He broke off here, his chin falling forward on his chest. Danny and Whitefoot, however, were used to his ways, and knew their own duty too well to stop because the reins fell so slack on their backs; they jogged on quite as steadily as if he were awake. It was a lonely country where there was little travel, so there was no fear of meeting any one and no reason for turning out; all they had to do was to keep on. Presently he stirred and opened his eyes.
“’Tis forty winks I’ve been havin’, an’ they’ve made a new man av me,” he said, with a prodigious yawn. “But begorra, I dramed me arrm was held in the grip av a monsther. ’Tis useless an’ shtiff it is this very minnit. Faith, ’tis as sound aslape as if ould Pickett was tellin’ wan av his wurrld widout ind shtories. Arrah! wake up wid ye—”
He started to jerk his arm free, and glanced down with some impatience; but the sight of what rested there made him pause. So that was the monster he had dreamed was holding him fast! He had forgotten the child for the moment, forgotten, too, the part he was playing; then everything came back with a rush as he gazed at her peaceful little face.
“Sure, ’tis no shtiffness at all, at all,” he muttered. “What’s the weight av a feather fer a man to complain av? ’Tis like the touch av an angel’s wing, so it is, an’ proud I am to fale it,—proud an’ plazed. Lie shtill, Cushla machree, lie shtill.”
But she had been partially aroused by his attempt to ease himself, and very obligingly changed her position, cuddling down on the seat. He helped to fix her anew, murmuring fond little phrases, and as her eyelids fluttered open he bade her go to sleep again. She obeyed without question; the air made her very drowsy, and the steady forward motion of the sleigh was like the lulling of a cradle. He began to sing again almost immediately, though in a subdued key, and still about “Kelly’s Cat.” But he took scant pleasure in the song; half of its fun lay in hearing the laughter it always evoked, and he missed her silvery merriment. To sing a comic song just for one’s own amusement is rather dreary work, after all. Everything is better when it is shared; a laugh is always jollier, and even the heaviest sorrow will grow lighter at a true word of sympathy.
He did not complete the history of the celebrated combat, therefore, but after a few lines brought it to a close and began something else. Then, before he knew it, a song that had lived in the background of his memory for many years found its way, for the little child’s sake, to his lips. Curiously enough it didn’t seem to him that he was singing it, for through the words he could hear his mother’s worn voice carrying the tune forward, and his own voice, the best in all the country round for trolling out a drinking catch or some fantastic rigamarole set to music, grew so tender that the roisterers at Wistar’s, or up at Merle, would never have recognized it. But if they could have heard him they wouldn’t have laughed; the song would have been like a little key unlocking the gates of childhood; even if the words had been unfamiliar to them the sweet sounds would have taken them back.
After he had finished singing he sat very still, one hand holding the reins, the other resting gently on the warm little bundle at his side; but his thoughts were far back in that distant past where, because of his light heart, he only dwelt on the golden spots—and his nature had made many such. Then he began to build some castles in that dear, impossible, ever-true country where one may rear the most beautiful houses and have them ready to be lived in in the wink of an eye; where there are never any vexing questions of rent, or taxes, and one doesn’t have to bother about gas, or electricity (such a wonderful lighting system as they have there, by the way!), and there are never any repairs to be made. Perhaps a prosaically minded architect would never have called Terry’s dream-house a castle, but such sober matter-of-factness is not to be envied. Very much happier are the people who live in the clouds at times, though they do have many a tumble to earth, than the ones who never see things through the rose-colored glasses of fancy, but plod along in the dull light of a common grayness.
Terry belonged to the first kind, and because his mind was still full of the nonsense he had uttered to his companion he began to build a beautiful palace where the dreams of little children could come true. On every side he could see their wishes written plainly, sometimes in copy-book writing, sometimes in big print, and sometimes again in those funny, wavering uphill lines that Santa Claus never fails to read. And everywhere he could hear merry laughter and shouts, and the sounds of scrambling, racing feet. It was a beautiful palace! He chuckled to himself, seeing it so distinctly, and then, suddenly—very suddenly—just in front of him, a trifle at one side of the road, stood a small, square house of the sort that your eminently practical, no-thought-of-beauty contractor would build. Terry’s hand, reins and all, went up to his eyes to clear the mist from before them. Impossible! He knew the country as well as Danny and Whitefoot, and he knew, too, that no such house stood there; the shantymen’s hut, the only human habitation for miles, was still some distance off. He looked again sharply, convinced that in the darkening land some snow-covered tree had taken on the likeness to a building. And he was quite right—there was no house.
