_Temple Bailey_
It was the night before Christmas--and stormy.
“Sqush--sqush,” went the wheels of the carriage in the mud.
“Whew--ew--ew,” whistled the wind, and it blew Peter’s hat into the
middle of the road.
“Whoa,” said Peter, and climbed down from his high seat.
The “Princess” poked her head out of the window. “What’s the matter?”
she asked.
“My hat blew off,” Peter told her, “and the wheel is stuck in the mud,
Miss.”
“Oh, Peter, Peter,” the Princess chided, “you must get that wheel out
of the mud at once.”
“Which is easier said than done,” Peter grumbled; “it’s that dark that
I can’t see my hand before me.”
“There’s a light back there among the trees,” the Princess informed
him; “perhaps you could get some one to help you.”
“I’ll go and see, Miss, if you ain’t afraid to stay alone,” and Peter,
after some effort, succeeded in quieting the plunging horses.
“I am dreadfully afraid,” came shiveringly, “but I suppose you will
have to go.”
Now in the middle of the pine grove was set a little cottage. Peter
knocked at the door.
“Who’s there?” asked a childish voice, and a little girl poked her head
out of the square window.
“Our wheel is stuck in the mud,” Peter answered, from the dark, “and I
want to get a man to help me.”
“There isn’t any man here,” Jenny informed him. “There is only me and
Jinny; and our mother has gone to nurse a sick neighbor, and she won’t
be home until morning.”
So Peter went back to the carriage and reported to the Princess.
“I shall freeze out here,” said the Princess. “I will go up to the
house and sit by the fire while you look for some one to help you with
the carriage.”
She climbed out of the carriage, and with Peter in the lead, she
plodded through the woods, and the wind blew her long coat this way and
that, and at last, wet and panting, she came to the little house.
And once more Peter knocked, and once more Jenny came to the window.
Then she flung the door wide open, and so tall was the Princess that
she had to stoop to enter it. It was a dingy little room, and there was
a dumpy black stove in the corner, with a bubbling iron pot that gave
forth a most appetizing odor.
“Oh, oh, how nice and warm it is,” said the Princess, as she held out
her hands to the fire.
In all their lives the little girls had never beheld such a wonderful
person, for the Princess wore a long red coat and a black velvet hat
with a waving plume, and her muff was big and round and soft, and she
had a scarf of the same soft fur about her neck. Her hair was pale
gold, and she had the bluest eyes and the reddest lips, and her smile
was so sweet and tender, that Jenny ran right up to her and cried: “Oh,
I am so glad you came!”
Jinny, from her little chair, echoed her sister’s words. But she did
not run, for there was a tiny crutch beside Jinny’s chair in the square
window.
“And I am glad to be here,” said the Princess, whose quick eyes were
taking in the details of the shabby room. “It’s so nice and warm and
cozy.”
“Isn’t it?” said Jenny, happily, “and we are getting ready for
to-morrow.”
On a small round table beside Jinny’s chair was a tiny cedar bush, and
Jinny’s fingers had been busy with bits of gold and blue and scarlet
paper.
“We are going to pop some popcorn,” Jenny explained, “and string it,
and hang it on the tree.”
“Oh, may I help?” the Princess asked. “I haven’t popped any corn since
I was a little girl.”
Jinny clasped her thin little hands. “I think it would be the loveliest
thing in the world,” she said, “if you would stay.”
“Peter is going to find some one to help with the carriage, and I will
stay until he comes back.”
And when Peter had gone, the Princess slipped off the long red coat,
and underneath it she wore a shining silken gown and around her neck
was a collar of pearls.
“And now, if you could lend me an apron,” she said, “we will pop the
corn.”
But Jinny and Jenny were gazing at her speechless.
“Oh, you must be a fairy Princess,” gasped little Jinny at last.
The beautiful lady laughed joyously. “Peter calls me the Princess,” she
said; “he has lived with me ever since I was a little girl. But really
I am just an every-day young woman, who is going to spend Christmas
with some friends in the next town.”
She dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand.
“And now to our popcorn,” she said.
Jenny brought a green gingham apron, and the Princess tied it on,
making a big butterfly bow of the strings in the back, and then she
danced over to the dumpy little stove and peeped into the bubbling pot.
“Did you ever smell anything so good?” she asked. “I am as hungry as
hungry.”
The little girls laughed joyously. “It’s bean soup,” Jenny said, “and
we are going to have it for supper with some little dumplings in it. I
was afraid it wasn’t nice enough for you.”
