“The only one in the neighborhood for Christmas,” said the old lady. “You don’t know how proud I am of it. It has been such a joy to me to see it slowly grow, and, oh, think of what it means to have it come at Christmas!”
But the donatee has little time for small talk. He always earns his donation, and whatever happened to it later, I earned it that night. They finally stopped me for supper. The minister alluded to it as “the bounteous repast which we are now asked to enjoy.” My friend the trustee stood by the door and shouted:
“Hoe in—help yourself!”
It was getting on toward Christmas Day when I stood up in the corner to end the entertainment. I had intended to end with Irwin Russell’s “Christmas Night in the Quarters,” with negro dialect, but as I was about to start my eye fell upon a group by that little table. The “old aunt” sat looking at me, and by her side stood the “homely” woman, her hand resting upon the older woman’s shoulder. I wonder if you have ever had a vision come to you at Christmas—or any other time! A great, mysterious, beautiful vision, in which you look forward into the years and are given to see some great thing which is hidden from most men until too late. It came to me as I watched those women that the finest test of character, the noblest part of the Christmas spirit, was not the glory of caring for helpless childhood, but the higher sacrifice of love and duty for the aged.
And so, almost before I knew it, I found myself reciting Will Carleton’s poem, “Over the Hill to the Poorhouse!” What a sentiment to bring into a happy Christmas party—by the donatee at that—one who had been hired “to make them laugh”!
I knew it all, yet my mind jumped across the long miles and I thought of my own mother growing old and waiting in silence that I might have opportunity!
“Over the hill to the poorhouse
I’m trudging my weary way.
I a woman of sixty,