Around the Yule Log

by Willis Boyd Allen

III

It must be confessed that for a moment Mr. Broadstreet felt slightly annoyed. Why should that Thing be constantly starting up and darkening his cheerful mood? It was bad enough that the Shadow should exist, without intruding its melancholy length upon people who were enjoying Christmas Eve. He might have indulged in still further discontent, when he noticed the head of the Shadow-figure droop as in sadness. He remembered the kind Ghost’s grief, and upbraided himself for his hardness of heart.

“Forgive me,” he said, half aloud. “I was wrong. I forgot. I will, please God, brighten this spot and turn away the Shadow!”

Without further delay he advanced through the gloomy space until he reached the box, upon which a large lot of holly wreaths and crosses were displayed. He soon completed the purchase of a fine thick fir, and sent it, together with a roll of evergreens, to the toy-shop, directed like the parcel to the conductor.

The owner of the stand was a jovial, bright-faced young fellow, and it was evident that to him Christmas meant only gladness and jollity. But the Shadow still rested upon Mr. Broadstreet and all the snowy sidewalk about him. He was thoroughly puzzled to find its object, and had almost begun to consider the whole affair a delusion, when his eyes fell upon an odd little man, standing in the shelter of the trees, and visibly shaking with the cold, although his coat was tightly buttoned about his meager form, and his old hat pulled down over his ears. As he saw the portly lawyer looking at him he advanced timidly and touched his hat.

“Can I carry a bundle for you, sir?” he asked, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

“Why, I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Broadstreet. “I’ve just sent away all my goods.”

The man’s face fell. He touched his hat again and was humbly turning away, when the other laid his hand lightly on his shoulder.

“You seem to be really suffering with the cold, my friend,” he said in such gentle tones that his “learned brothers upon the other side” would not have recognized it; “and that’s a little too bad for Christmas Eve.”

“Christmas! Christmas!” shivered the man with a little moan, wringing his thin hands, “what is that to me! What is that to a man whose wife is dying for want of tender nursing and wholesome food? whose children are growing up to a life of misery and degradation? whose own happiness is gone, gone, so long ago that he has forgotten the feeling of it?”

Mr. Broadstreet patted the shoulder gently. “Come, come,” he said, trying to speak cheerily; “it isn’t so bad as that, you know. Times are better, and there’s plenty of work.”

“Work!” cried the man bitterly. “Yes, for the friends of the rich; for the young and strong; for the hopeful, but not for me. I tell you, sir,” he continued, raising his clenched fist until the ragged sleeve fell back and left his long, gaunt wrist bare in the biting wind, “I’ve walked from end to end of Boston, day after day, answering every advertisement, applying for any kind of honorable employment; but not even the city will take me to shovel snow in the streets, and I’m discouraged, discouraged.”

To Mr. Broadstreet’s dismay, the poor fellow suddenly hid his face in his hands, and broke down in a tempest of sobs.

Ah, how dark the Shadow was then! The storm had ceased, but the keen northwest wind still swept the streets, filling the air with fine, icy particles of snow, and driving to their warm homes those who had remained down town to make their last purchases.

The man shivered and sobbed by turns, and was quite the sport of the wind, which was buffeting him with its soft, cruel paws; when suddenly the world seemed to grow warmer. He felt something heavy and soft upon his back and around his neck. Mechanically thrusting his arms through the sleeves which opened to meet them, and looking up in amazement, he beheld his new friend standing upon the sidewalk in his dressing-gown, a genial smile upon his beaming face, and his hand outstretched. The lawyer laughed gleefully at his consternation.

“It’s all right,” he said, as the Discouraged Man tried to pull off the ulster and return it to its owner. “I’m warmer than ever. Come on, let’s go home and see your wife and children. Don’t stop to talk!” and seizing the other by the hand, or rather the cuff of his sleeve, which was much too long for him, he hurried him off, snatching a couple of wreaths from the stand as he went by, and dropping a half-dollar in their place.

It was a strange experience for the proud lawyer, that walk through the dark streets, floundering among snow-drifts, slipping, tumbling, scrambling along over icy sidewalks and buried crossings, the long-skirted gown flapping about his heels in the most ridiculous way. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the Shadow, which was always before him, now turning down a side street, now doubling on itself, ever growing more and more distinct, and drawing its two followers farther and farther into the lowest quarter of the city. The stars were out now, and seemed to flicker in the fierce wind like the gas lights upon the street corners. Mr. Broadstreet felt curiously warm without his ulster and as light-hearted as a boy.

As they passed through the most brilliantly-lighted streets, however, he saw much that filled him for the moment with sadness. For the Shadow now grew enormously large, and rested upon many places. It brooded darkly over the brilliant saloons that lined the way, and that clothed themselves in the very garments of Christmas to attract the innocent and foolish, so that, drawn by the sheen of holly and evergreen, and the show of festivities and good cheer, they might enter and find their own destruction. Oftentimes, too, the Shadow flitted along the street in company with some man or woman who to all outward appearance was calm and content with life; perhaps even happy, one would have said. In the black folds of the Shadow, brutal-faced ruffians hid their bleared eyes; houses were draped as in some time of national mourning; once, the slight, pretty figure of a young girl came up, wearing the Shadow flauntingly about her neck, like a scarf; she stopped, and seemed about to address Mr. Broadstreet with bold words. As she met his kind, pitying glance, however, her own eyes fell, her lips quivered, she drew the Shadow about her face and fled. Alas! he could do nothing for such as her, unless that gentle, fatherly face should come before her again, in her solitude, and, by its silent eloquence, lead her to better things.

While Mr. Broadstreet was peering about for the Shadow, and taking into his heart the lessons it taught, he had not been idle, giving a kind word or a bit of money or a pleasant glance wherever the chance offered.

The Shadow now paused before a narrow doorway in a crooked little street, and the two, or rather the three, for the Shadow went before them, entered and mounted the stairway. Mr. Broadstreet stumbled several times, but the Discouraged Man went up like one who was well used to the premises. As they reached the third landing, a voice somewhere near them commenced to sing feebly, and they stopped to listen.

“It’s Annette,” whispered the Discouraged Man; “she’s singing for me. It was a way she had when we were first married, and I used to like it, coming home from a hard day’s work; so she’s tried to keep it up ever since. Do you hear her, sir?”

Yes, Mr. Broadstreet heard her. Poor, poor little thin voice, trembling weakly on the high notes and avoiding the low ones altogether. It was more like a child’s than a woman’s, and so tired—so tired! He fumbled in his dressing-gown pocket and turned his head away; quite needlessly, for it was very dark.

The two men remained silent for a moment, listening to the echo of the gay young voice with which the little bride used to greet her husband; she, so tender, and loving, and true; he, so strong, and brave, and hopeful for the future! And as they listened, they caught the words:

“Christ was born on Christmas Day,

Wreathe the holly, twine the bay,

Carol Christmas joyfully,

The Babe, the Son, the Holy One of Mary.”

“That’s a new one,” whispered the Discouraged Man again, delightedly. “She never sang it before. She must have learned it on purpose for to-night!”

There was a weary little pause within the room; she wondering, perhaps, why he didn’t come in. Presently she began again, and her voice had grown strangely weak, so that they could hardly hear it, in the rush of the wind outside the building:

“Let the bright red berries glow,

Everywhere—in goodly show”—

It died away into a mere whisper, and then ceased entirely.

Mr. Broadstreet hesitated no longer, but touched his companion’s arm, and they both entered.

She was lying on a rude bed in the corner of the room, her eyes closed, and her hands folded upon her breast. A look of agony swept across the face of her husband as he knelt beside her, taking her cold hands—ah, so thin! in his own, chafing and kissing them by turns.

Above his head on the whitewashed wall was the word “John,” in large, bright letters. It was his name; she had crept from her bed and traced it with her finger-tip upon the frosty window-pane, so that the light from a far-off street lamp shone through the clear lines, and thus reproduced them upon the opposite wall. Just beneath was “Merry Christmas.” She thought it would please him, and seem like a sort of decoration, hung there above her bed. And now he was kneeling by her side, and holding her thin hands. Perhaps he was more discouraged than ever, just then. O Shadow, Shadow, could you not have spared him this?

Mr. Broadstreet hung the wreaths he had brought upon the bed-post, and waited helplessly. A mist gathered in his eyes, so that he could not see; the walls of the little dismal chamber wavered to and fro, the Shadow grew more and more dense until it seemed to assume definite shape, the shape of Christmas Present, sitting as before, enthroned amidst plenty and good cheer; the deep-toned bells in a neighboring church-tower slowly and solemnly tolled twelve strokes, answered by the silver chime of a clock; the flames of the open fire rose and fell fitfully, in mute answer to the blasts of wind that roared about the chimney top. The Ghost dwindled rapidly, the Discouraged Man assumed the proportions and appearance of a marble figure under the mantel, and Mr. Broadstreet, starting up in affright, found himself standing in his own warm room, the Christmas Carol still open at the wonderful picture in his hand. The air still vibrated with the last echoes of the midnight-bell. It was Christmas morning.

Not many hours later, the glad sun was shining brightly over the white-robed city, sprinkling the streets and housetops with diamond-dust, gleaming upon the golden spires of churches, seeking out every dark and unwholesome corner with its noiseless step, and dispensing with open hand its bounty of purity and warmth. Yet the shadow was there, even on that fairest of Christmas Days,—and Mr. Broadstreet knew it.

Throughout the day he was thoughtful and abstracted, and during the following weeks he was observed to act in the most unaccountable manner. On snowy evenings he would dodge out of the house without the slightest warning, and return shortly after with damp boots and a defeated air.

Upon the street-cars Mr. Broadstreet became famous that winter for his obliging manner and pleasant ways with the employees. Indeed, he more than once persisted in remaining on the platform with the conductor at the imminent risk of freezing his ears and nose, until he was fairly driven within doors.

