I
This is the story the robins tell as they huddle beneath the holly on
the Eve of Christmas. They have told it every Christmas Eve since the
world started. They commenced telling it long before Christ was born,
for their memory goes further back than men's. The Christmas which they
celebrate began just outside of Eden, within sight of its gold-locked
doors.
The robins have only two stories: one for Christmas and one for Easter.
Their Easter story is quite different. It has to do with how they got
the splash of red upon their breasts. It was when God's son was hanging
on the cross. They wanted to do something to spare him. They were too
weak to pull out the nails from his feet and hands; so they tore their
little breasts in plucking the thorns one by one from the crown that had
been set upon his forehead. Since then God has allowed their breasts to
remain red as a remembrance of His gratitude.
But their Christmas story happened long before, when they weren't robin
red-breasts but only robins. It is a merry, tender sort of story.
They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their children. If you prefer
to hear it first-hand, creep out to the nearest holly-bush on almost
any Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all pale and shadowy.
If the robins have chosen your holly-bush as their rendezvous and you
understand their language, you won't need to read what I have written.
Like all true stories, it is much better told than read. It's the story
of the first laugh that was ever heard in earth or heaven. To be enjoyed
properly it needs the chuckling twitter of the grown-up robins and the
squeaky interruptions of the baby birds asking questions. When they get
terrifically excited, they jig up and down on the holly-branches and the
frozen snow falls with a brittle clatter. Then the mother and father
birds say, "Hush!" quite suddenly. No one speaks for a full five
seconds. They huddle closer, listening and holding their breath. That's
how the story ought to be heard, after night-fall on Christmas Eve, when
behind darkened windows little boys and girls have gone to bed early,
having hung up their very biggest stockings. Of course I can't tell it
that way on paper, but I'll do my best to repeat the precise words in
which the robins tell it.