Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
[Illustration:
The
Boy
Who
Brought
Christmas
]
[Illustration: “‘We reckoned, Grover Cleveland and me did, that this
yer sprigged pattern would be becomin’ to your build’”]
[Illustration:
The Boy
Who Brought
Christmas
by
Alice Morgan
Illustrated by
John Jackson
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page
& Company
1911
]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY PERRY MASON & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY ALICE MORGAN
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank the Editors of The American Press
Association for their kind permission to reprint Chapters I and II
of this story; and the Editors of _The Youth’s Companion_ for their
courtesy in permitting the republication of Chapters III and IV.
[Illustration: The Boy Who Brought Christmas]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ITINERANT CHRISTMAS TREE 3
II. CREEDS AND DEEDS 41
III. UNCONSCIOUS MENTALITY 72
IV. OLD-TIME RELIGION 101
[Illustration: The Boy Who Brought Christmas
ILLUSTRATIONS
“‘We reckoned, Grover Cleveland and
me did, that this yer sprigged pattern
would be becomin’ to your
build’” _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed
down to an equivocal impression
where the sand of the road had
spread itself through the weedy
border” 4
“They drew up some benches before the
fire and gave themselves to rest and
reminiscence” 47
“‘What be you anyway?’ he asked quaveringly,
sinking to a seat upon the
log” 120
]
[Illustration:
The
Boy
Who
Brought
Christmas
]
The Boy
Who Brought
Christmas
I
THE ITINERANT CHRISTMAS TREE
Old Man Ledbetter came jolting along the stony mountain road in an
ox cart, the tin-tipped ends of the shoe-string that confined his
plaited beard dancing upon his breast, his hazel whipstock lying at
his feet, and a hard, stumpy hand spread out upon either knee to hold
himself steady. Without any gee-hawing on his part his yoked steeds
turned at the ford and staggered clumsily into the Junaluska. In
midstream a shallow swirl of water came circling about his feet, but,
though he may have pressed his hands harder upon his knees, the only
perceptible preparation he made for a possible submerging was the
shifting of his tobacco into the other cheek.
But from the footlog below, a call, piping but authoritative,
challenged his attention.
“Hi, gran’daddy! he didn’t cross the log; you reckon he waded the
branch? Dixie and me’s done lost the trail!”
“Gee up,” the old man reached for his whip and was soon upon the
sandy _terra firma_ of the other side, submissively awaiting his
grandson’s pleasure.
“Here, sir, here!” The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an
equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself
through the weedy border. “Now foller, old boy; foller I say!”
[Illustration: “The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an
equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself
through the weedy border”]
The gesture of the grimy little hand was imperative, and Dixie
sniffed among the dried weeds; then, closely nosing the ground,
circled among the cart wheels but, baffled, squatted whimpering upon
his haunches.
“You-all trackin’ a rabbit, Grover Cleveland?” The old man
facetiously scrutinized both dog and boy.
In the North Carolina mountains there were in the time of my story
and still are many namesakes of the great democrat, but our little
hero was recognized far and wide as the child of the party. A sturdy,
clear-eyed, true-hearted little mountaineer, the party was proud of
him and no one ever gave him anything less than his full Christian
name.
He was an orphan and grandmotherless; he and his grandfather lived
alone, with no woman to keep them comfortable. These facts alone
would have secured for him abundant sympathy from a simple-hearted,
kindly people; but, in addition to these titles to favour, his
grandfather was respected as an upright man and one of the oldest and
richest residents of the county, owning many acres of land—not of
richest quality to be sure—but as good as any for enumeration. So for
miles around the child was welcomed into every mountain cabin, and no
home so poor that he was permitted to leave it without some token of
its owner’s kindly interest, a pair of home-spun, home-knit stockings
or mittens or a needed patch upon jacket or trousers.
He was a very small boy to be out in the woods alone with his dog;
for, though the sunny slopes were warm, deciduous foliage lay
rustling or sodden upon the ground and snow whitened the shaded
clefts and hollows of the higher peaks. His old soft hat covered
only the back of his head and in front of it a fringe of blond
hair bristled aggressively above blue eyes that scintillated with
excitement. He wore clumsy copper-toed shoes and warm stockings
wrinkled about his ankles, the dangling ends of the parti-coloured
strings that gartered them showing below the short patched trousers.
“No!” he cried disdainfully, as if he had years ago lost interest
in small game, “it’s old Sandy Claus! Cap’n Wiley says he’s got a
den somewheres up on the Bald. He’s been down to the Pistopals’
meetin’-house and left ’em a whole pack of things and they’re a-goin’
to hang every last one of ’em on to a tree; and a-Chrisamus all the
Pistopal girls and boys is goin’ to pick ’em off for keeps. But he
ain’t left nary thing for the Methdises, or the Presaterians or
the Red-Baptises or the Yaller-Baptises. Don’t you reckon that’s a
low-down trick, gran’daddy? He was down yer last night agin with
another pack o’ things for ’em and he come afoot this time for me and
Dixie’s tracked him; we’ve done follered his tracks to the ford but
we can’t strike his trail on t’other side. Git out, gran’daddy, and
help us!”
“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, granddad’ll shore do what he kin for you,”
the old man kept a serious face and began a clumsy descent, “but what
you aim to do when you come on to him? You aim to clean him out?”
“No, I ain’t goin’ to tech nary thing ’thout he tells me; but I aim
to let on to him that the Red-Baptises and the Yaller-Baptises and
the Presaterians is jes’ as good as the Pistopals; and the Methdises
is a heap better’n any of ’em (you and me is Methdises, ain’t we
gran’daddy?) and I don’t guess he’ll think I’m a storyin’; do you
gran’daddy?”
