“That’s a puzzler, mammy—poor and rich both!”
“I daresay it is a puzzler,” replied Mrs Matterby, with a laugh, “but be off with your basket and message, my son; some day you shall understand it better.”
Pondering deeply on this “puzzler,” the boy went off on his mission, trudging through the deep snow which whitened the earth and brightened that Christmas morning.
“She’s as merry as a cricket to-day,” said Natty Grove, who opened the cottage door when his friend knocked.
“Yes, as ’erry as a kiket,” echoed flaxen-haired Nellie, who stood beside him.
“She’s always ’erry,” said Jack, giving the little girl a gentle pull of the nose by way of expressing good will. “A merry Christmas both! How are you? See here, what mother has sent to old Nell.”
He opened the lid of the basket. Nattie and Nellie peeped in and snuffed.
“Oh! I say!” said the fisher-boy. He could say no more, for the sight and scent of apples, jelly, roast fowl, home-made pastry, and other things was almost too much for him.
“I expected it, dearie,” said old Nell, extending her withered hand to the boy as he set the basket on the table. “Every Christmas morning, for years gone by, she has sent me the same, though I don’t deserve it, and I’ve no claim on her but helplessness. But it’s the first time she has sent it by you, Jack. Come, I’ll tell ye a story.”
Jack was already open-eyed with expectancy and he was soon open-mouthed, forgetful of past and future, absorbed entirely in the present. Natty and Nelly were similarly affected and like-minded, while the little old woman swept them away to the wilds of Siberia and told them of an escape from unjust banishment, of wanderings in the icy wilderness, and of starvation so dire that the fugitives were reduced to gnawing and sucking the leathern covers of their wallets for dear life. Then she told of food sent at the last moment, almost by miracle, and of hair-breadth escapes, and final deliverance. Somehow—the listeners could not have told how—old Nell inserted a reference to the real miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and she worked round to it so deftly, that it seemed an essential part of the story; and so indeed it was, for Nell intended the key-stone of the arch of her story to be the fact that when man is reduced to the last extremity God steps in to save.