Down town he behaved still more queerly, leaving the office long before dark, and being discovered in the oddest places imaginable; now diving into narrow courts, and up steep staircases, now plunging into alleyways and no thoroughfares; and returning home late to dinner, greatly exhausted, with little or no money in his pockets. In these days, too, he began to talk about the sufferings of the poor, the abuses of the liquor law, the need of strong, pure women to go among the outcasts of our great, troubled city and perform Christlike deeds.

One bitter cold night he was much later than usual. It had been snowing heavily, and his wife had begun to worry a little over the absence of her husband, when she heard the click of his key in the front door. When Mr. Broadstreet entered, sprinkled with snow from head to foot, what was her amazement to see him standing there with fur cap and gloves, and a glowing face, but no ulster!

“Alonzo, Alonzo,” she cried, from the head of the stairs, “what will you forget next? Where have you left it?”

“Why,” said he simply, “I’ve found the Discouraged Man. And the doctor at the hospital says she’ll get well, after all.”

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III
’LIJAH

Twilight, December twilight in a great city, cold gray and dismal. Up town the dust collected in little ridges at the street corners, and whirled alike into the faces of rich and poor, on their way home from work. Down town the clerks in the big stores had gone out to their suppers, leaving the boys to light up and rearrange the disheveled counters for the final rush of evening customers. Around the markets and in the toy-shops, however, there was little rest. Crowds of tired, good-natured people staggered against each other and entangled themselves in all sorts of projecting bundles which they carried under their arms. Now and then a messenger or expressman would call out, “Clear the way there!” in rich, jovial tones, while he bore his armful of glistening, scarlet-dotted holly through the thickest of the crowd. Even the night wind, which came scurrying down from the northwest evidently bent on mischief, stopped a moment to rest among the boughs of the mimic evergreen forest of fir and spruce along the sidewalks, refreshed itself with their spicy fragrance, and stole away again, gentler than before. And when, of all the year, should eyes be brighter, hopes higher, voices merrier, even wind and winter air more mild than on this blessed night?—for it was Christmas Eve.

“B-r-r-r-r,” shivered ’Lijah, trying to pull down the ragged ends of his sleeves over his black wrist; “dis yere’s what I call right cold. Gwine to snow ’fore mo’nin’, for sho.’”

Plunging a small shovel into the tin pail he was carrying, the old man proceeded to scatter its contents, a sort of earthy gravel, along the slippery rails of the horse-car track.

“Hullo, ’Lijah!” called a passing driver, with one hand on his brake and the other holding a tight rein, “where you goin’ to-morrow?”

“Dunno; Merry Chris’mus!” returned the other, straightening his old back and waving a salute with his shovel.

One after another greeted him in much the same way, receiving the invariable “Merry Chris’mus,” given with a broad smile and a momentary gleam of white from eyes and teeth.

The pail was empty, and ’Lijah was about to leave the scene of his day’s work, when a strong, young voice called to him.

“Evening, ’Lijah. Wish you a Merry Christmas!”

“Thank ye, thank ye, mars’ George,” cried the negro, answering involuntarily in the old plantation dialect, and turning delightedly to the newcomer. “Wh-whar you been, Mars,’ an’ how’s Miss Rosy?”

“She’s well, ’Lijah,” said the young man, with a sparkle in his eye. “I’ve been away from the city for a month. To-night I was going up there, but”—

“But what, but what, Mars’ George?” queried the old man eagerly. “Ef a po’ ole nig kin do anything fer ye, he’ll do it sho’. Anything, Mars’!”

George Farley looked at him kindly. “I know you would, ’Lijah. And yet, I hardly know—if I hadn’t been away so long”—

He was a generous young fellow, and he wanted to do right both by his employers and his humble companion. The fact was, he had been charged to remain in the store that night, the regular watchman being at home sick. He had been looking forward during his long absence on the road to that very Christmas Eve, which he was to spend with the owner of a certain pair of merry brown eyes, at the other end of the city. The temptation was too great. “It won’t come again for a year,” he argued to himself; “it won’t ever be just the same as to-night. One hour or two would do no harm, and ’Lijah is as faithful as a watch-dog—better than I would be, if anything.”

The result was, as may easily be imagined, that ’Lijah agreed to take up his post at the store at just half-past seven, and remain until Farley came, which would be before ten.

The old man made his way home through the darkening streets with many a delighted chuckle at his good luck. A chance to serve Mars’ George didn’t come every day. “He’s a-gwine ter trus’ me!” he said to himself over and over again.

The strong attachment between these two men, so far removed from each other in social position, but closely knit together by that brotherliness of humanity which reaches to a depth—or height—where there is neither rich nor poor, bond nor free,—this powerful attachment had begun at a summer hotel a year before. Farley had been walking idly about the reading-rooms and office, when he heard a cracked voice crooning softly to itself. Something in the tones attracted him, and he was interested enough to listen for the words of the song, for the tune told him nothing.

“Wash me an’ I shall be

Whiter dan snow.”

Stepping into the next room he found the singer to be an old negro, employed about the place to black boots, scrub floors, and perform whatever menial duties were considered below the dignity of his fellow-servants. His hair was powdered with white, and his face wrinkled like a prune, but there was a light in his eye which told that he was mindful of the words he sang. Farley was touched by their association with both his race and the tasks to which he was put, and entered into conversation with him. He found that ’Lijah, for so he was called, was receiving a mere pittance from the hotel, and even that would cease in a few weeks. Interesting himself thoroughly in the old man, he obtained for him a comfortable boarding-place in the city and a situation which befitted his years and sluggish movements, and, while affording but small pay, gave steady work from one year’s end to another.

So ’Lijah plodded humbly up and down the tracks, scattering his shovelfuls of sand, dodging passing vehicles as he best might, and living at peace with all men. Oftentimes Mars’ George, to whom, as his only tie in the world, he was as devoted as a Newfoundland dog, would spend the long winter evenings with him in his little room; or would even take him to a fairy play, whose fascinations affected him so powerfully that for days afterward he would occasionally be seen to stop at his work, gazing steadfastly at the pavements, from which, perhaps, he momentarily expected to see emerge a gnome or gauze-winged naiad.

Meanwhile he was full of interest in all that most nearly concerned the happiness of his friend and patron. Accordingly it was not long after Miss Rosy Burnham appeared on the scene, that old ’Lijah took occasion to slyly allude to the personal charms of the young lady, and to offer his services as a message-bearer, whenever occasion might arise.

Once ’Lijah had the supreme delight of nursing Farley through a short but severe illness. Then it was that his musical accomplishments, which had at first attracted his benefactor, again came into play. His repertoire, it is true, was scant, including only “Whiter than Snow,” which he had heard at one of Mr. Moody’s revival meetings, and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” doubtless a relic of the old days when the slaves sang at their work in the cotton fields, or among the huts at night. Of tune he knew absolutely nothing, and the different airs which he improvised for the words, according to the mood he was in, gave the effect of a much greater variety than the two hymns would otherwise have afforded.

To-night he was as happy as a child, and went to and fro about the house humming, to a tune which seemed a combination of “Dixie” and “Coronation”

“Swing low,—swing low—

Comin’ fer ter carry me ho-o-ome.”

All the way down to the store after supper he murmured by turns “Sweet Chariot,” and “Mars’ George done trus’ me sho’ly!” People noticed his lightsome looks, and some one must have given him a sprig of holly, which he wore proudly, after all the berries had dropped off, in his buttonhole.

Arriving at the store he found Farley waiting impatiently for him, and was at once instructed in the duties of his two-hours’ watch. He was to sit in the main office, which was in the third story and looked out upon a large street. Every fifteen minutes he must take a lantern and patrol the entire building above the first floor, which was occupied by another firm, furniture dealers and manufacturers.

“Here, ’Lijah,” said Farley, hurriedly drawing a bunch of keys from his pocket and thrusting them into the other’s hands; “take these. That flat key will open the safe, and in it—look—is this box, containing the most valuable papers in the store. If anything happens be sure to look after them. Now good-bye, old fellow. Don’t go to sleep, and look out for me inside of two hours.” And he was gone.

’Lijah listened to his retreating footsteps with intense satisfaction.

“Hi! Ain’t dis a Chris’mus Eve fer ole ’Lijah!” he said, softly, taking a survey of his surroundings, and proceeding to settle himself in one of the most uncomfortable chairs in the room.

Pretty soon he looked at the clock. The hand indicated exactly half-past seven.

“Reck’n I’ll begin dis yere business on time,” he soliloquized, picking up the lantern Farley had left for him.

It would have been laughable, and pathetic at the same time, had any one been there to see how anxiously he peered into every corner for signs of danger; scrutinizing the door mats, gravely pausing before tables and desks, giving a comprehensive glance now and then at the ceiling, stepping on tiptoe, and, with eyes as round as saucers, listening as he approached each door. This entire performance he repeated regularly on the quarter-hours, as Farley had told him; his features relaxing into his gleeful chuckle each time, as he found himself in the cosy office, with all well behind him.

Meanwhile the hands of the clock upon the wall crept round in leisurely fashion to nine, half-past, ten; and ’Lijah’s broad, white smile expanded further and further as no Farley appeared.

“He’s done trus’ me lots dis yere night, sho’ly,” he repeated again. “Guess you’s a tol’able good watchman, po’ ole ’Lijah, you is. Hi! dat’s some o’ Miss Rosy’s work, sho’ ’nuff!”

He had finished his quarter-past-ten round, and had been sitting for some time in his straight-backed chair, singing softly to himself, and ruminating on Mars’ George’s manifold virtues and the fair face of his lady, and was watching the clock for the signal of his next survey of the premises, when he noticed a peculiar effect in the upper portion of the room. The ceiling seemed to be going farther and farther away, lifting higher and higher. Was he falling asleep then, after all, like an unfaithful sentinel? He sat bolt upright, rubbed his smarting eyes, and looked up again. The ceiling was almost out of sight. At the same moment the old negro was seized with a violent fit of coughing. He sprang to his feet, trembling in every limb. There was no longer any mystery about it; the room was rapidly filling with smoke, which poured in steadily through the transom over the office door.

