you were there, though I couldn't see you. Will you whisper to the
Christmas angels as they come by that little Gretchen wants so very much
to have a Christmas gift to-morrow morning, if they have one to spare,
and that she has put one of Granny's shoes upon the windowsill ready for
it?"
A moment more and the little girl, standing on tiptoe, had reached the
windowsill and placed the shoe upon it, and was back again in the house
beside Granny and the warm fire.
The two went quietly to bed, and that night as little Gretchen knelt to
pray to the Heavenly Father, she thanked him for having sent the
Christ-Child into the world to teach all mankind how to be loving and
unselfish, and in a few moments she was quietly sleeping, dreaming of
the Christmas angels.
The next morning, very early, even before the sun was up, little
Gretchen was awakened by the sound of sweet music coming from the
village. She listened for a moment and then she knew that the choir-boys
were singing the Christmas carols in the open air of the village street.
She sprang up out of bed and began to dress herself as quickly as
possible, singing as she dressed. While Granny was slowly putting on her
clothes, little Gretchen, having finished dressing herself, unfastened
the door and hurried out to see what the Christmas angels had left in
the old wooden shoe.
The white snow covered everything--trees, stumps, roads, and
pastures--until the whole world looked like fairyland. Gretchen climbed
up on a large stone which was beneath the window and carefully lifted
down the wooden shoe. The snow tumbled off of it in a shower over the
little girl's hands, but she did not heed that; she ran hurriedly back
into the house, putting her hand into the toe of the shoe as she ran.
"Oh, Granny! Oh, Granny!" she exclaimed, "you didn't believe the
Christmas angels would think about us, but see, they have, they have!
Here is a dear little bird nestled down in the toe of your shoe! Oh,
isn't he beautiful?"
Granny came forward and looked at what the child was holding lovingly
in her hand. There she saw a tiny chick-a-dee, whose wing was evidently
broken by the rough and boisterous winds of the night before, and who
had taken shelter in the safe, dry toe of the old wooden shoe. She
gently took the little bird out of Gretchen's hands, and skilfully bound
his broken wing to his side, so that he need not hurt himself by trying
to fly with it. Then she showed Gretchen how to make a nice warm nest
for the little stranger, close beside the fire, and when their breakfast
was ready she let Gretchen feed the little bird with a few moist crumbs.
Later in the day Gretchen carried the fresh, green boughs to the old
sick man by the mill, and on her way home stopped to see and enjoy the
Christmas toys of some other children whom she knew, never once wishing
that they were hers. When she reached home she found that the little
bird had gone to sleep. Soon, however, he opened his eyes and stretched
his head up, saying just as plain as a bird could say,
"Now, my new friends, I want you to give me something more to eat."
Gretchen gladly fed him again, and then, holding him in her lap, she
softly and gently stroked his gray feathers until the little creature
seemed to lose all fear of her. That evening Granny taught her a
Christmas hymn and told her another beautiful Christmas story. Then
Gretchen made up a funny little story to tell to the birdie. He winked
his eyes and turned his head from side to side in such a droll fashion
that Gretchen laughed until the tears came.
As Granny and she got ready for bed that night, Gretchen put her arms
softly around Granny's neck, and whispered: "What a beautiful Christmas
we have had to-day, Granny! Is there anything in the world more lovely
than Christmas?"
"Nay, child, nay," said Granny, "not to such loving hearts as yours."
FOOTNOTE:
[Y] From "Christmastide," published by the Chicago Kindergarten College,
copyright, 1902.
XXXIV
CHRISTMAS ON BIG RATTLE[Z]
THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS
ARCHER sat by the rude hearth of his Big Rattle camp, brooding in a sort
of tired contentment over the spitting fagots of _var_ and glowing coals
of birch.
It was Christmas Eve. He had been out on his snowshoes all that day, and
all the day before, springing his traps along the streams and putting
his deadfalls out of commission--rather queer work for a trapper to be
about.
But Archer, despite all his gloomy manner, was really a sentimentalist,
who practised what he felt.
