your mother send you to Norah?”

“She put us out the kitchen, she’s helping ’em down there. She said we

weren’t to see till everything was done.”

“Florrie,” besought Mrs. Rumsey, “please take him out. Gracious,

child!” as the light fell upon the slender person of Florrie, “how

ghastly tired you look! I told you that you were overdoing. There,

there, don’t go to crying. Pour her some aromatic ammonia, Papa, it

won’t hurt her; I’ve taken two doses myself since I got home. Sometimes

I think it is a mistake to have them all here for Christmas Eve. Next

year we’ll send the presents around and get the business over with and

Christmas Day have them here in peace and quiet.”

“Mary,” the voice of Mr. Rumsey was insistent, “Donald Page is in town;

got in this afternoon. I asked him to dinner to-night.”

There was silence. Some silences are ominous. Then from Florrie,

looking from father to mother, timidly, perhaps, for Florrie loved

peace:

“Does Anne know?”

“She wrote him. She brought her answer to me for sanction.”

“And you?” it was his wife asking.

“I sent it. She has waited a long time on you, Mary.”

Mrs. Rumsey had risen again, her lapful of ribbons and papers strewing

the floor. “You sent it, and you asked him to dinner, Donald Page,

absolutely come up out of the ranks——”

“I am out of the ranks,” said her husband.

“—and self-made, that is, if he ever is made at all.”

“I am self-made,” said John Rumsey.

Mary Rumsey, imposing in her maturity, handsome, surveyed him. She was

a Wingate and they are an arrogant blood.

“I am self-made,” repeated John Rumsey, looking at her steadily.

“I have never forgotten it,” said Mary, his wife, her eyes measuring

him.

The little boy at the window was gazing at these older people. His eyes

were big.

“Oh,” Florrie was saying, “Mamma.”

They were looking at each other, the man and the woman, long married.

Her eyes were hard, and his were sorrowful.

A few chords from the piano reached them. It was Anne; they knew her

touch, and it was Anne’s voice now arising, sweet, strong, trembling

with the passion of it.

For it was Christmas Eve. Else why this room strewn with holly and

gifts and scarlet ribbons, else why this spiciness of cedar pervading

the house, else why Anne’s noël arising?

The words came up to them, words that had belonged to Christmas at the

small, old-fashioned church where the Rumseys once had been wont to go.

The little boy slipped out into the hall. They heard him pattering down

to Anne.

Mary Rumsey, with a gesture of contrition like any girl’s, went to her

husband, and the next moment was crying on the little man’s shoulder

and his hand was patting her soothingly, gently.

For it was Christmas Eve, eve of the night when Christ was born, and

Anne was singing of it:

“For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn,

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!

O night divine, O night when Christ was born,

O night, O night divine!”

And down-stairs Anne, turning from the piano to the little nephew

standing there, drew him to her with a kind of rapture, for children

belong to Christmas, children and simple joys and memories and loves.

And then, a servant opening the door, Donald Page came in out of the

night, big, steadfast-looking Donald, with something somewhere of the

grimness of the fight in his eyes, and Anne went from the room out to

the hall to meet him.

It was very big and simple, the gesture of her hands, as with one who

gives all.

And then little John Rumsey gasped, for his Aunty Anne was lifting her

face even as baby sister might, to a tall and strange man to be kissed.

Gifts had been given and the evening was almost over. Anne Rumsey’s

sister-in-law was speaking, under cover of voices and merriment and

confusion, to Anne’s sister:

“It saves Anne trouble, of course, but to put one’s self outside it

all, and give nothing at Christmas, I don’t see how Anne can.”

[6] By permission of the author and “McClure’s Magazine.”

TO SPRINGVALE FOR CHRISTMAS[7]

Her children arise up and call her blessed.

_Zona Gale_

When President Arthur Tilton of Briarcliff College, who usually used

a two-cent stamp, said “Get me Chicago, please,” his secretary was

impressed, looked for vast educational problems to be in the making,

and heard instead:

“Ed? Well, Ed, you and Rick and Grace and I are going out to Springvale

for Christmas.... Yes, well, I’ve got a family too, you recall. But

mother was seventy last Fall and—Do you realize that it’s eleven years

since we’ve all spent Christmas with her? Grace has been every year.

She’s going this year. And so are we! And take her the best Christmas

she ever had, too. Ed, mother was _seventy_ last Fall——”

At dinner, he asked his wife what would be a suitable gift, a very

special gift, for a woman of seventy. And she said: “Oh, your mother.

Well, dear, I should think the material for a good wool dress would be

right. I’ll select it for you, if you like—” He said that he would see,

and he did not reopen the subject.

In town on December twenty-fourth he timed his arrival to allow him an

hour in a shop. There he bought a silver-gray silk of a fineness and a

lightness which pleased him and at a price which made him comfortably

guilty. And at the shop, Ed, who was Edward McKillop Tilton, head of a

law firm, picked him up.

“Where’s your present?” Arthur demanded.

Edward drew a case from his pocket and showed him a tiny gold

wrist-watch of decent manufacture and explained: “I expect you’ll think

I’m a fool, but you know that mother has told time for fifty years by

the kitchen clock, or else the shield of the black-marble parlor angel

who never goes—you get the idea?—and so I bought her this.”

At the station was Grace, and the boy who bore her bag bore also a

parcel of great dimensions.

“Mother already has a feather bed,” Arthur reminded her.

“They won’t let you take an automobile into the coach,” Edward warned

her.

“It’s a rug for the parlor,” Grace told them. “You know it _is_ a

parlor—one of the few left in the Mississippi valley. And mother has

had that ingrain down since before we left home——”

Grace’s eyes were misted. Why would women always do that? This was no

occasion for sentiment. This was a merry Christmas.

“Very nice. And Ricky’d better look sharp,” said Edward dryly.

Ricky never did look sharp. About trains he was conspicuously

ignorant. He had no occupation. Some said that he “wrote,” but no one

had ever seen anything that he had written. He lived in town—no one

knew how—never accepted a cent from his brothers and was beloved of

every one, most of all of his mother.