The bells smote the air sullenly and soberly as the horses started once more on their patient, even course; they did not merit the sharp flap of the reins on their backs,—they were doing their best. Terry tried to go on with his dreams, but the thread of fancy once broken is hard to recover; he caught bravely at it—and there stood the house again, square, squat, unpicturesque, with the low stable at one side connected by the covered way, as is the custom in cold countries. He rubbed his eyes, and it was gone again—they had driven right through it! He laughed, but not gayly. Two parts of him seemed to be dreaming—the one that built a castle for little children, the other that thought of solemn, elderly folk. He began to sing:
It was no use! The house was quite near him again, with its chimney breathing out a soft little line of smoke, and its tin roof dull in the level light—the roof that had flashed like a reproving eye hours earlier. And then he knew! He turned and looked back fearfully. As far as he could see there was no sign of life; before him it was the same tale—even the house his fancy had conjured up had vanished. It was very still save for the bells on his horses, and they were not clinking merrily just then, only giving out a monotonous jog-trot sound that did not deafen him to the faint voice crying very far away: “Dear my little own, where are you?” He shivered among his furs, still looking back, and sobbingly the words came again: “Dear my little own, where are you?”
Danny and Whitefoot pawed the snow uneasily. Merle was still distant, and they were anxious to be at rest; they even determined to pull more steadily, more swiftly; they had been saving their best wind for that, but the hand on the reins kept them still.
“Och! wurra, wurra, that iver I shtooped to desate,” the old man murmured. “What will I do wid juty sayin’ ‘go forrard,’ an’ juty sayin’ ‘go back’? ’Tis most thirty miles from the shantymen’s hut to that lonely little house, an’ I can’t take the journey over ag’in. Whist there, mither, wid your callin’ to the colleen, or ’tis cracked me heart will be intoirely. Aisy now! the voice av you is far away loike, an’ yet ’tis plain as thunder in me ears. Sure, I thought the fun av the wurrld was in this thing, an’ I meant no harm at all—whist there, mither dear! They do be waitin’ fer me up at Merle,—thim an’ the Christmas fun—an’ Christmas only comin’ wanst a year!—an’ there’s the wager besides. Och! wurra, wurra, what will I do? I must go on, but ’tisn’t wid me the darlint can be goin’.”
He recognized that very clearly now when it was almost too late. His home as the child dreamed of it and his home as it really was were two very different things. He couldn’t take her to the tavern at Merle, with its rough, carousing crowd—such fun was not for her—and he had nowhere else to go. Then he thought of the road ever getting darker and darker, of the frozen lake with its treacherous ice that he must cross, of the night growing colder—he knew how to keep himself warm, but it was another matter where she was concerned. And when he went driving into Merle to claim his bet his hand might not be steady—that had happened so often before! and there was that ugly bit just below the tavern, where even the most careful driver must pick his way warily; but with a little child—the thought made him giddy. No—no—no—he couldn’t take her with him, that was impossible! And equally he saw, because he knew himself so well, he couldn’t take her back to her mother’s longing arms. He couldn’t go back! He sat quite still, turning over different plans in his mind, while the precious minutes slipped by unheeded. Finally his brow cleared a trifle. There was but one solution to the difficulty—the lumbermen might help him—must help him; he would see that they had no choice in the matter. As he reached this decision some of his old reckless daring came back to him; but he bore himself in a shamefaced fashion, and with none of his usual jauntiness, though he straightened his shoulders, and tried to appear unconcerned. He began to whistle, too, as if to silence the wailing cry that still pursued the sleigh—he would not let himself listen.
“Och! child,” he said, looking down at the little maid, “’tis sorry I am fer ye, darlint, but ’twill all come right in the mornin’—throubles always do. Whist now! ’tis sorriest I am fer mesilf, since I can’t help mesilf at all—I bein’ what I am, ye see.”
He put his hand into his coat, and though his fingers came in contact with the flat bottle, they did not draw it forth; they groped farther, past the inner coat and beneath the blouse, to something that hung against his chest suspended from a cord. When he brought out his hand it held a dingy little bag. He stripped off the outer covering, disclosing a cheap gilt locket and the half of a broken sixpence. With shaking fingers he took a wisp of hair from the trinket, and wrapping it up again thrust it back into his breast; but the locket and the coin he folded in a bit of newspaper, and stooped once more to the child.
“Sure, it ain’t a dolly that will shut its eyes, mavourneen, that I do be givin’ ye fer a Christmas gift,” he whispered; “but mebbe ye’ll like it fer the sake av wan as loved it. An’ God Almighty an’ all the howly saints bless ye feriver an’ iver, amin.”
She stirred at his touch and opened her eyes, misty still with sleep. For a moment she looked at him in some doubt, then, as she struggled into a sitting position, she laughed gayly.