"Christmas is a season of peace on earth," he had told himself, while
demolishing the logs of a sinister deadfall with his axe; and now the
remembrance of his quixotic deed added a brightness to the fire and to
the rough, undecorated walls of the camp.
Outside, the wind ran high in the forest, breaking and sweeping tidelike
over the reefs of treetops.
The air was bitterly cold. Another voice, almost as fitful as the sough
of the wind, sounded across the night. It was the waters of Stone Arrow
Falls, above Big Rattle.
The frosts had drawn their bonds of ice and blankets of silencing snow
over all the rest of the stream, but the white and black face of the
falls still flashed from a window in the great house of crystal, and
threw out a voice of desolation.
Sacobie Bear, a full-blooded Micmac, uttered a grunt of relief when his
ears caught the bellow of Stone Arrow Falls. He stood still, and turned
his head from side to side, questioningly.
"Good!" he said. "Big Rattle off there, Archer's camp over there. I go
there. Good 'nough!"
He hitched his old smooth-bore rifle higher under his arm and continued
his journey. Sacobie had tramped many miles--all the way from
ice-imprisoned Fox Harbor. His papoose was sick. His squaw was hungry.
Sacobie's belt was drawn tight.
During all that weary journey his old rifle had not banged once,
although few eyes save those of timber-wolf and lynx were sharper in the
hunt than Sacobie's. The Indian was reeling with hunger and weakness,
but he held bravely on.
A white man, no matter how courageous and sinewy, would have been prone
in the snow by that time.
But Sacobie, with his head down and his round snowshoes _padding!
padding!_ like the feet of a frightened duck, raced with death toward
the haven of Archer's cabin.
Archer was dreaming of a Christmas-time in a great faraway city when he
was startled by a rattle of snowshoes at his threshold and a soft
beating on his door, like weak blows from mittened hands. He sprang
across the cabin and pulled open the door.
A short, stooping figure shuffled in and reeled against him. A rifle in
a woollen case clattered at his feet.
"Mer' Christmas! How-do?" said a weary voice.
"Merry Christmas, brother!" replied Archer. Then, "Bless me, but it's
Sacobie Bear! Why, what's the matter, Sacobie?"
"Heap tired! Heap hungry!" replied the Micmac, sinking to the floor.
Archer lifted the Indian and carried him over to the bunk at the farther
end of the room. He filled his iron-pot spoon with brandy, and inserted
the point of it between Sacobie's unresisting jaws. Then he loosened the
Micmac's coat and shirt and belt. He removed his moccasins and stockings
and rubbed the straight thin feet with brandy.
After a while Sacobie Bear opened his eyes and gazed up at Archer.
"Good!" he said. "John Archer, he heap fine man, anyhow. Mighty good to
poor Injun Sacobie, too. Plenty tobac, I s'pose. Plenty rum, too."
"No more rum, my son," replied Archer, tossing what was left in the mug
against the log wall, and corking the bottle. "And no smoke until you
have had a feed. What do you say to bacon and tea? Or would tinned beef
suit you better?"
"Bacum," replied Sacobie.
He hoisted himself to his elbow, and wistfully sniffed the fumes of
brandy that came from the direction of his bare feet. "Heap waste of
good rum, me t'ink," he said.
"You ungrateful little beggar!" laughed Archer, as he pulled a frying
pan from under the bunk.
By the time the bacon was fried and the tea steeped, Sacobie was
sufficiently revived to leave the bunk and take a seat by the fire.
He ate as all hungry Indians do; and Archer looked on in wonder and
whimsical regret, remembering the miles and miles he had tramped with
that bacon on his back.
"Sacobie, you will kill yourself!" he protested.
"Sacobie no kill himself now," replied the Micmac, as he bolted a brown
slice and a mouthful of hard bread. "Sacobie more like to kill himself
when he empty. Want to live when he chock-full. Good fun. T'ank you for
more tea."
Archer filled the extended mug and poured in the molasses--"long
sweet'nin'" they call it in that region.
"What brings you so far from Fox Harbor this time of year?" inquired
Archer.
"Squaw sick. Papoose sick. Bote empty. Want good bacum to eat."
Archer smiled at the fire. "Any luck trapping?" he asked.
