this file was produced from images generously made available by florida's publication of archival, library & museum materials (palmm)) [illustration] [illustration] dear santa claus charming holiday stories for boys and girls [illustration] handsomely illustrated copyright, 1901, by w. b. conkey company chicago w. b. conkey company publishers [illustration] _the night before christmas._ [illustration] [illustration] 'twas the night before christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that st. nicholas soon would be there. the children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] and mamma in her kerchief, and i in my cap, had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap; when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, i sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. away to the window i flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the lustre of midday to objects below- when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, with a little old driver so lively and quick, i knew in a moment it must be st. nick. [illustration] [illustration] more rapid than eagles his coursers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name- "now, dasher! now, dancer! now, prancer! now, vixen! on, comet! on, cupid! on, dunder and blixen! to the top of the porch, to the top of the wall! now, dash away! dash away! dash away! all!" as dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, so up to the house-top the coursers they flew with the sleigh full of toys, and st. nicholas, too. [illustration] [illustration] and then in a twinkling i heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof. as i drew in my head, and was turning around, down the chimney st. nicholas came with a bound. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] he was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; a bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack. his eyes--how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; his droll little mouth was drawn up in a bow, and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. [illustration] he spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and filled all the stockings--then turned with a jerk, and laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. he sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew, like the down of a thistle; but i heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight, "merry christmas to all, and to all a good-night!" [illustration] _the night after christmas._ [illustration] 'twas the night after christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring--excepting a mouse. the stockings were flung in haste over the chair, for hopes of st. nicholas were no longer there. the children were restlessly tossing in bed, for the pie and the candy were heavy as lead; while mamma in her kerchief, and i in my gown, had just made up our minds that we would not lie down, when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, i sprang from my chair to see what was the matter. away to the window i went with a dash, flung open the shutter, and threw up the sash. the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave the lustre of noon-day to objects below, i knew at a glance it must be dr. brough. i drew in my head, and was turning around, when upstairs came the doctor, with scarcely a sound. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] he wore a thick overcoat, made long ago, and the beard on his chin was white with the snow. he spoke a few words, and went straight to his work; he felt all the pulses,--then turned with a jerk, and laying his finger aside of his nose, with a nod of his head to the chimney he goes:- "a spoonful of oil, ma'am, if you have it handy; no nuts and no raisins, no pies and no candy. these tender young stomachs cannot well digest all the sweets that they get; toys and books are the best. but i know my advice will not find many friends, for the custom of christmas the other way tends. the fathers and mothers, and santa claus, too, are exceedingly blind. well, a good-night to you!" and i heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight: "these feastings and candies make doctors' bills right!" [illustration] nelly's visit one summer, nelly's auntie, who lived in the country, asked her to come and make a good, long visit, and you may be sure nelly was very glad to go. [illustration] she had always lived in the city, and she thought it great fun to feed the hens and chickens and calves, and to watch all the animals and talk to them. [illustration] cousin fred was about her own age, so it was very pleasant for them to play together. fred took her around the farm and told her about all the pets, and they soon knew her as well as though she had always lived there. milly, one of the horses, would eat out of a spoon, and nelly and her cousin took turns feeding her. when they went away, she whinnied for them to come back again, but nelly said, "you shall have some more to-morrow; you mustn't be a piggy-wiggy." [illustration] one day fred and nelly gathered flowers in the woods, and nelly made a wreath to put upon her cousin's head. "it seems just like fairyland out here," she said. "let's play it is fairyland, and i'm a fairy and you're a brownie." [illustration] fred thought that a very good game indeed, and they played that they lived in the flowers and could change themselves into birds, or squirrels, or people, whenever they wished. but bye and bye they got hungry, and they couldn't live on the honey from the flowers, as real fairies might; so they spread out the lunch which they had brought and decided to be children again. it seemed as though they had never tasted anything quite so good as that lunch. [illustration] [illustration] one day speckle, the big hen, made a great fuss because her brood of ducklings went into the water. she flew about here and there on the bank of the stream, and called to them to come back, but the ducklings were having great fun and paid no attention at all to her. [illustration] chanticleer seemed to think they were not very well behaved and needed a good scolding; so he began to strut about and talk at the top of his voice; but the ducklings had their swim and came out as happy as could be. nelly thought the little chicks were prettier. [illustration] shep, the dog, could hunt eggs as well as they could, and he always helped them. after he had found a nest, he took each egg carefully in his mouth, and laid it in the basket which the children had brought; and he never broke one. "i believe he could count them if he tried," said nelly. "of course he can count," said fred. "when we send him after the cows, he never leaves one behind, nor the sheep either. if one strays away, he hunts for it until he finds it. but he wouldn't hurt one of them for anything, no matter how hard he had to work to bring them in." [illustration] they watched the milking, and drank all the warm milk they wanted; and one day they helped churn. "i believe i could make butter, too," said nelly. "of course you could, dear," said her auntie; "it wouldn't take long for you to learn, either." nelly was delighted with this, and wanted to begin right away. fairy stories laura, eva, and susy are three sisters who are very fond of fairy stories, as most little girls are. laura is the oldest, and reads the stories aloud to the others, while humpty-dumpty, the kitten, sits near and listen--or, at least, he seems to be listening. [illustration] but sometimes he gets tired of sitting still and jumps right up on laura's book, so she has to stop. then they all have a great frolic, and very often little brother harry comes in to join in the fun, and they play until they are tired out. [illustration] [illustration] one story which they like very much is about a little girl who was lost in the woods and wandered about for a long, long time, until she was so tired that she fell asleep on the ground, with the flowers all around her and the birds singing. [illustration] but the birds were really fairies and were watching over her to see that she was not harmed, and they sang to her on purpose to lull her to sleep, for they knew how tired she was. [illustration] and when she wakened, she understood what they said to her and knew they were fairies, and they led her out of the forest and all the way to her home. they asked her to come and visit them again, too, and promised to take good care of her. [illustration] another of their favorite stories is about the flower fairies who come and dance and sing for little children in the forest when it is very still and the sun is shining brightly. [illustration] laura says she thinks she has almost heard them sometimes, talking to the birds; and they often sit very quiet indeed, with their dollies hugged tightly in their arms, and listen and watch. [illustration] once eva went to sleep when she was watching like this, out in the grove back of her home, and she dreamed that a fairy came and danced for her and sang the sweetest songs you ever heard. [illustration] "she was just like a little girl, too," said eva. "she was bare-footed and hadn't any hat on her head, and she wanted me to come and dance with her." [illustration] "did you?" asked little susy, breathlessly. [illustration] "of course!" said eva. "we danced and danced and had just a lovely time together, and then i had to go and wake up." "oh, oh, oh, i wish i could have a dream like that!" cried little susy; and she went and lay down on the couch right away, to see if she couldn't go to sleep and dream about fairies, too. [illustration] but when she wakened, she said that all she could dream about was just a lot of little frogs sitting up very straight on the bank of a brook, with a great, big frog on a great, big log talking to them. [illustration] "i think that was a lovely dream," said laura; and then little susy was happy. [illustration] "now let's read some more stories," said eva, and perhaps next time we'll see some really-truly fairies. _--fannie e. ostrander._ [illustration] [illustration] kate and dick had a good many pets. there were frisk and ponto and fuss and another little dog called fly. there was the pony, fleet, and the newest pet of all was a dear little colt that kate's papa had given to her for her very own because the pony she rode really belonged to dick. this colt she had named fairy, and she took great care of it. fly and fairy were good friends, and they had a funny way of looking at each other that made the children laugh. then the baby that they all loved lived here. her name was may, and she was kate's sister. she was a sweet little thing, just beginning to walk and to talk. she could say "chicky" quite plainly, and she liked to toddle out and watch the little girls feed the chickens. but i can't begin to tell you all the good times the children had that summer. they were happy all the time, and grandma said they were so good that it was really no trouble at all to have them there. [illustration] but at last one saturday evening, papa, who always came out from the city to spend sunday with them, said they must start for home the next monday. they did want to stay longer, but papa laughed and said, "christmas is coming now, you know, and santa claus couldn't bring things way out here as easy as he could get them to you in town." then the children began to think of christmas and to tease grandpa and grandma to come and spend it with them, and of course papa and mamma teased too; so at last they promised, and the children said good-by to their pets and to kate and may and dick and went away shouting? "good-by, grandma. now remember you promised!" [illustration] [illustration] after the children reached home they talked of grandma's nearly all the time when they were not talking of christmas, and bessie wrote a letter to santa claus asking him to be sure and bring a pair of his nicest gold-bowed spectacles for grandma because she had lost her old ones, and not to forget a gold-headed cane for grandpa. at last christmas eve came, and grandma and grandpa were there, and the children hung up their stockings, and bessie said that grandma and grandpa must be sure and hang up theirs too; then, after they had gone to bed, the smaller children whispered for a long time about santa claus and listened to hear his sleigh bells on the roof. "i don't see how he can get down the chimney," whispered bessie. "you know he's so fat in all his pictures." "maybe he takes off his coat," whispered clara, "then he wouldn't be quite so big." but she didn't see how he could get down the chimney, either. once or twice they were sure they heard him on the roof, and they covered up their heads so he wouldn't think they were peeping, and at last they went to sleep before they knew it. willie and tom were just as anxious as the little girls, and whispered just as much, and they all dreamed of santa claus. [illustration] bessie and clara were the first ones up. they shouted with delight when they looked in their stockings. there was a dear little dolly in each stocking--a dolly with real hair and eyes that opened and shut, and the dollies were dressed very prettily. they were too large to go into the stockings, so they just stood in them, looking as though they were ready to jump down. willie found the funniest jumping-jack in his stocking, and tom pulled a flute out of his. he had everybody awake in no time after that. grace was happy when she looked in her stocking. there was a little plush box in it, and in the box was a lovely gold watch; while harry found just what he wanted too--a pair of skates. but grandma and grandpa were surprised when they discovered the spectacles and the cane. "who in the world could have told santa what we wanted most?" said grandma. grandpa said he couldn't understand it either, and then bessie had to tell the secret. she ran up to each of them and whispered, "i wrote to him myself!" then how they kissed her. all day long the library was kept closed; not a child was allowed to peep in. but what fun they had all day, and what a christmas dinner, with a plum pudding as big as a pumpkin. in the evening the library door was opened, and there was the prettiest christmas tree, all blazing with candles and hung with pretty things; while piled around it were books and toys and everything that everybody wanted most. and just think of it! there, lying in front of the tree and looking as happy as the children themselves, was a great, big, noble dog, who got up and came to meet them as they trooped in. "ooo! ooo! ooo!" cried bessie, bending to pat his head. "what's your name, you great, big darling? ooo! ooo! whose is he, papa?" "ask santa claus," said papa; and sure enough, santa claus stepped out from behind the tree. "his name is on his collar," said santa claus. then the children all rushed for him for they knew it was grandpa dressed up like santa claus. [illustration] afterwards bessie spelled out the dog's name, "c-a-r-l-o," on his collar, and her own name on a card which was tied to it, and she was the happiest little girl in the world. but everyone else was happy too, and they all said it was the very merriest christmas they had ever seen, and clara and bessie dreamed that santa claus told them he himself had never had so much fun before. _fannie e. ostrander._ off on the wheels one summer alma and her brother philip spent their vacation with their auntie, who lived in a beautiful village, so near the pretty country that they could take a ride out into it on their wheels, at any time they wished. [illustration] they both rode very well indeed, and they were always finding pretty little spots along the road-side, where they played camp out; for auntie let them take a lunch if they wanted to, and the air was so fresh and pure that they were hungry almost all the time. [illustration] one morning they started off quite early with their wheels and their lunch, and they rode out into the country on a pretty road where they had never been before. [illustration] it had great trees along the side and a little river winding along with it, and they saw the cattle and horses in the fields, and the hens and chickens and turkeys and geese along the road-side, and once they got off their wheels to talk to a pretty bossy and her calf that were very near the fence. [illustration] the bossy was a little afraid they might hurt her baby, so she wasn't quite friendly. but she didn't try to drive them away. [illustration] at one side of a farm-house near, a big dog was lying in his kennel, and a great black cat came up to him very slyly and tapped him on the nose with one paw. it was funny to see the dog jump up. [illustration] the birds sang, and the hens and chickens talked to each other, and once or twice they stopped to let a flock of geese cross the road in front of them. [illustration] then they came upon a big flock of turkeys, and the gobbler put on airs and pretended he was going to stop them; but they flew past and laughed at him. [illustration] by the side of the road in one place, a big, fat, clean-looking pig was standing, sunning himself; but when he saw them, he ran away, squealing. [illustration] "you needn't run from us," philip called after him; "we don't want any pork to-day--we've got chicken for our lunch." [illustration] "yes," said alma, "and nice, fresh strawberries, and everything good." they saw a big dog lying near a chicken-coop, with the chickens running over him just as they pleased, and philip called out again, "be careful, you little fellows, or you might happen to run down his throat." [illustration] [illustration] they got off their wheels and walked for a little while just for fun; and all at once, as they were passing a barn, alma cried, "look! did you see that cat after the mouse?" philip said he didn't; but pretty soon mrs pussy came out. [illustration] "you didn't get it, did you?" said alma. "well, you're fat enough now; you don't need to catch mice." they stopped to eat their lunch under a clump of trees not very far from a pleasant farm-house. there was a cunning little fat dog lying in front of the house, and as they watched him, up came a bee and lit on his nose. [illustration] the little doggy jumped up and barked at the bee; then he sat down and put up his nose in a friendly way, to see what it was. [illustration] "look out, sir!" cried philip. "you'll get hurt!" but he spoke just a little too late, for puppy-dog found out his mistake, and the next minute he was running away and yelping at the top of his voice. [illustration] "the poor little thing!" said alma. "wasn't that too bad?" "yes," said philip, "but he'll get over it pretty quick, and i can't help laughing, it did look so funny." [illustration] when they went back to their auntie's, they told her that was the best bicycle ride they had ever had. [illustration] --_fannie e. ostrander._ [illustration] the potato child & others by mrs. charles j. woodbury if only our help could begin as soon as our hindrance does contents the potato child a story that never ends a nazareth christmas the potato child it was certain that elsie had a very hard and solitary life. when miss amanda had selected her from among the girls at "the home," the motherly matron felt sorry. "she is a tender-hearted little thing, and a kind word goes a great way with elsie." miss amanda looked at the matron as if she were speaking greek, and said nothing. it was quite plain that few words, either kind or unkind, would pass miss amanda's lips. but "the home" was more than full, and miss amanda armstrong was a person well known as the leading dressmaker in the city, a person of some money; not obliged to work now if she didn't wish to. "if cold, she is at least perfectly just," they all said. so elsie went to work for miss amanda, and lived in the kitchen. she waited on the door, washed the dishes, cleaned the vegetables, and set the table (miss amanda lived alone, and ate in the kitchen). every friday she swept the house. her bed was in a little room in the back attic. when she came, miss amanda handed her a dress and petticoat, and a pair of shoes. "these are to last six months," she said, "and see you keep yourself clean." she gave her also one change of stockings and underclothes. "here is your room; you do not need a light to go to bed by, and it is not healthy to sleep under too many covers." it wasn't so much what miss amanda did to her, for she never struck her, nor in any way ill-treated her; nor was it so much what she said, for she said almost nothing. but she said it all in commands, and the loving little elsie was just driven into herself. she had had a darling mother, full of love and tenderness, and elsie would say to herself, "i must not forget the things mama told me, 'love can never die, and kind words can never die.'" but she had no one to love, and she never heard any kind words; so she was a bit worried. "i shall forget how kind words sound, and i shall forget how to love," sighed the little girl. she used to long for a doll or cat or something she could call her own and talk to. she asked miss amanda, who said "no." she added, "i have no money to give for such foolishness as a doll, and a cat would eat its head off." miss amanda had been blessed with no little-girl time. when she was young, she always had been forced to work hard, and she thought it was no worse for elsie than it had been for herself. i don't suppose it was; but one looking in on these two could not but feel for both of them. elsie would try to talk to herself a little at night, but it was cheerless. then she would lift up her knee, and draw the sheet about it for a hood, and call it a little girl. she named it nancy pullam, and would try to love that; but it almost broke her back when she tried to hug nancy. "oh, if i had something to be good to"! she said. so she began greeting the ladies, when she opened the door, with a cheerful little "good morning" or "good afternoon." "i wouldn't do that," said miss amanda, "it looks forward and pert. it is their place to say 'good morning,' not yours. you have no occasion to speak to your betters, and, anyway, children should be seen and not heard." one day, a never-forgotten day, she went down cellar to the bin of potatoes to select some for dinner. she was sorting them over and laying out all of one size, when she took up quite a long one, and lo! it had a little face on it and two eyes and a little hump between for a nose and a long crack below that made a very pretty mouth. elsie looked at it joyfully. "it will make me a child," she said, "no matter if it has no arms or legs; the face is everything." she carefully placed it at the end of the bin, and whenever she could slip away without neglecting her work would run down cellar and talk softly to it. but one day her potato-child was gone! elsie's heart gave a big jump, and then fell like lead, and seemed to lie perfectly still; but it commenced to beat again, beat and ache, beat and ache! she tried to look for the changeling; but the tears made her so that she couldn't see very well; and there were so many potatoes! she looked every moment she had a chance all the next day, and cried a great deal. "i can never be real happy again," she thought. "don't cry any more," said miss amanda, "it does not look well when you open the door for my customers. you have enough to eat and wear; what more do you want?" "something to love," said elsie, but not very loud. she tried not to cry again, and then she felt worse not-to shed tears, when, perhaps, her dear little potato-child was eaten up. two days after, as she was still searching, a little piece of white paper in the far dark corner attracted her attention. she went over and lifted it up. behind it was a hole, and partly in and partly out of the hole lay her potato-child. i think a rat had dragged it out of the bin. she hugged it to her heart, and cried for joy. "oh, my darling, you have come back to me, you have come back!" and then it seemed as if the pink eyes of the potato-child looked up into elsie's in affectionate gratitude; and it became plain to elsie that her child loved her. she was so thankful that she even kissed the little piece of white paper. "if it hadn't been for you i would never have found my child. i mean to keep you always," she said, and she wrapped it about her potato-child, and put them in her bosom. "we must never be parted again," she murmured. at supper, with many misgivings, she unwrapped her treasure for miss amanda, and asked if she could keep it as her own. "i won't eat any potato for dinner tomorrow if you will give me this," she said. "well," answered miss amanda, "i don't know as it will do any harm; why do you want it?" "it is my potato-child. i want to love it." "see you lose no time, then," said miss amanda. and afterward, elsie never called the potato it, but always "my child." she found a fragment of calico, large enough for a dress and skirt, with enough over, a queer, three-cornered piece, which she pinned about the unequal shoulders for a shawl. upon the bonnet she worked for days. all this sewing was a great joy to her. last of all, she begged a bit of frayed muslin from the sweepings for a night-dress. then she could undress her baby every night. she must have heard a tiny tuber-voice, for she said, "now i can never forget the sound of loving words, and the world is full of joy." elsie had a candle-box in her room, with the cover hung on hinges. it served the double purpose of a trunk and a seat. she put her child's clothes and the scrap of white paper in this box. in the daytime she let her child sit upon the window-sill so she could see the blue sky; but when the weather grew colder she took her down to the kitchen each morning, lest she should suffer. sometimes, miss amanda watched her closely. "she does her work well, but she is a queer thing. she makes me uneasy," she thought. christmas was coming. elsie and her mother had always loved christmas, and had invariably given some gift to each other. after their stockings were hung side by side, christmas eve, her mother would take her in her lap and tell her the christmas story. so now it was a great mercy for elsie that she had her child to work for. one day, when she had scrubbed the pantry floor unusually clean, miss amanda gave her the privilege of the rag barrel. this resulted in a new christmas suit of silk and velvet for baby; and this she made. when elsie left "the home" the matron had given her a little needle-book containing a spool of thread and thimble for a good-by present. these now came into good play. she used the lamp shears to cut with. when all was done the babe looked beautiful, except that it had no stockings. it had not even legs. "i'll make her a wooden leg, and let her be a cripple, then i shall love her all the better." but after she had made the leg, and a very good one, too, she hadn't the heart to break the skin of her child, and push it in. "i'll make the stockings without legs," she said, and so she did. elsie was very careful never to let her child see, or mention before her, how busy she was for christmas. she felt very sorry for miss amanda, and wished she had something to give her, but she could think of nothing except the piece of white paper she found with her potato-child. the afternoon before christmas she took it from the candle-box, and smoothed it out upon the cover. it had some writing upon one side. elsie thought it was very pretty writing--it had so many flourishes. elsie could not read it, of course, but she hoped miss amanda would like it. how should she give it to her? she didn't dare hand it to her outright, and she was certain miss amanda wouldn't hang any stocking; so just before dark she slipped into miss amanda's sleeping-room, and laid it on the brown cushion just in front of the mirror. when elsie had finished her work she went to her room, pinned her child's stocking to the foot of the bed and slyly tucked in the new suit she had made. her own stockings lay flat upon the floor. her breath caught a little bit as she noticed them. "but it doesn't matter," she said, "parents never care for themselves if they can give their children pleasure." she crept into bed and took her child on her arm. the night was very cold. the frost made mysterious noises on the roof in the nail-holes and on the glass. she went to bed early because the kitchen was so cold. she thought "we can talk in bed." the lock of her door was broken, and she could not shut it tight. through this the air came chilly. * * * * * miss amanda put on her flannel wrapper and her bed-slippers and sat down before the open fire in her sleeping-room. some way she couldn't keep her thoughts from that little back attic room. she went into the hall, silently up the stairs, and stood outside the door. elsie was talking softly, but miss amanda could hear every word, thanks to the broken lock. "i have much to tell you to-night, dear child," she heard the waif say, "the whole story of the christmas child. it was years ago. his mother was very young, i guess about twice as old as i am. they hadn't any house; they were in a barn. i think there were no houses to rent in that town. but she fixed a little cradle for him in the feed-box, and wrapped him in long clothes, as i do you, my darling. the angels sang a new song for him. a new star shone in the east for him. some men with sheep came to visit him, and some rich men brought him lovely presents. my mother told me all these things, and i mustn't forget them; it helps me to remember to tell it to you. so now, this lovely christmas child was born in a little bit of a town, the town of--oh, my child"--with a mournful cry--"i've forgotten the name of the town! i used to say it to my mother--it's the town of, the town of--i can't remember." miss amanda could hear her crying a little softly. "never mind," she said presently. "i am very sorry; i have not told the story often enough. i wish i had some one to teach me a little, but perhaps it don't make so much difference if i have forgotten the name of the town. he came to teach us. sure i won't forget that. love can never die. that's the present he gave to everybody. so if nobody else gives us a christmas present, we always have the one he gave us." silence for a little. "i am very sorry for miss amanda, dear. she has no child to love. she has a very sad and lonely life." her teeth chattered a little. "it seems like a very cold night; the covers are quite thin, but we can never really suffer while our hearts are so warm. i'm glad you feel real well, and are just as plump as ever, but your little skin is just one bit wrinkled. you are not going to take cold or be sick? oh, i couldn't give you up! i should miss you so much, you happy, good little child." miss amanda heard a kiss. "good-night, dear. i'm so tired. god bless us all, and help us to remember miss amanda, and let her find her present to-night." miss amanda crept back to her warm room, and waited until she was sure the child was fast asleep. then she took a down quilt off the foot of her own bed, picked up her candle, and retraced her way up-stairs. she softly dropped the comforter upon elsie. she heard, as a sort of echo, a soft sigh of content. miss amanda waited a moment, then shading the candle with one hand, she looked at the sleeping child. the face was pale and thin. the lashes lay dark upon the white cheeks. they were quite wet; but, pressed close to them, and carefully covered by little, toil-hardened hands, was the grotesque potato in its white night-gown. miss amanda was surprised by a queer click in her throat, and hurried out of the room. she stood before her fire, candle in hand, and bitterly compressed her lips. she hopes "i'll find my christmas present to-night. who will send it to me, and what will it be? whom do i care for, and who cares for me? no one. not one human being." she crossed the room, and, placing her candle upon the dressing-table, gazed at herself in the glass. "i am growing old, old and hard, and perfectly friendless." but why that start and cry? there before her eyes, in the big, flourishing, boyish handwriting so well remembered, she reads: "our love can never die. we have nothing in the world except each other, dear sister, and no matter what may come, our love can never change." she snatched up the paper and threw herself into a chair. "where did it come from"? she cried. "what evil genius placed it here this night? haven't i, years ago, torn and destroyed every word that wretched boy ever wrote me?" she tossed her arms over her head, and rocked back and forth, and groaned aloud. she could not help her thoughts now, or keep them from going back over the past. her heart softened as she remembered, and the scalding tears fell. she was only a child, not much older than the one up-stairs, when her dying mother had placed her baby-brother in her arms, saying: "he is all i have to leave you, amanda. i know you love him. don't ever be harsh or unforgiving to him." how had she kept her trust? she had loved him. she had worked early and worked late for him. she had given up everything; but she had been ill-repaid. "ill," do i say? verily, is this not true of love: that it brings its own blessedness? the fire burned low, and the room settled cold and still. she seemed to feel a pair of boyish arms about her neck and a boy's rough kiss upon her cheek. when she was but a young woman she had moved to the big city, and started her dressmaker's shop, so that he could have a better chance at school. what a loving boy he was! so full of fun! the wind whistled outside. she thought it was he, and she heard him again: "you're my handsome sister. not one of the fellows have as handsome a sister as i." how proud she had felt when she had started him off to college. "it only means a few years of a little harder work, and then i'll see my boy able to take his stand with anybody." but now she wept and groaned afresh. "oh, how could he treat me so, how could he! the wretched disgrace!" he had been expelled. the president's letter was severe; but the young man's letter regretted it as only a boyish prank. he was sorry. he had never expected anything so serious would come of it. he deserved the disgrace. it only hurt him through his love for her. but only forgive him, and he would show her what he could yet do. what had he done? he had tied a calf to the president's door-bell. she remembered her answer to this letter, asking for her forgiveness. it stood before her, written in characters of flame. had she in this been harsh to the boy, the only legacy her dying mother had to leave her? "never speak to me, nor see my face again. you have disgraced yourself and me." it was not so long a letter but that she could easily remember it. afterward, the president himself had written again to her. he thought he had been too hasty. it was truly only a boy's prank. it was, of course, ungentlemanly, but the trick was played on all-fool's night, and that should have had greater weight than it did. the faculty were willing, after proper apologies were made, to excuse it, and take her brother back. where was her brother? he could not be found, and not one word had she heard of him since she sent that dreadful letter. he might be dead. oh, how often she thought that! now she wrung her hands and covered her wet cheeks with them. her hair fell about her shoulders, as she shook in her agony of remorse. * * * * * what noise is this? the door-bell pealing through the silent house. again and again it rings. she did not hear this bell. she was listening to another, and how it rang! louder and louder, how it rang, and well it might, with a calf jumping about, trying to get away from it. even in all her misery--so near together are the ecstasies of emotion--she laughed aloud and then shuddered at the thought that she should never again hear any noise quite so loud as this of the past. then she felt in the silent, chill room a tattered presence, a little half-frozen hand upon her own. she turned her streaming eyes, and they were met by the big, wide eyes of elsie. "miss amanda, didn't you hear the door-bell ringing? there is something--no, there is somebody--waiting down-stairs for you." half dazed, half afraid, ashamed of her tears, miss amanda left the room, led by the child as by an unearthly presence into an unearthly presence. who was this bearded man that folded her in his strong, true arms? * * * * * "i have so much to tell you, dear child. i am such a happy little girl. miss amanda's dear brother has come home. she is so happy, and she loves him so much. and, oh darling, they both love me! and it was all you! you did it all! oh, there is no knowing how much good one sweet, loving, contented potato-child can do in a house." a story that never ends tommy was very angry. he rushed up-stairs and into his mother's room, utterly forgetting his knock or "am i welcome, mother?" "bang!" echoed the door behind him with a noise that resounded over the whole house. why he was angry was plain enough. his eye was black, nose bleeding, coat torn, collar hanging. his mother took it off as he bent over the wash-bowl. "oh, tommy," she said, "you've been fighting again." "well, mother," he exclaimed, "what do you expect me to do? that bob sykes threw rocks at me again and called me names. he said i was--" "hush," said his mother, "you only grow more angry as you speak. is it hard for you now to remember the rule, 'the good things about others, the naughty things about yourself''?" "good! there is nothing good about him. i hate him. i wish he was dead, i do. i wish i could kill him." sternly his mother took him by the arm and led him before the mirror. one look at the face he saw there silenced him. "to all intents and purposes you have killed him. 'whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.' you cannot but remember who said it, tommy. it is late in the afternoon. the sun is going down. to-morrow is his birthday. hadn't you better forgive bob?" "the sun may go down and the sun may come up for all i care," he answered, "i'll never forgive him." without further word his mother bathed his heated face and led him to her bed. "lie down and rest," she said, "you are over excited. quiet will help you." he lay and looked at her as she sat quietly and gravely at her work under the picture. ever since he could remember, her chair at this hour of the day had been in that corner, and low over it had always hung, just as it hung now, that picture so often explained to him, "the walk to emmaus." how calm and quiet his mother was; and the room, how still and cool after that crowded street! shutting his aching eyes he could see it again now; the swearing mob of boys and men shoving him on, their brutal faces and gestures, the quarrel, the blows--those he had given and taken--he felt them again, and the burning choke of the final grip and wrestle. oh, how his head throbbed and ached! it seemed as if the blood would burst through. he opened his eyes again. the room was growing darker. he almost forgot his pain for a few moments, noticing how the sunlight was straightened to a narrow lane which reached from the extreme southern end of the window to the floor in front of his mother's chair. he watched the last rays as they slowly left the floor and stole up her dress to her lap and her breast, leaving all behind and below in shadow. now they had reached her face. it was bent over her work. well he knew that was some christmas gift, may be for him,--some christmas gift, and to-morrow was christmas! he looked again to see if he could discover what she was making, but the light had left her now, and had risen to the picture. queer picture that it was! what funny clothes those men wore! those long gabardines, mother had called them, reaching almost to the ground; shoes that showed the toes, and hoods for hats. one of them had none. how closely they looked at him!. they didn't even see which way they were going, and what a long way it was, stretching out there, dusty and hot. the room was quite dark now save for the light on the narrow road there. what was yonder little village in the distance? what kind of a place was emmaus? his mother had told him about it; only one street, a long and narrow one; and very few trees; and one or two trading shops only; and the houses low and flat-roofed, with no glass in them; and the sun shining down hot and straight between them,--and (oh, how his head ached!) he was out there looking for bob sykes. maybe that was he lying on this rude bench with the low cedar-bush over it. if it were, he would settle matters with him quick. he would show him--but it wasn't bob, it was only a sheep-dog asleep. so tommy turned away and walked slowly along the middle of the street. his face burned with the heat of the sun on his bruises. he was very thirsty. climbing a little hill over which the road lay, he saw on the other side of it another boy coming toward him. he was rather a peculiar looking boy, with a face thoughtful but pleasant. he was carrying a heavy sheepskin bag over his shoulder. tommy determined to ask him if he knew where there was some water. "hello," he said, as the boy drew near. the boy stopped and smiled at tommy without making reply. "where are you going?" said tommy. "i am carrying this bag of tools to my father," the boy answered. "do you live here?" asked tommy. "it doesn't seem like much of a place." "no," said the boy, "it isn't much of a place, but i live here." "what sort of tools have you got in your bag? who is your father?" "my father is a carpenter," answered the boy. tommy gave a long, low whistle. "a carpenter! why my father owns a store, and we live in one of the best houses in town. fairfield is the name of my town." the boy seemed neither to notice the whistle nor the brag; but, allowing the bag to slip from his shoulders to the ground, stood, still smiling, before tommy. tommy, who somehow had forgotten his pain and thirst, felt embarrassed for a moment. he never before had made that announcement without its awakening at least a little sensation, even if it were no more than a boast in return. "this is a dull old town," he finally said. "many jolly boys around?" "a good many," answered the boy. "do you get any time to play? i suppose though, you don't--you have to work most of the time," added tommy, encouragingly. "i work a good deal," said the boy. "i get time to play, however. i like it." "which, the work or the play?" "both." "well," said tommy after a pause, "do you ever have any trouble with the boys you play with?" "no," said the boy, "i don't think i do." "well, you must be a queer sort of a boy! now, there's bob sykes,--perhaps you've noticed that my eye is hurt, and my face scratched some. well, we had a little difficulty just a few moments ago; he insulted me, and i won't take an insult from any one. and i told him to shut up his mouth, and he sassed me back, and called me names, and said i was stuck up and thought i was better than the other boys, and he'd show me that i wasn't. of course, i wouldn't stand that, so i've had a fight,--and it isn't the first one either." "yes," said the boy, "i know that. i feel very sorry for bob. he hasn't any mother to go to, you know. he had to wash the blood and dirt off his face as best he could at the town pump; and then wait around the streets until his father came from work. it is pretty hard for a boy to have no place to lay his head." "why, do you know bob sykes?" asked tommy. "yes," answered the boy, "i've been with him a good deal." "queer now," mused tommy. "i don't remember of ever seeing you around. but now tell me what you would have done if he had provoked you, and insulted you, too?" "i would have forgiven him," answered the boy. "well, i did. there was one spell i just started in and forgave him every day for a week, that was seven times." "i would have forgiven him seventy times seven." "that is just what my mother always says. perhaps you know my mother?" "she knows me, too," replied the boy. "that is odd. i didn't think she knew any of the boys bob knows." "bob does not know me," replied the boy; "i know him." just then tommy's attention was attracted by a flock of little brown birds passing over their heads. one of the birds flew low and fluttered as if wounded, and fell in the dust near, where it lay beating its little wings, panting and dying. the boy tenderly picked it up. "somebody's hit him with a sling-shot," said tommy, carelessly. the boy smoothed the bruised wing, and straightened the crushed and broken body. the bird ceased fluttering. "i'm most sorry," said tommy, "i didn't forgive bob. it makes me feel bad, what you told me about his having no home. now, mother is something like you. she don't mind one's being poor. why, if i took bob home with me, mother wouldn't seem to see his clothes and ragged shoes. she'd just talk to him and treat him like he was the best dressed boy in town. there's bill logan came home to dinner with me once. mother made me ask him. he is a real poor boy; has to work. his mother washes. he didn't know what to do nor how to act. he kept his hands in his pockets most all the time. aunt lilly said it was shocking. but mother said, 'never mind.' she said she was glad he had his pockets; for his hands were rough and not too clean, and she thought they mortified him. father went and kissed her then. don't tell this. i don't know what makes me run on and tell you all these things. i never spoke of them before. but i know father was a poor, young working man when he married mother." the boy raised his hand, and the sparrow gave a twitter of delight and flew heavenward. "why," exclaimed tommy in amazement, "you've cured him! he is all right. how did you do it? do you feel sorry for the sparrows as well as bob?" "i pity every sparrow that is hurt," said the boy, "and isn't bob of more consequence than a sparrow?" "i wish," said tommy, "i hadn't fought with bob. it was most all my fault. i've a good mind to tell him so. i wish i was better acquainted with you. if i played with such a boy as you are, now, i'd be better i am certain. suppose you come after school nights and play in our yard. never mind your clothes. can't you come?" "yes, i will come if you want me to," answered the boy, looking steadfastly at him a moment; "but now i must be about my father's business." he stooped, lifted the bag of tools to his shoulders, and before tommy could stay him had moved some steps away. "don't go yet, tell me some more about what you'd do," and tommy turned to follow him. but was it the boy? and was that a bag of tools on his back? it had grown strangely longer and heavier now, so that it dragged on the ground, and the face was the face of the picture, and lo, it turned toward him, and the hand was raised in benediction and farewell, "i am with you always," and he was gone. "oh! come back, come back," sobbed tommy, reaching out his arms and struggling to run after him. "poor boy," said his mother, wiping the blinding tears from his eyes, "your sleep didn't do you much good." "i've not been asleep," said tommy; "i've been talking with--with--him," and he spoke low with a longing reverence and pointed to the picture. "it was a dream, my child." "mother, it was a vision. i saw him, when he was a little boy in his own town, nazareth. and, mother, i even told him it wasn't much of a place to live in. he talked to me about bob. he said you knew him. i saw him cure a little bird. and oh, mother, he said he would be with me always. he is a little boy like me! i know what to do now. he showed me. i must find bob; i must have him forgive me. i want to bring him home with me into my bed for to-night." he stopped. "mother," he said solemnly, "to-morrow is his birthday." a nazareth christmas "now, tell us, mother, again--as ever this night--the story of our brother's birth." "yes, dear mother, and not forgetting the star; for us no story is like this, not even the story of young king david, although in truth, that is a goodly tale." "then sit, children; lend me your aid with the gifts; and now, as dark comes on, while yet your father and brother are not returned from their work, i will repeat again the oft-told story. i see not how i can forget aught, for it seems ever before me. "you must know it was between the wet time and the dry when your father and i went up to judea to be enrolled. bethlehem was our city. there were a great many journeying in our company to the house of bread. i was not strong in those days; and so your father obtained an ass for me to ride, while he walked by my side. we traveled slowly, and the early night had already set in when we passed where rachel rests, and reached the village. in front of the inn at which your father intended stopping, he left my side a moment, while he went to arrange for our stay; but he straightway returned, saying there was no room for us. so we were compelled to go farther; and it was late,--how late i know not,--before we found rest; for at every inn where your father knocked the answer was the same: 'no room!' 'no room!' your father bore up bravely, though he had the harder part; while, in my childishness, i was fain to kneel in the chalk-dust of the road, and seek what rest i could. but he upheld me, until, at last, one inn-keeper, seeing what a child i was in truth took pity on me and said: "i am able to do no more for you than for my poor cattle; but i can give you shelter with them in the cavern stable and a bed if only straw." "and, children, i was very thankful for this. i had been told before that to me a prince should be born; that, girl as i was, as mother, should clasp in my arms a savior-child. i believed the words of the angel,--for was i not of the house of david?--and ever treasured them in my heart. now, how strange should it be that not in my peaceful nazareth, not in this, our own home, but: there, and that weary night of all nights, beside me on the straw should be laid my infant son! "i knew immediately what to call him, for, as i have often told you, the angel had named him 'jesus.' 