“Ricky won’t bring anything, of course,” they said.

But when the train had pulled out without him, observably, a porter

came staggering through the cars carrying two great suitcases and

following a perturbed man of forty-something who said, “Oh, here you

are!” as if it were they who were missing, and squeezed himself and

his suitcases among brothers and sister and rug. “I had only a minute

to spare,” he said regretfully. “If I’d had two, I could have snatched

some flowers. I flung ’em my card and told ’em to send ’em.”

“Why are you taking so many lugs?” they wanted to know.

Ricky focused on the suitcases. “Just necessities,” he said. “Just the

presents. I didn’t have room to get in anything else.”

“Presents! What?”

“Well,” said Ricky, “I’m taking books. I know mother doesn’t care much

for books, but the bookstore’s the only place I can get trusted.”

They turned over his books: Fiction, travel, biography, a new

illustrated edition of the Bible—they were willing to admire his

selection. And Grace said confusedly but appreciatively: “You know, the

parlor bookcase has never had a thing in it excepting a green curtain

_over_ it!”

And they were all borne forward, well pleased.

Springvale has eight hundred inhabitants. As they drove through

the principal street at six o’clock on that evening of December

twenty-fourth, all that they expected to see abroad was the pop-corn

wagon and a cat or two. Instead they counted seven automobiles and

estimated thirty souls, and no one paid the slightest attention to

them as strangers. Springvale was becoming metropolitan. There was a

new church on one corner and a store-building bore the sign “Public

Library.” Even the little hotel had a rubber-plant in the window and a

strip of cretonne overhead.

The three men believed themselves to be a surprise. But, mindful of

the panic to be occasioned by four appetites precipitated into a

Springvale ménage, Grace had told. Therefore the parlor was lighted

and heated, there was in the air of the passage an odor of brown gravy

which, no butler’s pantry ever having inhibited, seemed a permanent

savory. By the happiest chance, Mrs. Tilton had not heard their arrival

nor—the parlor angel being in her customary eclipse and the kitchen

grandfather’s clock wrong—had she begun to look for them. They slipped

in, they followed Grace down the hall, they entered upon her in her

gray gingham apron worn over her best blue serge, and they saw her

first in profile, frosting a lemon pie. With some assistance from her,

they all took her in their arms at once.

“Aren’t you surprised?” cried Edward in amazement.

“I haven’t got over being surprised,” she said placidly, “since I first

heard you were coming!”

She gazed at them tenderly, with flour on her chin, and then she said:

“There’s something you won’t like. We’re going to have the Christmas

dinner to-night.”

Their clamor that they would entirely like that did not change her look.

“Our church couldn’t pay the minister this Winter,” she said, “on

account of the new church-building. So the minister and his wife are

boarding around with the congregation. To-morrow’s their day to come

here for a week. It’s a hard life and I didn’t have the heart to change

’em.”

Her family covered their regret as best they could and entered upon

her little feast. At the head of her table, with her four “children”

about her, and father’s armchair left vacant, they perceived that she

was not quite the figure they had been thinking her. In this interval

they had grown to think of her as a pathetic figure. Not because their

father had died, not because she insisted on Springvale as a residence,

not because of her eyes. Just pathetic. Mothers of grown children, they

might have given themselves the suggestion, were always pathetic. But

here was mother, a definite person with poise and with ideas, who might

be proud of her offspring, but who, in her heart, never forgot that

they _were_ her offspring and that she was the parent stock.

“I wouldn’t eat two pieces of that pie,” she said to President Tilton;

“it’s pretty rich.” And he answered humbly: “Very well, mother.” And

she took with composure Ricky’s light chant:

“Now, you must remember, wherever you are,

That you are the jam, but your mother’s the jar.”

“Certainly, my children,” she said. “And I’m about to tell you when you

may have your Christmas presents. Not to-night. Christmas eve is no

proper time for presents. It’s stealing a day outright. And you miss

the fun of looking forward all night long. The only proper time for the

presents is after breakfast on Christmas morning, _after_ the dishes

are washed. The minister and his wife may get here any time from nine

on. That means we’ve got to get to bed early!”

President Arthur Tilton lay in his bed looking at the muslin curtain

on which the street-lamp threw the shadow of a bare elm which he

remembered. He thought:

“She’s a pioneer spirit. She’s the kind who used to go ahead any way,

even if they had missed the emigrant party, and who used to cross the

plains alone. She’s the backbone of the world. I wish I could megaphone

that to the students at Briarcliff who think their mothers ‘try to

boss’ them!”

“Don’t leave your windows open too far,” he heard from the hall. “The

wind’s changed.”

In the light of a snowy morning the home parlor showed the cluttered

commonplace of a room whose furniture and ornaments were not believed

to be beautiful and most of them known not to be useful. Yet when—after

the dishes were washed—these five came to the leather chair which bore

the gifts, the moment was intensely satisfactory. This in spite of the

sense of haste with which the parcels were attacked—lest the minister

and his wife arrive in their midst.

“That’s one reason,” Mrs. Tilton said, “why I want to leave part of my

Christmas for you until I take you to the train to-night. Do you care?”

“I’ll leave a present I know about until then too,” said Ricky. “May I?”

“Come on now, though,” said President Arthur Tilton. “I want to see

mother get her dolls.”

It was well that they were not of an age to look for exclamations of

delight from mother. To every gift her reaction was one of startled

rebuke.

“Grace! How could you? All that money! Oh, it’s beautiful! But the old

one would have done me all my life.... Why, Edward! You extravagant

boy! I never had a watch in my life. You ought not to have gone to all

that expense. Arthur Tilton! A silk dress! What a firm piece of goods!

I don’t know what to say to you—you’re all too good to me!”

At Ricky’s books she stared and said: “My dear boy, you’ve been very

reckless. Here are more books than I can ever read—now. Why, that’s

almost more than they’ve got to start the new library with. And you

spent all that money on me!”

It dampened their complacence, but they understood her concealed

delight and they forgave her an honest regret at their modest

prodigality. For, when they opened her gifts for them, they felt the

same reluctance to take the hours and hours of patient knitting for

which these stood.

