XLII
A CHRISTMAS REUNION—A MIDNIGHT WARNING—HOW A GOOD MAN CAME TO “THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE”
“Skies bright, and brightening!” was the clan watchword, in passing along the summons for a rally in the old home at Christmas-time, 1866, that should include three generations of the name and blood.
On Sunday, December 23d, we attended church in a body, in morning and afternoon. Not one was missing from the band except my brother Herbert, whose professional duties detained him over Sunday. He was pledged to be with us early on Monday morning.
That evening, we grouped about the fire in the parlor, a wide circle that left room for the babyest of the party to disport themselves upon the rug, in the glow of the grate piled with cannel coal. My father, entering last of all, stooped to pick up a granddaughter and kiss her, in remarking:
“I had intended to go down to hear Doctor Moore to-night. I am very fond of him as man and preacher. But”—a comprehensive glance around the room, pointing the demurrer—“you look so comfortable here that I am tempted to change my mind.”
A chorus of entreaties broke forth. It had been so long since we had had—“all of us together—a Sunday evening at home; there was so much to talk of; Christmas was so near; the night was damp and raw; there would be snow by ten o’clock,” etc.—all in a breath, until the dear man put his hands to his ears, ready to promise anything and everything, for the sake of peace.
This was before supper, a jolly meal, over which we lingered until the mothers of the company had to hustle the younglings off to bed by the time we left the table.
Returning to the drawing-room after hearing my girls’ prayers, and assuaging their impatience at the lagging flight of time, by telling them that, in twenty-two hours more, they would be hanging up their stockings, I found my father alone. He stood on the rug, looking down into the scarlet depths of the coals, his hands behind him and his head bent—in thought, not in sadness, for he turned a bright face to me as my voice awoke him from his revery:
“‘A penny for your thoughts!’”
I said it gayly, laying my hand on his shoulder. He turned his cheek to meet it.