Jakie's Christmas

Jakie’s home in the backwoods, was close to Mr. Cripple Jim’s home. Mr. Cripple Jim was a dear old man seventy years old, who looked for, listened for, watched for, happy little Jakie’s bare-feet to come tripping up the steps, knock on his door bringing the milk which Mamsy sent to him every day.

Just before Christmas, Mr. Cripple Jim listened for, and watched for, Jakie all day long—but Jakie never came! He never missed coming. Mr. Cripple Jim really felt lonesome, for Jakie was full of fun. The sun was getting low in the west. Night was coming on,—and yet no Jakie came.

He heard noisy, stamping shoes coming up the steps—not Jakie’s nimble bare-feet. But the knock was Jakie’s funny bim! bim! bim! on the door.

“Come in!” the dear old man called out.

The door pushed open. Jakie came in closing the door behind him to shut off the cold winter wind. He stood still mischievously staring at him. Mr. Cripple Jim did not recognize him. Jakie burst into a merry laugh bouncing up and down.

“It’s me!”

“Sure didn’t know you!” exclaimed Mr. Cripple Jim, chuckling.

“You look like a city chap. Where you get such fine clothes?”

Jakie put the bucket of milk on the table, laughing gleefully, “Mr. Cripple Jim you didn’t know me!” Jakie stood by his chair telling him:

“My billy goat was scared of me, he run off, he didn’t know me! The chickens cackled and run from me,—they didn’t know me—nuthin knows me!”

It was a great joke to Jakie to be turned into a city boy in store-bought clothes, so nothing knew him. Mr. Cripple Jim laughed too. He loved Jakie and Jakie loved him. He was constantly whittling with his pen-knife, as he sat alone before his fire, some sort of toy a boy likes. Jakie’s tongue rattled on like a victrola-record telling Mr. Cripple Jim about all the wonderful things he saw in town and about the beautiful girl who spent all of her Christmas money on him. He bent over nearer to Mr. Cripple Jim’s chair with a great secret, whispering into his ear:

“Mamsy say I kin hang up my stocking now, cause my Big Friend give me all dese clothes.”

He rubbed his hands proudly over his clothes, “an she give us a big, big, Santa Claus pack in a wagon. Mamsy say she won’t have to buy nuthin for me in a l-o-n-g time. Mamsy say Jesus sent my Big Friend to peep behind de door and find me a freezing.”

Then he laughed out loud telling of the picture of fat old Santa Claus, that fooled him, pinned on top of the sack. “Us is rich now Mr. Cripple Jim!”

Mr. Cripple Jim listened; his eyes fixed on Jakie’s happy, beaming face. His mind and memory flew back over the years when his own happy little children, his own boys and girls, hung up their stockings Christmas Night around his fire-side. He could see their fun and frolic diving their hands down into the mystery stockings Christmas morning. Now he was an infirm, old man living all alone, using crutches to get about. “All gone, singing the songs of heaven now, and he was just waitin’ to go too,” he would say. He sat before the fire in a chair; one crutch lying on the floor beside his chair, and the other crutch lying on the floor on the other side of the chair.

Tears trickled down the old man’s wrinkled face. No one left to live with him; none left to love him; none left for him to love. He was dependent upon very kind neighbors to look after him. The men chopped his wood for his fire. The women kindly cooked his food and brought to him. Jakie was his cheer and his sunbeam. Jakie saw his tears, his tender heart felt sorry for the lonely old man. He wanted to console him. So he asked him what was uppermost in his own happy heart:

“Does you hang up your stocking?”

The dear old man shook his head, sadly:

“No little man. I’m too old now, and I got no little children to hang up stockings to make fun and a noisy Christmas Morning.”

“No you ain’t too old to hang up your stocking. You ain’t old as fat old Santa Claus, what fills up children’s stockings.”

Mr. Cripple Jim stared into the fire, without answering him, tears still wet his cheeks. Jakie still pleaded:

“Jesus will send a big friend to you like he sent Her to me.” He ran to the head of Mr. Cripple Jim’s bedstead. Laying his hand upon the bed post at the head, said:

“Hang it up right here. Won’t you hang up your stocking Mr. Cripple Jim like me, right here?” and he patted his hand on the post.

Mr. Cripple Jim brushed his tears off with his hand. He smiled back to little Jakie whose kind heart was trying to make him forget, trying to cheer a lonely crippled old man.

“All right,” he nodded, “I’ll hang up my stocking right there to please you.”

“Won’t us have fun!” Jakie exclaimed coming back to the fire. “Suppose Santa Claus forgets me. He ain’t a been coming here in a long time,” Mr. Cripple Jim said to tease Jakie.

“Jesus won’t forgit you. I knows. He didn’t forgit me ’hind de door freezing. He sent me all I got on.” And again he rubbed his hands proudly over his new clothes.

Jakie was satisfied. He hurried out of the door. He looked back at Mr. Cripple Jim to remind him before he shut it.

“Don’t you forgit it!”

Mr. Cripple Jim chuckled, “That child thinks I’m the age of him. To please him I’ll hang up my stocking right now,—to keep from forgitin’ it,—cause old folks is powerful forgitful. I got no stocking to hang up, no women here to wear em. My socks will do just the same.” He lifted up his crutches, raised himself up on them. He hobbled to his trunk. He rummaged inside until he found the new pair of socks Mamsy had knitted for him. He hunted for a pin, he could not find a pin. He hobbled back to his chair. He broke off a splinter from the wood, piled beside his hearth. He sharpened it with his pocket knife and stuck it through the upper edges of the socks, pinning them together. He hobbled to the bed post. He straddled the socks across the bedboard like a boy’s legs straddle a pony’s back.