’Lijah stood a moment and tried to think. Then he ran, lantern in hand, into the entry and down the stairs, uttering incoherent cries of “O Lor’! O Mars’ George! Look yere, look yere! O ’Lijah, you wuf’less ole—O Lor’, O Lor’!” Scrambling, tumbling, sliding, he found his way down through the stifling smoke, which boiled up in an ever increasing volume from the basement. Reaching the street, ’Lijah ran plump into a policeman, and, his teeth chattering with terror, tried to tell him what was the matter.

But his haste was needless, for even while he spoke, deep voices were repeating ’Lijah’s message in solemn, measured tones, above the roofs all over the city; a low roar, growing louder each instant, arose far down the street. Louder and louder, mingled with a jangling of gongs and dismal blowing of horns, as the mighty foes of the fire gathered to their work. Suddenly the crowd, which seemed to have sprung up out of the ground, fled to right and left. A magnificent pair of black horses dashed fiercely up before the store, leaving behind them a long trail of floating sparks from the beautiful, glistening creature of brass and steel at their backs. Then came one piece of apparatus after another, engines, ladders and hose. In the confusion and uproar of their arrival, the policeman had quite forgotten the trembling old black man and his lantern. Now he looked around and saw him crowding his way toward the store, from which tongues of flame began to dart viciously.

“Come back there!” shouted the officer sternly, rushing upon ’Lijah and jerking him backward so that he nearly fell. “Don’t you see the stairway’s all on fire?”

“B-b-but Mars’ George done trus’”—

“I don’t know anything about that,” interrupted the policeman, pushing back the crowd to right and left. “You can’t go in there again, and that’s all there is about it.”

A determined look came into ’Lijah’s dark face. He stopped shaking and watched his chance. It came soon, and with a movement wonderfully quick for such an old man, he darted through the line and toward the burning building.

“Stop him! Stop the nigger!” shouted half a dozen voices. “He’s crazy!”

Two or three firemen sprang forward, but it was too late. An involuntary and audible shudder went through the crowd as he plunged into the black stairway, stooping to avoid the flames which curled around the posts above his head.

In another minute some one cried out, “Look, look! there he is, way up in the third story!”

How he had made his way through that terrible barrier, no one ever knew. There he was, gesticulating wildly at the window, shouting to the firemen, and presently holding up what appeared to be a small box. With a warning cry to those below, he dropped it, watched it as it fell and was borne safely out of danger by a uniformed officer,—and sank back upon the window sill. Those in the opposite building afterward said they could see then that he was terribly burned, but seemed in all his pain to be laughing to himself. They thought, as did the crowd below, that he was insane.

All this time the firemen were attacking the fire upon every side, but with no visible effect. The varnish and oils stored by the furniture dealers in various portions of their establishment made rallying points for the flames, which almost at the very outset had found their way through the central staircase, and so up and out of the roof. Every front window in the two lower stories poured forth its volume of fire and smoke, so that no ladders could be successfully planted. Nor could entrance be effected through the skylight, the enemy having, as I have described, taken possession of that important point. Meanwhile old ’Lijah seemed quite content to sit just inside his window and wait for what was coming fast. His grizzled head drooped gradually, and those nearest could see his lips moving. If they had been very near indeed, they would have heard him talking and singing to himself:

“‘Swing low, sweet chari-o-t,

Comin’ fer to carry me home!’

I’se done it, Mars’ George, jes’ ’s you tole me. You done trus’ ’Lijah, an’ he warn’t a-gwine to give up.

‘Whiter dan sno-o-ow! Swing low!’”

Yes, old ’Lijah, your chariot is swinging low for you, very low.

“Comin’ fer to carry me”—

The thick smoke rolls out heavily through the window overhead. The firemen keep a steady stream playing through the broken panes, and fight fiercely with their axes to reach him. It grows so hot that the people in the opposite windows hold their hands before their faces, while they watch.

Still nearer swings the great roaring chariot of fire. Lower and lower droops the faithful head upon the black, scorched hands.

His lips were still moving faintly, and he was still whispering, “Swing low, swing low, swing low,” when crash! came a burly figure, his face blackened with smoke and his rubber coat dripping with water, straight in through the window. Without a word he seized ’Lijah firmly around the waist and raised himself upright on the window-sill; then looking upward he shouted, hoarsely, “Haul away!”

The crowd held their breath as the two figures swung out into the air at that fearful height, and spun round once or twice before they were drawn up—up—inch by inch, and landed safe and sound on the roof. Then up went such a shout as has rarely been heard in this good city; a great, beautiful, manly cry of triumph and joy, such as the angels might utter over him who was lost.

It was a long time before ’Lijah could realize that he had not been borne away in his chariot, that had swung so low. I believe he felt a pang of disappointment when he first looked at his wrinkled, scarred hands, and found they were not “whiter than snow.” But Rosy, dear, repentant little Rosy, soon found ways to comfort him; for she would not hear of his staying in the hospital, because she knew it was all her fault, she said, keeping George so long. So ’Lijah is quite as content to stay on the earth a little while longer as he was to go. For does not Mars’ George come every evening and sit by him, and tell him they must live together always? and doesn’t ’Lijah know, too, that the crowning glory of his life is to be on next Christmas Eve, just a year from the great fire, when Miss Rosy will be Miss Rosy no longer, and he is to enter upon permanent duties in her new home?

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IV
A CHRISTMAS REVERIE

It was growing late, on a certain December evening, when I put on my dressing-gown and slippers, turned off the gas, drew my easy chair up in front of the blazing wood fire, and settled back with a long breath of comfort, thanking my lucky stars that work was over, for that day at any rate. Not that any stars were in sight, lucky or otherwise. In the first place, the windows were covered with a heavy, fuzzy layer of frost, except up in one corner where I couldn’t possibly look out without climbing into a chair; and in the next place, even if I had raised the sash, which I was by no means inclined to do, I should have seen nothing but a great, white, howling blur of snow, tossing and foaming between the brick walls which confined it, like the rapids of Niagara.

In fact the wind was with difficulty kept outside at all, and at intervals would knock savagely at the frosted pane, or shout down the chimney, to the great amusement of the good-humored fire.

Now if there is anything I particularly like, it is the sound of a furious northeaster in the chimney on such a night as this. So I sat there, watching the dancing flames, feeling the grateful warmth beginning to creep through the soles of my slippers, and listening to my boisterous friend outside, when I became conscious of a curious optical effect in one of the black marble pillars which supported my mantel. As the shadows flitted to and fro about its Ionic scrolls, it looked exactly as if it were nodding its head, and the fringe of the lambrequin hung out over its forehead like a mass of disheveled hair. Yielding myself wholly to the queer fancy, I was not at all surprised to have the pillar straighten itself up until it was nearly six feet tall, and ask me in rather a severe voice what I meant by translating notus, “northeast wind?”

“I didn’t mean to, sir,” I stammered, feeling all at once greatly in awe of the projecting tuft of hair that loomed up threateningly over me. “I suppose it was because it was snowing, and the northeast wind is really”—Here I paused, for I happened to glance at the window as I spoke, and behold, there was no sign of frost or snow on the dusty pane. I looked foolish and—I had scrambled to my feet when the question was asked—sat down hastily.

“Next!” said the tall figure, bending its dark brows on a boy who had glided in unobserved and taken his seat beside me. While he was translating in a hesitating and monotonous voice what seemed to be a passage from Virgil, I had time to look about me, at the same time experiencing an odd sensation of waking up after a long sleep. It had been a wild, strange dream, then,—my college life, my adventures abroad, my business and its cares. Yes, even the few gray hairs that had begun to peep around my ears were but fancied symptoms of maturity and age. For here I was, where of course I ought to be, sitting on a hard bench, Virgil in hand, following the recitation and reading ahead hurriedly about where I thought my turn would come. Every moment the scene became more natural, and the dream-life of my manhood more and more indistinct. The old head master, Francis Gardner, whom I now recognized beyond all doubt, soon reached my end of the class once more, but before he could call on me to translate, the hands of the clock touched eleven, and we were dismissed for recess.

Down we poured over the long, worn staircase, which trembled under our tread, one flight after another, until we reached the yard. Here we played our old games, running to and fro between the high brick walls, and dodging around their sharp angles. At length the bell—I can hear its exact tones now—called to us from a window overhead, and we scrambled up again, taking our places at our desks with just as much bustle and interchange of sly thrusts as we dared. One boy was late, and the Doctor met him at the threshold.

“Now, sir,” said he sternly, looking down at the culprit, and fixing upon him a glance which I never knew to fail of inspiring awe, “Now, sir, do you want a rasping?” The boy shuffled his feet back and forth on the floor, twisted his hat in his hands, and began to mumble an excuse.

“Look here,” said the tall figure, “you can take either of the two horns of the dilemma,” holding up two fingers. “Either you went so far away that you couldn’t hear the bell, or you didn’t start when you did hear it. Which horn will you take?”

How that boy trembled as he surveyed those long, gaunt fingers on which hung his fate! Foolish fellow, not to know the warm heart that was beating behind all the kind old Doctor’s frowns! For do I not remember his many gentle deeds, often done in secret and found out by accident? It seems only yesterday, when, having sent one of his scholars away in disgrace, and learned a few days later that the boy was at home and sick, he had misgivings that he had been unjust, and appeared at that boy’s door after school hours with a bouquet at least a foot in diameter, and the injunction—awkwardly enough given—that the boy should not be worried about what had occurred, nor about the lessons he was losing. Feeble as he was, with age and disease fast laying hold upon him, the head master had traversed the entire breadth of the city in the dead of winter to leave this message for the pupil he feared he had wronged.

