you fed Me. I was tired and you gave Me your bed. I am the
Christ-Child, wandering through the world to bring peace and happiness
to all good children. As you have given to Me, so may this tree every
year give rich fruit to you."
So saying, He broke a branch from the fir-tree that grew near the door,
and He planted it in the ground and disappeared. And the branch grew
into a great tree, and every year it bore wonderful fruit for the kind
children.
XXVI
THE FIRST NEW ENGLAND CHRISTMAS[R]
G. L. STONE AND M. G. FICKETT
IT WAS a warm and pleasant Saturday--that twenty-third of December,
1620. The winter wind had blown itself away in the storm of the day
before, and the air was clear and balmy.
The people on board the _Mayflower_ were glad of the pleasant day. It
was three long months since they had started from Plymouth, in England,
to seek a home across the ocean. Now they had come into a harbour that
they named New Plymouth, in the country of New England.
Other people called these voyagers Pilgrims, which means wanderers. A
long while before, the Pilgrims had lived in England; later they made
their home with the Dutch in Holland; finally they had said good-bye to
their friends in Holland and in England, and had sailed away to America.
There were only one hundred and two of the Pilgrims on the _Mayflower_,
but they were brave and strong and full of hope. Now the _Mayflower_ was
the only home they had; yet if this weather lasted they might soon have
warm log-cabins to live in. This very afternoon the men had gone ashore
to cut down the large trees.
The women of the _Mayflower_ were busy, too. Some were spinning, some
knitting, some sewing. It was so bright and pleasant that Mistress Rose
Standish had taken out her knitting and had gone to sit a little while
on deck. She was too weak to face rough weather, and she wanted to enjoy
the warm sunshine and the clear salt air. By her side was Mistress
Brewster, the minister's wife. Everybody loved Mistress Standish and
Mistress Brewster, for neither of them ever spoke unkindly.
The air on deck would have been warm even on a colder day, for in one
corner a bright fire was burning. It would seem strange now, would it
not, to see a fire on the deck of a vessel? But in those days, when the
weather was pleasant, people on shipboard did their cooking on deck.
The Pilgrims had no stoves, and Mistress Carver's maid had built this
fire on a large hearth covered with sand. She had hung a great kettle on
the crane over the fire, where the onion soup for supper was now
simmering slowly.
Near the fire sat a little girl, busily playing and singing to herself.
Little Remember Allerton was only six years old, but she liked to be
with Hannah, Mistress Carver's maid. This afternoon Remember had been
watching Hannah build the fire and make the soup. Now the little girl
was playing with the Indian arrowheads her father had brought her the
night before. She was singing the words of the old psalm:
"Shout to Jehovah, all the earth,
Serve ye Jehovah with gladness; before
him bow with singing mirth."
"Ah, child, methinks the children of Old England are singing different
words from those to-day," spoke Hannah at length, with a faraway look in
her eyes.
"Why, Hannah? What songs are the little English children singing now?"
questioned Remember in surprise.
"It lacks but two days of Christmas, child, and in my old home everybody
is singing Merry Christmas songs."
"But thou hast not told me what is Christmas!" persisted the child.
"Ah, me! Thou dost not know, 'tis true. Christmas, Remember, is the
birthday of the Christ-Child, of Jesus, whom thou hast learned to love,"
Hannah answered softly.
"But what makes the English children so happy then? And we are English,
thou hast told me, Hannah. Why don't we keep Christmas, too?"
"In sooth we are English, child. But the reason why we do not sing the
Christmas carols or play the Christmas games makes a long, long story,
Remember. Hannah cannot tell it so that little children will
understand. Thou must ask some other, child."
Hannah and the little girl were just then near the two women on the
deck, and Remember said:
"Mistress Brewster, Hannah sayeth she knoweth not how to tell why Love
and Wrestling and Constance and the others do not sing the Christmas
songs or play the Christmas games. But thou wilt tell me wilt thou not?"
she added coaxingly.
A sad look came into Mistress Brewster's eyes, and Mistress Standish
looked grave, too. No one spoke for a few seconds, until Hannah said
almost sharply: "Why could we not burn a Yule log Monday, and make some
meal into little cakes for the children?"
"Nay, Hannah," answered the gentle voice of Mistress Brewster. "Such are
but vain shows and not for those of us who believe in holier things.
