“Then ye can take my word for it, if it’s the first one he’s ever got ye ’twill be the best ye ever had.” Barney spoke with conviction, while Johanna leaned over David’s chair and put a loving arm about his shoulder.
“There’s some virtue in losing them ye love for a bit, after all, if it makes one o’ them think about ye and Christmas. Sure, there’s nothing better in life to put by in your memory than rare thoughts and fine letters. And, I’m mortial glad, myself, there’s something good coming to ye, laddy, from over yonder, for many’s the time Barney and I have been afeared ’twas a lonesome Christmas ye’d be finding up here.”
And to the great surprise of every one, David included, David answered cheerfully:
“I don’t believe it’s half bad. Maybe there’s more Christmas round than we know.”
The orange sun had paled to yellow and climbed half the length of the tallest pine from the crest of the hill when David, bundled and furred, adjusted his skees outside the lodge door. Carefully he pushed his way over the level stretch of new snow, for one never knew with new snow just how far one might go down before striking the crust of the old. A few yards beyond the nearest clump of evergreen he stopped. From this point the mountain sloped down on three sides; the fourth carried over the ridge to the neighboring hill. Here David could look down on the encircling valley; and though the snow lay unbroken everywhere save on the road leading straight down to the “crossing” and the village beyond, he could almost vision paths branching out from where he stood and leading down to the three inhabited dwellings on the mountain’s side.
Which way should he go? Where would he first strike his trail for Christmas? Would he follow the road or one of the invisible paths? He asked this silently at first, and then aloud, as if there might be some one near by to hear; and the answer came in the form of a little gray furry coat, a pair of alert ears and a long, bushy tail. Yes, David knew in a twinkling it was the locked-out fairy, come to keep his promise. He did not come close enough for David to see the round, roguish face under the squirrel cap; but he sat up and twitched his head in the direction of the road as if he were saying:
“Come along, David, ye couldn’t be wishing for a braver day to go Christmas-hunting. Have ye fetched along your holiday fowling-piece and your ammunition? For ’tis rare sport, I promise ye, a hundred times better than hunting your furred or feathered brothers. Come along!” And away he hopped down the road toward the crossing.
David followed, as you or I would, and never stopped till the fairy led him straight to the flagman’s hut and disappeared himself behind the drifts beyond the track. Without a moment’s hesitation David turned the knob of the door and walked in.
The hut was a small one-room affair, bare, but clean. The walls were whitewashed and held an array of flags and lanterns, maps and time-tables. An air-tight stove glowed red at one end of the room, and beside it, with his feet on the hob, tilted back in his chair, sat the flagman puffing away at an old meerschaum pipe. He was plainly surprised to see his visitor. His feet came back to the floor with a bang, his pipe came out of his mouth, and he stared at David incredulously for a full minute. Then the ends of his grizzled mustache bristled upward, his mouth opened and twisted the same way, while his eyes seemed to drop downward to meet it, all the time growing bluer and more friendly. David took the whole effect to be a smile of welcome and he responded with outstretched mittened hand.
“Good morning, sir. It’s a—it’s a grand day!”