Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: Whirled his fingers over the keys in a fashion
that almost took Christie's breath away.
_Christie's Christmas_] [_Frontispiece_]
CHRISTIE'S
CHRISTMAS
BY
PANSY
[_Isabella Alden_]
Author of "Four Girls at Chautauqua,"
"The Chautauqua Girls at Home," "An Endless Chain,"
"A New Graft on the Family Tree," etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I THE FIRST JOURNEY
II IN THE CARS
III PILING UP STORIES
IV A BABY LEFT IN THE TRAIN
V WHERE IS BABY'S MOTHER?
VI THE UGLY-LOOKING HOUSE
VII THE HELPER STILL
VIII A COLLATION SERVED
IX A NICE TALK
X HOW IT ENDED
XI CHRISTIE AS HOUSEKEEPER
XII THE SURPRISE
XIII WHAT THE LETTER SAID
XIV IN ORDER AT LAST
XV THE GIFT ACKNOWLEDGED
XVI UNEXPECTED COMPANY
XVII THE MINISTER AND THE BOYS
XVIII ANOTHER LETTER
XIX ANOTHER SURPRISE
XX ENTERTAINING COMPANY
XXI AN EXCITING TIME
XXII LAST OF ALL
CHRISTIE'S CHRISTMAS
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST JOURNEY
IT began, like most Christmas days, a long while beforehand. That is,
the getting ready for it began. The truth is, it was one very warm
day in August that the plans for Christie's Christmas were formed.
They were all out under the great elm tree in the back yard, at work
trying to keep cool; so Karl said, who had his torn straw hat for a
fan, and was lying at full length under the tree. Christie was sewing,
taking quick little business-like stitches on a long seam, the baby was
pulling first at her work, and then at Karl's hat; Nettie was under the
tree too, but fast asleep, one chubby hand supporting her red cheek.
The mother of all these little Tuckers was there too, sewing another
long seam. There was ever so much to do in the Tucker family, and when
any of them sat down to rest, there were sure to be long seams to sew,
patches to set, or holes to darn.
"Karl," the mother said, "keep the flies off of Nettie, can't you? They
are eating her up."
"I must go," said Karl, but he arose on one elbow and began lazily to
fan away the flies; "I guess my half-hour is up; father said I was to
rest for half an hour, because my cheeks got so red, he was afraid I
would be sun-struck. It is awful hot out in the field. I'll tell you
where I wish I was this minute; I'd like to be in Uncle Daniel's ice
house. What a thing it must be to have ice houses and everything you
want."
"We can have an ice house just as well as not, by Christmas time," said
Christie, biting off her thread. "If I had a chance to be at Uncle
Daniel's a little while, I'd take care to see something different, from
ice houses—something that we can't 'ever' have."
As she spoke, she drew a long breath, like one whose heart was full of
things that she might say, if she would.
Karl watched her curiously from behind his hat.
"What things are there at Uncle Daniel's that you never expect to
have?" he asked at last.
"Lots of them: carpets, and nice furniture, and pictures, and books,
and a piano, oh my!" She caught her breath again, and seemed to think
it best to stop, lest she should say too much.
"I wouldn't care a fig for the carpets and furniture, but I'd like
well enough to have some of the books. A history or two, maybe, and
like enough a physical geography, but those things I mean to have some
day, without going to Uncle Daniel's. What good would it do to look at
things, if you didn't own them?"
"I think it would be nice to have one good look at them all; you could
think out how other folks live a great deal easier after that."
"Well," said Karl, after a thoughtful pause, "maybe you will have a
chance some day; it isn't so awful far to Uncle Daniel's, now that
the railroad is done. How do you know but you will go and make them a
visit?"
Over this wild suggestion, Christie laughed, and broke her thread in
her nervousness.
But the mother looked up with a significant nod of her head. "I mean
you shall, child," she said decidedly; "I meant it for a surprise, but
maybe you will like thinking it over, and planning for it, better than
the surprise. Your father and I made up our minds that we would have
you go and spend a whole day at your Uncle Daniel's, and see all the
things that you want to see so much. They've invited us often enough,
and we mean to do it."