“Not if he’s as knowin’ as I take him to be, he won’t.”
Gran’daddy mounted the footlog and steadied himself by the hand rail
as he crossed, while boy and dog scampered like squirrels ahead of
him. On the other side he pretended to identify every print the boy
discovered as track of deer, coon, bear, or catamount; there was
nothing indefinite that might stand for a possible Santa Claus.
“He must have waded a right smart,” there was a disappointed quiver
in the shrill treble, “so’s to throw us off the track; you reckon he
kept to the branch as far up as the mill, gran’daddy?”
“It looks right much like he’s just criss-crossed first one side the
branch and then t’other; anyway he’s got the sleight of coverin’ up
his tracks. I reckon we’ll have to give it up, Grover Cleveland.
Gran’daddy’s powerful rushed for time to-day.”
The old man recrossed the log, got into the wagon, and started on his
jogging way, the boy a quiet, drooping little figure beside him.
“That’s a mighty low-down trick in Old Sandy Claus to take and leave
you out, Grover Cleveland. Them Pistopals is the no-countest critters
to be found in these yer mountings.”
“If I was the boss of all the meetin’-houses I wouldn’t have any but
jes’ one, so’s Old Sandy Claus ’ud have to do ’em all alike,” the
treble weakened and the boy gazed off into the woods with suspicious
intensity.
“Now don’t you go to takin’-on, Grover Cleveland; maybe you and me
can git up a Christmas tree all to ourselves; how’d that do? I reckon
ole gran’dad’s about as rich right now as ary somebody round yer.
I’ve just sold Copperhead Hill to the mining company and got the
money down, two hundred and five dollars!” For a moment the old man
gloated in silence over his wealth, for among these North Carolina
mountaineers commerce is mostly carried on by barter and cash in hand
is a scarce commodity.
“The Pistopals’ Chrisamus tree is only jes’ a holly”—gradually as
the new idea had possessed his mind the limp little head had faced
front again—“I clum up into that thar fiddle-leaf poplar that grows
front of the meetin’-house winder and looked in, and there ain’t many
berries on it at all; there’s a heap prettier ones in our woods.”
“Certainly there is, Grover Cleveland. There’s a hundred in Whiteoak
Gulley that’s jes’ the shape of a yaller-pine burr, and all shinin’
with berries. You and me’ll take Butterfly and Bonaparte up thar and
we’ll haul one of them ar holly bushes down to the house right soon,
we will.”
“Them Pistopals has got theirs sot up in a box like it growed
there.” The blue eyes, though encircled with a tale-telling
sedimentary deposit, were now lifted brightly to the kind old face
and for gran’daddy there was no retreat.
“By gum, we’ll set our tree up in a box in our t’other room like it
growed there too.”
“And le’s don’t jes’ you and me have it all to ourselves, gran’daddy.
Le’s have something for Vance Long and Harve Edney too; his pa’s a
Red Baptis’ and his ma’s a Methdis’, but I reckon Harve’s the biggest
part Methdis’ cause he never does me mean. And I’d be proud to put a
hymn-book on for Suly Jordan; she sings so good and she tied up my
toe in turpentine that day I stubbed it. And there’s Zeb’lon, old
Aunt Dicey’s gran’son—looks like he’s growed bigger’n there’s any
call for—but he has troubles yet jes’ like little fellers. Ole man
Sumter, he shot Zeb’s tame deer last Friday, and Zeb and me, we got
to it ’fore it was plumb dead and it looked up at Zeb, and Zeb he
cried sure-’nough tears, he did. So you see Zeb’s only a boy yet and
I don’t want to forgit him a-Chrisamus.”
“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, we’ll have a present on that ar tree for
Zeb and Suly and for every Methdis’ boy and girl in Junaluska. There
can’t be more’n a dozen of ’em since old man Simpson and his children
and his gran’children and all his kinfolks left and jined the
Baptises. And you can count their mas and their pas in too. But I’ll
have to depend on you a heap, Grover Cleveland, gran’daddy never did
see a Christmas tree in all his life; it’s a new institution in these
mountings. Now if your gran’ma or your ma was alive they could help
us out o’ this scrape, but”——he leaned over, trailed his whiplash in
the sand and watched it reminiscently.
“And there’s two or three old women I want to remember; there’s old
Aunt Dicey, she and your gran’ma was always close friends. I believe
I’ll put a new frock on the Christmas tree for her. And ’way off up
in Cutter’s Cove there’s Dan Cutter’s widow; she and your gran’ma
was girls together, a pretty pair, too. I won’t pass her by. And
just ’cross the branch from her is where Sam Long’s got his family
stowed away. His mother—she’s a queer ole stick as ever was—but they
do say that Sam’s wife does the old woman mean, so I’ll give her a
frock just to show ’em all that she’s some thought of. If them old
critters don’t see a Christmas tree this year, the chances is they’ll
die ’thout ever seein’ one. Haw, Bonaparte! By gum, if we’d a’ been
a steam car we’d have run plumb over old Mis’ Jimson’s cow; ’pears
like she ain’t got heart in her to get out of the way; I reckon that
pore old somebody ain’t got enough for herself to eat, let alone the
cow. Gran’son, you jes’ get over in behind thar and heave her out
that thar corn that’s under the bag of meal.”
“Ain’t she a Pistopal cow, gran’daddy?”
“I ’low she is, gran’son, but she’s got a whole rotation of stomachs
and when they’re all hungry at once it must give her a powerful gone
feelin’. I’ll put on a new frock for old Mis’ Jimson. I don’t reckon
she ever had a store frock in her life and she ain’t so old yet but
what she can turn out of her loom a frock that’ll outwear three of
the store kind, but it’ll be a change for her.”
