FOOTNOTES:
[8] By permission of The Century Co.
DAVID’S STAR OF BETHLEHEM[9]
Christine Whiting Parmenter
Scott Carson reached home in a bad humor. Nancy, slipping a telltale bit of red ribbon into her workbasket, realized this as soon as he came in.
It was the twenty-first of December, and a white Christmas was promised. Snow had been falling for hours, and in most of the houses wreaths were already in the windows. It was what one calls “a Christmasy-feeling day,” yet, save for that red ribbon in Nancy’s basket, there was no sign in the Carson home of the approaching festival.
Scott said, kissing her absent-mindedly and slumping into a big chair, “This snow is the very limit. If the wind starts blowing there’ll be a fierce time with the traffic. My train was twenty minutes late as it is, and—There’s the bell. Who can it be at this hour? I want my dinner.”
“I’ll go to the door,” said Nancy hurriedly, as he started up. “Selma’s putting dinner on the table now.”
Relaxing into his chair Scott heard her open the front door, say something about the storm and, after a moment, wish someone a Merry Christmas.
A Merry Christmas! He wondered that she could say it so calmly. Three years ago on Christmas morning, they had lost their boy—swiftly—terribly—without warning. Meningitis, the doctor said. Only a few hours before the child had seemed a healthy, happy youngster, helping them trim the tree; hoping, with a twinkle in the brown eyes so like his mother’s, that Santa Claus would remember the fact that he wanted skis! He had gone happily to bed after Nancy had read them “The Night Before Christmas,” a custom of early childhood’s days that the eleven-year-old lad still clung to. Later his mother remembered, with a pang, that when she kissed him good night he had said his head felt kind of funny. But she had left him light-heartedly enough and gone down to help Scott fill the stockings. Santa had not forgotten the skis; but Jimmy never saw them.
Three years—and the memory still hurt so much that the very thought of Christmas was agony to Scott Carson. Jimmy had slipped away just as the carolers stopped innocently beneath his window, their voices rising clear and penetrating on the dawn-sweet air:
“Silent night—holy night....”
Scott arose suddenly. He must not live over that time again. “Who was it?” he asked gruffly as Nancy joined him, and understanding the gruffness she answered tactfully, “Only the expressman.”
“What’d he bring?”
“Just a—a package.”
“One naturally supposes that,” replied her husband, with a touch of sarcasm. Then, suspicion gripping him, he burst out, “Look here! If you’ve been getting a Christmas gift for me, I—I won’t have it. I told you I wanted to forget Christmas. I——”
“I know, dear,” she broke in hastily. “The package was only from Aunt Mary.”
“Didn’t you tell her we weren’t keeping Christmas?” he demanded irritably.
“Yes, Scott; but—but you know Aunt Mary! Come now, dinner’s on and I think it’s a good one. You’ll feel better after you eat.”
But Scott found it unaccountably hard to eat; and later, when Nancy was reading aloud in an effort to soothe him, he could not follow. She had chosen something humorous and diverting; but in the midst of a paragraph he spoke, and she knew that he had not been listening.
“Nancy,” he said, “is there any place—any place on God’s earth where we can get away from Christmas?”
She looked up, answering with sweet gentleness, “It would be a hard place to find, Scott.”
He faced her suddenly: “I feel as if I couldn’t stand it—the trees—the carols—the merrymaking, you know. Oh, if I could only sleep this week away! But ... I’ve been thinking.... Would—would you consider for one moment going up to camp with me for a day or two? I’d gone alone, but——”
“Alone!” she echoed. “Up there in the wilderness at Christmas time? Do you think I’d let you?”
“But it would be hard for you, dear, cold and uncomfortable. I’m a brute to ask it, and yet——”
Nancy was thinking rapidly. They could not escape Christmas, of course. No change of locality could make them forget the anniversary of the day that Jimmy went away. But she was worried about Scott, and the change of scene might help him over the difficult hours ahead. The camp, situated on the mountain a mile from any neighbors, would at least be isolated. There was plenty of bedding, and a big fireplace. It was worth trying.