But," she added, with a kind glance at little Remember, "wouldst thou
like to know why we have left Old England and do not keep the Christmas
Day? Thou canst not understand it all, child, and yet it may do thee no
harm to hear the story. It may help thee to be a brave and happy little
girl in the midst of our hard life."
"Surely it can do no harm, Mistress Brewster," spoke Rose Standish,
gently. "Remember is a little Pilgrim now, and she ought, methinks, to
know something of the reason for our wandering. Come here, child, and
sit by me, while good Mistress Brewster tells thee how cruel men have
made us suffer. Then will I sing thee one of the Christmas carols."
With these words she held out her hands to little Remember, who ran
quickly to the side of Mistress Standish, and eagerly waited for the
story to begin.
"We have not always lived in Holland, Remember. Most of us were born in
England, and England is the best country in the world. 'Tis a land to be
proud of, Remember, though some of its rulers have been wicked and
cruel.
"Long before you were born, when your mother was a little girl, the
English king said that everybody in the land ought to think as he
thought, and go to a church like his. He said he would send us away from
England if we did not do as he ordered. Now, we could not think as he
did on holy matters, and it seemed wrong to us to obey him. So we
decided to go to a country where we might worship as we pleased."
"What became of that cruel king, Mistress Brewster?"
"He ruleth England now. But thou must not think too hardly of him. He
doth not understand, perhaps. Right will win some day, Remember, though
there may be bloody war before peace cometh. And I thank God that we, at
least, shall not be called on to live in the midst of the strife," she
went on, speaking more to herself than to the little girl.
"We decided to go to Holland, out of the reach of the king. We were not
sure whether it was best to move or not, but our hearts were set on
God's ways. We trusted Him in whom we believed. Yes," she went on, "and
shall we not keep on trusting Him?"
And Rose Standish, remembering the little stock of food that was nearly
gone, the disease that had come upon many of their number, and the five
who had died that month, answered firmly: "Yes. He who has led us thus
far will not leave us now."
They were all silent a few seconds. Presently Remember said: "Then did
ye go to Holland, Mistress Brewster?"
"Yes," she said. "Our people all went over to Holland, where the Dutch
folk live and the little Dutch children clatter about with their wooden
shoes. There thou wast born, Remember, and my own children, and there we
lived in love and peace."
"And yet, we were not wholly happy. We could not talk well with the
Dutch, and so we could not set right what was wrong among them. 'Twas so
hard to earn money that many had to go back to England. And worst of
all, Remember, we were afraid that you and little Bartholomew and Mary
and Love and Wrestling and all the rest would not grow to be good girls
and boys. And so we have come to this new country to teach our children
to be pure and noble."
After another silence Remember spoke again: "I thank thee, Mistress
Brewster. And I will try to be a good girl. But thou didst not tell me
about Christmas after all."
"Nay, child, but now I will. There are long services on that day in
every church where the king's friends go. But there are parts of these
services which we cannot approve; and so we think it best not to follow
the other customs that the king's friends observe on Christmas.
"They trim their houses with mistletoe and holly so that everything
looks gay and cheerful. Their other name for the Christmas time is the
Yuletide, and the big log that is burned then is called the Yule log.
The children like to sit around the hearth in front of the great,
blazing Yule log, and listen to stories of long, long ago.
"At Christmas there are great feasts in England, too. No one is allowed
to go hungry, for the rich people on the day always send meat and cakes
to the poor folk round about.
"But we like to make all our days Christmas days, Remember. We try never
to forget God's gifts to us, and they remind us always to be good to
other people."
"And the Christmas carols, Mistress Standish? What are they?"
"On Christmas Eve and early on Christmas morning," Rose Standish
answered, "little children go about from house to house, singing
Christmas songs. 'Tis what I like best in all the Christmas cheer. And I
promised to sing thee one, did I not?"
Then Mistress Standish sang in her clear, sweet voice the quaint old
English words:
As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing:
"This night shall be the birth-time
Of Christ, the heavenly King.
"He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
But in an ox's stall.
"He neither shall be clothèd
In purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen
That usen babies all.
"He neither shall be rockèd
In silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden manger
That resteth in the mould."
As Joseph was a-walking
There did an angel sing,
And Mary's child at midnight
Was born to be our King.
Then be ye glad, good people,
This night of all the year,
And light ye up your candles,
For His star it shineth clear.
Before the song was over, Hannah had come on deck again, and was
listening eagerly. "I thank thee, Mistress Standish," she said, the
tears filling her blue eyes. "'Tis long, indeed, since I have heard that
song."
