CHRISTMAS MORNING
And at last Christmas morning dawned,--gray enough and
grim enough.
In that house the general presenting was reserved for
evening after dinner,--when in olden days there had
always been a large Christmas-tree lighted and
dressed for the children and their little friends. As
the children had grown older, and the trees at the
Sunday-school and elsewhere had grown larger, the family
tree had grown smaller, and on this day was to be simply
atypical tree, a little suggestion of a tree, between the
front windows; while most of the presents of every sort
and kind were to be dispersed--where room could be made
for them--in any part of the front parlors. All the
grand ceremonial of present-giving was thus reserved to
the afternoon of Christmas, because then it was certain
papa would be at home, Tom and Beverly would both be
ready, and, indeed, as the little people confessed, they
themselves would have more chance to be quite prepared.
But none the less was the myth of Santa Claus and the
stockings kept up, although that was a business of less
account, and one in which the children themselves had no
share, except to wonder, to enjoy, and to receive. You
will observe that there is a duality in most of the
enjoyments of life,--that if you have a long-expected
letter from your brother who is in Yokohama, by the same
mail or the next mail there comes a letter from your
sister who is in Cawnpore. And so it was of Christmas at
this Molyneux house. Besides the great wonders, like
those wrought out by Aladdin's slave of the lamp, there
were the wonders, less gigantic but not less exquisite,
of the morning hours, wrought out by the slave of
the ring. How this series of wonders came about, the
youngest of the children did not know, and were still
imaginative enough and truly wise enough not to inquire.
While, then, the two young men and their father were
at one or the other Department, now on step-ladders,
handing down dusty old pasteboard boxes, now under
gaslights, running down long indexes with inquiring
fingers and unwinking eyes, Matty and her mother watched
and waited till eleven o'clock came, not saying much of
what was on the hearts of both, but sometimes just
recurring to it, as by some invisible influence,--an
influence which would overcome both of them at the same
moment. For the mother and daughter were as two sisters,
not parted far, even in age, and not parted at all in
sympathy. For occupation, they were wrapping up in thin
paper a hundred barley dogs, cats, eagles, locomotives,
suns, moons, and stars,--with little parcels of nuts,
raisins, and figs, large red apples, and bright Florida
oranges,--all of which were destined to be dragged out of
different stockings at daybreak.
"And now, dear, dear mamma," said Matty, "you will go
to bed,--please do, dear mamma." This was said as she
compelled the last obstinate eagle to accept his fate and
stay in his wrapping-paper, from which he had more than
once struggled out, with the instincts of freedom.
"Please do, dear mamma; I will sort these all
out, and will be quite sure that each has his own.
At least, let us come upstairs together. I will comb
your hair for you; that is one of the little comforts.
And you shall get into bed and see me arrange them, and
if I do it wrong you can tell me."
Poor mamma, she yielded to her--as who does not
yield, and because it was easier to go upstairs than to
stay. And the girl led her up and made herself a toilet
woman indeed, and did put her worn-out mamma into bed,
and then hurried to the laundry, where she was sure she
could find what Diana had been bidden to reserve there--a
pair of clean stockings belonging to each member of the
family. The youngest children, alas, who would need the
most room for their spread-eagles and sugar locomotives,
had the smallest feet and legs. But nature compensates
for all things, and Matty did not fail to provide an
extra pair of her mother's longest stockings for each of
"the three," as the youngest were called in the councils
of their elders. So a name was printed by Santa Claus on
a large red card and pinned upon each receptacle, FLOSSY
or LAURA, while all were willing to accept of his
bounties contained within, even if they did not recognize
yarn or knitting as familiar. Matty hurried back with
their treasures. She brought from her own room the large
red tickets, already prepared, and then, on the floor by
her mother's bedside, assorted the innumerable parcels,
and filled each stocking full.
Dear girl! she had not wrongly guessed. There was
just occupation enough, and just little enough, for the
poor mother's anxious, tired thought. Matty was wise.
She asked fewer and fewer questions; fewer and fewer she
made her journeys to the great high fender, where she
pinned all these stiff models of gouty legs. And when
the last hung there quietly, the girl had the exquisite
satisfaction of seeing that her mother was fast asleep.
She would not leave the room. She turned the gas-light
down to a tiny bead. She slipped off her own frock, put
on her mother's heavy dressing-gown, lay down quietly by
her side without rousing her, and in a little while--for
with those so young this resource is well-nigh sure--she
slept too.
It was five o'clock when she was wakened by her
father's hand. He led her out into his own dressing-
room, and before she spoke she kissed him!
She knew what his answer would be. She knew that
from his heavy face. But all the same she tried to
smile, and she said,
"Found?"
"Found? No, no, dear child, nor ever will be. How
is mamma?"
And Matty told him, and begged him to come and sleep
in her own little room, because the children would come
in in a rout at daybreak. But no! he would not hear to
that. "Whatever else is left, dear Matty, we have each
other. And we will not begin--on what will be a new
life to all of us--we will not begin by 'bating a jot of
the dear children's joys. Matty, that is what I have
been thinking of all the way as I walked home. But maybe
I should not have said it, but that Beverly said it just
now to me. Dear fellow! I cannot tell you the comfort
it was to me to see him come in! I told him he should
not have come, but he knew that he made me almost happy.
