Christine Whiting Parmenter
Scott Carson reached home in a bad humor. Nancy, slipping a telltale bit of red ribbon into her workbasket, realized this as soon as he came in.
It was the twenty-first of December, and a white Christmas was promised. Snow had been falling for hours, and in most of the houses wreaths were already in the windows. It was what one calls “a Christmasy-feeling day,” yet, save for that red ribbon in Nancy’s basket, there was no sign in the Carson home of the approaching festival.
Scott said, kissing her absent-mindedly and slumping into a big chair, “This snow is the very limit. If the wind starts blowing there’ll be a fierce time with the traffic. My train was twenty minutes late as it is, and—There’s the bell. Who can it be at this hour? I want my dinner.”
“I’ll go to the door,” said Nancy hurriedly, as he started up. “Selma’s putting dinner on the table now.”
Relaxing into his chair Scott heard her open the front door, say something about the storm and, after a moment, wish someone a Merry Christmas.
A Merry Christmas! He wondered that she could say it so calmly. Three years ago on Christmas morning, they had lost their boy—swiftly—terribly—without warning. Meningitis, the doctor said. Only a few hours before the child had seemed a healthy, happy youngster, helping them trim the tree; hoping, with a twinkle in the brown eyes so like his mother’s, that Santa Claus would remember the fact that he wanted skis! He had gone happily to bed after Nancy had read them “The Night Before Christmas,” a custom of early childhood’s days that the eleven-year-old lad still clung to. Later his mother remembered, with a pang, that when she kissed him good night he had said his head felt kind of funny. But she had left him light-heartedly enough and gone down to help Scott fill the stockings. Santa had not forgotten the skis; but Jimmy never saw them.
Three years—and the memory still hurt so much that the very thought of Christmas was agony to Scott Carson. Jimmy had slipped away just as the carolers stopped innocently beneath his window, their voices rising clear and penetrating on the dawn-sweet air:
“Silent night—holy night....”
Scott arose suddenly. He must not live over that time again. “Who was it?” he asked gruffly as Nancy joined him, and understanding the gruffness she answered tactfully, “Only the expressman.”