The village of Oatka Centre had no sooner swallowed the amazing fact
that Lemuel Perkins was going to give the school children a Christmas
party in his own house, than its bump of credulity was again strained
almost to the bursting point by the information that Mrs. Em Caldwell
was helping actively about the preparations, and that Mr. Lemuel
Perkins himself had been seen bringing several parcels from “Nate
Waterses store,” and even talking amicably with Elder Smith on the
subject of missions in India and a certain small missionary from that
land, though various essential differences between free will and
predestination had previously cleft an impassable gulf between them.
“Will wonders never cease?” marvelled Oatka Centre, and then decided
unanimously that they certainly would not, for about that time it
transpired that the children’s party had enlarged into a neighbourhood
celebration, and that every man, woman, and child in the village was
invited.
It had been Merry Christmas’s first idea to invite the fathers
and mothers to come with their children; but then so many of her
particular friends—like Mr. Bennett, and Mrs. Caldwell, and Miss Marthy
Watkins—were not blessed with children that it seemed impossible
to narrow the gates of paradise in that manner. And when it was
once decided to light the fires in the long-disused parlour and
sitting-room, there really seemed to be no excuse for shutting out
anybody; particularly as Uncle Lemuel developed a sudden mania for
inviting every person who had a good word to speak for his “little
sissy”; and who in Oatka Centre hadn’t by the time those two jolly
weeks of holiday preparation were over? For, like an unconscious
messenger of “peace on earth, good will to men,” she had bobbed from
the schoolhouse to the stores and back again, and presently into every
house in the village, on one errand or another, trading happily with
her one little talent, and leaving a trail of “Merry Christmas” in the
air behind her.
Talk about your Marconi stations! There is nothing like a little human
heart brimming over with goodwill, and bubbling with enthusiasm, to
fill the air so full of Christmas spirit that not another thought can
find a wave to ride on.
And so it happened that by the time the windows of the brown Perkins
homestead were set cheerily ablaze the snowy village streets were
crackling and snapping merrily under the tread of many feet.
“I dunno as I’d orter ’a’ shut up the post-office and come,” confided
Miss Watkins to her neighbour, Mrs. Waters, as they creaked cheerfully
along together at the end of the line, “when the six o’clock is so late
and the mail hain’t come in, but Merry Christmas she couldn’t have it
no other way. She said she was goin’ to have Tom Bennett for Sandy
Claus, anyway, and she’d just rig him up and have him fetch in the mail
bags, too, and I could call the letters and passels out right there.”
“That’s a good idee,” assented Mrs. Waters. “Trust that little gal for
fixin’ things around. She got Nate to shut up, too; and Job, he’s even
locked up the Emporium. Both on ’em is about sold out, anyway. There
hain’t been such a time for Christmas tradin’ in Oatka Centre dear
knows when. It’s funny how that young one stirs things up. It’s her
bein’ brought up in Injy, I expect, and a missionary’s daughter, so.
Why, the Baby Jesus and the shepherds and the wise men and the angels
and all is just as real to her as if they was out in Lem’s paster
this minute, and she seen ’em. Makes you feel kind of green to have a
young one come from heathen lands to teach us Christian folks about
Christmas!”
“It’s her takin’ things so for granted,” explained Miss Watkins. “I
hain’t give nobody much for Christmas in years, made an excuse of
bein’ in the office and not havin’ time; and so I told her when she
was in consultin’ me about some of her Christmas doin’s. Well, sir—the
next afternoon in she breezed about two o’clock, and said she’d come
to tend office for me till four, so I could go and do my tradin’;
and land if she hadn’t wrote a list, too, of some things that she’d
heard my sister’s young ones say they wanted.” She stopped to laugh
deprecatingly. “Well, Priscilla, you know I come and bought ’em, don’t
ye?”
“I bet that’s how she’s worked it with Lem,” answered Mrs. Waters.
“Took it for granted he was so decent that he was ashamed not to be.
Lem’s reely quite human these days. Do you remember his little gal,
Loviny, that he lost years and years ago. Well, he’s been and hunted
out a little red dress she had, and he wanted me to get some cloth just
that colour and then to have Mis’ Mosher make it up on the sly for
Merry. It was for a Christmas present, but Mis’ Mosher carried it up
this mornin’, and I’ll bet she’ll have it on to-night.”
By this time the two women had reached the brown gate, and they stopped
to admire the Christmas wreaths that shone against the lighted panes.
“Twenty on ’em there is, in all, and a little bell inside of each one,”
announced Miss Watkins. “Miss Porter told me, though you can’t see but
twelve from here. The young ones made ’em yesterday to the schoolhouse.
Say, there she is now—red dress and all!”
There she was indeed, little Merry Christmas, in her “Kissmas-coloured”
dress, with a wreath of holly crowning her brown braids—literally
exploding with joy and delight into a hundred little ripples of
laughter.
Unmindful of the cold air outside, she danced down the steps to meet
the latest comers.