“There!” he said, “I won’t forgit it now. God bless that child he is made me forgit my troubles!”

Through the wind, Jakie raced back home. He rushed into the house, panting:

“Mr. Cripple Jim say he will hang up his stocking like me!”

Mamsy was sitting by the fire very tired, waiting for Jakie. Jakie pulled off his store-clothes for his old clothes. He drew his little stool before the fire. He sat very still staring into the fire. Mamsy sat very still staring into the fire too. The winter wind moaned and whistled outside. Suddenly Jakie looked up into Mamsy’s face, his eyes twinkling. Eagerly he exclaimed, “Mamsy me wants to give my billy goat to my Big Friend cause she give us heaps of things.”

Mamsy felt inclined to laugh outright at the very idea of sending a country-billy-goat to a city girl as a Christmas gift. Jakie was in eager earnest. She kept her face straight lest she hurt his feelings. She said, kindly:

“City folks got no where’s to keep a billy goat in town.”

Jakie’s billy goat was the only thing of his very own which he possessed. He loved billy. Billy was his only playmate. He was willing to part with billy to his Big Friend who called him her Little Friend, as a Christmas love-gift. He sighed keenly disappointed. Mamsy proposed:

“Send her one of my turkeys. I saved it to buy some shoes for you. She done give the shoes.”

“But Mamsy,” Jakie objected, “I wants to send her what’s mine.”

They both sat very still again. Jakie watching the bright little fire-sparks fly up the chimney.

He called them fire-bugs because they resembled fire flies. He reached over to the pile of wood by the hearth to fling a fresh stick of fat pine into the fire, and make it blaze brightly.

“Oh Mamsy!” he exclaimed, seizing hold of another stick, “I ken send her some fat, lightwood splinters to start her fire. Mr. Lane hauls it to town to sell to folks. They pays him heaps of money for it.”

Mamsy was pleased. Quickly she agreed:

“You send the splinters and I send the turkey.” Jakie was satisfied. He wanted to rush out in the dark to the woodpile to hunt for a fat stick. Mamsy persuaded him to wait until to-morrow. He was sleepy and shed off his everyday clothes for his “nightie” and knelt down at Mamsy’s knee to say his evening prayers. He folded his hands together and bowed his head. His sweet voice said aloud: “God bless my Mamsy, God bless me and make me a good little boy, so I will go to my Mama in heaven. God bless my Big Friend, for Jesus’ sake amen.”

He raised his head. He stared up at Mamsy astonished. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. He could not understand! He was so happy and Mamsy was crying. Mamsy saw the troubled look in his face. She laid her hand upon his head and explained:

“The Lord is been good to us today. This morning we was so po, you run off to town a-huntin’ for Santa Claus to give you a present, cause we was too po fur you to hang up your stocking. The foxes eat up my young turkeys; the hawks caught my little chickens. I had nuthin to sell to git money to buy us things. The Lord is changed it all. He sent that fine, good, city girl when you was lost to find you, like He sent Angels outen the heavens to sing to the shepherds that night, feeding their sheep; that a wee baby had come named Jesus, to show us how to love each other. He come po like us, cause so many po-folks is in the world. He knows how po-folks lives and po-folks feels without money, to buy clothes and nice things.

“You is little and Mamsy is old. He will always take care of you. He will make you a good little boy and make folks love you like he did today.” She pointed to her Bible, lying on the pine-table, which she read every day saying; “It’s all in there—when you gets bigger you will read it for yourself.”

Jakie stood up and ran and jumped into bed, in the very place he had sneaked from under the cover that morning when the roosters were crowing for the dawn of the day. He lay still as he was very tired and fell asleep.

Early next morning he hopped out of bed. He stuck his feet into his overalls in a great hurry, and clapped his cap on his head. He ran eagerly out to the woodpile to hunt for the fattest lightwood stick he could find. He grabbed hold of the stick; fattest he could find. He dragged it on the ground, pulling it, puffing and grunting, panting and blowing to the steps. He called Mamsy to help him get it up the steps. She came to help him. She brought her ax and chopped the big stick into smaller sticks. Jakie gathered them up in his arms and carried them inside, by the fire. He placed his little stool close to the fire-place. Mamsy lent her hatchet to him. He sat on the stool and split the sticks into fine splinters.

Mamsy tied them in small bundles. Then tied a stout string around the small bundles into one large bundle. Together he and Mamsy caught the fat turkey and bagged it, with its head peeping out, in the same coarse sack they found full of Christmas gifts. Frances had tucked her card into the sack bearing her street, her name, and her number. “My po writin’ might git it lost!” said Mamsy, so she sewed the card on the sack “to make sure,” their Christmas gift would get to the beautiful, loving, kind city girl who had scattered such happy joys, into their hearts.

A kind neighbor hauling chickens and turkeys to town to sell, carried them into the City to leave on the front porch; Christmas gifts of love—the only thing they had to give. Jakie watched the neighbor’s wagon roll away toward town, wondering what his Big Friend would say when she got their Christmas gifts. He was so happy he wanted to make other people happy.

He ran into the house to Mamsy begging her:

“Mamsy Mr. Cripple Jim is so lonesome he cried! Let me go fill his stocking. Dress me up like fat old Santa Claus. You go with me, and I ken sneak into the house and put things in his stocking, and he will think I is sure ’nough old Santa Claus. Fix me so he won’t know me.” Mamsy promised.