His guest shook his head and hid his face behind the upturned mug.
"Not much," he replied, presently.
He drew his sleeve across his mouth, and then produced a clay pipe from
a pocket in his shirt.
"Tobac?" he inquired.
Archer passed him a dark and heavy plug of tobacco.
"Knife?" queried Sacobie.
"Try your own knife on it," answered Archer, grinning.
With a sigh Sacobie produced his sheath-knife.
"You t'ink Sacobie heap big t'ief," he said, accusingly.
"Knives are easily lost--in people's pockets," replied Archer.
The two men talked for hours. Sacobie Bear was a great gossip for one of
his race. In fact, he had a Micmac nickname which, translated, meant
"the man who deafens his friends with much talk." Archer, however, was
pleased with his ready chatter and unforced humour.
But at last they both began to nod. The white man made up a bed on the
floor for Sacobie with a couple of caribou skins and a heavy blanket.
Then he gathered together a few plugs of tobacco, some tea, flour, and
dried fish.
Sacobie watched him with freshly aroused interest.
"More tobac, please," he said. "Squaw, he smoke, too."
Archer added a couple of sticks of the black leaf to the pile.
"Bacum, too," said the Micmac. "Bacum better nor fish, anyhow."
Archer shook his head.
"You'll have to do with the fish," he replied; "but I'll give you a tin
of condensed milk for the papoose."
"Ah, ah! Him good stuff!" exclaimed Sacobie.
Archer considered the provisions for a second or two.
Then, going over to a dunnage bag near his bunk, he pulled its contents
about until he found a bright red silk handkerchief and a red flannel
shirt. Their colour was too gaudy for his taste. "These things are for
your squaw," he said.
Sacobie was delighted. Archer tied the articles into a neat pack and
stood it in the corner, beside his guest's rifle.
"Now you had better turn in," he said, and blew out the light.
In ten minutes both men slept the sleep of the weary. The fire, a great
mass of red coals, faded and flushed like some fabulous jewel. The wind
washed over the cabin and fingered the eaves, and brushed furtive hands
against the door.
It was dawn when Archer awoke. He sat up in his bunk and looked about
the quiet, gray-lighted room. Sacobie Bear was nowhere to be seen.
He glanced at the corner by the door. Rifle and pack were both gone. He
looked up at the rafter where his slab of bacon was always hung. It,
too, was gone.
He jumped out of his bunk and ran to the door. Opening it, he looked
out. Not a breath of air stirred. In the east, saffron and scarlet,
broke the Christmas morning, and blue on the white surface of the world
lay the imprints of Sacobie's round snowshoes.
For a long time the trapper stood in the doorway in silence, looking out
at the stillness and beauty.
"Poor Sacobie!" he said, after a while. "Well, he's welcome to the
bacon, even if it is all I had."
He turned to light the fire and prepare breakfast. Something at the foot
of his bunk caught his eye.
He went over and took it up. It was a cured skin--a beautiful specimen
of fox. He turned it over, and on the white hide an uncultured hand had
written, with a charred stick, "Archer."
"Well, bless that old red-skin!" exclaimed the trapper, huskily. "Bless
his puckered eyes! Who'd have thought that I should get a Christmas
present?"
FOOTNOTE:
[Z] This story was first printed in the _Youth's Companion_, Dec. 14,
1905.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 55, "his" changed to "this" (curl up on this)
Pages 86 and 130, Footnote marker was inserted next to the title of the
story.
Page 97, "must" changed to "much" (so much gladness)
Page 120, "Chicakadee" changed to "Chickadee" ("Hush!" said Mrs.
Chickadee)
Page 127, "thing" changed to "things" (many last things)
Page 153, "seldoms" changed to "seldom" (Joy seldom hurts)
Page 176, "possible" changed to "possibly" (couldn't possibly eat all)
Page 221, "you" changed to "your" (Is he your brother)
Page 288, "susspicious" changed to "suspicious" (jealous and suspicious)
Page 288, "wth" changed to "with" (dim with tears)
Page 319, "she" changed to "the" (sight of the)
Page 332, "wan" changed to "want" (Bote empty. Want)