Karl sat upright, and his cheeks were nearly as red as Christie's, and
both the children said "When?" in such loud, eager tones, that the baby
immediately said it after them, and then sat down on the grass and
laughed immoderately at his own smartness. As he had never said this
word before, Christie, even in her excitement, had to bend down and
kiss the baby's mouth.
"Well," said Mrs. Tucker, speaking slowly and impressively, "if nothing
more than we know of now happens, we have decided that you shall
spend the whole of Christmas day at your uncle's. You are to go up in
the train that passes at seven in the morning, and come back in the
six o'clock, and that will give you nine whole hours at your Uncle
Daniel's. I'm sure that will give you time to see a good many things. I
don't know what your father will say to my telling you of it, but you
do like to dream out things so well, I thought you might like to dream
over that."
"Oh my!" said Christie. Her work fell at her feet in a heap, and baby
seized it and rolled over on it, and chuckled. Then Christie said, "Oh
my!" again, this time at baby, and added, "You will scratch yourself on
that needle," and stooped and gathered up her work.
The mother went on with her wonderful story.
"We've been thinking about it for a good while, your father and I,
but it was only last night that we made our minds up squarely that
you should go, if we could bring it about, and I guess we can. I wish
it was so that you and Karl could go together, but we don't know how
to manage that now, that's a fact. And Christmas Day is Christie's
birthday, you know Karl, and besides, she is two years older than you.
Her turn ought to come first."
"Course," said Karl sturdily, but he shaded his face entirely with his
hat, and let the flies bite Nettie in peace for about a minute. What a
thing it would be to take a ride in the steam cars! No, he had never
been in them in his life. Neither had Christie, but then she was a
girl. He wondered if it could be so hard for girls as for boys.
"But mother," said Christie timidly, "it costs an awful lot of money to
ride in the cars."
"I know it does. Eighty-five cents there, and eighty-five cents back;
that's a dollar and seventy cents! It seems a good deal to spend, but
it is your birthday, and it is Christmas Day, and you've worked hard,
and father and Karl and I think you ought to go; don't we Karl?"
"Yes'm," said Karl, and if his voice trembled a little, his mother
pretended not to notice it.
"Yes," she said cheerily, "that's what we do, and we are going to work
for it. There is a great deal to be done between now and then; there's
some yeast cakes I will want to send your Aunt Louisa, and some mittens
for the baby, and if I can bring it about, I'm going to tie a comfort
for his little bed. Your Aunt Louisa said they were nice things, the
last time she was here, and your father thinks there will be a bag of
choice apples that we can put in for them. And I thought maybe Karl and
you would want to gather a few nuts for your cousins. Then they ought
to have mittens, too, or something, but I don't know as we can manage
about so much yarn. Dear me! There is a great deal to do, and only a
little time to do it in, not quite four months, I declare! How time
does go, to be sure."
Then did Christie and Karl look at each other, glances full of curious
astonishment. Nothing seemed to them to move so slowly as time.
It seemed to Christie that Christmas Day would "never" come, never in
the world!
But it did. And it found the Tucker family up very early in the
morning. A kerosene lamp was burning in every room in the lower part
of the house, by four o'clock. For wasn't the station a mile away, and
wasn't Christie to take her first ride in the cars that morning?
How pretty she looked in her trim new suit! New? Well, yes, new to her.
Who was going to know, unless she told them, that the brown travelling
dress, sack and all, was made from an old waterproof cloak that Aunt
Louisa had left there one day because it really was not worth bothering
to get it into the trunk? Aunt Louisa herself would not have recognized
it now. It had been turned, and sponged and pressed, and cut and fitted
and trimmed, with rows upon rows of machine stitching of the very
neatest sort.
How many fingers had helped to get Christie ready for her first going
out into the great world! There was Susan Briggs the tailoress, home on
a few days' visit to her mother, their next neighbour, and one evening
when she ran in to see the Tuckers, she had said:
"Why, you would have enough of that for one of those cunning little
cut-away jackets that they wear so much! Let me look at it: I do
believe I could get one out. Why, dear me! It has a large cape too;
yes, I know I could. Shall I cut it out for you, Mrs. Tucker? Oh,
nonsense! I would just as soon do it as to sit here with my hands
folded. Hand me the shears, Christie! I've got my pattern in my pocket;
I lent it to Jane Ann Wheeler, and I met her coming to bring it home,
just as I turned the corner to-night. Wasn't that fortunate? I'll tell
you what it is, Christie Tucker, we'll have a nice little cut-away
jacket for you before you know it. What are you going to trim the dress
with?"