“O but, gran’daddy! gran’daddy! them Pistopals is right mean, they
are, and ole Mis’ Jimson’s a Pistopal!”
“So she is, Grover Cleveland, so she is. I never thought of that”—for
a minute they jogged along in silence—“I can’t somehow ’count for
that, gran’son; thar’s a mistake somewhar—Mis’ Jimson’s a good woman.
Anyway she can’t git down to the Pistopal meetin’-house a-Christmas;
she’s got a risin’ on her leg.”
“Why, gran’daddy, old Mis’ Jimson can’t go anywhere! She couldn’t
even git into this yer wagon so as we-all could carry her!”
“I’m ’feared you’re right, Grover Cleveland; now that’s another
difficulty——”
“And all them other old women, gran’daddy—how’re they going to git
down to our Chrisamus tree, and how’re they goin’ to git back again?”
“That certainly is a puzzler, gran’son. I reckon we-all will have
to sleep on to that. If your mother was alive now, she’d know just
how to take hold”——the old man dropped his elbows upon his knees,
doubling himself in sad retrospection, and the little boy slipped off
the seat in an effort to imitate the position. On his knees, holding
to the front of the wagon box, he solved the problem.
“Hi, gran’daddy!” he shouted, clutching the old man’s trouserlegs to
help himself to his feet, “me and you’ll stand that ar Chrisamus tree
up in the wagon and we’ll hitch Bonaparte and Butterfly to it and
we’ll carry it round an’ pick it as we go!”
“_That’s_ the talk, Grover Cleveland!” the old man brought down upon
his knee a big emphatic hand covering there two little wincing ones;
“your ma’d have thought of that, too.”
“And I don’t want to pass any boy’s or girl’s house without stoppin’,
gran’daddy, even if they’s Pistopals; I ain’t mad at ary one of ’em
but Williebelle Greenlee, and now I done forgot what I’m mad at her
for.”
“I don’t aim to ’lowance you, Grover Cleveland. I aim to let you
get a stick of peppermint or horehoun’ for every boy and girl in
Junaluska. I aim to let you show Old Sandy how the thing ought to
be did. And I don’t reckon I’ll pass by any old woman, either, jes’
’cause she’s been misled and jined the wrong church; it’s bad enough
to lose your way without bein’ hounded for it besides.”
“What makes Baptises and Methdises an’ Presaterians an’ all them,
gran’daddy? Was they borned that way?”
“You an’ me was, Grover Cleveland; our kinfolks was Methdises from
way back before the flood I reckon; but the rest of ’em they’re
mostly jes’ mixin’s.”
“When I come acrost the cattle on the mountings, I can tell by the
slits in their ears who owns ’em; but I can’t tell what church owns
the people round yer ’thout it’s meetin’-Sunday and I can see what
meetin’-house they’re headin’ for. Have they got any ear-marks that
_you_ know ’em by, gran’daddy?”
“No they ain’t Grover Cleveland; they ain’t none of ’em branded
that-a-way.”
“What makes ’em diff’rent, gran’daddy?”
“It’s the way they b’lieve, gran’son. The Methdises they b’lieve in
free grace and sprinklin’, and the Baptises they b’lieve in sousin’,
and the Presaterians—they’re right mean, they are—they b’lieve in
’lection.”
“Mighty nigh every somebody round yer went to ’lection and voted that
Tuesday, gran’daddy.”
“So we did gran’son, so we did; but this yer Presaterian ’lection is
somehow diff’rent. It’s a powerful low-down kind of ’lection—I reckon
it’s favourin’ niggers votin’.”
After waiting a few seconds for this theological seed to sink deep
the old man went on.
“An’ them Pistopals—I’m feared I’m a little in the dark as to their
belief—but they must be mighty good scholars, for they kin read like
lightnin’. They kin read a psa’m so fast that common folks can’t
take in the sense of what they’re sayin’. And there’s another good
thing about ’em: they do rev’rence the name of the Lord in the Sunday
sarvice; they bow considdable low when they come to it. Only it does
look like they don’t all of ’em carry their rev’rence ’round with ’em
a-week-days; there’s Cap’n Campbell, he can cuss considdable and he
don’t do no bowin’ when he calls on the name of the Lord a-week-days.”
“Hi, gran’daddy! the storekeeper’s wife she’s a Pistopal—and Monday,
when she was scoopin’ up a pound of crackers for me, some mice run
out of the cracker box and she jes’ hollered out, ‘For the Lord’s
sake!’ and she didn’t bow and she didn’t look solemn, ary one.”
“Gran’son, I’ve read that there third commandment a heap of times
and I can’t see as it provides for any week-day privileges or
indulgences. When a man’s cussin’ mad, tain’t so powerful ill for him
to bat the old devil’s name about some but, Grover Cleveland, don’t
you never go to triflin’ with the name of the Lord; that’s uncommon
low down, that is.
“There used to formerly be only one kind of Baptises here and they
warshipped in the old red church. But ole man Jordan he got his back
up and he took all his kin-people away and he built another church
and he painted it yaller. You see he had a whole mountain of timber
land that he was glad to get cleared off, and his sons run a sawmill,
and there’s a big bed of yaller ochre right back of his house. He
was smart enough to set ’em all to work, while they was red-hot mad.
If he’d a give ’em time to cool off, that ar yaller meetin’-house
never would been built. They did cool off before they got the chimbly
up and to this day they’re a tryin’ to praise the Lord with their
stovepipe a-stickin’ out the winder.”
“There’s too many kinds of ’em for old Sandy to git round to ’em
all,” said the small boy persistently, returning to his first sorrow.
