Their Yesterdays

by Harold Bell Wright

Nor did the man again turn to his book or attempt to take up the train of thought that had so interfered with his reading. Something more compelling than any printed page—something more insistant than his own thoughts of Life and its meaning—lured him far away from his grown up days—took him back again into his days that were gone. Alone in his room that Christmas eve, the man went back, once more, to his Yesterdays—back to a Christmas in his Yesterdays.

Once again, his boyhood home was the scene of busy preparations for the Christmas gaieties. Once again, the boy, tucked snugly under the buffalo robe, drove with his parents away through the white fields to the distant town while the music in his heart kept time to the melody of the jingling bells. Once again, he experienced the happy perplexity of selecting—with mother's help—a present for father while father obligingly went to see a man on business and of choosing—with father's assistance—a gift for mother while she rested in a far corner of the store. And then, once again, he faced the trying question: what should he get for the little girl who lived next door. What, indeed, could he get for her but a beautiful new doll—one with brown hair, very like the little girl's own, and brown eyes that opened and closed as natural as life.

The next day the boy went, with his father and the little girl and her uncle, in the big sleigh, to the woods to find a tree for the Christmas "exercises" at the church; and, in the afternoon, in company with the older people, helped to make the wreaths of evergreen and deck the tree with glittering tinsel; while the little girl strung long strings of snowy pop corn and labored earnestly at the sweet task of filling mosquito bar stockings with candy and nuts.

Then came that triumphant Christmas eve, when, before the assembled Sunday school and the crowded church, the boy took part, with his class, in the entertainment and sat, with wildly beating heart, while the little girl, all alone, sang a Christmas carol; and proud he was, indeed, when the applause for the little singer was so long and loud. And then, when the farmer Santa Claus had distributed the last stocking of candy, the boy and the girl, with their elders, went home together, in the clear light of the stars; while, across the white fields, came the sound of gay laughter and happy voices mingled with the ringing music of the sleigh bells—growing fainter and fainter—as friends and neighbors went their several ways.

But, best of all—by far the best of all—was that Christmas morning at home. At the first hint of gray light in the winter sky, the boy was awake and out of bed to gather his Christmas harvest; hailing each toy and game and book with exclamations of delight and arousing all the house with his shouts of: "Merry Christmas."

The foolish, grown up, old world has a saying that we value most the things that we win for ourselves by toil and hardship; but, believe me, it is not so. The real treasures of earth are the things that are won by the toil of those who bring to us, without price, the fruits of their labor as tokens of their love.

Very early, that long ago Christmas morning, the boy went over to the little girl's house; for his happiness would not be complete until he could share it with her. And the man, who, alone in his bachelor room that Christmas eve, dreamed of his Yesterdays, saw again, with startling clearness, his boyhood mate as she stood in the doorway greeting him with shouts of, "Merry Christmas," as he went toward her through the snow; and the heart of the man beat quicker at the lovely vision—even as the heart of the boy—for she held, close in her little mother arms, the new addition to her family of dolls—his gift. The lonely man, that night, realized, as he had never realized before, how full, at that moment, was the cup of the boy's proud happiness. He realized and understood.

I wonder—do you, also, understand?

In the still house, the big clock in the lower hall struck the hour. The man in his lonely room listened, counting the strokes—nine—ten—eleven—twelve.

It was Christmas.