Our Christmas at Wheathedge.
IS there any reason why Episcopalians, Lutherans and Roman Catholics
should have a monopoly of Christmas? Is its glorious old patron
Saint partial? Has the Christ-child no gifts for us as well as for
other folk? Have the December heavens no brightness-the angel host
no song for "blue Presbyterians?" May we not come to the sacred
manger too? Are our Church festivals so many that we need dread to
add another? Is our religion so inclined to gayety and money-making
that we need curb its joyous tendencies? The very air of Christmas
is marvellous. The heavens are never so blue, the sun never shines
with a profuser generosity. The very earth clothes itself in the
spotless white of the heavenly robe, as if to prepare for the coming
of its Lord.
Alas for him who does not believe in Christmas! May the ghost of
Scrooge haunt him into a better mind.
This was what I mentally ejaculated to myself last Saturday
afternoon after Mr. Hardcap's protest against our Christmas
celebration.
The Sabbath morning previous, Miss Moore came to me mysteriously
after church. "I want to walk home with you, Mr. Laicus," said she.
I have a wife and children, and I felt safe. "I shall be delighted
with the honor," I replied. But Miss Moore's honors are never empty
ones. I knew that she wanted something; I wondered what. I had not
long to wonder; for we had not crossed the road before she opened
the subject.
"We are going to trim the Church for Christmas," said she, "and we
want you to superintend getting the evergreens."
"What?" said I, aghast.
Confidentially, please not mention it, I have been in the habit for
a good many years of taking my wife and my prayer-book to the
Episcopal Church on Christmas-day. Dickens converted me to its
observance ten years or more ago. But none are so sound as those who
are tinged with heresy. And am I not a "blue Presbyterian?" It would
not do to lend my countenance too readily to indecorous invasions of
the sanctuary with festivals borrowed from the Roman Catholics.
Besides, what would the elders say? I asked Miss Moore as much.
"Deacon Goodsole will lend us his pung," was the reply.
"And the trustees?" said I.
But Miss Moore never leaves a point unguarded.
"Young Wheaton is home from school," said she, "and he will go with
you to the woods. He will call to-morrow, right after breakfast."
For a difficult piece of generalship give me a woman. Not fitted for
politics! Why, they are born to it. Here was Miss Moore bent on
trimming the church. And lawyer Laicus was to go in Deacon
Goodsole's sleigh with the son of the President of the Board of
Trustees to get the "trimmings." He who dares to complain after that
enlists two dignitaries and one very respectable layman against him
at the outset.
"Very well," said I, "I will go."
"Go!" said Miss Moore, "of course you'll go. Nobody doubted that.
But I want to tell you where to go and what to get."
The next morning I was just finishing my second cup of coffee when I
heard the jingle of bells, and, looking up, saw Jim Wheaton and the
Deacon's sleek horse at my door. So, bidding Harry, who was to go
too, "be quick," an exhortation that needed no repeating, we were
very soon in the pung, armed I with a hatchet, Harry with a pruning
knife.
That ride was one to be remembered. The air was crisp and clear.
Just snow enough had fallen in the night to cover every black and
noisome thing, as though all nature's sins were washed away by her
Sabbath repentance, and she had commenced her life afresh. There was
luxury in every inhalation of the pure air. The horse, more
impatient than we, could scarcely wait for leave to go, and needed
no word thereafter to quicken his flying feet. Down the hill, with
merry ringing bells, ever and anon showered with flying snow from
the horse's hoof; through the village street with a nod of
recognition to Deacon Goodsole, who stood at his door to wave us a
cheery recognition; round the corner with a whirl that threatens to
deposit us in the soft snow and leave the horse with an empty
sleigh; across the bridge, which spans the creek; up, with unabated
speed, the little hill on the other side; across the railroad track,
with real commiseration for the travelers who are trotting up and
down the platform waiting for the train, and must exchange the
joyous freedom of this day for the treadmill of the city, this air
for that smoke and gas, this clean pure mantle of snow for that
fresh accumulation of sooty sloshy filth; pass the school-house,
where the gathering scholars stand, snowballs in hand, to see us run
merily by, one urchin, more mischievous than the rest, sending a
ball whizzing after us; up, up, up the mountain road, for half a
mile, past farm-houses whose curling smoke tell of great blazing
fires within; past ricks of hay all robed in white, and one ghost of
a last summer's scare-crow watching still, though the corn is long
since in-gathered and the crows have long since flown to warmer
climes; turning off, at last, from the highway into Squire Wheaton's
wood road, where, since the last fall of snow, nothing has been
before us, save a solitary rabbit whose track our dog Jip follows
excitedly, till he is quite out of sight or even call.