“Sometimes it looks to me like there’s too many kinds for the Lord
to get round to ’em all, gran’son. There’s some big cities where
there’s more kinds than we’ve got here. There’s two or three kinds
of Meth’-dises and there’s Free-will Baptises and Holinesses, and
they all seem to be workin’ for the same end, only they can’t agree
to work together. But, of course, people’s got a right to all the
religious differences they can pay for; but here in Junaluska we’re
too poor to have so many churches.”
“How did there git to be so many kinds, gran’daddy?”
“’Twas zeal, Grover Cleveland. And there’s another point where
gran’daddy ain’t exactly clear in his mind. Zeal must be a good
thing; St. Paul he owned up that he had it, and yet—I reckon zeal’s
like ’lectric’ty, it’s a powerful power for good so long as it’s kept
in leaders; but you let ’lectric’ty go rarin’ round promiscuous and
it’ll rip things all to flinderations. Eight years ago we had jes’
one church in Junaluska and we had a preacher all to ourselves; we
didn’t let him starve to death or freeze to death, ary one. He lived
down thar in my log cabin and he had his own roastin’-ear patch and
a garden and a orchard. He had a horse of his own and there wasn’t
a cabin in any of these mountain gullies that he didn’t know his
way to, and there wasn’t a cabin where he wasn’t looked up to and
respected. But by and by folks of diff’rent b’liefs came settlin’
round here. They was all powerful pious and they was all bustin’
with zeal, each one for his own ’religious denomination’ as they
called it. And—well—I never could contrive just how they done it—but
tollable soon there was five diff’rent churches in Junaluska and no
more religion than there was before; unless pullin’ and haulin’ and
each one tryin’ to git ahead of the other constitutes religion, which
I’m doubtful if it do. And more’n that there ain’t work enough nor
ham and hominy enough in Junaluska for more than one preacher. Them
questions of yours has set me to studyin’, Grover Cleveland.”
So gran’daddy folded himself together and “studied” the rest of
the way, while his grandson, making the most of his little brief
authority, yelled so conflicting commands at the puzzled oxen that
they took their head and in due time drew the rattling old wagon safe
into the home barn yard.
A scarlet-beaded holly, fresh from the forests of the North Carolina
mountains, is a Christmas Tree the wealthiest church in Christendom
might covet. Such a one our heroes fixed upright and firm in the
shackly old farm wagon. It seemed to grow from a soil deeply top
dressed with corn fodder.
The resources of the one little store at the village were meagre
but the genius of the decorators was not versatile. Gran’daddy
chivalrously intended for the old women to have the best and in his
eyes a new frock was a princely gift. As for the old men, what so
appropriate and acceptable as a paper of plug tobacco. At this stage
his ingenuity was exhausted and his grandson did the rest.
If there was anything that Grover Cleveland liked better than candy,
it was more candy, and though he was unlearned in the letter of the
Golden Rule its spirit was inherent in his nature. So, although the
storekeeper had laid in an extra supply for the holiday trade (it was
all in sticks, the kind in vogue when grandmas were little girls),
when our small Santa Claus had made his purchases there was none left
in stock and by the time material for seventeen calico gowns had been
measured off, the storekeeper, among whose mental endowments the
commercial instinct was not prominent, had persuaded himself that it
was a crying injustice that the well-filled shelves of which he had
been so proud should have been depleted at one purchase.
As much chagrined as pitiful, he watched his opportunity, and when
Grover Cleveland, who was “toting” his packages from the store to the
wagon where his grandfather sat, was gathering up his last armful he
called him to a rear window.
“Do you see that ar woman toilin’ up the mountain with a poke on her
back?”
“Ye-e-s!” cried the child, “and she’s got a little boy with her a
heap littler than me!”
“That woman’s yer Aunt Calliny; and that ar little boy’s your own
cousin. Don’t you think one of them caliker frocks ought to go to
her and some of that candy to little Jakey? Why, he’s named for your
gran’daddy.”
The loyal little grandson turned away dispiritedly saying only:
“She done gran’daddy mean.”
“And that ar little feller’s shoes is the raggedest you ever see,”
this last remark was flung after the boy who was making a rapid exit.
The Ledbetter homestead was some distance from the highroad behind
a screen of hills, and an old shed into which the afternoon sun
shone with warm approval afforded privacy for the trimming of the
tree. Though one pair of hands trembled with age and one pair with
eagerness, as early as the twenty-second of December it stood in
glorious completeness. The calico frocks, tightly rolled and tied
with twine, swung from the stoutest branches, while the twigs bore
fruit of plug tobacco and candy in wasteful and bewildering abundance.
“Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five,” counted the tired little
Santa Claus as he lay on his bed that night. Three æons the days
seemed to him and he sighed himself off to the land of Nod. The old
man too slipped smoothly off to sleep, but he sighed as he went to
think that time flies so fast. Dixie took no note of time, but before
morning he took note of a bear that came nosing about the premises,
attracted by the smell of sweets, and he barked so frantically as to
bring the old man upon the spot armed with a musket that had seen
service in ’61. Bruin retired from the scene with a leaden Christmas
gift under his hide and gran’daddy wrapped himself in a tattered
cloak of army gray and patrolled till morning. He felt hardly equal
to two more nights of keeping guard, so he said to his grandson over
their early breakfast:
“This is a mighty pretty day and it might rain a-Christmas.”
So they made out their itinerary at once and, though they were
subject to some delays and gran’daddy remarked as he groped for
his gloves in the wood box among dish towels, frying pans, broken
dishes, and wearing apparel, “It’s quare what a way things has of
skulking out of sight when they’re wanted,” and the little boy
replied as he tore a strip from a window curtain and gartered his
stocking, “It’s ’cause we ain’t got no woman here to keep ’em in
their place,” by sunrise the oxen were hitched up and the premature
Christmas tree started on its journey.
