_Albert Bigelow Paine_
“Oh, Eb, it runs! It really does!”
Nell, who was twelve--a slender, sunny-haired little creature--first
clasped her hands, then clapped them, then danced up and down the old
woodshed pausing at last in front of a big kitchen table, where a toy
engine and train of cars were making a circuit around and around and
around a tiny track. The hired boy, Eb--a few years older, rough-handed
and poorly dressed--smiled at the child’s pleasure.
“That’s nothing,” he said. “I didn’t have to do much to it.”
“But you did, Eb. It was all broken to pieces. Papa would be awfully
disappointed to find it that way when he comes, and Tommy would
never have gotten over it. Never! He’s set his heart on a train for
Christmas, and it’s been promised to him, and now to have it all
smashed in the express! Oh, Eb, nobody could have fixed it but you.
You’re a real genius, mamma says, and ought to go to a mechanical
school. Isn’t it lucky you’re living with Uncle Bob when we come to
visit him!”
The dainty, dancing fairy stopped suddenly and held up a warning finger.
“Sh, Eb! There’s Tommy now! He’s coming back! Oh, stop it! stop it! and
cover it so he can’t see! He’ll be coming straight in here, I know!”
Outside there were the wild whoop of a small boy with large lungs,
a clatter of a sled, a stamping of feet, then a plunging into the
kitchen, just as Eb had slipped a stick through the train wheels to
stop it, and covered it with an old homespun saddle blanket, gathered
hastily from the corner. A moment later Tommy burst in, red, snowy,
and full of the curiosity which most healthy boys are likely to have,
especially about Christmas-time.
“What are you doing here, Nell, you and Eb? What have you been making
with all that wire, and those tools? What’s that blanket on the table?
Pooh, Bess! What are you shivering for with that great cape on? I’m not
cold, and I’ve been coasting for over an hour, down the back-barn hill!
Oh, say, come in the kitchen, Nell! I want to show you a funny icicle I
found. Come quick, before it’s all melted away!”
Like a whirlwind he had stormed in and out, followed closely by Nell,
who threw a merry glance of relief over her shoulder. Eb, leaning
against the work-bench, smiled back; then, with a sigh, saw them
disappear.
For Nellie’s words and her mother’s had set his heart to beating with
something like hope. What if there really could be a way by which he
could go to such a place as she had mentioned, and learn to be a--a--
And then, as he saw them go out, and the door close behind them, it
seemed as if hope went out with them. They would all be gone in a few
days and never remember him again. He hurried off to pitch down the
evening hay for the cattle, and see if he couldn’t forget, too.
From earliest childhood Eben Lessing had worked with tools--a
one-bladed knife at first, then such other clumsy things as he could
get hold of. With these he had made curious toys that would run by
water, or wind, or heat, or steam, some of them quite useful. When he
came to Robert Whittaker’s to live he built, besides other things, a
churn of a new pattern, and a fan over the dining-room table, both
to run by water-power brought from the brook. And when Mrs. William
Whittaker, who was from the city, had seen these things, she had said
the boy deserved a mechanical education, and then forgot all about
it again, being very busy with all the Christmas preparations, while
Eb, pitching down great wads of sweet hay from the barn loft, was
still dreaming in spite of himself, of a day when he should leave the
district school for a mechanical college, and become a great inventor,
and marry Nellie Whittaker, and so live happy ever after. Then it came
milking-time, and swishing the broad white streams into the foaming
pail, he dreamed again, and kept on dreaming even after he was in
bed and asleep. Then he forgot, and when he remembered again it was
morning--the morning of the day before Christmas.
What a busy day that was! Of course, quite early, Eb had to drive in
for papa, who was coming on the first train, and Nellie and Tom had
to go along in the surrey. Then, when papa came, there was so much to
tell, only, of course, Nell couldn’t tell how Tommy’s train had been
broken and fixed, because Tommy wasn’t to know anything about the train
until he saw it travelling around and around on the little track that
was to go clear around under the Christmas tree. Then, at home, there
were all the places to see--all the places that papa had seen as a
little boy: the hill where he used to slide, the same back-barn hill
where Tommy had been coasting, the brook where he used to fish, the
hay-mow, and the horses and cows, and the hens’ nests where Nell and
Tommy had found eggs, and where Tommy had been whipped by an old hen
that wanted to sit; though why she should want to sit there all day in
the cold on two nubbins of corn and a lump of frozen dirt that somebody
had thrown at her, Tommy said he, for one, couldn’t see.
