It was December, ten years later. Carol had seen nine Christmas trees
lighted on her birthdays, one after another; nine times she had
assisted in the holiday festivities of the household, though in her
babyhood her share of the gayeties was somewhat limited.
For five years, certainly, she had hidden presents for Mama and Papa in
their own bureau drawers, and harbored a number of secrets sufficiently
large to burst a baby's brain, had it not been for the relief gained by
whispering them all to Mama, at night, when she was in her crib, a
proceeding which did not in the least lessen the value of a secret in
her innocent mind.
For five years she had heard "'Twas the night before Christmas," and
hung up a scarlet stocking many sizes too large for her, and pinned a
sprig of holly on her little white night gown, to show Santa Claus that
she was a "truly" Christmas child, and dreamed of fur-coated saints and
toy-packs and reindeer, and wished everybody a "Merry Christmas" before
it was light in the morning, and lent every one of her new toys to the
neighbors' children before noon, and eaten turkey and plum pudding, and
gone to bed at night in a trance of happiness at the day's pleasures.
Donald was away at college now. Paul and Hugh were great manly
fellows, taller than their mother. Papa Bird had grey hairs in his
whiskers; and Grandma, God bless her, had been four Christmases in
heaven. But Christmas in the Birds' Nest was scarcely as merry now as
it used to be in the bygone years, for the little child that once
brought such an added blessing to the day, lay, month after month, a
patient, helpless invalid, in the room where she was born.
She had never been very strong in body, and it was with a pang of
terror her mother and father noticed, soon after she was five years
old, that she began to limp, ever so slightly; to complain too often of
weariness, and to nestle close to her mother, saying she "would rather
not go out to play, please." The illness was slight at first, and hope
was always stirring in Mrs. Bird's heart. "Carol would feel stronger
in the summer-time;" or, "She would be better when she had spent a year
in the country;" or, "She would outgrow it;" or, "They would try a new
physician;" but by and by it came to be all too sure that no physician
save One could make Carol strong again, and that no "summer-time" nor
"country air," unless it were the everlasting summer-time in a heavenly
country, could bring back the little girl to health.
The cheeks and lips that were once as red as holly-berries faded to
faint pink; the star-like eyes grew softer, for they often gleamed
through tears; and the gay child-laugh, that had been like a chime of
Christmas bells, gave place to a smile so lovely, so touching, so
tender and patient, that it filled every corner of the house with a
gentle radiance that might have come from the face of the Christ-child
himself.
Love could do nothing; and when we have said that we have said all, for
it is stronger than anything else in the whole wide world. Mr. and
Mrs. Bird were talking it over one evening when all the children were
asleep. A famous physician had visited them that day, and told them
that sometime, it might be in one year, it might be in more, Carol
would slip quietly off into heaven, whence she came.
"Dear heart," said Mr. Bird, pacing up and down the library floor, "it
is no use to shut our eyes to it any longer; Carol will never be well
again. It almost seems as if I could not bear it when I think of that
loveliest child doomed to lie there day after day, and, what is still
more, to suffer pain that we are helpless to keep away from her. Merry
Christmas, indeed; it gets to be the saddest day in the year to me!"
and poor Mr. Bird sank into a chair by the table, and buried his face
in his hands, to keep his wife from seeing the tears that would come in
spite of all his efforts. "But, Donald, dear," said sweet Mrs. Bird,
with trembling voice, "Christmas day may not be so merry with us as it
used, but it is very happy, and that is better, and very blessed, and
that is better yet. I suffer chiefly for Carol's sake, but I have
almost given up being sorrowful for my own. I am too happy in the
child, and I see too clearly what she has done for us and for our boys."
"That's true, bless her sweet heart," said Mr. Bird; "she has been
better than a daily sermon in the house ever since she was born, and
especially since she was taken ill."
"Yes, Donald and Paul and Hugh were three strong, willful, boisterous
boys, but you seldom see such tenderness, devotion, thought for others
and self-denial in lads of their years. A quarrel or a hot word is
almost unknown in this house. Why? Carol would hear it, and it would
distress her, she is so full of love and goodness. The boys study with
all their might and main. Why? Partly, at least, because they like to
teach Carol, and amuse her by telling her what they read. When the
seamstress comes, she likes to sew in Miss Carol's room, because there
she forgets her own troubles, which, Heaven knows, are sore enough!
And as for me, Donald, I am a better woman every day for Carol's sake;
I have to be her eyes, ears, feet, hands--her strength, her hope; and
she, my own little child, is my example!"
"I was wrong, dear heart," said Mr. Bird more cheerfully; "we will try
not to repine, but to rejoice instead, that we have an 'angel of the
house' like Carol."
"And as for her future," Mrs. Bird went on, "I think we need not be
over-anxious. I feel as if she did not belong altogether to us, and
when she has done what God sent her for, He will take her back to
Himself--and it may not be very long!" Here it was poor Mrs. Bird's
turn to break down, and Mr. Bird's turn to comfort her.