CHAPTER VII.
A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
The pastor had fallen into the pleasant habit of having his wife with him when he wrote his sermons. Alone in the morning he made his researches and his copious notes for his compilation. In the evening he talked over with his wife the subject in hand, before the work of writing really began. She found him one night, shortly before Christmas, sitting dolorously before his table covered with papers, while an unusual cloud overshadowed his face.
"I cannot even think how to begin, wife," he said; "my thoughts will run in quite another direction. I feel all the weight of the new year upon me. Those old debts of mine, that I can never hope to clear off, hang upon me like a hopeless weight. A few years less at Upsala, and a good deal less debt, would have been a far better preparation for such a parish as this."
The pastor's wife was not at all cast down by this sorrowful lament. It had long been a familiar strain to her. She answered cheerily,—
"You had nothing to do with the arrangements as to what you were to learn at Upsala, and how long you must be there. You worked hard, and denied yourself almost the necessaries of life, as you well know. Now you are here and at your higher mission, which must be faithfully performed. So you will have to throw all these cares overboard. Just when we are to remember that 'God so loved the world,' we must not forget that He loves us still, every one of us. We here in this little parsonage are under His care, and He is not going to let us have burdens heavier than we can bear. We live simply enough; there is no faring 'sumptuously every day' here, as all the parish knows. I have thought out a little help. We will not give each other anything for Christmas. If gifts are but an expression of love, we do not need that kind of expression between us. For Elsa I have made a big rag doll, dressed in a fine peasant dress, from the scraps in my piece-bag. We will have a little Christmas-tree on a table for a variety, and I have put tinsel round nuts to hang upon it with the pretty red apples from the garden; and as to candles, we have enough left from last year. We will all learn that beautiful carol we had sent us by mail yesterday. Our good Beda, she must not be disappointed. I have my uncle's last present to me in money, which I shall share with her, and give her the dress from my aunt that I have not yet made up for myself. The rest of aunty's present will do to make Christmas cheery for the poorhouse people and the hard-pinched folks in the parish, who look for a little from us at this time. So now all those troublesome matters are blown away. As for the interest on the old debts, that is not to be paid until January; and we will leave that to the loving Lord, who has given us so many blessings, and see now after the sermon with cheerful, thankful hearts. Come, dear; now I am ready to hear about it."
And they did begin on the sermon, and it was the best the pastor had ever written. Something of the sweet cheerfulness and loving gratitude of the wife had made its way among the sound theological quotations and the judicious condensations. There was new life in the whole, which now came really from the pastor's uplifted soul, and would find its way to the stirred hearts of the hearers.
Christmas morning came, and little Elsa was early at the poorhouse. She had a present for Johanson. It was but a bit of work on perforated paper, done by her own hands—a lamb outlined in gay silk; but it was a lamb, and she felt that meant something between her and Johanson, and it did.