“Hush, and hurry,” was her comment, “or the minister’ll get us!”

The minister and his wife, however, were late. The second side of the

turkey was ready and the mince pie hot when, toward noon, they came to

the door—a faint little woman and a thin man with beautiful, exhausted

eyes. They were both in some light glow of excitement and disregarded

Mrs. Tilton’s efforts to take their coats.

“No,” said the minister’s wife. “No. We do beg your pardon. But we find

we have to go into the country this morning.”

“It is absolutely necessary to us that we go into the country,” said

the minister earnestly. “This morning,” he added impressively.

“Into the country! You’re going to be here for dinner.”

They were firm. They had to go into the country. They shook hands

almost tenderly with these four guests. “We just heard about you in the

post-office,” they said. “Merry Christmas—oh, Merry Christmas! We’ll be

back about dark.”

They left their two shabby suitcases on the hall floor and went away.

“All the clothes they’ve got between them would hardly fill these up,”

said Mrs. Tilton mournfully. “Why on earth do you suppose they’d turn

their back on a dinner that smells so good and go off into the country

at noon on Christmas Day? They wouldn’t do that for another invitation.

Likely somebody’s sick,” she ended, her puzzled look denying her tone

of finality.

“Well, thank the Lord for the call to the country,” said Ricky

shamelessly. “It saved our day.”

They had their Christmas dinner, they had their afternoon—safe

and happy and uninterrupted. Five commonplace-looking folk in a

commonplace-looking house, but the eye of love knew that this was not

all. In the wide sea of their routine they had found and taken for

their own this island day, unforgettable.

“I thought it was going to be a gay day,” said Ricky at its close, “but

it hasn’t. It’s been heavenly! Mother, shall we give them the rest of

their presents now, you and I?”

“Not yet,” she told them. “Ricky, I want to whisper to you.”

She looked so guilty that they all laughed at her. Ricky was laughing

when he came back from that brief privacy. He was still laughing

mysteriously when his mother turned from a telephone call.

“What do you think!” she cried. “That was the woman that brought me my

turkey. She knew the minister and his wife were to be with me to-day.

She wants to know why they’ve been eating a lunch in a cutter out that

way. Do you suppose——”

They all looked at one another doubtfully, then in abrupt conviction.

“They went because they wanted us to have the day to ourselves!”

“Arthur,” said Mrs. Tilton with immense determination, “let me whisper

to you, too.” And from that moment’s privacy he also returned smiling,

but a bit ruefully.

“Mother ought to be the president of a university,” he said.

“Mother ought to be the head of a law firm,” said Edward.

“Mother ought to write a book about herself,” said Ricky.

“Mother’s mother,” said Grace, “and that’s enough. But you’re all so

mysterious, except me.”

“Grace,” said Mrs. Tilton, “you remind me that I want to whisper to

you.”

Their train left in the late afternoon. Through the white streets they

walked to the station, the somber little woman, the buoyant, capable

daughter, the three big sons. She drew them to seclusion down by the

baggage-room and gave them four envelopes.

“Here’s the rest of my Christmas for you,” she said. “I’d rather you’d

open it on the train. Now, Ricky, what’s yours?”

She was firm to their protests. The train was whistling when Ricky

owned up that the rest of his Christmas present for mother was a

brand-new daughter, to be acquired as soon as his new book was off

the press. “We’re going to marry on the advance royalty,” he said

importantly, “and live on—” The rest was lost in the roar of the

express.

“Edward!” shouted Mrs. Tilton. “Come here. I want to whisper——”

She was obliged to shout it, whatever it was. But Edward heard, and

nodded, and kissed her. There was time for her to slip something in

Ricky’s pocket and for the other good-bys, and then the train drew out.

From the platform they saw her brave, calm face against the background

of the little town. A mother of “grown children” pathetic? She seemed

to them at that moment the one supremely triumphant figure in life.

They opened their envelopes soberly and sat soberly over the contents.

The note, scribbled to Grace, explained: Mother wanted to divide up now

what she had had for them in her will. She would keep one house and

live on the rent from the other one, and “here’s all the rest.” They

laughed at her postscript:

“Don’t argue. I ought to give the most—I’m the mother.”

“And look at her,” said Edward solemnly. “As soon as she heard about

Ricky, there at the station, she whispered to me that she wanted to

send Ricky’s sweetheart the watch I’d just given her. Took it off her

wrist then and there.”

“That must be what she slipped in my pocket,” said Ricky.

It was.

“She asked me,” he said, “if I minded if she gave those books to the

new Springvale public library.”

“She asked me,” said Grace, “if I cared if she gave the new rug to the

new church that can’t pay its minister.”

President Arthur Tilton shouted with laughter.

“When we heard where the minister and his wife ate their Christmas

dinner,” he said, “she whispered to ask me whether she might give the

silk dress to her when they get back to-night.”

All this they knew by the time the train reached the crossing where

they could look back on Springvale. On the slope of the hill lay the

little cemetery, and Ricky said:

“And she told me that if my flowers got there before dark, she’d take

them up to the cemetery for Christmas for father. By night she won’t

have even a flower left to tell her we’ve been there.”

“Not even the second side of the turkey,” said Grace, “and yet I

think——”

“So do I,” her brothers said.

[7] By permission of the author and the “Delineator.”

EMMY JANE’S CHRISTMAS[8]

_Julia B. Tenney_

Mawnin’, Miss Johnson. Is yer out doin’ yer Chris’mas shoppin’? You

sure is de forehandestest pusson I eber did see. Here ’tis five whole

days ’fore Chris’mas, an’ you ’most frough gettin’ ready.

What ’s we goin’ ter do? Why, jes as usu’l, an’ dat ’s good ’nough fer

we. You see, we spends Chris’mas day sorter foragin’ roun’ ’mongst

de white folks, an’ c’llectin’ things tergether, an’ ketchin’ ’em

Chris’mas gif’; den de nex’ day we all has _our_ Chris’mas.