'even so,' the angel had said; 'for he shall save his people from their sins.' i have wondered much what that means for your brother." "watch well your work, children! burn not the cakes. fold with care the mantles and the coats. this garment we will lay aside for patches. it repays not labor to put new to old; and, james, test well the skins before you fill them with the wine. we know not to whom your brother bears the gifts of his handiwork to-night, but he knows who needs them most, and naught must be lost or wasted. "where was i in the story, children?" "the baby on the hay, sweet mother." "ah, yes, i mind me now. i took him in my arms. to me no child had ever looked the same. but now, a marvel! the rock stable, which before had seemed dark indeed, lighted only by our dim lamps, suddenly shone full of light. i raised my eyes, and there, before and above me, seemingly through a rent in the roof, i beheld a most large and luminous star. verily, i had not seen the opening in the roof when i had lain me down, but now i could do naught else but look from my baby's face beside me, along the floods of light to the star before. "and now, without, rose a cry: 'we are come to behold the king. we are guided.' and, entering the stable, clad in their coats of sheepskin, with their slings and crooks yet in their hands, came shepherds, i cannot now recall the number." "i had wrapped my babe in his clothes, and had lain him in his manger. and now it was so that as soon as their eyes fell upon his face, they sank to their knees and worshiped him." "'heard you not,' spake a white-bearded shepherd to me; 'heard you not, young mother mary, the angels' song?'" "'meseems i have long heard it, and can hear naught else, good father,' i answered." "to us it came,' he said, 'in the first watch of this night, and with it music not of earth.'" "afterward came the learned ones from the eastern countries,--i know not now the land. the gifts they brought him made all the place seem like a king's palace; and with all their gifts they gave him worship also." "and i lay watching it all. and it shall be always so, i thought." "but these, though wise men, were not of our race, and could not follow the guiding star with our faith. wherefore, so much stir had they made throughout the kingdom, inquiring publicly concerning this, your brother, that, through the jealousy of herod, great was the trouble and misery that fell upon the innocent after their going." "but hearken, children; i hear even now your father and your brother coming from their work. place quickly the gifts within the basket." it is a gentle figure that bends among mother and children, and a tender voice that questions: "shall i bear forth the gifts?" "they are ready now, my son. even this moment thy brother james placed the last within the basket, but canst thou not partake of the evening meal before thou goest with them? thou art but a lad, to go forth alone after a day of toil." "nay, but i must be about the master's work; and, look, the stars are rising. i should tarry not, for they who toil long rest early." "for whom is thy service to-night, my son? last birth-night it was to the sorrowing; before that to the blind, and even yet to the deaf and the lame. and whither tend thy footsteps now?" "to the tempted ones, mother." "and thou shalt stay their feet, dear boy, for rememberest not the immanuels of last year? how the sorrowful found strange, staying joy in their hearts? how the blind said, as thou named their gifts, and placed them in their hands, that it seemed they could straightway behold them? how even the dumb gave forth pleasant sounds like music from their helpless tongues? and how even the lame well-nigh leaped from their lameness, for the light of thy young face? but when thou comest to thy crown and throne thou needest not got forth alone upon thy birth-night, but send out thy gifts with love and plenty." "i know not, my mother." "but all will be thine? what said the angel: 'the lord god shall give unto him the throne of his father david; and of his kingdom there shall be no end!' it may be soon, we know not, for lo! king david was but a boy, and at his daily toil, when he was called to reign over the house of jacob. forget not, thou art born the king." "oh, gladden not thy heart, loved mother, with this joy. i seek not to behold the future, but i see not in this world my kingdom, for the rose blossoms i pluck from out the hedge-rows fall; and it is their thorn branch that ever within my hands twines into a crown." here ends the potato child and others by mrs. charles j. woodbury. the frontispiece after a bas-relief by elizabeth ferrea. published by paul elder & company and done into a book for them at their tomoye press, under the direction of john henry nash, in the city of san francisco, nineteen hundred & eleven [illustration: nibsy as santa claus.] nibsy's christmas by jacob august riis short story index reprint series books for libraries press freeport, new york first published 1893 reprinted 1969 standard book number: 8369-3073-8 library of congress catalog card number: 71-90590 manufactured by hallmark lithographers, inc. in the u.s.a. * * * * * _to her most gracious majesty louise queen of denmark the friend of the afflicted and the mother of the motherless in my childhood's home these leaves are inscribed with the profound respect and admiration of the author_ * * * * * nibsy's christmas it was christmas-eve over on the east side. darkness was closing in on a cold, hard day. the light that struggled through the frozen windows of the delicatessen store, and the saloon on the corner, fell upon men with empty dinner-pails who were hurrying homeward, their coats buttoned tightly, and heads bent against the steady blast from the river, as if they were butting their way down the street. the wind had forced the door of the saloon ajar, and was whistling through the crack; but in there it seemed to make no one afraid. between roars of laughter, the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice on the hard-wood counter were heard out in the street. more than one of the passers-by who came within range was taken with an extra shiver in which the vision of wife and little ones waiting at home for his coming was snuffed out, as he dropped in to brace up. the lights were long out when the silent streets re-echoed his unsteady steps toward home, where the christmas welcome had turned to dread. but in this twilight hour they burned brightly yet, trying hard to pierce the bitter cold outside with a ray of warmth and cheer. where the lamps in the delicatessen store made a mottled streak of brightness across the flags, two little boys stood with their noses flattened against the window. their warm breath made little round holes on the frosty pane, that came and went, affording passing glimpses of the wealth within, of the piles of smoked herring, of golden cheese, of sliced bacon and generous, fat-bellied hams; of the rows of odd-shaped bottles and jars on the shelves that held there was no telling what good things, only it was certain that they must be good from the looks of them. and the heavenly smell of spices and things that reached the boys through the open door each time the tinkling bell announced the coming or going of a customer! better than all, back there on the top shelf the stacks of square honey-cakes, with their frosty coats of sugar, tied in bundles with strips of blue paper. the wind blew straight through the patched and threadbare jackets of the lads as they crept closer to the window, struggling hard with the frost to make their peep-holes bigger, to take in the whole of the big cake with the almonds set in; but they did not heed it. "jim!" piped the smaller of the two, after a longer stare than usual; "hey, jim! them's sante clause's. see 'em?" "sante claus!" snorted the other, scornfully, applying his eye to the clear spot on the pane. "there ain't no ole duffer like dat. them's honey-cakes. me 'n' tom had a bite o' one wunst." "there ain't no sante claus?" retorted the smaller shaver, hotly, at his peep-hole. "there is, too. i seen him myself when he cum to our alley last----" "what's youse kids a-scrappin' fur?" broke in a strange voice. another boy, bigger, but dirtier and tougher looking than either of the two, had come up behind them unobserved. he carried an armful of unsold "extras" under one arm. the other was buried to the elbow in the pocket of his ragged trousers. the "kids" knew him, evidently, and the smallest eagerly accepted him as umpire. "it's jim w'at says there ain't no sante claus, and i seen him----" "jim!" demanded the elder ragamuffin, sternly, looking hard at the culprit; "jim! y'ere a chump! no sante claus? what're ye givin' us? now, watch me!" with utter amazement the boys saw him disappear through the door under the tinkling bell into the charmed precincts of smoked herring, jam, and honey-cakes. petrified at their peep-holes, they watched him, in the veritable presence of santa claus himself with the fir-branch, fish out five battered pennies from the depths of his pocket and pass them over to the woman behind the jars, in exchange for one of the bundles of honey-cakes tied with blue. as if in a dream they saw him issue forth with the coveted prize. "there, kid!" he said, holding out the two fattest and whitest cakes to santa claus's champion; "there's yer christmas. run along, now, to yer barracks; and you, jim, here's one for you, though yer don't desarve it. mind ye let the kid alone." "this one'll have to do for me grub, i guess. i ain't sold me 'newses,' and the ole man'll kick if i bring 'em home." and before the shuffling feet of the ragamuffins hurrying homeward had turned the corner, the last mouthful of the newsboy's supper was smothered in a yell of "extree!" as he shot across the street to intercept a passing stranger. * * * * * as the evening wore on it grew rawer and more blustering still. flakes of dry snow that stayed where they fell, slowly tracing the curb-lines, the shutters, and the doorsteps of the tenements with gathering white, were borne up on the storm from the water. to the right and left stretched endless streets between the towering barracks, as beneath frowning cliffs pierced with a thousand glowing eyes that revealed the watch-fires within--a mighty city of cave-dwellers held in the thraldom of poverty and want. outside there was yet hurrying to and fro. saloon doors were slamming and bare-legged urchins, carrying beer-jugs, hugged the walls close for shelter. from the depths of a blind alley floated out the discordant strains of a vagabond brass band "blowing in" the yule of the poor. banished by police ordinance from the street, it reaped a scant harvest of pennies for christmas-cheer from the windows opening on the backyard. against more than one pane showed the bald outline of a forlorn little christmas-tree, some stray branch of a hemlock picked up at the grocer's and set in a pail for "the childer" to dance around, a dime's worth of candy and tinsel on the boughs. from the attic over the way came, in spells between, the gentle tones of a german song about the christ-child. christmas in the east-side tenements begins with the sunset on the "holy eve," except where the name is as a threat or a taunt. in a hundred such homes the whir of many sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make itself heard above the noise of the great treadmill. to these what was christmas but the name for persecution, for suffering, reminder of lost kindred and liberty, of the slavery of eighteen hundred years, freedom from which was purchased only with gold. aye, gold! the gold that had power to buy freedom yet, to buy the good will, aye, and the good name, of the oppressor, with his houses and land. at the thought the tired eye glistened, the aching back straightened, and to the weary foot there came new strength to finish the long task while the city slept. where a narrow passage-way put in between two big tenements to a ramshackle rear barrack, nibsy, the newsboy, halted in the shadow of the doorway and stole a long look down the dark alley. he toyed uncertainly with his still unsold papers--worn dirty and ragged as his clothes by this time--before he ventured in, picking his way between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the italian cobbler's hovel, where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a cheap print of the "mother of god," showed that even he knew it was christmas and liked to show it; past the sullivan flat, where blows and drunken curses mingled with the shriek of women, as nibsy had heard many nights before this one. he shuddered as he felt his way past the door, partly with a premonition of what was in store for himself, if the "old man" was at home, partly with a vague, uncomfortable feeling that somehow christmas-eve should be different from other nights, even in the alley. down to its farthest end, to the last rickety flight of steps that led into the filth and darkness of the tenement. up this he crept, three flights, to a door at which he stopped and listened, hesitating, as he had stopped at the entrance to the alley; then, with a sudden, defiant gesture, he pushed it open and went in. a bare and cheerless room; a pile of rags for a bed in the corner, another in the dark alcove, miscalled bedroom; under the window a broken cradle and an iron-bound chest, upon which sat a sad-eyed woman with hard lines in her face, peeling potatoes in a pan; in the middle of the room a rusty stove, with a pile of wood, chopped on the floor alongside. a man on his knees in front fanning the fire with an old slouch hat. with each breath of draught he stirred, the crazy old pipe belched forth torrents of smoke at every point. as nibsy entered, the man desisted from his efforts and sat up glaring at him. a villainous ruffian's face, scowling with anger. "late ag'in!" he growled; "an' yer papers not sold. what did i tell yer, brat, if ye dared----" "tom! tom!" broke in the wife, in a desperate attempt to soothe the ruffian's temper. "the boy can't help it, an' it's christmas-eve. for the love o'----" "to thunder with yer rot and with yer brat!" shouted the man, mad with the fury of passion. "let me at him!" and, reaching over, he seized a heavy knot of wood and flung it at the head of the boy. nibsy had remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. at the first movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway with the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. it struck the door, as he slammed it behind him, with force enough to smash the panel. down the three flights in as many jumps nibsy went, and through the alley, over barrels and barriers, never stopping once till he reached the street, and curses and shouts were left behind. in his flight he had lost his unsold papers, and he felt ruefully in his pocket as he went down the street, pulling his rags about him as much from shame as to keep out the cold. four pennies were all he had left after his christmas treat to the two little lads from the barracks; not enough for supper or for a bed; and it was getting colder all the time. on the sidewalk in front of the notion store a belated christmas party was in progress. the children from the tenements in the alley and across the way were having a game of blindman's-buff, groping blindly about in the crowd to catch each other. they hailed nibsy with shouts of laughter, calling to him to join in. "we're having christmas!" they yelled. nibsy did not hear them. he was thinking, thinking, the while turning over his four pennies at the bottom of his pocket. thinking if christmas was ever to come to him, and the children's santa claus to find his alley where the baby slept within reach of her father's cruel hand. as for him, he had never known anything but blows and curses. he could take care of himself. but his mother and the baby----. and then it came to him with shuddering cold that it was getting late, and that he must find a place to sleep. he weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was in the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too hot for him. there was the hay-barge down by the dock, with the watchman who got drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. the chances were at least even of its being available on christmas-eve, and of santa claus having thus done him a good turn after all. then there was the snug berth in the sandbox you could curl all up in. nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay-barge, so far away and to windward too. down by the printing-offices there were the steam-gratings, and a chance corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where the big presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the day. as he passed them in review, nibsy made up his mind with sudden determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down town. * * * * * the rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and pain that was echoed by a hundred throats. from one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire. the clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. with hook and axes the firemen rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in the depths the battle was fought and won. the building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the victory there fell a sudden silence. from the cellar-way a grimy, helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms. a tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden, while the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital for the doctor to come quickly. very gently they lifted poor little nibsy--for it was he, caught in his berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of the hay-barge--into the ambulance that bore him off to the hospital cot, too late. conscious only of a vague discomfort that had succeeded terror and pain, nibsy wondered uneasily why they were all so kind. nobody had taken the trouble to as much as notice him before. when he had thrust his papers into their very faces they had pushed him roughly aside. nibsy, unhurt and able to fight his way, never had a show. sick and maimed and sore, he was being made much of, though he had been caught where the boys were forbidden to go. things were queer, anyhow, and---the room was getting so dark that he could hardly see the doctor's kindly face, and had to grip his hand tightly to make sure that he was there; almost as dark as the stairs in the alley he had come down in such a hurry. there was the baby now--poor baby--and mother--and then a great blank, and it was all a mystery to poor nibsy no longer. for, just as a wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and doctors to his bedside, crying for her boy, nibsy gave up his soul to god. * * * * * it was very quiet in the alley. christmas had come and gone. upon the last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. it had done duty there a dozen times before, that year. upstairs, nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all, old and young, came to see him. even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. cowed and silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the plain little coffin stood, with the lid closed down. a couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove, when there came a timid knock at the door. nobody answering, it was pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking form of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood breathing peep-holes on the window-pane of the delicatessen store the night before when nibsy came along. he dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some christmas-tree fitted into its block by the grocer for a customer. "it's from sante claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "nibsy knows." and he went out. santa claus had come to nibsy, after all, in his alley. and nibsy knew. [illustration] what the christmas sun saw in the tenements the december sun shone clear and cold upon the city. it shone upon rich and poor alike. it shone into the homes of the wealthy on the avenues and in the uptown streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in by towering tenements down town. it shone upon throngs of busy holiday shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles big and small, all alike filled with christmas cheer and kindly messages from santa claus. it shone down so gayly and altogether cheerily there, that wraps and overcoats were unbuttoned for the north wind to toy with. "my, isn't it a nice day?" said one young lady in a fur shoulder-cape to a friend, pausing to kiss and compare lists of christmas gifts. "most too hot," was the reply, and the friends passed on. there was warmth within and without. life was very pleasant under the christmas sun up on the avenue. down in cherry street the rays of the sun climbed over a row of tall tenements with an effort that seemed to exhaust all the life that was in them, and fell into a dirty block, half-choked with trucks, with ash-barrels and rubbish of all sorts, among which the dust was whirled in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and cranny of the big barracks. they fell upon a little girl, bare-footed and in rags, who struggled out of an alley with a broken pitcher in her grimy fist, against the wind that set down the narrow slit like the draught through a big factory chimney. just at the mouth of the alley it took her with a sudden whirl, a cyclone of dust and drifting ashes, tossed her fairly off her feet, tore from her grip the threadbare shawl she clutched at her throat, and set her down at the saloon-door breathless and half-smothered. she had just time to dodge through the storm-doors before another whirlwind swept whistling down the street. "my, but isn't it cold?" she said, as she shook the dust out of her shawl and set the pitcher down on the bar. "gimme a pint," laying down a few pennies that had been wrapped in a corner of the shawl, "and mamma says make it good and full." "all'us the way with youse kids--want a barrel when yees pays fer a pint," growled the bartender. "there, run along, and don't ye hang around that stove no more. we ain't a steam-heatin' the block fer nothin'." the little girl clutched her shawl and the pitcher, and slipped out into the street where the wind lay in ambush and promptly bore down on her in pillars of whirling dust as soon as she appeared. but the sun that pitied her bare feet and little frozen hands played a trick on old boreas--it showed her a way between the pillars, and only just her skirt was caught by one and whirled over her head as she dodged into her alley. it peeped after her half-way down its dark depths, where it seemed colder even than in the bleak street, but there it had to leave her. it did not see her dive through the doorless opening into a hall where no sun-ray had ever entered. it could not have found its way in there had it tried. but up the narrow, squeaking stairs the girl with the pitcher was climbing. up one flight of stairs, over a knot of children, half babies, pitching pennies on the landing, over wash-tubs and bedsteads that encumbered the next--house-cleaning going on in that "flat;" that is to say, the surplus of bugs was being burned out with petroleum and a feather--up still another, past a half-open door through which came the noise of brawling and curses. she dodged and quickened her step a little until she stood panting before a door on the fourth landing that opened readily as she pushed it with her bare foot. a room almost devoid of stick or rag one might dignify with the name of furniture. two chairs, one with a broken back, the other on three legs, beside a rickety table that stood upright only by leaning against the wall. on the unwashed floor a heap of straw covered with dirty bed-tick for a bed; a foul-smelling slop-pail in the middle of the room; a crazy stove, and back of it a door or gap opening upon darkness. there was something in there, but what it was could only be surmised from a heavy snore that rose and fell regularly. it was the bedroom of the apartment, windowless, airless, and sunless, but rented at a price a millionaire would denounce as robbery. "that you, liza?" said a voice that discovered a woman bending over the stove. "run 'n' get the childer. dinner's ready." the winter sun glancing down the wall of the opposite tenement, with a hopeless effort to cheer the backyard, might have peeped through the one window of the room in mrs. mcgroarty's "flat," had that window not been coated with the dust of ages, and discovered that dinner-party in action. it might have found a hundred like it in the alley. four unkempt children, copies each in his or her way of liza and their mother, mrs. mcgroarty, who "did washing" for a living. a meat bone, a "cut" from the butcher's at four cents a pound, green pickles, stale bread and beer. beer for the four, a sup all round, the baby included. why not? it was the one relish the searching ray would have found there. potatoes were there, too--potatoes and meat! say not the poor in the tenements are starving. in new york only those starve who cannot get work and have not the courage to beg. fifty thousand always out of a job, say those who pretend to know. a round half-million asking and getting charity in eight years, say the statisticians of the charity organization. any one can go round and see for himself that no one need starve in new york. from across the yard the sunbeam, as it crept up the wall, fell slantingly through the attic window whence issued the sound of hammer-blows. a man with a hard face stood in its light, driving nails into the lid of a soap-box that was partly filled with straw. something else was there; as he shifted the lid that didn't fit, the glimpse of sunshine fell across it; it was a dead child, a little baby in a white slip, bedded in straw in a soap-box for a coffin. the man was hammering down the lid to take it to the potter's field. at the bed knelt the mother, dry-eyed, delirious from starvation that had killed her child. five hungry, frightened children cowered in the corner, hardly daring to whisper as they looked from the father to the mother in terror. there was a knock on the door that was drowned once, twice, in the noise of the hammer on the little coffin. then it was opened gently, and a young woman came in with a basket. a little silver cross shone upon her breast. she went to the poor mother, and putting her hand soothingly on her head knelt by her with gentle and loving words. the half-crazed woman listened with averted face, then suddenly burst into tears and hid her throbbing head in the other's lap. the man stopped hammering and stared fixedly upon the two; the children gathered around with devouring looks as the visitor took from her basket bread, meat, and tea. just then, with a parting, wistful look into the bare attic room, the sun-ray slipped away, lingered for a moment about the coping outside and fled over the house-tops. as it sped on its winter-day journey, did it shine into any cabin in an irish bog more desolate than these cherry street "homes?" an army of thousands whose one bright and wholesome memory, only tradition of home, is that poverty-stricken cabin in the desolate bog, are herded in such barracks to-day in new york. potatoes they have; yes, and meat at four cents--even seven. beer for a relish--never without beer. but home? the home that was home even in a bog, with the love of it that has made ireland immortal and a tower of strength in the midst of her suffering--what of that? there are no homes in new york's poor tenements. down the crooked path of the mulberry street bend the sunlight slanted into the heart of new york's italy. it shone upon bandannas and yellow neckerchiefs; upon swarthy faces and corduroy breeches; upon blackhaired girls--mothers at thirteen; upon hosts of bow-legged children rolling in the dirt; upon pedlers' carts and ragpickers staggering under burdens that threatened to crush them at every step. shone upon unnumbered pasquales dwelling, working, idling, and gambling there. shone upon the filthiest and foulest of new york's tenements, upon bandits' roost, upon bottle alley, upon the hidden by-ways that lead to the tramp's burrows. shone upon the scene of annual infant slaughter. shone into the foul core of new york's slums that is at last to go to the realm of bad memories because civilized man may not look upon it and live without blushing. it glanced past the rag-shop in the cellar, whence welled up stenches to poison the town, into an apartment three flights up that held two women, one young, the other old and bent. the young one had a baby at her breast. she was rocking it tenderly in her arms, singing in the soft italian tongue a lullaby, while the old granny listened eagerly, her elbows on her knees, and a stumpy clay-pipe, blackened with age, between her teeth. her eyes were set on the wall, on which the musty paper hung in tatters, fit frame for the wretched, poverty-stricken room, but they saw neither poverty nor want; her aged limbs felt not the cold draught from without, in which they shivered; they looked far over the seas to sunny italy, whose music was in her ears. "o dolce napoli," she mumbled between her toothless jaws, "o suol beato----" the song ended in a burst of passionate grief. the old granny and the baby woke up at once. they were not in sunny italy; not under southern, cloudless skies. they were in "the bend" in mulberry street, and the wintry wind rattled the door as if it would say, in the language of their new home, the land of the free: "less music! more work! root, hog, or die!" around the corner the sunbeam danced with the wind into mott street, lifted the blouse of a chinaman and made it play tag with his pig-tail. it used him so roughly that he was glad to skip from it down a cellar-way that gave out fumes of opium strong enough to scare even the north wind from its purpose. the soles of his felt shoes showed as he disappeared down the ladder that passed for cellar-steps. down there, where daylight never came, a group of yellow, almond-eyed men were bending over a table playing fan-tan. their very souls were in the game, every faculty of the mind bent on the issue and the stake. the one blouse that was indifferent to what went on was stretched on a mat in a corner. one end of a clumsy pipe was in his mouth, the other held over a little spirit-lamp on the divan on which he lay. something spluttered in the flame with a pungent, unpleasant smell. the smoker took a long draught, inhaling the white smoke, then sank back on his couch in senseless content. upstairs tiptoed the noiseless felt shoes, bent on some house errand, to the "household" floors above, where young white girls from the tenements of the bend and the east side live in slavery worse, if not more galling, than any of the galley with ball and chain--the slavery of the pipe. four, eight, sixteen--twenty odd such "homes" in this tenement, disgracing the very name of home and family, for marriage and troth are not in the bargain. in one room, between the half-drawn curtains of which the sunbeam works its way in, three girls are lying on as many bunks, smoking all. they are very young, "under age," though each and every one would glibly swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is sixteen, and therefore free to make her own bad choice. of these, one was brought up among the rugged hills of maine; the other two are from the tenement crowds, hardly missed there. but their companion? she is twirling the sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the bowl of her pipe with it. as she does so, the sunbeam dances across the bed, kisses the red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her tyrant long has known, though to her it is hidden yet--that the pipe has claimed its victim and soon will pass it on to the potter's field. "nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred within her by the flash--"nell, did you hear from the old farm to home since you come here?" nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly look on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips. "to hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her mouth inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back on her pillow in drunken stupor. that is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in mott street. it had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and vainly seeking entry to others; had gilt with equal impartiality the spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to toiling fathers striving early and late for bread to fill the many mouths clamoring to be fed. the brief december day was far spent. now its rays fell across the north river and lighted up the windows of the tenements in hell's kitchen and poverty gap. in the gap especially they made a brave show; the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that set back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. but the glory did not cross the threshold. within it was dark and dreary and cold. the room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was empty. the last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his drunken fury. the sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it was long since it could have made out the red daub from the mould on the rotten floor. upstairs, in the cold attic, where the wind wailed mournfully through every open crack, a little girl sat sobbing as if her heart would break. she hugged an old doll to her breast. the paint was gone from its face; the yellow hair was in a tangle; its clothes hung in rags. but she only hugged it closer. it was her doll. they had been friends so long, shared hunger and hardship together, and now----. her tears fell faster. one drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll. the last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless jewel. its glory grew and filled the room. gone were the black walls, the darkness and the cold. there was warmth and light and joy. merry voices and glad faces were all about. a flock of children danced with gleeful shouts about a great christmas-tree in the middle of the floor. upon its branches hung drums and trumpets and toys, and countless candles gleamed like beautiful stars. farthest up, at the very top, her doll, her very own, with arms outstretched, as if appealing to be taken down and hugged. she knew it, knew the mission-school that had seen her first and only real christmas, knew the gentle face of her teacher, and the writing on the wall she had taught her to spell out: "in his name." his name, who, she had said, was all little children's friend. was he also her dolly's friend, and would know it among the strange people? the light went out; the glory faded. the bare room, only colder and more cheerless than before, was left. the child shivered. only that morning the doctor had told her mother that she must have medicine and food and warmth, or she must go to the great hospital where papa had gone before, when their money was all spent. sorrow and want had laid the mother upon the bed he had barely left. every stick of furniture, every stitch of clothing on which money could be borrowed, had gone to the pawnbroker. last of all, she had carried mamma's wedding-ring, to pay the druggist. now there was no more left, and they had nothing to eat. in a little while mamma would wake up, hungry. the little girl smothered a last sob and rose quickly. she wrapped the doll in a threadbare shawl, as well as she could, tiptoed to the door and listened a moment to the feeble breathing of the sick mother within. then she went out, shutting the door softly behind her, lest she wake her. up the street she went, the way she knew so well, one block and a turn round the saloon corner, the sunset glow kissing the track of her bare feet in the snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as she opened it and went in. a musty smell filled the close room. packages, great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn counter. a slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the money for a skirt she had brought to pledge. "not a cent more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the garment aside. "it's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth over the counter these six months. take it or leave it. hallo! what have we here? little finnegan, eh? your mother not dead yet? it's in the poor-house ye will be if she lasts much longer. what the----" he had taken the package from the trembling child's hand--the precious doll--and unrolled the shawl. a moment he stood staring in dumb amazement at its contents. then he caught it up and flung it with an angry oath upon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box. "get out o' here, ye finnegan brat," he shouted; "i'll tache ye to come a'guyin' o' me. i'll----" the door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the cold night. the sun saw not its home-coming. it had hidden behind the night-clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty. evening had worn into night. the busy city slept. down by the wharves, now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and shivering with cold. he sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among strangers. he had been alone ever since, but never more so than that night. his money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets for nights. that day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, and one of the two he must do soon. there was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since----it was so cold--and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. no one who would ever know. he moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more intently. a low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against his. a little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him nestled in his lap. he had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. its touch recalled him to himself. he got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to the police station near by and asked for shelter. it was the first time he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home. in the middle of the night he awoke with a start. the locket was gone. one of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. with bitter tears he went up and complained to the sergeant at the desk, and the sergeant ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief. how should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? the doorman put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step. * * * * * far from the slumbering city the rising moon shines over a wide expanse of glistening water. it silvers the snow upon a barren heath between two shores, and shortens with each passing minute the shadows of countless headstones that bear no names, only numbers. the breakers that beat against the bluff wake not those who sleep there. in the deep trenches they lie, shoulder to shoulder, an army of brothers, homeless in life, but here at rest and at peace. a great cross stands upon the lonely shore. the moon sheds its rays upon it in silent benediction and floods the garden of the unknown, unmourned dead with its soft light. out on the sound the fishermen see it flashing white against the starlit sky, and bare their heads reverently as their boats speed by, borne upon the wings of the west wind. skippy of scrabble alley skippy was at home in scrabble alley. so far as he had ever known home of any kind it was there in the dark and mouldy basement of the rear house, farthest back in the gap that was all the builder of those big tenements had been able to afford of light and of air for the poor people whose hard-earned wages, brought home every saturday, left them as poor as if they had never earned a dollar, to pile themselves up in his strong-box. the good man had long since been gathered to his fathers--gone to his better home. it was in the newspapers, and in the alley it was said that it was the biggest funeral--more than a hundred carriages, and four black horses to pull the hearse. so it must be true, of course. skippy wondered vaguely, sometimes, when he thought of it, what kind of a home it might be where people went in a hundred carriages. he had never sat in one. the nearest he had come to it was when jimmy murphy's cab had nearly run him down once, and his "fare," a big man with whiskers, had put his head out and angrily called him a brat, and told him to get out of the way, or he would have him arrested. and jimmy had shaken his whip at him and told him to skip home. everybody told him to skip. from the policeman on the block to the hard-fisted man he knew as his father, and who always had a job for him with the growler when he came home, they were having skippy on the run. probably that was how he got his name. no one cared enough about it, or about the boy, to find out. was there anybody anywhere who cared about boys, anyhow? were there any boys in that other home where the carriages and the big hearse had gone? and if there were, did they have to live in an alley, and did they ever have any fun? these were thoughts that puzzled skippy's young brain once in a while. not very long or very hard, for skippy had not been trained to think; what training the boys picked up in the alley didn't run much to deep thinking. perhaps it was just as well. there were one or two men there who were said to know a heap, and who had thought and studied it all out about the landlord and the alley. but it was very tiresome that it should happen to be just those two, for skippy never liked them. they were always cross and ugly, never laughed and carried on as the other men did once in a while, and made his little feet very tired running with the growler early and late. he well remembered, too, that it was one of them who had said, when they brought him home, sore and limping, from under the wheels of jimmy murphy's cab, that he'd been better off if it had killed him. he had always borne a grudge against him for that, for there was no occasion for it that he could see. hadn't he been to the gin-mill for him that very day twice? skippy's horizon was bounded by the towering brick walls of scrabble alley. no sun ever rose or set between them. on the hot summer days, when the saloon-keeper on the farther side of the street pulled up his awning, the sun came over the house-tops and looked down for an hour or two into the alley. it shone upon broken flags, a mud-puddle by the hydrant where the children went splashing with dirty, bare feet, and upon unnumbered ash-barrels. a stray cabbage-leaf in one of these was the only green thing it found, for no ray ever strayed through the window in skippy's basement to trace the green mould on the wall. once, while he had been lying sick with a fever, skippy had struck up a real friendly acquaintance with that mouldy wall. he had pictured to himself woods and hills and a regular wilderness, such as he had heard of, in its green growth; but even that pleasure they had robbed him of. the charity doctor had said that the mould was bad, and a man scraped it off and put whitewash on the wall. as if everything that made fun for a boy was bad. down the street a little way was a yard just big enough and nice to play ball in, but the agent had put up a sign that he would have no boys and no ball-playing in his yard, and that ended it; for the "cop" would have none of it in the street either. once he had caught them at it and "given them the collar." they had been up before the judge, and though he let them off they had been branded, skippy and the rest, as a bad lot. that was the starting-point in skippy's career. with the brand upon him he accepted the future it marked out for him, reasoning as little, or as vaguely, about the justice of it as he had about the home conditions of the alley. the world, what he had seen of it, had taught him one lesson: to take things as he found them, because that was the way they were; and that being the easiest, and, on the whole, best suited to skippy's general make-up, he fell naturally into the _rã´le_ assigned him. after that he worked the growler on his own hook most of the time. the "gang" he had joined found means of keeping it going that more than justified the brand the policeman had put upon it. it was seldom by honest work. what was the use? the world owed them a living, and it was their business to collect it as easily as they could. it was everybody's business to do that, as far as they could see, from the man who owned the alley, down. they made the alley pan out in their own way. it had advantages the builder hadn't thought of, though he provided them. full of secret ins and outs, runways and passages, not easily found, to the surrounding tenements, it offered chances to get away when one or more of the gang were "wanted" for robbing this store on the avenue, tapping that till, or raiding the grocer's stock, that were a no. 1. when some tipsy man had been waylaid and "stood up," it was an unequalled spot for dividing the plunder. it happened once or twice, as time went by, that a man was knocked on the head and robbed within the bailiwick of the now notorious scrabble alley gang, or that a drowned man floated ashore in the dock with his pockets turned inside out. on such occasions the police made an extra raid, and more or less of the gang were scooped in, but nothing ever came of it. dead men tell no tales, and they were not more silent than the scrabbles, if, indeed, these had anything to tell. it came gradually to be an old story. skippy and his associates were long since in the rogues' gallery, numbered and indexed as truly a bad lot now. they were no longer boys, but toughs. most of them had "done time" up the river and come back more hardened than they went, full of new tricks always, which they were eager to show the boys to prove that they had not been idle while they were away. on the police returns they figured as "speculators," a term that sounded better than thief, and meant, as they understood it, much the same, viz., a man who made a living out of other people's labor. it was conceded in the slums, everywhere, that the scrabble-alley gang was a little the boldest that had for a long time defied the police. it had the call in the other gangs in all the blocks around, for it had the biggest fighters as well as the cleverest thieves of them all. then one holiday morning, when in a hundred churches the pã¦an went up, "on earth peace, good-will toward men," all new york rang with the story of a midnight murder committed by skippy's gang. the saloon-keeper whose place they were sacking to get the "stuff" for keeping christmas in their way had come upon them, and skippy had shot him down while the others ran. a universal shout for vengeance went up from outraged society. it sounded the death-knell of the gang. it was scattered to the four winds, all except skippy, who was tried for murder and hanged. the papers spoke of his phenomenal calmness under the gallows; said it was defiance. the priest who had been with him in his last hours said he was content to go to a better home. they were all wrong. had the pictures that chased each other across skippy's mind as the black cap was pulled over his face been visible to their eyes, they would have seen scrabble alley with its dripping hydrant, and the puddle in which the children splashed with dirty, bare feet; the dark basement room with its mouldy wall; the notice in the yard, "no ball-playing allowed here;" the policeman who stamped him as one of a bad lot, and the sullen man who thought it had been better for him, the time he was run over, if he had died. skippy asked himself moodily if he was right after all, and if boys were ever to have any show. he died with the question unanswered. they said that no such funeral ever went out of scrabble alley before. there was a real raid on the undertaker's where skippy lay in state two whole days, and the wake was talked of for many a day as something wonderful. at the funeral services it was said that without a doubt skippy had gone to a better home. his account was squared. * * * * * skippy's story is not invented to be told here. in its main facts it is a plain account of a well-remembered drama of the slums, on which the curtain was rung down in the tombs yard. there are skippies without number growing up in those slums to-day, vaguely wondering why they were born into a world that does not want them; scrabble alleys to be found for the asking, all over this big city where the tenements abound, alleys in which generations of boys have lived and died--principally died, and thus done for themselves the best they could, according to the crusty philosopher of skippy's set--with nothing more inspiring than a dead blank wall within reach of their windows all the days of their cheerless lives. theirs is the account to be squared--by justice, not vengeance. skippy is but an item on the wrong side of the ledger. the real reckoning of outraged society is not with him, but with scrabble alley. old christmas by washington irving but is old, old, good old christmas gone? nothing but the hair of his good, gray, old head and beard left? well, i will have that, seeing that i cannot have more of him. hue and cry after christmas. contents christmas the stage-coach christmas eve christmas day the christmas dinner a man might then behold at christmas, in each hall good fires to curb the cold, and meat for great and small. the neighbours were friendly bidden, and all had welcome true, the poor from the gates were not chidden, when this old cap was new. old song christmas there is nothing in england that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. they recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the may morning of life, when as yet i only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, i am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at present. i regret to say that they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. they resemble those picturesque morsels of gothic architecture which we see crumbling in various parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days. poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural game and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its themes,--as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the gothic arch and mouldering tower, gratefully repaying their support by clasping together their tottering remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure. of all the old festivals, however, that of christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. there is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. the services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. they dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. they gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. i do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony. it is a beautiful arrangement, also derived from days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a family who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementoes of childhood. there is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of christmas. at other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature. our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." the