The weeks it took for Tommy’s broken bones to mend were a trying period,
not only for Tommy himself, but for his mother and Erica as well. The
boy tried valiantly to be patient, but he had never stayed in bed a day
in his active young life before, and as the days grew into weeks it
seemed to him that he could not bear the terrible inaction and monotony
another hour. Then, in spite of his best efforts, he would snap at
everyone about him, refuse to be pleased with Erica’s hard-working
efforts to entertain him, and behave—as he would admit shamefacedly
when the grumpy fit had passed—like a spoiled baby generally.
Even Erica grew a little pale and peaked toward the end of Tommy’s
convalescence, missing the outdoor life she was used to, but steadily
refusing to desert her patient, who came to depend more and more on her
as the days passed. Mrs. Folger could not be in the sickroom always, as
she had a dozen household duties which must be seen to every hour of the
day, and Miss Charity, though she came over when she could, was likewise
engaged with her own housekeeping.
The latter insisted that Erica should take at least one brisk walk each
day, and of course there was school in the mornings, which could not be
given up even for the duties of a nurse. Formerly, Erica had often gone
home for early dinner with one of the girls in her class, when the
morning session was over—Molly Macy, over on Pearl Street, or perhaps
pretty Sara Anne Gardener, who fulfilled all Aunt Charity’s requirements
for being a “genteel little lady,” yet managed to be a pleasant enough
companion for a few hours “when nothing more exciting offered”—as
naughty Erica used to explain to the twins.
But since Tommy’s accident Erica had refused all these invitations, and
hurried home to retail a carefully-remembered account of the morning’s
events to his envious ears. Tommy felt that, as he had been so unfairly
deprived of his exciting sea adventure, it was decidedly hard that he
must fall behind his class in school, as well. Erica offered to ask the
teacher to assign him some home work, which she could bring back with
her each day, but Tommy was not the student Lis had been, and the idea
of studying alone, without anyone to explain problems and help him over
hard places, did not appeal to him, and the idea was abandoned.
Another factor which served to make both the boy and girl more
rebellious against the indoor confinement was that that fall was a
particularly fine and sunshiny one on Nantucket. The autumn colors
blazed splendidly on the commons; seas and skies were a thrilling and
cloudless blue, and the crisp air caused the blood to race faster, and
stored up a daily-renewed fund of unspent energy that made a shut-in
existence torture to the two active young people.
After the first three weeks, Tommy was allowed to be up and dressed and
to go about the house, and even for a few stumping blocks along Orange
Street on his new crutches. But that seemed, somehow, only an
aggravation to a boy who wanted to run, play ball, tramp the commons,
and take up his familiar every-day life along its usual lines. At
length, however, what Tommy called bitterly his “term in prison” drew to
an end, as most things, both pleasant and unpleasant, have a way of
doing. And his final release from the hated crutches coincided with the
near approach of Christmas, always a specially festive time on
Nantucket.
To be sure, this year Christmas could not be quite like all the other
happy Christmases in the two Folger households without Lis—Lis who would
be having his Christmas at sea, more than two-thirds of the distance to
Canton.
On the road to Surfside on the south shore of Nantucket there was a
stretch of low pine woods where the twins and Erica had been in the
habit of foraging each year for their Christmas trees. The wind swept
over the island with such constant violence that it stunted even the
pines growing on the commons. They looked like trees in Japanese prints,
little and twisted, with writhing branches stretching out away from the
blast. Where the pines were massed closely together, however, as in
these woody patches, they were straighter, less tortured by sea winds,
though even there they were dwarf trees.
Erica had always loved the clean, pungent fragrance of that pine woods,
and she delighted in the gray-feathered, short-eared owls, with their
wise little cat faces and stealthy mothlike flight, who lived in the
green dimness of its piny aisles. Sometimes on a walk she had started up
more than a dozen of the creatures in a single afternoon. And in spite
of Lis’s and Tommy’s loud-voiced amusement, she had named that
particular stretch of woods on the Surfside road, the “Owls’ Country.”
She used to wonder, whimsically, whether the owls ever guessed that the
twins and she robbed their country of two of the biggest and branchiest
trees each December, to hang their Christmas packages and candles on.
And whether that would serve as an excuse for breaking into the quiet of
the grove, and putting the owls to the trouble of removing their stately
selves from one tree to another. Sometimes the owls scolded noisily when
they were disturbed, and always they stared down their curved, horny
beaks superciliously at the intruders, from a safe distance.
Lis was not here to go tree-hunting this year, and partly because Erica
felt instinctively that Tommy and she would miss him more if there were
only two of them, partly because Tommy’s reknit leg was not yet quite up
to all the demands such an expedition would put upon it, she suggested
making a party of the occasion and including half a dozen or more young
folks. So Mollie Macy and her brothers, Jud and Alex, were invited to
join them, with Martin and Lilla Joy, the two fat Covington boys, and
Sara Anne Gardener.