What? We ain’t got it on de right date? What’s dat got to do wid de

’joyment ob it, I’d like to know? An’, anyhow, no one doan’ know fer

sure what is de right date nohow, ’ca’se dere ain’t no one erlivin’ now

what was erlive when Chris’mas started in on us, an’ if dere was, I

wouldn’ b’lieve him nohow, ’ca’se he’d be too ole ter trus’ his mem’ry.

So one day’s as good as anudder, an’ maybe better. Dis here way suits

_me_, an’ it saves er lot ob trouble an’ hard wuk, not ter speak ob de

money.

Dis is de way we wuks it, an’ ’scusin’ de walkin’ roun’ an’ totin’ de

load home, it ain’t no trouble ’t all.

We ’vides de city up into pahts. I teks de av’nues, ’Lindy teks de

lengthways streets, li’le Polly Ann an’ John Andrew de cross streets,

an’ Jeemes William—my ole man—de gen’lemen’s clubs. We all has our own

way ob doin’ it, but we all gits de things.

Jeemes William he jes’ stan’s near de do’ ob de club-houses wid

his hat in his han’, an’ as de gen’men goes in, he says ter all ob

de sassy-lookin’ ones, “Chris’mas gif’, Gen’al,” an’ p’ints ter de

army-button what he foun’ in de White Lot, an’ what he puts in his

buttonhole on dese ’casions. Den as de South’rn gen’men goes in, he

hol’s dat li’le ’Federate flag ober de button an’ says, “Chris’mas

gif’, Massa.” An’ I’ve knowed him ter come home wid as much as twelve

dollars in his pocket jes f’om his good manners; dey is so skase

nowerdays, wid all dis passle ob young niggers growin’ up roun’ here,

dat de white folks is willin’ ter pay high fer ’em when dey do come

’cross ’em.

’Lindy she puts on dat black alpacky frock of hern an’ er white collar

an’ a starched white ap’on, an’ she takes de rich-lookin’ houses an’

rings de bells an’ asks kin she hope out wid de extra wuk jes fur er

tas’e ob de Chris’mas-time, an’ dat fetches some one ’fore she’s made

more ’n five or six tries, an’ den she jes lays herse’f out ter please

de white folks, an’ ebery endurin’ one ob dem gibs her sumpen ’nudder

what they doan’ want an’ what somebody else done gib _dem_, an’ as

’Lindy mos’ in gen’al picks out de big famblies, dere ain’t no mean

showin’ f’om her.

Polly Ann an’ John Andrew dey sings “I ’s er-rovin’ li’le darky all de

way f’om Alabam’” an’ some yudder sech chunes un’er de winders, an’

folks t’rows dem pennies an’ nickels, an’ lots ob ’em gibs ’em cakes

an’ or’nges an’ candy an’ de like er dat.

Me? How do I git my share? Now yer ’ll laugh! Jeemes William say’,

“No one would n’t thunk er sech er thing ’cep’in’ you, Emmy Jane,”

but I ain’t nuss nine li’le white chillun, ’sides thirteen ob my own

piccaninnies, countin’ de halves an’ de dade ones, an’ not learn

nothin’ ter hope me ’long in dis world.

I jes puts on er clean purple caliker frock an’ er stiff white

ap’on wid er white handkuchief roun’ my neck, an’ I ties er colored

handkuchief ober my h’ad ter make our kind er white folks ’member

de days when we all uster be jes like one family, an’ laugh an’ cry

togeder, an’ dat ’s how come it dat I done foun’ out so many ob de

quality.

What I do ’sides dress up like ole times? Well, all de endurin’ year I

saves up all de putty fedders f’om de tu’keys an’ chickens an’ geese

an’ sech, an’ I gets me er ball ob red cord fer five cents, an’ I ties

de fedders up in li’le bunches an’ puts ’em in er basket.

Chris’mas I teks dat basket on my arm, an’ I s’lec’s de houses where

dey is babies, an’ dere is plenty ob ’em on de av’nues, too, ’spite ob

Mr. Roosterfelt er-sayin’ rich chillun is fallin’ off in comin’ ter

our big cities. He oughter hab my job one year an’ see fer hisse’f.

Well, I rings de bell an’ asks kin I gib de baby er Chris’mas gif’,

an’ ’most ebery fambly say “Yes,” an’ brings de baby out, an’ acts

pleased-like. Den I hol’s out my arms to de li’le chile an’ says, “Come

ter Mammy, Honey!” an’ most in gen’al dey jumps right to me, an’ dat

settles de mas an’ pas.

Den I s’lec’s er bunch ob fedders an’ gibs dem to de baby. All chillun,

white or black, loves to play wid fedders. Reckon it’s ’ca’se dey ain’t

so long lef’ dem off in de wing-country what dey come f’om, an’ I tell

you dat basket is er heap sight heavier on de home trip dan on de goin’

out.

Next day we all brings out our pickin’s an’ we builds er fire in de

bes’ room, an’ _den’s_ our Chris’mas.

Doan’ we _give_ no presen’s? Co’s we does. We s’lec’s all de things

what we doan’ want, same as de white folks does, an’ we makes er pile

ob ’em, den we makes a lis’ ob de names ob de people what we wants ter

gib to,—’Lindy she does dat paht, ’ca’se she’s had schoolin’ an’ kin

write grand,—den we blin’fol’s li’le John Andrew, an’ ’Lindy she calls

out er name, an’ John Andrew grabs er gif’. Dat ’s how come you ter git

er pair of gallusses, an’ Daddy Bundy er long gingham ap’on las’ year.

I hopes de givin’ dis year will turn ter tu’key an’ cranberry, jes fer

de sake ob ole times down home. I sure does get lonesome fer de ole

place roun’ ’bout Chris’mas.

[8] By permission of The Century Co.

DAVID’S STAR OF BETHLEHEM[9]

_Christine Whiting Parmenter_

Scott Carson reached home in a bad humor. Nancy, slipping a telltale

bit of red ribbon into her workbasket, realized this as soon as he came

in.