song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn; earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence, all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. but in the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. the dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social circle. our thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more aroused, we feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are brought more closely together by dependence on each other for enjoyment. heart calleth unto heart; and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of living kindness, which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms: and which when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity. the pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. the ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance into a kindlier welcome. where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile--where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent--than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which we look around upon the comfortable chamber and the scene of domestic hilarity? the english, from the great prevalence of rural habits throughout every class of society, have always been fond of those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country life; and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social rites of christmas. it is inspiring to read even the dry details which some antiquarians have given of the quaint humours, the burlesque pageants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fellowship with which this festival was celebrated. it seemed to throw open every door, and unlock every heart. it brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm generous flow of joy and kindness. the old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly--the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled around the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told christmas tales. one of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday customs. it has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic surface. many of the games and ceremonials of christmas have entirely disappeared, and like the sherris sack of old falstaff, are become matters of speculation and dispute among commentators. they flourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously; times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its richest materials, and the drama with its most attractive variety of characters and manners. the world has become more worldly. there is more of dissipation, and less of enjoyment. pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life. society has acquired a more enlightened and elegant tone; but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, its honest fireside delights. the traditionary customs of golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. they comported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlour, but are unfitted to the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the modern villa. shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honours, christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in england. it is gratifying to see that home feeling completely aroused which seems to hold so powerful a place in every english bosom. the preparations making on every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and kindred; the presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens of regard, and quickeners of kind feelings; the evergreens distributed about houses and churches, emblems of peace and gladness; all these have the most pleasing effect in producing fond associations, and kindling benevolent sympathies. even the sound of the waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid-watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. as i have been awakened by them in that still and solemn hour, "when deep sleep falleth upon man," i have listened with a hushed delight, and, connecting them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fancied them into another celestial choir, announcing peace and good-will to mankind. how delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral influences, turns everything to melody and beauty: the very crowing of the cock, who is sometimes heard in the profound repose of the country, "telling the night-watches to his feathery dames," was thought by the common people to announce the approach of this sacred festival: "some say that ever 'gainst that season comes wherein our saviour's birth is celebrated, this bird of dawning singeth all night long: and then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; the nights are wholesome--then no planets strike, no fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, so hallow'd and so gracious is the time." amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what bosom can remain insensible? it is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling--the season for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart. the scene of early love again rises green to memory beyond the sterile waste of years; and the idea of home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates the drooping spirit,--as the arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert. stranger and sojourner as i am in the land,--though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold,--yet i feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those around me. surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever shining benevolence. he who can turn churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow beings, and sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a merry christmas. the stage-coach omne bene sine poena tempus est ludendi; venit hora, absque mora libros deponendi. --old holiday school song. in the preceding paper i have made some general observations on the christmas festivities of england, and am tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes of a christmas passed in the country; in perusing which, i would most courteously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit which is tolerant of folly, and anxious only for amusement. in the course of a december tour in yorkshire, i rode for a long distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding christmas. the coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations or friends to eat the christmas dinner. it was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their long ears about the coachman's box,--presents from distant friends for the impending feast. i had three fine rosy-cheeked schoolboys for my fellow passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit which i have observed in the children of this country. they were returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising themselves a world of enjoyment. it was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to perform during their six weeks' emancipation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. they were full of anticipations of the meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and dog; and of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the presents with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with bantam, which i found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed since the days of bucephalus. how he could trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take--there was not a hedge in the whole country that he could not clear. they were under the particular guardianship of the coachman, to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. indeed, i could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large bunch of christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his coat. he is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents. and here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untravelled readers to have a sketch that may serve as a general representation of this very numerous and important class of functionaries who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever an english stage-coachman may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery. he has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. he wears a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat; a huge roll of coloured handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his buttonhole; the present, most probably, of some enamoured country lass. his waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped; and his small-clothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach about half-way up his legs. all this costume is maintained with much precision; he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials; and, notwithstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person which is almost inherent in an englishman. he enjoys great consequence and consideration along the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass. the moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he throws down the reins with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to the care of the hostler; his duty being merely to drive from one stage to another. when off the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his greatcoat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of hostlers, stable-boys, shoe-blacks, and those nameless hangers-on that infest inns and taverns, and run errands, and do all kinds of odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room. these all look up to him as to an oracle; treasure up his cant phrases; echo his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore; and, above all, endeavour to imitate his air and carriage. every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo coachey. perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that reigned in my own mind, that i fancied i saw cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the journey. a stage-coach, however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world in motion as it whirls along. the horn, sounded at the entrance of a village, produces a general bustle. some hasten forth to meet friends; some with bundles and bandboxes to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can hardly take leave of the group that accompanies them. in the meantime, the coachman has a world of small commissions to execute. sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public-house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing housemaid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. as the coach rattles through the village, every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces, and blooming, giggling girls. at the corners are assembled juntas of village idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the important purpose of seeing company pass; but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much speculation. the smith, with the horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers, and suffer the iron to grow cool; and the sooty spectre in brown paper cap, labouring at the bellows, leans on the handle for a moment, and permits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn sigh, while he glares through the murky smoke and sulphureous gleams of the smithy. perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and good spirits. game, poultry, and other luxuries of the table, were in brisk circulation in the villages; the grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged with customers. the housewives were stirring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order; and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright red berries, began to appear at the windows. the scene brought to mind an old writer's account of christmas preparations:--"now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton--must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little. now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. the country maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards on christmas eve. great is the contention of holly and ivy, whether master or dame wears the breeches. dice and cards benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers." i was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling companions. they had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, recognising every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy--"there's john! and there's old carlo! and there's bantam!" cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands. at the end of a lane there was an old sober-looking servant in livery waiting for them: he was accompanied by a superannuated pointer, and by the redoubtable bantam, a little old rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long, rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited him. i was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fellows leaped about the steady old footman, and hugged the pointer, who wriggled his whole body for joy. but bantam was the great object of interest; all wanted to mount at once; and it was with some difficulty that john arranged that they should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride first. off they set at last; one on the pony, with the dog bounding and barking before him, and the others holding john's hands; both talking at once, and overpowering him by questions about home, and with school anecdotes. i looked after them with a feeling in which i do not know whether pleasure or melancholy predominated: for i was reminded of those days when, like them, i had neither known care nor sorrow, and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. we stopped a few moments afterward to water the horses, and on resuming our route, a turn of the road brought us in sight of a neat country seat. i could just distinguish the forms of a lady and two young girls in the portico, and i saw my little comrades, with bantam, carlo, and old john, trooping along the carriage road. i leaned out of the coach-window, in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight. in the evening we reached a village where i had determined to pass the night. as we drove into the great gateway of the inn, i saw on one side the light of a rousing kitchen fire beaming through a window. i entered, and admired, for the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad, honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an english inn. it was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels, highly polished, and decorated here and there with a christmas green. hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made its ceaseless clanking beside the fireplace, and a clock ticked in one corner. a well scoured deal table extended along one side of the kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard. travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high-backed oaken seats beside the fire. trim house-maids were hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh, bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group round the fire. the scene completely realised poor robin's humble idea of the comforts of midwinter. "now trees their leafy hats do bare, to reverence winter's silver hair; a handsome hostess, merry host, a pot of ale now and a toast, tobacco and a good coal fire, are things this season doth require."* * poor robin's almanack, 1684. i had not been long at the inn when a postchaise drove up to the door. a young gentleman stepped out, and by the light of the lamps i caught a glimpse of a countenance which i thought i knew. i moved forward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. i was not mistaken; it was frank bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humoured young fellow, with whom i had once travelled on the continent. our meeting was extremely cordial; for the countenance of an old fellow traveller always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. to discuss all these in a transient interview at an inn was impossible; and finding that i was not pressed for time, and was merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that i should give him a day or two at his father's country-seat, to which he was going to pass the holidays, and which lay at a few miles' distance. "it is better than eating a solitary christmas dinner at an inn," said he; "and i can assure you of a hearty welcome in something of the old-fashion style." his reasoning was cogent; and i must confess the preparation i had seen for universal festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a little impatient of my loneliness. i closed, therefore, at once with his invitation: the chaise drove up to the door; and in a few moments i was on my way to the family mansion of the bracebridges. christmas eve saint francis and saint benedight blesse this house from wicked wight, from the night-mare and the goblin, that is hight good-fellow robin; keep it from all evil spirits. fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: from curfew time to the next prime. --cartwright. it was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the post-boy smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses were on a gallop. "he knows where he is going," said my companion, laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. my father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old english hospitality. he is a tolerable specimen of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in its purity, the old english country gentleman; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into the country, that the strong, rich peculiarities of ancient rural life are almost polished away. my father, however, from early years, took honest peacham* for his textbook, instead of chesterfield: he determined, in his own mind, that there was no condition more truly honourable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his paternal lands, and, therefore, passes the whole of his time on his estate. he is a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday observances, and is deeply read in the writers, ancient and modern, who have treated on the subject. indeed, his favourite range of reading is among the authors who flourished at least two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and thought more like true englishmen than any of their successors. he even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few centuries earlier, when england was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs. as he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather a lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all blessings to an englishman, an opportunity of indulging the bent of his own humour without molestation. being representative of the oldest family in the neighbourhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked up to, and, in general, is known simply by the appellation of 'the squire;' a title which has been accorded to the head of the family since time immemorial. i think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old father, to prepare you for any little eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd." * peacham's "complete gentleman," 1622. we had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length the chaise stopped at the gate. it was in a heavy, magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers. the huge square columns that supported the gate were surmounted by the family crest. close adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir-trees, and almost buried in shrubbery. the post-boy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded through the still, frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned. an old woman immediately appeared at the gate. as the moonlight fell strongly upon her, i had full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very much in the antique taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping from under a cap of snowy whiteness. she came curtseying forth, with many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. her husband, it seems, was up at the house keeping christmas eve in the servants' hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the household. my friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow on. our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless sky. the lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight covering of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a thin, transparent vapour, stealing up from the low grounds, and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape. my companion looked round him with transport:--"how often," said he, "have i scampered up this avenue, on returning home on school vacations! how often have i played under these trees when a boy! i feel a degree of filial reverence for them, as we look up to those who have cherished us in childhood. my father was always scrupulous in exacting our holidays, and having us around him on family festivals. he used to direct and superintend our games with the strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. he was very particular that we should play the old english games according to their original form and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet i assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. it was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and i value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow." we were interrupted by the clangour of a troop of dogs of all sorts and sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and curs of low degree," that, disturbed by the ringing of the porter's bell, and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the lawn. "the little dogs and all, tray, blanch, and sweetheart--see, they bark at me!" cried bracebridge, laughing. at the sound of his voice the bark was changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he was surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the faithful animals. we had now come in full view of the old family mansion, partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold moonshine. it was an irregular building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of the architecture of different periods. one wing was, evidently very ancient, with heavy stone-shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the foliage of which the small diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with the moonbeams. the rest of the house was in the french taste of charles the second's time, having been repaired and altered, as my friend told me, by one of his ancestors, who returned with that monarch at the restoration. the grounds about the house were laid out in the old formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water. the old gentleman, i was told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete finery in all its original state. he admired this fashion in gardening; it had an air of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting good old family style. the boasted imitation of nature in modern gardening had sprung up with modern republican notions, but did not suit a monarchical government; it smacked of the levelling system. i could not help smiling at this introduction of politics into gardening, though i expressed some apprehension that i should find the old gentleman rather intolerant in his creed. frank assured me, however, that it was almost the only instance in which he had ever heard his father meddle with politics; and he believed that he had got this notion from a member of parliament who once passed a few weeks with him. the squire was glad of any argument to defend his clipped yew-trees and formal terraces, which had been occasionally attacked by modern landscape gardeners. as we approached the house, we heard the sound of music, and now and then a burst of laughter from one end of the building. this, bracebridge said, must proceed from the servants' hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, and even encouraged, by the squire throughout the twelve days of christmas, provided everything was done comformably to ancient usage. here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple and snapdragon: the yule log and christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white berries, hung up to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids.* *[1] see note a. so intent were the servants upon their sports, that we had to ring repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. on our arrival being announced, the squire came out to receive us, accompanied by his two other sons; one a young officer in the army, home on leave of absence; the other an oxonian, just from the university. the squire was a fine, healthy-looking old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an open, florid countenance; in which a physiognomist, with the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint or two, might discover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence. the family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the evening was far advanced, the squire would not permit us to change our travelling dresses, but ushered us at once to the company, which was assembled in a large old-fashioned hall. it was composed of different branches of a numerous family connection, where there were the usual proportion of old uncles and aunts, comfortably married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed boarding-school hoydens. they were variously occupied; some at a round game of cards; others conversing around the fireplace; at one end of the hall was a group of the young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls, about the floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who, having frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful night. while the mutual greetings were going on between bracebridge and his relatives, i had time to scan the apartment. i have called it a hall, for so it had certainly been in old times, and the squire had evidently endeavoured to restore it to something of its primitive state. over the heavy projecting fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in armour standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung helmet, buckler, and lance. at one end an enormous pair of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches serving as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs; and in the corners of the apartment were fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, and other sporting implements. the furniture was of the cumbrous workmanship of former days, though some articles of modern convenience had been added, and the oaken floor had been carpeted; so that the whole presented an odd mixture of parlour and hall. the grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of light and heat; this i understood was the yule-log, which the squire was particular in having brought in and illumined on a christmas eve, according to ancient custom.* *[2] see note b. it was really delightful to see the old squire seated in his hereditary elbow-chair by the hospitable fireside of his ancestors, and looking around him like the sun of a system, beaming warmth and gladness to every heart. even the very dog that lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his position and yawned, would look fondly up in his master's face, wag his tail against the floor, and stretch himself again to sleep, confident of kindness and protection. there is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt, and puts the stranger at once at his ease. i had not been seated many minutes by the comfortable hearth of the worthy cavalier before i found myself as much at home as if i had been one of the family. supper was announced shortly after our arrival. it was served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which shone with wax, and around which were several family portraits decorated with holly and ivy. beside the accustomed lights, two great wax tapers, called christmas candles, wreathed with greens, were placed on a highly-polished buffet among the family plate. the table was abundantly spread with substantial fare; but the squire made his supper of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for christmas eve. i was happy to find my old friend, minced-pie, in the retinue of the feast; and finding him to be perfectly orthodox, and that i need not be ashamed of my predilection, i greeted him with all the warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and very genteel acquaintance. the mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the humours of an eccentric personage whom mr. bracebridge always addressed with the quaint appellation of master simon. he was a tight, brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old bachelor. his nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot; his face slightly pitted with the smallpox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. he had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. he was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, and making infinite merriment by harpings upon old themes; which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit me to enjoy. it seemed to be his great delight during supper to keep a young girl next him in a continual agony of stifled laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat opposite. indeed, he was the idol of the younger part of the company, who laughed at everything he said or did, and at every turn of his countenance. i could not wonder at it; for he must have been a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes. he could imitate punch and judy; make an old woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt cork and pocket-handkerchief: and cut an orange into such a ludicrous caricature, that the young folks were ready to die with laughing. i was let briefly into his history by frank bracebridge. he was an old bachelor of a small independent income, which by careful management was sufficient for all his wants. he revolved through the family system like a vagrant comet in its orbit; sometimes visiting one branch, and sometimes another quite remote; as is often the case with gentlemen of extensive connections and small fortunes in england. he had a chirping, buoyant disposition, always enjoying the present moment; and his frequent change of scene and company prevented his acquiring those rusty unaccommodating habits with which old bachelors are so uncharitably charged. he was a complete family chronicle, being versed in the genealogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole house of bracebridge, which made him a great favourite with the old folks; he was a beau of all the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters, among whom he was habitually considered rather a young fellow, and he was a master of the revels among the children; so that there was not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than mr. simon bracebridge. of late years he had resided almost entirely with the squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humour in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. we had presently a specimen of his last mentioned talent; for no sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than master simon was called on for a good old christmas song. he bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto, like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty: "now christmas is come, let us beat up the drum, and call all our neighbours together; and when they appear, let us make them such cheer as will keep out the wind and the weather," etc. the supper had disposed every one to gaiety, and an old harper was summoned from the servants' hall, where he had been strumming all the evening, and to all appearance comforting himself with some of the squire's home-brewed. he was a kind of hanger-on, i was told, of the establishment, and though ostensibly a resident of the village, was oftener to be found in the squire's kitchen than his own home, the old gentleman being fond of the sound of "harp in hall." the dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one; some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself figured down several couples with a partner with whom he affirmed he had danced at every christmas for nearly half a century. master simon, who seemed to be a kind of connecting link between the old times and the new, and to be withal a little antiquated in the taste of his accomplishments, evidently piqued himself on his dancing, and was endeavouring to gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and other graces of the ancient school; but he had unluckily assorted himself with a little romping girl from boarding-school, who, by her wild vivacity, kept him continually on the stretch, and defeated all his sober attempts at elegance;--such are the ill-assorted matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately prone! the young oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with impunity; he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins; yet, like all madcap youngsters, he was a universal favourite among the women. the most interesting couple in the dance was the young officer and a ward of the squire's, a beautiful blushing girl of seventeen. from several shy glances which i had noticed in the course of the evening, i suspected there was a little kindness growing up between them; and, indeed, the young soldier was just the hero to captivate a romantic girl. he was tall, slender, and handsome, and like most young british officers of late years, had picked up various small accomplishments on the continent--he could talk french and italian--draw landscapes,--sing very tolerably--dance divinely; but above all he had been wounded at waterloo;--what girl of seventeen, well read in poetry and romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfection! the moment the dance was over, he caught up a guitar, and lolling against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude which i am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the little french air of the troubadour. the squire, however, exclaimed against having anything on christmas eve but good old english; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, and, with a charming air of gallantry, gave herrick's "night-piece to julia:" "her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, the shooting stars attend thee, and the elves also, whose little eyes glow like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. "no will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee; nor snake or glow-worm bite thee; but on, on thy way, not making a stay, since ghost there is none to affright thee. "then let not the dark thee cumber; what though the moon does slumber, the stars of the night will lend thee their light, like tapers clear without number. "then, julia, let me woo thee, thus, thus to come unto me; and when i shall meet thy silvery feet, my soul i'll pour into thee." the song might have been intended in compliment to the fair julia, for so i found his partner was called, or it might not; she, however, was certainly unconscious of any such application, for she never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the floor. her face was suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush, and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was amusing herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hothouse flowers, and by the time the song was concluded, the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor. the party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old custom of shaking hands. as i passed through the hall, on the way to my chamber, the dying embers of the yule-clog still sent forth a dusky glow; and had it not been the season when "no spirit dares stir abroad," i should have been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight, and peep whether the fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth. my chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the giants. the room was panelled with cornices of heavy carved work, in which flowers and grotesque faces were strangely intermingled; and a row of black looking portraits stared mournfully at me from the walls. the bed was of rich though faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche opposite a bow window. i had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. i listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which i concluded to be the waits from some neighbouring village. they went round the house, playing under the windows. i drew aside the curtains, to hear them more distinctly. the moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially lighting up the antiquated apartment. the sounds, as they receded, became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with quiet and moonlight. i listened and listened--they became more and more tender and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sank upon the pillow and i fell asleep. christmas day dark and dull night, flie hence away, and give the honour to this day that sees december turn'd to may. . . . . . . . . why does the chilling winter's morne smile like a field beset with corn? or smell like to a meade new-shorne, thus on the sudden?--come and see the cause why things thus fragrant be. --herrick. when i awoke the next morning, it seemed as if all the events of the preceding evening had been a dream, and nothing but the identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of their reality. while i lay musing on my pillow, i heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering consultation. presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old christmas carol, the burden of which was: "rejoice, our saviour he was born on christmas day in the morning." i rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagine. it consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. they were going the rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber-door; but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashfulness. they remained for a moment playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance, from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, i heard them laughing in triumph at their escape. everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. the window of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful landscape. there was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees, and herds of deer. at a distance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage chimneys hanging over it; and a church with its dark spire in strong relief against the clear, cold sky. the house was surrounded with evergreens, according to the english custom, which would have given almost an appearance of summer; but the morning was extremely frosty; the light vapour of the preceding evening had been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its fine crystallisations. the rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect among the glittering foliage. a robin, perched upon the top of a mountain-ash that hung its clusters of red berries just before my window, was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few querulous notes; and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train, and strutting with the pride and gravity of a spanish grandee on the terrace-walk below. i had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant appeared to invite me to family prayers. he showed me the way to a small chapel in the old wing of the house, where i found the principal part of the family already assembled in a kind of gallery, furnished with cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the servants were seated on benches below. the old gentleman read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, and master simon acted as clerk, and made the responses; and i must do him the justice to say that he acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum. the service was followed by a christmas carol, which mr. bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his favourite author, herrick; and it had been adapted to an old church melody by master simon. as there were several good voices among the household, the effect was extremely pleasing; but i was particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, and sudden sally of grateful feeling, with which the worthy squire delivered one stanza: his eyes glistening, and his voice rambling out of all the bounds of time and tune: "'tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth with guiltlesse mirth, and giv'st me wassaile bowles to drink, spiced to the brink: lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand, that soiles my land; and giv'st me for my bushell sowne, twice ten for one." i afterwards understood that early morning service was read on every sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either by mr. bracebridge or by some member of the family. it was once almost universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of england, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is fallen into neglect; for the dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households, where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony. our breakfast consisted of what the squire denominated true old english fare. he indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea-and-toast, which he censured as among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of old english heartiness; and though he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale, on the sideboard. after breakfast i walked about the grounds with frank bracebridge and master simon, or mr. simon as he was called by everybody but the squire. we were escorted by a number of gentleman-like dogs, that seemed loungers about the establishment; from the frisking spaniel to the steady old staghound; the last of which was of a race that had been in the family time out of mind: they were all obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to master simon's buttonhole, and in the midst of their gambols would glance an eye occasionally upon a small switch he carried in his hand. the old mansion had a still more venerable look in the yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight; and i could not but feel the force of the squire's idea, that the formal terraces, heavily moulded balustrades, and clipped yew-trees, carried with them an air of proud aristocracy. there appeared to be an unusual number of peacocks about the place, and i was making some remarks upon what i termed a flock of them, that were basking under a sunny wall, when i was gently corrected in my phraseology by master simon, who told me that, according to the most ancient and approved treatise on hunting, i must say a muster of peacocks. "in the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, "we say a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks." he went on to inform me, that, according to sir anthony fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe, to this bird "both understanding and glory; for, being praised, he will presently set up his tail chiefly against the sun, to the intent you may the better behold the beauty thereof. but at the fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide himself in corners, till his tail come again as it was." i could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so whimsical a subject; but i found that the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the hall, for frank bracebridge informed me that they were great favourites with his father, who was extremely careful to keep up the breed; partly because they belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at the stately banquets of the olden time; and partly because they had a pomp and magnificence about them, highly becoming an old family mansion. nothing, he was accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone balustrade. master simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment at the parish church with the village choristers, who were to perform some music of his selection. there was something extremely agreeable in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little man; and i confess i had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were not in the range of every-day reading. i mentioned this last circumstance to frank bracebridge, who told me with a smile that master simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half-a-dozen old authors, which the squire had put into his hands, and which he read over and over, whenever he had a studious fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long winter evening. sir anthony fitzherbert's "book of husbandry;" markham's "country contentments;" the "tretyse of hunting," by sir thomas cockayne, knight; izaak walton's "angler," and two or three more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his standard authorities; and, like all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. as to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old books in the squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were popular among the choice spirits of the last century. his practical application of scraps of literature, however, had caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighbourhood. while we were talking we heard the distant toll of the village bell, and i was told that the squire was a little particular in having his household at church on a christmas morning; considering it a day of pouring out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old tusser observed: "at christmas be merry, and thankful withal, and feast thy poor neighbours, the great and the small." "if you are disposed to go to church," said frank bracebridge, "i can promise you a specimen of my cousin simon's musical achievements. as the church is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from the village amateurs, and established a musical club for their improvement; he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to the directions of jervaise markham, in his 'country contentments;' for the bass he has sought out all the 'deep solemn mouths,' and for the tenor the 'loud ringing mouths,' among the country bumpkins; and for 'sweet mouths,' he has culled with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in the neighbourhood; though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult to keep in tune; your pretty female singer being exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to accident." as the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and clear, the most of the family walked to the church, which was a very old building of gray stone, and stood near a village, about half a mile from the park gate. adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, which seemed coeval with the church. the front of it was perfectly matted with a yew-tree that had been trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of which apertures had been formed to admit light into the small antique lattices. as we passed this sheltered nest, the parson issued forth and preceded us. i had expected to see a sleek, well-conditioned pastor, such as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich patron's table; but i was disappointed. the parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood off from each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. he wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that would have held the church bible and prayer-book; and his small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted in large shoes decorated with enormous buckles. i was informed by frank bracebridge that the parson had been a chum of his father's at oxford, and had received this living shortly after the latter had come to his estate. he was a complete black-letter hunter, and would scarcely read a work printed in the roman character. the editions of caxton and wynkin de worde were his delight; and he was indefatigable in his researches after such old english writers as have fallen into oblivion from their worthlessness. in deference, perhaps, to the notions of mr. bracebridge, he had made diligent investigations into the festive rites and holiday customs of former times; and had been as zealous in the inquiry as if he had been a boon companion; but it was merely with that plodding spirit with which men of adust temperament follow up any track of study, merely because it is denominated learning; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, whether it be the illustration of the wisdom, or of the ribaldry and obscenity of antiquity. he had pored over these old volumes so intensely, that they seemed to have been reflected into his countenance indeed; which, if the face be an index of the mind, might be compared to a title-page of black-letter. on reaching the church porch, we found the parson rebuking the gray-headed sexton for having used mistletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. it was, he observed, an unholy plant, profaned by having been used by the druids in their mystic ceremonies; and though it might be innocently employed in the festive ornamenting of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the fathers of the church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred purposes. so tenacious was he on this point, that the poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part of the humble trophies of his taste, before the parson would consent to enter upon the service of the day. the interior of the church was venerable but simple; on the walls were several mural monuments of the bracebridges, and just beside the altar was a tomb of ancient workmanship, on which lay the effigy of a warrior in armour, with his legs crossed, a sign of his having been a crusader. i was told it was one of the family who had signalised himself in the holy land, and the same whose picture hung over the fireplace in the hall. during service, master simon stood up in the pew, and repeated the responses very audibly; evincing that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of old family connections. i observed, too, that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a flourish; possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring which enriched one of his fingers, and which had the look of a family relic. but he was evidently most solicitous about the musical part of the service, keeping his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beating time with much gesticulation and emphasis. the orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the other, among which i particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the clarionet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and labouring at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. there were two or three pretty faces among the female singers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been chosen, like old cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as several had to sing from the same book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones. the usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter to be in at the death. but the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by master simon, and on which he had founded great expectation. unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset; the musicians became flurried; master simon was in a fever; everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning "now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon, as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration. the parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and ceremonies of christmas, and the propriety of observing it not merely as a day of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing; supporting the correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the church, and enforcing them by the authorities of theophilus of cesarea, st. cyprian, st. chrysostom, st. augustine, and a cloud more of saints and fathers, from whom he made copious quotations. i was a little at a loss to perceive the necessity of such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point which no one present seemed inclined to dispute; but i soon found that the good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to contend with; having, in the course of his researches on the subject of christmas, got completely embroiled in the sectarian controversies of the revolution, when the puritans made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the church, and poor old christmas was driven out of the land by proclamation of parliament.