“Oh! it’s really and truly you.” Her glance swept their surroundings. “And are we home now—at your very home? Is that it?”
The walls of the lumbermen’s hut showed indistinctly through the clearing. It was almost dark; the night that comes swiftly in the north lands was folding its mantle like a great soft wing over the whole country, though in the west there was still a faint streak of rose, as if the day was sorry to go, and so it lingered in that little tender time between the lights, when one can dream best of all.
“Is that home?” she asked again, very softly.
“Listen, Swateheart. But first take this wee packidge—Aisy, now! ye mustn’t fale the edges—an’ shtow it away in your pocket if ye have wan; ’tis not to be looked at, nor so much as prodded, mind ye, till sunrise to-morry. Remimber! An’ second—faith, me second is hardest fer me, fer ’tis good-by I must be sayin’.”
Her lip trembled.
“But I’m goin’ with you all the way,” she declared stoutly.
“Sure, an’ I wish it from me heart, only ’tis partin’ we must be. Ye see ye can go on, an’ Danny an’ Whitefut will be proud to draw ye; but ’tis ’most night, an’ the way gets bad up yonder, an’ there’s the lake to cross, an’ I’m not always the stiddy driver—to me shame be it said—”
“I’d sit very still—”
“An’ ’twill be cold, bitther cold! Thin I’ve been thinkin’, I didn’t tell ye this afore; but no child has iver seen me house—’tis a thing av drames (an’ sure that’s the truth!). Whisper now, cud ye see it, it wud all split to smither-eens wid a crack like doom. An’ where wud I be thin? The folks wud have to do widout me, I’m thinkin’—”
“The little children—us?” she asked round-eyed.
“That wud be the size av it. Av coorse ye could kape on wid the dep-puties; I’ve trained thim well, an’ the spirit av Christmas niver dies, the givin’ an’ the lovin’, fer the Lord made thim in his own imidge. But ye’d be missin’ me, ye know.”
She was very still, the little pucker showing between her anxious brows.
“I’ve an iligint plan. Yon’s a foine place to spind the night, an’ iv’rything will come right in the mornin’. Oh! ye’ll see. An’ ye’ll hang up your shtockin’ same as usuwil; but first ye must put that bit there down in the toe av it, an’ ’twill be Merry Christmas all ’round. Will ye tell me good-by now, swateheart, an’ let me go on to kape me wurrd that I’ve been afther passin’ sacred-loike?”
“Yes,” she said gravely. “I wanted to see Vixen and Oncome-it close, but I’ll let you go, ’count o’ the children, ev’rywheres.”
He lifted her gently to the ground, and she stood quietly at one side while he tumbled out the barrel and the bags from the back of the sleigh with great caution. He could not stay for a word; already he had much time to make up, and discussion of any sort, hospitality even, would retard him. The light had quite disappeared from the west, and a few pale stars—God’s candles, he called them—were beginning to kindle in the dark above. He stooped to her.
“Whin I’m gone, Cushla machree, ye’ll go to the door an’ they’ll let ye in—they’re foine fellies. ’Tis but a shtep up there annyhow; ye can’t niver miss it—see, where the rid light shows t’rough the cracks. An’ ye’ll not ferget me, little wan?”
“No—no,” she choked.
He caught her in his arms and kissed her; but though he held her very close, he could not see her face well because of the misty curtain that had dropped suddenly before his eyes. In that moment he realized how far, how very far, below her thought of him he really was. He put her down almost roughly, detaching the little clinging fingers with scant tenderness, and sprang into the sleigh. An instant, from that vantage point, he looked her way; then Danny and Whitefoot, surprised into using their best wind by a fierce sting of the whip, dashed into the dark, their bells swinging out a sharp, tremulous cry of bronze that cut the air like a knife.
“Good-by,” she called in a breaking voice.
And back from the distance came the answer:
“Good-by, little swateheart. God love ye an’—”
She stood waiting, listening to the bells that grew faint and fainter until they were like a chime from Fairyland; when at last her loving ears could hear them no longer she turned and trotted obediently to the house. The door was closed, but a narrow thread of light glimmered warmly at the sill, and a tiny fiery eye peeped out half way up the dark surface. She struck the wood with her little clinched fist; struck it once, then again—a twig snapping off in the teeth of the frost would have sounded louder.
From within there came the noise of many voices and great bursts of laughter, but no lessening of the merriment made room for her appeal.