“Nice enough?” the delightful lady demanded. “I think bean soup
and little dumplings are--um--um!” and she flung out her hands
expressively.
“I thought,” Jinny remarked quaintly, “that fairy princesses only ate
honey and dew.”
“Which shows that I am not a true Princess,” said the beautiful lady,
“for honey and dew would never satisfy me.”
Jenny got out three little blue bowls and set them on a table that was
spread with a coarse but spotless cloth. There was a crusty loaf and
clover-sweet butter, and last and best of all there was the bean soup
and the bobbing little dumplings served together in an old mulberry
tureen.
It was perfectly wonderful to see the Princess in her shining gown at
the head of the table, and little lame Jinny said, “You were just sent
to us for Christmas. Why, it’s just like
“The night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads--”
“But our stockings weren’t hung yet, and _we_ weren’t in bed!” said
Jenny.
“It was too early for that,” said the Princess; “but let’s go on with
the rhyme, just for fun. I see you know it all through, so you mustn’t
mind my changing it a little:
“When out on the lawn, there arose such a clatter,
Jenny sprang from her chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the window she flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
When, what to her wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer--
“Oh, no, I forgot! I mean
“When what to her wondering eyes should appear
But a carriage stuck in the mud, right out here--
And a little old driver, so lively and quick,
You must have thought Peter was dear old St. Nick!”
The children laughed gleefully, and Jenny said: “We _would_ have
thought that, only we aren’t going to hang up our stockings this
Christmas at all. Jenny and I aren’t going to get any presents, for
mother hasn’t been well, and she couldn’t get any sewing. But she said
we could make our Christmas merry, and we were to pretend that we had
been to the big stores in the city, and had bought things for the tree,
and dolls and everything.”
“That’s a lovely way,” said the Princess gently, and she laid her
flashing rings over Jinny’s thin one.
“And we are going to pretend,” Jenny contributed, “that our chicken is
a turkey. But we won’t have to pretend about the mince pie, for mother
has made a lovely one.”
“I wish I could help you eat the chicken,” said the Princess wistfully,
“and I should like to meet your mother. I know she is home-y. And I
haven’t any mother, you know.”
“Oh,” said the little girls, round-eyed with sympathy, and then the
Princess told them that all her life she had lived in a big, lonely
house, and she had always yearned for a cozy home and for a sister.
After supper they popped the corn, and just as they finished in came
Peter.
“I can’t find any one to help, Miss,” he announced, “and it’s snowing.
I’ll have to unhitch the horses and go back to town, and get something
to take you over in.”
“No,” the Princess demurred, as she stood in the middle of the room
with a heaped-up dish of snowy kernels in her hand. “No, Peter, I am
going to stay here all night.”
Peter stared, and the little girls cried, “Oh, will you?”
And the Princess said, “I really will. And, Peter, you can bring up the
steamer trunk and my bag.”
“Won’t your friends expect you, Miss?” Peter inquired, as if awaiting
orders.
“I will send a note by you,” was the calm response, and as the man
went out she followed him and shut the door behind her. “Oh, Peter,
Peter,” she whispered confidentially, “I am going to give them such a
Christmas!”
“The little girls, Miss?”
“Yes. They are so sweet and brave. And I have the presents in my trunk
that I was going to carry to the other children. But they will have so
much that they won’t miss them, and I shall spend my Christmas in a
plain little house, but it will be a joyful house, Peter.”
“Yes, Miss,” Peter agreed, understandingly.
“I wish we had a big tree!” said the Princess, regretfully.
“Well, leave that to me, Miss,” Peter told her, eagerly; “you just get
them little things to sleep early, and I’ll be here with a tree.”
“Oh, Peter, Peter Santa Claus!” exclaimed the Princess, gleefully, “it
will be the nicest Christmas that I have had since I was a wee bit of a
girl.”
So Peter went away, and the Princess, with her eyes shining like stars,
danced back into the room and said, “Oh, let’s play ‘Mariners.’”
Jinny and Jenny had never heard of such a game, but the Princess told
them that she was a ship on the high seas, and they were to tell from
her cargo what country she hailed from.
“I carry tea,” she began; “where do I hail from?”
“China,” guessed Jenny.
“No.”
“Japan,” cried Jinny, with her little face glowing.
“No.”
Then the little girls pondered. “It might be India,” ventured Jenny,
but the Princess shook her head. Then Jinny cried: “It’s Ceylon!” and
that was right.