It was a day of gentle, insinuative, persistent sunshine, such as in
these mountains December is not chary of. The frost-sheathed trees of
the highest ridges lay like a long fluff of white ostrich feathers
against the azure; light snows and partial thaws had converted
the nearer mountain sides into a darkly crayoned network of lines
and angles upon a dappled ground; all around them clustered the
innumerable beauties of the winter landscape, and only the roads were
vile.
The old man looked a veritable Santa Claus. Recognizing the churchly
significance of the occasion, he had unbraided his beard and it fell
before him a rippling, silver shield; beneath his gray slouch hat
his kind eyes twinkled in their coverts of shaggy beetle-brows and,
unconsciously completing the picture, he had discarded his tobacco
for a corn-cob pipe.
Beside him, his little heart a-flutter but his face held resolutely
serious, sat his grandson and between them sat Dixie for, in
recognition of his services of the night, he too had been advanced
to the position of a Santa Claus and in a far corner of the wagon,
where the benefactor would not be tempted to test for himself the
comparative blessedness of giving and receiving, was a stack of bones
(there had been a “killing” the day before) for Dixie to bestow upon
his canine acquaintances.
To old Mis’ Jimson the tree was carried in pristine completeness.
From the well where she was trying to persuade her cow that a handful
of meal in two gallons of water is mush, she espied its green top
coming up behind the hill. For a moment she watched it grow, but
before the oxen came into sight she hobbled away in terror to her
cabin.
“I knowed it,” she said. “I knowed that ar owl a-hootin’ ’fore
the door all night, meant some kind of meanness. ‘Trees as men
walkin’”—she paraphrased unwittingly, and she didn’t know whether the
text was history or prophecy. But she grabbed her testament from off
the shelf and a rabbit’s foot from out the button box, reassuring
herself by a swift glance that it was the left hind one (no other
“keeps a man from harm”), pressed the two together, and ventured
to take another look. She recognized the oxen, the wagon, and its
occupants. Her terror fled, but she stood transfixed with amazement.
“Mis’ Jimson, this ’ere’s a sure ’nough Chrisamas tree,” called
Grover Cleveland.
She hobbled down to the gate. “What upon airth, Jakey Ledbetter?” she
asked.
Her old neighbour’s answer was an impressive silence while his
unsteady hands plucked from the tree a roll of blue calico. “We
reckoned, Grover Cleveland and me did, that this yer sprigged pattern
would be becomin’ to your build,” he said presenting it.
“You ain’t tellin’ me that this yer’s for me!”—she smoothed out a
fold with a quivering motion of her rheumatic old hand—“Colonel
Ledbetter, I never _did_ have a store frock before and it’s more’n I
ever expected to own in this world.”
“Moo-o,” complained the cow and overturned the bucket, whereupon an
avalanche of “roughness” descended upon her head.
“La me,” exclaimed Mis’ Jimson, “is Christmas trees for the dumb
critters too?”
“That’s the view Grover Cleveland ’pears to take of it. Thar’s enough
for one fodderin’ gran’son; we’ll drive round and put the rest in the
shed.”
Shielding her eyes with her hand the old woman watched them out of
sight. “I ain’t been carin’ lately whether I was livin’ or not,” she
mused, “but if Christmas trees is beginnin’ to circolate in these yer
mountings, I aim to perk up and live long enough to git my share.”
Most of the old people who were young when gran’daddy was a boy
still occupied their fathers’ holdings in clefts and coves up in
the higher mountains and to them the tree was carried while the
sunshine still slanted and the roads were unthawed. Time flies or I
would tell of its triumphant journey; how faded eyes grew bright and
wrinkles wreathed themselves into smiles; how salutations and jokes
fresh fifty years ago tripped upon the tongue as nimbly as in their
early days. Only one failed to respond to the Christmas spirit of the
occasion. That was old Captain Sumter. They came upon him leaning
over his remnant of front fence viciously fletcherizing tobacco of
his own unskillful curing.
“What fool consarn’s that, Jake Ledbetter?” he growled as the turnout
stopped before him.
“It’s a Chrisamus tree,” called Grover Cleveland, scrambling to the
ground and presenting him with a package of choice Durham.
The old man pocketed it but his thanks were of a fashion peculiarly
his own:
“Jake Ledbetter, you always was the durndest fool in Junaluska.”
Only one took exception to her gift. That was Aunt Sally Long, the
“queer old stick.”
“Now Jakey Ledbetter,” she whined, “I can’t put that caliker to no
use in the world. I wove this frock myself mighty nigh five year
ago”—she held out her narrow skirt for his inspection—“and I ain’t
snagged it yet. I reckon it’s goin’ to last as long’s I do, at any
rate I don’t want another frock added unto me. I’d a heap ruther
you’d a brung me a pound of snuff.”
“Aunt Sally” (the accommodating Santa Claus took the roll from her
and restored it to the tree), “it’s my intention for you to have
whatever you can get the most fun out of; I can barter that thar
frock for snuff enough to last you all your life, and there’ll be a
balance comin’ to you besides; what’ll you have for that?”
“I don’ know, Jakey,” she drawled, and she pleated the hem of her
apron while she pondered, “I don’ know; I reckon you might as well
bring me a little more snuff.”
The roads were heavy with mud when Bonaparte and Butterfly toiled
down into the little straggling town. “This is a Chrisamus tree,”
announced the little Santa Claus, and there was no need to tarry
there for delivery, for all the foot-free denizens, young, old, and
middle-aged, thronged it when it stopped and followed when it moved
on, and the tree shed its fruit as if a gale had struck it.