Here we are at last. And here the evergeens are about us in a
profusion which would make the eyes water of my honest friend the
Dutch grocer who supplied me with my family trees so many years in
New York. Our smoking nag is over his impatience now, and, being
well blanketed, understands what is wanted of him quite as well as
if he were tied, and stands as still as if he were Squire Slowgoes'
fat and lazy "family horse." With pants tied snugly over our
topboots to keep out the intruding snow, we plunge into the woods.
The ringing blows of our hatchets on the cedar-trees bring down a
mimic shower on our heads and backs. Young Wheaton understands his
business, and shows me how the fairest evergreens are hid beneath
the snow, and what rare forms of crystalline beauty conceal
themselves altogether beneath this white counterpane. So, sometimes
cutting from above and sometimes grubbing from below, we work an
hour or more, till our pung is filled to its brim. Long before we
have finished Jip has returned from his useless search, and the
neighing horse indicates his impatience to be off again.
When we got back to the Church we found it warm with a blazing fire
in the great stove, and bright with a bevy of laughing girls, who
emptied our sleigh of its contents almost before we were aware what
had happened, and were impatiently demanding more. Miss Moore had
proposed just to trim the pulpit-oh! but she is a shrewd manager-and
we had brought evergreens enough to make two or three. But the plans
had grown faster by far than we could work. One young lady had
remarked how beautiful the chandelier would look with an evergreen
wreath; a second had pointed out that there ought to be large
festoons draping the windows; a third, the soprano, had declared
that the choir had as good a right to trimming as the pulpit; a
fourth, a graduate of Mount Holyoke, had proposed some mottoes, and
had agreed to cut the letters, and Mr. Leacock, the store keeper,
had been foraged on for pasteboard, and an extemporized table
contrived on which to cut and trim them. So off we were driven
again, with barely time to thaw out our half-frozen toes; and, in
short, my half morning's job lengthened out to a long days hard but
joyous work, before the pile of evergreens in the hall was large
enough to supply the energies of the Christmas workers.
Of course, we must trim the Sunday school-room as well as the
Church, for the children must have their Christmas; and trimmed it
was, so luxuriantly that it seemed as though the woods had laid
siege to and taken possession of the sanctuary, and that nature was
preparing to join on this glad day her voice with that of man in
singing praise to Him who brings life to a winter-wrapped earth, and
whose fittest symbol, therefore, is the tree whose greenness not
even the frosts of the coldest winter have power to diminish.
Of course Christmas itself passed without recognition. I went, as is
my wont, with my wife and my prayer-book, to the Episcopal Church.
Our Christmas waited till Sunday. A glorious day it was. The sun
never shone more brightly. The crisp keenness was gone from the air.
The balmy breath of spring was in it. The Church never was so full
before and never has been since. The story of its decorations had
been spread far and wide, and all Wheathedge flocked to see what the
Presbyterians would make of Christmas. The pulpit, the walls, the
gallery, the chandelier were festooned with wreaths of living green.
A cross-O tempora! O mores!-of cedar and immortelles, stood on the
communion table. Over the pulpit were those sublime words of the
sublimest of all books, "He shall save His people from their sins."
Opposite it, emblazoned on the gallery, was heaven and earth's
fitting response to this sublime revelation, "Glory be to God on
high." Miss Moore was better than her word. She managed both choir
and minister. Both were in the spirit of the occasion. The parson
never preached a better sermon than his Christmas meditation. The
choir never sung a more joyous song of praise than their Christmas
anthem. And before the influence of that morning's service I think
the last objection to observing Christmas faded out.
For there had been some objections. I heard of two.
One came from Mr. Wheaton. Monday afternoon, going by the Church, he
saw the door open, went in, found it full of busy workers; ceiling,
aisles, pulpit, and gallery, strewed with evergreens, and the
clatter of merry voices keeping pace with the busy fingers. It was
his first intimation of what was going on.
"Heyday!" said he. "What is all this? Who authorized it, I should
like to know?"
The chatter of merry voices ceased. The young ladies were in awe.
Miss Moore was not there to answer for them. No one dared act as
spoksman. Young Jim Wheaton was on a step-ladder rather dangerously
resting on the backs of two pews. He was tacking the letter G to the
gallery. He noticed the silence and discerned the cause.
"Father," said he, "I wish you would hold this ladder for me a
minute. It is rather ticklish."
"Ah, Jim, is that you?" said the old man. Pride in Jim is the
father's weak point. The ladder was held. Then his advice was asked
about the placing of the mottoes; and it was given, and that was the
last of Mr. Wheaton's objection.
The other objection came from Mr. Hardcap, the carpenter. I met him
at the door of the church Saturday afternoon, just as the last
rubbish had been swept out and we were closing the door.
"Looks beautiful, doesn't it Mr. Hardcap?" said I.
"They'd better have spent their time on their knees than with these
fixins," growled Mr. Hardcap; "'twould ha' done the Church more
good, a deal sight."
"Did you spend your time on your knees?" I could not refrain from
asking.
But Mr. Hardcap did not answer.