The day before Christmas, Tommy harnessed his mother’s sedate brown
mare, Polly, to the ancient springless cart that was used for hauling
barrels of flour and apples from market, and for bringing in loads of
potatoes, garden truck, and fragrant summer hay from the Folger farm out
Madaket way. This farm belonged to Miss Charity, Mrs. Callie Folger and
Captain Eric jointly, and was managed for them by a capable farmer named
Amos Brett.
Tommy drove, since his leg was not strong enough for long walks, and the
girls bundled into the cart behind him, sitting on a pile of hay spread
out on the bare floor-boards. The other boys tramped alongside, finding
no difficulty in keeping up with old Polly’s sober pace.
Miss Charity put a generously filled lunch basket in the cart just as it
started, containing cold fried chicken, thick slices of homemade brown
bread, still warm from the oven, red apples, crisp brown doughnuts, and
a stone jug of sweet cider. Miss Charity was justly proud of her fame as
a good cook and provider, and, knowing that Tommy and Erica had had very
little pleasure that fall, she had taken particular pains to make the
present party one to be remembered.
The cavalcade of young people started out of town in high spirits, and
headed for Surfside and Erica’s “Owls’ Country” by one of the sandy rut
roads that wound across the commons. It is usually fairly mild on
Nantucket until January, and on a sunny day the commons will be almost
warm in the hollows around noon. That day was no exception to the
general rule. The sun shone down in a hot blaze of gold, and though the
wind, when it came, left a nip and tingle in its passing, down in a
certain deep depression Erica and Tommy selected for their picnic site
near the pine woods the party was quite protected from the blasts.
The ground was carpeted to the depth of a foot or more with dried but
still faintly colorful huckleberry vines, with here and there patches of
sweet-fern, mealy plum, and soft clumps of the gray Iceland moss. An old
blanket was spread out to serve as table and tablecloth in one, and the
basket and stone jug were set in the place of honor in the center.
The eight hungry girls and boys sat about the edge of the blanket, and
Erica unpacked the basket. Everybody’s appetite had been sharpened to
extra keenness by their morning in the crisp December air, and they
speedily made ravenous inroads on the tempting fare Miss Charity had
provided. But since the business of tree-choosing and chopping was still
ahead of them, no one lingered longer than necessary over the meal.
When everything had been neatly replaced in the basket, four shining,
newly whetted axes were brought out of the hay on the floor of the cart,
and, leaving old Polly to follow at her leisure, the boys and girls
hurried on to the woods.
Choosing just the right size and shape always took time; and this year
there were not two Christmas trees to be selected, but three, since the
young Joys also wanted one for their holiday celebration. The rest of
the children were willing enough to lend a hand in the work of cutting
down the trees and to offer unsought advice as to the relative merits
and failures of the pines finally chosen.
So it was not surprising that the business in hand took most of the
short afternoon, and that the expedition should be overtaken by sunset
and the soft, smoky purple twilight of early winter, before they had
covered half the distance back to town.
They hurried a little faster then, prodding the indignant Polly to
greater exertions—not because any of them was afraid of darkness on the
familiar commons, but because this was Christmas Eve and there was much
to do at home. Later, bands of carol-singers would go from house to
house through the town, singing under their neighbors’ windows, and in
each window lighted candles would blaze an answering greeting to them
across the friendly dark of Christmas Eve.
Lilla Joy pointed toward the northwest, where a low, heavy-looking cloud
had risen over the horizon soon after sunset.
“That’s a real snow cloud,” she insisted. “We’ll have a white Christmas,
after all.”
“I’m glad,” Erica sighed happily, leaning back in the hay and drawing
her woolly red cape about her more tightly, for the wind was decidedly
sharp now. Her cheeks burned red from the cold and the day’s exertions,
and her eyes, which were the exact shade of the harbor water when the
sky was cloudless, shone starrily. She loved Christmas—_loved_ it; every
sweet old custom from choosing and bringing home the tree to trimming it
with tinsel balls, gilt paper cornucopias, and bunches of gay red holly;
and later still, the hanging up of the long, limp stockings over the
mantel in the parlor. Last of all, there was the little ceremony of
lighting the Christmas candles in all the front windows, upstairs and
down.
Snuggled down cozily in the warm hay, Erica shivered excitedly and began
to sing, very softly at first, that most beautiful of all the sweet old
Christmas songs:
“Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright—”
Her voice lifted a little, joyously, with the second line, and one by
one the other children took it up and sang with her, the fresh, happy
voices ringing out clearly in the dusk. And so, still singing, they
walked and drove into town just as lights began to be lighted in the
houses along Orange Street, and a few hardy stars came out overhead
through the gathering snow clouds and twinkled down in benediction, as
they must have twinkled over a far-away land across the seas, twenty
centuries ago, on a group of young shepherds who also came, singing, to
celebrate that first Christmas of all.
“Father’s boat was to get in today,” Lilla Joy declared as they dropped
Mart and herself at their door. “He promised he’d be home for Christmas.
I wonder what he’s brought from Boston.”
“Passengers, for one thing,” Mart laughed. “He was going to bring some
cousins of the Gardeners’ over to spend the holidays—off-islanders, you
know. I wish’t it was Lis who was coming,” he added, awkwardly. “Doesn’t
seem just right to have Christmas without him, does it, Erica?”