The old Santa Claus held his whip with a fine show of nonchalance
while the little one worked among the holly branches, disdainful of
the thorns, his eyes afire, his cheeks red hot, and his aureole of
yellow hair tossing and tumbling with every motion of his little
body. Williebelle, her ears tied up with a red woollen stocking and
redolent of turpentine, was there and upon her he bestowed three
sticks of peppermint, “two for herself and one for her earache.” He
waited in person upon Aunt Polly, bedridden for a dozen years, and
the procession was brought to a stand before her door that she might
look out upon the first Christmas tree she had ever seen.
“I ’low this is a Methdis’ Christmas tree,” cried an Episcopalian
(the only cynical one), “you-all aimed to get ahead of us.”
“No, siree,” answered the old man, “this yer tree’s built according
to Grover Cleveland’s plan and he don’t b’lieve in secks. We-all
ain’t aimin’ to git ahead of anybody but the bears.”
“Merry Christmas,” shouted a peace-making Episcopalian and the crowd
took up the greeting, “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” till the
hills gave back the echo.
The tired oxen drew the dismantled tree out of the village. The tired
little Santa Claus cuddled sleepily within the encircling arm of the
old one but they left behind them the spirit of the Christmas-tide.
In the village “Merry Christmas!” still sounded from house to house
and along the streets. The sticky children shouted it to one another;
the women from their door-ways told it to passers-by; old men,
nodding and smiling as they fumbled with jack-knife and tobacco and
young men lounging on the corners, all told it to one another. Red
Baptists told it to Yellow Baptists and Presbyterians to Methodists,
and some unthinkingly told it to persons they were not on speaking
terms with, then looked ashamed but repeated it. By and by the
shadows came down into the valley, crept to the summits of the
eastern ridge, slipped over and the village lay in darkness and in
peace.
But high up on the mountain side, in a lonely hut that had not been
visited by the Christmas tree, Carolina cuddled her little boy to
sleep, crooning softly and sadly:
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground.”
II
CREEDS AND DEEDS
The Episcopalians met next morning to trim the tree. They had the
candles and candies and tinsel decorations sent them by the foreign
Santa Claus whom Grover Cleveland had tried to track, and for every
member of their congregation they had made little stockings of net.
These they proceeded to fill with candy and to hang upon the tree,
discussing meanwhile the perambulating tree of the previous day.
“There was nary somebody passed by,” said one, restoring with a bit
of lemon stick the equilibrium of a tilted stocking, “the babies got
something, every last one of ’em, and the niggers too, so fur as I
know.”
“Every one was free to go to the first Christmas celebration,” said
the young girl who taught the two-months-a-year free-school. “The
shepherds came from the fields, and the angels came from heaven, and
I have read that the wise men who came were from so far removed parts
of the earth that they didn’t even speak the same language.”
“You reckon they was all Episcopals?”
“No, but when they went away they were all Christians.”
The rest of the decorators were a little awed by such erudition and
no further remarks were made till the last gift was tied in its place
and the candles, firmly fixed and pointing rafterward, were ready
for the lighting. Then they stood off and surveyed the work of their
hands.
“It’s powerful pretty,” said one.
“Yes, but seem like it’s narrow-contracted ’long side of Grover
Cleveland’s tree. ’Course we’ve got six ten-cent dolls and he didn’t
have nary one and he didn’t have nary candle but——”
“It’s not leavin’ out ary somebody that I’m studyin’ about. Why
even our Nick got a shinbone, and I declare if he ain’t fit Grover
Cleveland’s dog till he’s mighty nigh chawed his ears plumb off his
head.”
“Old man Higgins told me ‘Merry Christmas’ yesterday evening.
It’s the first word he’s spoke to me since I left the Methdis’
meetin’-house, and I wish there was something on this yer tree for
him, just to show him that we-all ain’t holdin’ a grudge,” and
further discussion revealed the fact that every one there had a
neighbour or friend belonging to one of the other churches whom,
for one reason or another, he or she would like to invite to the
Christmas-tree.
The school teacher took a pencil from her pocket and they gathered
round her. “We’ll begin at the first house towards sun-up,” they
said; “there’s three somebodies there, there’s two in the next house
and——” they counted every person in the neighbourhood and then the
school teacher “done a sum.” “Nine pounds more will treat them all to
candy,” she said and in a body they proceeded to the store to see if
they could buy nine pounds at the wholesale rate.
“I declare, ’tain’t my fault,” pleaded the storekeeper. “I laid in
ten pounds extra for Christmas but old man Ledbetter come in yer and
he let Grover Cleveland clean me out. You can gen’rally, most always
trust Colonel Ledbetter not to do no low down tricks but you-all know
how’tis; if Grover Cleveland was a-hankerin’ after the whole top
side of the airth his gran’daddy’d git it for him if he could. I’ve
ordered some more, but it won’t be here till to-morrow.”
“That’s all right,” said the school teacher, “we’ll meet again this
evening to make some more stockings, and we’ll trim the tree all over
again and we’ll have a Christmas tree for all Junaluska.”
Some rustic beaux had been hanging about the group listening to
the colloquy. They looked at one another and they looked at a row
of fresh-faced, luxuriant-haired mountain girls at another counter
bartering eggs which they had “toted” from their homes five or six
miles away.
“Make it a general spree this evening,” they pleaded, “let us come
to the tree-trimming and bring our girls.”
“We will,” said the teacher, “if you-all will spread the news that
it’s to be an un-de-nom-i-na-tional tree and that all the grown-ups
are invited to come to-night to the trimming and to bring for the
tree whatever gifts they have for their families and their friends,
and that young and old are invited to the exercises to-morrow night.”
