Elsie Singmaster
In the kitchen of the little house on the mountain-side there was only one sound, the whirring of a sewing-machine. The kitchen was a pleasant place. There was a glowing fire in the stove, a brightly striped rag carpet on the floor, and a red cloth on the table. In three of the four deeply embrasured windows were potted geraniums. By the fourth stood the machine which whirred so busily.
It was Christmas eve, and if a little shawl and sunbonnet and a little boy’s overcoat hanging on pegs behind the door were any sign, there were children in the house. But there was no sign of Christmas; there were no stockings hung before the fire, there was no tree, there were no presents. The mother who turned the machine was making men’s shirts of coarse fabric. To her right on a table lay piles of separate portions of shirts—sleeves, fronts, bands, cuffs; on the floor to her left, a great heap of finished garments. Her bent head was motionless; she was able to shift the material upon which she was working from one side to the other without moving her shoulders or lifting her eyes, so that she seemed to work upon an unending seam. She had set herself the finishing of a certain number of dozen before the New Year, and she had her task almost finished, though it was only Christmas eve.
By the table sat an old man. He had a bright face and blue eyes; one would have said he had still a good deal of the energy and strength of his youth. He was reading the Christmas story in the Bible, but his eyes strayed often from the page, whose contents he knew by heart, to the figure by the machine. Once when the left hand swept to the floor a finished garment he started from his chair. But the right hand was already gathering together the pieces of another, and he sank back.
When the shrill little clock on the mantel struck eleven and the deft hand gathered up still another garment, the old man tiptoed to the door and opened it. He went across the yard and there entered a little shop and struck a match. Then he exclaimed in joy over the product of his own hands.
“It’s the handsomest I ever seen!” said he.
Almost filling the little shop, its proud head bent, its wide arms spread benignantly, stood a Christmas tree, gorgeous, glittering. Each tiny twig was tipped with a white ball; among the branches hung thick clusters of golden fruit. There was no other color; the old gentleman had, it was clear, fine taste in Christmas trees.
Beneath the tree was a village. Into green moss were stuck little tree-like sprigs of pine; scattered about were miniature houses. Here a little horse carved out of wood drew a cart; here a flock of sheep wandered. There was a mill beside a glassy pond—a mill whose wheel, set in the brook in summer-time, would really turn. On one side of the garden stood a full-sized sled, upon it a chess-board, both hand-made, but neatly finished; upon the other side a doll’s cradle with a little squirrel skin cut neatly for a cover, and two necklaces, one of rose hips and one of gourd seeds. Before the garden lay another group of presents—a neatly carved spool-holder and a little pile of skins for muff or tippet.
It was a beautiful sight even to one who had had no hand in the making. But now suddenly the old man’s enthusiasm seemed to fail. He shook his head solemnly and went back to the house.
“I’ll have to tell her soon,” said he. “I’ll have to tell her now.”