Erica put out her hand impulsively and clasped his strong, calloused
palm with sudden gratitude. “Thank you, Mart,” she said, softly. “No,
it—it seems sort of—all wrong.”
[Illustration: STILL SINGING, THEY WALKED AND DROVE INTO TOWN]
When the others had been left at their several homes, Tommy helped Erica
drag her tree into the house and set it up in the usual place between
the hearth and the north window. Then, without waiting to trim it, the
cousins went across the garden, dragging the last tree between them.
A sound of voices in the sitting room made them stop in the hall of the
other house and peep in at the open door. Aunt Callie was seated in her
big rocker by the hearth, with Aunt Charity opposite her, and between
them, in chairs drawn comfortably up to the red glow of the coals, sat a
fair, ruddy-cheeked young man with an unmistakably seafaring air about
him, and a slender girl about Erica’s own age, dressed in black.
The girl’s face was pale in the firelight, and so thin the features
looked oddly pinched and sharp. Her forehead was puckered in three fine,
vertical lines that gave her a fretful, unhappy expression.
At Mrs. Folger’s feet—where the two at the door had not seen her in this
first glance—a pretty little girl of three or four sat on a low hassock,
one plump, rosy cheek pressed confidingly against Aunt Callie’s knee.
The child’s hair, which clustered in tight, bronze-colored curls over
her charming little head, reflected the firelight in warm splashes of
reddish gold with each move she made, and now, at some sound from the
hall, she turned a blue-eyed, baby smile that way.
Mrs. Folger called: “Tommy! Erica! Is that you, dears?”
They came in then, dragging the bushy pine tree, and the curly-haired
baby uttered a little shriek of delight at sight of it.
“Clistmus t’ee!” she shouted, gleefully. “Barbee’s Clistmus t’ee. All
for Barbee!”
Mrs. Folger addressed the young man with the seafaring look about him,
who had risen politely at Erica’s entrance.
“Bernard, this is my niece, Erica Folger—you remember Captain Eric, of
course. And my son Tom. Children, this is a cousin of mine, Mr. Bernard
Gatchel, whom I have not laid eyes on since my marriage. He came to
Nantucket today on Captain Joy’s sloop, on a sad errand.” She hesitated,
and laid a gentle hand on the thin, fretful girl’s dark hair.
“These are his sister’s children—Mildred and Barbara Thorne. Their
mother and I went to school together in Boston.” Mrs. Folger had not
been a Nantucket girl. “Besides being second cousins, we were very close
friends and loved one another dearly. Tommy has certainly heard me talk
of Cousin Jane Thorne.”
The boy nodded bewilderedly, and then smiled in answer to a flash of
small white teeth between Barbee’s parted lips.
“Cousin Jane died a month ago,” Mrs. Folger said. “So this is not a
happy Christmas for my poor Milly.” Again that motherly touch on the
dark hair; but there was no lighting or softening of the fretful face
below it, and Erica, looking on, was conscious of a resentful sense of
vicarious rebuff.
“Their father died more than two years ago,” Mrs. Folger wound up her
explanation and introduction in one, “and Cousin Bernard here, being
mate on a packet that sails out of New York next week, cannot, of
course, take charge of Mildred and little Barbee. And Cousin Jane had
asked him, before she died, to bring them to me. She knew her babies
would be as welcome as my own.”
“You mean,” Tommy asked, startled into unconsidered speech, “that
they’re going to—to _live_ here, mother?”
Even as the words escaped him he realized their inhospitable import, and
bit his lip, coloring miserably. But—a strange girl in the house—that
cunning baby, Barbee, didn’t count, of course—eternally underfoot,
making a fellow stay constantly on his company behavior!
The object of his uncomplimentary thoughts turned to stare at him around
the back of her chair, her eyes looking enormously big and black in her
white, sulky face, and the boy thought he saw in them a malicious
enjoyment of his confusion.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, clearly and too sweetly. “Yes, I believe
Barbee and I _are_ going to live here. Your mother has very kindly asked
us to stay.”
The black eyes passed on to Erica, and stared at her with a keenness
that seemed to miss no smallest detail of her appearance.
“Do you live here, too?” the dark girl asked then, fretfully, tapping
the toe of her black shoe on the brass andiron nearest her.
“No, I live next door, with Aunt Charity,” Erica said, politely, feeling
inwardly guilty because she was so glad she was not to live in the same
house with this sulky, unattractive stranger. Feeling, too, tremendously
sorry for poor Tommy, who had exchanged the daily companionship of Lis
for Milly Thorne.
She had a swift, dismayed vision of the change from the old, happy
existence Lis, Tommy, and she had known, which the coming of Mildred and
Barbee Thorne would mean. Then the sight of Milly’s black dress softened
her to shamed remorse.
“And here I was thinking about Tommy’s and my Christmas being spoiled,”
she scolded herself, silently. “Erica Folger, you deserve just no
Christmas at all!”