It was the twenty-first of December, and a white Christmas was

promised. Snow had been falling for hours, and in most of the houses

wreaths were already in the windows. It was what one calls “a

Christmasy-feeling day,” yet, save for that red ribbon in Nancy’s

basket, there was no sign in the Carson home of the approaching

festival.

Scott said, kissing her absent-mindedly and slumping into a big chair,

“This snow is the very limit. If the wind starts blowing there’ll be a

fierce time with the traffic. My train was twenty minutes late as it

is, and—There’s the bell. Who can it be at this hour? I want my dinner.”

“I’ll go to the door,” said Nancy hurriedly, as he started up. “Selma’s

putting dinner on the table now.”

Relaxing into his chair Scott heard her open the front door, say

something about the storm and, after a moment, wish someone a Merry

Christmas.

A Merry Christmas! He wondered that she could say it so calmly.

Three years ago on Christmas morning, they had lost their

boy—swiftly—terribly—without warning. Meningitis, the doctor said. Only

a few hours before the child had seemed a healthy, happy youngster,

helping them trim the tree; hoping, with a twinkle in the brown eyes

so like his mother’s, that Santa Claus would remember the fact that

he wanted skis! He had gone happily to bed after Nancy had read them

“The Night Before Christmas,” a custom of early childhood’s days that

the eleven-year-old lad still clung to. Later his mother remembered,

with a pang, that when she kissed him good night he had said his head

felt kind of funny. But she had left him light-heartedly enough and

gone down to help Scott fill the stockings. Santa had not forgotten the

skis; but Jimmy never saw them.

Three years—and the memory still hurt so much that the very thought of

Christmas was agony to Scott Carson. Jimmy had slipped away just as the

carolers stopped innocently beneath his window, their voices rising

clear and penetrating on the dawn-sweet air:

“Silent night—holy night....”

Scott arose suddenly. He _must_ not live over that time again. “Who

was it?” he asked gruffly as Nancy joined him, and understanding the

gruffness she answered tactfully, “Only the expressman.”

“What’d he bring?”

“Just a—a package.”

“One naturally supposes that,” replied her husband, with a touch of

sarcasm. Then, suspicion gripping him, he burst out, “Look here! If

you’ve been getting a Christmas gift for me, I—I won’t have it. I told

you I wanted to forget Christmas. I——”

“I know, dear,” she broke in hastily. “The package was only from Aunt

Mary.”

“Didn’t you tell her we weren’t keeping Christmas?” he demanded

irritably.

“Yes, Scott; but—but you know Aunt Mary! Come now, dinner’s on and I

think it’s a good one. You’ll feel better after you eat.”

But Scott found it unaccountably hard to eat; and later, when Nancy

was reading aloud in an effort to soothe him, he could not follow. She

had chosen something humorous and diverting; but in the midst of a

paragraph he spoke, and she knew that he had not been listening.

“Nancy,” he said, “is there any place—any place on God’s earth where we

can get away from Christmas?”

She looked up, answering with sweet gentleness, “It would be a hard

place to find, Scott.”

He faced her suddenly: “I feel as if I couldn’t stand it—the trees—the

carols—the merrymaking, you know. Oh, if I could only sleep this week

away! But ... I’ve been thinking.... Would—would you consider for one

moment going up to camp with me for a day or two? I’d gone alone, but——”

“Alone!” she echoed. “Up there in the wilderness at Christmas time? Do

you think I’d let you?”

“But it would be hard for you, dear, cold and uncomfortable. I’m a

brute to ask it, and yet——”

Nancy was thinking rapidly. They could not escape Christmas, of course.

No change of locality could make them forget the anniversary of the day

that Jimmy went away. But she was worried about Scott, and the change

of scene might help him over the difficult hours ahead. The camp,

situated on the mountain a mile from any neighbors, would at least be

isolated. There was plenty of bedding, and a big fireplace. It was

worth trying.

She said, cheerfully, “I’ll go with you, dear. Perhaps the change will

make things easier for both of us.”

This was Tuesday, and on Thursday afternoon they stepped off the

north-bound train and stood on the platform watching it vanish into

the mountains. The day was crisp and cold. “Two above,” the station

master told them as they went into the box of a station and moved

instinctively toward the red-hot “air-tight” which gave forth grateful

warmth.

“I sent a telegram yesterday to Clem Hawkins, over on the mountain

road,” said Scott. “I know you don’t deliver a message so far off; but

I took a chance. Do you know if he got it?”

“Yep. Clem don’t have a ’phone, but the boy come down for some

groceries and I sent it up. If I was you, though, I’d stay to the

Central House. Seems as if it would be more cheerful—Christmas time.”

“I guess we’ll be comfortable enough if Hawkins airs out, and lights a

fire,” replied Scott, his face hardening at this innocent mention of

the holiday. “Is there anyone around here who’ll take us up? I’ll pay

well for it, of course.”

“Iry Morse’ll go; but you’ll have to walk from Hawkinses. The road

ain’t dug out beyond.... There’s Iry now. You wait, an’ I’ll holler to

him. Hey, Iry!” he called, going to the door, “Will you carry these

folks up to Hawkinses? They’ll pay for it.”

“Iry,” a ruddy-faced young farmer, obligingly appeared, his gray work

horse hitched to a one-seated sleigh of ancient and uncomfortable

design.

“Have to sit three on a seat,” he explained cheerfully; “but we’ll be

all the warmer for it. Tuck the buffalo robe ’round the lady’s feet,

mister, and you and me’ll use the horse blanket. Want to stop to the

store for provisions?”

“Yes, I brought some canned stuff, but we’ll need other things,” said

Nancy. “I’ve made a list.”

“Well, you got good courage,” grinned the station master. “I hope you

don’t get froze to death up in the woods. Merry Christmas to yer,

anyhow!”

“The same to you!” responded Nancy, smiling; and noted with a stab of

pain that her husband’s sensitive lips were trembling.