IT was a large, roughly-finished room, lighted for the most part by the great heap of logs that blazed on the hearth, though a lantern fixed against the wall, at the opposite side, in front of a tin reflector, shone bravely, as if to say that it was doing its best despite the fact that no one heeded its efforts. For the occupants of the room, without an exception, were gathered about the camboose, or fireplace, where in the full glow of the leaping flames a number of stockings were hung; not because it was Christmas Eve, but for the more prosaic reason that they must be dried. Every working day showed the same display,—the men, on an average, hanging up two or three pairs apiece. Still they were keeping their Christmas Eve vigil after a fashion, though it was not in the orthodox way, and, notwithstanding its noise, it lacked the real flavor of the blessed season.
“What was that?” Shawe asked suddenly.
“Didn’t hear a blessed thing. Fire ahead, Sandy; ev’ry chap’s got a stunt to do this night, an’ the fust lot’s fell to you. Come, begin—Where’s that lazy raskill Terry? He’d oughter be’n here hours agone.”
“Back at Wistar’s,” a young fellow growled. “Told yer what to expect when yer singled him out to fetch the grub. A sorry Christmas we’ll have. Any meal left in the bar’l, Cooky?”
“’Nough to make pap fer you in the mornin’, kid,” Cooky responded with a grunt, “so don’t be sheddin’ tears—you an’ yer delikit appetite will pull t’rough. ’Tis plum-puddin’ the child was expectin’.”
The young fellow laughed almost good-naturedly.
“Gorry! what’d I give to smell a plum-puddin’ even. There was a Christmas oncet when I’d the taste o’ one. There was turkey before, an’ the bird was a tip-topper, but it don’t live in my mem’ry like the puddin’. That come in with a wreath o’ greens ’bout its brown head, an’ its sides crackin’ open with plums the size o’ Jake’s thumb there. An’ there was clouds o’ incinse risin’ from it, an’ the smell o’ the burnin’ sperits, an’ the blue flames lickin’ each other with joy at the taste they got—’Tis before my eyes this bloomin’ minnit, an’ my ears is deafened with the roars the fellers sent up; you could ha’ heard ’em a mile off—”
A chorus of protesting voices interrupted further reminiscences. “Shut up, will yer?” “T’row him out, some one.” “You’ve no call to make our mouths water so.”
“A pudden,” a thin-faced man said dreamily as the din subsided, “I never seed its like. An’ a-fire, you say. What was thet fer?”
“Why, fer the celebration, ijit.”
“Begorra,” another voice broke in, “I’d like to live in the counthry where they’ve the crayther to burn. Did it smell good?”
“Smell good?” again the young fellow laughed. “’Twas better than a gardin full o’ roses when the wind blows soft an’ warm over ’em; ’twas finer an’ more penatratin’ than the o-dick-alone the tenderfoots parfume themselves with. An’ there was the sarse besides, with a dash o’ rum in it to make it slip down easier.”
“Sarse!” The ejaculation was a groan. “My things come plain.”
“Thet’s about the size o’ it fer ev’ry mother’s son of us,” some one began philosophically, then in helpless rage at the turn affairs had taken he finished with a wail: “Hang thet Terry O’Connor. He’d oughter remembered tomorrer’s Christmas—”
“Christmas is like any other day to us,” an elderly chopper interposed grimly. “It’s only meant fer the kids.”
A man near the fire stirred restlessly.
“Back there,” he said, with a sweep of his thumb, “they hang up the stockin’s all in a row—six of ’em!—an’ my woman makes shift to fill ’em, too—”
“How they chitter in the mornin’,” another man chimed in, “before it’s reely light. Don’ know as there’s any sound quite so nice as that. Wisht I was home to hear it—Gord! I do.”
“Never hed no little stockin’ hangin’ afore my chimbly,”—the occupant of the big barrel chair looked into the blaze thoughtfully as he made the statement, “baby’s sock was too teeny that fust year, an’ after—”
“Faith, I niver had no chimbly av me own at all,” a reckless voice interrupted with a hard laugh. “Here to-day, an’ gone to-morrer, an’ divil a sowl to care where I was. It made little differ to me thin, but ’tis a wide wurrld an’ a lonely wan when a man’s gittin’ on in the years.”
“Only got so fur ez the patty-cakin’ age, ez you might say,”—it was the man in the barrel chair who was speaking again,—“but turr’ble over-masterin’—turr’ble! When ye come to think uv it, there ain’t anything like a baby fer over-masterin’ness; he jes’ makes a clean sweep o’ ev’ry blessed thing.”
The Frenchman in the corner leaned forward excitedly.
“I nevaire hang ze stockin’ up zat time I was what you call a keed,” he cried, “but zere was a leetle tree an’ a Christ chil’ up at ze ver’ top. Zey had eet een ze église an’ every chil’ een ze pareesh was made ver’ happy. So for two-t’ree years did I get a—a—what you say?”
“A present, Frenchy.”