Papa laughed, and said that maybe if she sat there until spring on the
nubbins and frozen dirt she’d hatch out a corn-field. Then they went
into the kitchen, where mamma and Aunt Maria--a big motherly woman who
had never had any children of her own, except one little boy named
Willie, and that died--were baking and stirring, and opening and
closing oven doors, so that people had better keep out of the way. Only
you couldn’t, because it smelt so nice in there of mince-meat, and of
baking-cakes that came out all brown, with buttered paper sticking to
them when they were turned out of the pans. Then, all at once, they
found that Aunt Maria had turned out a little brown cake, from a little
pan, and she cut it hot, and Tommy had a piece, and Nellie and papa,
just as he used to have the day before Christmas, when he was a little
boy. And after this they went into the dining-room and saw Eb’s patent
fan, and into the pantry to look at Eb’s churn, and papa said, “Well,
well!” and that somebody ought to give a boy like that a chance.
But they forgot all about it when they got to the parlor and looked
at the funny album that had pictures of papa and Uncle Bob, taken
together, when papa was a very little boy and Uncle Bob was his big
brother. And when Uncle Bob came in they talked about the day they
had it taken, more than thirty years ago, and how papa had rolled up
his eyes and didn’t keep still, and all that happened afterwards--the
things that people always talk about when they forget for a little
while that they are grown up, and only remember that they were once
boys and girls, like the rest of us.
And in the afternoon they had to go and cut and bring in the Christmas
tree. Tom and Mollie had already picked out a bushy little spruce up
on the mountain-side, and Eb went along, because Eb had been with them
and knew the way. Besides, Eb could cut better with a hatchet than
anybody, so Tommy said.
Then Tommy walked down the hill with his papa, talking all the time,
while Eb and Nellie, side by side, dragged the little spruce over the
snow, and Nellie talked and Eb listened, and was never so happy before
in all his life, and never so sad, either, because next week it would
all be over, and he would be there alone, with no school except the
district school, where he had learned about all he could, and with no
chance of becoming a great inventor, and doing all the things that he
had dreamed.
Of course Eb had to help to trim the tree. He had never trimmed
one before, but he was the handiest of them all, and could go up a
step-ladder and fasten tapers to the high limbs, and string popcorn
and tinsel just in the very places where it ought to be. Then, when
that part of it was all done, and it was getting towards evening--that
wonderful evening of hush and mystery and joy--Christmas eve--it was
Nellie who said that Eb must be Santa Claus, and put the presents on
the tree.
“If we put them on, ourselves, then everybody will see just what they
are to have, and who gives it,” she said. “If Eb puts them on, nobody
will know until Christmas morning. We’ll darken the sitting-room, and
each one can go in and put down his things, and come right out again.
Then, after supper, Eb can go in and unwrap them, and put them on the
tree. Of course, Tommy, the real Santa Claus, will come afterwards, and
put on his things, too.”
Nellie did not mention that she had a bright new tie for Eb. She knew
there would be a chance to put that on, herself, in the morning.
Everybody said Nellie’s plan was a good one; so by-and-by Eb found
himself in the sitting-room alone, with a great many whispered
instructions, and the beautiful tree, and packages and packages of
things to be unwrapped and arranged in and about it. Tommy and Nell
were tiptoeing and whispering about the hall, and Nellie called to
Eb to lock the door or Tommy would just _have_ to come inside. So Eb
locked it, laughing, and wished in his soul that Nellie at least might
come in to help him. Then he noticed that somebody had put a lot of
loose cotton around the foot of the tree to represent snow, and he
looked from this to the little candles on the slender limbs, and shook
his head, and said something about fire and tow being pretty close
together. By-and-by he went out to the kitchen to wash his hands. When
he came in he stopped a moment to arrange something in the corner,
before going on with his work. The house was quite still now, but it
was after midnight before Eb was ready to go to his bed.
It had been a wonderful evening for him. He had unwrapped and seen
at close range all the pretty things that well-to-do people give one
another at Christmas-time; books, games, pictures, ornaments, articles
of dress, confections, and even gems. He had arranged and rearranged,
and with a natural eye for the beautiful had placed the things as
showily as most people could have done, and with great thought of
their safety. When he was through at last he stood back to admire his
work. Then all at once he remembered that Tommy’s train was still
hidden in the wood-shed. He had forgotten it entirely.
He brought in the engine and cars, and then the track, in sections, and
soon had it all arranged under the tree, so that it would travel around
and around, though he had to move some books and other things to do
it. Then he tried the train a little, to see that it would run as well
as ever. He hated to leave it all; but he blew out the lamp at last
and went to bed, wondering if by any chance he would oversleep next
morning, and so fail to light up, and have everything in order when Tom
and Nellie and the others were ready to come down.