He is a fine fellow, Matty, and all night long he has
shown the temper and the sense of a man."
For a moment Matty could not say a word. Her eyes
were all running over with tears. She kissed her father
again, and then found out how to say, "I shall tell him
what you say, papa, and there will be two happy children
in this house, after all."
So she ran to Beverly's room, found him before he was
undressed, and told him. And the boy who was just
becoming a man, and the girl who, without knowing it, had
become a woman, kissed each other; held each other for a
minute, each by both hands, looked each other so lovingly
in the eyes, comforted each other by the infinite comfort
of love, and then said good-night and were asleep. Tom
had stolen to bed without waking his mother or his
sister, some hours before.
Yes! They all slept. The little ones slept, though
they had been so certain that they should not sleep one
wink from anxiety. This poor jaded man slept
because he must sleep. His poor wife slept because she
had not slept now for two nights before. And Matty and
Tom and Beverly slept because they were young and brave
and certain and pure, and because they were between
seventeen and twenty-two years of age. This is all to
say that they could seek God's help and find it. This is
to say that they were well-nigh omnipotent over earthly
ills,--so far, at the least, that sleep came when sleep
was needed.
But not after seven o'clock! Venty and Diana had
been retained by Flossy and Laura to call them at five
minutes of seven, and Laura and Flossy had called the
others. And at seven o'clock, precisely, a bugle-horn
sounded in the children's quarters, and then four
grotesque riders, each with a soldier hat made of
newspaper, each with a bright sash girt round a dressing-
gown, each with bare feet stuck into stout shoes, came
storming down the stairs, and as soon as the lower floor
was reached, each mounted on a hobby-horse or stick, and
with riot not to be told came knocking at Matty's door,
at Beverly's, and at Tom's. And these all appeared, also
with paper soldier hats upon their heads, and girt in
some very spontaneous costume, and so the whole troop
proceeded with loud fanfaron and drumbeat to mamma's door
and knocked for admission, and heard her cheery "Come
in." And papa and mamma had heard the bugle-calls, and
had wrapped some sort of shawls around their
shoulders, and were sitting up in bed, they also with
paper soldier hats upon them; and one scream of "Merry
Christmas" resounded as the doors flew open,--and then a
wild rampage of kissing and of hugging as the little ones
rushed for the best places they could find on the bed--
not to say in it. This was the Christmas custom.
And Tom rolled up a lounge on one side of the bed,
which after a fashion widened it, and Beverly brought up
his mother's easy-chair, which had earned the name of
"Moses' seat," on the other side, and thus, in a minute,
the great broad bed was peopled with the whole family, as
jolly, if as absurd, a sight as the rising sun looked
upon. And then! Flossy and Beverly were deputed to go
to the fender, and to bring the crowded, stiff stockings,
whose crackle was so delicate and exquisite; and so,
youngest by youngest, they brought forth their treasures,
not indeed gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but what
answered the immediate purposes better, barley cats,
dogs, elephants and locomotives, figs, raisins, walnuts,
and pecans.
Yes, and for one noisy half-hour not one person
thought of the cloud which hung over the house only the
night before!
But such happy forgetfulness cannot last forever.
There was the Christmas breakfast. And Tom tried to tell
of Academy times, and Beverly tried to tell stories
of the University. But it was a hard pull. The lines
under papa's eyes were only too dark. And all of a
sudden he would start, and ask some question which showed
that he did not know what they were talking of. Matty
had taken care to have the newspapers out of the way; but
everybody knew why they were out of the way,--and perhaps
this made things worse. Poor blundering Laura must needs
say, "That is the good of Christmas, that there are no
horrid newspapers for people to bother with," when
everybody above Horace's age knew that there were papers
somewhere, and soon Horace was bright enough to see what
he had not been told in words,--that something was going
wrong.
And as soon as breakfast was done, Flossy cried out,
"And now papa will tell us the story of the bear! Papa
always tells us that on Christmas morning. Laura, you
shall come; and, Horace, you shall sit there." And then
her poor papa had to take her up and kiss her, and say
that this morning he could not stop to tell stories, that
he had to go to the Department. And then Flossy and
Laura fairly cried. It was too bad. They hated the
Department. There never could be any fun but what that
horrid old Department came in. And when Horace found
that Tom was going to the Department too, and that Bev
meant to go with him, he was mad, and said he did not see
what was the use of having Christmas. Here he had tin-
foil and plaster upstairs, and little Watrous had
lent him a set of government medals, and they should have
such a real good time if Bev would only stay. He wished
the Department was at the bottom of the Potomac. Matty
fairly had to take the scolding boy out of the room.
Mr. Molyneux, poor fellow, undertook the soothing of
Flossy. "Anyway, old girl, you shall meet me as you go
to church, and we will go through the avenue together,
and I will show you the new Topsy girl selling cigars at
Pierre's tobacco shop. She is as big as Flossy. She has
not got quite such golden hair, but she never says one
word to her papa, because she is never cross to him."
"That's because he is never kind to her," said the
quick child, speaking wiser than she knew.
For Matty, she got a word with Tom, and he too
promised that they would be away from the Department in
time to meet the home party, and that all of them should
go to church together.