* the worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but a little of the present. *[3] see note c. shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his antiquated little study, the pages of old times were to him as the gazettes of the day; while the era of the revolution was mere modern history. he forgot that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; when plum-porridge was denounced as "mere popery," and roast beef as antichristian; and that christmas had been brought in again triumphantly with the merry court of king charles at the restoration. he kindled into warmth with the ardour of his contest, and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to combat; had a stubborn conflict with old prynne and two or three other forgotten champions of the round-heads, on the subject of christmas festivity; and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and affecting manner, to stand to the traditionary customs of their fathers, and feast and make merry on this joyful anniversary of the church. i have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with more immediate effects; for, on leaving the church, the congregation seemed one and all possessed with the gaiety of spirit so earnestly enjoined by their pastor. the elder folks gathered in knots in the churchyard, greeting and shaking hands; and the children ran about crying, ule! ule! and repeating some uncouth rhymes,* which the parson, who had joined us, informed me had been handed down from days of yore. the villagers doffed their hats to the squire as he passed, giving him the good wishes of the season with every appearance of heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to the hall, to take something to keep out the cold of the weather; and i heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, which convinced me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier had not forgotten the true christmas virtue of charity. * "ule! ule! three puddings in a pule; crack nuts and cry ule!" on our way homeward his heart seemed overflowing with generous and happy feelings. as we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. the beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin covering of snow from every southern declivity, and to bring out the living green which adorns an english landscape even in midwinter. large tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. every sheltered bank on which the broad rays rested yielded its silver rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute to the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the earth. there was something truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, as the squire observed, an emblem of christmas hospitality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow. he pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the chimneys of the comfortable farmhouses and low, thatched cottages. "i love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rich and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and i am almost disposed to join with poor robin, in his malediction of every churlish enemy to this honest festival: "'those who at christmas do repine, and would fain hence despatch him, may they with old duke humphry dine, or else may squire ketch catch 'em.'" the squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the games and amusements which were once prevalent at this season among the lower orders, and countenanced by the higher: when the old halls of castles and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight; when the tables were covered with brawn, and beef, and humming ale; when the harp and the carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were alike welcome to enter and make merry.* "our old games and local customs," said he, "had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home, and the promotion of them, by the gentry made him fond of his lord. they made the times merrier, and kinder, and better; and i can truly say, with one of our old poets: "'i like them well--the curious preciseness and all-pretended gravity of those that seek to banish hence these harmless sports, have thrust away much ancient honesty.' *[4] see note d. "the nation," continued he, "is altered; we have almost lost our simple, true-hearted peasantry. they have broken asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their interests are separate. they have become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform. i think one mode to keep them in good humour in these hard times would be for the nobility and gentry to pass more time on their estates, mingle more among the country people, and set the merry old english games going again." such was the good squire's project for mitigating public discontent; and, indeed, he had once attempted to put his doctrine in practice, and a few years before had kept open house during the holidays in the old style. the country people, however, did not understand how to play their parts in the scene of hospitality; many uncouth circumstances occurred; the manor was overrun by all the vagrants of the country, and more beggars drawn into the neighbourhood in one week than the parish officers could get rid of in a year. since then, he had contented himself with inviting the decent part of the neighbouring peasantry to call at the hall on christmas day, and distributing beef, and bread, and ale, among the poor, that they might make merry in their own dwellings. we had not been long home when the sound of music was heard from a distance. a band of country lads, without coats, their shirt-sleeves fancifully tied with ribands, their hats decorated with greens, and clubs in their hands, were seen advancing up the avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and peasantry. they stopped before the hall door, where the music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads performed a curious and intricate dance, advancing, retreating, and striking their clubs together, keeping exact time to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering around the skirts of the dance, and rattling a christmas-box with many antic gesticulations. the squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced to the times when the romans held possession of the island; plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant of the sword-dance of the ancients. "it was now," he said, "nearly extinct, but he had accidentally met with traces of it in the neighbourhood, and had encouraged its revival; though, to tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by rough cudgel-play and broken heads in the evening." after the dance was concluded, the whole party was entertained with brawn and beef, and stout home-brewed. the squire himself mingled among the rustics, and was received with awkward demonstrations of deference and regard. it is true, i perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as they were raising their tankards to their mouths when the squire's back was turned, making something of a grimace, and giving each other the wink; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly demure. with master simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. his varied occupations and amusements had made him well known throughout the neighbourhood. he was a visitor at every farmhouse and cottage; gossiped with the farmers and their wives; romped with their daughters; and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the bumblebee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the country around. the bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good cheer and affability. there is something genuine and affectionate in the gaiety of the lower orders, when it is excited by the bounty and familiarity of those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enters into their mirth, and a kind word or a small pleasantry, frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependant more than oil and wine. when the squire had retired, the merriment increased, and there was much joking and laughter, particularly between master simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the village; for i observed all his companions to wait with open mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous laugh before they could well understand them. the whole house, indeed, seemed abandoned to merriment. as i passed to my room to dress for dinner, i heard the sound of music in a small court, and, looking through a window that commanded it, i perceived a band of wandering musicians, with pandean pipes and tambourine; a pretty, coquettish housemaid was dancing a jig with a smart country lad, while several of the other servants were looking on. in the midst of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the window, and, colouring up, ran off with an air of roguish affected confusion. the christmas dinner lo, now is come the joyful'st feast! let every man be jolly, eache roome with yvie leaves is drest, and every post with holly. now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, and christmas blocks are burning; their ovens they with bak't meats choke, and all their spits are turning. without the door let sorrow lie, and if, for cold, it hap to die, we'll bury't in a christmas pye, and evermore be merry. --withers's juvenilia. i had finished my toilet, and was loitering with frank bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwacking sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dinner. the squire kept up old customs in kitchen as well as hall; and the rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, summoned the servants to carry in the meats. "just in this nick the cook knock'd thrice, and all the waiters in a trice his summons did obey; each serving man, with dish in hand, march'd boldly up, like our train-band, presented and away."* * sir john suckling. the dinner was served up in the great hall, where the squire always held his christmas banquet. a blazing, crackling fire of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the flame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed chimney. the great picture of the crusader and his white horse had been profusely decorated with greens for the occasion; and holly and ivy had likewise been wreathed around the helmet and weapons on the opposite wall, which i understood were the arms of the same warrior. i must own, by the by, i had strong doubts about the authenticity of painting and armour as having belonged to the crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more recent days; but i was told that the painting had been so considered time out of mind; and that as to the armour, it had been found in a lumber room, and elevated to its present situation by the squire, who at once determined it to be the armour of the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all such subjects to his own household, the matter had passed into current acceptation. a sideboard was set out just under this chivalric trophy, on which was a display of plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with belshazzar's parade of the vessels of the temple: "flagons, cans, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers;" the gorgeous utensils of good companionship, that had gradually accumulated through many generations of jovial housekeepers. before these stood the two yule candles, beaming like two stars of the first magnitude: other lights were distributed in branches, and the whole array glittered like a firmament of silver. we were ushered into this banqueting scene with the sound of minstrelsy, the old harper being seated on a stool beside the fireplace, and twanging his instrument with a vast deal more power than melody. never did christmas board display a more goodly and gracious assemblage of countenances; those who were not handsome were, at least, happy; and happiness is a rare improver of your hard-favoured visage. i always consider an old english family as well worth studying as a collection of holbein's portraits or albert durer's prints. there is much antiquarian lore to be acquired; much knowledge of the physiognomies of former times. perhaps it may be from having continually before their eyes those rows of old family portraits, with which the mansions of this country are stocked; certain it is, that the quaint features of antiquity are often most faithfully perpetuated in these ancient lines; and i have traced an old family nose through a whole picture-gallery, legitimately handed down from generation to generation, almost from the time of the conquest. something of the kind was to be observed in the worthy company around me. many of their faces had evidently originated in a gothic age, and been merely copied by succeeding generations; and there was one little girl, in particular, of staid demeanour, with a high roman nose, and an antique vinegar aspect, who was a great favourite of the squire's, being, as he said, a bracebridge all over, and the very counterpart of one of his ancestors who figured in the court of henry viii. the parson said grace, which was not a short, familiar one, such as is commonly addressed to the deity, in these unceremonious days; but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the ancient school. there was now a pause, as if something was expected; when suddenly the butler entered the hall with some degree of bustle; he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an enormous pig's head, decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at the head of the table. the moment this pageant made its appearance, the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclusion of which the young oxonian, on receiving a hint from the squire, gave, with an air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, the first verse of which was as follows: "caput apri defero reddens laudes domino. the boar's head in hand bring i, with garlands gay and rosemary. i pray you all synge merily qui estis in convivio." though prepared to witness many of these little eccentricities, from being apprised of the peculiar hobby of mine host; yet, i confess, the parade with which so odd a dish was introduced somewhat perplexed me, until i gathered from the conversation of the squire and the parson that it was meant to represent the bringing in of the boar's head: a dish formerly served up with much ceremony, and the sound of minstrelsy and song, at great tables on christmas day. "i like the old custom," said the squire, "not merely because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but because it was observed at the college of oxford, at which i was educated. when i hear the old song chanted, it brings to mind the time when i was young and gamesome--and the noble old college-hall--and my fellow students loitering about in their black gowns; many of whom, poor lads, are now in their graves!" the parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such associations, and who was always more taken up with the text than the sentiment, objected to the oxonian's version of the carol: which he affirmed was different from that sung at college. he went on, with the dry perseverance of a commentator, to give the college reading, accompanied by sundry annotations: addressing himself at first to the company at large; but finding their attention gradually diverted to other talk, and other objects, he lowered his tone as his number of auditors diminished, until he concluded his remarks, in an under voice, to a fat-headed old gentleman next him, who was silently engaged in the discussion of a huge plateful of turkey.* *[5] see note e. the table was literally loaded with good cheer, and presented an epitome of country abundance, in this season of overflowing larders. a distinguished post was allotted to "ancient sirloin," as mine host termed it; being, as he added, "the standard of old english hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of expectation." there were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently something traditionary in their embellishments; but about which, as i did not like to appear over curious, i asked no questions. i could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table. this, the squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant-pie, though a peacock-pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.* *[6] see note f. it would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which i am a little given, were i to mention the other makeshifts of this worthy old humourist, by which he was endeavouring to follow up, though at humble distance, the quaint customs of antiquity. i was pleased, however, to see the respect shown to his whims by his children and relatives; who, indeed, entered readily into the full spirit of them, and seemed all well versed in their parts; having doubtless been present at many a rehearsal. i was amused, too, at the air of profound gravity with which the butler and other servants executed the duties assigned them, however eccentric. they had an old-fashioned look; having, for the most part, been brought up in the household, and grown into keeping with the antiquated mansion, and the humours of its lord; and most probably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the established laws of honourable housekeeping. when the cloth was removed, the butler brought in a huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, which he placed before the squire. its appearance was hailed with acclamation; being the wassail bowl, so renowned in christmas festivity. the contents had been prepared by the squire himself; for it was a beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly prided himself, alleging that it was too abstruse and complex for the comprehension of an ordinary servant. it was a potation, indeed, that might well make the heart of a toper leap within him; being composed of the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.* *[7] see note g. the old gentleman's whole countenance beamed with a serene look of indwelling delight, as he stirred this mighty bowl. having raised it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a merry christmas to all present, he sent it brimming, around the board, for every one to follow his example, according to the primitive style; pronouncing it "the ancient fountain of good feeling, where all hearts met together."* *[8] see note h. there was much laughing and rallying, as the honest emblem of christmas joviality circulated, and was kissed rather coyly by the ladies. when it reached master simon he raised it in both hands, and with the air of a boon companion struck up an old wassail chanson: the browne bowle, the merry browne bowle, as it goes round about-a, fill still, let the world say what it will, and drink your fill all out-a. the deep canne, the merry deep canne, as thou dost freely quaff-a, sing, fling, be as merry as a king, and sound a lusty laugh-a.* * from "poor robin's almanack." much of the conversation during dinner turned upon family topics, to which i was a stranger. there was, however, a great deal of rallying of master simon about some gay widow, with whom he was accused of having a flirtation. this attack was commenced by the ladies; but it was continued throughout the dinner by the fat-headed old gentleman next the parson, with the persevering assiduity of a slow-hound; being one of those long-winded jokers, who, though rather dull at starting game, are unrivalled for their talents in hunting it down. at every pause in the general conversation, he renewed his bantering in pretty much the same terms; winking hard at me with both eyes whenever he gave master simon what he considered a home thrust. the latter, indeed, seemed fond of being teased on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to be; and he took occasion to inform me, in an undertone, that the lady in question was a prodigiously fine woman, and drove her own curricle. the dinner-time passed away in this flow of innocent hilarity; and, though the old hall may have resounded in its time with many a scene of broader rout and revel, yet i doubt whether it ever witnessed more honest and genuine enjoyment. how easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles! the joyous disposition of the worthy squire was perfectly contagious; he was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world happy; and the little eccentricities of his humour did but season, in a manner, the sweetness of his philanthropy. when the ladies had retired, the conversation, as usual, became still more animated; many good things were broached which had been thought of during dinner, but which would not exactly do for a lady's ear; and though i cannot positively affirm that there was much wit uttered, yet i have certainly heard many contests of rare wit produce much less laughter. wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humour is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small, and the laughter abundant. the squire told several long stories of early college pranks and adventures, in some of which the parson had been a sharer; though in looking at the latter, it required some effort of imagination to figure such a little dark anatomy of a man into the perpetrator of a madcap gambol. indeed, the two college chums presented pictures of what men may be made by their different lots in life. the squire had left the university to live lustily on his paternal domains, in the vigorous enjoyment of prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on to a hearty and florid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the contrary, had dried and withered away, among dusty tomes, in the silence and shadows of his study. still there seemed to be a spark of almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmering in the bottom of his soul; and as the squire hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom they once met on the banks of the isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as i could decipher his physiognomy, i verily believe was indicative of laughter;--indeed, i have rarely met with an old gentleman who took absolutely offence at the imputed gallantries of his youth. i found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry land of sober judgment. the company grew merrier and louder as their jokes grew duller. master simon was in as chirping a humour as a grasshopper filled with dew; his old songs grew of a warmer complexion, and he began to talk maudlin about the widow. he even gave a long song about the wooing of a widow, which he informed me he had gathered from an excellent black-letter work, entitled "cupid's solicitor for love," containing store of good advice for bachelors, and which he promised to lend me. the first verse was to this effect: "he that will woo a widow must not dally, he must make hay while the sun doth shine; he must not stand with her, shall i, shall i? but boldly say, widow, thou must be mine." this song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made several attempts to tell a rather broad story out of joe miller, that was pat to the purpose; but he always stuck in the middle, everybody recollecting the latter part excepting himself. the parson, too, began to show the effects of good cheer, having gradually settled down into a doze, and his wig sitting most suspiciously on one side. just at this juncture we were summoned to the drawing-room, and, i suspect, at the private instigation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always tempered with a proper love of decorum. after the dinner-table was removed, the hall was given up to the younger members of the family, who, prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the oxonian and master simon, made its old walls ring with their merriment, as they played at romping games. i delight in witnessing the gambols of children, and particularly at this happy holiday-season, and could not help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of laughter. i found them at the game of blind-man's buff. master simon, who was the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions to fulfil the office of that ancient potentate, the lord of misrule,* was blinded in the midst of the hall. the little beings were as busy about him as the mock fairies about falstaff; pinching him, plucking at the skirts of his coat, and tickling him with straws. one fine blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her flaxen hair all in beautiful confusion, her frolic face in a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a complete picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and from the slyness with which master simon avoided the smaller game, and hemmed this wild little nymph in corners, and obliged her to jump shrieking over chairs, i suspected the rogue of being not a whit more blinded than was convenient. *[9] see note i. when i returned to the drawing-room, i found the company seated around the fire, listening to the parson, who was deeply ensconced in a high-backed oaken chair, the work of some cunning artificer of yore, which had been brought from the library for his particular accommodation. from this venerable piece of furniture, with which his shadowy figure and dark weazen face so admirably accorded, he was dealing forth strange accounts of popular superstitions and legends of the surrounding country, with which he had become acquainted in the course of his antiquarian researches. i am half inclined to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the marvellous and supernatural. he gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the neighbouring peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader which lay on the tomb by the church altar. as it was the only monument of the kind in that part of the country, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition by the goodwives of the village. it was said to get up from the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard in stormy nights, particularly when it thundered; and one old woman, whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had seen it, through the windows of the church, when the moon shone, slowly pacing up and down the aisles. it was the belief that some wrong had been left unredressed by the deceased, or some treasure hidden, which kept the spirit in a state of trouble and restlessness. some talked of gold and jewels buried in the tomb, over which the spectre kept watch; and there was a story current of a sexton in old times who endeavoured to break his way to the coffin at night; but just as he reached it, received a violent blow from the marble hand of the effigy, which stretched him senseless on the pavement. these tales were often laughed at by some of the sturdier among the rustics, yet when night came on, there were many of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of venturing alone in the footpath that led across the churchyard. from these and other anecdotes that followed, the crusader appeared to be the favourite hero of ghost stories throughout the vicinity. his picture, which hung up in the hall, was thought by the servants to have something supernatural about it; for they remarked that, in whatever part of the hall you went, the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on you. the old porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born and brought up in the family, and was a great gossip among the maid servants, affirmed that in her young days she had often heard say that on midsummer eve, when it is well known all kinds of ghosts, goblins, and fairies become visible and walk abroad, the crusader used to mount his horse, come down from his picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, and so to the church to visit the tomb; on which occasion the church door most civilly swung open of itself: not that he needed it; for he rode through closed gates and even stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairymaids to pass between two bars of the great park gate, making himself as thin as a sheet of paper. all these superstitions, i found, had been very much countenanced by the squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. he listened to every goblin tale of the neighbouring gossips with infinite gravity, and held the porter's wife in high favour on account of her talent for the marvellous. he was himself a great reader of old legends and romances, and often lamented that he could not believe in them; for a superstitious person, he thought, must live in a kind of fairyland. whilst we were all attention to the parson's stories, our ears were suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous sounds from the hall, in which was mingled something like the clang of rude minstrelsy, with the uproar of many small voices and girlish laughter. the door suddenly flew open, and a train came trooping into the room, that might almost have been mistaken for the breaking up of the court of fairy. that indefatigable spirit, master simon, in the faithful discharge of his duties as lord of misrule, had conceived the idea of a christmas mummery, or masking; and having called in to his assistance the oxonian and the young officer, who were equally ripe for anything that should occasion romping and merriment, they had carried it into instant effect. the old housekeeper had been consulted; the antique clothes-presses and wardrobes rummaged and made to yield up the relics of finery that had not seen the light for several generations; the younger part of the company had been privately convened from the parlour and hall, and the whole had been bedizened out, into a burlesque imitation of an antique masque.* *[10] see note j. master simon led the van, as "ancient christmas," quaintly apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very much the aspect of one of the old housekeeper's petticoats, and a hat that might have served for a village steeple, and must indubitably have figured in the days of the covenanters. from under this his nose curved boldly forth, flushed with a frost-bitten bloom, that seemed the very trophy of a december blast. he was accompanied by the blue-eyed romp, dished up as "dame mince-pie," in the venerable magnificence of faded brocade, long stomacher, peaked hat, and high-heeled shoes. the young officer appeared as robin hood, in a sporting dress of kendal green and a foraging cap with a gold tassel. the costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep research, and there was an evident eye to the picturesque, natural to a young gallant in the presence of his mistress. the fair julia hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress, as "maid marian." the rest of the train had been metamorphosed in various ways; the girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient belles of the bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the characters of roast beef, plum pudding, and other worthies celebrated in ancient maskings. the whole was under the control of the oxonian, in the appropriate character of misrule; and i observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with his wand over the smaller personages of the pageant. the irruption of this motley crew, with beat of drum, according to ancient custom, was the consummation of uproar and merriment. master simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with which, as ancient christmas, he walked a minuet with the peerless, though giggling, dame mince-pie. it was followed by a dance of all the characters, which, from its medley of costumes, seemed as though the old family portraits had skipped down from their frames to join in the sport. different centuries were figuring at cross hands and right and left; the dark ages were cutting pirouettes and rigadoons; and the days of queen bess jigging merrily down the middle, through a line of succeeding generations. the worthy squire contemplated these fantastic sports, and this resurrection of his old wardrobe, with the simple relish of childish delight. he stood chuckling and rubbing his hands, and scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the latter was discoursing most authentically on the ancient and stately dance at the paon, or peacock, from which he conceived the minuet to be derived.* for my part, i was in a continual excitement, from the varied scenes of whim and innocent gaiety passing before me. it was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic and warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy, and catching once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment. i felt also an interest in the scene, from the consideration that these fleeting customs were posting fast into oblivion, and that this was, perhaps, the only family in england in which the whole of them were still punctiliously observed. there was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry that gave it a peculiar zest; it was suited to the time and place; and as the old manor house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed echoing back the joviality of long-departed years. *[11] see note k. but enough of christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause in this garrulity. methinks i hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "to what purpose is all this?--how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?" alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the instruction of the world? and if not, are there not thousands of abler pens labouring for its improvement?--it is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct--to play the companion rather than the preceptor. what, after all, is the mite of wisdom that i could throw into the mass of knowledge? or how am i sure that my sagest deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? but in writing to amuse, if i fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. if, however, i can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if i can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow beings and himself, surely, surely, i shall not then have written entirely in vain. the end. notes [footnote 1: note a. the misletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens at christmas; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. when the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases.] [footnote 2: note b. the yule-clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, brought into the house with great ceremony, on christmas eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last year's clog. while it lasted there was great drinking, singing, and telling of tales. sometimes it was accompanied by christmas candles, but in the cottages the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire. the yule-clog was to burn all night; if it went out, it was considered a sign of ill luck. herrick mentions it in one of his songs: "come, bring with a noise my merrie, merrie boyes, the christmas log to the firing: while my good dame, she bids ye all be free, and drink to your hearts' desiring." the yule-clog is still burnt in many farmhouses and kitchens in england, particularly in the north, and there are several superstitions connected with it among the peasantry. if a squinting person come to the house while it is burning, or a person barefooted, it is considered an ill omen. the brand remaining from the yule-clog is carefully put away to light the next year's christmas fire.] [footnote 3: note c. from the flying eagle, a small gazette, published december 24, 1652: "the house spent much time this day about the business of the navy, for settling the affairs at sea; and before they rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance against christmas day, grounded upon divine scriptures, 2 cor. v. 16; 1 cor. xv. 14, 17; and in honour of the lord's day, grounded upon these scriptures, john xx. i; rev. i. 10; psalm cxviii. 24; lev. xxiii. 7, 11; mark xvi. 8; psalm lxxxiv. 10, in which christmas is called anti-christ's masse, and those mass-mongers and papists who observe it, etc. in consequence of which parliament spent some time in consultation about the abolition of christmas day, passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day, which was commonly called christmas day."] [footnote 4: note d. an english gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. e. on christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by daybreak. the strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmeg, and good cheshire cheese. the hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (i.e. the cook) by the arms and run her round the market-place till she is shamed of her laziness.--round about our sea-coal fire.] [footnote 5: note e. the old ceremony of serving up the boar's head on christmas day is still observed in the hall of queen's college, oxford. i was favoured by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and as it may be acceptable to such of my readers as are curious in these grave and learned matters, i give it entire. "the boar's head in hand bear i, bedeck'd with bays and rosemary; and i pray you, my masters, be merry, quot estia in convivio. caput apri defero reddens laudes domino. "the boar's head, as i understand, is the rarest dish in all this land, which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland let us servire cantico. caput apri defero, etc. "our steward hath provided this in honour of the king of bliss, which on this day to be served is in reginensi atrio. caput apri defero," etc., etc., etc.] [footnote 6: note f. the peacock was anciently in great demand for stately entertainments. sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed. such pies were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves to undertake any perilous enterprise; whence came the ancient oath, used by justice shallow, "by cock and pie." the peacock was also an important dish for the christmas feast; and massinger, in his "city madam," gives some idea of the extravagance with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for the gorgeous revels of the olden times: "men may talk of country christmasses, their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues: their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; the carcases of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to make sauce for a single peacock!"] [footnote 7: note g. the wassail bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of wine; with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families, and round the hearths of substantial farmers at christmas. it is also called lambs' wool, and is celebrated by herrick in his "twelfth night:" "next crowne the bowle full with gentle lambs' wool, add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, with store of ale too; and thus ye must doe to make the wassaile a swinger."] [footnote 8: note h. the custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each having his cup. when the steward came to the doore with the wassel, he was to cry three times, wassel, wassel, wassel, and then the chappel (chaplain) was to answer with a song.--archaeologia.] [footnote 9: note i. at christmasse there was in the kings's house, wheresoever hee was lodged, a lorde of misrule, or mayster of merry disportes; and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour, or good worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall.--stow.] [footnote 10: note j. maskings or mummeries were favourite sports at christmas in old times; and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. i strongly suspect master simon to have taken the idea of his from ben jonson's "masque of christmas."] [footnote 11: note k. sir john hawkins, speaking of the dance called the pavon, from pavo, a peacock, says: "it is a grave and majestic dance; the method of dancing it anciently was by gentlemen dressed with caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof, in dancing, resembled that of a peacock."--history of music.] old christmas washington irving [illustration: christmas] [illustration: publisher's logo] fifth edition [illustration: "the old family mansion, partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold moonshine" --_frontispiece._] [illustration: old christmas: from the sketch book of washington irving. illustrated by r caldecott london. macmillan & co 1886] [illustration] but is old, old, good old christmas gone? nothing but the hair of his good, gray, old head and beard left? well, i will have that, seeing that i cannot have more of him. _hue and cry after christmas._ [illustration: preface] before the remembrance of the good old times, so fast passing, should have entirely passed away, the present artist, r. caldecott, and engraver, james d. cooper, planned to illustrate washington irving's "old christmas" in this manner. their primary idea was to carry out the principle of the sketch book, by incorporating the designs with the text. throughout they have worked together and _con amore_. with what success the public must decide. november 1875. [illustration: contents] page christmas 1 the stage coach 17 christmas eve 41 christmas day 75 the christmas dinner 117 [illustration] [illustration: list of illustrations] designed by randolph caldecott, and arranged and engraved by j. d. cooper. the old mansion by moonlight--_frontispiece._ title-page. page ancient fireplace iv heading to preface v heading to contents vii tailpiece to contents vii heading to list of illustrations ix tailpiece to list of illustrations xiv "the poor from the gates were not chidden" xvi heading to christmas 1 the mouldering tower 2 christmas anthem in cathedral 4 the wanderer's return 5 "nature lies despoiled of every charm" 6 "the honest face of hospitality" 8 "the shy glance of love" 8 old hall of castle 10 the great oaken gallery 12 the waits 14 "and sit down darkling and repining" 16 the stage coach 19 the three schoolboys 20 the old english stage coachman 23 "he throws down the reins with something of an air" 25 the stable imitators 26 the public house 28 the housemaid 29 the smithy 30 "now or never must music be in tune" 32 the country maid 32 the old servant and bantam 34 a neat country seat 35 inn kitchen 37 the recognition. tailpiece 40 the post-chaise 43 the lodge gate 46 the old primitive dame 46 "the little dogs and all" 49 mistletoe 52 the squire's reception 53 the family party 54 toys 55 the yule log 57 the squire in his hereditary chair 58 the family plate 60 master simon 61 young girl 62 her mother 62 the old harper 65 master simon dancing 67 the oxonian and his maiden aunt 68 the young officer with his guitar 70 the fair julia 72 asleep 74 christmas day 77 the children's carol 78 robin on the mountain ash 80 master simon as clerk 81 breakfast 84 viewing the dogs 85 master simon going to church 88 the village church 91 the parson 93 rebuking the sexton 95 effigy of a warrior 96 master simon at church 97 the village choir 97 the village tailor 98 an old chorister 100 the sermon 101 churchyard greetings 104 frosty thraldom of winter 106 merry old english games 109 the poor at home 111 village antics 112 tasting the squire's ale 113 the wit of the village 115 coquettish housemaid 116 antique sideboard 119 the cook with the rolling-pin 120 the warrior's arms 121 "flagons, cans, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers" 122 the christmas dinner 123 a high roman nose 124 the parson said grace 125 the boar's head 126 the fat-headed old gentleman 129 peacock pie 130 the wassail bowl 132 the squire's toast 134 the long-winded joker 136 long stories 138 the parson and the pretty milkmaid 139 master simon grows maudlin 140 the blue-eyed romp 143 the parson's tale 144 the sexton's rebuff 146 the crusader's night ride 148 ancient christmas and dame mince-pie 151 robin hood and maid marian 152 the minuet 153 roast beef, plum pudding, and misrule 153 the christmas dance in costume 154 "chuckling and rubbing his hands" 155 "echoing back the joviality of long-departed years" 157 retrospect 159 [illustration] [illustration: christmas] [illustration] a man might then behold at christmas, in each hall good fires to curb the cold, and meat for great and small. the neighbours were friendly bidden, and all had welcome true, the poor from the gates were not chidden, when this old cap was new. _old song._ [illustration: christmas] there is nothing in england that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. they recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the may morning of life, when as yet i only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, i am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at present. i regret to say that they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. they resemble those picturesque morsels of gothic architecture which we see crumbling in various parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days. poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural game and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its themes--as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the gothic arch and mouldering tower, gratefully repaying their support by clasping together their tottering remains, and, as it were, embalming them in verdure. [illustration] of all the old festivals, however, that of christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. there is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. the services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. they dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. they gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. i do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony. [illustration] it is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a family who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementoes of childhood. [illustration] there is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to the festivity of christmas. at other times we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature. our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." the song of the bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn; earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence, all fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sensation. but in the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. the dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social circle. our thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more aroused. we feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are brought more closely together by dependence on each other for enjoyment. heart calleth unto heart; and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of living kindness, which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms; and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element of domestic felicity. [illustration] [illustration] the pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire. the ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance into a kindlier welcome. where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile--where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent--than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which we look round upon the comfortable chamber and the scene of domestic hilarity? [illustration] the english, from the great prevalence of rural habits throughout every class of society, have always been fond of those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country life; and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social rites of christmas. it is inspiring to read even the dry details which some antiquarians have given of the quaint humours, the burlesque pageants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fellowship, with which this festival was celebrated. it seemed to throw open every door, and unlock every heart. it brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm generous flow of joy and kindness. the old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly--the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told christmas tales. [illustration] one of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday customs. it has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic surface. many of the games and ceremonials of christmas have entirely disappeared, and, like