“Oh, goody!” she cried. “I was so afraid you’d be late, and I didn’t
want you to miss anything. The children are going to sing their carols
first, and then we’re going to have the tree and then the popcorn and
candy. We made those this afternoon, for there really wouldn’t have
been any room to-night, there are so many here. And uncle has put a
dish of apples everywhere he could possibly make room. He thinks apples
are almost as healthy as pies. You just come this way to the back entry
and hang your things up. Oh, listen! They’re beginning now. Do you
suppose I can ever get into the kitchen far enough to sing?”
She certainly couldn’t if she had been anybody but her active little
self, for everybody else seemed to want to get into that kitchen, too.
And no wonder, for it was certainly an attractive spot, with its old
walls wreathed with ground pine and gay streamers, and the lighted
Christmas tree sparkling at the end, with a ring of happy young faces
beneath it, lustily carolling their Christmas songs.
[Illustration: “Oh, goody!” she cried. “I was so afraid you’d be late,
and I didn’t want you to miss anything”]
It was a mammoth kitchen, too, built in the days when the kitchen was
really the living-room and the heart of the house. But, bless you!
it would have taken half a dozen such kitchens to contain all the
happiness and eager anticipation and radiant good-fellowship that
were rampant there; to say nothing at all of all the people who were
disjointing their necks, and standing on each other’s feet, and poking
holes in each other’s ribs, in their anxiety to hear the music, and
see the decorations, and most of all to satisfy themselves for the
hundredth time that their own little Johns and Marys were far and
away the handsomest children there, and the best singers, and that it
was a wonder that all the other fathers and mothers weren’t blushing
with mortification at the painful obviousness of these facts.
First and foremost of all these self-complacent mortals was Mr. Lemuel
Perkins, though he would have been the last person in the world to
admit, or even to suspect, the fact; though nobody knows how else he
could have explained the proud lift of his bristling chin whisker, or
the positively vainglorious swelling of his chest, as a certain little
holly-crowned figure in a red dress was lifted mysteriously on high,
and smiled radiantly upon the assembled guests.
“Santa Claus is rather slow to-night,” announced the clear, childish
voice, “because some of his pack came by mail, and the train is late;
but my Uncle Lemuel will take his place till he comes. Oh, there he is,
over by the sink. Will you let Uncle Lemuel through, if you please?”
Uncle Lemuel glanced wildly about, but there was no avenue of escape
unless he leaped directly through the sink window. And in front of him
a way was opening through that mass of humanity as miraculously as if
Moses had been present with his famous rod. Even his growl of dissent
was lost in the merry babel of voices around him, as a score of hands
pushed him forward to where a little red-garbed figure welcomed him
joyfully.
“I’ll help you, Uncle, if you can’t see the names very well,” she
whispered. “But they’ll like to have you do the calling out.”
“Now, look here, sissy,” he protested; “I ain’t goin’ to have no
foolishness. Tom Bennett can rig himself up in a mess of red flannin
and cotton battin’ if he wants to, but I hain’t goin’ to make no show
of _my_self.”
“Mercy, no!” giggled Mary. “You aren’t round enough for Santa Claus,
anyway. You just call out the names. Here’s one for Elder Smith, and
Sarah Haskell, and Deacon Caldwell. There are perfect heaps. Oh, hurry,
do!”
Uncle Lemuel glanced at the first parcel, and a grim, “down-East” sense
of humour triumphed.
“Waal, Elder Smith,” he announced in stentorian tones, “I seem
predestined to hand you over this passel, that’s sure. I’ll bet you
can’t prove it was my free will this time.”
The burst of laughter that acclaimed this witticism was so intoxicating
that Mr. Perkins promptly proceeded to make another, which was even
more successful. Whereupon he yielded himself so thoroughly to the
unaccustomed delight of public appreciation and approval that when the
real Santa Claus finally came he was forced to divide his honours with
a determined Uncle Lemuel, who evidently regarded him as an upstart and
an interloper.
But bless me! nobody minded that, and least of all the genial Mr.
Bennett, for two Santa Clauses and a Merry Christmas and half a dozen
understudies and assistants were none too many to tackle that mass of
Christmas presents and clear them out of the way in time for the games
and other jollifications to begin.
It was a mercy that the popcorn and the molasses candy were all made
beforehand, for otherwise the whole school, and their presents, and
their teacher, and the tree, would have been stuck together in one huge
and inextricable popcorn ball; they barely escaped that fate as it was
just in the eating of those toothsome dainties. But blindman’s-buff and
stage-coach and puss-in-the-corner have their advantage in the line of
keeping things moving and preventing you from being glued for life to
your next neighbour if you chance to adhere in passing.
“Well, this is a real, right-down, old-fashioned Christmas party,
‘same as mother used to make,’ ain’t it?” queried Deacon Caldwell
jovially of the man next him and then stopped suddenly, as he realized
that that man was his time-honoured foe, Mr. Perkins.