While I was reflecting upon these things the Doctor had finished his rebuke to the tardy boy and left the room. Others came and went. The boys’ faces were all familiar, and my heart brimmed over with delight as I recognized those whom, in my dream of college and business, I had thought of as sober, work-a-day men. Here was the round-eyed, mischievous fellow whom I had fancied to be a learned physician; another, a librarian; a third, a student and teacher of German, but now, bereft of whiskers and bass voice, once more a boy, and the scapegrace of the class. Then there were the teachers. One, whose fair, scholarly face I had never expected to see again on this earth, was busily explaining a Latin exercise to the class, with the aid of several old vellum-bound books he had brought from his own private library. Another bustled in with a carpetbag and a hearty, cheery air; compared the school clock with his watch (of whose almost superhuman accuracy we boys always stood in awe), and heard us recite in French. This lesson passed off with a briskness and good will that waked us all up as if we had been out in the fresh air, and left us keen for the next study. Meanwhile I caught glimpses of other teachers, all more or less associated with the dearest and best days of my life. There was he who once invited us all out to skate on his pond, in the country; who knew how to be stern with wrong-doers, but who was known to stay late in the afternoon, day after day, to hear a sick boy recite lessons in his home, that the little fellow might not fall behind his class, and so lose a possible chance for a prize. In my after-dream, his hair had been threaded with gray; but now it was brown, as I remembered it of old. Still another was a young man whose even-handed justice—“squareness,” we used to call it—was proverbial among my schoolmates. I had heard that his own son had since grown old enough to pass through college most honorably, and that he himself had taken the place of the grim Doctor in some strange air-castle of a new schoolhouse, far from its former site. Now I realized that I was back in the old days, and laughed to myself so loud that nothing but a disingenuous cough, into which I dexterously turned my mirth, saved me a mark for misconduct.

But now the room was hushed, as the master addressed us in quiet, earnest tones. He was bidding us good-bye for a few days, and ended by wishing us all a Merry Christmas.

Bless me, how we did throng around the desk on our way out, and return his hearty greeting! In spite of my sense of the reality of the whole scene, I could not dispel a strange foreboding that I was saying farewell to school and master forever. The twilight shadows of the short winter afternoon—it was storming furiously now, and had grown quite dark within doors—gathered about the old man’s form as he sat there shaking hands with one after the other, his eyes twinkling in their deep sockets, and meeting with kindly glance the fresh young boy faces around him. In a moment more this was all forgotten, for we had reached the street, and were rioting about in the snow as only boys let out from school for a week’s vacation can do. How we did assail policemen and wagon-drivers and pretty girls, to be sure! These last were on their way home from school, too, and many were the laughing glances and shy smiles that were flung us in return for our harmless pats of snow.

Full of the merriment of the day, although not yet aware that it was really Christmas Eve, I made my way up to Boylston Market, which was completely transfigured from a rather jail-like and dreary receptacle for unpleasantly red shoulders of mutton and beef, to a wonderland of evergreen and holly; it had not yet given place to a great dry-goods emporium. Here I saw my former teachers—God bless them, every one!—approach in a group, very much like boys themselves, for the time, and select various wreaths and bunches of green for home. I touched my “B. L. S.” cap respectfully as they passed, but a flurry of snow came between and they did not see me. I stretched out my hand to them, but they were gone. Again the aching sense of loss, the dread of finding that I was in the midst of unrealities came over me, and I shivered from head to foot. Pulling my cap low over my ears, I hurried back to Bedford Street. Alas! my worst fears were realized. The old schoolhouse was gone. Strange faces stared at me through the darkening storm. I leaned against the black iron fence, which still remained, and hid my face in my hands. As I did so, the wind moaned drearily overhead, and I heard the snow and sleet drifting against—what? My own window-panes!

Yes, the dream was truth, and the truth was a dream. I shivered again, in my easy chair, felt of my beard, stretched myself and rose stiffly to my feet. The fire had burned low, had fallen in entirely between the andirons, and the room was growing more chilly. I took some good birch sticks from the wood-box, encouraged them with a handful of dry cones, and, as they threw out their cheerful warmth, I became more and more content to remain a man, and leave my boyish days tied up, like old letters, in an out-of-the-way corner where I could take them out and live them over again at will.

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V
THE CRACKED BELL

There was no doubt whatever of its melancholy condition. Cracked it was, and cracked it had been for the last two years. Just how the crack came there, nobody knew. It was, indeed, a tiny flaw, long ago covered by green rust, and apparently as harmless as the veriest thread or a wisp of straw, lodging for a moment on the old bell’s brazen sides. But when the clapper began to swing, and gave one timid touch to the smooth inner surface of its small cell, the flaw made itself known, and as the strokes grew louder and angrier, the dissonance so clattered and battered against the ears of the parish, that after two years’ patient endurance of this infliction (which they considered a direct discipline, to humble their pride over a new coat of white paint on the little church), one small, black-bonneted sister rose in prayer-meeting and begged that the bell be left quiet, or at least muffled for one day, as it disturbed her daughter, whom all the village knew to be suffering from nervous prostration.

Emboldened by this declaration of war, a deacon declared that it was an insult to religion and its Founder, to ring such a bell. It was the laughing-stock of the village, he added, and its flat discords were but a signal for derision on the part of every scoffer and backslider in the parish.

Other evidence of convincing character was given by various members of the congregation; the bell was tried, convicted and sentenced; and more than one face showed its relief as good old Dr. Manson, the pastor, instructed the sexton publicly to omit the customary call to services on the following Sabbath.

“I hope,” he further said, looking around gravely on his people, “that you will all make more than usual effort to be in your pews promptly at half-past ten.”

For a time the members of the First Congregational Society of North Penfield were noticeably and commendably prompt in their attendance upon all services. They were so afraid that they should be late that they arrived at the meeting-house a good while before the opening hymn. Dr. Manson was gratified, the village wits were put down, and the old bell hung peacefully in the belfry over the attentive worshipers, as silent as they. Snow and rain painted its surface with vivid tints, and the swallows learned that they could perch upon it without danger of its being jerked away from their slender feet.

There was no other meeting-house in the town, and as the nearest railroad was miles away, the sound of a clear-toned bell floating down from the summer sky, or sending its sweet echoes vibrating through a wintry twilight in an oft-repeated mellow call to prayers, was almost forgotten.

Gradually the congregation fell into the habit of dropping in of a Sunday morning while the choir were singing the voluntary, or remaining in the vestibule where, behind the closed doors, they had a bit of gossip while they waited for the rustle within which announced the completion of the pastor’s long opening prayer. It became a rare occurrence for all to be actually settled in their pews when the text was given out. The same tardiness was noticeable in the Friday evening meetings; and, odd to say, a certain spirit of indolence seemed to creep over the services themselves.

Whereas in former days the farmers and their wives were wont to come bustling briskly into the vestry while the bell was ringing, and the cheerful hum of voices arose in the informal handshaking “before meeting,” soon quieting and then blending joyously in the stirring strains of “How Firm a Foundation,” or “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” followed by one brief, earnest prayer or exhortation after another, in quick succession, in these later days it was quite different. It was difficult to carry the first hymn through, as there were rarely enough good singers present to sustain the air. Now it was the pianist who was late, now the broad-shouldered mill-owner, whose rich bass was indeed a “firm foundation” for all timid sopranos and altos; now the young man who could sing any part with perfect confidence, and often did wander over all four in the course of a single verse, lending a helping hand, so to speak, wherever it was needed.

The halting and dispirited hymn made the members self-distrustful and melancholy at the outset. There were long pauses during which all the sluggish or tired-out brothers and sisters nodded in the heated room, and the sensitive and nervous clutched shawl fringes and coat buttons in agonized fidgets. The meetings became so dull and heavy that slight excuses were sufficient to detain easy-going members at home, especially the young people. It was a rare sight now to see bright eyes and rosy cheeks in the room. The members discussed the dismal state of affairs, which was only too plain, and laid the blame on the poor old minister.

“His sermons haven’t the power they had once, Brother Stimpson,” remarked Deacon Fairweather, shaking his head sadly, as they trudged home from afternoon service one hot Sunday in August. “There’s somethin’ wantin’. I don’t jestly know what.”

“He ain’t pussonal enough. You want to be pussonal to do any good in a parish. There’s Squire Radbourne, now. Everybody knows he sets up Sunday evenin’s and works on his law papers. I say there ought to be a reg’lar downright discourse on Sabbath breakin’.”

“Thet’s so, thet’s so,” assented the deacon. “And Brother Langworth hasn’t been nigh evenin’ meetin’ for mor’n six weeks.”

From one faulty member to another they wandered, forgetting, as they jogged along the familiar path side by side, the banks of goldenrod beside them, the blue sky and fleecy clouds above, the blue hills in the distance, and all the glory and brightness of the blessed summer day.

The next morning, North Penfield experienced a shock. The white-haired pastor, overcome by extra labor, increasing cares, the feebleness of age, or a combination of all these causes, had sunk down upon his bed helplessly, on his return from the little white meeting-house the afternoon before, never to rise again until he should leave behind him the weary earth-garments that now but hindered his slow and painful steps.

The townspeople were greatly concerned, for the old man was dearly loved by young and old. Those who of late had criticised now remembered Dr. Manson’s palmy days, when teams came driving in from Penfield Center, “The Hollow,” and two or three other adjoining settlements, to listen to the impassioned discourses of the young clergyman.

A meeting of the committee was called at once, to consider the affairs of the bereft church—for bereft they felt it to be—and take steps for an immediate supply during the vacancy of the pulpit. Two months later Dr. Manson passed peacefully away, and there was one more mound in the little churchyard.

The snows of early December already lay deep on road and field before the North Penfield Parish, in a regularly-called and organized meeting, was given to understand that a new minister was settled. Half a dozen candidates had preached to the people but only one had met with favor.