the sherris sack of old falstaff, are become matters of speculation and dispute among commentators. they flourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously; times wild and picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its richest materials, and the drama with its most attractive variety of characters and manners. the world has become more worldly. there is more of dissipation, and less of enjoyment. pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many of those deep and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly through the calm bosom of domestic life. society has acquired a more enlightened and elegant tone; but it has lost many of its strong local peculiarities, its home-bred feelings, its honest fireside delights. the traditionary customs of golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. they comported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlour, but are unfitted to the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the modern villa. [illustration] shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honours, christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in england. it is gratifying to see that home-feeling completely aroused which seems to hold so powerful a place in every english bosom. the preparations making on every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and kindred; the presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens of regard, and quickeners of kind feelings; the evergreens distributed about houses and churches, emblems of peace and gladness; all these have the most pleasing effect in producing fond associations, and kindling benevolent sympathies. even the sound of the waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid-watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. as i have been awakened by them in that still and solemn hour, "when deep sleep falleth upon man," i have listened with a hushed delight, and connecting them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fancied them into another celestial choir, announcing peace and good-will to mankind. [illustration] how delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral influences, turns everything to melody and beauty: the very crowing of the cock, who is sometimes heard in the profound repose of the country, "telling the night watches to his feathery dames," was thought by the common people to announce the approach of this sacred festival:- "some say that ever 'gainst that season comes wherein our saviour's birth is celebrated, this bird of dawning singeth all night long: and then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; the nights are wholesome--then no planets strike, no fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, so hallow'd and so gracious is the time." amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what bosom can remain insensible? it is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling--the season for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart. the scene of early love again rises green to memory beyond the sterile waste of years; and the idea of home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, re-animates the drooping spirit,--as the arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert. stranger and sojourner as i am in the land--though for me no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold--yet i feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those around me. surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence. he who can turn churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow-beings, and sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a merry christmas. [illustration] [illustration: the stage coach] [illustration] omne benã¨ sine poenã¢ tempus est ludendi; venit hora, absque morã¢, libros deponendi. _old holiday school song._ [illustration] the stage coach [illustration: i] in the preceding paper i have made some general observations on the christmas festivities of england, and am tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes of a christmas passed in the country; in perusing which i would most courteously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit which is tolerant of folly, and anxious only for amusement. [illustration] in the course of a december tour in yorkshire, i rode for a long distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding christmas. the coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations or friends to eat the christmas dinner. it was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their long ears about the coachman's box,--presents from distant friends for the impending feast. i had three fine rosy-cheeked schoolboys for my fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit which i have observed in the children of this country. they were returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising themselves a world of enjoyment. it was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to perform during their six weeks' emancipation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. they were full of anticipations of the meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and dog; and of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the presents with which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was with bantam, which i found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed since the days of bucephalus. how he could trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take--there was not a hedge in the whole country that he could not clear. they were under the particular guardianship of the coachman, to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. indeed, i could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large bunch of christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his coat. he is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents. and here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untravelled readers, to have a sketch that may serve as a general representation of this very numerous and important class of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever an english stage-coachman may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery. [illustration] he has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. he wears a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat; a huge roll of coloured handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his button-hole; the present, most probably, of some enamoured country lass. his waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped; and his small-clothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach about half-way up his legs. [illustration] all this costume is maintained with much precision; he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials; and, notwithstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person, which is almost inherent in an englishman. he enjoys great consequence and consideration along the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass. the moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he throws down the reins with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to the care of the ostler; his duty being merely to drive from one stage to another. when off the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his greatcoat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of ostlers, stable-boys, shoe-blacks, and those nameless hangers-on that infest inns and taverns, and run errands, and do all kinds of odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room. these all look up to him as to an oracle; treasure up his cant phrases; echo his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore; and, above all, endeavour to imitate his air and carriage. every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo coachey. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that reigned in my own mind, that i fancied i saw cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the journey. a stage coach, however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world in motion as it whirls along. the horn sounded at the entrance of a village, produces a general bustle. some hasten forth to meet friends; some with bundles and bandboxes to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can hardly take leave of the group that accompanies them. in the meantime, the coachman has a world of small commissions to execute. sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public-house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing housemaid an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. as the coach rattles through the village, every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces, and blooming giggling girls. at the corners are assembled juntas of village idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the important purpose of seeing company pass; but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much speculation. the smith, with the horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers, and suffer the iron to grow cool; and the sooty spectre in brown paper cap, labouring at the bellows, leans on the handle for a moment, and permits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn sigh, while he glares through the murky smoke and sulphureous gleams of the smithy. [illustration] [illustration] perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and good spirits. game, poultry, and other luxuries of the table, were in brisk circulation in the villages; the grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged with customers. the housewives were stirring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order; and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright red berries, began to appear at the windows. the scene brought to mind an old writer's account of christmas preparations:--"now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton--must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little. now plums and spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. now or never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. the country maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a pack of cards on christmas eve. great is the contention of holly and ivy, whether master or dame wears the breeches. dice and cards benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers." [illustration] i was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling companions. they had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, recognising every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy--"there's john! and there's old carlo! and there's bantam!" cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands. at the end of a lane there was an old sober-looking servant in livery waiting for them: he was accompanied by a superannuated pointer, and by the redoubtable bantam, a little old rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited him. i was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fellows leaped about the steady old footman, and hugged the pointer, who wriggled his whole body for joy. but bantam was the great object of interest; all wanted to mount at once; and it was with some difficulty that john arranged that they should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride first. [illustration] off they set at last; one on the pony, with the dog bounding and barking before him, and the others holding john's hands; both talking at once, and overpowering him by questions about home, and with school anecdotes. i looked after them with a feeling in which i do not know whether pleasure or melancholy predominated: for i was reminded of those days when, like them, i had neither known care nor sorrow, and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. we stopped a few moments afterwards to water the horses, and on resuming our route, a turn of the road brought us in sight of a neat country-seat. i could just distinguish the forms of a lady and two young girls in the portico, and i saw my little comrades, with bantam, carlo, and old john, trooping along the carriage road. i leaned out of the coach-window, in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight. [illustration] in the evening we reached a village where i had determined to pass the night. as we drove into the great gateway of the inn, i saw on one side the light of a rousing kitchen fire, beaming through a window. i entered, and admired, for the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an english inn. it was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there with a christmas green. hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon, were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made its ceaseless clanking beside the fireplace, and a clock ticked in one corner. a well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the kitchen, with a cold round of beef, and other hearty viands upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard. travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high-backed oaken seats beside the fire. trim housemaids were hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh, bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group round the fire. the scene completely realised poor robin's humble idea of the comforts of mid-winter. [illustration] now trees their leafy hats do bare, to reverence winter's silver hair; a handsome hostess, merry host, a pot of ale now and a toast, tobacco and a good coal fire, are things this season doth require.[a] i had not been long at the inn when a post-chaise drove up to the door. a young gentleman stepped out, and by the light of the lamps i caught a glimpse of a countenance which i thought i knew. i moved forward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. i was not mistaken; it was frank bracebridge, a sprightly good-humoured young fellow, with whom i had once travelled on the continent. our meeting was extremely cordial; for the countenance of an old fellow-traveller always brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. to discuss all these in a transient interview at an inn was impossible; and finding that i was not pressed for time, and was merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that i should give him a day or two at his father's country-seat, to which he was going to pass the holidays, and which lay at a few miles' distance. "it is better than eating a solitary christmas dinner at an inn," said he; "and i can assure you of a hearty welcome in something of the old-fashion style." his reasoning was cogent; and i must confess the preparation i had seen for universal festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a little impatient of my loneliness. i closed, therefore, at once with his invitation: the chaise drove up to the door; and in a few moments i was on my way to the family mansion of the bracebridges. [illustration] footnote: [a] poor robin's almanack, 1684. [illustration: christmas eve] [illustration] saint francis and saint benedight blesse this house from wicked wight; from the night-mare and the goblin, that is hight good-fellow robin; keep it from all evil spirits, fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: from curfew time to the next prime. cartwright. [illustration] christmas eve [illustration: i] it was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the post-boy smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses were on a gallop. "he knows where he is going," said my companion, laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. my father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old english hospitality. he is a tolerable specimen of what you will rarely meet with now-a-days in its purity, the old english country gentleman; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into the country, that the strong rich peculiarities of ancient rural life are almost polished away. my father, however, from early years, took honest peacham[b] for his text book, instead of chesterfield: he determined, in his own mind, that there was no condition more truly honourable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his paternal lands, and, therefore, passes the whole of his time on his estate. he is a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday observances, and is deeply read in the writers, ancient and modern, who have treated on the subject. indeed, his favourite range of reading is among the authors who flourished at least two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and thought more like true englishmen than any of their successors. he even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few centuries earlier, when england was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs. as he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather a lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all blessings to an englishman, an opportunity of indulging the bent of his own humour without molestation. being representative of the oldest family in the neighbourhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked up to, and, in general, is known simply by the appellation of 'the squire;' a title which has been accorded to the head of the family since time immemorial. i think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old father, to prepare you for any little eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd." we had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length the chaise stopped at the gate. it was in a heavy magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers. the huge square columns that supported the gate were surmounted by the family crest. close adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir-trees, and almost buried in shrubbery. [illustration] the post-boy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded through the still frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned. an old woman immediately appeared at the gate. as the moonlight fell strongly upon her, i had a full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very much in the antique taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping from under a cap of snowy whiteness. she came curtseying forth, with many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. her husband, it seems, was up at the house keeping christmas eve in the servants' hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the household. [illustration: "it was in a heavy magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers."--page 46.] my friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow on. our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless sky. the lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight covering of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a thin transparent vapour, stealing up from the low grounds, and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape. my companion looked round him with transport:--"how often," said he, "have i scampered up this avenue, on returning home on school vacations! how often have i played under these trees when a boy! i feel a degree of filial reverence for them, as we look up to those who have cherished us in childhood. my father was always scrupulous in exacting our holidays, and having us around him on family festivals. he used to direct and superintend our games with the strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. he was very particular that we should play the old english games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet i assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. it was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and i value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow." [illustration] we were interrupted by the clangour of a troop of dogs of all sorts and sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, and curs of low degree," that, disturbed by the ringing of the porter's bell, and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the lawn. ----"the little dogs and all, tray, blanch, and sweetheart--see they bark at me!" cried bracebridge, laughing. at the sound of his voice the bark was changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he was surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the faithful animals. we had now come in full view of the old family mansion, partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold moonshine. it was an irregular building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of the architecture of different periods. one wing was evidently very ancient, with heavy stone-shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from among the foliage of which the small diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with the moonbeams. the rest of the house was in the french taste of charles the second's time, having been repaired and altered, as my friend told me, by one of his ancestors, who returned with that monarch at the restoration. the grounds about the house were laid out in the old formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water. the old gentleman, i was told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete finery in all its original state. he admired this fashion in gardening; it had an air of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting good old family style. the boasted imitation of nature in modern gardening had sprung up with modern republican notions, but did not suit a monarchical government; it smacked of the levelling system.--i could not help smiling at this introduction of politics into gardening, though i expressed some apprehension that i should find the old gentleman rather intolerant in his creed.--frank assured me, however, that it was almost the only instance in which he had ever heard his father meddle with politics; and he believed that he had got this notion from a member of parliament who once passed a few weeks with him. the squire was glad of any argument to defend his clipped yew-trees and formal terraces, which had been occasionally attacked by modern landscape-gardeners. [illustration] as we approached the house, we heard the sound of music, and now and then a burst of laughter from one end of the building. this, bracebridge said, must proceed from the servants' hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, and even encouraged, by the squire throughout the twelve days of christmas, provided everything was done conformably to ancient usage. here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and snapdragon: the yule log and christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white berries, hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids.[c] [illustration] so intent were the servants upon their sports, that we had to ring repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. on our arrival being announced, the squire came out to receive us, accompanied by his two other sons; one a young officer in the army, home on leave of absence; the other an oxonian, just from the university. the squire was a fine, healthy-looking old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an open florid countenance; in which a physiognomist, with the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint or two, might discover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence. [illustration: "the company, which was assembled in a large old-fashioned hall."--page 54.] the family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the evening was far advanced, the squire would not permit us to change our travelling dresses, but ushered us at once to the company, which was assembled in a large old-fashioned hall. it was composed of different branches of a numerous family connection, where there were the usual proportion of old uncles and aunts, comfortably married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed boarding-school hoydens. they were variously occupied; some at a round game of cards; others conversing around the fireplace; at one end of the hall was a group of the young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls, about the floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who having frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a peaceful night. [illustration] while the mutual greetings were going on between bracebridge and his relatives, i had time to scan the apartment. i have called it a hall, for so it had certainly been in old times, and the squire had evidently endeavoured to restore it to something of its primitive state. over the heavy projecting fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in armour, standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung helmet, buckler, and lance. at one end an enormous pair of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches serving as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs; and in the corners of the apartment were fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, and other sporting implements. the furniture was of the cumbrous workmanship of former days, though some articles of modern convenience had been added, and the oaken floor had been carpeted; so that the whole presented an odd mixture of parlour and hall. [illustration] the grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of light and heat; this i understood was the yule-log, which the squire was particular in having brought in and illumined on a christmas eve, according to ancient custom.[d] [illustration] it was really delightful to see the old squire seated in his hereditary elbow-chair by the hospitable fireside of his ancestors, and looking around him like the sun of a system, beaming warmth and gladness to every heart. even the very dog that lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his position and yawned, would look fondly up in his master's face, wag his tail against the floor, and stretch himself again to sleep, confident of kindness and protection. there is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt, and puts the stranger at once at his ease. i had not been seated many minutes by the comfortable hearth of the worthy cavalier before i found myself as much at home as if i had been one of the family. [illustration] supper was announced shortly after our arrival. it was served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which shone with wax, and around which were several family portraits decorated with holly and ivy. beside the accustomed lights, two great wax tapers, called christmas candles, wreathed with greens, were placed on a highly-polished buffet among the family plate. the table was abundantly spread with substantial fare; but the squire made his supper of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for christmas eve. i was happy to find my old friend, minced-pie, in the retinue of the feast; and finding him to be perfectly orthodox, and that i need not be ashamed of my predilection, i greeted him with all the warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and very genteel acquaintance. [illustration] the mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the humours of an eccentric personage whom mr. bracebridge always addressed with the quaint appellation of master simon. he was a tight, brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old bachelor. his nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot; his face slightly pitted with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. he had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. he was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, and making infinite merriment by harpings upon old themes; which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit me to enjoy. it seemed to be his great delight during supper to keep a young girl next him in a continual agony of stifled laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat opposite. indeed, he was the idol of the younger part of the company, who laughed at everything he said or did, and at every turn of his countenance. i could not wonder at it; for he must have been a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes. he could imitate punch and judy; make an old woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt cork and pocket-handkerchief; and cut an orange into such a ludicrous caricature, that the young folks were ready to die with laughing. [illustration] i was let briefly into his history by frank bracebridge. he was an old bachelor of a small independent income, which by careful management was sufficient for all his wants. he revolved through the family system like a vagrant comet in its orbit; sometimes visiting one branch, and sometimes another quite remote; as is often the case with gentlemen of extensive connections and small fortunes in england. he had a chirping, buoyant disposition, always enjoying the present moment; and his frequent change of scene and company prevented his acquiring those rusty unaccommodating habits with which old bachelors are so uncharitably charged. he was a complete family chronicle, being versed in the genealogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole house of bracebridge, which made him a great favourite with the old folks; he was a beau of all the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters, among whom he was habitually considered rather a young fellow, and he was a master of the revels among the children; so that there was not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than mr. simon bracebridge. of late years he had resided almost entirely with the squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly delighted by jumping with his humour in respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. we had presently a specimen of his last-mentioned talent; for no sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than master simon was called on for a good old christmas song. he bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto, like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty,- now christmas is come, let us beat up the drum, and call all our neighbours together; and when they appear, let us make them such cheer, as will keep out the wind and the weather, etc. the supper had disposed every one to gaiety, and an old harper was summoned from the servants' hall, where he had been strumming all the evening, and to all appearance comforting himself with some of the squire's home-brewed. he was a kind of hanger-on, i was told, of the establishment, and though ostensibly a resident of the village, was oftener to be found in the squire's kitchen than his own home, the old gentleman being fond of the sound of "harp in hall." [illustration] the dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one; some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself figured down several couples with a partner with whom he affirmed he had danced at every christmas for nearly half-a-century. master simon, who seemed to be a kind of connecting link between the old times and the new, and to be withal a little antiquated in the taste of his accomplishments, evidently piqued himself on his dancing, and was endeavouring to gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and other graces of the ancient school; but he had unluckily assorted himself with a little romping girl from boarding-school, who, by her wild vivacity, kept him continually on the stretch, and defeated all his sober attempts at elegance;--such are the ill-assorted matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately prone! [illustration] [illustration] the young oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with impunity; he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins; yet, like all madcap youngsters, he was a universal favourite among the women. the most interesting couple in the dance was the young officer and a ward of the squire's, a beautiful blushing girl of seventeen. from several shy glances which i had noticed in the course of the evening, i suspected there was a little kindness growing up between them; and, indeed, the young soldier was just the hero to captivate a romantic girl. he was tall, slender, and handsome, and, like most young british officers of late years, had picked up various small accomplishments on the continent--he could talk french and italian--draw landscapes, sing very tolerably--dance divinely; but, above all, he had been wounded at waterloo:--what girl of seventeen, well read in poetry and romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry and perfection! [illustration] the moment the dance was over, he caught up a guitar, and lolling against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude which i am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the little french air of the troubadour. the squire, however, exclaimed against having anything on christmas eve but good old english; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, and, with a charming air of gallantry, gave herrick's "night-piece to julia:"- her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, the shooting stars attend thee, and the elves also, whose little eyes glow like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. no will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee; nor snake or glow-worm bite thee; but on, on thy way, not making a stay, since ghost there is none to affright thee. then let not the dark thee cumber; what though the moon does slumber, the stars of the night will lend thee their light, like tapers clear without number. then, julia, let me woo thee, thus, thus to come unto me; and when i shall meet thy silvery feet, my soul i'll pour into thee. the song might have been intended in compliment to the fair julia, for so i found his partner was called, or it might not; she, however, was certainly unconscious of any such application, for she never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the floor. her face was suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush, and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was amusing herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hothouse flowers, and by the time the song was concluded, the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor. the party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old custom of shaking hands. as i passed through the hall, on the way to my chamber, the dying embers of the _yule-clog_ still sent forth a dusky glow; and had it not been the season when "no spirit dares stir abroad," i should have been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight, and peep whether the fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth. [illustration: "indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was amusing herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house flowers."--page 72.] my chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the giants. the room was panelled with cornices of heavy carved-work, in which flowers and grotesque faces were strangely intermingled; and a row of black-looking portraits stared mournfully at me from the walls. the bed was of rich though faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche opposite a bow-window. i had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. i listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which i concluded to be the waits from some neighbouring village. they went round the house, playing under the windows. i drew aside the curtains, to hear them more distinctly. the moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially lighting up the antiquated apartment. the sounds, as they receded, became more soft and aã«rial, and seemed to accord with quiet and moonlight. i listened and listened--they became more and more tender and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sank upon the pillow and i fell asleep. [illustration] footnotes: [b] peacham's complete gentleman, 1622. [c] see note a. [d] see note b. [illustration: christmas day] [illustration] dark and dull night, flie hence away, and give the honour to this day that sees december turn'd to may. * * * * * why does the chilling winter's morne smile like a field beset with corn? or smell like to a meade new-shorne, thus on the sudden?--come and see the cause why things thus fragrant be. herrick. [illustration] christmas day [illustration: w] when i awoke the next morning, it seemed as if all the events of the preceding evening had been a dream, and nothing but the identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of their reality. while i lay musing on my pillow, i heard the sound of little feet pattering outside of the door, and a whispering consultation. presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old christmas carol, the burden of which was, rejoice, our saviour he was born on christmas day in the morning. [illustration] i rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagine. it consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. they were going the rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber-door; but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashfulness. they remained for a moment playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance, from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, i heard them laughing in triumph at their escape. [illustration] everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. the window of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful landscape. there was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees, and herds of deer. at a distance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage chimneys hanging over it; and a church with its dark spire in strong relief against the clear cold sky. the house was surrounded with evergreens, according to the english custom, which would have given almost an appearance of summer; but the morning was extremely frosty; the light vapour of the preceding evening had been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its fine crystallisations. the rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect among the glittering foliage. a robin, perched upon the top of a mountain-ash that hung its clusters of red berries just before my window, was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few querulous notes; and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train, and strutting with the pride and gravity of a spanish grandee on the terrace-walk below. [illustration] i had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant appeared to invite me to family prayers. he showed me the way to a small chapel in the old wing of the house, where i found the principal part of the family already assembled in a kind of gallery, furnished with cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the servants were seated on benches below. the old gentleman read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, and master simon acted as clerk, and made the responses; and i must do him the justice to say that he acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum. the service was followed by a christmas carol, which mr. bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his favourite author, herrick; and it had been adapted to an old church melody by master simon. as there were several good voices among the household, the effect was extremely pleasing; but i was particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, and sudden sally of grateful feeling, with which the worthy squire delivered one stanza: his eyes glistening, and his voice rambling out of all the bounds of time and tune: "'tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth with guiltlesse mirth, and giv'st me wassaile bowles to drink, spiced to the brink: lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand that soiles my land; and giv'st me for my bushell sowne, twice ten for one." i afterwards understood that early morning service was read on every sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either by mr. bracebridge or by some member of the family. it was once almost universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of england, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is fallen into neglect; for the dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households, where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony. our breakfast consisted of what the squire denominated true old english fare. he indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea-and-toast, which he censured as among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of old english heartiness; and though he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of cold meats, wine and ale, on the sideboard. [illustration] after breakfast i walked about the grounds with frank bracebridge and master simon, or mr. simon, as he was called by everybody but the squire. we were escorted by a number of gentlemen-like dogs, that seemed loungers about the establishment; from the frisking spaniel to the steady old stag-hound; the last of which was of a race that had been in the family time out of mind: they were all obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to master simon's button-hole, and in the midst of their gambols would glance an eye occasionally upon a small switch he carried in his hand. [illustration] the old mansion had a still more venerable look in the yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight; and i could not but feel the force of the squire's idea, that the formal terraces, heavily moulded balustrades, and clipped yew-trees, carried with them an air of proud aristocracy. there appeared to be an unusual number of peacocks about the place, and i was making some remarks upon what i termed a flock of them, that were basking under a sunny wall, when i was gently corrected in my phraseology by master simon, who told me that, according to the most ancient and approved treatise on hunting, i must say a _muster_ of peacocks. "in the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, "we say a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks." he went on to inform me that, according to sir anthony fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird "both understanding and glory; for being praised, he will presently set up his tail chiefly against the sun, to the intent you may the better behold the beauty thereof. but at the fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide himself in corners, till his tail come again as it was." i could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so whimsical a subject; but i found that the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the hall, for frank bracebridge informed me that they were great favourites with his father, who was extremely careful to keep up the breed; partly because they belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at the stately banquets of the olden time; and partly because they had a pomp and magnificence about them, highly becoming an old family mansion. nothing, he was accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone balustrade. [illustration] master simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment at the parish church with the village choristers, who were to perform some music of his selection. there was something extremely agreeable in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little man; and i confess i had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were not in the range of every-day reading. i mentioned this last circumstance to frank bracebridge, who told me with a smile that master simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half-a-dozen old authors, which the squire had put into his hands, and which he read over and over, whenever he had a studious fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long winter evening. sir anthony fitzherbert's book of husbandry; markham's country contentments; the tretyse of hunting, by sir thomas cockayne, knight; izaak walton's angler, and two or three more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his standard authorities; and, like all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. as to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old books in the squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were popular among the choice spirits of the last century. his practical application of scraps of literature, however, had caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighbourhood. while we were talking we heard the distant toll of the village bell, and i was told that the squire was a little particular in having his household at church on a christmas morning; considering it a day of pouring out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old tusser observed, "at christmas be merry, _and thankful withal_, and feast thy poor neighbours, the great and the small." "if you are disposed to go to church," said frank bracebridge, "i can promise you a specimen of my cousin simon's musical achievements. as the church is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from the village amateurs, and established a musical club for their improvement; he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to the directions of jervaise markham, in his country contentments; for the bass he has sought out all the 'deep, solemn mouths,' and for the tenor the 'loud ringing mouths,' among the country bumpkins; and for 'sweet mouths,' he has culled with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in the neighbourhood; though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult to keep in tune; your pretty female singer being exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to accident." [illustration] as the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and clear, the most of the family walked to the church, which was a very old building of gray stone, and stood near a village, about half-a-mile from the park gate. adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, which seemed coeval with the church. the front of it was perfectly matted with a yew-tree that had been trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of which apertures had been formed to admit light into the small antique lattices. as we passed this sheltered nest, the parson issued forth and preceded us. i had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, such as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich patron's table; but i was disappointed. the parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood off from each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. he wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that would have held the church bible and prayer-book; and his small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted in large shoes, decorated with enormous buckles. [illustration] i was informed by frank bracebridge that the parson had been a chum of his father's at oxford, and had received this living shortly after the latter had come to his estate. he was a complete black-letter hunter, and would scarcely read a work printed in the roman character. the editions of caxton and wynkin de worde were his delight; and he was indefatigable in his researches after such old english writers as have fallen into oblivion from their worthlessness. in deference, perhaps, to the notions of mr. bracebridge, he had made diligent investigations into the festive rights and holiday customs of former times; and had been as zealous in the inquiry, as if he had been a boon companion; but it was merely with that plodding spirit with which men of adust temperament follow up any track of study, merely because it is denominated learning; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, whether it be the illustration of the wisdom, or of the ribaldry and obscenity of antiquity. he had poured over these old volumes so intensely, that they seemed to have been reflected into his countenance indeed; which, if the face be an index of the mind, might be compared to a title-page of black-letter. [illustration: "on reaching the church-porch, we found the parson rebuking the gray-headed sexton for having used mistletoe."--page 95.] on reaching the church-porch, we found the parson rebuking the gray-headed sexton for having used mistletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. it was, he observed, an unholy plant, profaned by having been used by the druids in their mystic ceremonies; and though it might be innocently employed in the festive ornamenting of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the fathers of the church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred purposes. so tenacious was he on this point, that the poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part of the humble trophies of his taste, before the parson would consent to enter upon the service of the day. the interior of the church was venerable but simple; on the walls were several mural monuments of the bracebridges, and just beside the altar was a tomb of ancient workmanship, on which lay the effigy of a warrior in armour, with his legs crossed, a sign of his having been a crusader. i was told it was one of the family who had signalised himself in the holy land, and the same whose picture hung over the fireplace in the hall. [illustration] during service, master simon stood up in the pew, and repeated the responses very audibly; evincing that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of old family connections. i observed, too, that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a flourish; possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring which enriched one of his fingers, and which had the look of a family relic. but he was evidently most solicitous about the musical part of the service, keeping his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beating time with much gesticulation and emphasis. [illustration: "the orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads."