The Brick Moon, and Other Stories

by Edward Everett Hale

She knew what his answer would be. She knew that from his heavy face. But all the same she tried to smile, and she said,

“Found?”

“Found? No, no, dear child, nor ever will be. How is mamma?”

And Matty told him, and begged him to come and sleep in her own little room, because the children would come in in a rout at daybreak. But no! he would not hear to that. “Whatever else is left, dear Matty, we have each other. And we will not begin—on what will be a new life to all of us—we will not begin by ’bating a jot of the dear children’s joys. Matty, that is what I have been thinking of all the way as I walked home. But maybe I should not have said it, but that Beverly said it just now to me. Dear fellow! I cannot tell you the comfort it was to me to see him come in! I told him he should not have come, but he knew that he made me almost happy. He is a fine fellow, Matty, and all night long he has shown the temper and the sense of a man.”

For a moment Matty could not say a word. Her eyes were all running over with tears. She kissed her father again, and then found out how to say, “I shall tell him what you say, papa, and there will be two happy children in this house, after all.”

So she ran to Beverly’s room, found him before he was undressed, and told him. And the boy who was just becoming a man, and the girl who, without knowing it, had become a woman, kissed each other; held each other for a minute, each by both hands, looked each other so lovingly in the eyes, comforted each other by the infinite comfort of love, and then said good-night and were asleep. Tom had stolen to bed without waking his mother or his sister, some hours before.

Yes! They all slept. The little ones slept, though they had been so certain that they should not sleep one wink from anxiety. This poor jaded man slept because he must sleep. His poor wife slept because she had not slept now for two nights before. And Matty and Tom and Beverly slept because they were young and brave and certain and pure, and because they were between seventeen and twenty-two years of age. This is all to say that they could seek God’s help and find it. This is to say that they were well-nigh omnipotent over earthly ills,—so far, at the least, that sleep came when sleep was needed.

But not after seven o’clock! Venty and Diana had been retained by Flossy and Laura to call them at five minutes of seven, and Laura and Flossy had called the others. And at seven o’clock, precisely, a bugle-horn sounded in the children’s quarters, and then four grotesque riders, each with a soldier hat made of newspaper, each with a bright sash girt round a dressing-gown, each with bare feet stuck into stout shoes, came storming down the stairs, and as soon as the lower floor was reached, each mounted on a hobby-horse or stick, and with riot not to be told came knocking at Matty’s door, at Beverly’s, and at Tom’s. And these all appeared, also with paper soldier hats upon their heads, and girt in some very spontaneous costume, and so the whole troop proceeded with loud fanfaron and drum-beat to mamma’s door and knocked for admission, and heard her cheery “Come in.” And papa and mamma had heard the bugle-calls, and had wrapped some sort of shawls around their shoulders, and were sitting up in bed, they also with paper soldier hats upon them; and one scream of “Merry Christmas” resounded as the doors flew open,—and then a wild rampage of kissing and of hugging as the little ones rushed for the best places they could find on the bed—not to say in it. This was the Christmas custom.

And Tom rolled up a lounge on one side of the bed, which after a fashion widened it, and Beverly brought up his mother’s easy-chair, which had earned the name of “Moses’ seat,” on the other side, and thus, in a minute, the great broad bed was peopled with the whole family, as jolly, if as absurd, a sight as the rising sun looked upon. And then! Flossy and Beverly were deputed to go to the fender, and to bring the crowded, stiff stockings, whose crackle was so delicate and exquisite; and so, youngest by youngest, they brought forth their treasures, not indeed gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but what answered the immediate purposes better, barley cats, dogs, elephants and locomotives, figs, raisins, walnuts, and pecans.

Yes, and for one noisy half-hour not one person thought of the cloud which hung over the house only the night before!