“Captain Boyce won’t come nor Judge Brevard, ary one; they took a
oath never to set foot in that thar meetin’-house.”
“Then we’ll move the tree somewhere else.”
Such was the series of events that transferred the tree and the
trimmers to Colonel Ledbetter’s two-room cabin that overlooked the
village from a highroad. The log fire blazing wide and high in the
chimney place put to shame the candles that swaled and sputtered
in turnip candelabra, but could not dim the light that shone from
merry eyes as the happy people helped or hindered with equally good
intentions. Long before dispersion could be thought of the tree stood
full fruited and ready for the morrow’s harvesting.
[Illustration: “They drew up some benches before the fire and gave
themselves to rest and reminiscence”]
Suddenly the barking of a dog roused the gully behind the cabin.
“That’s my Cæsar; he’s struck a ’possum trail,” exclaimed a swain and
with one rush young men and maidens made for the moonlit out-of-doors
and joined in a ’possum hunt. Only the serious minded remained, fewer
than a score of people and yet they were the metaphorical pillars of
five different denominations of Christian churches, each struggling
independently to establish the same gospel in that little mountain
town. They drew up some benches before the fire and gave themselves
to rest and reminiscence. On the road, in the fields, or at his
fireside the Junaluskan may address his neighbour as Bill or Jeff
or Jack, but in assembly every elderly man is accorded a title,
military, civil, or ecclesiastic.
“Gettin’ ’long in years, Colonel Ledbetter,” observed a grizzled
mountaineer running his eyes along the blackened rafters of the
cabin; “a hundred year old ain’t it?”
“Mighty nigh,” answered the Colonel shooting tobacco juice at a
fallen ember before kicking it back into the fire.
“Looks like with a little fixin’ up ’twas good for another hundred.
You ain’t let it lately?”
“No, Deacon Higgins, I ain’t.” The speaker doubled into his studying
attitude with unperceiving eyes upon the hearth; “the last tenant
made a barnyard of the road out yer in front, fed his cattle and hogs
there reg’lar so’t women folks couldn’t git by to go to meetin’
without silin’ their Sunday clothes and he let the ragweed run clean
up to the eaves. It hurt my feelin’s to look at the place, ’twas such
a contrast to what ’twas when Preacher Carr had it, so I turned him
loose and locked the door and I don’t guess I’ll ever rent it again.”
“Preacher Carr certainly did keep it mighty snug,” said Captain
Campbell, “and he was powerful proud of it too. He’d point out to
every stranger the part the Injins built and the part your father
added on to it; and he was proud of all outdoors besides. He ’lowed
there wasn’t another tree in the country so handsome to look at as
this yer postoak out in front.”
“And if he and his old gray mare was on the homeward road any whar
near sundown, she’d break into a trot of her own free will and
accord, knowin’ she’d got to git him here in time to see the sun
slip down behind the Bald.”
“And he done made a sermon onct ’bout that ar cliff t’other side the
road. His tex’ was somethin’ ’bout ‘The shadow of a Great Rock,’ and
mighty nigh all the women in the meetin’-house had to unfold their
pocket handkerchiefs ’fore he got through.”
“And he done kep’ his tater-patch as clean of weeds as my wife keeps
her posy beds.”
“And he worked jes’ as hard to weed the sin out of Junaluska as he
did to weed the pusly and cockles out of his roas’n’-ear patch.”
“Amen!” shouted Deacon Higgins.
“And he was always yer when he was needed”—the voice was unsteady and
the speaker sat in the shadow. “I tell ye it cuts me powerful that
when my wife died last spring there was nary a preacher to take her
last test’mony, and she a-askin’ for him all the time. The neighbours
done what they could when we laid her away; they sung a hymn and
Judge Brevard read a chapter, but there was nary a sermon preached or
a lesson of her life said over her, and she a Meth’dis’ in good and
reg’lar standin’. I ain’t a-blamin’ our young preacher; the branches
was swelled at the fords and the bridges was swept away. He couldn’t
git yer nohow. But seem like something’s wrong when we’ve got five
meetin’-houses and nary preacher living yer.”
“We don’t have Pres’terian preachin’ but once a month, because our
preacher’s got three other charges besides Junaluska. He rides
seventeen miles to git yer; but he ain’t Samson and he’s mighty nigh
wore out ’fore he begins, and he has to gallop through the sarvice
and ride off to after-dark preachin’ somewheres else.”
“Jes’ the same way ’tis with our preacher”—the women were speaking
now—“he shakes hands friendly like but I don’t guess, if all the
folks in the diff’rent places where he preaches was stood up
together, he’d know me and my children from the lot.”
“Them was good old times”—the deacon’s wife took off her sunbonnet
and straightened up its crown as she spoke—“when we had one
meetin’-house and preachin’ every Sunday and Preacher Carr was right
here on the ground ready for marryin’ or buryin’ or any sich like.”
“And Mis’ Carr—she was a mother to all of us.”
“_Our_ preacher’s got a right big family and they do say that he
don’t make enough to keep ’em all comf’table; but I don’t know how
’tis. Our church agreed to give him thirty dollars this year and we
done raised fo’teen of it cash down and we reckoned we’d about make
up the balance of it in apples and potatoes; there was some corn give
besides. To be sure there was no way for him to haul it home, for he
don’t own a wagon; but seem like, if his other churches done as well
by him as we do, he wouldn’t be so peaked looking. They say he ain’t
nary top coat to wear, but we-all give him nine pair of mittens and
five pair of wristers, and Callerstown give him seven pair of mittens
and four comforters for his neck and some wristers besides, and it do
seem like his other churches ought to give him a overcoat.”
A few minutes of thoughtful silence ensued; then a philosopher spoke.