She said, cheerfully, “I’ll go with you, dear. Perhaps the change will make things easier for both of us.”
This was Tuesday, and on Thursday afternoon they stepped off the north-bound train and stood on the platform watching it vanish into the mountains. The day was crisp and cold. “Two above,” the station master told them as they went into the box of a station and moved instinctively toward the red-hot “air-tight” which gave forth grateful warmth.
“I sent a telegram yesterday to Clem Hawkins, over on the mountain road,” said Scott. “I know you don’t deliver a message so far off; but I took a chance. Do you know if he got it?”
“Yep. Clem don’t have a ’phone, but the boy come down for some groceries and I sent it up. If I was you, though, I’d stay to the Central House. Seems as if it would be more cheerful—Christmas time.”
“I guess we’ll be comfortable enough if Hawkins airs out, and lights a fire,” replied Scott, his face hardening at this innocent mention of the holiday. “Is there anyone around here who’ll take us up? I’ll pay well for it, of course.”
“Iry Morse’ll go; but you’ll have to walk from Hawkinses. The road ain’t dug out beyond.... There’s Iry now. You wait, an’ I’ll holler to him. Hey, Iry!” he called, going to the door, “Will you carry these folks up to Hawkinses? They’ll pay for it.”
“Iry,” a ruddy-faced young farmer, obligingly appeared, his gray work horse hitched to a one-seated sleigh of ancient and uncomfortable design.
“Have to sit three on a seat,” he explained cheerfully; “but we’ll be all the warmer for it. Tuck the buffalo robe ’round the lady’s feet, mister, and you and me’ll use the horse blanket. Want to stop to the store for provisions?”
“Yes, I brought some canned stuff, but we’ll need other things,” said Nancy. “I’ve made a list.”
“Well, you got good courage,” grinned the station master. “I hope you don’t get froze to death up in the woods. Merry Christmas to yer, anyhow!”
“The same to you!” responded Nancy, smiling; and noted with a stab of pain that her husband’s sensitive lips were trembling.
Under Ira’s cheerful conversation, however, Scott relaxed. They talked of crops, the neighbors, and local politics—safe subjects all; but as they passed the district school, where a half-dozen sleighs or flivvers were parked, the man explained: “Folks decoratin’ the school for the doin’s to-morrow afternoon. Christmas tree for the kids, and pieces spoke, and singin’. We got a real live school-ma’am this year, believe me!”
They had reached the road that wound up the mountain toward the Hawkins farm, and as they plodded on, a sudden wind arose that cut their faces. Snow creaked under the runners, and as the sun sank behind the mountain Nancy shivered, not so much with cold as with a sense of loneliness and isolation. It was Scott’s voice that roused her:
“Should we have brought snowshoes? I didn’t realize that we couldn’t be carried all the way.”
“Guess you’ll get there all right,” said Ira. “Snow’s packed hard as a drum-head, and it ain’t likely to thaw yet a while. Here you are,” as he drew up before the weatherbeaten, unpainted farm house. “You better step inside a minute and warm up.”
A shrewish-looking woman was already at the door, opening it but a crack, in order to keep out fresh air and cold.
“I think,” said Nancy, with a glance at the deepening shadows, “that we’d better keep right on. I wonder if there’s anybody here who’d help carry our bags and provisions.”
“There ain’t,” answered the woman, stepping outside and pulling a faded gray sweater around her shoulders. “Clem’s gone to East Conroy with the eggs, and Dave’s up to the camp keepin’ yer fire goin’. You can take the sled and carry yer stuff on that. There ’tis, by the gate. Dave’ll bring it back when he comes. An’ tell him to hurry. Like as not, Clem won’t get back in time fer milkin’.”
“I thought Dave was goin’ to help Teacher decorate the school this afternoon,” ventured Ira. He was unloading their things as he spoke and roping them to the sled.