"Would it be wrong for me to learn to sing those words, Mistress
Standish?" gently questioned the little girl.
"Nay, Remember, I trow not. The song shall be thy Christmas gift."
Then Mistress Standish taught the little girl one verse after another of
the sweet old carol, and it was not long before Remember could say it
all.
The next day was dull and cold, and on Monday, the twenty-fifth, the sky
was still overcast. There was no bright Yule log in the _Mayflower_, and
no holly trimmed the little cabin.
The Pilgrims were true to the faith they loved. They held no special
service. They made no gifts. Instead, they went again to the work of
cutting the trees, and no one murmured at his hard lot.
"We went on shore," one man wrote in his diary, "some to fell timber,
some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry; so no man rested all that
day."
As for little Remember, she spent the day on board the _Mayflower_. She
heard no one speak of England or sigh for the English home across the
sea. But she did not forget Mistress Brewster's story; and more than
once that day, as she was playing by herself, she fancied that she was
in front of some English home, helping the English children sing their
Christmas songs.
And both Mistress Allerton and Mistress Standish, whom God was soon to
call away from their earthly home, felt happier and stronger as they
heard the little girl singing:
He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
But in an ox's stall.
FOOTNOTE:
[R] From Stone and Fickett's "Every Day Life in the Colonies;"
copyrighted 1905, by D. C. Heath & Co. Used by permission.
XXVI
THE CRATCHITS' CHRISTMAS DINNER
(Adapted)
CHARLES DICKENS
SCROOGE and the Ghost of Christmas Present stood in the city streets on
Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a
rough but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow
from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little
snowstorms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker,
contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with
the dirtier snow upon the ground, which last deposit had been ploughed
up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons; furrows that
crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great
streets branched off, and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the
thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest
streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, halt frozen,
whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all
the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were
blazing away to their dear heart's content. There was nothing very
cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer
sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.
For the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and
full of glee, calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and
then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured missile far than
many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right, and not less
heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open,
and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great,
round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of
jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the
street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced,
broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth
like Spanish friars, and winking, from their shelves, in wanton slyness
at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up
mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustering high in blooming
pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shop-keeper's
benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths
might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the
woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there
were Norfolk biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the
oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy
persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper
bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth
among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going
on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in
slow and passionless excitement.
The grocers'! oh, the grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters
down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone
that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that
the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters
were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the
raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the
sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious,
the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the
coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that
the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in
modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or that everything
was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all
so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day that they
tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets
wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back
to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best
humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh
that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind
might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for
Christmas daws to peck at, if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and
away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and
with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores
of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people,
carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor
revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood, with
Scrooge beside him, in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as
their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.
And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there
were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each
other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their
good-humour was restored directly. For they said it was a shame to
quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was
a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their
cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the
pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.
"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?"
asked Scrooge.
"There is. My own."
"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked Scrooge.
"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."
"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.
"Because it needs it most."
They went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of
the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had
observed at the baker's) that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he
could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood
beneath a low roof quite as gracefully, and like a supernatural
creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this
power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and
his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's
clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his
robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to
bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think
of that! Bob had but fifteen "bob" a week himself; he pocketed on
Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of
Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a
twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a
goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master
Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting
the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property,
conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth,
rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his
linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and
girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt
the goose, and known it for their own, and, basking in luxurious
thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the
table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not
proud, although his collar nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the
slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let
out and peeled.
"What has ever got your precious father, then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And
your brother, Tiny Tim? And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by
half an hour!"
"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's
such a goose, Martha!"
"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs.
Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet
for her with officious zeal.
"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and
had to clear away this morning, mother!"
"Well, never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye
down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"
"No, no! There's father coming!" cried the two young Cratchits, who were
everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least
three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before
him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look
seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a
little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!
"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking around.
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"Not coming?" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits;
for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from the church, and had
come home rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas Day?"
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so
she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his
arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off
into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the
copper.
"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had
rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his
heart's content.
"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful,
sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever
heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the
church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to
remember, upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men
see."
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when
he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny
Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister
to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs--as
if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby--compounded
some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and
round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two
ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon
returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of
all birds--a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of
course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs.
Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing
hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss
Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob
took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young
Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and,
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At
last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a
breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving
knife, prepared to plunge it into the breast; but when she did, and when
the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight
arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young
Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly
cried, "Hurrah!"