--page 97.] [illustration] the orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the other, among which i particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the clarionet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and labouring at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. there were two or three pretty faces among the female singers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been chosen, like old cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as several had to sing from the same book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones. [illustration] [illustration] the usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter, to be in at the death. but the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by master simon, and on which he had founded great expectation. unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset; the musicians became flurried; master simon was in a fever, everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning "now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon, as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration. [illustration] the parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and ceremonies of christmas, and the propriety of observing it not merely as a day of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing; supporting the correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the church, and enforcing them by the authorities of theophilus of cesarea, st. cyprian, st. chrysostom, st. augustine, and a cloud more of saints and fathers, from whom he made copious quotations. i was a little at a loss to perceive the necessity of such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point which no one present seemed inclined to dispute; but i soon found that the good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to contend with; having in the course of his researches on the subject of christmas, got completely embroiled in the sectarian controversies of the revolution, when the puritans made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the church, and poor old christmas was driven out of the land by proclamation of parliament.[e] the worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but a little of the present. shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his antiquated little study, the pages of old times were to him as the gazettes of the day; while the era of the revolution was mere modern history. he forgot that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; when plum-porridge was denounced as "mere popery," and roast beef as antichristian; and that christmas had been brought in again triumphantly with the merry court of king charles at the restoration. he kindled into warmth with the ardour of his contest, and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to combat; had a stubborn conflict with old prynne and two or three other forgotten champions of the roundheads, on the subject of christmas festivity; and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn and affecting manner, to stand to the traditionary customs of their fathers, and feast and make merry on this joyful anniversary of the church. [illustration] i have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with more immediate effects; for on leaving the church the congregation seemed one and all possessed with the gaiety of spirit so earnestly enjoined by their pastor. the elder folks gathered in knots in the churchyard, greeting and shaking hands; and the children ran about crying, ule! ule! and repeating some uncouth rhymes,[f] which the parson, who had joined us, informed me had been handed down from days of yore. the villagers doffed their hats to the squire as he passed, giving him the good wishes of the season with every appearance of heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to the hall, to take something to keep out the cold of the weather; and i heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, which convinced me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier had not forgotten the true christmas virtue of charity. [illustration] on our way homeward his heart seemed overflowing with generous and happy feelings. as we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. the beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin covering of snow from every southern declivity, and to bring out the living green which adorns an english landscape even in mid-winter. large tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. every sheltered bank, on which the broad rays rested, yielded its silver rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute to the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the earth. there was something truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, as the squire observed, an emblem of christmas hospitality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow. he pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the chimneys of the comfortable farm-houses and low thatched cottages. "i love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rich and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and i am almost disposed to join with poor robin, in his malediction of every churlish enemy to this honest festival:- "those who at christmas do repine, and would fain hence despatch him, may they with old duke humphry dine, or else may squire ketch catch 'em." the squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the games and amusements which were once prevalent at this season among the lower orders, and countenanced by the higher: when the old halls of castles and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight; when the tables were covered with brawn, and beef, and humming ale; when the harp and the carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were alike welcome to enter and make merry.[g] "our old games and local customs," said he, "had a great effect in making the peasant fond of his home, and the promotion of them by the gentry made him fond of his lord. they made the times merrier, and kinder, and better; and i can truly say, with one of our old poets,- "i like them well--the curious preciseness and all-pretended gravity of those that seek to banish hence these harmless sports, have thrust away much ancient honesty. [illustration] "the nation," continued he, "is altered; we have almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. they have broken asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their interests are separate. they have become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform. i think one mode to keep them in good humour in these hard times would be for the nobility and gentry to pass more time on their estates, mingle more among the country people, and set the merry old english games going again." such was the good squire's project for mitigating public discontent; and, indeed, he had once attempted to put his doctrine in practice, and a few years before had kept open house during the holidays in the old style. the country people, however, did not understand how to play their parts in the scene of hospitality; many uncouth circumstances occurred; the manor was overrun by all the vagrants of the country, and more beggars drawn into the neighbourhood in one week than the parish officers could get rid of in a year. since then he had contented himself with inviting the decent part of the neighbouring peasantry to call at the hall on christmas day, and distributing beef, and bread, and ale, among the poor, that they might make merry in their own dwellings. [illustration] we had not been long home when the sound of music was heard from a distance. a band of country lads without coats, their shirt-sleeves fancifully tied with ribands, their hats decorated with greens, and clubs in their hands, were seen advancing up the avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and peasantry. they stopped before the hall door, where the music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads performed a curious and intricate dance, advancing, retreating, and striking their clubs together, keeping exact time to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, and rattling a christmas-box with many antic gesticulations. [illustration] the squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced to the times when the romans held possession of the island; plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant of the sword-dance of the ancients. "it was now," he said, "nearly extinct, but he had accidentally met with traces of it in the neighbourhood, and had encouraged its revival; though, to tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by rough cudgel-play and broken heads in the evening." [illustration] after the dance was concluded, the whole party was entertained with brawn and beef, and stout home-brewed. the squire himself mingled among the rustics, and was received with awkward demonstrations of deference and regard. it is true i perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as they were raising their tankards to their mouths when the squire's back was turned, making something of a grimace, and giving each other the wink; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly demure. with master simon, however, they all seemed more at their ease. his varied occupations and amusements had made him well known throughout the neighbourhood. he was a visitor at every farm-house and cottage; gossiped with the farmers and their wives; romped with their daughters; and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the humble bee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the country round. the bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good cheer and affability. there is something genuine and affectionate in the gaiety of the lower orders, when it is excited by the bounty and familiarity of those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enters into their mirth, and a kind word or a small pleasantry, frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependant more than oil and wine. when the squire had retired the merriment increased, and there was much joking and laughter, particularly between master simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the village; for i observed all his companions to wait with open mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous laugh before they could well understand them. [illustration] the whole house indeed seemed abandoned to merriment. as i passed to my room to dress for dinner, i heard the sound of music in a small court, and, looking through a window that commanded it, i perceived a band of wandering musicians, with pandean pipes and tambourine; a pretty coquettish housemaid was dancing a jig with a smart country lad, while several of the other servants were looking on. in the midst of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the window, and, colouring up, ran off with an air of roguish affected confusion. [illustration] footnotes: [e] see note c. [f] "ule! ule! three puddings in a pule; crack nuts and cry ule!" [g] see note d. [illustration: the christmas dinner] [illustration] lo, now is come the joyful'st feast! let every man be jolly, eache roome with yvie leaves is drest, and every post with holly. now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, and christmas blocks are burning; their ovens they with bak't meats choke, and all their spits are turning. without the door let sorrow lie, and if, for cold, it hap to die, we'll bury't in a christmas pye, and evermore be merry. withers's _juvenilia._ [illustration: the christmas dinner] i had finished my toilet, and was loitering with frank bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwacking sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dinner. the squire kept up old customs in kitchen as well as hall; and the rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, summoned the servants to carry in the meats. [illustration] just in this nick the cook knock'd thrice, and all the waiters in a trice his summons did obey; each serving man, with dish in hand, march'd boldly up, like our train-band, presented and away.[h] [illustration] the dinner was served up in the great hall, where the squire always held his christmas banquet. a blazing crackling fire of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the flame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed chimney. the great picture of the crusader and his white horse had been profusely decorated with greens for the occasion; and holly and ivy had likewise been wreathed round the helmet and weapons on the opposite wall, which i understood were the arms of the same warrior. i must own, by the by, i had strong doubts about the authenticity of the painting and armour as having belonged to the crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more recent days; but i was told that the painting had been so considered time out of mind; and that as to the armour, it had been found in a lumber room, and elevated to its present situation by the squire, who at once determined it to be the armour of the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all such subjects in his own household, the matter had passed into current acceptation. a sideboard was set out just under this chivalric trophy, on which was a display of plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with belshazzar's parade of the vessels of the temple; "flagons, cans, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers;" the gorgeous utensils of good companionship, that had gradually accumulated through many generations of jovial housekeepers. before these stood the two yule candles beaming like two stars of the first magnitude; other lights were distributed in branches, and the whole array glittered like a firmament of silver. [illustration] [illustration: "never did christmas board display a more goodly and gracious assemblage of countenances."--page 123.] [illustration] we were ushered into this banqueting scene with the sound of minstrelsy, the old harper being seated on a stool beside the fireplace, and twanging his instrument with a vast deal more power than melody. never did christmas board display a more goodly and gracious assemblage of countenances: those who were not handsome were, at least, happy; and happiness is a rare improver of your hard-favoured visage. i always consider an old english family as well worth studying as a collection of holbein's portraits or albert durer's prints. there is much antiquarian lore to be acquired; much knowledge of the physiognomies of former times. perhaps it may be from having continually before their eyes those rows of old family portraits, with which the mansions of this country are stocked; certain it is, that the quaint features of antiquity are often most faithfully perpetuated in these ancient lines; and i have traced an old family nose through a whole picture gallery, legitimately handed down from generation to generation, almost from the time of the conquest. something of the kind was to be observed in the worthy company around me. many of their faces had evidently originated in a gothic age, and been merely copied by succeeding generations; and there was one little girl, in particular, of staid demeanour, with a high roman nose, and an antique vinegar aspect, who was a great favourite of the squire's, being, as he said, a bracebridge all over, and the very counterpart of one of his ancestors who figured in the court of henry viii. [illustration] the parson said grace, which was not a short familiar one, such as is commonly addressed to the deity, in these unceremonious days; but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the ancient school. there was now a pause, as if something was expected; when suddenly the butler entered the hall with some degree of bustle: he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an enormous pig's head decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at the head of the table. the moment this pageant made its appearance, the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclusion of which the young oxonian, on receiving a hint from the squire, gave, with an air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, the first verse of which was as follows:- caput apri defero reddens laudes domino. the boar's head in hand bring i, with garlands gay and rosemary. i pray you all synge merily qui estis in convivio. [illustration] though prepared to witness many of these little eccentricities, from being apprised of the peculiar hobby of mine host; yet, i confess, the parade with which so odd a dish was introduced somewhat perplexed me, until i gathered from the conversation of the squire and the parson that it was meant to represent the bringing in of the boar's head: a dish formerly served up with much ceremony, and the sound of minstrelsy and song, at great tables on christmas day. "i like the old custom," said the squire, "not merely because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but because it was observed at the college of oxford, at which i was educated. when i hear the old song chanted, it brings to mind the time when i was young and gamesome--and the noble old college-hall--and my fellow-students loitering about in their black gowns; many of whom, poor lads, are now in their graves!" the parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such associations, and who was always more taken up with the text than the sentiment, objected to the oxonian's version of the carol; which he affirmed was different from that sung at college. he went on, with the dry perseverance of a commentator, to give the college reading, accompanied by sundry annotations: addressing himself at first to the company at large; but finding their attention gradually diverted to other talk, and other objects, he lowered his tone as his number of auditors diminished, until he concluded his remarks, in an under voice, to a fat-headed old gentleman next him, who was silently engaged in the discussion of a huge plateful of turkey.[i] [illustration] the table was literally loaded with good cheer, and presented an epitome of country abundance, in this season of overflowing larders. a distinguished post was allotted to "ancient sirloin," as mine host termed it; being, as he added, "the standard of old english hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of expectation." there were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently something traditionary in their embellishments; but about which, as i did not like to appear over-curious, i asked no questions. [illustration] i could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table. this the squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant-pie, though a peacock-pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.[j] it would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which i am a little given, were i to mention the other makeshifts of this worthy old humorist, by which he was endeavouring to follow up, though at humble distance, the quaint customs of antiquity. i was pleased, however, to see the respect shown to his whims by his children and relatives; who, indeed, entered readily into the full spirit of them, and seemed all well versed in their parts; having doubtless been present at many a rehearsal. i was amused, too, at the air of profound gravity with which the butler and other servants executed the duties assigned them, however eccentric. they had an old-fashioned look; having, for the most part, been brought up in the household, and grown into keeping with the antiquated mansion, and the humours of its lord; and most probably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the established laws of honourable housekeeping. [illustration] when the cloth was removed, the butler brought in a huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, which he placed before the squire. its appearance was hailed with acclamation; being the wassail bowl, so renowned in christmas festivity. the contents had been prepared by the squire himself; for it was a beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly prided himself; alleging that it was too abstruse and complex for the comprehension of an ordinary servant. it was a potation, indeed, that might well make the heart of a toper leap within him; being composed of the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.[k] the old gentleman's whole countenance beamed with a serene look of indwelling delight, as he stirred this mighty bowl. having raised it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a merry christmas to all present, he sent it brimming round the board, for every one to follow his example, according to the primitive style; pronouncing it "the ancient fountain of good feeling, where all hearts met together."[l] [illustration] there was much laughing and rallying as the honest emblem of christmas joviality circulated, and was kissed rather coyly by the ladies. when it reached master simon he raised it in both hands, and with the air of a boon companion struck up an old wassail chanson: the browne bowle, the merry browne bowle, as it goes round about-a, fill still, let the world say what it will, and drink your fill all out-a. the deep canne, the merry deep canne, as thou dost freely quaff-a, sing, fling, be as merry as a king, and sound a lusty laugh-a.[m] much of the conversation during dinner turned upon family topics, to which i was a stranger. there was, however, a great deal of rallying of master simon about some gay widow, with whom he was accused of having a flirtation. this attack was commenced by the ladies; but it was continued throughout the dinner by the fat-headed old gentleman next the parson, with the persevering assiduity of a slow-hound; being one of those long-winded jokers, who, though rather dull at starting game, are unrivalled for their talents in hunting it down. at every pause in the general conversation, he renewed his bantering in pretty much the same terms; winking hard at me with both eyes whenever he gave master simon what he considered a home thrust. the latter, indeed, seemed fond of being teased on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to be; and he took occasion to inform me, in an under-tone, that the lady in question was a prodigiously fine woman, and drove her own curricle. [illustration] the dinner-time passed away in this flow of innocent hilarity; and, though the old hall may have resounded in its time with many a scene of broader rout and revel, yet i doubt whether it ever witnessed more honest and genuine enjoyment. how easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles! the joyous disposition of the worthy squire was perfectly contagious; he was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world happy; and the little eccentricities of his humour did but season, in a manner, the sweetness of his philanthropy. [illustration] when the ladies had retired, the conversation, as usual, became still more animated; many good things were broached which had been thought of during dinner, but which would not exactly do for a lady's ear; and though i cannot positively affirm that there was much wit uttered, yet i have certainly heard many contests of rare wit produce much less laughter. wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humour is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small, and the laughter abundant. the squire told several long stories of early college pranks and adventures, in some of which the parson had been a sharer; though in looking at the latter, it required some effort of imagination to figure such a little dark anatomy of a man into the perpetrator of a madcap gambol. indeed, the two college chums presented pictures of what men may be made by their different lots in life. the squire had left the university to live lustily on his paternal domains, in the vigorous enjoyment of prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on to a hearty and florid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the contrary, had dried and withered away, among dusty tomes, in the silence and shadows of his study. still there seemed to be a spark of almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmering in the bottom of his soul; and as the squire hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom they once met on the banks of the isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as i could decipher his physiognomy, i verily believe was indicative of laughter;--indeed, i have rarely met with an old gentleman who took absolutely offence at the imputed gallantries of his youth. [illustration] [illustration] i found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry land of sober judgment. the company grew merrier and louder as their jokes grew duller. master simon was in as chirping a humour as a grasshopper filled with dew; his old songs grew of a warmer complexion, and he began to talk maudlin about the widow. he even gave a long song about the wooing of a widow, which he informed me he had gathered from an excellent black-letter work, entitled "cupid's solicitor for love," containing store of good advice for bachelors, and which he promised to lend me. the first verse was to this effect:- he that will woo a widow must not dally, he must make hay while the sun doth shine; he must not stand with her, shall i, shall i? but boldly say, widow, thou must be mine. this song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made several attempts to tell a rather broad story out of joe miller, that was pat to the purpose; but he always stuck in the middle, everybody recollecting the latter part excepting himself. the parson, too, began to show the effects of good cheer, having gradually settled down into a doze, and his wig sitting most suspiciously on one side. just at this juncture we were summoned to the drawing-room, and, i suspect, at the private instigation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always tempered with a proper love of decorum. [illustration] after the dinner-table was removed, the hall was given up to the younger members of the family, who, prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the oxonian and master simon, made its old walls ring with their merriment, as they played at romping games. i delight in witnessing the gambols of children, and particularly at this happy holiday-season, and could not help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of laughter. i found them at the game of blind-man's buff. master simon, who was the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions to fulfil the office of that ancient potentate, the lord of misrule,[n] was blinded in the midst of the hall. the little beings were as busy about him as the mock fairies about falstaff; pinching him, plucking at the skirts of his coat, and tickling him with straws. one fine blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her flaxen hair all in beautiful confusion, her frolic face in a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a complete picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and from the slyness with which master simon avoided the smaller game, and hemmed this wild little nymph in corners, and obliged her to jump shrieking over chairs, i suspected the rogue of being not a whit more blinded than was convenient. [illustration] when i returned to the drawing-room, i found the company seated round the fire, listening to the parson, who was deeply ensconced in a high-backed oaken chair, the work of some cunning artificer of yore, which had been brought from the library for his particular accommodation. from this venerable piece of furniture, with which his shadowy figure and dark weazen face so admirably accorded, he was dealing forth strange accounts of the popular superstitions and legends of the surrounding country, with which he had become acquainted in the course of his antiquarian researches. i am half inclined to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the marvellous and supernatural. he gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the neighbouring peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader which lay on the tomb by the church altar. as it was the only monument of the kind in that part of the country, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition by the good wives of the village. it was said to get up from the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard in stormy nights, particularly when it thundered; and one old woman, whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had seen it, through the windows of the church, when the moon shone, slowly pacing up and down the aisles. it was the belief that some wrong had been left unredressed by the deceased, or some treasure hidden, which kept the spirit in a state of trouble and restlessness. some talked of gold and jewels buried in the tomb, over which the spectre kept watch; and there was a story current of a sexton in old times who endeavoured to break his way to the coffin at night; but just as he reached it, received a violent blow from the marble hand of the effigy, which stretched him senseless on the pavement. these tales were often laughed at by some of the sturdier among the rustics, yet when night came on, there were many of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of venturing alone in the footpath that led across the churchyard. [illustration] [illustration] from these and other anecdotes that followed, the crusader appeared to be the favourite hero of ghost stories throughout the vicinity. his picture, which hung up in the hall, was thought by the servants to have something supernatural about it; for they remarked that, in whatever part of the hall you went, the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on you. the old porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born and brought up in the family, and was a great gossip among the maid-servants, affirmed, that in her young days she had often heard say, that on midsummer eve, when it is well known all kinds of ghosts, goblins, and fairies become visible and walk abroad, the crusader used to mount his horse, come down from his picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, and so to the church to visit the tomb; on which occasion the church-door most civilly swung open of itself: not that he needed it; for he rode through closed gates and even stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairymaids to pass between two bars of the great park gate, making himself as thin as a sheet of paper. all these superstitions i found had been very much countenanced by the squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. he listened to every goblin tale of the neighbouring gossips with infinite gravity, and held the porter's wife in high favour on account of her talent for the marvellous. he was himself a great reader of old legends and romances, and often lamented that he could not believe in them; for a superstitious person, he thought, must live in a kind of fairyland. whilst we were all attention to the parson's stories, our ears were suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous sounds from the hall, in which was mingled something like the clang of rude minstrelsy, with the uproar of many small voices and girlish laughter. the door suddenly flew open, and a train came trooping into the room, that might almost have been mistaken for the breaking up of the court of fairy. that indefatigable spirit, master simon, in the faithful discharge of his duties as lord of misrule, had conceived the idea of a christmas mummery, or masquing; and having called in to his assistance the oxonian and the young officer, who were equally ripe for anything that should occasion romping and merriment, they had carried it into instant effect. the old housekeeper had been consulted; the antique clothes-presses and wardrobes rummaged and made to yield up the relics of finery that had not seen the light for several generations; the younger part of the company had been privately convened from the parlour and hall, and the whole had been bedizened out, into a burlesque imitation of an antique masque.[o] [illustration] [illustration] master simon led the van, as "ancient christmas," quaintly apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very much the aspect of one of the old housekeeper's petticoats, and a hat that might have served for a village steeple, and must indubitably have figured in the days of the covenanters. from under this his nose curved boldly forth, flushed with a frost-bitten bloom, that seemed the very trophy of a december blast. he was accompanied by the blue-eyed romp, dished up as "dame mince-pie," in the venerable magnificence of faded brocade, long stomacher, peaked hat, and high-heeled shoes. the young officer appeared as robin hood, in a sporting dress of kendal green, and a foraging cap, with a gold tassel. the costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep research, and there was an evident eye to the picturesque, natural to a young gallant in the presence of his mistress. the fair julia hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress, as "maid marian." the rest of the train had been metamorphosed in various ways; the girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient belles of the bracebridge line, and the striplings be-whiskered with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the characters of roast beef, plum pudding, and other worthies celebrated in ancient maskings. the whole was under the control of the oxonian, in the appropriate character of misrule; and i observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with his wand over the smaller personages of the pageant. [illustration] [illustration: "the rest of the train had been metamorphosed in various ways."--page 153.] [illustration] the irruption of this motley crew, with beat of drum, according to ancient custom, was the consummation of uproar and merriment. master simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with which, as ancient christmas, he walked a minuet with the peerless, though giggling, dame mince-pie. it was followed by a dance of all the characters, which, from its medley of costumes, seemed as though the old family portraits had skipped down from their frames to join in the sport. different centuries were figuring at cross hands and right and left; the dark ages were cutting pirouettes and rigadoons; and the days of queen bess jigging merrily down the middle, through a line of succeeding generations. [illustration] the worthy squire contemplated these fantastic sports, and this resurrection of his old wardrobe, with the simple relish of childish delight. he stood chuckling and rubbing his hands, and scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the latter was discoursing most authentically on the ancient and stately dance at the paon, or peacock, from which he conceived the minuet to be derived.[p] for my part, i was in a continual excitement, from the varied scenes of whim and innocent gaiety passing before me. it was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic and warmhearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy, and catching once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment. i felt also an interest in the scene, from the consideration that these fleeting customs were posting fast into oblivion, and that this was, perhaps, the only family in england in which the whole of them were still punctiliously observed. there was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry, that gave it a peculiar zest; it was suited to the time and place; and as the old manor house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed echoing back the joviality of long-departed years. [illustration] but enough of christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause in this garrulity. methinks i hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "to what purpose is all this?--how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?" alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the instruction of the world? and if not, are there not thousands of abler pens labouring for its improvement?--it is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct--to play the companion rather than the preceptor. what, after all, is the mite of wisdom that i could throw into the mass of knowledge? or how am i sure that my sagest deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? but in writing to amuse, if i fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. if, however, i can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if i can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, i shall not then have written entirely in vain. [illustration] footnotes: [h] sir john suckling. [i] see note e. [j] see note f. [k] see note g. [l] see note h. [m] from "poor robin's almanack." [n] see note i. [o] see note j. [p] see note k. notes note a, p. 53. the mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at christmas; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. when the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases. note b, p. 58. the _yule-clog_ is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, brought into the house with great ceremony, on christmas eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last year's clog. while it lasted there was great drinking, singing, and telling of tales. sometimes it was accompanied by christmas candles, but in the cottages the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire. the _yule-clog_ was to burn all night; if it went out, it was considered a sign of ill luck. herrick mentions it in one of his songs:- "come, bring with a noise my merrie, merrie boyes, the christmas log to the firing: while my good dame, she bids ye all be free, and drink to your hearts' desiring." the _yule-clog_ is still burnt in many farm-houses and kitchens in england, particularly in the north, and there are several superstitions connected with it among the peasantry. if a squinting person come to the house while it is burning, or a person barefooted, it is considered an ill omen. the brand remaining from the _yule-clog_ is carefully put away to light the next year's christmas fire. note c, p. 102. from the "flying eagle," a small gazette, published december 24, 1652:--"the house spent much time this day about the business of the navy, for settling the affairs at sea; and before they rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance against christmas day, grounded upon divine scriptures, 2 cor. v. 16; 1 cor. xv. 14, 17; and in honour of the lord's day, grounded upon these scriptures, john xx. 1; rev. i. 10; psalm cxviii. 24; lev. xxiii. 7, 11; mark xvi. 8; psalm lxxxiv. 10, in which christmas is called anti-christ's masse, and those mass-mongers and papists who observe it, etc. in consequence of which parliament spent some time in consultation about the abolition of christmas day, passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day, which was commonly called christmas day." note d p. 108. "an english gentleman at the opening of the great day, _i.e._ on christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by daybreak. the strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmeg, and good cheshire cheese. the hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (_i.e._ the cook) by the arms and run her round the marketplace till she is shamed of her laziness."--_round about our sea-coal fire._ note e, p. 129. the old ceremony of serving up the boar's head on christmas day is still observed in the hall of queen's college, oxford. i was favoured by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and as it may be acceptable to such of my readers as are curious in these grave and learned matters, i give it entire. "the boar's head in hand bear i, bedeck'd with bays and rosemary; and i pray you, my masters, be merry, quot estis in convivio. caput apri defero reddens laudes domino. the boar's head, as i understand, is the rarest dish in all this land, which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland let us servire cantico. caput apri defero, etc. our steward hath provided this in honour of the king of bliss, which on this day to be served is in reginensi atrio. caput apri defero," etc. etc. etc. note f, p. 131. the peacock was anciently in great demand for stately entertainments. sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed. such pies were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves to undertake any perilous enterprise; whence came the ancient oath, used by justice shallow, "by cock and pie." the peacock was also an important dish for the christmas feast; and massinger, in his city madam, gives some idea of the extravagance with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for the gorgeous revels of the olden times:- "men may talk of country christmasses, their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues: their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; _the carcases of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to make sauce for a single peacock_!" note g, p. 133. the wassail bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of wine; with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families, and round the hearths of substantial farmers at christmas. it is also called lambs' wool, and is celebrated by herrick in his "twelfth night:"- "next crowne the bowle full with gentle lambs' wool, add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, with store of ale too; and thus ye must doe to make the wassaile a swinger." note h, p. 134. "the custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each having his cup. when the steward came to the doore with the wassel, he was to cry three times, _wassel, wassel, wassel_, and then the chappel (chaplain) was to answer with a song."--archã�ologia. note i, p. 142. "at christmasse there was in the kinge's house, wheresoever hee was lodged, a lorde of misrule, or mayster of merry disportes; and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honor, or good worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall."--stow. note j, p. 151. maskings or mummeries were favourite sports at christmas in old times; and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. i strongly suspect master simon to have taken the idea of his from ben jonson's masque of christmas. note k, p. 156. sir john hawkins, speaking of the dance called the pavon, from pavo, a peacock, says, "it is a grave and majestic dance; the method of dancing it anciently was by gentlemen dressed with caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof, in dancing, resembled that of a peacock."--_history of music._ _printed by_ r. & r. clark, _edinburgh._ * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. on page 18, the word "poenã¢" is actually written with a ligature attaching the oe. for the text version, this was not retained. generously made available by the internet archive/american libraries.) christmas stories [illustration] the macmillan company new york · boston · chicago · dallas atlanta · san francisco macmillan & co., limited london · bombay · calcutta melbourne the macmillan co. of canada, ltd. toronto christmas stories by jacob a. riis new york the macmillan company 1923 _all rights reserved_ printed in the united states of america copyright, 1897, 1898 and 1909, by the century co. copyright, 1911, by the curtis publishing company. copyright, 1903, 1904, 1909, 1914 and 1923, by the macmillan company. set up and electrotyped. published october, 1923. the ferris printing company new york contents page the kid hangs up his stocking 1 is there a santa claus? 8 the crogans' christmas in the snowshed 17 the old town 33 his christmas gift 53 the snow babies' christmas 59 jack's sermon 75 merry christmas in the tenements 84 what the christmas sun saw in the tenements 123 nibsy's christmas 138 the little dollar's christmas journey 150 little will's message 165 the burgomaster's christmas 177 christmas stories the kid hangs up his stocking the clock in the west side boys' lodging-house ticked out the seconds of christmas eve as slowly and methodically as if six fat turkeys were not sizzling in the basement kitchen against the morrow's spread, and as if two-score boys were not racking their brains to guess what kind of pies would go with them. out on the avenue the shop-keepers were barring doors and windows, and shouting "merry christmas!" to one another across the street as they hurried to get home. the drays ran over the pavement with muffled sounds; winter had set in with a heavy snow-storm. in the big hall the monotonous click of checkers on the board kept step with the clock. the smothered exclamations of the boys at some unexpected, bold stroke, and the scratching of a little fellow's pencil on a slate, trying to figure out how long it was yet till the big dinner, were the only sounds that broke the quiet of the room. the superintendent dozed behind his desk. a door at the end of the hall creaked, and a head with a shock of weather-beaten hair was stuck cautiously through the opening. "tom!" it said in a stage-whisper. "hi, tom! come up an' git on ter de lay of de kid." a bigger boy in a jumper, who had been lounging on two chairs by the group of checker players, sat up and looked toward the door. something in the energetic toss of the head there aroused his instant curiosity, and he started across the room. after a brief whispered conference the door closed upon the two, and silence fell once more on the hall. they had been gone but a little while when they came back in haste. the big boy shut the door softly behind him and set his back against it. "fellers," he said, "what d'ye t'ink? i'm blamed if de kid ain't gone an' hung up his sock fer chris'mas!" the checkers dropped, and the pencil ceased scratching on the slate, in breathless suspense. "come up an' see," said tom, briefly, and led the way. the whole band followed on tiptoe. at the foot of the stairs their leader halted. "yer don't make no noise," he said, with a menacing gesture. "you, savoy!"