“Whoop! Merry Christmas!”
Eb sat straight up in bed. He had overslept, then, after all. No; for
it was still dark. He did not believe it could be five o’clock.
“Merry Christmas, Eb! Say, get up and light the tree! I want to see my
things.”
It was Tommy, of course, and the whole house would be roused and ready
to come down presently. Eb leaped into his clothes, made a hasty
toilet, and slipped down the back stairs, leaving Tommy still shouting
Merry Christmas through the halls to arouse older people from their
slumbers.
Within a few minutes everybody had concluded that it was no use to
hold out against Tommy, and in five minutes more everybody had
dragged on something that resembled clothes and a pleasant smile, and
came straggling down the stairs, calling greetings to one another.
Tommy, at the head, was already pounding at the sitting-room door,
while Eb, inside, was lighting the last tapers, and putting on a few
finishing-touches, such as starting and setting a new clock for Aunt
Maria, and winding up Tommy’s train. Then, when he heard them all
outside, he unlocked the door, and, stepping back, pulled it wide, so
that all might get a sudden and full view of the beautiful Christmas
tree.
For a moment they stood quite still, blinking from the brightness of
it. Then there came a chorus of “Oh! oh!” “Well! well!” and, “How
beautiful!” with another wild whoop from Tommy, ending up with, “Oh,
gee! see my train!”
A second later he had bounded forward toward the precious train, and
was ducking down under the tree for a closer view.
“Tommy!” “Oh, Tom!” “Thomas! Look out. The candles!”
There was a regular chorus of warnings,--but all too late. A second
later a taper that had been fixed to a branch, struck by Tommy’s head,
had fallen, and the loose cotton about the tree was afire, the blaze
darting up into the branches.
Tommy rolled out from under the tree like an armadillo. Nellie clasped
her hands and shut her eyes to keep out the terrible sight and began to
moan and wail. Uncle Robert and Aunt Maria both started somewhere for
pails of water, while papa and mamma began tugging at a piece of carpet
to smother the blaze.
And then, all at once, there was somebody else at work, and there came
a hissing sound, as if water was being put on the flames, and right
among them stood Eb, with something over his shoulder and under his
arm, and in his hand there was a sort of a tube that sent a stream of
water just where it was needed, and that put out the burning cotton in
just about the time it has taken me to tell about it. When Aunt Maria
and Uncle Robert came hurrying back with pails of water, there was no
use for them. Papa and mamma and Nellie and Tom were gathered about
Eb, more interested in what he had under his arm and over his shoulder
than in the Christmas tree, which was scarcely damaged at all, for the
flames had not reached the presents, and there was only a little water
on Tommy’s train, which hadn’t even stopped running, being the kind of
train, Tommy said, that didn’t mind a little thing like lightning and
rain.
“Why, it’s Eb’s fire-extinguisher!” said Uncle Robert. “I forgot all
about that!”
“But Eb didn’t!” said Tommy. “He put it in here last night, because he
knew there’d be a fire with all that cotton of yours, sis.”
“He knew you’d knock over a candle, I guess,” retorted Nell.
Then the wet cotton was taken away, and the presents rearranged about
the tree, and Tommy’s train wound up again, and everything was as fine
as if nothing had happened, though they didn’t any of them forget what
might have happened if it hadn’t been for Eb with his fire-extinguisher.
And that was one of the finest Christmases that ever was! And at
dinner-time Eb was there, with his bright new tie on, and sat right by
Nellie, and was almost like the hero of the day. And after the turkey
was carved, Mr. William Whittaker said, all at once, to Eben Lessing,
as if he’d just happened to think of it:
“By-the-way, Eb, how would you like to take a course in a mechanical
school? We’ve a good deal of room in our house, and now and then I need
somebody to help me. You can come home with us and go to school, if you
like.”
And would you believe it, Eb couldn’t say a word! He was like the
others when he had flung open the door of the sitting-room and blinded
them with the wonderful tree--he just sat there and blinked.
Nellie answered: “Of course, papa, Eb would like it. Wouldn’t you, Eb?”
And then, somehow, Eb nodded, and somehow said something that was taken
for yes, and then everybody began talking at once about the things
Eb had made, and what he would do by-and-by, while Tommy, who, just
at that moment, found out what it all meant, broke out with a great
rejoicing, “Whoop! Eb’s going home with us! Eb’s going home with us to
live!”
And Nellie whispered, “Oh, Eb, didn’t I tell you it was lucky you were
living with Uncle Bob when we came to visit him?”
[11] By permission of the author and Harper and Brothers.