And after that Jinny brought a cargo of oranges from Florida and Jenny
brought a cargo of rugs from Persia, and there were cargoes of spices
and of coal and of coffee and of fish and of grain and of lumber, and
the Princess finished triumphantly by carrying a cargo of oysters from
the Chesapeake Bay.
“One more,” begged Jinny.
“I carry a cargo of castles,” said the sparkling Princess; “where do I
hail from?”
The little girls guessed and guessed, and at last the Princess said:
“That wasn’t a fair one, really, for my castles are castles in Spain.”
Then, with Jinny in her arms, she told them of her own castle-building,
and when she had finished, she said: “And so your mother shall have all
of my sewing, and that will keep her busy until Spring.”
“Oh, you are going to be married, and live happy ever after,” sighed
Jinny, rapturously; “it’s just what a fairy Princess should do.”
“And what you should do,” said the Princess, looking at the clock, “is
to go to bed, bed, bed, so that you can wake up early in the morning.”
She tucked them in, and came back later in a fascinating pink kimono
with her hair in a thick yellow braid, and she kissed them both. But
it was little lame Jinny that she kissed last. And then she went away,
like a glorious vision, and the little girls sank into slumber.
In the next room the Princess opened the door cautiously, and there
was Peter with snow all over him, and his arms were full of holly and
mistletoe, and a great tree was propped against the door-post.
“Quietly, quietly, Peter,” warned the Princess. And Peter tiptoed in
and set the tree up in the corner, and its top reached to the ceiling.
The Princess opened the steamer trunk and took out two white
Teddy-bears, one with a flaring blue bow and the other with a flaring
pink one, and then she took out a green and yellow and a red and a blue
fairy book, and a beautiful square basket of candy, tied with holly
ribbon, and then from the very bottom of the trunk she drew string
after string of shining little silver bells, fastened on red and pale
green ribbons.
“I was going to get up a cotillion figure for the children at the other
house,” the Princess explained to Peter, “but these little folks need
it so much more.”
The little bells went “tinkle, tinkle,” as Peter hung them, and Jinny,
dreaming in her little bed, heard the sound and thought it a part of
her dream.
And while Peter and the Princess trimmed and whispered and laughed,
some one rattled the doorknob.
Peter opened the door, and there stood a white-faced, shivering little
woman.
“Oh, what has happened to my little girls,” she panted. “I saw the
light and it is so late--” then as she beheld the golden-haired vision
in pink, and the gay tree, and Peter in his trim livery, she gasped,
“Why, I believe it is fairies--” and she sat down very suddenly in
Jinny’s chair.
“You are the little mother,” said the Princess, and she knelt beside
her, and put her arms around her, and told her how she came to be
there; and when she had finished, she said, simply, “and I have wanted
my own mother so much this Christmas, and the little girls were so
sweet, that I knew I should love you.”
“You poor little thing,” cried the little mother to the tall Princess;
and the beautiful lady put her head down on the other’s shabby shoulder
and wept, because in spite of her riches she had been very, very lonely
in her big house.
And after Peter had gone, they talked until midnight of Jinny and
Jenny; and then they concocted great plans about the pretty things that
the little mother was to make for the Princess.
And in the morning, Jinny and Jenny, waking in the early dawn, saw,
sitting on the foot-board of the bed, two Teddy-bears, one with a
flaring pink bow and one with a flaring blue bow, and the Teddy-bears
held out their arms saucily and gazed at the happy little girls with
twinkling eyes.
“Oo-oh,” cried the little girls, who had never seen a Teddy-bear
before; and that was the beginning of the most wonderful day of their
lives, for all day the tree went “tinkle, tinkle” as they foraged in
its branches for bon-bons, and the chicken dinner was a delicious
success, and in the afternoon they all took a ride in the Princess’
sleigh, with Peter driving on the box, and when at last he set them
down on their own humble door-step, and lifted little Jinny in his
arms, the Princess smiled at them radiantly from under her plumy hat.
“Remember, Peter will come for you every Saturday, and you are to stay
at my house all day,” she said.
“Oh, yes,” Jenny sighed with rapture.
“And you are to come to my wedding in the spring--all of you!” said the
Princess, gaily.
“And see the Prince!” said Jinny, over Peter’s shoulder.
“And you are going to let me share a third of your mother?”
“Yes, oh, yes,” from both of the little girls.
“Then you shall share a third of Peter,” the Princess called back, as
the smiling coachman drove her away through the glistening snow.
[12] Reprinted by permission of the author and “St. Nicholas Magazine.”