Harold Olsen was a Norwegian by parentage, though born in America. Tall and straight as the pines of the Norseland, with clear, flashing blue eyes and honest, winning smile, the congregation began to love him before he was half through his first sermon. His sweet-faced little wife made friends with a dozen people between services; by nightfall the question was practically settled, and so was the Rev. Harold Olsen, “the new minister,” as he was called for years afterward.

At the beginning of the second week in December, Harold ascended the pulpit stairs of the North Penfield meeting-house, feeling very humble and very thankful in the face of his new duties. He loved his work, his people, his wife and his God; and here he was, with them all four at once.

Sleigh-bells jingled merrily outside the door; one family after another came trooping in, muffled to the ears, and moved demurely up the central or side aisles to their high-backed pews.

The sunlight found its way in under the old-fashioned fan-shaped blinds at the tops of the high windows, and rested upon gray hair and brown, on figures bowed with grief and age, on restless, eager children, on the pulpit itself, and finally upon the golden-edged leaves of the old Bible.

Still the people came in. A hymn was given out and sung. While Harold was lifting his soul to heaven on the wings of his prayer, he could not help hearing the noise of heavy boots in the meeting-house entry, stamping off the snow. His fervent “Amen” was the signal for a draft of cold air from the doors, followed by a dozen late comers.

After the sermon, which was so simple and straightforward that it went directly to the hearts of the people, he hastened to confer with his deacons.

“The bell didn’t ring this morning, Brother Fairweather. What was the matter?” he asked, after a warm hand-grasp all round.

“Why, the fact is, sir, there ain’t no bell.”

“That is, none to speak of,” put in Deacon Stimpson apologetically. “There’s a bell up there, but it got so cracked an’ out o’ tune that nobody could stan’ it, sick or well.”

The Rev. Harold Olsen’s eyes twinkled. “How long have you gone without this unfortunate bell?”

“Oh! a matter o’ two or three years, I guess.”

“Weddings, funerals, and all?”

“Well, yes,” reluctantly, “I b’lieve so. I did feel bad when we follered the minister to his grave without any tollin’—he was master fond o’ hearing that bell, fust along—but there, it couldn’t be helped! Public opinion was against that ’ere particular bell, and we jes’ got laughed at, ringin’ it. So we stopped, and here we be, without it.”

Mr. Olsen’s blue eyes sparkled again as he caught his little wife’s glance, half amused, half pained. He changed the subject, and went among his parishioners, inquiring kindly for the absent ones, and making new friends.

At a quarter before three (the hour for afternoon service) he entered the meeting-house again. The sexton was asleep in one of the pews. He was roused by a summons so startling that a repetition was necessary before he could comprehend its import.

“R-ring the bell!” he gasped incredulously. “W-why, sir, it hasn’t been rung for”—

“Never mind, Mr. Bedlow,” interrupted Harold, with his pleasant smile. “Let’s try it to-day, just for a change.”

Harold had attended one or two prayer-meetings, as well as Sunday services, and—had an idea.

On reaching the entry, the sexton shivered in the cold air, and pointed helplessly to a hole in the ceiling, through which the bell rope was intended to play.

“I put it up inside out of the way, so’s the boys couldn’t get it,” he chattered. “D-don’t you think, sir, we’d better wait till”—

But it was no use to talk to empty air. The new minister had gone, and presently returned with a long heavy bench, which he handled as easily as if it were a lady’s work-basket.

“Just steady it a bit,” he asked; and Mr. Bedlow, with conscientious misgivings as to the propriety of his assisting at a gymnastic performance on Sunday, did as he was bid.

Up went the minister like a cat; and presently down came the knotted end of the rope. “Now, let’s have a good, hearty pull, Mr. Bedlow.”

The sexton grasped the rope and pulled. There was one frightened, discordant outcry from the astonished bell; and there stood poor Mr. Bedlow with about three yards of detached rope in his hands. It had broken just above the point where it passed through the flooring over his head.

“Now, sir,” expostulated the sexton.

“Here, Dick!” called Mr. Olsen, to a bright-faced little fellow who had put his head in at the door and was regarding these unwonted proceedings with round-eyed astonishment; “won’t you run over to my house and ask my wife for that long piece of clothes-line that hangs up in the kitchen closet?”

Dick was gone like a flash, his curiosity excited to the highest pitch.

“What does he want it for?” asked pretty Olga Olsen, hurrying to produce the required article.

“Don’t know,” panted Dick. “He’s got Mr. Bedlow—in the entry—an’ he sent for a rope, double quick!”

With which bewildering statement he tore out of the house and back to the church.

Five minutes later the population of North Penfield were astounded by hearing a long-silent, but only too familiar voice.

“It’s that old cracked bell!” exclaimed half a hundred voices at once, in as many families. “Do let’s go to meetin’ an’ see what’s the matter.”

The afternoon’s congregation was, in fact, even larger than the morning’s. Harold noted it with quiet satisfaction, and gave out as his text the first verse of the sixty-sixth Psalm.

At the close of his brief sermon he paused a moment, then referred to the subject in all their thoughts, speaking in no flippant or jesting tone, but in a manner that showed how sacredly important he considered the matter.

“I have been pained to notice,” he said gravely, “the tardiness with which we begin our meetings. It is perfectly natural that we should be late, when there is no general call, such as we have been accustomed to hear from childhood. I do not blame anybody in the least. I do believe that we have all grown into a certain sluggishness, both physical and spiritual, in our assembling together, as a direct consequence of the omission of those tones which to us and our fathers have always spoken but one blessed word—‘Come!’ I believe,” he continued, looking about over the kindly faces before him, “I believe you agree with me that something should be done. Don’t think me too hasty or presuming in my new pastorate, if I add that it seems to me vitally important to take action at once. Our bell is not musical, it is true, but its tones, cracked and unmelodious as they are, will serve to remind us of our church home, its duties and its pleasures. On Tuesday evening we will hold a special meeting in this house to consider the question of purchasing a new bell, to take the place of the old. The Prudential Committee, and all who are interested in the subject are urged to be present. Let us pray.”

It was a wonderful “season,” that Tuesday evening conference. The cracked bell did its quavering best for a full twenty minutes before the hour appointed, to call the people together; and no appeal could have been more irresistible.

Two-thirds of the sum required was raised that night. For ten days more the old bell rang on every possible occasion, until it became an accusing voice of conscience to the parish. Prayer-meetings once more began sharp on the hour, and proceeded with old-time vigor. The interest spread until a real revival was in progress before the North Penfield Society were fairly aware of the change. Still the “bell fund” lacked fifty dollars of completion.

On the evening of the twentieth of December, in the midst of a furious storm, a knock was heard at the parsonage, and lo, at the hastily opened door stood Squire Radbourne, powdered with snowflakes, and beaming like a veritable Santa Claus.

“I couldn’t feel easy,” he announced, after he had been relieved of coat and furs, and seated before the blazing fire, “to have next Sunday go by without a new bell on the meeting-house. We must have some good hearty ringing on that morning, sure; it’s the twenty-fifth, you know. So here’s a little Christmas present to the parish—or the Lord, either way you want to put it.”

The crisp fifty-dollar note he laid down before the delighted couple was all that was needed.

Harold made a quick calculation—he had already selected a bell at a foundry a hundred miles away—and sitting down at his desk wrote rapidly.

“I’ll mail your letter,” said the squire. “It’s right on my way—or near enough. Let’s get it off to-night, to save time.”

And away he trudged again, through the deepening drifts and the blur of the white storm.

On Saturday evening, after all the village people were supposed to be abed and asleep, two dark figures might have been seen moving to and fro in the old meeting-house, with a lantern. After some irregular movements in the entry, the light appeared in the belfry, and a little later, one queer, flat, brassy note, uncommonly like the voice of the cracked bell, rang out on the night air. Then there was absolute silence; and before long the meeting-house was locked up and left to itself again on Christmas Eve—alone, with the wonder-secret of a new song in its faithful heart, waiting to break forth in praise of God at dawn of day.

How the people started that fair Christmas morning, as the sweet, silvery notes fell on their ears! They hastened to the church; they pointed to the belfry where the bell swung to and fro in a joyous call of “Come! Come! Come! Come!”

They listened in rapt silence, and some could not restrain their sobs, while others with grateful tears in their eyes looked upon the old, rusty, cracked bell that rested, silent, on the church floor; and as they looked, and even passed their hands lovingly over its worn sides, they thanked God for its faithful service and the good work it had wrought—and for the glad hopes that filled that blessed Christmas Day.

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VI
CHRISTMAS FOLK-LORE

“At Christmas play, and make good cheer,

For Christmas comes but once a year.”

So said good Thomas Tusser, many generations ago, and his words have echoed in the hearts of old and young, rich and poor, from his day up to this blessed Year of Our Lord, 1898. Let us thank God and take courage when we remember that the Power of Evil has no one Book to set off against the Bible, and no one day to match Christmas. It is one of the gladdest and fairest signs of the times that this merry holiday, so full of good-will to men, is drawing closer and closer to the heart of the nation. For this one season in the year, everybody is thinking of everybody else, instead of himself, and we join the wise men in their march across the desert, following the Star, until we, too, find ourselves upon our knees before the manger in which the young Child was.

It is among the nations of the North, the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians and the English, that the finest and deepest significance has been attached to this holy day. Among the German peasantry, especially, are found numerous home legends, beliefs and superstitions which even the nineteenth century, with its growth of science and liberal thought, has been unable to reach. Many of these customs and beliefs have never been told in any language save that of the country in which they took their rise; the folk-lore of the Teutonic nations is still a rich storehouse of treasures for the antiquarian, and for those who love Christmas for its own truest meaning, the day when Christ was born.

