Thorwald shook the snow from his coat, set his skees against the wall outside, and entered the cottage.
“Take a seat here at the fire,” said the old woman, pointing to a wooden block which stood close to the hearth. “You must be very cold, and you can warm your hands while you tell me your errand.”
“Thank you, Marthie,” answered the boy, “but I have no time to sit down. I only wanted to ask you something, and if you can tell me that, I shall—I shall—love you as long as I live.”
Old Marthie smiled, and Thorwald thought for a moment that she looked almost handsome. And then she took his hand in hers and drew him gently to her side.
“You are not a witch, are you, Marthie?” he said, a little tremblingly. For Marthie’s association with the wicked fairy godmother was yet very suggestive. Then, again, her cottage seemed to be a very queer place; and it did not look like any other cottage that he had ever seen before. Up under the ceiling, which was black and sooty, hung bunches of dried herbs, and on shelves along the wall stood flower-pots, some of which had blooming flowers in them. The floor was freshly scrubbed, and strewn with juniper-needles, and the whole room smelt very clean. In a corner, between the stone hearth and the wall, a bed, made of plain deal boards, was to be seen; a shaggy Maltese cat, with sleepy, yellow eyes, was for the present occupying it, and he raised his head and gazed knowingly at the visitor, as if to say: “I know what you have come for.”
Old Marthie chuckled when Thorwald asked if she was a witch; and somehow her chuckle had a pleasant and good-natured sound, the boy thought, as he eyed her wistfully.
“Now I am sure you are not a witch,” cried he, “for witches never laugh like that. I know, now, that you are a good woman, and that you will want to help me if you can. I told you my mamma was very ill” (the tears here again broke through his voice)—“so very ill that the doctor says God will take her away from us. I sat at her door all yesterday and cried, and when papa took me in to her, she did not know me. Then I cried more. I asked papa why God makes people so ill, and he said it was something I didn’t understand, but I should understand some day. But, Marthie, I haven’t time to wait, for by that time mamma may be gone, and I shall never know where to find her; I must know now. And you, who are so very wise, you will tell me what I can do to save my mamma. Couldn’t I do something for God, Marthie—something that he would like? And then, perhaps, he would allow mamma to stay with us always.”
The tears now came hot and fast, but the boy still stood erect, and gazed with anxious questioning into the old woman’s face.
“You are a brave little lad,” she said, stroking his soft, curly hair with her stiff, crooked fingers, “and happy is the mother of such a boy. And old Marthie knows a thing or two, she also, and you shall not have come to her in vain. Once, child, more than eighteen hundred years ago, just on this very night, a strange thing happened in this world, and I dare say you have heard of it. Christ, the White, was born of Mary in the land of the Jews. The angels came down from heaven, as we read in the Good Book, and they sang strange and wonderful songs of praise. And they scattered flowers, too—flowers which only blossomed until then in heaven, in the sight of God. And one of these flowers,—sweet and pure, like the tone of an angel’s voice expressed in color—one of these wondrous flowers, I say, struck root in the soil, and has multiplied, and remains in the world until this day. It blossoms only on Christmas-eve—on the eve when Christ was born. Even in the midst of the snow, and when it is so cold that the wolf shivers in his den, this frail, pure flower peeps up for a few brief moments above the shining white surface, and then is not seen again. It is of a white or faintly bluish color; and he who touches it and inhales its heavenly odor is immediately healed of every earthly disease. But there is one singular thing about it—no one can see it unless he be pure and innocent and good; to all others the heavenly flower is invisible.”