At the door of what was still called the nursery Laine stood a
moment, hesitating whether to go in or to go away. In a low
rocking-chair Claudia was holding Channing, half-asleep in her arms;
and at her feet Dorothea, on a footstool, elbows on knees and chin in
the palms of her hands, was listening so intently to the story being
told that for half a minute his presence was not noted.
Presently she looked up and saw him. "Come in." Her voice was a
high whisper. "It's the grandest story. Wait a minute, Cousin
Claudia." She ran toward the door and drew him in. "You'll have to
stay with us," she said, "because mother and father have gone out.
Some kind of a relation is in town and they had to go. Channing's
got an awful cold, and mother said he could have anything he wanted,
and he took Cousin Claudia to tell him stories. She's been doing it
ever since dinner. He's asleep now, but--"
"I'm not asleep." Channing's eyes opened blinkingly. "She said they
found the squirrel in a hollow down by the chestnut-tree, and the
moonlight on the snow--the moonlight--on--the--snow." His head fell
back on Claudia's bosom and, with a smile, she nodded to Laine and
held out her hand.
"The spirit is valiant, but the flesh prevails. I'm so sorry Hope
and Channing are out."
"I'm not." He drew a cushioned wicker chair close to the fire.
"It's been long since I heard a good fairy story. Please don't stop."
Dorothea pushed the stool aside and settled herself comfortably in
her uncle's lap. "It isn't a fairy story. You don't tell fairy
stories at Christmas; they're for summer, when the windows are open
and they can hide in the flowers and ride on the wind--the fairies, I
mean--but this is Christmas." She twisted herself into a knot of
quivering joy and hugged her arms with rapturous intensity. "It's
all in my bones, and I'm nothing but shivers. Isn't it grand to have
Christmas in your bones? Have you got it in yours?" She held
Laine's face between her hands and looked at it anxiously. "Cousin
Claudia has it in hers. She and I are just alike. We've been
filling stockings to-day for some children Timkins told us about.
They live near him, and their mother is sick and their father is
dead, and they haven't a bit of money. Channing and I are going to
hang our stockings up here before we go to grandmother's, and we're
going to hang them up there again. I wish we were going to Cousin
Claudia's. Of course, I love to go to grandmother's, but she lives
in town and they don't have snow in Savannah; and at Cousin Claudia's
they have everything. I mean everything Christmasy like I like.
She's been telling us about when she was a little girl."
Dorothea's feet twisted around each other and her hands were laid
palm to palm as her body swayed backward and forward in rhythmic
movement. "They go out in the woods and cut cart-loads of holly and
mistletoe and pine and Christmas-trees, and dress the house, and the
fires roar up all the chimneys, and they kill the pigs--"
Channing sat upright and rubbed his eyes. "They don't kill the pigs
at Christmas. She said they kill them when the persimmons get ripe."
"Well, they're killed and you eat them Christmas. They put a little
one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the
fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the
smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters
come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where
she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and
plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she
was a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some of the
Christmas cake to bake in egg-shells. I wish I could see somebody
make a cake. And Christmas Eve they make egg-nog, and Uncle Bushrod
makes the apple toddy two weeks before." She turned to her uncle.
"Why don't you go down there, Uncle Winthrop? I bet you'd get
Christmas in your bones if you did."
"I am very sure of it." Laine fixed Dorothea more firmly on his lap.
"There is only one reason in the world why I don't go."
"What's that? We're going away, and you will be all alone if you
don't. Can't he come, Cousin Claudia? He'd love it. I know he
would."
"I don't." Claudia moved her chair farther from the firelight.
"Christmas at Elmwood would be punishment for a city man. We are
much too primitive and old-fashioned. He would prefer New York."
"Would you?" Dorothea's arms were around her uncle's neck, and her
head nodded at his. "Would you?"
"I would not." Laine's voice was a little queer. "The punishment is
all at this end. I would rather spend Christmas at Elmwood than
anywhere on earth. But your Cousin Claudia will not let me,
Dorothea."
"Won't you really?" Dorothea slipped from his lap, and, with hands
on the arms of Claudia's chair, gazed anxiously in her eyes. "He'll
be all alone if you don't. Please ask him, Cousin Claudia! You said
yourself there was always so much company at Elmwood that one more
never mattered and you managed to put them somewhere. Please--oh,
please ask him, Cousin Claudia!"
Claudia kissed the lips held close to her own. "I think it is time
for you to be in bed, Dorothea. You are making your uncle say things
he doesn't mean. He can come to Elmwood if he wishes, but--"
Dorothea sprang back and, with arms extended and fingers flipping,
danced round and round the room. "How magnificent! Now I won't have
a thing on my mind!" With a last whirl she jumped in Laine's lap and
took his hands in hers. "That's the only thing I hated about
Christmas, your being here all by yourself." She gave a deep breath.
"And now you'll be in that heavenly place with Cousin Claudia. When
I get big I'm going there and hunt by the light of the moon, and hear
the darkies sing when they're having a party with possum and
hoe-cake, and--" She sat upright. "Did you know Cousin Claudia was
going home to-morrow?"
Laine nodded. Speech had suddenly left him. He did not know whether
to take Dorothea in the next room and lock her up or hold her close
to his heart. What had the child done and made Claudia do?
Christmas at Elmwood! His blood surged thickly, and as Dorothea
settled back in his arms he looked up and met Claudia's eyes.
"I'm so scrumptious happy I feel like I'm in heaven!" Dorothea
wriggled in sleepy content. "Please finish that story you were
telling when Uncle Winthrop came in, Cousin Claudia. You had gotten
to where the little boy and the little girl were knocking at the door
of the big house with the wreaths in the windows, and it was snowing.
I couldn't sleep to save my life if I didn't know whether they got in
or not. Please finish it."
Claudia hesitated, then, changing Channing's position, finished the
story and glanced at the clock. "It is time for you to be in bed,
Dorothea. I have some notes to write and some packing to--"
"Just one more and that's all." Dorothea cuddled closer. "It's so
nice and home-y with just us in here. Please don't make me go yet.
Tell Uncle Winthrop a story"--she blinked bravely--"and then I'll
go--to--bed."
Laine leaned back and turned off the light from the lamp on the table
behind him, and as the firelight played on Claudia's soft, blue
dress, on the slippered feet tapping the stool on which they rested,
ran up to the open throat and touched the brown hair, parted and
brushed back in simple fashion, he held Dorothea close lest words he
must not speak be spoken. Presently he looked toward her.
"I am waiting," he said. "Will you tell me a story, Santa Claudia?"
"A story?" Her eyes were watching the curling flames. "What kind
shall I tell you? I do not know the kind you like."
"I would like any kind that you would tell me."
She leaned her head back against the cushioned chair, and again her
lashes seemed to touch her cheek. For a moment the soft silence was
unbroken, then she turned her face toward him.
"Very well," she said. "I will tell you a story. It will be about
the man who did not know."