The concurrence of the winter solstice with Christmas gave rise in the earliest times to many of the tales of Norse mythology. In the summer the good gods, Woden and Freia, with thousands of friendly elves, brought flowers and fruits to cheer the heart of man. But as winter came on, and the days grew ever shorter and the dark nights longer, the evil spirits held the good gods, enchanted by their power, far up among the snowy mountains, and prevented the passage of pious souls to their rest. Then came storms, and awful things upon the earth. A many-headed monster roamed the village, seizing the children, throwing them into a sack, and devouring them at its leisure. Giants descended from the hills and robbed the lonely traveler. In Denmark a frightful creature covered with a hairy robe was wont to creep into houses after dark to steal the products of the harvest, and, if it found nothing, would utter maledictions and threats, showing at the same time from beneath its covering a black face and mouth full of fire.

As Christmas time draws near, and the sun turns northward once more, Woden issues forth upon a white horse, and, followed by howling packs of dogs, drives the evil spirits to their hiding-places in the mountains. Sometimes in his wild hunt he sweeps through a house and leaves behind him a dog, who crouches upon the hearth and stays there for one year, whining, moaning, feeding on ashes, and snapping at all who approach. On the next Christmas, Woden comes for him again, and the dog leaps through the chimney to rejoin the howling pack in the tree-tops.

To this day the Germans associate the coming of Christ with the return of the sun, and the approach of spring. One of their poets sings:

“The sun in winter is God in grief,

Is Christ who cometh to bring relief.

Beneath its blessed radiance, man

Forgets that his life is but a span.

“The sun in winter is Christmastide,

Which scatters its blessings far and wide,

And sheds, through faith, o’er time’s dark sea,

The morning rays of eternity.”

“That Christmas is a holiday of light and victory,” begins Cassel, in his account of the day,[1] “every one who has lived within its influence knows full well. This victory is more sure than the return of spring, to which we look forward in December with such cheerful hope. The Spirit of Truth dwells upon loftier heights than does the creature, and its brightness chases away the shadows of many a gloomy hour, darker than the longest night of midwinter.”

[1] Weihnachten: Ursprunge, Brauche und Aberglauben.—Cassel, Leipzig.

And now the wonderful hour draws nigh. It is Christmas Eve. All nature is hushed. As the shepherds once sat around their fire upon the plains of Bethlehem, discussing, perchance, the strange portents attending the birth of the son of Zacharias, so to-night the peasants in their huts along the shores of the Baltic, or in the shadows of the Black Forest, sit before the Yule log, and talk of the birth of the Son of man. Suddenly the village bells toll for midnight. The sun appears upon the horizon and leaps three times for joy; the birds throughout the forest break forth into singing; every fir-tree blossoms into fairest flower and fruitage, and is clothed once more in soft leaves, in place of the sharp, spearpointed needles into which they were condemned to shrink when a fir-tree was used for the Saviour’s cross. All the good people of the village are praying; and hark! the cattle, upon their knees in the stable, are talking together in low tones. “A child is bo-or-rn!” lows the cow. “True-e-e,” returns the ass. “Where, where, where?” calls the shrill voice of the cock—and the lambs answer, “In Be-e-t-t-’lem!” The horses alone have nothing to say, and are upright on their feet; for when Christ was born, so the story goes, the horses who happened to be near the manger stamped and were rude, while the great, sweet-breathed oxen gazed upon the wee Baby with their mild eyes, and, with the asses and lambs, knelt in worship. For this hardness of heart horses are condemned to never have their fill of grass, and to this day they feed eagerly in the fields, but are never satisfied.

While these strange things are happening in the stables of the little German village, the gnomes are busy in the mountains, throwing out gold and precious treasures of the earth where men shall find them the coming year.

When Christmas morning dawns, which in the northern countries is not before nine or ten in the forenoon, the first loaves that come smoking from the housewife’s oven are given to the cattle. In Sweden it is the custom to tie a sheaf of grain to a pole and set it up where the birds may alight and take part in the joy and good cheer of the day. Before long the village beggars are knocking at the door, and the humblest peasant, remembering that it is the day on which God gave his only-begotten Son to the world, dispenses with a free hand his gifts to all that come.

Evergreen, and, in particular, the fir-tree, has been from the earliest times associated with Christmas, and countless tales and legends are perfumed with its spicy odors. Many are the German songs that are full of its praises.

“O northern fir, O northern fir,

In thee my heart delighteth,

How oft thy boughs at Christmastide

Have shed their blessings far and wide;—

In thee my heart delighteth.”

Hans Christian Andersen, whose happiest hours were those spent in writing pure and sweet fairytales for children, has told the story of the fir-tree in his own gentle way. Here is one more child-song, freely translated from Cassel’s notes:

Within the wood a fir-tree stands,

So stately to be seen;

In summer, spring and winter, too,

Its cloak is ever green.

Its tiny needles, fine and sharp—

Some pointing up, some down—

The thistle-finch doth take, to sew

Her pretty yellow gown.

Through snow and ice the Christ-child sends

The good old Santa Klaus,

Who straightway hews the fir-tree down

And bears it to the house.

With loving hand, the Christ-child hangs

The nuts and apples there;

A taper small upon each twig,

And cakes and dainties rare.

Then comes the blessed Christmas night,

The bell is rung—and lo!

There stands the fir-tree, green and still,

Its branches all aglow.

Thou fir-tree in the forest dark,

Soon shalt thou hence be borne.

Rejoice! for then thy branches, too,

The Christ-child shall adorn.

In Scandinavia two fir boughs are nailed crosswise before the door on Christmas day. Children go about the village, knocking at the windows with fir twigs, and receiving gifts of sugar plums. The Alsatian peasantry relate that the apostle to the people on the Rhine and Moselle was the son of the widow of Nain. Long after his miraculous resurrection he was sent westward by Saint Peter. One day he came to the steep banks of the Rhine, and, stopping to rest, fell asleep from weariness, in the shade of a fir-tree. On awaking, he found that his pilgrim’s staff had grown into the trunk of the fir, and thus plainly indicated that he had reached the appointed end of his journey.

In England, the same veneration seems to have been bestowed, time out of mind, upon the holly. Its glossy, pointed leaves symbolize the crown of thorns, and the berries the crimson blood-drops that gathered upon the Saviour’s brow. Like the fir, it is ever green and full of life—as the love of Christ to mankind. Indeed this almost instinctive association of green boughs and all bright, growing things with the joy and beauty of religious life, extends throughout written history. The Israelites in the desert were taught (if they had not already adopted a custom which was thus merely confirmed and sanctified) to “take the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days” (Leviticus 23: 40).

So, too, the wreaths of green leaves attributed to the Greek and Roman deities, and awarded to those who seemed most godlike, in peace or war. When Christ entered Jerusalem, the fittest expressions of the joy, the thanksgiving and the reverent worship of the multitude were the palm branches, strewn in the path of him who was victorious over Evil, and who—not conquered death, but showed him to be only the angel of Life, with the shadowy side of his face turned towards us, as he comes between us and the Everlasting Light.

In the early days of England the Druids were accustomed to go forth at Christmas and gather the sacred mistletoe; while even the poor and humbler folk brought evergreen and hung it up in their cottages, that the gentle spirits of the forest might dwell there in safety till the sun should shine again. In these modern days it has become the fashion to use evergreens more and more generously. The two largest of the Boston markets are surrounded, for a week preceding Christmas day, with a spicy forest of spruce and fir-trees, while the sidewalks are half hidden beneath great fragrant heaps of “princess pine” and “creeping Jenny,” in the form of wreaths, crosses and trimming. Holly, too, is used in larger quantities every year, and altogether the times seem to be returning, which dear old Sir Walter longed for when he sung:

Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill

But let it whistle as it will,

We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

Each age has deemed the new-born year

The fittest time for festal cheer.

And well our Christian sires of old

Loved when the year its course had rolled,

And brought blithe Christmas back again,

With all its hospitable train.

Domestic and religious rite

Gave honor to the holy night;

On Christmas eve the bells were rung;

On Christmas eve the mass was sung;

That only night in all the year,

Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.

The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;

The hall was dressed with holly green;

Forth to the wood did merry men go,

To gather in the mistletoe.

Then opened wide the baron’s hall

To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;

Power laid his rod of rule aside,

And ceremony doffed his pride;

All hailed with uncontrolled delight

And general voice the happy night

That to the cottage, as the crown,

Brought tidings of salvation down.

England was merry England, when

Old Christmas brought his sports again.

’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;

’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer

The poor man’s heart through half the year.

Of all the supernatural visitors who roused old Scrooge from his slumbers in Dickens’ immortal “Carol,” by far the most interesting was the Ghost of Christmas Present. The Past is a memory; the Future a dream; the Present is ours. With its ghost—or its spirit, to free ourselves from uncanny associations with the name—we are intimately associated: it is the key-note, or rather the theme, which determines the harmony or discord of the year.

What, then, is the spirit of our own Christmas Present? what the underlying motive and thought, the impulse that turns our population out of their comfortable homes in the snowy streets during the most inclement month of our New England year, and then as universally gathers each family circle within doors on that one supreme Day of days? which decks counter, wall, window, and altar with evergreen, type of Eternal Life; which loosens the purse-strings of rich and poor; which brings the name of Christ tenderly to the lips of young and old? With all this we have much to do. Here it is, the spirit of Christmas, analyzable or not, for good or for evil.

There is much outcry nowadays against the extravagant mysticism which pervades the observance of the day. Christmas cards have run wild with grotesque fancies. Christmas games, legends, stories, plays,—even the columns of the daily press are full of them. At this season, the compositor may keep standing the words “Christmas,” “Bethlehem,” “Christ,” so often are they called into service.

There is the mysticism, the revival of the ancient myth and folk-belief; and there is the rush of “the trade” for the pecuniary advantages of the public tender-heartedness. One man gazes at the Star until he stumbles in the highway: his neighbor stands at the gates of Bethlehem on Christmas morning and takes toll. These are the extremes, never more marked, more obtrusive, than in this year of our Lord 1898.

But between the two, hurrying over the fields toward the city by the light of the Star, and thronging through the gates toward the little manger throne, are the vast numbers of honest, earnest, sincere men and women who find at Christmastide their perplexed lives made clear, their hopes brightened, their burdens lightened, their strength renewed for the twelvemonth to come.

