A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters

by Charles A. Gunnison

Then they would talk of the terrible flood which had brought them together, and how each knew the other's love the moment their eyes had met, and of the mysterious little child who had been the medium of their first lovers' kiss.

They had become quite accustomed to the little elf's strange ways, and he no longer seemed to them to be the half supernatural creature he had at first appeared. Jovita's mother had at last discovered, she was sure, that the mysterious frock was nothing more nor less remarkable than a kind of goat hair woven carefully and fine.

So thus was the little elfin Christchild resolved by the power of familiarity into the orphan of some German emigrants who had lost their lives in the great flood; nevertheless, strangers never passed him without giving a second glance and never heard him sing in his sweet, odd tones, without wondering.

Crescimir and Jovita were married at Tulucay on the day before Christmas and walked over the fields to the new house on the knoll by the laurel tree, the Christchild going with them.

He had decorated his head and frock with blossoms of early mariposas (calochortus) in honour of the occasion, and his joy seemed uncontrollable and he skipped over the meadow scarcely seeming to tread upon the ground.

There was a bright fire in the cottage when they reached it; the fire was in an open fireplace similar to that which had been in the old cabin.

As they entered, the Christchild, running up to the hearth, pointed to the chimney piece, and then turning to Crescimir with a look which could not be misunderstood, began in his odd notes to sing.

Crescimir then first noticed that there was no hemlock branch above the hearth, so taking one from the other side of the room where they hung in festoons, he fastened it with a bunch of toyone berries over the chimney piece.

The sun was set and in the crimson glow with which the heavens were painted, just above the low, black hills, shone bright and silvery the Evening Star.

Crescimir, with Jovita leaning on his shoulder, stood at the west window looking out over the misty valley where the real seemed ghostlike in the gray evening haze, and even those things with which they were familiar, seemed in the fading light to take to themselves unknown forms.