Under Ira’s cheerful conversation, however, Scott relaxed. They talked

of crops, the neighbors, and local politics—safe subjects all; but as

they passed the district school, where a half-dozen sleighs or flivvers

were parked, the man explained: “Folks decoratin’ the school for the

doin’s to-morrow afternoon. Christmas tree for the kids, and pieces

spoke, and singin’. We got a real live school-ma’am this year, believe

_me_!”

They had reached the road that wound up the mountain toward the Hawkins

farm, and as they plodded on, a sudden wind arose that cut their faces.

Snow creaked under the runners, and as the sun sank behind the mountain

Nancy shivered, not so much with cold as with a sense of loneliness and

isolation. It was Scott’s voice that roused her:

“Should we have brought snowshoes? I didn’t realize that we couldn’t be

carried all the way.”

“Guess you’ll get there all right,” said Ira. “Snow’s packed hard as a

drum-head, and it ain’t likely to thaw yet a while. Here you are,” as

he drew up before the weatherbeaten, unpainted farm house. “You better

step inside a minute and warm up.”

A shrewish-looking woman was already at the door, opening it but a

crack, in order to keep out fresh air and cold.

“I think,” said Nancy, with a glance at the deepening shadows, “that

we’d better keep right on. I wonder if there’s anybody here who’d help

carry our bags and provisions.”

“There ain’t,” answered the woman, stepping outside and pulling a faded

gray sweater around her shoulders. “Clem’s gone to East Conroy with the

eggs, and Dave’s up to the camp keepin’ yer fire goin’. You can take

the sled and carry yer stuff on that. There ’tis, by the gate. Dave’ll

bring it back when he comes. An’ tell him to hurry. Like as not, Clem

won’t get back in time fer milkin’.”

“I thought Dave was goin’ to help Teacher decorate the school this

afternoon,” ventured Ira. He was unloading their things as he spoke and

roping them to the sled.

“So’d he,” responded the woman; “but there wa’n’t no one else to light

that fire, was they? Guess it won’t hurt him none to work for his

livin’ like other folks. That new school-ma’am, she thinks o’ nothin’

but——”

“Oh, look here!” said the young man, straightening up, a belligerent

light in his blue eyes, “it’s Christmas! Can Dave go back with me if I

stop and milk for him? They’ll be workin’ all evenin’—lots o’ fun for a

kid like him, and——”

“No, he can’t!” snapped the woman. “His head’s enough turned now with

speakin’ pieces and singin’ silly songs. You better be gettin’ on,

folks. I can’t stand here talkin’ till mornin’.”

She slammed the door, while Ira glared after her retreating figure,

kicked the gate post to relieve his feelings, and then grinned

sheepishly.

“Some grouch! Why, she didn’t even ask you in to get warm! Well, I

wouldn’t loiter if I was you. And send that kid right back, or he’ll

get worse’n a tongue-lashin’. Well, good-by to you, folks. Hope you

have a Merry Christmas.”

The tramp up the mountain passed almost entirely in silence, for it

took their united energy to drag the sled up that steep grade against

the wind. Scott drew a breath of relief when they beheld the camp,

a spiral of smoke rising from its big stone chimney like a welcome

promise of warmth.

“Looks grand, doesn’t it? But it’ll be dark before that boy gets home.

I wonder how old——”

They stopped simultaneously as a clear, sweet voice sounded from within

the cabin:

“Silent night ... holy night....”

“My God!”

Scott’s face went suddenly dead white. He threw out a hand as if to

brush something away, but Nancy caught it in hers pulling it close

against her wildly beating heart.

“All is calm ... all is bright.”

The childish treble came weirdly from within, while Nancy cried,

“Scott—dearest, don’t let go! It’s only the little boy singing the

carols he’s learned in school. Don’t you see? Come! Pull yourself

together. We must go in.”

Even as she spoke the door swung open, and through blurred vision they

beheld the figure of a boy standing on the threshold. He was a slim

little boy with an old, oddly wistful face, and big brown eyes under a

thatch of yellow hair.

“You the city folks that was comin’ up? Here, I’ll help carry in yer

things.”

Before either could protest he was down on his knees in the snow,

untying Ira’s knots with skillful fingers. He would have lifted the

heavy suit case himself, had not Scott, jerked back to the present by

the boy’s action, interfered.

“I’ll carry that in.” His voice sounded queer and shaky. “You take the

basket. We’re late, I’m afraid. You’d better hurry home before it gets

too dark. Your mother said——”

“I don’t mind the dark,” said the boy quietly, as they went within.

“I’ll coast most o’ the way down, anyhow. Guess you heard me singin’

when you come along.” He smiled, a shy, embarrassed smile as he

explained: “It was a good chance to practice the Christmas carols.

They won’t let me, ’round home. We’re goin’ to have a show at the

school to-morrow. I’m one o’ the three kings—you know—‘We three kings

of Orient are.’ I sing the first verse all by myself,” he added with

childish pride.

There followed a moment’s silence. Nancy was fighting a desire to put

her arms about the slim boyish figure, while Scott had turned away,

unbuckling the straps of his suit case with fumbling hands. Then Nancy

said, “I’m afraid we’ve kept you from helping at the school this

afternoon. I’m so sorry.”

The boy drew a resigned breath that struck her as strangely unchildlike.

“You needn’t to mind, ma’am. Maybe they wouldn’t have let me go anyway;

and I’ve got to-morrow to think about. I—I been reading one o’ your

books. I like to read.”

“What book was it? Would you like to take it home with you for a—” She

glanced at Scott, still on his knees by the suit case, and finished

hurriedly—“a Christmas gift?”

“Gee! Wouldn’t I!” His wistful eyes brightened, then clouded. “Is there

a place maybe where I could hide it ’round here? They don’t like me

to read much to home. They” (a hard look crept into his young eyes),

“they burned up the book Teacher gave me a while back. It was ‘David

Copperfield,’ and I hadn’t got it finished.”

There came a crash as Scott, rising suddenly, upset a chair. The child

jumped, and then laughed at himself for being startled.

“Look here, sonny,” said Scott huskily, “you must be getting home. Can

you bring us some milk to-morrow? I’ll find a place to hide your book

and tell you about it then. Haven’t you got a warmer coat than this?”