--to one in a patched shirt and with a mischievous twinkle,--"you don't come none o' yer monkey-shines. if you scare de kid you'll get it in de neck, see!" with this admonition they stole upstairs. in the last cot of the double tier of bunks a boy much smaller than the rest slept, snugly tucked in the blankets. a tangled curl of yellow hair strayed over his baby face. hitched to the bedpost was a poor, worn little stocking, arranged with much care so that santa claus should have as little trouble in filling it as possible. the edge of a hole in the knee had been drawn together and tied with a string to prevent anything falling out. the boys looked on in amazed silence. even savoy was dumb. little willie, or, as he was affectionately dubbed by the boys, "the kid," was a waif who had drifted in among them some months before. except that his mother was in the hospital, nothing was known about him, which was regular and according to the rule of the house. not as much was known about most of its patrons; few of them knew more themselves, or cared to remember. santa claus had never been anything to them but a fake to make the colored supplements sell. the revelation of the kid's simple faith struck them with a kind of awe. they sneaked quietly downstairs. "fellers," said tom, when they were all together again in the big room,--by virtue of his length, which had given him the nickname of "stretch," he was the speaker on all important occasions,--"ye seen it yerself. santy claus is a-comin' to this here joint to-night. i wouldn't 'a' believed it. i ain't never had no dealin's wid de ole guy. he kinder forgot i was around, i guess. but de kid says he is a-comin' to-night, an' what de kid says goes." then he looked round expectantly. two of the boys, "gimpy" and lem, were conferring aside in an undertone. presently gimpy, who limped, as his name indicated, spoke up. "lem says, says he----" "gimpy, you chump! you'll address de chairman," interrupted tom, with severe dignity, "or you'll get yer jaw broke, if yer leg _is_ short, see!" "cut it out, stretch," was gimpy's irreverent answer. "this here ain't no regular meetin', an' we ain't goin' to have none o' yer rot. lem, he says, says he, let's break de bank an' fill de kid's sock. he won't know but it wuz ole santy done it." a yell of approval greeted the suggestion. the chairman, bound to exercise the functions of office in season and out of season, while they lasted, thumped the table. "it is regular motioned an' carried," he announced, "that we break de bank fer de kid's chris'mas. come on, boys!" the bank was run by the house, with the superintendent as paying teller. he had to be consulted, particularly as it was past banking hours; but the affair having been succinctly put before him by a committee, of which lem and gimpy and stretch were the talking members, he readily consented to a reopening of business for a scrutiny of the various accounts which represented the boys' earnings at selling papers and blacking boots, minus the cost of their keep and of sundry surreptitious flings at "craps" in secret corners. the inquiry developed an available surplus of three dollars and fifty cents. savoy alone had no account; the run of craps had recently gone heavily against him. but in consideration of the season, the house voted a credit of twenty-five cents to him. the announcement was received with cheers. there was an immediate rush for the store, which was delayed only a few minutes by the necessity of gimpy and lem stopping on the stairs to "thump" one another as the expression of their entire satisfaction. the procession that returned to the lodging-house later on, after wearing out the patience of several belated storekeepers, might have been the very santa's supply-train itself. it signalized its advent by a variety of discordant noises, which were smothered on the stairs by stretch, with much personal violence, lest they wake the kid out of season. with boots in hand and bated breath, the midnight band stole up to the dormitory and looked in. all was safe. the kid was dreaming, and smiled in his sleep. the report roused a passing suspicion that he was faking, and savarese was for pinching his toe to find out. as this would inevitably result in disclosure, savarese and his proposal were scornfully sat upon. gimpy supplied the popular explanation. "he's a-dreamin' that santy claus has come," he said, carefully working a base-ball bat past the tender spot in the stocking. "hully gee!" commented shorty, balancing a drum with care on the end of it, "i'm thinkin' he ain't far out. look's ef de hull shop'd come along." it did when it was all in place. a trumpet and a gun that had made vain and perilous efforts to join the bat in the stocking leaned against the bed in expectant attitudes. a picture-book with a pink bengal tiger and a green bear on the cover peeped over the pillow, and the bedposts and rail were festooned with candy and marbles in bags. an express-wagon with a high seat was stabled in the gangway. it carried a load of fir branches that left no doubt from whose livery it hailed. the last touch was supplied by savoy in the shape of a monkey on a yellow stick, that was not in the official bill of lading. "i swiped it fer de kid," he said briefly in explanation. when it was all done the boys turned in, but not to sleep. it was long past midnight before the deep and regular breathing from the beds proclaimed that the last had succumbed. the early dawn was tinging the frosty window panes with red when from the kid's cot there came a shriek that roused the house with a start of very genuine surprise. "hello!" shouted stretch, sitting up with a jerk and rubbing his eyes. "yes, sir! in a minute. hello, kid, what to----" the kid was standing barefooted in the passageway, with a base-ball bat in one hand and a trumpet and a pair of drumsticks in the other, viewing with shining eyes the wagon and its cargo, the gun and all the rest. from every cot necks were stretched, and grinning faces watched the show. in the excess of his joy the kid let out a blast on the trumpet that fairly shook the building. as if it were a signal, the boys jumped out of bed and danced a breakdown about him in their shirt-tails, even gimpy joining in. "holy moses!" said stretch, looking down, "if santy claus ain't been here an' forgot his hull kit, i'm blamed!" is there a santa claus? "dear mr. riis: "a little chap of six on the western frontier writes to us: "'will you please tell me if there is a santa claus? papa says not.' "won't you answer him?" that was the message that came to me from an editor last december just as i was going on a journey. why he sent it to me i don't know. perhaps it was because, when i was a little chap, my home was way up toward that white north where even the little boys ride in sleds behind reindeer, as they are the only horses they have. perhaps it was because when i was a young lad i knew hans christian andersen, who surely ought to know, and spoke his tongue. perhaps it was both. i will ask the editor when i see him. meanwhile, here was his letter, with christmas right at the door, and, as i said, i was going on a journey. i buttoned it up in my greatcoat along with a lot of other letters i didn't have time to read, and i thought as i went to the depot what a pity it was that my little friend's papa should have forgotten about santa claus. we big people do forget the strangest way, and then we haven't got a bit of a good time any more. no santa claus! if you had asked that car full of people i would have liked to hear the answers they would have given you. no santa claus! why, there was scarce a man in the lot who didn't carry a bundle that looked as if it had just tumbled out of his sleigh. i felt of one slyly, and it was a boy's sled--a "flexible flyer," i know, because he left one at our house the christmas before; and i distinctly heard the rattling of a pair of skates in that box in the next seat. they were all good-natured, every one, though the train was behind time--that is a sure sign of christmas. the brakeman wore a piece of mistletoe in his cap and a broad grin on his face, and he said "merry christmas" in a way to make a man feel good all the rest of the day. no santa claus, is there? you just ask him! and then the train rolled into the city under the big gray dome to which george washington gave his name, and by-and-by i went through a doorway which all american boys would rather see than go to school a whole week, though they love their teacher dearly. it is true that last winter my own little lad told the kind man whose house it is that he would rather ride up and down in the elevator at the hotel, but that was because he was so very little at the time and didn't know things rightly, and, besides, it was his first experience with an elevator. as i was saying, i went through the door into a beautiful white hall with lofty pillars, between which there were regular banks of holly with the red berries shining through, just as if it were out in the woods! and from behind one of them there came the merriest laugh you could ever think of. do you think, now, it was that letter in my pocket that gave that guilty little throb against my heart when i heard it, or what could it have been? i hadn't even time to ask myself the question, for there stood my host all framed in holly, and with the heartiest handclasp. "come in," he said, and drew me after. "the coffee is waiting." and he beamed upon the table with the veriest christmas face as he poured it out himself, one cup for his dear wife and one for me. the children--ah! you should have asked _them_ if there was a santa claus! and so we sat and talked, and i told my kind friends that my own dear old mother, whom i have not seen for years, was very, very sick in far-away denmark and longing for her boy, and a mist came into my hostess's gentle eyes and she said, "let us cable over and tell her how much we think of her," though she had never seen her. and it was no sooner said than done. in came a man with a writing-pad, and while we drank our coffee this message sped under the great stormy sea to the far-away country where the day was shading into evening already, though the sun was scarce two hours high in washington: the white house. _mrs. riis, ribe, denmark_: your son is breakfasting with us. we send you our love and sympathy. theodore and edith roosevelt. for, you see, the house with the holly in the hall was the white house, and my host was the president of the united states. i have to tell it to you, or you might easily fall into the same error i came near falling into. i had to pinch myself to make sure the president was not santa claus himself. i felt that he had in that moment given me the very greatest christmas gift any man ever received: my little mother's life. for really what ailed her was that she was very old, and i know that when she got the president's dispatch she must have become immediately ten years younger and got right out of bed. don't you know mothers are that way when any one makes much of their boys? i think santa claus must have brought them all in the beginning--the mothers, i mean. i would just give anything to see what happened in that old town that is full of blessed memories to me, when the telegraph ticked off that message. i will warrant the town hurried out, burgomaster, bishop, beadle and all, to do honor to my gentle old mother. no santa claus, eh? what was that, then, that spanned two oceans with a breath of love and cheer, i should like to know. tell me that! after the coffee we sat together in the president's office for a little while while he signed commissions, each and every one of which was just santa claus's gift to a grown-up boy who had been good in the year that was going; and before we parted the president had lifted with so many strokes of his pen clouds of sorrow and want that weighed heavily on homes i knew of to which santa claus had had hard work finding his way that christmas. it seemed to me as i went out of the door, where the big policeman touched his hat and wished me a merry christmas, that the sun never shone so brightly in may as it did then. i quite expected to see the crocuses and the jonquils, that make the white house garden so pretty, out in full bloom. they were not, i suppose, only because they are official flowers and have a proper respect for the calendar that runs congress and the executive departments, too. i stopped on the way down the avenue at uncle sam's paymaster's to see what he thought of it. and there he was, busy as could be, making ready for the coming of santa claus. no need of my asking any questions here. men stood in line with bank-notes in their hands asking for gold, new gold-pieces, they said, most every one. the paymaster, who had a sprig of christmas green fixed in his desk just like any other man, laughed and shook his head and said "santa claus?" and the men in the line laughed too and nodded and went away with their gold. one man who went out just ahead of me i saw stoop over a poor woman on the corner and thrust something into her hand, then walk hastily away. it was i who caught the light in the woman's eye and the blessing upon her poor wan lips, and the grass seemed greener in the treasury dooryard, and the sky bluer than it had been before, even on that bright day. perhaps--well, never mind! if any one says anything to you about principles and giving alms, you tell him that santa claus takes care of the principles at christmas, and not to be afraid. as for him, if you want to know, just ask the old woman on the treasury corner. and so, walking down that avenue of good-will, i came to my train again and went home. and when i had time to think it all over i remembered the letters in my pocket which i had not opened. i took them out and read them, and among them were two sent to me in trust for santa claus himself which i had to lay away with the editor's message until i got the dew rubbed off my spectacles. one was from a great banker, and it contained a check for a thousand dollars to help buy a home for some poor children of the east side tenements in new york, where the chimneys are so small and mean that scarce even a letter will go up through them, so that ever so many little ones over there never get on santa claus's books at all. the other letter was from a lonely old widow, almost as old as my dear mother in denmark, and it contained a two-dollar bill. for years, she wrote, she had saved and saved, hoping some time to have five dollars, and then she would go with me to the homes of the very poor and be santa claus herself. "and wherever you decided it was right to leave a trifle, that should be the place where it would be left," read the letter. but now she was so old that she could no longer think of such a trip and so she sent the money she had saved. and i thought of a family in one of those tenements where father and mother are both lying ill, with a boy, who ought to be in school, fighting all alone to keep the wolf from the door, and winning the fight. i guess he has been too busy to send any message up the chimney, if indeed there is one in his house; but you ask him, right now, whether he thinks there is a santa claus or not. no santa claus? yes, my little man, there is a santa claus, thank god! your father had just forgotten. the world would indeed be poor without one. it is true that he does not always wear a white beard and drive a reindeer team--not always, you know--but what does it matter? he is santa claus with the big, loving, christmas heart, for all that; santa claus with the kind thoughts for every one that make children and grown-up people beam with happiness all day long. and shall i tell you a secret which i did not learn at the post-office, but it is true all the same--of how you can always be sure your letters go to him straight by the chimney route? it is this: send along with them a friendly thought for the boy you don't like: for jack who punched you, or jim who was mean to you. the meaner he was the harder do you resolve to make it up: not to bear him a grudge. that is the stamp for the letter to santa. nobody can stop it, not even a cross-draught in the chimney, when it has that on. because--don't you know, santa claus is the spirit of christmas: and ever and ever so many years ago when the dear little baby was born after whom we call christmas, and was cradled in a manger out in the stable because there was not room in the inn, that spirit came into the world to soften the hearts of men and make them love one another. therefore, that is the mark of the spirit to this day. don't let anybody or anything rub it out. then the rest doesn't matter. let them tear santa's white beard off at the sunday-school festival and growl in his bearskin coat. these are only his disguises. the steps of the real santa claus you can trace all through the world as you have done here with me, and when you stand in the last of his tracks you will find the blessed babe of bethlehem smiling a welcome to you. for then you will be home. the crogans' christmas in the snowshed a storm was brewing in the mountains. the white glare of the earlier day had been supplanted by a dull gray, and the peaks that shut the winter landscape in were "smoking," sure harbinger of a blizzard already raging in the high sierras. the pines above the crogans' cabin stood like spectral sentinels in the failing light, their drooping branches heavy with the snow of many storms. mrs. tom crogan sat at the window looking listlessly into the darkening day. in the spring she had come with her husband from the little minnesota town that was their home, full of hope and the joy of life. the mountains were beautiful then with wild flowers and the sweet smell of fragrant firs, and as she rocked her baby to sleep in their deep shadows she sang to him the songs her mother had crooned over her cradle in her tuneful swedish tongue. life then had seemed very fair, and the snowshed hardly a shadow across it. for to her life there were two sides: one that looked out upon the mountains and the trees and the wild things that stirred in god's beautiful world; the other the blind side that turned toward the darkness man had made in his fight to conquer that world. tom crogan was a dispatcher at a signal station in the great snowsheds that stretched forty miles or more up the slopes of the sierras, plunging the road to the land of sunshine into hour-long gloom just when the jagged "saw-tooth" peaks, that give the range its name, came into sight. travelers knew them to their grief: a huge crawling thing of timber and stout planks--so it seemed as one caught fleeting glimpses of it in the brief escapes from its murky embrace--that followed the mountain up, hugging its side close as it rose farther and farther toward the summit. hideous always, in winter buried often out of sight by the smashing avalanches old boreas hurled at the pigmy folk who dared challenge him in his own realm; but within the shelter of the snowsheds they laughed at his bluster, secure from harm, for then it served its appointed purpose. the crogans' house fronted or backed--whichever way one chose to look at it--upon the shed. tom's office, where the telegraph ticker was always talking of men and things in the desert sands to the east, or in the orange groves over the divide, never saw the sunshine it told of. it burrowed in perpetual gloom. nine times a day trains full of travelers, who peered curiously at the signalmen with their lanterns and at tom as so many human moles burrowing in the mountain, came and went, and took the world of men with them, yawning as they departed at the prospect of more miles of night. at odd intervals long freight trains lingered, awaiting orders, and lent a more human touch. for the engineer had time to swap yarns with tom, and the brakemen looked in to chuck the baby under the chin and to predict, when their smudge faces frightened him, that he would grow up to be as fine a railroader as his father: his yell was as good as a whistle to "down brakes." even a wandering hobo once in a while showed his face from behind the truck on which he was stealing a ride 'cross country, and grimaced at mrs. tom, safe in the belief that she would not give him away. and she didn't. but now the winter had come with the heavy snows that seemed never to end. she could not venture out upon the mountain where the pines stood buried many feet deep. in truth there was no getting out. her life side was banked up, as it were, to stay so till spring came again. as she sat watching the great white waste that sloped upward toward the lowering sky she counted the months: two, three, four--five, probably, or six, to wait. for this was christmas, and the winter was but fairly under way. five months! the winters were hard enough on the plains, but the loneliness of these mountains! what glad visiting and holiday-making were going on now in her old home among kindred and friends! there it was truly a season of kindliness and good cheer; they had brought their old norse yule with them across the seas. she choked back a sob as she stirred the cradle with her foot. for tom's sake she would be brave. but no letter nor word had come from the east, and this their first christmas away from home! there was a man's step on the stairs from the office, and tom crogan put his head through the doorway. "got a bite for a hungry man?" he asked, blinking a bit at the white light from without. the baby woke up and gurgled. tom waved the towel at him, drying his face at the sink, and hugged his wife as she passed. "storm coming," he said, glancing out at the weather and listening to the soughing of the wind in the pines. "nothing else here," she replied, setting the table; "nothing this long while, and, oh, tom!"--she set down the plate and went over to him--"no word from home, and this is christmas eve. nothing even for the baby." he patted her back affectionately, and cheered her after the manner of a man. "trains all late, the snow is that deep, more particular in the east, they say. mail might not come through for a week. baby don't know the difference so long as he is warm. and coal we've got a-plenty." "then it will be new year's," she pursued her own thoughts drearily. tom was not a good comforter just then. he ate like a tired man, in silence. "special on the line," he said, as he stirred the sugar in his coffee. "when the road opens up she'll follow right on the overland." "some o' your rich folks, most like, going for a holiday on the coast," she commented without interest. tom nodded. she gave the stove lid an impatient twist. "little they know," she said bitterly, "or care either, how we live up here in the sheds. they'd oughter take their turn at it a while. there's the wrights with jim laid up since he broke his leg at the time o' the wreck, and can't seem to get no strength. and the coulsons with their old mother in this grippin' cold, an' all the sickness they've had, an' he laid off, though he wasn't to blame, an' you know it, tom. if it hadn't been for you what would 'a' come to the overland runnin' straight for that wrecked freight with full head o' steam----" tom looked up good-humoredly and pushed back his plate. "why, mary! what's come over you? i only done what i was there to do--and they took notice all right. don't you remember the company wrote and thanked me for bein' spry?" "thanked you!" contemptuously. "what good is that? here we be, an' like to stay till----you can come up if you want to." the invitation was extended, ungraciously enough, to a knot of men clustered about the steps. they trooped in, a gang of snow-shovelers fresh from their fight with the big drifts, and stood about the stove, the cold breath of outdoors in their looks and voices. their talk was of their work just finished. the road was clear, but for how long? and they flapped their frozen mittens toward the window through which the snow could be seen already beginning to fall in large, ominous flakes. the special was discussed with eager interest. no one knew who it was--an unusual thing. generally words came along the line giving the news, but there had been no warning of this one. "mebbe it's the president inspectin'," ventured one of the crew. "i tank it bane some o' dem wall street fellers on one big bust," threw in a husky swede. in the laugh that followed this sally the ticker was heard faintly clicking out a message in the office below. tom listened. "overland three hours late," he said, and added with a glance outside as he made ready to go: "like as not they'll be later'n that; they won't keep christmas on the coast this while." the snow-shovelers trailed out after tom with many a fog-horn salute of merry christmas to his wife and to the baby. the words, well meant, jarred harshly upon mrs. crogan. merry christmas! it sounded in her ear almost like a taunt. when they were gone she stood at the window, struggling with a sense of such bitter desolation as she had never known till then. the snow fell thick now, and was whirled across the hillside in fitful gusts. in the gathering darkness trees and rocks were losing shape and color; nothing was left but the white cold, the thought of which chilled her to the marrow. through the blast the howl of a lone wolf came over the ridge, and she remembered the story of donner lake, just beyond, and the party of immigrants who starved to death in the forties, shut in by such a winter as this. there were ugly tales on the mountain of things done there, which men told under their breath when the great storms thundered through the cañons and all were safe within. she had heard the crew of the rotary say that there was as much as ten feet of snow on some of the levels already, and the winter only well begun. without knowing it she fell to counting the months to spring again: two, three, four, five! with a convulsive shudder she caught up the child and fled to the darkest corner of the room. crouching there by the fire her grief and bitterness found vent in a flood of rebellious tears. down in his dark coop tom crogan, listening to a distant roar and the quickening rhythm of the rails, knew that the overland was coming. presently it shot out from behind the shoulder of the mountain. ordinarily it passed swiftly enough, but to-day it slowed up and came to a stop at the station. the conductor hurried into the office and held an anxious consultation with tom, who shook his head decisively. if the storm kept up there would be no getting out that night. the cut over at the lake that had just been cleared was filling up again sure with the wind blowing from the north. there was nothing to do but wait, anyhow until they knew for certain. the conductor agreed with bad grace, and the rotary was started up the road to reconnoiter. the train discharged its weary and worried passengers, who walked up and down the dark cavern to stretch their legs, glancing indifferently at the little office where the telegraph kept up its intermittent chatter. suddenly it clicked out a loud warning: "special on way. clear the track." tom rapped on his window and gave quick orders. the men hurried to carry them out. "not far she'll go," they grinned as they set the switch and made all safe. at the turn half a mile below the red eye of the locomotive gleamed already in the dusk. in a few minutes it pulled in with a shriek of its whistle that woke the echoes of the hills far and near, and stood panting in a cloud of steam. trackmen and signalmen craned their necks to see the mysterious stranger. even mrs. tom had dried her tears and came out to look at the despised bigbugs from the east, rebellion yet in her homesick heart. the news that the "big boss" might be on board had spread to the passenger train, and crowds flocked from the sleepers, curious to get a glimpse of the railroad magnate who had made such a stir in the land. his power was so great that common talk credited him with being stronger than congress and the courts combined. the newspapers recorded all his doings as it did the president's, but with this difference, that while everybody knew all about the man in the white house, few if any seemed to know anything real about the railroad man's private life. in the popular estimation he was a veritable sphinx. at his country home in the east he had bought up the land for five miles around--even the highways--to keep intruders out. here now was an unexpected chance, and the travelers crowded up to get a look at him. but they saw no luxurious private car with frock-coated officials and liveried servants. an every-day engine with three express cars in tow stood upon the track, and baggagemen in blue overalls yelled for hand-trucks, and hustled out boxes and crates consigned to "the agent at shawnee." yet it was not an every-day train nor an ordinary crew; for all of them, conductor, brakemen, engineer and fireman, wore holly in their caps and broad grins on their faces. the locomotive flew two white flags with the words "merry christmas" in red letters, and across the cars a strip of canvas was strung their whole length, with the legend "the christmas train" in capitals a foot long. even in the gloom of the snowshed it shone out, plain to read. tom in his office rubbed his eyes for another and better look when the conductor of the special, pushing his way through the wondering crowds, flung open the door. "here's yer docyments," he said, slapping down a paper, "and the orders are that ye're to see they gets 'em." tom crogan took up the paper as if dazed, and looked at the entries without in the least understanding what it all meant. he did not see the jam of railroad men and passengers who had crowded into the office on the heels of the conductor until they filled it to the doors. neither did he notice that his wife had come with them and was standing beside him looking as mystified as he. mechanically he read out the items in the way-bill, while the conductor checked them off with many a wink at the crowd. what nightmare was this? had some delirious santa claus invaded the office of the union pacific railroad, and turned it into a toy shop and dry-goods bazar combined, with a shake of his reindeer bells? or was it a huge, wretched, misbegotten joke? surely stranger bill of lading never went over the line, or over any railroad line before. this was what he read: "crate of fat turkeys, one for every family on the station (their names followed). "one ditto of red apples. "one ditto of oranges, to be similarly apportioned. "for tom crogan, one meerschaum pipe. "for james wright, lately injured in the service and not yet recovered, a box of books, and allowance of full pay during disability. ordered to report at sacramento until fully restored. "for john coulson, christmas gifts, including a warm flannel wrapper for his old mother; also notice of back pay allowed since suspension, with full restoration to place and pay. "for mrs. thomas crogan, not on the official payroll, but whom the company takes this opportunity to thank for assistance rendered her husband on a recent occasion, one dress pattern, with the wishes of the superintendent's office for a very merry christmas. "for master thomas crogan, not yet on the official payroll, being under age, a box of toys, including rubber ball and sheep, doll and noah's ark, with the compliments of the company for having chosen so able a railroad man for his father. "for master thomas crogan, as a token of regard from passengers on the overland of november 18, one rocking-horse, crated." "oh, tom!"--mrs. crogan caught her breath with a gasp--"and he not a year old!" tom looked up to find the room full of people laughing at him and at her, but there was hearty, happy good-will in the laugh, and mrs. tom was laughing back. the conductor got up to go, but checked himself abruptly. "if i didn't come near to forget," he said and reached for his pocket. "here, tom, this is for you from the superintendent. if it ain't a secret read it aloud." the message was brief: _thomas crogan, esq._, agent and dispatcher at shawnee station: the compliments of the season and of the superintendent's office to you. have a merry christmas, tom, up in your shed, for we want you down on the coast after new year's. frank alden, superintendent. tom looked up with a smile. he had got his bearings at last. there was no doubt about that signature. his eyes met his wife's, brimming with sudden joy. the dream of her life was made real. the railroad men raised a cheer in which there was a note of regret, for tom was a prime favorite with them all, and crowded up to shake hands. the passengers followed suit, ready to join in, yet mystified still. but now, when they heard from the conductor of the special how tom by quick action had saved the overland, the very train they were on, from running into a wrecked freight two months before, many of them remembered the story of it--how tom, being left alone when everybody else lost his head in the smashup, had sprinted down the track with torpedoes, while his wife set the switch and waved the signal lantern, and had just caught the limited around the curve, and how narrow had been the escape from a great disaster. and their quick sympathy went out to the young couple up in the lonely heights, who a few moments before had been less to them than the inert thing of iron and steel that was panting on the track outside like a huge monster after a hard run. when it was learned that both trains were stalled, perhaps for all night, the recollection that it was christmas eve gave sudden direction to their sympathies. since friends on the coast must wait they would have their christmas where they were, if it were in a snowshed. in less time than any one could have made a formal motion the trainful of excited passengers, just now so disgruntled, resolved itself into a committee of arrangements to which were added both the train crews. a young balsam from the mountainside made its appearance, no one knew exactly how, and in a trice it shone with a wealth of candles and toys at which the baby, struggling up to a sitting posture in his cradle, looked with wide-eyed wonder. the crogans' modest living-room was made festive with holly and evergreen and transformed into a joyous dining-room before mrs. tom could edge in a word of protest. all the memories of her cherished yule surged in upon her as the room filled with the smell of roast turkey and mince pie and what not of good cheer, borne in by a procession of white-clad waiters who formed a living chain between the dining-car and the station. when in the wake of them the veritable rocking-horse, hastily unpacked, was led in by a hysterical darky, and pranced and pawed its way across the floor, its reins jingling with silver bells, thomas crogan, junior, considered it, sitting bolt upright, one long minute, sighed and, overwhelmed by such magnificence, went calmly to sleep. it was too much for one christmas eve, and he not a year old. when as many as could crowd in were seated with tom crogan and his wife--the conductors and engineers of the two trains representing the road--the clergyman in the party arose to remind them all that they were far from home and friends, keeping christmas in the mountain wilderness. "but," he said, "though a continent separates us we meet with them all here to-night before the face of him who came as a helpless babe to the world of sin and selfishness, and brought peace and good-will to men." and he read to them how "it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from cæsar augustus, that all the world should be taxed," and the story of the child that is old, yet will be ever new while the world stands. in the reverent hush that had fallen upon the company a tenor voice rose clear and sweet in the old hymn: "it came upon the midnight clear that glorious song of old." when the lines were reached: "still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurl'd," many of the passengers joined in and sang the verse to the end. the familiar words seemed to come with a comforting message to every one in the little cabin. in the excitement they had all forgotten the weather. unseen by every one the moon had come out and shone clear in an almost cloudless sky. the storm was over. a joyful toot of the rotary's whistle, as dinner neared its end, announced its return with the welcome news that the road was open once more. with many hearty handshakes, and wishes for happy years to come, the unexpected christmas party broke up. but there was yet a small ceremony left. it was performed by a committee of three of the overland passengers who had friends or kin on board the train tom crogan had saved. they had quietly circulated among the rest, and now, with the conductor shouting "all aboard!" they put an envelope into tom's hand, with the brief directions "for moving expenses," and jumped on their car as the engine blew its last warning whistle and the airbrakes wheezed their farewell. tom opened it and saw five crisp twenty-dollar bills tucked neatly inside. the limited pulled out on the stroke of midnight, with cheering passengers on every step and in every window. tom and his wife stood upon the step of the little station and waved their handkerchiefs as long as the bull's-eye on the last car was in sight. when it was gone and they were left with the snowshed and the special breathing sleepily on its siding she laid her head on his shoulder. a rush of repentant tears welled up and mingled with the happiness in her voice. "oh, tom!" she said. "did ye ever know the like of it? i am fair sorry to leave the old shed." the old town i do not know how the forty years i have been away have dealt with "jule-nissen," the christmas elf of my childhood. he was pretty old then, gray and bent, and there were signs that his time was nearly over. so it may be that they have laid him away. i shall find out when i go over there next time. when i was a boy we never sat down to our christmas eve dinner until a bowl of rice and milk had been taken up to the attic, where he lived with the marten and its young, and kept an eye upon the house--saw that everything ran smoothly. i never met him myself, but i know the house-cat must have done so. no doubt they were well acquainted; for when in the morning i went in for the bowl, there it was, quite dry and licked clean, and the cat purring in the corner. so, being there all night, he must have seen and likely talked with him. i suspect, as i said, that they have not treated my nisse fairly in these matter-of-fact days that have come upon us, not altogether for our own good, i fear. i am not even certain that they were quite serious about him then, though to my mind that was very unreasonable. but then there is nothing so unreasonable to a child as the cold reason of the grown-ups. however, if they have gone back on him, i know where to find him yet. only last christmas when i talked of him to the tenement-house mothers in my henry street neighborhood house,[1]--all of them from the ever faithful isle,--i saw their eyes light up with the glad smile of recognition, and half a dozen called out excitedly, "the little people! the leprecawn ye mean, we know him well," and they were not more pleased than i to find that we had an old friend in common. for the nisse, or the leprecawn, call him whichever you like, was a friend indeed to those who loved kindness and peace. if there was a house in which contention ruled, either he would have nothing to do with it, like the stork that built its nest on the roof, or else he paid the tenants back in their own coin, playing all kinds of tricks upon them and making it very uncomfortable. i suppose it was this trait that gave people, when they began to reason so much about things, the notion that he was really the wraith, as it were, of their own disposition, which was not so at all. i remember the story told of one man who quarrelled with everybody, and in consequence had a very troublesome nisse in the house that provoked him to the point of moving away; which he did. but as the load of furniture was going down the street, with its owner hugging himself in glee at the thought that he had stolen a march on the nisse, the little fellow poked his head out of the load and nodded to him, "we are moving to-day." at which naturally he flew into a great rage. but then, that was just a story. [1] the jacob a. riis neighborhood settlement, new york. the nisse was of the family, as you see, very much of it, and certainly not to be classed with the cattle. yet they were his special concern; he kept them quiet, and saw to it, when the stableman forgot, that they were properly bedded and cleaned and fed. he was very well known to the hands about the farm, and they said that he looked just like a little old man, all in gray and with a pointed red nightcap and long gray beard. he was always civilly treated, as he surely deserved to be, but christmas was his great holiday, when he became part of it, indeed, and was made much of. so, for that matter, was everything that lived under the husbandman's roof, or within reach of it. the farmer always set a lighted candle in his window on christmas eve, to guide the lonesome wanderer to a hospitable hearth. the very sparrows that burrowed in the straw thatch, and did it no good, were not forgotten. a sheaf of rye was set out in the snow for them, so that on that night at least they should have shelter and warmth unchallenged, and plenty to eat. at all other times we were permitted to raid their nests and help ourselves to a sparrow roast, which was by long odds the greatest treat we had. thirty or forty of them, dug out of any old thatch roof by the light of the stable lantern and stuffed into ane's long stocking, which we had borrowed for a game-bag, made a meal for the whole family, each sparrow a fat mouthful. ane was the cook, and i am very certain that her pot-roast of sparrow would pass muster at any fifth avenue restaurant as the finest dish of reed-birds that ever was. however, at christmas their sheaf was their sanctuary, and no one as much as squinted at them. only last winter when christmas found me stranded in a little michigan town, wandering disconsolate about the streets, i came across such a sheaf raised on a pole in a dooryard, and i knew at once that one of my people lived in that house and kept yule in the old way. so i felt as if i were not quite a stranger. all the animals knew perfectly well that the holiday had come, and kept it in their way. the watch-dog was unchained. in the midnight hour on the holy eve the cattle stood up in their stalls and bowed out of respect and reverence for him who was laid in a manger when there was no room in the inn, and in that hour speech was given them, and they talked together. claus, our neighbor's man, had seen and heard it, and every christmas eve i meant fully to go and be there when it happened; but always long before that i had been led away to bed, a very sleepy boy, with all my toys hugged tight, and when i woke up the daylight shone through the frosted window-panes, and they were blowing good morning from the church tower; it would be a whole year before another christmas. so i vowed, with a sigh at having neglected a really sacred observance, that i would be there sure on the next christmas eve. but it was always so, every year, and perhaps it was just as well, for claus said that it might go ill with the one who listened, if the cows found him out. blowing in the yule from the grim old tower that had stood eight hundred years against the blasts of the north sea was one of the customs of the old town that abide, however it fares with the nisse; that i know. at sun-up, while yet the people were at breakfast, the town band climbed the many steep ladders to the top of the tower, and up there, in fair weather or foul,--and sometimes it blew great guns from the wintry sea,--they played four old hymns, one to each corner of the compass, so that no one was forgotten. they always began with luther's sturdy challenge, "a mighty fortress is our god," while down below we listened devoutly. there was something both weird and beautiful about those far-away strains in the early morning light of the northern winter, something that was not of earth and that suggested to my child's imagination the angels' song on far judean hills. even now, after all these years, the memory of it does that. it could not have been because the music was so rare, for the band was made up of small storekeepers and artisans who thus turned an honest penny on festive occasions. incongruously enough, i think, the official town mourner who bade people to funerals was one of them. it was like the burghers' guard, the colonel of which--we thought him at least a general, because of the huge brass sword he trailed when he marched at the head of his men--was the town tailor, a very small but very martial man. but whether or no, it was beautiful. i have never heard music since that so moved me. when the last strain died away came the big bells with their deep voices that sang far out over field and heath, and our yule was fairly under way. a whole fortnight we kept it. real christmas was from little christmas eve, which was the night before the holy eve proper, till new year. then there was a week of supplementary festivities before things slipped back into their wonted groove. that was the time of parties and balls. the great ball of the year was on the day after christmas. second christmas day we called it, when all the quality attended at the club-house, where the amtmand and the burgomaster, the bishop and the rector of the latin school, did the honors and received the people. that was the grandest of the town functions. the school ball, late in autumn, was the jolliest, for then the boys invited each the girl he liked best, and the older people were guests and outsiders, so to speak. the latin school, still the "cathedral school," was as old as the domkirke itself, and when it took the stage it was easily first while it lasted. the yule ball, though it was a rather more formal affair, for all that was neither stiff nor tiresome; nothing was in the old town; there was too much genuine kindness for that. and that it was the recognized occasion when matches were made by enterprising mammas, or by the young themselves, and when engagements were declared and discussed as the great news of the day. we heard of all those things afterward and thought a great fuss was being made over nothing much. for when a young couple were declared engaged, that meant that there was no more fun to be out of them. they were given, after that, to go mooning about by themselves and to chasing us children away when we ran across them; until they happily returned to their senses, got married, and became reasonable human beings once more. when we had been sent to bed on the great night, father and mother went away in their sunday very best, and we knew they would not return until two o'clock in the morning, a fact which alone invested the occasion with unwonted gravity, for the old town kept early hours. at ten o'clock, when the watchman droned his sleepy lay, absurdly warning the people to be quick and bright, watch fire and light, our clock it has struck ten, it was ordinarily tucked in and asleep. but that night we lay awake a long time listening to the muffled sound of heavy wheels in the snow rolling unceasingly past, and trying to picture to ourselves the grandeur they conveyed. every carriage in the town was then in use and doing overtime. i think there were as many as four. when we were not dancing or playing games, we literally ate our way through the two holiday weeks. pastry by the mile did we eat, and general indigestion brooded over the town when it emerged into the white light of the new year. at any rate it ought to have done so. it is a prime article of faith with the danes to this day that for any one to go out of a friend's house, or of anybody's house, in the christmas season without partaking of its cheer, is to "bear away their yule," which no one must do on any account. every house was a bakery from the middle of december until christmas eve, and oh! the quantities of cakes we ate, and such cakes! we were sixteen normally, in our home, and mother mixed the dough for her cakes in a veritable horse-trough kept for that exclusive purpose. as much as a sack of flour went in, i guess, and gallons of molasses and whatever else went to the mixing. for weeks there had been long and anxious speculations as to "what father would do," and gloomy conferences between him and mother over the state of the family pocket-book, which was never plethoric; but at last the joyful message ran through the house from attic to kitchen that the appropriation had been made, "even for citron," which meant throwing all care to the winds. the thrill of it, when we children stood by and saw the generous avalanche going into the trough! what would not come out of it! the whole family turned to and helped make the cakes and cut the "pepper-nuts," which were little squares of spiced cake-dough we played cards for and stuffed our pockets with, gnawing them incessantly. talk about eating between meals: ours was a continuous performance for two solid weeks. the pepper-nuts were the real staple of christmas to us children. we paid forfeits with them in the game of scratch-nose (jackstraws), when the fellow fishing for his straw stirred the others and had his nose scratched with the little file in the bunch as extra penalty; in "under which tree lies my pig?" in which the pig was a pepper-nut, the fingers of the closed hands the trees; and in black peter. in this last the loser had his nose blackened with the snuff from the candle until advancing civilization substituted a burnt cork. christmas without pepper-nuts would have been a hollow mockery indeed. we rolled the dough in long strings like slender eels and then cut it, a little on the bias. they were good, those nuts, when baked brown. i wish i had some now. it all stood for the universal desire that in the joyous season everybody be made glad. i know that in the old town no one went hungry or cold during the holidays, if indeed any one ever did. every one gave of what he had, and no one was afraid of pauperizing anybody by his gifts, for they were given gladly and in love, and that makes all the difference--did then and does now. at christmas it is perfectly safe to let our scientific principles go and just remember the lord's command that we love one another. i subscribe to them all with perfect loyalty, and try to practise them till christmas week comes in with its holly and the smell of balsam and fir, and the memories of childhood in the old town; then--well, anyway, it is only a little while. new year and the long cold winter come soon enough. christmas eve was, of course, the great and blessed time. that was the one night in the year when in the gray old domkirke services were held by candle-light. a myriad wax candles twinkled in the gloom, but did not dispel it. it lingered under the great arches where the voice of the venerable minister, the responses of the congregation, and above it all the boyish treble of the choir billowed and strove, now dreamily with the memories of ages past, now sharply, tossed from angle to corner in the stone walls, and again in long thunderous echoes, sweeping all before it on the triumphant strains of the organ, like a victorious army with banners crowding through the halls of time. so it sounded to me, as sleep gently tugged at my eyelids. the air grew heavy with the smell of evergreens and of burning wax, and as the thunder of war drew farther and farther away, in the shadow of the great pillars stirred the phantoms of mailed knights whose names were hewn in the grave-stones there. we youngsters clung to the skirts of mother as we went out and the great doors fell to behind us. and yet those christmas eves, with mother's gentle eyes forever inseparable from them, and with the glad cries of merry christmas ringing all about, have left a touch of sweet peace in my heart which all the years have not effaced, nor ever will. at home the great dinner of the year was waiting for us; roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes, rice pudding with cinnamon and sugar on it, and a great staring butter eye in the middle. the pudding was to lay the ground-work with, and it was served in deep soup-plates. it was the dish the nisse came in on, and the cat. on new year's eve both these were left out; but to make up for it an almond was slipped into the "gröd," and whoever found it in his plate got a present. it was no device to make people "fletch," but it served the purpose admirably. at christmas we had doughnuts after the goose, big and stout and good. however i managed it, i don't know, but it is a tradition in the family, and i remember it well, that i once ate thirteen on top of the big dinner. evidently i was having a good time. dinner was, if not the chief end of man, at least an item in his make-up, and a big one.[2] [2] the reader who is not afraid of dyspepsia by suggestion may consider the following christmas bill of fare which obtained among the peasants east of the old town: on a large trencher a layer of pork and ribs, on top of that a nest of fat sausages, in which sat a roast duck. when it had had time to settle and all the kitchen work was done, father took his seat at the end of the long table, with all the household gathered about, the servants included and the baby without fail, and read the story of the child: "and it came to pass in those days," while mother hushed the baby. then we sang together "a child is born in bethlehem," which was the simplest of our hymns, and also the one we children loved best, for it told of how in heaven we were to walk to church on sky-blue carpets, star-bedeckt, which was a great comfort. children love beautiful things, and we had few of them. the great and precious treasure in our house was the rag carpet in the spare room which we were allowed to enter only on festive occasions such as christmas. it had an orange streak in it which i can see to this day. whenever i come across one that even remotely suggests it, it gives me yet a kind of solemn feeling. we had no piano,--that was a luxury in those days,--and father was not a singer, but he led on bravely with his tremulous bass and we all joined in, ane the cook and maria the housemaid furtively wiping their eyes with their aprons, for they were good and pious folk and this was their christmas service. so we sang the ten verses to end, with their refrain "hallelujah! hallelujah," that always seemed to me to open the very gates of yule. and it did, literally; for when the last hallelujah died away the door of the spare room was flung wide and there stood the christmas tree, all shining lights, and the baby was borne in, wide-eyed, to be the first, as was proper; for was not this the child's holiday? unconsciously we all gave way to those who were nearest him, who had most recently come from his presence and were therefore in closest touch with the spirit of the holiday. so, when we joined hands and danced around the tree, father held the baby, and we laughed and were happy as the little one crowed his joy and stretched his tiny arms toward the light. light and shadow, joy and sorrow, go hand in hand in the world. while we danced and made merry, there was one near for whom christmas was but grief and loss. out in the white fields he went from farm to farm, a solitary wanderer, the folklore had it, looking for plough or harrow on which to rest his weary limbs. it was the wandering jew, to whom this hope was given, that, if on that night of all in the year he could find some tool used in honest toil over which the sign of the cross had not been made, his wanderings would be at an end and the curse depart from him, to cleave thence-forward to the luckless farmer.