To the mysticism, the love for glorified myth and legend, that characterizes the Spirit of Christmas Present, they find an answering chord in their own hearts, which will not be satisfied with shallow interpretations of the day; which demands something deeper, and cannot rest content with the broken clause, “On earth peace, good will toward men,” but must echo the wonderful song that rang out over the dark hill-slopes of Judæa, “Glory to God in the highest.”

As we gather about the cradle of every wee human child, born by such wondrous miracle, so on each Christmas Eve the world gathers at the rude manger where its Baby is laid, gazing into the gentle, radiant face, and whispering, “There is born this day a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord!”

“Mysticism,”—life is clothed in mystery! The birth of the poorest, meanest child, in the shabbiest attic of your street of ill repute, is a mystery far too sacred for man to divine. How shall we smile at those who find in Christmas the consummate Mystery, the holiest miracle that the weary, wondering earth has known?

The holiest, the deepest, and yet the simplest! For Christmas Day is pre-eminently a day for entering the kingdom as a child. The door of the stable is low; and we must stoop as we enter hand in hand with little folk,—so sweet, so humble, so dear to everyday, plain home-living is this Christian season of merrymaking.

The august features of the wise astrologers of the East relax, as they turn from the Star to the face of the Child. The tax-gatherer forgets his calling, and at last joins the throng of Christmas joy-makers and joy-receivers, who find kindly impersonation in “Santa Claus.”

Let the card-dealers, then, and the writers of pretty fancies—the students of folk-lore, the devotees of mystic rite—have their way; let the tradesman prosper in the time of gift-giving; and every toiler in the wide business field reap his golden harvest or glean his few sheaves, as he may. We will not cast out from the Spirit of Christmas Present its solemnity, its prosperity, its simple and innocent gayety. There is no danger at present that Christmas shall be too much observed in America: there is only the danger that its good cheer and deeper thought, its impulse of benevolence and good will toward men, shall be confined to a few days or weeks of the year.

Extremes of enthusiasm will ripen into earnest living. It is narrowness and coldness, the mere humanitarian spirit of good morals, the sneer at Christmas sentiment, that are to be dreaded. It is the spirit of “Christmas all the year round” that is to be prayed for.

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VII
MRS. BROWNLOW’S CHRISTMAS PARTY

It was fine Christmas weather. Several light snow-storms in the early part of December had left the earth fair and white, and the sparkling, cold days that followed were enough to make the most crabbed and morose of mankind cheerful, as with a foretaste of the joyous season at hand. Down town the sidewalks were crowded with mothers and sisters, buying gifts for their sons, brothers, and husbands, who found it impossible to get anywhere by taking the ordinary course of foot-travel, and were obliged to stalk along the snowy streets beside the curbstone, in a sober but not ill-humored row.

Among those who were looking forward to the holidays with keen anticipations of pleasure, were Mr. and Mrs. Brownlow, of Elm Street, Boston. They had quietly talked the matter over together, and decided that, as there were three children in the family (not counting themselves, as they might well have done), it would be a delightful and not too expensive luxury to give a little Christmas party.

“You see, John,” said Mrs. Brownlow, “we’ve been asked, ourselves, to half a dozen candy-pulls and parties since we’ve lived here, and it seems nothin’ but fair that we should do it once ourselves.”

“That’s so, Clarissy,” replied her husband slowly; “but then—there’s so many of us, and my salary’s—well, it would cost considerable, little woman, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you what!” she exclaimed. “We needn’t have a regular grown-up party, but just one for children. We can get a small tree, and a bit of a present for each of the boys and girls, with ice-cream and cake, and let it go at that. The whole thing sha’n’t cost ten dollars.”

“Good!” said Mr. Brownlow heartily. “I knew you’d get some way out of it. Let’s tell Bob and Sue and Polly, so they can have the fun of looking forward to it.”

So it was settled and all hands entered into the plan with such a degree of earnestness that one would have thought these people were going to have some grand gift themselves, instead of giving to others, and pinching for a month afterwards, in their own comforts, as they knew they would have to do.

The first real difficulty they met was in deciding whom to invite. John was for asking only the children of their immediate neighbors; but Mrs. Brownlow said it would be a kindness, as well as polite, to include those who were better off than themselves.

“I allus think, John,” she explained, laying her hand on his shoulder, “that it’s just’s much despisin’ to look down on your rich neighbors—as if all they’d got was money—as on your poor ones. Let’s ask ’em all: Deacon Holsum’s, the Brights, and the Nortons.” The Brights were Mr. Brownlow’s employers.

“Anybody else?” queried her husband, with his funny twinkle. “P’raps you’d like to have me ask the governor’s family, or Jordan & Marsh!”

“Now, John, don’t you be saucy,” she laughed, relieved at having carried her point. “Let’s put our heads together, and see who to set down. Susie will write the notes in her nice hand, and Bob can deliver them, to save postage.”

“Well, you’ve said three,” counted Mr. Brownlow on his fingers. “Then there’s Mrs. Sampson’s little girl, and the four Williamses, and”—he enumerated one family after another, till nearly thirty names were on the list.

Once Susie broke in, “O Pa, don’t invite that Mary Spenfield; she’s awfully stuck-up and cross!”

“Good!” said her father again. “This will be just the thing for her. Let her be coffee and you be sugar, and see how much you can sweeten her that evening.”

In the few days that intervened before the twenty-fifth, the whole family were busy enough, Mrs. Brownlow shopping, Susie writing the notes, and the others helping wherever they got a chance. Every evening they spread out upon the sitting-room floor such presents as had been bought during the day. These were not costly, but they were chosen lovingly, and seemed very nice indeed to Mr. Brownlow and the children, who united in praising the discriminating taste of Mrs. B., as with justifiable pride she sat in the center of the room, bringing forth her purchases from the depths of a capacious carpetbag.

The grand final expenditure was left until the day before Christmas. Mr. Brownlow got off from his work early, with his month’s salary in his pocket, and a few kind words from his employers tucked away even more securely in his warm heart. He had taken special pains to include their children for his party, and he was quietly enjoying the thought of making them happy on the morrow.

By a preconcerted plan he met Mrs. Brownlow under the great golden eagle at the corner of Summer and Washington streets; and, having thus joined forces, the two proceeded in company toward a certain wholesale toy-shop where Mr. Brownlow was acquainted, and where they expected to secure such small articles as they desired, at dozen rates.

And now Mr. Brownlow realized what must have been his wife’s exertions during the last fortnight. For having gallantly relieved her of her carpetbag, and offered his unoccupied arm for her support, he was constantly engaged in a struggle to maintain his hold upon either one or the other of his charges, and rescuing them with extreme difficulty from the crowd. At one time he was simultaneously attacked at both vulnerable points, a very stout woman persisting in thrusting herself between him and his already bulging carpetbag, on the one hand, and an equally persistent old gentleman engaged in separating Mrs. Brownlow from him, on the other. With flushed but determined face he held on to both with all his might, when a sudden stampede, to avoid a passing team, brought such a violent pressure upon him that he found both Clarissa and bag dragged from him, while he himself was borne at least a rod away before he could stem the tide. Fortunately, the stout woman immediately fell over the bag, and Mr. Brownlow, having by this means identified the spot where it lay, hewed his way, figuratively speaking, to his wife and bore her off triumphantly. At last, to the relief of both, they reached the entrance of the toy-dealer’s huge store. Mr. Brownlow at once hunted up his friend, and all three set about a tour of the premises.

It was beyond doubt a wonderful place. A little retail shop, in the Christmas holidays, is of itself a marvel; but this immense establishment, at the back doors of which stood wagons constantly receiving cases on cases of goods directed to all parts of the country, was quite another thing. Such long passageways there were, walled in from floor to ceiling with boxes of picture-blocks, labeled in German; such mysterious, gloomy alcoves, by the sides of which lurked innumerable wild animals with glaring eyes and rigid tails; such fleets of Noah’s arks, wherein were bestowed the patriarch’s whole family (in tight-fitting garments of yellow and red) and specimens of all creation, so promiscuously packed together that it must have been extremely depressing to all concerned; such a delicious smell of sawdust and paint and wax; in short such presentation of Toy in the abstract, and Toy in particular, and Toy overhead, and underfoot, and in the very air,—could never have existed outside of Cottlow & Co.’s, Manufacturers, Dealers, and Importers of Toys.

Mrs. Brownlow was fairly at her wits’ end to choose. When she meekly inquired for tin soldiers, solid regiments of them sprang up, like Jason’s armed men, at her bidding. At the suggestion of a doll, the world seemed suddenly and solely peopled with these little creatures, and winking, crying, walking and talking dolls crowded about the bewildered customers,—dolls with flaxen hair, and dolls with no hair at all; dolls of imposing proportions when viewed in front, but of no thickness to speak of, when held sideways; dolls as rigid as mummies, and dolls who exhibited an alarming tendency to double their arms and legs up backward. To add to the confusion, the air was filled with the noise of trumpets, drums, musical boxes and other instruments, which were being tested in various parts of the building, until poor Mrs. Brownlow declared she should go distracted. At length, however, she and her husband, with the assistance of their polite friend, succeeded in selecting two or three dozen small gifts, and, when the last purchase was concluded, started for home.

After a walk of ten minutes, they reached Boylston Market, where they were at once beset by venders of evergreen and holly wreaths, crosses and stars of every description. Mr. Brownlow bought half a dozen of the cheaper sort of wreaths, which the owner kindly threaded upon his arm, as if they were a sort of huge, fragrant beads. Then he selected a tree, and, after a short consultation with Mrs. Brownlow, decided to carry it home himself, to save a quarter. A horse-car opportunely passing, they boarded it, Mrs. Brownlow and her bag being with some difficulty squeezed in through the rear door, and Mr. Brownlow taking his stand upon the front platform, from which the tree, which had been tightly tied up, projected like a bowsprit, until they reached home.