“But yes, a—a prresent. Zen I must go to worrk, an’ Christmas eet is ovaire for me. ‘Adieu, beaux jours de mon enfance!’”
The leaping firelight fell upon grave faces; dear, lazy laughter had slipped very far away from the warmth and glow.
“What’s that?”
“You’re like an ould faymale widdy woman, Shawe, wid your fidgits an’ starts, an’ your inquisitiveness. That? ’Tis an ash fallin’ to the hearth; ’tis a burd askin’ to be let in; ’tis Christmas come to hunt us up far from home an’ the frien’s we love so dear. Man alive! if you’re so set to know what it is, go an’ find out fer yoursilf.”
“Yes, go an’ be hanged to you!” The chorus was unanimous.
Shawe did not wait for the permission, go he would; as for being hanged, that was quite another matter. He left his place in the warm corner, and, picking his way dexterously over the tangle of outstretched legs, he strode across the room to the door, flinging it wide. The cold air rushed in in a great gust that caused the men to shiver in their places, and made some of them swear angrily at him; but he did not heed their words. His ear had earlier caught a faint cry, yet as he stood facing the night his level eyes saw nothing in the darkness; then the sound came again, and this time quite far below him. His glance fell; the next moment he started back in amazement.
“My God!” he cried sharply.
There was a great creaking of stools and boxes in the room behind him as the men, startled out of their indifference by his exclamation, turned to see what had occasioned it, those who were farthest away rising to their feet and craning curiously over the shoulders of their companions in front. Shawe had moved a trifle to one side, and they had an unobstructed view through the open door, that framed the glimpse of the dark world without, of the strip of snow in the foreground gleaming ruddily with lamp and firelight; and just where the glow fell brightest stood a little child, her face raised in entreaty. For a long moment they looked with held breaths, incredulous, wondering, half fearful that the vision would disappear at the least movement on their part; several of their number made the quick sign of their creed, and one man covered his eyes with a shaking hand, but no one spoke. Then Shawe stooped to her.
“Who are you?” he asked very gently, touching the little flesh-and-blood shoulder with tender fingers; she was no spirit then.
“I’m Santa Claus’ sweetheart,—you know Santa Claus. He left some things for you out there, then he went away.”
“Mother o’ Moses! the child must mane Terry,” one of the men, quicker than the rest, exclaimed. “The ould riprobate! An’ but fer your ears, Shawe, she might ha’ be’n froze shtiff fer all we’d knowed—an’ Christmas Day to-morrer.”
Shawe drew his breath hard.
“Thank God, I did hear,” he said through his closed teeth; then he lifted the small stranger in his arms, and as the thronging men fell back on either side he carried her through the little lane thus formed up to the fire. He put her down gently and knelt before her, chafing her hands and face with rapid touches; after a few moments thus spent he set clumsily to work to unfasten her hood and coat. She kept very still while he knotted instead of unknotting the strings, only her eyes moving from face to face frankly curious, yet without an atom of fear in their glance. There were forty pairs of eyes to meet, and in each she left a little smile.
At last the outer wrappings were cast aside, and, as Betty stood before them, a small, slim figure, very different in appearance from the shapeless, roly-poly bundle of a short time previous, with her fair hair ruffled into little curls and tendrils that made a soft nimbus about her head, she seemed even more like some lovely spirit than they, awed by the strangeness of her coming, had thought her. Yet her first action was quite sufficient to remove all doubts that she belonged to another sphere. Those inquisitive eyes of hers, taking a survey of the room and its inmates, lighted suddenly upon the stockings dangling before the fire; they widened at the sight, then the smiles brimmed over and her whole face broke up into glee. How could she feel strange, or afraid, in a place where—big, grown-up men though they all were—such signs of expectancy were so openly displayed? She slipped from the protecting arm and ran close to the hearth, clapping her hands in delight.
“Oh! you’re all ready for Santa Claus,” she cried. “My! how he’ll have to work—there’s such a ’normous lot. But he’ll fill ’em all.” She threw out this balm in eager haste. “He’s truly coming; he said so. If I’d gone home with him his house would have cracked to—to smither-eens, so I stayed.”
A deafening roar of laughter greeted her words and sent her, unerringly as a homing bird, back to her first friend, who still knelt on the floor; but resting against him her fears vanished almost instantly, and, as she glanced around with renewed confidence, her pretty silvery laugh tinkled out to join their rougher merriment. The men pressed closer, one of them, the oldest, acting as spokesman. He was the man whose chimney had never seen any Christmas stockings hanging before it, the baby’s sock being too tiny in that far-away year; but he seemed to know better than any of them how to ask just the right questions that would set free the little tongue. Betty climbed gladly up on his knee, and from her new perch poured forth an account of her wonderful adventures.