“So’d he,” responded the woman; “but there wa’n’t no one else to light that fire, was they? Guess it won’t hurt him none to work for his livin’ like other folks. That new school-ma’am, she thinks o’ nothin’ but——”
“Oh, look here!” said the young man, straightening up, a belligerent light in his blue eyes, “it’s Christmas! Can Dave go back with me if I stop and milk for him? They’ll be workin’ all evenin’—lots o’ fun for a kid like him, and——”
“No, he can’t!” snapped the woman. “His head’s enough turned now with speakin’ pieces and singin’ silly songs. You better be gettin’ on, folks. I can’t stand here talkin’ till mornin’.”
She slammed the door, while Ira glared after her retreating figure, kicked the gate post to relieve his feelings, and then grinned sheepishly.
“Some grouch! Why, she didn’t even ask you in to get warm! Well, I wouldn’t loiter if I was you. And send that kid right back, or he’ll get worse’n a tongue-lashin’. Well, good-by to you, folks. Hope you have a Merry Christmas.”
The tramp up the mountain passed almost entirely in silence, for it took their united energy to drag the sled up that steep grade against the wind. Scott drew a breath of relief when they beheld the camp, a spiral of smoke rising from its big stone chimney like a welcome promise of warmth.
“Looks grand, doesn’t it? But it’ll be dark before that boy gets home. I wonder how old——”
They stopped simultaneously as a clear, sweet voice sounded from within the cabin:
“Silent night ... holy night....”
“My God!”
Scott’s face went suddenly dead white. He threw out a hand as if to brush something away, but Nancy caught it in hers pulling it close against her wildly beating heart.
“All is calm ... all is bright.”
The childish treble came weirdly from within, while Nancy cried, “Scott—dearest, don’t let go! It’s only the little boy singing the carols he’s learned in school. Don’t you see? Come! Pull yourself together. We must go in.”
Even as she spoke the door swung open, and through blurred vision they beheld the figure of a boy standing on the threshold. He was a slim little boy with an old, oddly wistful face, and big brown eyes under a thatch of yellow hair.
“You the city folks that was comin’ up? Here, I’ll help carry in yer things.”
Before either could protest he was down on his knees in the snow, untying Ira’s knots with skillful fingers. He would have lifted the heavy suit case himself, had not Scott, jerked back to the present by the boy’s action, interfered.
“I’ll carry that in.” His voice sounded queer and shaky. “You take the basket. We’re late, I’m afraid. You’d better hurry home before it gets too dark. Your mother said——”
“I don’t mind the dark,” said the boy quietly, as they went within. “I’ll coast most o’ the way down, anyhow. Guess you heard me singin’ when you come along.” He smiled, a shy, embarrassed smile as he explained: “It was a good chance to practice the Christmas carols. They won’t let me, ’round home. We’re goin’ to have a show at the school to-morrow. I’m one o’ the three kings—you know—‘We three kings of Orient are.’ I sing the first verse all by myself,” he added with childish pride.
There followed a moment’s silence. Nancy was fighting a desire to put her arms about the slim boyish figure, while Scott had turned away, unbuckling the straps of his suit case with fumbling hands. Then Nancy said, “I’m afraid we’ve kept you from helping at the school this afternoon. I’m so sorry.”
The boy drew a resigned breath that struck her as strangely unchildlike.
“You needn’t to mind, ma’am. Maybe they wouldn’t have let me go anyway; and I’ve got to-morrow to think about. I—I been reading one o’ your books. I like to read.”
“What book was it? Would you like to take it home with you for a—” She glanced at Scott, still on his knees by the suit case, and finished hurriedly—“a Christmas gift?”
“Gee! Wouldn’t I!” His wistful eyes brightened, then clouded. “Is there a place maybe where I could hide it ’round here? They don’t like me to read much to home. They” (a hard look crept into his young eyes), “they burned up the book Teacher gave me a while back. It was ‘David Copperfield,’ and I hadn’t got it finished.”
