Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: Ten Christmas stories

by Edward Everett Hale

But the two young people came down so kindly and quickly, that the Indian women could not well run away. And when Oello caught one of the little babies up, and tossed it in her arms, and fondled it, and made it laugh, the little girl's mother laughed too. And when they had all once laughed together, peace was made among them all, and Oello saw where the Indian women had been lying, and what their poor little shelters were, and she led the way there, and sat down on a log that had fallen there, and called the children round her, and began teaching them a funny game with a bit of crimson cord. Nothing pleases savage people or tame people more than attention to their children, and in less time than I have been telling this they were all good friends. The Indian women produced supper. Pretty poor supper it was. Some fresh-water clams from the lake, some snails which Oello really shuddered at, but some bananas which were very nice, and some ulloco, a root Oello had never seen before, and which she thought sickish. But she acted on her motto. "I will do the best I can," she had said all along; so she ate and drank, as if she had always been used to raw snails and to ulloco, and made the wild women laugh by trying to imitate the names of the strange food. In a few minutes after supper the sun set. There is no twilight in that country. When the sun goes down,

"Like battle target red,—
He rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the whole wave with ruddy light,
Then sinks at once, and all is night."

The savage people showed the strangers a poor little booth to sleep in, and went away to their own lairs, with many prostrations, for they really thought them "children of the sun."

Oello and her husband laughed very heartily when they knew they were alone. Oello made him promise to go in the morning early for potatoes, and oca, and mashua, which are two other tubers like potatoes which grow there. "And we will show them," said she, "how to cook them." For they had seen by the evening feast, that the poor savage people had no knowledge of the use of fire. So, early in the morning, he went up a little way on the lake shore, and returned with strings of all these roots, and with another string of fish he had caught in a brook above. And when the savage people waked and came to Oello's hut, they found her and her husband just starting their fire,—a feat these people had never seen before.

He had cut with his copper knife a little groove in some soft palm-wood, and he had fitted in it a round piece of iron-wood, and round the iron-wood had bound a bow-string, and while Oello held the palm-wood firm, he made the iron-wood fly round and round and round, till the pith of the palm smoked, and smoked, and at last a flake of the pith caught fire, and then another and another, and Oello dropped other flakes upon these, and blew them gently, and fed them with dry leaves, till they were all in a blaze.

The savage people looked on with wonder and terror. They cried out when they saw the blaze, "They are children of the sun,—they are children of the sun!"—and ran away. Oello and her husband did not know what they said, and went on broiling the fish and baking the potatoes, and the mashua, and the oca, and the ulloco.

And when they were ready, Oello coaxed some of the children to come back, and next their mothers came and next the men. But still they said, "They are children of the sun." And when they ate of the food that had been cooked for them, they said it was the food of the immortals.

Now, in Oello's home, this work of making the fire from wood had been called menial work, and was left to servants only. But even the princes of that land were taught never to order another to do what they could not do themselves. And thus it happened that the two young travellers could do it so well. And thus it was, that, because they did what they could, the savage people honored them with such exceeding honor, and because they did the work of servants they called them gods. As it is written: "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant."

And this was much the story of that day and many days. While her husband went off with the men, taught them how he caught the fish, and how they could catch huanacos, Oello sat in the shade with the children, who were never tired of pulling at the crimson cord around her waist, and at the tassels of her head-dress. All savage children are curious about the dress of their visitors. So it was easy for Oello to persuade them to go with her and pick tufts of wild cotton, till they had quite a store of it, and then to teach them to spin it on distaffs she made for them from laurel-wood, and at last to braid it and to knit it,—till at last one night, when the men came home, Oello led out thirty of the children in quite a grand procession, dressed all of them in pretty cotton suits they had knit for themselves, instead of the filthy, greasy skins they had always worn before. This was a great triumph for Oello; but when the people would gladly have worshipped her, she only said, "I did what I could,—I did what I could,—say no more, say no more."

And as the year passed by, she and her husband taught the poor people how, if they would only plant the maize, they could have all they wanted in the winter, and if they planted the roots of the ulloco, and the oca, and the mashua, and the potato, they would have all they needed of them; how they might make long fish-ways for the fish, and pitfalls for the llama. And they learned the language of the poor people, and taught them the language to which they themselves were born. And year by year their homes grew neater and more cheerful. And year by year the children were stronger and better. And year by year the world in that part of it was more and more subdued to the will and purpose of a good God. And whenever Manco, Oello's husband, was discouraged, she always said, "We will do the best we can," and always it proved that that was all that a good God wanted them to do.