The last evening proved a fierce and gusty one. Amid the pauses of the wind a soft whirring sound as of wings beating outside could be heard. It came from great heaps of rustling leaves driven against the cottage walls by the blast. No other noise broke the stillness, except the crackling of a pine fagot upon the fire, which filled the room with light and fragrance. Thekla and Max sat silently beside the blaze;—the Grandfather slept. It was so long since either had spoken, that when at last a sharp knock fell upon the door both the children jumped from their seats.
Max hastened to open, and to make a polite bow to the new-comer, while Thekla brought a chair. November, a rough looking personage in a gray pea-jacket and flapped hat, took it without ceremony, only saying, “All right,” in a gruff voice. He seemed so big and strong that the boy and girl felt timid. They drew nearer each other, and were not sure exactly how to begin. But when November took off his hat, which he did pretty soon, the face he showed was a kind one, in spite of the rough beard and wild hair, which had evidently not been combed for years, if ever. It was a brown and weather-beaten face; but the eyes were full of that friendly light which children love, and the little ones no longer felt afraid. November looked at them for a moment from under his shaggy eyebrows, and then began fumbling with the knots of a red bandanna handkerchief in which something was tied up.
“There!” he said, when at last he got it open, “there’s my present. It came from ever so far away, and a fine piece of work I had to keep it from being smashed on the road. It’s all safe however, I believe, except the edges, which are a little chipped. But that’s nothing. Get your knives and forks, young ones, and fall to.”
This present was a pie,—a fine yellow pie, mottled with brown spots and baked in a red earthenware dish. Max and Thekla had never seen any thing like it before. It felt still warm from the oven; and smelt so delicious and spicy, that it was impossible to keep from eating it at once, as November urged them to do. So Max ran for two horn spoons; and, after a piece was laid aside for Grandfather, he and Thekla began to devour the rest.
“Oh my!” said Max, as he took his first bite, “isn’t it good?”
“Won’t you have a bit, sir?” asked Thekla, who was a polite little creature.
“Bless you!—no,” replied November, who looked highly pleased at the success of his gift. “I never eat ’em till the proper time comes, and that isn’t for three weeks yet. But I know an old lady who persists in making them all the year round, in season and out; and as I thought a pie would be something new, and a good thing to bring, I dropped in on the way here and stole one from her buttery. They were just whipping the cat for the theft as I came away.”
“But wasn’t that wrong?” asked Max, with his mouth full of the pie.
“Um!” replied November, with a keen, funny look, “if I had squeezed it into a can now, and smashed it, perhaps it might have been called so!”
Max blushed, and hung down his head.