There came a crash as Scott, rising suddenly, upset a chair. The child jumped, and then laughed at himself for being startled.
“Look here, sonny,” said Scott huskily, “you must be getting home. Can you bring us some milk to-morrow? I’ll find a place to hide your book and tell you about it then. Haven’t you got a warmer coat than this?”
He lifted a shabby jacket from the settle and held it out while the boy slipped into it.
“Thanks, mister,” he said. “It’s hard gettin’ it on because it’s tore inside. They’s only one button,” he added, as Scott groped for them. “She don’t get much time to sew ’em on. I’ll bring up the milk to-morrow mornin’. I got to hurry now or I’ll get fits! Thanks for the book, ma’am. I’d like it better’n anything. Good night.”
Standing at the window Nancy watched him start out in the fast descending dusk. It hurt her to think of that lonely walk; but she thrust the thought aside and turned to Scott, who had lighted a fire on the hearth and seemed absorbed in the dancing flames.
“That’s good!” she said cheerfully. “I’ll get things started for supper, and then make the bed. I’m weary enough to turn in early. You might bring me the canned stuff in your suit case, Scott. A hot soup ought to taste good to-night.”
She took an apron from her bag and moved toward the tiny kitchen. Dave evidently knew how to build a fire. The stove lids were almost red, and the kettle was singing. Nancy went about her preparations deftly, tired though she was from the unaccustomed tramp, while Scott opened a can of soup, toasted some bread, and carried their meal on a tray to the settles before the hearthfire. It was all very cozy and “Christmasy,” thought Nancy, with the wind blustering outside and the flames leaping up the chimney. But she was strangely quiet. The thought of that lonely little figure trudging off in the gray dusk persisted, despite her efforts to forget. It was Scott who spoke, saying out of a silence, “I wonder how old he is.”
“The—the little boy?”
He nodded, and she answered gently, “He seemed no older than—I mean, he seemed very young to be milking cows and doing chores.”
Again Scott nodded, and a moment passed before he said, “The work wouldn’t hurt him though, if he were strong enough; but—did you notice, Nancy, he didn’t look half fed? He is an intelligent little chap, though, and his voice—Good lord!” he broke off suddenly, “how can a shrew like that bring such a child into the world? To burn his book! Nancy, I can’t understand how things are ordered. Here’s that poor boy struggling for development in an unhappy atmosphere—and our Jimmy, who had love, and understanding, and—Tell me, why is it?”
She stretched out a tender hand; but the question remained unanswered, and the meal was finished in silence.
Dave did not come with the milk next morning. They waited till nearly noon, and then tramped off in the snow-clad, pine-scented woods. It was a glorious day, with diamonds sparkling on every fir tree, and they came back refreshed, and ravenous for their delayed meal. Scott wiped the dishes, whistling as he worked. It struck his wife that he hadn’t whistled like that for months. Later, the last kitchen rites accomplished, she went to the window, where he stood gazing down the trail.
“He won’t come now, Scott.”
“The kid? It’s not three yet, Nancy.”
“But the party begins at four. I suppose everyone for miles around will be there. I wish—” She was about to add that she wished they could have gone too, but something in Scott’s face stopped the words. She said instead, “Do you think we’d better go for the milk ourselves?”
“What’s the use? They’ll all be at the shindig, even that sour-faced woman, I suppose. But somehow—I feel worried about the boy. If he isn’t here bright and early in the morning I’ll go down and see what’s happened. Looks as if it were clouding up again, doesn’t it? Perhaps we’ll get snowed in!”
Big, lazy-looking snowflakes were already beginning to drift down. Scott piled more wood on the fire, and stretched out on the settle for a nap. But Nancy was restless. She found herself standing repeatedly at the window looking at the snow. She was there when at last Scott stirred and wakened. He sat up blinking, and asked, noting the twilight, “How long have I been asleep?”
Nancy laughed, relieved to hear his voice after the long stillness.
“It’s after five.”