But Mr. Perkins had no thought for any ancient grudges just then.
“What’s become of sissy?” he demanded sharply. “I can’t spot her
nowhere in sight. She was blindman along back, but she hain’t playin’
now.”
“She must be in the parlour,” suggested Deacon Caldwell kindly. “Like
as not she went in to hunt up Em. They’re great cronies, her and Em.”
“No, she ain’t,” retorted Uncle Lemuel shortly. “She ain’t there nor in
the settin’-room, nor upstairs in the bedrooms. You don’t s’pose she’s
been and took sick, somewheres, do ye?” he added anxiously. “Et too
much stuff, or come down with that scarlet fever, mebbe?”
“Why, sho now, Lem!” cried the deacon sympathetically. “I’d hate to
think so. But let’s go get Em. Em’s a master hand in sickness if need
be.”
“It’ll be easy enough to find her by the red dress,” said Mrs. Caldwell
encouragingly as she joined the little party of searchers. But
“upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber” they looked, and no
sign of the “Kissmas-coloured” dress did they see.
“There’s the cellar and the woodshed still left,” comforted Mrs.
Caldwell, glancing sidewise at Uncle Lemuel’s grimly suffering face.
And just as they reached the back-entry door, a little figure in a red
dress popped in from the woodshed entrance, a radiant little figure,
that waved a lantern on high, and flung itself joyfully upon Uncle
Lemuel.
“Where’ve you been?” demanded that gentleman with the gruffness of
relief. “We’ve been huntin’ you from garret to cellar.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry if you worried!” cried Mary penitently. “I never
thought you’d notice. Mr. Bennett brought me a letter, you see, from
mother—my Christmas letter—and of course I was dying to read it, and I
couldn’t find a single place that was quiet, so I took a lantern and
went out to the woodshed.”
“I hope you hain’t took your death of cold,” cried Mrs. Caldwell
anxiously.
“Oh, no; I’m warm as toast,” answered Mary happily. “And I’ve had the
nicest news you ever knew. Father and mother and the children are
all coming back to America! Isn’t that lovely? That’s been the only
drawback to this perfectly beautiful Christmas here—missing them all
so—and now—just think! They’re coming, too!”
“How do they happen to be comin’?” queried Mrs. Caldwell, returning
Mary’s ecstatic embrace.
“Why, it’s on account of father’s health. Father’s not been very strong
for a long time. But neither was I, and look at me now! He’ll be all
right as soon as he gets to Oatka Centre, and eats enough pie and
things.”
“Oh, are they comin’ here?” inquired Mrs. Caldwell, in a voice in which
pleasure and surprise were mingled. Oatka Centre had not yet forgotten
that when Ellen Rumball chose to marry and go to India, she had done
so in face of the threat that the Perkins doors would be closed to her
henceforth and forever.
But Mary returned her gaze with wide-open, astonished eyes.
“Why, she didn’t _say_ Oatka Centre,” she cried. “But where else should
they come? Why, mother loves Oatka Centre better than any other place
on earth, she always says. And father has no family at all. So Uncle
Lemuel is our nearest surviving relative,” she ended quaintly.
“Why, that’s so, of course,” agreed Mrs. Caldwell hastily. “How soon
did you say they was comin’?”
“Right away, mother says. Isn’t that grand? Maybe I won’t even go back
to school. Crescent Hill is lovely—for a school; but of course a real
home, with Uncle Lemuel and the rest of my family, would be lots nicer.
Oh, Uncle Lemuel, aren’t you glad as can be?”
But the old man was gazing at her with dazed eyes.
“Was you—goin’ back—to school, sissy?” he said slowly. “When?”
“Why, week after next, Uncle Lemuel. We’ve had a whole month, you see.
But if mother is coming here to live maybe she won’t make me, and I can
stay right along and bake pies for you all winter. Oh, goody, goody!
I’m so glad that my toes are skipping round inside my shoes. Do come
with me while I go and ask Miss Porter what class she would put me in.”
But Uncle Lemuel, muttering something about “the stock,” stepped to the
back door, and walked slowly out under the silent stars.
“Oh, he’s going out to see if they kneel down,” explained Mary happily,
after a second of surprise. “I heard that the animals all knelt in
their stalls on Christmas Eve; and he promised me that he’d go and look
and call me if they did. But I’m afraid that he’s too early. They
don’t do it till twelve o’clock, I think. I must run and tell him to
wait.”
Mrs. Caldwell laid a detaining hand upon her arm.
“I wouldn’t bother him if I was you, dearie,” she said. “Mebbe he’ll
find ’em now. It’s Christmas Eve, anyhow.”
For Mrs. Caldwell, down deep in her heart, was praying eagerly that the
stars of Christmas Eve would lead Uncle Lemuel, as they had led the
Wise Men long ago, to learn the lessons of humbleness and love by the
side of a manger.