It was the fault of her companions, surely, and not her own that the things that were so real and true to her were like myths out of Fairyland to them, because they had travelled farther down the stream of time. Much of what she said was unintelligible to their dull, grown-up minds; but if each word had been of gold they could not have waited for it more eagerly; and when she stopped in her recital of that marvellous journey to laugh at some remembrance of Santa Claus’ fooling, they looked at one another, smiling in perfectest sympathy. Perhaps, after all, they understood—who shall say? There was no interruption, except when old Jerome hazarded some remark that helped on the tale; and the only person to move was a tall, gaunt man, who bent mysteriously over the fire and made something that smelled like—like the most delicious thing in all the world. You have to ride for hours through the snow, and feel the keen air in your face, and be as hungry as a bear into the bargain, to know just what that is.
By some remarkable law of coincidence the story and the cooking came to an end at one and the same moment; nothing could have been more timely. Betty’s whole attention was quickly transferred to the tin plate which was placed before her; and her evident appreciation of the good things of life was so keen that the lookers-on, who even in that short time had learned that their rougher ways frightened her, laughed gently among themselves. Well, they understood that too! While she was busy over her supper, to the utter forgetting of her surroundings, several of the men went outside to see if they could find any traces of the recreant Santa Claus; they returned after a hasty search, bringing in the barrel and bags—sufficient proof that Terry, despite all convictions, wise head-shakings, and gloomy forebodings, had not failed them. He had kept his word. But the mystery deepened—Who was the little maid? Aside from her name, which was an unfamiliar one to them, they had not been able to learn anything definite about her. The excited little brain only seemed to live over the immediate past, in which Santa Claus had figured so importantly; the fact that she was his sweetheart apparently outweighing every other consideration.
“Terry O’Connor hain’t a chick, nor child, an’ never hed,” old Jerome declared stoutly, as somebody ventured this solution of the difficulty, “nor there ain’t any kin b’longin’ to him—guess I orter know—I’ve knowed him ’nintimut these thirty years—”
“Losh, man!” interrupted Sandy, “then he just inveegled the bairn awa’, makin’ oot he was Santa Claus. The e-normity of it!”
“Oh, Terry must olluz be jokin’; it’s his way,” Jerome returned tolerantly. With his arm around the small form, and the little golden head resting on his breast, he was knowing one of the rare, happy moments of his life; there could be scant condemnation from him under the circumstances.
Betty, who had been alternately blinking at the fire, and smiling contentedly to herself for some time, now interrupted any dispute that might have arisen concerning her absent friend by giving utterance to a series of baby yawns. The discussion came to a speedy close, such signs needing no interpretation to her hearers.
“Don’t ye want to go to sleep, deary?” the old man asked.
She signified her willingness without delay, though first her stocking must be hung up among the others. He proceeded to draw it off; but before that could be accomplished, he was let into the secrets the buttons on your shoe always tell,—what you are to be, what you will wear, and in what manner you will travel through life,—in carriage, cart, wheelbarrow, or wagon. When this “sure-as-sure” knowledge had been mastered he stripped off the stocking, and Shawe, imperiously summoned, came close and put the wee packet, as she directed, way down in its very toe; then he hung it up in the centre, where even the blindest deputy, supposing Santa Claus unable to get round, would never have passed it by. A rollicking little cheer went up at sight of the small red stocking swinging slightly to and fro in the breath of the fire; but it died away on the instant, for the child had slipped to the floor and knelt there by the old man’s knee, her face hidden in her chubby hands. Perhaps in the intense stillness she missed the voice that generally guided hers, for there was a moment of hesitation on her part; then she began to pray aloud, halting over the words:
She paused, a moment: “And please, God, take care of muvver, and uncle, and far-away daddy, and make Betty a good girl f’rever and ever. Amen.”
It was very still all around; and usually when she finished her prayers a soft cheek was laid against her own, while a soft voice echoed, “Amen,” and that meant “my heart wants it to be exactly so!” Now, however, no one spoke. Betty glanced wonderingly about as she rose to her feet, a trifle dazed and even frightened; but such grave, quiet, kind faces looked back at her that swiftly she dropped to her knees again with another petition: “God bless ev’rybody, an’ most speshilly Santa Claus.”
“Amen,” said old Jerome, in the pause that followed.
A bed had been hastily constructed in the warmest corner, out of the best materials the camp afforded, and thither Jerome carried the child. She nestled down drowsily while he tucked the covering about her; but his was an alien touch, and through the room there suddenly sounded a low, wailing cry:
“Muvver—oh! muvver—”
“There, Honey; there, Blossom—” the man’s voice broke, the hand that soothed was clumsy and old, and it trembled—“there, Honey—”
The men sat breathless—waiting, dreading to hear the cry again; but moment after moment passed, and it did not come. There was one little sob, then the dream-fairy stooped with her comfort.