He lifted a shabby jacket from the settle and held it out while the boy

slipped into it.

“Thanks, mister,” he said. “It’s hard gettin’ it on because it’s

tore inside. They’s only one button,” he added, as Scott groped for

them. “She don’t get much time to sew ’em on. I’ll bring up the milk

to-morrow mornin’. I got to hurry now or I’ll get fits! Thanks for the

book, ma’am. I’d like it better’n anything. Good night.”

Standing at the window Nancy watched him start out in the fast

descending dusk. It hurt her to think of that lonely walk; but she

thrust the thought aside and turned to Scott, who had lighted a fire

on the hearth and seemed absorbed in the dancing flames.

“That’s good!” she said cheerfully. “I’ll get things started for

supper, and then make the bed. I’m weary enough to turn in early. You

might bring me the canned stuff in your suit case, Scott. A hot soup

ought to taste good to-night.”

She took an apron from her bag and moved toward the tiny kitchen. Dave

evidently knew how to build a fire. The stove lids were almost red, and

the kettle was singing. Nancy went about her preparations deftly, tired

though she was from the unaccustomed tramp, while Scott opened a can

of soup, toasted some bread, and carried their meal on a tray to the

settles before the hearthfire. It was all very cozy and “Christmasy,”

thought Nancy, with the wind blustering outside and the flames leaping

up the chimney. But she was strangely quiet. The thought of that lonely

little figure trudging off in the gray dusk persisted, despite her

efforts to forget. It was Scott who spoke, saying out of a silence, “I

wonder how old he is.”

“The—the little boy?”

He nodded, and she answered gently, “He seemed no older than—I mean, he

seemed very young to be milking cows and doing chores.”

Again Scott nodded, and a moment passed before he said, “The work

wouldn’t hurt him though, if he were strong enough; but—did you notice,

Nancy, he didn’t look half fed? He is an intelligent little chap,

though, and his voice—Good lord!” he broke off suddenly, “how can a

shrew like that bring such a child into the world? To burn his book!

Nancy, I can’t understand how things are ordered. Here’s that poor boy

struggling for development in an unhappy atmosphere—and our Jimmy, who

had love, and understanding, and—Tell me, why is it?”

She stretched out a tender hand; but the question remained unanswered,

and the meal was finished in silence.

Dave did not come with the milk next morning. They waited till nearly

noon, and then tramped off in the snow-clad, pine-scented woods. It

was a glorious day, with diamonds sparkling on every fir tree, and

they came back refreshed, and ravenous for their delayed meal. Scott

wiped the dishes, whistling as he worked. It struck his wife that he

hadn’t whistled like that for months. Later, the last kitchen rites

accomplished, she went to the window, where he stood gazing down the

trail.

“He won’t come now, Scott.”

“The kid? It’s not three yet, Nancy.”

“But the party begins at four. I suppose everyone for miles around will

be there. I wish—” She was about to add that she wished they could have

gone too, but something in Scott’s face stopped the words. She said

instead, “Do you think we’d better go for the milk ourselves?”

“What’s the use? They’ll all be at the shindig, even that sour-faced

woman, I suppose. But somehow—I feel worried about the boy. If he isn’t

here bright and early in the morning I’ll go down and see what’s

happened. Looks as if it were clouding up again, doesn’t it? Perhaps

we’ll get snowed in!”

Big, lazy-looking snowflakes were already beginning to drift down.

Scott piled more wood on the fire, and stretched out on the settle for

a nap. But Nancy was restless. She found herself standing repeatedly

at the window looking at the snow. She was there when at last Scott

stirred and wakened. He sat up blinking, and asked, noting the

twilight, “How long have I been asleep?”

Nancy laughed, relieved to hear his voice after the long stillness.

“It’s after five.”

“Good thunder!” He arose, putting an arm across her shoulders. “Poor

girl! I haven’t been much company on this trip! But I didn’t sleep well

last night, couldn’t get that boy out of my mind. Why, look!” Scott was

staring out of the window into the growing dusk. “Here he is now! I

thought you said——”

He was already at the door, flinging it wide in welcome as he went out

to lift the box of milk jars from the sled. It seemed to Nancy, as the

child stepped inside, that he looked subtly different—discouraged, she

would have said of an older person; and when he raised his eyes she saw

the unmistakable signs of recent tears.

“Oh, David!” she exclaimed, “why aren’t you at the party?”

“I didn’t go.”

The boy seemed curiously to have withdrawn into himself. His answer

was like a gentle “none of your business”; but Nancy was not without

a knowledge of boy nature. She thought, “He’s hurt—dreadfully. He’s

afraid to talk for fear he’ll cry; but he’ll feel better to get it off

his mind.” She said, drawing him toward the cheerful hearthfire, “But

why not, Dave?”

He swallowed, pulling himself together with an heroic effort.

“I had ter milk. The folks have gone to Conroy to Gramma Hawkins’s! I

_like_ Gramma Hawkins. She told ’em to be sure an’ bring me; but there

wasn’t no one else ter milk, so ... so....”

It was Scott who came to the rescue as David’s voice failed suddenly.

“Are you telling us that your people have gone away, for _Christmas_,

leaving you home alone?”

The boy nodded, winking back tears as he managed a pathetic smile.

“Oh, I wouldn’t ha’ minded so much if—if it hadn’t been for the doin’s

at the school. Miss Mary was countin’ on me ter sing, and speak a

piece. I don’t know who they could ha’ got to be that wise man.” His

face hardened in a way not good to see in a little boy, and he burst

out angrily, “Oh, I’d have gone—after they got off! _Darn ’em!_ But

they hung ’round till almost four, and—and when I went for my good suit

they—they’d _hid_ it—or carried it away!... And there was a Christmas

tree....”