“Good thunder!” He arose, putting an arm across her shoulders. “Poor girl! I haven’t been much company on this trip! But I didn’t sleep well last night, couldn’t get that boy out of my mind. Why, look!” Scott was staring out of the window into the growing dusk. “Here he is now! I thought you said——”
He was already at the door, flinging it wide in welcome as he went out to lift the box of milk jars from the sled. It seemed to Nancy, as the child stepped inside, that he looked subtly different—discouraged, she would have said of an older person; and when he raised his eyes she saw the unmistakable signs of recent tears.
“Oh, David!” she exclaimed, “why aren’t you at the party?”
“I didn’t go.”
The boy seemed curiously to have withdrawn into himself. His answer was like a gentle “none of your business”; but Nancy was not without a knowledge of boy nature. She thought, “He’s hurt—dreadfully. He’s afraid to talk for fear he’ll cry; but he’ll feel better to get it off his mind.” She said, drawing him toward the cheerful hearthfire, “But why not, Dave?”
He swallowed, pulling himself together with an heroic effort.
“I had ter milk. The folks have gone to Conroy to Gramma Hawkins’s! I like Gramma Hawkins. She told ’em to be sure an’ bring me; but there wasn’t no one else ter milk, so ... so....”
It was Scott who came to the rescue as David’s voice failed suddenly.
“Are you telling us that your people have gone away, for Christmas, leaving you home alone?”
The boy nodded, winking back tears as he managed a pathetic smile.
“Oh, I wouldn’t ha’ minded so much if—if it hadn’t been for the doin’s at the school. Miss Mary was countin’ on me ter sing, and speak a piece. I don’t know who they could ha’ got to be that wise man.” His face hardened in a way not good to see in a little boy, and he burst out angrily, “Oh, I’d have gone—after they got off! Darn ’em! But they hung ’round till almost four, and—and when I went for my good suit they—they’d hid it—or carried it away!... And there was a Christmas tree....”
His voice faltered again, while Nancy found herself speechless before what she recognized as a devastating disappointment. She glanced at Scott, and was frightened at the consuming anger in his face; but he came forward calmly, laying a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder. He said, and, knowing what the words cost him, Nancy’s heart went out to her husband in adoring gratitude, “Buck up, old scout! We’ll have a Christmas tree! And we’ll have a party too, you and Mother and I—darned if we don’t! You can speak your piece and sing your carols for us. And Mother will read us ‘The’”—for an appreciable moment Scott’s voice faltered, but he went on gamely—“‘The Night Before Christmas.’ Did you ever hear it? And I know some stunts that’ll make your eyes shine. We’ll have our party to-morrow, Christmas Day, sonny; but now” (he was stooping for his overshoes as he spoke), “now we’ll go after that tree before it gets too dark! Come on, Mother. We want you, too!”
Mother! Scott hadn’t called her that since Jimmy left them! Through tear-blinded eyes Nancy groped for her coat in the diminutive closet. Darkness was coming swiftly as they went into the snowy forest, but they found their tree, and stopped to cut fragrant green branches for decoration. Not till the tree stood proudly in its corner did they remember the lack of tinsel trimmings; but Scott brushed this aside as a mere nothing.
“We’ve got pop corn, and nothing’s prettier. Give us a bit of supper, Nancy, and then I’m going to the village.”
“The village! At this hour?”
“You take my sled, mister,” cried David, and they saw that his eyes were happy once more, and childlike. “You can coast ’most all the way, like lightning! I’ll pop the corn. I’d love to! Gee! it’s lucky I milked before I come away!”
The hours that followed passed like magic to Nancy Carson. Veritable wonders were wrought in that small cabin; and oh, it was good to be planning and playing again with a little boy! Not till the child, who had been up since dawn, had dropped asleep on the settle from sheer weariness, did she add the finishing touches to the scene.