How quiet the room was! And this was Christmas Eve—the time when each man was to do a stunt for the amusement of his fellows and the glory of himself. Generally on this occasion the Lord of Misrule held high carnival,—the flowing bowl was like a perpetual fountain, and laughter, shouting, and horse-play abounded on every side. There was rum in plenty since Terry had not failed them, but no effort was made to secure it; desire of that kind was dead, it seemed. They were content to sit there listening to the soft rise and fall of the child’s breath; the land of dreams, into which she had slipped, open to them also. And though it was so different from those other Christmas Eves, it was far from being dull. Into each heart there had crept a soft glow, which did not come from the blazing logs, and which no grog, no matter how skilfully blended, could have given, for once again the presence of one of God’s little ones made holy a humble place.
Shawe was the first to bring the stillness to an end. They had been sitting quiet, nobody could tell how long, when he got to his feet. Noiselessly as he moved he broke the spell, and eyes that had grown misty looked at him, some with resentment, others with curiosity, and others again with reproach. Old Jerome’s gaze held the latter quality. Nobody knew much about Shawe, anyway. He was not one of them. He had come to the camp some weeks before, and would be gone in a day or so—up to Merle this time, and then—He was a wanderer—some outcast, perhaps, from a better life gone by. Nobody knew him. They had no quarrel with him; he was a good enough fellow, only not of them. They watched him, therefore, almost coldly, yet noting with jealous satisfaction that he stepped warily as he passed from the room; then they fell to thinking again—with a difference.
He came back after a short absence with a soft, dark mink’s skin in his hand,—a bit of fur that a woman’s fingers could fashion into a cap to cover a child’s golden hair,—and went to the small stocking, cramming the gift far down to keep that other company. A breath of approval fairly twinkled around the room. The grave faces melted into smiling delight; and just as the circles widen in a pool of water when a stone is thrown in, spreading farther and farther till the whole surface is disturbed, so every one present came within the influence of Shawe’s action. As if by one accord the men hurriedly left their places, making scarcely any noise, yet jostling against one another in their eagerness to play at being Santa Claus; each man seeking out his kit, and returning with what would be the likeliest thing to please a little child.
A bright red handkerchief, an orange one, a third as many colored as Joseph’s coat, an old habitant sash worth its weight in gold to a connoisseur, a scarf-pin set with a cairngorm the size of a man’s thumb-nail—this from Sandy!—a—you mustn’t laugh—a pair of brand-new suspenders, and big and little coins that spelled liquor or tobacco to the givers, and now bought what pleased them infinitely more. Of course one stocking couldn’t begin to hold the gifts, though they were massed into a dizzy pyramid at the top, so its mate was pressed into service and crowded likewise. There was a distressing similarity in the presents when you came to think of it, especially where handkerchiefs were concerned; still, no man withheld his giving because another’s choice was necessarily the same; he added his contribution proudly, as if it were the only one of its kind. Frenchy, who had a pretty trick of carving, gave a really beautiful little frame which his deft fingers had made in the long evenings; and the cook, when no one was looking, slipped in his prayer-book, though I don’t believe any one that night would have laughed at his having it with him. The young fellow they called Kid—he was something of a dandy—added a ring of massive proportions. It wasn’t gold, but he pretended it was, and liked to wear it when he went to dances to make the girls think he was a fine, up-and-coming man. And Jerome—poor old Jerome—
It was a very meagre kit that he rummaged through again and again,—one that he himself had packed; and when a man has to take care of himself he doesn’t put in any useless traps, any—what you’d call gewgaws; not when he’s old, that is. So he could find nothing there; and a search through his pockets revealed the same depressing poverty. He had nothing—nothing but a certain battered snuff-box that had been his companion for so many years that it would be easier to imagine him without his head than without the box. He was evidently of that opinion, for he stowed it down in his pocket with an air of great finality. But nevertheless, polished to an almost glittering show of youth and filled with coins, it very fitly crowned the motley collection.
It had taken some time to play Santa Claus, for each man had to wait his turn to stow away his gift; there were no deputies allowed on this occasion, and the bungling fingers couldn’t work very quickly,—didn’t try to, if the truth were known. But all too soon the joyful task came to an end, and the men stood back radiant-eyed, looking at those bulging little red stockings as if they were the most beautiful things in all the world.