"Oh dear me!" said Mrs. Tucker. "Don't talk to us about trimming; it
has been just as much as we could do to pucker the necessary things
together to make the dress. You see, Susan, a journey makes so many
expenses; she had to have a pair of gloves, and a new pair of shoes,
and altogether it counts up. She will have to go without trimming."
Then did Susan sit in quiet, her busy shears snipping the cloth most
skilfully, her busy brain considering the while. At last, she spoke her
thoughts.
"I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Tucker, this goods would look
beautifully stitched on the machine; suppose we change works! If you
will do some buttonholes for me, I'll take this home and give it three
rows on mother's machine. You do make buttonholes elegantly, and I'd
rather stitch, any day, than to make them."
And the gratified mother, who would not have accepted charity to get
trimming for her daughter, was nevertheless willing to get it by
changing work. So the three rows of stitching were added, and very
pretty they looked.
Then one evening came Mrs. Briggs, Susan's mother, to sit a while with
her knitting, and tucked away in her pocket was a pretty little ruffle
of finest cambric, hemmed with the smallest of stitches, gathered in
infinitesimal puckers, and carefully fluted by Mrs. Briggs' own skilful
hands.
"There!" she said, bringing it out. "I was making ruffles for my girls,
and there was a little speck over—I promised them three apiece, you
know, and this was left over—and thinks I to myself, that will just
make Christie a ruffle to wear when she goes her first journey. So I
made it for a little Christmas present for you, child. And you must pay
me by telling me about all the wonderful things you saw on the way."
How pretty the little white ruffle was! And how pleased was Christie,
and how more than pleased was her mother. It was so nice for people to
take an interest in her Christie.
At last everything was ready. The basket of choice apples was packed,
the bag of yeast cakes was stowed away in the old-fashioned, flowered
carpet satchel that used to go on journeys by water, and journeys by
stage, a long time ago, but had never in its life taken a ride by
steam. There were other choice things in the satchel—mittens and wrist
warmers, and the gay patchwork comfort for the baby's bed; and there
was another basket for the nuts that had been gathered at just the
right time to be at their best.
"I don't know how you will ever get out of the cars, loaded down
so," Father Tucker said, looking a little anxious, "but I guess the
conductor will help you; I'll speak to him about it."
"And do be careful, Christie," said Mother Tucker; "it seems to me as
though the cars must be dangerous things, going so fast. I'm most sorry
I gave my consent to having you go off alone; it is a pretty risky
thing for a young girl like you."
"Oh, mother," said Karl, "nothing will hurt her. I wouldn't be afraid
to go to New York all alone."
"Yes, I know," said the wise little mother, regarding him with kind
motherly eyes, "but then, you are a boy, and boys are expected to take
care of themselves, and look after the girls besides."
Karl's dark cheeks flushed over this, and he answered cheerily, "Well,
I'll take good care of her; I'll go on the cars and pick her out a
seat, and settle all her baskets and bundles."
If the whole truth were told, Karl Tucker looked forward to this
performance almost as eagerly as Christie did to the journey. Every
morning he drove to the depot and sent a can of milk into the city by
the early train. And every morning Wells Burton, a boy only three or
four years older than himself, was there with his sleigh and pony to
see his sister off to school.
Karl, after his milk-can was disposed of, on the hand freight car,
had leisure to watch Wells Burton. How he took his sister's satchel
of books, and her shawl strap, and walked beside her to the steps of
the car and helped her up, and sprang gaily in after her. Then Karl
could see him through the windows, walking down the aisle of the car,
sometimes turning a seat, then settling the books and the shawl strap
on some shelf or hook that seemed to be overhead. Karl had never been
near enough to investigate how it was fixed, for his strict orders were
on no account to step on the cars.