“It’s like a picture of Christmas,” she murmured happily. “The tree, so green and slender with its snowy trimmings—the cone-laden pine at the windows—the bulging stocking at the fireplace, and—and the sleeping boy. I wonder——”
She turned, startled by a step on the creaking snow outside, but it was Scott, of course. He came in quietly, not laden with bundles as she expected, but empty-handed. There was, she thought, a strange excitement in his manner as he glanced ’round the fire-lit room, his eyes resting for a moment on David’s peaceful face. Then he saw the well-filled stocking at the mantel, and his eyes came back unswervingly to hers.
“Nancy! Is—is it——?”
She drew nearer, and put her arms about him.
“Yes, dear, it’s—Jimmy’s—just as we filled it on Christmas Eve three years ago. You see, I couldn’t quite bear to leave it behind us when we came away, lying there in his drawer so lonely—at Christmas time. Tell me you don’t mind, Scott—won’t you? We have our memories, but David—he has so little. That dreadful mother, and——”
Scott cleared his throat; swallowed, and said gently, “He has, I think the loveliest mother in the world!”
“What do you mean?”
He drew her down onto the settle that faced the sleeping boy, and answered, “Listen, Nancy. I went to the school-house. I thought perhaps they’d give me something to trim the tree. The party was over, but the teacher was there with Ira Morse, clearing things away. I told them about David—why he hadn’t shown up; and asked some questions. Nancy—what do you think? That Hawkins woman isn’t the child’s mother! I knew it!
“Nobody around here ever saw her. She died when David was a baby, and his father, half crazed, the natives thought, with grief, brought the child here, and lived like a hermit on the mountain. He died when Dave was about six, and as no one claimed the youngster, and there was no orphan asylum within miles, he was sent to the poor farm, and stayed there until last year, when Clem Hawkins wanted a boy to help do chores, and Dave was the cheapest thing in sight. Guess you wonder where I’ve been all this time? Well, I’ve been interviewing the overseer of the poor—destroying red tape by the yard—resorting to bribery and corruption! But—Hello, old man, did I wake you up?”
David, roused suddenly, rubbed his eyes. Then, spying the stocking, he wakened thoroughly, and asked, “Say! Is—is it Christmas?”
Scott laughed, and glanced at his watch.
“It will be, in twelve minutes. Come here, sonny.”
He drew the boy onto his knee, and went on quietly: “The stores were closed, David, when I reached the village. I couldn’t buy you a Christmas gift, you see. But I thought if we gave you a real mother, and—and a father——”
“Oh, Scott!”
It was a cry of rapture from Nancy. She had, of course, suspected the ending to his story, but not until that moment had she let herself really believe it. Then, seeing the child’s bewilderment, she explained, “He means, dear, that you’re our boy now—for always.”
David looked up, his brown eyes big with wonder.
“And I needn’t go back to Hawkins’s? Not ever?”
“Not ever,” Scott promised, while his throat tightened at the relief in the boy’s voice.
“And I’ll have folks, same as the other kids?”
“You’ve guessed right.” The new father spoke lightly in an effort to conceal his feeling. “That is, if you think we’ll do!” he added, smiling.
“Oh, you’ll——”
Suddenly inarticulate, David turned, throwing his thin arms around Scott’s neck in a strangling, boylike hug. Then, a bit ashamed because such things were new to him, he slipped away, standing with his back to them at the window, trying, they saw with understanding hearts, to visualize this unbelievable thing that had come, a miracle, into his starved life. When after a silence they joined him, the candle on the table flared up for a protesting moment, and then went out. Only starlight and firelight lit the cabin now; and Nancy, peering into the night, said gently, “How beautifully it has cleared! I think I never saw the stars so bright.”
“Christmas stars,” Scott reminded her and, knowing the memory that brought the roughness to his voice, she caught and clasped his hand.
It was David who spoke next. He was leaning close to the window, his elbows resting on the sill, his face cupped in his two hands. He seemed to have forgotten them as he said dreamily, “It’s Christmas.... Silent night ... holy night ... like the song. I wonder—” He looked up trustfully into the faces above him—“I wonder if—if maybe one of them stars isn’t the Star of Bethlehem!”