Archag, the Little Armenian

by Charles H. Schnapps

At this point I hear my readers exclaim, “What! Christmas after New Year’s Day? The world must certainly be upside-down over there!”

It does indeed seem odd to us to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in the month of January. But the Gregorians use the Greek calendar, which is twelve days later than ours. They keep Christmas on the Feast of the Three Kings, the sixth day of January, that is, the eighteenth, New Style.

President Mills had a pine tree brought from Amanus, a mountain to the west of Aintab. For several days the sun was hidden by snow-storms, and this Oriental Christmas differed little from the same season in the North. In the afternoon of Christmas Day, Professor Pagratian conducted a service in the college chapel, after which masters and pupils gathered together for dinner in the great dining-room.

The menu consisted of turkey with chestnuts, and a dessert of grapes and oranges. The boys were little used to delicacies, especially to meat, and their eyes shone with eagerness in anticipation of this feast of good things. The professors were seated at different tables; Mihran hodja and Monsieur Bernier sat with the Sophomores, one at either end of the table. The young Swiss smiled as he looked at his plate, on which were large slices of turkey, pilaaf (rice), and chestnuts, arranged in the form of a tower. Oriental usage requires that the plates be filled to the extent of their capacity, but it is very bad form not to leave a considerable part of what has been given, or one is set down as a gourmand.

Monsieur Bernier was preparing to do justice to his dinner when he observed that he had neither knife nor fork. Supposing it to be a mere oversight, he asked Garabed to get him a knife. After quite five minutes the boy returned in some embarrassment, saying he could not find one. Aram then offered his pen-knife, which, boy-fashion, he was in the habit of using for all sorts of purposes; Monsieur Bernier recalled having seen him digging in the earth with this same knife a few days before, and considered it more hygienic to decline the offer. He noticed how his companions rolled up their meat in the soft, thin bread, using a spoon for the rice and chestnuts, so he did the same, to the great delight of the boys.

The tree had been lighted in the study hall; the Seniors had decorated it with cotton-wool, oranges, apples and gilded nuts, and had laid out the presents on tables. The boys sang a hymn in English; then they made haste to open their parcels, and before long every one was engrossed with his own gifts. Archag received one Turkish pound (about four dollars and a half) from his parents, a book from his sister and another from Garabed, and Aram’s photograph. Dikran was manipulating a microscope which his brother had sent him from New York. Boghos had a kodak from America, which he was showing with pride to his friend Soghomon. No one had been forgotten; for the less fortunate boys whose parents had not been able to send them anything, Mrs. Mills had provided remembrances. After all the presents had been duly admired, the boys put them aside, to play games. At ten o’clock, tea and caghkés (little cakes) were served, and at length the boys went off to their dormitories, very happy after their festival.

The next day, the weather was so cold that every one stayed indoors, and Archag, after reading a little while, took a fancy to go upstairs to the museum, which contained good specimens of the flora and fauna of the country.

He spent a long time looking at the different collections of plants, the stuffed birds and the shells; but when that was finished, he did not know what to do with himself. What was there to do, all the rest of the afternoon? As his eyes wandered about the room, they fell on a cabinet standing partly open. He went up to it, and pushing back the door, saw that it contained some rare objects: some insects and Professor Piralian’s collection of butterflies. This worthy man had a mania for collecting; he had hunted for stones, fossils, butterflies and antique coins, by turns; at present he was asking every one for postage-stamps, which he carefully pasted in a new album. His collection of butterflies included some superb specimens which he had caught himself during a stay in Mexico. On his return to Aintab he had presented the collection to the college, where it was highly appreciated.

As the thermometer registered several degrees below zero, the furnace fire was burning at full blast, and the air in the museum, already impregnated with camphor and naphtha, was suffocating. Before long, Archag’s head was burning; he threw open one of the windows near the door, and took a good breath of fresh air. Then he returned to the cabinet and took out a glass box containing the finest specimen of the Piralian collection. It was beginning to grow dark, so he took the box to the window, which he had left open. He stood looking at the marvelous insects with their iridescent wings of blue and green and gold, and was amusing himself by trying to decipher the Latin names, when he felt a smart blow on his arm. The force of the sudden jar made him let go of the box, and down it fell with a crash, on the stone pavement of the courtyard. For an instant Archag stood motionless with fright; then he rushed into the corridor, where he heard a sound of retreating footsteps. He went back to the museum, and looking from the window he could see the shapeless fragments of the box down below. A ray of hope flashed across his mind; could it be, perhaps, that the precious insects had not been injured?

Running downstairs two steps at a time, the next moment he was in the courtyard. Alas! the butterflies were ruined; most of them were reduced to powder. In the face of this disaster Archag felt powerless, constrained by an agony of fear. He could not bring himself to think of the thing he ought to do, to go at once to Professor Piralian and tell him frankly what had happened. His only thought was that he should be expelled from the college. How dreadful, oh, how very dreadful!