“It’s a heap easier to ’stablish churches than ’tis to support ’em
after they’re sot goin’.”
With a deeply drawn breath Colonel Ledbetter stretched out his legs,
set his soles upright before the fire, folded his arms and squared
himself. He waited respectfully for the old bench to complete its
squeaking preface, then, singling out one fork of a blazing log,
addressed it earnestly.
“Grover Cleveland, he don’t believe in beliefs and I’ve been
a-studyin’ whether he ain’t right. I reason this a-way:
“You-all know how ’tis with the gris’-mills round yer; some of ’em
is run by a turbine wheel and some by a overshot wheel and Captain
Campbell he’s jes’ sot up a undershot wheel. But if the day of
meracles wasn’t past and some of us should stop on our way home from
the mill and leave ole Mis’ Jimson a bag of meal, it would keep her
and her ole cow from starvin’ plumb to death and she’d never ask
which mill ground that ar grist. And in my opinion that’s the way
’tis with these yer diff’rent religious secks we’ve got in Junaluska;
they each turn their crank in their own way but there ain’t much
choice in the grist they turn out; that is to say, neighbours, if you
judge a man from his outgoin’s and his incomin’s it would take more
than human jedgment to tell whether he’s been ground by the Piscopals
or the Methdises or the Presaterians or the Baptises.
“When we git riled, Presaterian cussin’ don’t sound noways diff’rent
from Methdis’ cussin’ and a wayfarin’ man in Junaluska could never
tell by lookin’ at the children’s frocks and faces whether their
mothers believe that sprinklin’ or duckin’ is the tellin’est means
of grace; and Baptis’ hogs and cattle left out on the mountings
all winter without fodder and shelter looks jes’ as gaunted-up
when spring comes as the Piscopals’ does. I’m beginnin’ to think,
neighbours, that there’s right much more religion in _doin’_ then
there is in fussin’ about beliefs.”
“Amen!” shouted a Methodist brother and the speaker gained courage.
“I’d like,” he went on, “to jine hands and pull together again, and
don’t meddle with each others’ beliefs, till some one’s deeds shows
that his creed is the best. I’d like not to worship any longer in
meetin’-houses that ain’t as snug as a barn ought to be. All of us
together can keep one building painted and the roof tight and the
windows sashed. I’d like not to have a hand in starvin’ or freezin’
any more preachers, but to make one preacher comf’table right here
in Junaluska—we done it once and we done it without any outside help
too—and we can do it ag’in. I’d like to have him always right yer on
the ground to christen our children, to bury our dead, and to marry
our young folks. For myself, I ain’t carin’ what college turned him
out so’s he’s a sure-’nough Christian and cares more about right
livin’ than he does about beliefs.”
By the wall, the only occupant of a bench with legs of assorted
lengths and easily tilted, sat Deacon Higgins who here put in a
demurrer. Jolting back and forth, bringing the bench legs and his
feet resoundingly upon the floor to mark his time, he sang, his eyes
fixed upon a rafter and his heart upon opposition:
“‘I’m Meth’dis born an Pres’terian bred,
But Meth’dis will I die!’
“I’m a shoutin’ Meth’dis.”
“Well, you could continue on a shouting Meth’dis!”
“La, yes;” Colonel Ledbetter’s plan had won some enthusiastic
supporters among the women. “Deacon Higgins you could take an amen
corner for you and your folks and we-all wouldn’t object to your
shoutin’ in once in a while.”
“And if the Piscopals wants to stand up and stretch their legs and
try a readin’ match with the preacher now and then, why we could
accommodate ’em with some Bible-readin’ ‘long with the singin’ and
preachin’; the Bible makes good readin’ for any ’casion.”
“I’m tired,” said a weary-eyed woman. “I’m tired of the everlastin’
scratchin’ round to git ahead of some one else; I’m tired of runnin’
our church with one eye onto four other churches to see that they
don’t come out a step ahead.”
Here a horse’s hoofs clattered upon the frozen road in front. Two
or three women went to the window. “It’s Preacher Freeman,” they
announced. “He’s on his way to Mills’s Ford to see that man that’s
been hurt.”
“He’s got nine miles further to ride and it’s mighty cold.”
The door opened and a tall man, dark and spare, entered. He might
have been thirty years old, but he smiled at the tree with boyish
appreciation as he made his way past it and gave the assembly a
general “Howdy.” Then he drew off his mittens and went from one
to another shaking hands though he didn’t call them all by name.
His own church people were there, but it is needless to name their
denominational conformity—he was an honour to any church. They gave
him a seat before the fire and he stretched out his shabbily shod
feet toward it with a tired sigh, but an involuntary one, for he
checked it.
“I stopped at your house Judge Brevard,” he said, “and learned that
you were here.”
Embarrassed at being found in company so ecclesiastically mixed,
Brevard irrelevantly felt of the young man’s coat.
“Tollable thin for this weather,” he said.
“The exercise of riding keeps me warm,” answered the preacher and
changed the subject. “I didn’t expect to find all my people here”
(with kind eyes he seemed to single out his own). “I’m _glad_ of it,”
he continued heartily. “I’m _glad_ to see the whole neighbourhood
joining hands.”
He praised the tree, gave a few minutes to general and friendly
discourse, arranged with Brevard the personal matter which had been
the object of his call, wished them a “Merry Christmas” and went out.
They heard him speak to his horse as he untied him but in a moment he
entered the cabin again. He came forward haltingly and laid a hand
upon the back of a bench, fidgeting like an embarrassed schoolboy as
he began to speak:
“Brethren, I spent last night twenty miles from here up on the
Harriman Mountain. You-all know what Harriman is like.”
Colonel Ledbetter twisted himself round and faced the speaker.