How the glow spread and spread in their hearts, though the fire, banked for the night, was shining quite dimly now! That mighty threefold cable of the Christmas-tide—with its strand of inheritance, its strand of opportunity, its strand of affection—bound them very closely to one another; in that moment old wrongs and heart-burnings, bitternesses and rivalries slipped away, and they knew the blessedness of peace and good-will. Happy? There was just one thing to make them happier,—the merry voice of a little child greeting the misty light of the Christmas dawn.
TOWARD midnight somebody stepped close to the improvised bed and stood looking down with troubled eyes at the child curled up among the blankets there. The light from the low fire cast an occasional flickering flame upon the tiny segment of cheek just visible above the woollen covering, like a snowdrop peeping out of a mass of old bracken, and on the floating strands of hair that had lost their golden sheen in the semi-obscurity. An hour or so earlier the men had gone to their bunks in the long loft overhead, and their heavy breathing now proclaimed the fact that they were resting from their labors. Every one in the house was sleeping but Shawe; even old Jerome, who sat huddled by the side of the little one, nodded at his post. He had maintained the right of watching, by supremacy of his years and her evident preference for him, jealously putting aside all offers that his vigil be shared. He stirred now and opened his eyes, staring into the face of the man above him.
“What is it?” he demanded with a low, savage growl.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Shawe whispered back, “for thinking of the ones who are mourning for her,—her mother and uncle. The father isn’t home, she said. Don’t you remember—‘God bless far-away daddy’? So he won’t be troubled. But the others—they ought to know. We’ve had all the Christmas sport and they nothing but black misery and bitterness. They ought to know quickly.”
Old Jerome’s hand fluttered above the little head, half fell to it, then was drawn reluctantly back.
“Ye-es, they’d orter know,” he said dully, “but how? Who is she?” He shifted his position, averting his eyes. “I’ve be’n thinkin’ thet p’r’aps she’s nobut a little Christmus sperit come to cheer us in this God forsook spot—”
“That’s nonsense, man. Look at her sleeping there as human as we are, though with a difference. I tell you she has kith and kin, and their hearts are bleeding for her at this moment. I’m going to find them—”
“Ye sha’n’t take her with yer, Shawe,” the old man whimpered. “I’ll roust up the others, an’ they’ll fight yer—I—I can’t; she’s made me too trembly. But ye sha’n’t take her.”
“You’re crazy! I’d no thought of taking her. It’s colder than charity outside, and the frost is like a badger’s tooth. Besides, it must be almost thirty miles to Wistar, and there’s no house nearer, is there? No, I go by myself.”
“An’ ef ye don’t win through—there’s thet chanst.”
“I don’t—that’s all. But I’m not hopeless—I’ve got to win through.”
“Best wait till mornin’,” Jerome said, after the silence between them had grown unbearable, “p’r’aps somebody’ll be goin’ by from Merle, an’ ye could git a lift, or p’r’aps her folks’ll come from somewhars—Ye don’ know whar she come from, anyways,” he finished triumphantly.
“We worked out the sum that she came with that man Terry. Everything she said about Santa Claus fitted him like a glove, you—who know him—say. And he came from Wistar, so she belongs there. Perhaps her people didn’t miss her till late; and what traces would she leave if she came on in his sleigh? Answer me that. How would they ever dream of searching for her up here when there’s the river—Good God! a child like that wouldn’t notice the spruce bush signals put up where the ice is thin; and there are the open water-holes by the barns—” He stopped with a deep intake of breath, and moved nearer the fire; Jerome, watching him furtively, saw that he was fully dressed to go out.
“Wal!” he muttered slowly, after a time, “ef ye be so sot on goin’, ye’re goin’, I s’pose. P’r’aps ye’re right. Somehow I was only thinkin’ from my side, an’ hedn’t got ’roun’ to the mother’s; mebbe an ol’ codger like me never would ha’ got ’roun’—can’t say. Here’s my hand.”
It was an unusual demonstration, but Shawe showed no particular surprise; everything being a little out of the ordinary that night. He grasped the extended hand warmly, then let it drop, and turned away, bending again for a moment over the sleeping child.
“Wish I were going to hear her laugh over the stocking,” he said half to himself.
“Got a wife an’ fambly?” Jerome asked.
“No,” the other returned.
“Thought mebbe ye hed, ’count o’ yer thinkin’ how the mother’d feel—mebbe ye hed oncet.”
“Yes,” Shawe answered shortly.
“Then ye know how turr’ble masterful the kids are. Strange, ain’t it? Mine hed got so ez he could patty-cake, ye understan’. Lord! there warn’t never a sight like it—never. Thought fust ’twas a kinder fool thing the mother’d learned it; but bless yer! I didn’t think so long; ’twas the purties’ sight—