But he had watched Wells Burton all through the fall; he knew just
how to do it, and he was burning with an eager desire to do it for
Christie. Great, then, was his disappointment when his father appeared
in his best boots, and with his great coat and heavy mittens.
"You will have two passengers, my boy, this morning," he said cheerily;
"oh yes, I'm going. I couldn't let my girl start out into the world
alone."
"Now do be careful," said mother, following her treasure out of the
door, and down the snowy path to the great wood sleigh, where the can
of milk was already tucked in among bags and blankets; "don't open the
window to look at anything, and mind and don't put your head out; I've
heard that it is dangerous. And remember all I told you to tell Louisa
and the rest; and mind and wrap the big shawl around you well when you
ride to the station. And don't you let them coax you to stay all night
for anything in the world. I shouldn't sleep a wink if you did, and I
guess maybe I'd start on foot to see what was the matter."
Between these sentences, Christie was being kissed and hugged, until
what with the bundling up, and the frosty air, and a feeling as though
she was going away off into a great cold world, and might never see any
of the dear people in the little old farmhouse any more, she felt as
though she should choke or maybe cry; and that would be almost worse!
At last they were off! The mother came in and held the baby up at the
window to watch the sleigh as it turned the corner and slipped out of
sight, and then she said:
"How Mrs. Burton stands it to let her girl go to the city every day to
school, I 'don't' see! Seems to me I should fly away with anxiety, but
there is nothing like getting used to things. Dear me! It doesn't seem
right to have the child go off on Christmas Day, but then it was her
birthday, and all. And she'll be back to supper, and be hungry enough,
I'll warrant; there'll be so many dishes, and silver, and things at
Daniel's that she can't do much eating. I'll have stewed chicken, and
biscuits smothered in cream gravy, and hot apple sauce, to surprise
her, see if I don't! Come, Nettie dear, you're the only little girl
mother has to help her to-day, and we must fly around. What I should do
if I hadn't Christie to help every day, is more than I can think. And,
thank the Lord, I haven't got to think."
But she wiped away the tears as she hurried to work, for Christie had
never been away from home before a whole day in her life. What, not
even to school? No, not even to school. It is time I told you a little
more about the Tucker family. They lived away "out West." That is, if
you live in New York, or Brooklyn, or Maine, or Boston, or New Haven,
or even in Cleveland or Cincinnati, you might call it away "out West,"
for it was in Kansas.
The Tuckers went there from New England, when Karl was a baby, and had
been working away on their bit of a farm ever since. A city had grown
up about twenty miles from them, but it had not grown where Mr. Tucker
thought it would, when he bought his little farm, and not even a school
had come within five miles of them until lately. I am not so very sure
that it would have done the Tucker children much good if there had. The
truth was, there was such hard work, and so much of it, to feed all the
mouths, and clothe the stout little bodies, that both Christie and Karl
had had to work hard all day long. You need not suppose that on this
account they did not know anything. I fancy they were almost as good
scholars as some who go to school year after year.
Mr. Tucker had taught them, in the long winter evenings, to cipher, and
had studied geography with them on a big old map of the United States,
that he had brought with him from New England. And Mrs. Tucker, who
in her New England home had been the best reader and speller in the
whole school, had taught them in both these branches very carefully.
And so, though they had not many books to read, what they had were very
carefully read, and very well understood.
Uncle Daniel lived in the handsome city that had sprung up twenty miles
farther east, and he lived an entirely different life from the Tuckers.
He was Mrs. Tucker's youngest brother, was a merchant, and had one of
the finest stores in the fine little city, and was what the western
people called a rich man. The Tuckers saw very little of them, for the
reason that twenty miles in a country where there are no railroads
are not easily gotten over, especially by busy people; and it was not
yet quite a year since the branch railroad came within a mile of the
Tucker's farm. Since then, the country around had begun to hold up its
head. A good school had been started, a neat little church had been
built, and to the church the Tucker's tramped every Sabbath day. But
the school they had not succeeded in getting time to attend.
"By next year," Mr. Tucker had said, "we must try hard for it."
He said it again that very morning on the road to the station.