His voice faltered again, while Nancy found herself speechless before

what she recognized as a devastating disappointment. She glanced at

Scott, and was frightened at the consuming anger in his face; but he

came forward calmly, laying a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder. He

said, and, knowing what the words cost him, Nancy’s heart went out to

her husband in adoring gratitude, “Buck up, old scout! We’ll have a

Christmas tree! And we’ll have a party too, you and Mother and I—darned

if we don’t! You can speak your piece and sing your carols for us. And

Mother will read us ‘The’”—for an appreciable moment Scott’s voice

faltered, but he went on gamely—“‘The Night Before Christmas.’ Did you

ever hear it? And I know some stunts that’ll make your eyes shine.

We’ll have our party to-morrow, Christmas Day, sonny; but now” (he was

stooping for his overshoes as he spoke), “now we’ll go after that tree

before it gets too dark! Come on, Mother. We want you, too!”

Mother! Scott hadn’t called her that since Jimmy left them! Through

tear-blinded eyes Nancy groped for her coat in the diminutive closet.

Darkness was coming swiftly as they went into the snowy forest, but

they found their tree, and stopped to cut fragrant green branches for

decoration. Not till the tree stood proudly in its corner did they

remember the lack of tinsel trimmings; but Scott brushed this aside as

a mere nothing.

“We’ve got pop corn, and nothing’s prettier. Give us a bit of supper,

Nancy, and then I’m going to the village.”

“The village! At this hour?”

“You take my sled, mister,” cried David, and they saw that his eyes

were happy once more, and childlike. “You can coast ’most all the way,

like lightning! I’ll pop the corn. I’d love to! Gee! it’s lucky I

milked before I come away!”

The hours that followed passed like magic to Nancy Carson. Veritable

wonders were wrought in that small cabin; and oh, it was good to be

planning and playing again with a little boy! Not till the child, who

had been up since dawn, had dropped asleep on the settle from sheer

weariness, did she add the finishing touches to the scene.

“It’s like a picture of Christmas,” she murmured happily. “The tree,

so green and slender with its snowy trimmings—the cone-laden pine at

the windows—the bulging stocking at the fireplace, and—and the sleeping

boy. I wonder——”

She turned, startled by a step on the creaking snow outside, but it

was Scott, of course. He came in quietly, not laden with bundles as

she expected, but empty-handed. There was, she thought, a strange

excitement in his manner as he glanced ’round the fire-lit room, his

eyes resting for a moment on David’s peaceful face. Then he saw the

well-filled stocking at the mantel, and his eyes came back unswervingly

to hers.

“Nancy! Is—is it——?”

She drew nearer, and put her arms about him.

“Yes, dear, it’s—Jimmy’s—just as we filled it on Christmas Eve three

years ago. You see, I couldn’t quite bear to leave it behind us when we

came away, lying there in his drawer so lonely—at Christmas time. Tell

me you don’t mind, Scott—won’t you? We have our memories, but David—he

has so little. That dreadful mother, and——”

Scott cleared his throat; swallowed, and said gently, “He has, I think

the loveliest mother in the world!”

“What do you mean?”

He drew her down onto the settle that faced the sleeping boy, and

answered, “Listen, Nancy. I went to the school-house. I thought perhaps

they’d give me something to trim the tree. The party was over, but

the teacher was there with Ira Morse, clearing things away. I told

them about David—why he hadn’t shown up; and asked some questions.

Nancy—what do you think? That Hawkins woman isn’t the child’s mother! I

_knew_ it!

“Nobody around here ever saw her. She died when David was a baby, and

his father, half crazed, the natives thought, with grief, brought the

child here, and lived like a hermit on the mountain. He died when

Dave was about six, and as no one claimed the youngster, and there

was no orphan asylum within miles, he was sent to the poor farm,

and stayed there until last year, when Clem Hawkins wanted a boy to

help do chores, and Dave was the cheapest thing in sight. Guess you

wonder where I’ve been all this time? Well, I’ve been interviewing

the overseer of the poor—destroying red tape by the yard—resorting to

bribery and corruption! But—Hello, old man, did I wake you up?”

David, roused suddenly, rubbed his eyes. Then, spying the stocking, he

wakened thoroughly, and asked, “Say! Is—is it Christmas?”

Scott laughed, and glanced at his watch.

“It will be, in twelve minutes. Come here, sonny.”

He drew the boy onto his knee, and went on quietly: “The stores were

closed, David, when I reached the village. I couldn’t buy you a

Christmas gift, you see. But I thought if we gave you a _real mother_,

and—and a father——”

“Oh, Scott!”

It was a cry of rapture from Nancy. She had, of course, suspected

the ending to his story, but not until that moment had she let

herself really believe it. Then, seeing the child’s bewilderment, she

explained, “He means, dear, that you’re our boy now—for always.”

David looked up, his brown eyes big with wonder.

“And I needn’t go back to Hawkins’s? Not _ever_?”

“Not ever,” Scott promised, while his throat tightened at the relief in

the boy’s voice.

“And I’ll have folks, same as the other kids?”

“You’ve guessed right.” The new father spoke lightly in an effort

to conceal his feeling. “That is, if you think we’ll do!” he added,

smiling.

“Oh, you’ll——”

Suddenly inarticulate, David turned, throwing his thin arms around

Scott’s neck in a strangling, boylike hug. Then, a bit ashamed because

such things were new to him, he slipped away, standing with his back

to them at the window, trying, they saw with understanding hearts,

to visualize this unbelievable thing that had come, a miracle, into

his starved life. When after a silence they joined him, the candle on

the table flared up for a protesting moment, and then went out. Only

starlight and firelight lit the cabin now; and Nancy, peering into the

night, said gently, “How beautifully it has cleared! I think I never

saw the stars so bright.”

“Christmas stars,” Scott reminded her and, knowing the memory that

brought the roughness to his voice, she caught and clasped his hand.

It was David who spoke next. He was leaning close to the window, his

elbows resting on the sill, his face cupped in his two hands. He

seemed to have forgotten them as he said dreamily, “It’s Christmas....

Silent night ... holy night ... like the song. I wonder—” He looked up

trustfully into the faces above him—“I wonder if—if maybe one of them

stars isn’t the Star of Bethlehem!”

[9] Reprinted from the “American Magazine” by permission of the author.

A GOD IN ISRAEL[10]

_Norman Duncan_