These moments were all too brief. Back we came finally to the dim, stifling room, and the rather ignoble and commonplace job of trying to measure the value of a thrill by a voluntary contribution. I have had many a high hope and many a dream of a new suit of clothes blackballed on “passing the hat.” At first, when a man got up and said: “Gents, this show is worth a dollar, and I will pass the hat,” I took him at his word and expected a hat full of bills. Yet even when I shook out the lining I could find nothing larger than a dime. During that Winter I made a fine collection of buttons. It may be that most men want to keep the left hand from knowing what the right hand is up to, but evidently you must have one hand or the other under public observation if you expect much out of the owner. I have learned to have no quarrel with human nature, and I imagine after all that the hire fitted the value of the laborer’s efforts fairly well.
Christmas came to us in that valley with the same beautiful message which was carried to all. It was a cold Christmas, and as we went about our chores before day and at night the stars were brilliant. The crinkle of the ice and snow and the hum of the wind over the fences and through the trees came to me like the murmur of a faraway song. It touched us all. We saw each other in something of a new light of glory. The woman of the house, I think, regarded me as a sort of awkward hired man. Now she seemed to see a boy, far from home, struggling with rather feeble hands against the flood which swept him away from the ambition to earn an education. I am sure that it came to her that the Christmas spirit must be capitalized to help me on my way. So she organized a big gathering for Christmas Eve at which I was to “speak” and accept a donation. It was to be over in the next district, and that good woman took the sleigh and drove all over that county drumming up an “audience.” I am sure that there never was a “star” before or since who had such an advance or advertising agent as I did on that occasion. She was a good trainer, too. The day before Christmas I husked corn in the cold barn, and this delicate woman ran through the snow with two hot biscuits and a piece of meat. There I worked through the day husking corn with my hands while I “rehearsed” a few new ones with my brain and sent my heart way back to New England, where I knew the folks were thinking of me.
In these times there would have been a fleet of automobiles moored near the farmhouse, but in those days no engine had yet coughed out the gasoline in its throat. We came in sleighs and big farm “pungs.” Standing by the barn in the clear moonlight you could see the lanterns gleaming along the road, and hear the tinkle of the sleighbells and the songs which the young people were singing. Far down the road came a big farm sled loaded with young people who were singing “Seeing Nellie Home.” Sweet and clear came their fresh young voices through the crisp, frosty air:—
“Her little hand was resting
On my arm as light as foam
When from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party,
I was seeing Nellie home.
“I was seeing Nellie. I was seeing Nellie.
I was seeing Nellie home,