Great was the bustle at 17 Elm Street that night. Parcels were unwrapped; the whole house was pleasantly redolent of boiling molasses; and from the kitchen there came at the same time a scratchy and poppy sound, denoting the preparation of mounds of feathery corn. Bob and his father took upon themselves the uprearing of the tree. On being carried to the parlor it was found to be at least three feet too long, and Mr. Brownlow, in his shirt-sleeves, accomplished wonders with a saw, smearing himself in the process with pitch, from head to foot.

The tree seemed at first inclined to be sulky, perhaps at having been decapitated and curtailed; for it obstinately leaned backward, kicked over the soapbox in which it was set, bumped against Mr. Brownlow, tumbled forward, and in short, behaved itself like a tree which was determined to lie on its precious back all the next day, or perish in the attempt. At length, just as they were beginning to despair of ever getting it firm and straight, it gave a little quiver of its limbs, yielded gracefully to a final push by Bob, and stood upright, as fair and comely a Christmas tree as one would wish to see. Mr. Brownlow crept out backward from under the lower branches, (thereby throwing his hair into the wildest confusion and adding more pitch to himself), and regarded it with a sigh of content. Such presents as were to be disposed of in this way were now hung upon the branches; then strings of pop-corn, bits of wool, and glistening paper, a few red apples, and lastly the candles. When all was finished, which was not before midnight, the family withdrew to their beds, with weary limbs and brains, but with light-hearted anticipation of to-morrow.

“Do you s’pose Mrs. Bright will come with her children, John?” asked Mrs. Brownlow, as she turned out the gas.

“Shouldn’t—wonder”—sleepily from the four-poster.

“Did Mr. Bright say anything about the invitation we sent, when he paid you off?”

Silence. More silence. Good Mr. Brownlow was asleep, and Clarissa soon followed him.

Meanwhile the snow, which had been falling fast during the early part of the evening, had ceased, leaving the earth as fair to look upon as the fleece-drifted sky above it. Slowly the heavy banks of cloud rolled away, disclosing star after star, until the moon itself looked down, and sent a soft “Merry Christmas” to mankind. At last came the dawn, with a glorious burst of sunlight and church-bells and glad voices, ushering in the gladdest and dearest day of all the year.

The Brownlows were early astir, full of the joyous spirit of the day. There was a clamor of Christmas greetings, and a delighted medley of shouts from the children over the few simple gifts that had been secretly laid aside for them. But the ruling thought in every heart was the party. It was to come off at five o’clock in the afternoon, when it would be just dark enough to light the candles on the tree.

In spite of all the hard work of the preceding days, there was not a moment to spare that forenoon. The house, as the head of the family facetiously remarked, was a perfect hive of B’s.

As the appointed hour drew near, their nervousness increased. The children had been scrubbed from top to toe, and dressed in their very best clothes; Mrs. Brownlow wore a cap with lavender ribbons, which she had a misgiving were too gaudy for a person of her sedate years. Nor was the excitement confined to the interior of the house. The tree was placed in the front parlor, close to the window, and by half-past four a dozen ragged children were gathered about the iron fence of the little front yard, gazing open-mouthed and open-eyed at the spectacular wonders within. At a quarter before five Mrs. Brownlow’s heart beat hard every time she heard a strange footstep in their quiet street. It was a little odd that none of the guests had arrived; but then, it was fashionable to be late!

Ten minutes more passed. Still no arrivals. It was evident that each was planning not to be the first to get there, and that they would all descend on the house and assault the door-bell at once. Mrs. Brownlow repeatedly smoothed the wrinkles out of her tidy apron, and Mr. Brownlow began to perspire with responsibility.

Meanwhile the crowd outside, recognizing no rigid bonds of etiquette, rapidly increased in numbers. Mr. Brownlow, to pass the time and please the poor little homeless creatures, lighted two of the candles.

The response from the front-yard fence was immediate. A low murmur of delight ran along the line, and several dull-eyed babies were hoisted, in the arms of babies scarcely older than themselves, to behold the rare vision of candles in a tree, just illumining the further splendors glistening here and there among the branches.

The kind man’s heart warmed towards them, and he lighted two more candles. The delight of the audience could now hardly be restrained, and the babies, having been temporarily lowered by the aching little arms of their respective nurses, were shot up once more to view the redoubled grandeur.

The whole family had become so much interested in these small outcasts that they had not noticed the flight of time. Now some one glanced suddenly at the clock, and exclaimed, “It’s nearly half-past five!”

The Brownlows looked at one another blankly. Poor Mrs. Brownlow’s smart ribbons drooped in conscious abasement, while mortification and pride struggled in their wearer’s kindly face, over which, after a moment’s silence, one large tear slowly rolled, and dropped off.

Mr. Brownlow gave himself a little shake and sat down, as was his wont upon critical occasions. As his absent gaze wandered about the room, so prettily decked for the guests who didn’t come, it fell upon a little worn, gilt-edged volume on the table. At that sight, a new thought occurred to him. “Clarissy,” he said softly, going over to his wife and putting his arm around her, “Clarissy, seein’s the well-off folks haven’t accepted, don’t you think we’d better invite some of the others in?” And he pointed significantly toward the window.

Mrs. Brownlow, despatching another tear after the first, nodded. She was not quite equal to words yet. Being a woman, the neglect of her little party cut her even more deeply than it did her husband.

Mr. Brownlow stepped to the front door. Nay more, he walked down the short flight of steps, took one little girl by the hand, and said in his pleasant, fatherly way,

“Wouldn’t you like to go in and look at the tree? Come, Puss” (to the waif at his side), “we’ll start first.”

With these words he led the way back through the open door, and into the warm, lighted room. The children hung back a little, but seeing that no harm came to the first guest, soon flocked in, each trying to keep behind all the rest, but at the same time shouldering the babies up into view as before.

In the delightful confusion that followed, the good hosts forgot all about the miscarriage of their plans. They completely outdid themselves, in efforts to please their hastily acquired company. Bob spoke a piece, the girls sang duets. Mrs. Brownlow had held every individual baby in her motherly arms before half an hour was over. And as for Mr. Brownlow, it was simply marvelous to see him go among those children, giving them the presents, and initiating their owners into the mysterious impelling forces of monkeys with yellow legs and gymnastic tendencies; filling the boys’ pockets with pop-corn, blowing horns and tin whistles; now assaulting the tree (it had been lighted throughout, and—bless it—how firm it stood now!) for fresh novelties, now diving into the kitchen and returning in an unspeakably cohesive state of breathlessness and molasses candy,—all the while laughing, talking, patting heads, joking, until the kindly Spirit of Christmas Present would have wept and smiled at once, for the pleasure of the sight.

“And now, my young friends,” said Mr. Brownlow, raising his voice, “we’ll have a little ice-cream in the back room. Ladies first, gentlemen afterward!” So saying, he gallantly stood on one side, with a sweep of his hand, to allow Mrs. Brownlow to precede him. But just as the words left his mouth there came a sharp ring at the door-bell.

“It’s a carriage!” gasped Mrs. Brownlow, flying to the front window, and backing precipitately. “Susie, go to that door an’ see who ’tis. Land sakes, what a mess this parlor’s in!” And she gazed with a true housekeeper’s dismay at the littered carpet and dripping candles.

“Deacon Holsum and Mrs. Hartwell, Pa!” announced Susie, throwing open the parlor door.

The lady thus mentioned came forward with outstretched hand. Catching a glimpse of Mrs. Brownlow’s embarrassed face she exclaimed quickly—

“Isn’t this splendid! Father and I were just driving past, and we saw your tree through the window, and couldn’t resist dropping in upon you. You won’t mind us, will you?”

“Mind—you!” repeated Mrs. Brownlow, in astonishment. “Why of course not—only you are so late—we didn’t expect”—

Mrs. Hartwell looked puzzled.

“Pardon me,—I don’t think I quite understand”—

“The invitation was for five, you know, ma’am.”

“But we received no invitation!”

Mr. Brownlow, who had greeted the deacon heartily and then listened with amazement to this conversation, now turned upon Bob, with a signally futile attempt at a withering glance.

Bob looked as puzzled as the rest, for a moment. Then his face fell, and he flushed to the roots of his hair.

“I—I—must have—forgot”—he stammered.

“Forgotten what?”

“The invitations—they’re in my desk now!”

Thus Bob, with utterly despairing tone and self-abasement.

Mrs. Hartwell’s silvery little laugh rang out—it was as near moonlight playing on the upper keys of an organ as anything you can imagine—and grasped Mrs. Brownlow’s hand.

“You poor dear!” she cried, kissing her hostess, who stood speechless, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, “so that’s why nobody came! But who has cluttered—who has been having such a good time here, then?”

Mr. Brownlow silently led the last two arrivals to the door of the next room, and pointed in. It was now the kind deacon’s turn to be touched.

“‘Into the highways’!” he murmured, as he looked upon the unwashed, hungry little circle about the table.

“I s’pose,” said Mr. Brownlow doubtfully, “they’d like to have you sit down with ’em, just ’s if they were folks—if you didn’t mind?”

Mind! I wish you could have seen the rich furs and overcoat come off and go down on the floor in a heap, before Polly could catch them!

When they were all seated, Mr. Brownlow looked over to the deacon, and he asked a blessing on the little ones gathered there. “Thy servants, the masters of this house, have suffered them to come unto thee,” he said in his prayer. “Wilt thou take them into thine arms, O Father of lights, and bless them!”

A momentary hush followed, and then the fun began again. Sweetly and swiftly kind words flew back and forth across the table, each one carrying its own golden thread and weaving the hearts of poor and rich into the one fine fabric of brotherhood and humanity they were meant to form.

Outside, the snow began to fall once more, each crystaled flake whispering softly as it touched the earth that Christmas night, “Peace—peace!”

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VIII
CHRISTMAS ON WHEELS