This Way to Christmas

by Ruth Sawyer

“Lordy gracious!” he would burst forth every few minutes. “Dis yeah nigger hasn’t served a supper like dis not since he was back in ole Virginy. Jes’ smell dat fried chicken! Humm!” And they could not persuade him to take his place among them until every one else’s plate was full.

What a supper it was! The men who had been shifting for themselves alone in their cabins or huts, the South-Americans who had been living on food put up in cans and tins, were quite sure they had never tasted such a Christmas feast. And every one had stories to tell, memories of his own homeland which brought a flush to his cheeks and a sparkling moisture to his eyes. Only David was silent, his ears too full of what he was hearing, his heart too full of what he was feeling, yes, and maybe his mouth too full of Christmas cheer for him to talk.

It was not until the last crumb of the Christmas cake had been eaten and the last drop of coffee been drained by Uncle Joab and they had gathered about the fire once more, that David spoke.

“First, let’s have Uncle Joab play some of his jigs and sing with his fiddle just as I heard him that day at the camp. Then let’s have Johanna tell us a story. She’s the only one who hasn’t told a Christmas story.”

So of course David had his wish. Uncle Joab tuned up and played all the rollicking airs he knew, following them with the old plantation songs so dear to the hearts of even those who have only sojourned in the South. And when he was tired and insisted that “de ole fiddle must rest” Johanna drew her chair closer to the hearth and began the story of St. Bridget.

In Ireland St. Bridget is sometimes called “St. Bridhe of the Mantle,” and that is because the people of the hills would not be forgetting the way she came to be at Bethlehem when Our Lord was born, or the rest of the miracle.

It was to the little island of Iona that she came when she was naught but a child, and her coming there was strange. Her father was Doughall Donn, a prince of Ireland; but because of a sin, which he swore was not his, he was banished from his Green Isle. He took the child and left at night in a small boat; and the winds blew and the waves carried them toward Alba. But when they were still a long way off the winds blew into a storm and the waves reared themselves into a tempest and the boat was dashed upon the rocks. It was the dawn of that day that Cathal, the arch-druid of Iona, looked down from his holy hill where he had been lighting the sacrificial fire to the Sun God, for in those days it was before the Lord had walked the earth; and he saw below him on the beach the figure of a man washed up by the storm and lying as if dead. He hurried to the place and found not only the man, but a wee girl child, and she beside him, playing with the shells and digging her pink toes into the wet sand. The man was not dead, only stupid with the sea-water; and Cathal brought them both to a herdsman’s hut and saw that they were fed and cared for.

That night he had a strange vision concerning the child; he dreamed that spirits from heaven descended to watch over her while she slept; and when he was for knowing why they should guard her with celestial care they made this answer:

“Know ye, she is holy and blest above all maidens. For some day it shall come to pass that she shall cradle the King of Love upon her breast and guard the Lord of Creation while He sleeps.”

And when the vision broke it was Cathal himself that came and watched beside the herdsman’s hut where the child slept. So Doughall Donn was made welcome in Iona for the sake of the child; and the druids gave him a hut and herd of his own and saw to it that neither he nor the child should want for anything.