[3] he never found what he sought in my time. the thrifty husbandman had been over his field on the eve of the holiday with a watchful eye to his coming. when the bell in the distant church tower struck the midnight hour, belated travellers heard his sorrowful wail as he fled over the heath and vanished. [3] an unromantic variation of this was the belief that the farmer who left his plough out on christmas would get a drubbing from his wife within a twelvemonth. i hope whoever held to that got what he richly deserved. when ansgarius preached the white christ to the vikings of the north, so runs the legend of the christmas tree, the lord sent his three messengers, faith, hope, and love, to help light the first tree. seeking one that should be high as hope, wide as love, and that bore the sign of the cross on every bough, they chose the balsam fir, which best of all the trees in the forest met the requirements. perhaps that is a good reason why there clings about the christmas tree in my old home that which has preserved it from being swept along in the flood of senseless luxury that has swamped so many things in our money-mad day. at least so it was then. every time i see a tree studded with electric lights, garlands of tinsel-gold festooning every branch, and hung with the hundred costly knicknacks the storekeepers invent year by year "to make trade," until the tree itself disappears entirely under its burden, i have a feeling what a fraud has been practised on the kindly spirit of yule. wax candles are the only real thing for a christmas tree, candles of _wax_ that mingle their perfume with that of the burning fir, not the by-product of some coal-oil or other abomination. what if the boughs do catch fire; they can be watched, and too many candles are tawdry, anyhow. also, red apples, oranges, and old-fashioned cornucopias made of colored paper, and made at home, look a hundred times better and fitter in the green; and so do drums and toy trumpets and waldhorns, and a rocking-horse reined up in front that need not have cost forty dollars, or anything like it. i am thinking of one, or rather two, a little piebald team with a wooden seat between, for which mother certainly did not give over seventy-five cents at the store, that as "belcher and mamie"--the names were bestowed on the beasts at sight by kate, aged three, who bossed the play-room--gave a generation of romping children more happiness than all the expensive railroads and trolley-cars and steam-engines that are considered indispensable to keeping christmas nowadays. and the noah's ark with noah and his wife and all the animals that went two by two--ah, well! i haven't set out to preach a sermon on extravagance that makes no one happier, but i wish--the legend makes me think of the holly that grew in our danish woods. we called it christ-thorn, for to us it was of that the crown of thorns was made with which the cruel soldiers mocked our saviour, and the red berries were the drops of blood that fell from his anguished brow. therefore the holly was a sacred tree, and to this day the woods in which i find it seem to me like the forest where the christmas roses bloomed in the night when the lord was born, different from all other woods, and better. mistletoe was rare in denmark. there was known to be but one oak in all the land on which it grew. but that did not discourage the young. we had our kissing games which gave the boys and girls their chance to choose sides, and in the christmas season they went on right merrily. there was rarely a night that did not bring the children together under some roof or other. they say that kissing goes by favor, but we had not arrived at that point yet, though we had our preferences. in the game of post office, for instance, he was a bold boy who would dare call out the girl he really liked, to get the letter that was supposed to be awaiting her. you could tell for a dead certainty who was his choice by watching whom he studiously avoided asking for. i have a very vivid recollection of having once really dared with sudden desperation, and of the defiant flushed face, framed in angry curls, that confronted me in the hall, the painful silence while we each stood looking the other way and heard our playmates tittering behind the closed door,--for well they knew,--and her indignant stride as she went back to her seat unkissed, with me trailing behind, feeling like a very sheepish boy, and no doubt looking the part. the old year went out with much such a racket as we make nowadays, but of quite a different kind. we did not blow the new year in, we "smashed" it in. when it was dark on new year's eve, we stole out with all the cracked and damaged crockery of the year that had been hoarded for the purpose and, hieing ourselves to some favorite neighbor's door, broke our pots against it. then we ran, but not very far or very fast, for it was part of the game that if one was caught at it, he was to be taken in and treated to hot doughnuts. the smashing was a mark of favor, and the citizen who had most pots broken against his door was the most popular man in town. when i was in the latin school, a cranky burgomaster, whose door had been freshly painted, gave orders to the watchmen to stop it and gave them an unhappy night, for they were hard put to it to find a way it was safe to look, with the streets full of the best citizens in town, and their wives and daughters, sneaking singly by with bulging coats on their way to salute a friend. that was when our mothers--those who were not out smashing in new year--came out strong, after the fashion of mothers. they baked more doughnuts than ever that night, and beckoned the watchman in to the treat; and there he sat, blissfully deaf while the street rang with the thunderous salvos of our raids; until it was discovered that the burgomaster himself was on patrol, when there was a sudden rush from kitchen doors and a great scurrying through streets that grew strangely silent. the town had its revenge, however. the burgomaster, returning home in the midnight hour, stumbled in his gate over a discarded christmas tree hung full of old boots and many black and sooty pots that went down around him with great smash in the upset, so that his family came running out in alarm to find him sprawling in the midst of the biggest celebration of all. his dignity suffered a shock which he never got over quite. but it killed the new year's fun, too. for he was really a good fellow, and then he was the burgomaster, and chief of police to boot. i suspect the fact was that the pot smashing had run its course. perhaps the supply of pots was giving out; we began to use tinware more about that time. that was the end of it, anyhow. we boys got square, too, with the watchmen. we knew their habit of stowing themselves away in the stage-coach that stood in the market-place when they had cried the hour at ten o'clock, and we caught them napping there one dark night when we were coming home from a party. the stage had doors that locked on the outside. we slammed them shut and ran the conveyance, with them in it wildly gesticulating from the windows, through the main street of the town, amid the cheers of the citizens whom the racket aroused from their slumbers. we were safe enough. the watchmen were not anxious to catch us, maddened as they were by our prank, and they were careful not to report us either. i chuckled at that exploit more than once when, in years long after, i went the rounds of the midnight streets with haroun-al-roosevelt, as they called new york's police commissioner, to find his patrolmen sleeping soundly on their posts when they should have been catching thieves. human nature, police human nature, anyhow, is not so different, after all, in the old world and in the new. with twelfth night our yule came to an end. in that night, if a girl would know her fate, she must go to bed walking backward and throw a shoe over her left shoulder, or hide it under her pillow, i forget which, perhaps both, and say aloud a verse that prayed the three holy kings to show her the man whose table i must set, whose bed i must spread, whose name i must bear, whose bride i must be. the man who appeared to her in her sleep was to be her husband. there was no escape from it, and consequently she did not try. he was her christmas gift, and she took him for better or for worse. let us hope that the nisse played her no scurvy trick, and that it was for better always. his christmas gift "the prisoner will stand," droned out the clerk in the court of general sessions. "filippo portoghese, you are convicted of assault with intent to kill. have you anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon you?" a sallow man with a hopeless look in his heavy eyes rose slowly in his seat and stood facing the judge. there was a pause in the hum and bustle of the court as men turned to watch the prisoner. he did not look like a man who would take a neighbor's life, and yet so nearly had he done so, of set purpose it had been abundantly proved, that his victim would carry the disfiguring scar of the bullet to the end of his life, and only by what seemed an almost miraculous chance had escaped death. the story as told by witnesses and substantially uncontradicted was this: portoghese and vito ammella, whom he shot, were neighbors under the same roof. ammella kept the grocery on the ground floor. portoghese lived upstairs in the tenement. he was a prosperous, peaceful man, with a family of bright children, with whom he romped and played happily when home from his barber shop. the black hand fixed its evil eye upon the family group and saw its chance. one day a letter came demanding a thousand dollars. portoghese put it aside with the comment that this was new york, not italy. other letters followed, threatening harm to his children. portoghese paid no attention, but his wife worried. one day the baby, little vito, was missing, and in hysterics she ran to her husband's shop crying that the black hand had stolen the child. the barber hurried home and sought high and low. at last he came upon the child sitting on ammella's doorstep; he had wandered away and brought up at the grocery; asked where he had been, the child pointed to the store. portoghese flew in and demanded to know what ammella was doing with his boy. the grocer was in a bad humor, and swore at him. there was an altercation, and ammella attacked the barber with a broom, beating him and driving him away from his door. black with anger, portoghese ran to his room and returned with a revolver. in the fight that followed he shot ammella through the head. he was arrested and thrown into jail. in the hospital the grocer hovered between life and death for many weeks. portoghese lay in the tombs awaiting trial for more than a year, believing still that he was the victim of a black hand conspiracy. when at last the trial came on, his savings were all gone, and of the once prosperous and happy man only a shadow was left. he sat in the court-room and listened in moody silence to the witnesses who told how he had unjustly suspected and nearly murdered his friend. he was speedily convicted, and the day of his sentence was fixed for christmas eve. it was certain that it would go hard with him. the italians were too prone to shoot and stab, said the newspapers, and the judges were showing no mercy. the witnesses had told the truth, but there were some things they did not know and that did not get into the evidence. the prisoner's wife was ill from grief and want; their savings of years gone to lawyer's fees, they were on the verge of starvation. the children were hungry. with the bells ringing in the glad holiday, they were facing bitter homelessness in the winter streets, for the rent was in arrears and the landlord would not wait. and "papa" away now for the second christmas, and maybe for many yet to come! ten, the lawyer and jury had said: this was new york, not italy. in the tombs the prisoner said it over to himself, bitterly. he had thought only of defending his own. so now he stood looking the judge and the jury in the face, yet hardly seeing them. he saw only the prison gates opening for him, and the gray walls shutting him out from his wife and little ones for--how many christmases was it? one, two, three--he fell to counting them over mentally and did not hear when his lawyer whispered and nudged him with his elbow. the clerk repeated his question, but he merely shook his head. what should he have to say? had he not said it to these men and they did not believe him? about little vito who was lost, and his wife who cried her eyes out because of the black hand letters. he---there was a step behind him, and a voice he knew spoke. it was the voice of ammella, his neighbor, with whom he used to be friends before--before that day. "please, your honor, let this man go! it is christmas, and we should have no unkind thoughts. i have none against filippo here, and i ask you to let him go." it grew very still in the court-room as he spoke and paused for an answer. lawyers looked up from their briefs in astonishment. the jurymen in the box leaned forward and regarded the convicted man and his victim with rapt attention. such a plea had not been heard in that place before. portoghese stood mute; the voice sounded strange and far away to him. he felt a hand upon his shoulder that was the hand of a friend, and shifted his feet uncertainly, but made no response. the gray-haired judge regarded the two gravely but kindly. "your wish comes from a kind heart," he said. "but this man has been convicted. the law must be obeyed. there is nothing in it that allows us to let a guilty man go free." the jurymen whispered together and one of them arose. "your honor," he said, "a higher law than any made by man came into the world at christmas--that we love one another. these men would obey it. will you not let them? the jury pray as one man that you let mercy go before justice on this holy eve." a smile lit up judge o'sullivan's face. "filippo portoghese," he said, "you are a very fortunate man. the law bids me send you to prison for ten years, and but for a miraculous chance would have condemned you to death. but the man you maimed for life pleads for you, and the jury that convicted you begs that you go free. the court remembers what you have suffered and it knows the plight of your family, upon whom the heaviest burden of your punishment would fall. go, then, to your home. and to you, gentlemen, a happy holiday such as you have given him and his! this court stands adjourned." the voice of the crier was lost in a storm of applause. the jury rose to their feet and cheered judge, complainant, and defendant. portoghese, who had stood as one dazed, raised eyes that brimmed with tears to the bench and to his old neighbor. he understood at last. ammella threw his arm around him and kissed him on both cheeks, his disfigured face beaming with joy. one of the jurymen, a jew, put his hand impulsively in his pocket, emptied it into his hat, and passed the hat to his neighbor. all the others followed his example. the court officer dropped in half a dollar as he stuffed its contents into the happy italian's pocket. "for little vito," he said, and shook his hand. "ah!" said the foreman of the jury, looking after the reunited friends leaving the court-room arm in arm; "it is good to live in new york. a merry christmas to you, judge!" the snow babies' christmas "all aboard for coney island!" the gates of the bridge train slammed, the whistle shrieked, and the cars rolled out past rows of houses that grew smaller and lower to jim's wondering eyes, until they quite disappeared beneath the track. he felt himself launching forth above the world of men, and presently he saw, deep down below, the broad stream with ships and ferry-boats and craft going different ways, just like the tracks and traffic in a big, wide street; only so far away was it all that the pennant on the topmast of a vessel passing directly under the train seemed as if it did not belong to his world at all. jim followed the white foam in the wake of the sloop with fascinated stare, until a puffing tug bustled across its track and wiped it out. then he settled back in his seat with a sigh that had been pent up within him twenty long, wondering minutes since he limped down the subway at twenty-third street. it was his first journey abroad. jim had never been to the brooklyn bridge before. it is doubtful if he had ever heard of it. if he had, it was as of something so distant, so unreal, as to have been quite within the realm of fairyland, had his life experience included fairies. it had not. jim's frail craft had been launched in little italy, half a dozen miles or more up-town, and there it had been moored, its rovings being limited at the outset by babyhood and the tenement, and later on by the wreck that had made of him a castaway for life. a mysterious something had attacked one of jim's ankles, and, despite ointments and lotions prescribed by the wise women of the tenement, had eaten into the bone and stayed there. at nine the lad was a cripple with one leg shorter than the other by two or three inches, with a stepmother, a squalling baby to mind for his daily task, hard words and kicks for his wage; for jim was an unprofitable investment, promising no returns, but, rather, constant worry and outlay. the outlook was not the most cheering in the world. but, happily, jim was little concerned about things to come. he lived in the day that is, fighting his way as he could with a leg and a half and a nickname,--"gimpy" they called him for his limp,--and getting out of it what a fellow so handicapped could. after all, there were compensations. when the gang scattered before the cop, it did not occur to him to lay any of the blame to gimpy, though the little lad with the pinched face and sharp eyes had, in fact, done scouting duty most craftily. it was partly in acknowledgment of such services, partly as a concession to his sharper wits, that gimpy was tacitly allowed a seat in the councils of the cave gang, though in the far "kid" corner. he limped through their campaigns with them, learned to swim by "dropping off the dock" at the end of the street into the swirling tide, and once nearly lost his life when one of the bigger boys dared him to run through an election bonfire like his able-bodied comrades. gimpy started to do it at once, but stumbled and fell, and was all but burned to death before the other boys could pull him out. this act of bravado earned him full membership in the gang, despite his tender years; and, indeed, it is doubtful if in all that region there was a lad of his age as tough and loveless as gimpy. the one affection of his barren life was the baby that made it slavery by day. but, somehow, there was that in its chubby foot groping for him in its baby sleep, or in the little round head pillowed on his shoulder, that more than made up for it all. ill luck was surely gimpy's portion. it was not a month after he had returned to the haunts of the gang, a battle-scarred veteran now since his encounter with the bonfire, when "the society's" officers held up the huckster's wagon from which he was crying potatoes with his thin, shrill voice, which somehow seemed to convey the note of pain that was the prevailing strain of his life. they made gimpy a prisoner, limp, stick, and all. the inquiry that ensued as to his years and home setting, the while gimpy was undergoing the incredible experience of being washed and fed regularly three times a day, set in motion the train of events that was at present hurrying him toward coney island in midwinter, with a snow-storm draping the land in white far and near, as the train sped seaward. he gasped as he reviewed the hurrying event of the week: the visit of the doctor from sea breeze, who had scrutinized his ankle as if he expected to find some of the swag of the last raid hidden somewhere about it. gimpy never took his eyes off him during the examination. no word or cry escaped him when it hurt most, but his bright, furtive eyes never left the doctor or lost one of his movements. "just like a weasel caught in a trap," said the doctor, speaking of his charge afterward. but when it was over, he clapped gimpy on the shoulder and said it was all right. he was sure he could help. "have him at the subway to-morrow at twelve," was his parting direction; and gimpy had gone to bed to dream that he was being dragged down the stone stairs by three helmeted men, to be fed to a monster breathing fire and smoke at the foot of the stairs. now his wondering journey was disturbed by a cheery voice beside him. "well, bub, ever see that before?" and the doctor pointed to the gray ocean line dead ahead. gimpy had not seen it, but he knew well enough what it was. "it's the river," he said, "that i cross when i go to italy." "right!" and his companion held out a helping hand as the train pulled up at the end of the journey. "now let's see how we can navigate." and, indeed, there was need of seeing about it. right from the step of the train the snow lay deep, a pathless waste burying street and sidewalk out of sight, blocking the closed and barred gate of dreamland, of radiant summer memory, and stalling the myriad hobby-horses of shows that slept their long winter sleep. not a whinny came on the sharp salt breeze. the strident voice of the carpenter's saw and the rat-tat-tat of his hammer alone bore witness that there was life somewhere in the white desert. the doctor looked in dismay at gimpy's brace and high shoe, and shook his head. "he never can do it. hello, there!" an express wagon had come into view around the corner of the shed. "here's a job for you." and before he could have said jack robinson, gimpy felt himself hoisted bodily into the wagon and deposited there like any express package. from somewhere a longish something that proved to be a christmas-tree, very much wrapped and swathed about, came to keep him company. the doctor climbed up by the driver, and they were off. gimpy recalled with a dull sense of impending events in which for once he had no shaping hand, as he rubbed his ears where the bitter blast pinched, that to-morrow was christmas. a strange group was that which gathered about the supper-table at sea breeze that night. it would have been sufficiently odd to any one anywhere; but to gimpy, washed, in clean, comfortable raiment, with his bad foot set in a firm bandage, and for once no longer sore with the pain that had racked his frame from babyhood, it seemed so unreal that once or twice he pinched himself covertly to see if he were really awake. they came weakly stumping with sticks and crutches and on club feet, the lame and the halt, the children of sorrow and suffering from the city slums, and stood leaning on crutch or chair for support while they sang their simple grace; but neither in their clear childish voices nor yet in the faces that were turned toward gimpy in friendly scrutiny as the last comer, was there trace of pain. their cheeks were ruddy and their eyes bright with the health of outdoors, and when they sang about the "frog in the pond," in response to a spontaneous demand, laughter bubbled over around the table. gimpy, sizing his fellow-boarders up according to the standards of the gang, with the mental conclusion that he "could lick the bunch," felt a warm little hand worming its way into his, and, looking into a pair of trustful baby eyes, choked with a sudden reminiscent pang, but smiled back at his friend and felt suddenly at home. little ellen, with the pervading affections, had added him to her family of brothers. what honors were in store for him in that relation gimpy never guessed. ellen left no one out. when summer came again she enlarged the family further by adopting the president of the united states as her papa, when he came visiting to sea breeze; and by rights gimpy should have achieved a pull such as would have turned the boss of his ward green with envy. it appeared speedily that something unusual was on foot. there was a subdued excitement among the children which his experience diagnosed at first flush as the symptoms of a raid. but the fact that in all the waste of snow on the way over he had seen nothing rising to the apparent dignity of candy-shop or grocery-store made him dismiss the notion as untenable. presently unfamiliar doings developed. the children who could write scribbled notes on odd sheets of paper, which the nurses burned in the fireplace with solemn incantations. something in the locked dining-room was an object of pointed interest. things were going on there, and expeditions to penetrate the mystery were organized at brief intervals, and as often headed off by watchful nurses. when, finally, the children were gotten upstairs and undressed, from the headposts of each of thirty-six beds there swung a little stocking, limp and yawning with mute appeal. gimpy had "caught on" by this time: it was a wishing-bee, and old santa claus was supposed to fill the stockings with what each had most desired. the consultation over, baby george had let him into the game. baby george did not know enough to do his own wishing, and the thirty-five took it in hand while he was being put to bed. "let's wish for some little dresses for him," said big mariano, who was the baby's champion and court of last resort; "that's what he needs." and it was done. gimpy smiled a little disdainfully at the credulity of the "kids." the santa claus fake was out of date a long while in his tenement. but he voted for baby george's dresses, all the same, and even went to the length of recording his own wish for a good baseball bat. gimpy was coming on. going to bed in that queer place fairly "stumped" gimpy. "peelin'" had been the simplest of processes in little italy. here they pulled a fellow's clothes off only to put on another lot, heavier every way, with sweater and hood and flannel socks and mittens to boot, as if the boy were bound for a tussle with the storm outside rather than for his own warm bed. and so, in fact, he was. for no sooner had he been tucked under the blankets, warm and snug, than the nurses threw open all the windows, every one, and let the gale from without surge in and through as it listed; and so they left them. gimpy shivered as he felt the frosty breath of the ocean nipping his nose, and crept under the blanket for shelter. but presently he looked up and saw the other boys snoozing happily like so many little eskimos equipped for the north pole, and decided to keep them company. for a while he lay thinking of the strange things that had happened that day, since his descent into the subway. if the gang could see him now. but it seemed far away, with all his past life--farther than the river with the ships deep down below. out there upon the dark waters, in the storm, were they sailing now, and all the lights of the city swallowed up in gloom? presently he heard through it all the train roaring far off in the subway and many hurrying feet on the stairs. the iron gates clanked--and he fell asleep with the song of the sea for his lullaby. mother nature had gathered her child to her bosom, and the slum had lost in the battle for a life. the clock had not struck two when from the biggest boy's bed in the corner there came in a clear, strong alto the strains of "ring, ring, happy bells!" and from every room childish voices chimed in. the nurses hurried to stop the chorus with the message that it was yet five hours to daylight. they were up, trimming the tree in the dining-room; at the last moment the crushing announcement had been made that the candy had been forgotten, and a midnight expedition had set out for the city through the storm to procure it. a semblance of order was restored, but cat naps ruled after that, till, at day-break, a gleeful shout from ellen's bed proclaimed that santa claus had been there, in very truth, and had left a dolly in her stocking. it was the signal for such an uproar as had not been heard on that beach since port arthur fell for the last time upon its defenders three months before. from thirty-six stockings came forth a veritable army of tops, balls, wooden animals of unknown pedigree, oranges, music-boxes, and cunning little pocket-books, each with a shining silver quarter in, love-tokens of one in the great city whose heart must have been light with happy dreams in that hour. gimpy drew forth from his stocking a very able-bodied baseball bat and considered it with a stunned look. santa claus was a fake, but the bat--there was no denying that, and he _had_ wished for one the very last thing before he fell asleep! daylight struggled still with a heavy snow-squall when the signal was given for the carol "christmas time has come again," and the march down to breakfast. that march! on the third step the carol was forgotten and the band broke into one long cheer that was kept up till the door of the dining-room was reached. at the first glimpse within, baby george's wail rose loud and grievous: "my chair! my chair!" but it died in a shriek of joy as he saw what it was that had taken its place. there stood the christmas-tree, one mass of shining candles, and silver and gold, and angels with wings, and wondrous things of colored paper all over it from top to bottom. gimpy's eyes sparkled at the sight, skeptic though he was at nine; and in the depths of his soul he came over, then and there, to santa claus, to abide forever--only he did not know it yet. to make the children eat any breakfast, with three gay sleds waiting to take the girls out in the snow, was no easy matter; but it was done at last, and they swarmed forth for a holiday in the open. all days are spent in the open at sea breeze,--even the school is a tent,--and very cold weather only shortens the brief school hour; but this day was to be given over to play altogether. winter it was "for fair," but never was coasting enjoyed on new england hills as these sledding journeys on the sands where the surf beat in with crash of thunder. the sea itself had joined in making christmas for its little friends. the day before, a regiment of crabs had come ashore and surrendered to the cook at sea breeze. christmas morn found the children's "floor"--they called the stretch of clean, hard sand between high-water mark and the surf-line by that name--filled with gorgeous shells and pebbles, and strange fishes left there by the tide overnight. the fair-weather friends who turn their backs upon old ocean with the first rude blasts of autumn little know what wonderful surprises it keeps for those who stand by it in good and in evil report. when the very biggest turkey that ever strutted in barnyard was discovered steaming in the middle of the dinner-table and the report went round in whispers that ice-cream had been seen carried in pails, and when, in response to a pull at the bell, matron thomsen ushered in a squad of smiling mamas and papas to help eat the dinner, even gimpy gave in to the general joy, and avowed that christmas was "bully." perhaps his acceptance of the fact was made easier by a hasty survey of the group of papas and mamas, which assured him that his own were not among them. a fleeting glimpse of the baby, deserted and disconsolate, brought the old pucker to his brow for a passing moment; but just then big fred set off a snapper at his very ear, and thrusting a pea-green fool's-cap upon his head, pushed him into the roistering procession that hobbled round and round the table, cheering fit to burst. and the babies that had been brought down from their cribs, strapped, because their backs were crooked, in the frames that look so cruel and are so kind, lifted up their feeble voices as they watched the show with shining eyes. little baby helen, who could only smile and wave "by-by" with one fat hand, piped in with her tiny voice, "here i is!" it was all she knew, and she gave that with a right good will, which is as much as one can ask of anybody, even of a snow baby. if there were still lacking a last link to rivet gimpy's loyalty to his new home for good and all, he himself supplied it when the band gathered under the leafless trees--for sea breeze has a grove in summer, the only one on the island--and whiled away the afternoon making a "park" in the snow, with sea-shells for curbing and boundary stones. when it was all but completed, gimpy, with an inspiration that then and there installed him leader, gave it the finishing touch by drawing a policeman on the corner with a club, and a sign, "keep off the grass." together they gave it the air of reality and the true local color that made them feel, one and all, that now indeed they were at home. toward evening a snow-storm blew in from the sea, but instead of scurrying for shelter, the little eskimos joined the doctor in hauling wood for a big bonfire on the beach. there, while the surf beat upon the shore hardly a dozen steps away, and the storm whirled the snow-clouds in weird drifts over sea and land, they drew near the fire, and heard the doctor tell stories that seemed to come right out of the darkness and grow real while they listened. dr. wallace is a southerner and lived his childhood with br'er rabbit and mr. fox, and they saw them plainly gamboling in the firelight as the story went on. for the doctor knows boys and loves them, that is how. no one would have guessed that they were cripples, every one of that rugged band that sat down around the christmas supper-table, rosy-cheeked and jolly--cripples condemned, but for sea breeze, to lives of misery and pain, most of them to an early death and suffering to others. for their enemy was that foe of mankind, the white plague, that for thousands of years has taken tithe and toll of the ignorance and greed and selfishness of man, which sometimes we call with one name--the slum. gimpy never would have dreamed that the tenement held no worse threat for the baby he yearned for than himself, with his crippled foot, when he was there. these things you could not have told even the fathers and mothers; or if you had, no one there but the doctor and the nurses would have believed you. they knew only too well. but two things you could make out, with no trouble at all, by the lamplight: one, that they were one and all on the homeward stretch to health and vigor--gimpy himself was a different lad from the one who had crept shivering to bed the night before; and this other, that they were the sleepiest crew of youngsters ever got together. before they had finished the first verse of "america" as their good night, standing up like little men, half of them were down and asleep with their heads pillowed upon their arms. and so miss brass, the head nurse, gathered them in and off to bed. "and now, boys," she said as they were being tucked in, "your prayers." and of those who were awake each said his own: willie his "now i lay me," mariano his "ave," but little bent from the eastside tenement wailed that he didn't have any. bent was a newcomer like gimpy. "then," said six-year-old morris, resolutely,--he also was a jew,--"i learn him mine vat my fader tol' me." and getting into bent's crib, he crept under the blanket with his little comrade. gimpy saw them reverently pull their worsted caps down over their heads, and presently their tiny voices whispered together, in the jargon of the east side, their petition to the father of all, who looked lovingly down through the storm upon his children of many folds. the last prayer was said, and all was still. through the peaceful breathing of the boys all about him, gimpy, alone wakeful, heard the deep bass of the troubled sea. the storm had blown over. through the open windows shone the eternal stars, as on that night in the judean hills when shepherds herded their flocks and "the angels of the lord came down." he did not know. he was not thinking of angels; none had ever come to his slum. but a great peace came over him and filled his child-soul. it may be that the nurse saw it shining in his eyes and thought it fever. it may be that she, too, was thinking in that holy hour. she bent over him and laid a soothing hand upon his brow. "you must sleep now," she said. something that was not of the tenement, something vital, with which his old life had no concern, welled up in gimpy at the touch. he caught her hand and held it. "i will if you will sit here," he said. he could not help it. "why, jimmy?" she stroked back his shock of stubborn hair. something glistened on her eyelashes as she looked at the forlorn little face on the pillow. how should gimpy know that he was at that moment leading another struggling soul by the hand toward the light that never dies? "'cause," he gulped hard, but finished manfully--"'cause i love you." gimpy had learned the lesson of christmas, "and glory shone around." jack's sermon jack sat on the front porch in a very bad humor indeed. that was in itself something unusual enough to portend trouble; for ordinarily jack was a philosopher well persuaded that, upon the whole, this was a very good world and deacon pratt's porch the centre of it on week-days. on sundays it was transferred to the village church, and on these days jack received there with the family. if the truth were told, it would probably have been found that jack conceived the services to be some sort of function specially designed to do him honor at proper intervals, for he always received an extra petting on these occasions. he sat in the pew beside the deacon through the sermon as decorously as befitted a dog come to years of discretion long since, and wagged his tail in a friendly manner when the minister came down and patted him on the head after the benediction. outside he met the sunday-school children on their own ground, and on their own terms. jack, if he didn't have blood, had sense, which for working purposes is quite as good, if not so common. the girls gave him candy and called him jack sprat. his joyous bark could be heard long after church as he romped with the boys by the creek on the way home. it was even suspected that on certain sabbaths they had enjoyed a furtive cross-country run together; but by tacit consent the village overlooked it and put it down to the dog. jack was privileged and not to blame. there was certainly something, from the children's point of view, also, in favor of jack's conception of sunday. on week-day nights there were the church meetings of one kind and another, for which deacon pratt's house was always the place, not counting the sociables which jack attended with unfailing regularity. they would not, any of them, have been quite regular without jack. indeed, many a question of grave church polity had been settled only after it had been submitted to and passed upon in meeting by jack. "is not that so, jack?" was a favorite clincher to arguments which, it was felt, had won over his master. and jack's groping paw cemented a treaty of good-will and mutual concession that had helped the village church over more than one hard place. for there were hard heads and stubborn wills in it as there are in other churches; and deacon pratt, for all he was a just man, was set on having his way. and now all this was changed. what had come over the town jack couldn't make out, but that it was something serious nobody was needed to tell him. folks he used to meet at the gate, going to the trains of mornings, on neighborly terms, hurried past him without as much as a look. deacon jones, who gave him ginger-snaps out of the pantry-crock as a special bribe for a hand-shake, had even put out his foot to kick him, actually kick him, when he waylaid him at the corner that morning. the whole week there had not been as much as a visitor at the house, and what with christmas in town--jack knew the signs well enough; they meant raisins and goodies that came only when they burned candles on trees in the church--it was enough to make any dog cross. to top it all, his mistress must come down sick, worried into it all, as like as not, he had heard the doctor say. if jack's thoughts could have been put into words as he sat on the porch looking moodily over the road, they would doubtless have taken something like this shape, that it was a pity that men didn't have the sense of dogs, but would bear grudges and make themselves and their betters unhappy. and in the village there would have been more than one to agree with him secretly. jack wouldn't have been any the wiser had he been told that the trouble that had come to town was that of all things most worrisome, a church quarrel. what was it about and how did it come? i doubt if any of the men and women who strove in meeting for principle and conscience with might and main, and said mean things about each other out of meeting, could have explained it. i know they all would have explained it differently, and so added fuel to the fire that was hot enough already. in fact, that was what had happened the night before jack encountered his special friend, deacon jones, and it was in virtue of his master's share in it that he had bestowed the memorable kick upon him. deacon pratt was the valiant leader of the opposing faction. to the general stress of mind the holiday had but added another cause of irritation. could jack have understood the ethics of men he would have known that it strangely happens that: "forgiveness to the injured does belong, but they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong," and that everybody in a church quarrel having injured everybody else within reach for conscience sake, the season of good-will and even the illness of that good woman, the wife of deacon pratt, admittedly from worry over the trouble, practically put a settlement of it out of the question. but being only a dog he did not understand. he could only sulk; and as this went well enough with things as they were in general, it proved that jack was, as was well known, a very intelligent dog. he had yet to give another proof of it, that very day, by preaching to the divided congregation its christmas sermon, a sermon that is to this day remembered in brownville; but of that neither they nor he, sitting there on the stoop nursing his grievances, had at that time any warning. it was christmas eve. since the early lutherans settled there, away back in the last century, it had been the custom in the village to celebrate the holy eve with a special service and a christmas tree; and preparations had been going forward for it all the afternoon. it was noticeable that the fighting in the congregation in no wise interfered with the observance of the established forms of worship; rather, it seemed to lend a keener edge to them. it was only the spirit that suffered. jack, surveying the road from the porch, saw baskets and covered trays carried by, and knew their contents. he had watched the big christmas tree going down on the grocer's sled, and his experience plus his nose supplied the rest. as the lights came out one by one after twilight, he stirred uneasily at the unwonted stillness in his house. apparently no one was getting ready for church. could it be that they were not going; that this thing was to be carried to the last ditch? he decided to go and investigate. his investigations were brief, but entirely conclusive. for the second time that day he was spurned, and by a friend. this time it was the deacon himself who drove him from his wife's room, whither he had betaken him with true instinct to ascertain the household intentions. the deacon seemed to be, if anything, in a worse humor than even jack himself. the doctor had told him that afternoon that mrs. pratt was a very sick woman, and that, if she was to pull through at all, she must be kept from all worriment in an atmosphere which fairly bristled with it. the deacon felt that he had a contract on his hands which might prove too heavy for him. he felt, too, with bitterness, that he was an ill-used man, that all his years of faithful labor in the vineyard went for nothing because of some wretched heresy which the enemy had devised to wreck it; and all his humbled pride and his pent-up wrath gathered itself into the kick with which he sent poor jack flying back where he had come from. it was clear that the deacon was not going to church. lonely and forsaken, jack took his old seat on the porch and pondered. the wrinkles in his brow multiplied and grew deeper as he looked down the road and saw the joneses, the smiths, and the allens go by toward the church. when the merritts had passed, too, under the lamp, he knew that it must be nearly time for the sermon. they always came in after the long prayer. jack took a turn up and down the porch, whined at the door once, and, receiving no answer, set off down the road by himself. the church was filled. it had never looked handsomer. the rival factions had vied with each other in decorating it. spruce and hemlock sprouted everywhere, and garlands of ground-ivy festooned walls and chancel. the delicious odor of balsam and of burning wax-candles was in the air. the people were all there in their sunday clothes and the old minister in the pulpit; but the sunday feeling was not there. something was not right. deacon pratt's pew alone of them all was empty, and the congregation cast wistful glances at it, some secretly behind their hymn-books, others openly and sorrowfully. what the doctor had said in the afternoon had got out. he himself had told mrs. mills that it was doubtful if the deacon's wife got around, and it sat heavily upon the conscience of the people. the opening hymns were sung; the merritts, late as usual, had taken their seats. the minister took up the book to read the christmas gospel from the second chapter of luke. he had been there longer than most of those who were in the church to-night could remember, had grown old with the people, had loved them as the shepherd who is answerable to the master for his flock. their griefs and their troubles were his. if he could not ward them off, he could suffer with them. his voice trembled a little as he read of the tidings of great joy. perhaps it was age; but it grew firmer as he proceeded toward the end:-"and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising god and saying, 'glory to god in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.'" the old minister closed the book and looked out over the congregation. he looked long and yearningly, and twice he cleared his throat, only to repeat, "on earth peace, good-will toward men." the people settled back in their seats, uneasily; they strangely avoided the eye of their pastor. it rested in its slow survey of the flock upon deacon pratt's empty pew. and at that moment a strange thing occurred. why it should seem strange was, perhaps, not the least strange part of it. jack had come in alone before. he knew the trick of the door-latch, and had often opened it unaided. he was in the habit of attending the church with the folks; there was no reason why they should not expect him, unless they knew of one themselves. but somehow the click of the latch went clear through the congregation as the heavenly message of good-will had not. all eyes were turned upon the deacon's pew; and they waited. jack came slowly and gravely up the aisle and stopped at his master's pew. he sniffed of the empty seat disapprovingly once or twice--he had never seen it in that state before--then he climbed up and sat, serious and attentive as he was wont, in his old seat, facing the pulpit, nodding once as who should say, "i'm here; proceed!" it is recorded that not even a titter was heard from the sunday-school, which was out in force. in the silence that reigned in the church was heard only a smothered sob. the old minister looked with misty eyes at his friend. he took off his spectacles, wiped them and put them on again, and tried to speak; but the tears ran down his cheeks and choked his voice. the congregation wept with him. "brethren," he said, when he could speak, "glory to god in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men! jack has preached a better sermon than i can to-night. let us pray together." it is further recorded that the first and only quarrel in the brownville church ended on christmas eve and was never heard of again, and that it was all the work of jack's sermon. merry christmas in the tenements it was just a sprig of holly, with scarlet berries showing against the green, stuck in, by one of the office boys probably, behind the sign that pointed the way up to the editorial rooms. there was no reason why it should have made me start when i came suddenly upon it at the turn of the stairs; but it did. perhaps it was because that dingy hall, given over to dust and draughts all the days of the year, was the last place in which i expected to meet with any sign of christmas; perhaps it was because i myself had nearly forgotten the holiday. whatever the cause, it gave me quite a turn. i stood, and stared at it. it looked dry, almost withered. probably it had come a long way. not much holly grows about printing-house square, except in the colored supplements, and that is scarcely of a kind to stir tender memories. withered and dry, this did. i thought, with a twinge of conscience, of secret little conclaves of my children, of private views of things hidden from mamma at the bottom of drawers, of wild flights when papa appeared unbidden in the door, which i had allowed for once to pass unheeded. absorbed in the business of the office, i had hardly thought of christmas coming on, until now it was here. and this sprig of holly on the wall that had come to remind me,--come nobody knew how far,--did it grow yet in the beech-wood clearings, as it did when i gathered it as a boy, tracking through the snow? "christ-thorn" we called it in our danish tongue. the red berries, to our simple faith, were the drops of blood that fell from the saviour's brow as it drooped under its cruel crown upon the cross. back to the long ago wandered my thoughts: to the moss-grown beech in which i cut my name and that of a little girl with yellow curls, of blessed memory, with the first jack-knife i ever owned; to the story-book with the little fir tree that pined because it was small, and because the hare jumped over it, and would not be content though the wind and the sun kissed it, and the dews wept over it and told it to rejoice in its young life; and that was so proud when, in the second year, the hare had to go round it, because then it knew it was getting big,--hans christian andersen's story that we loved above all the rest; for we knew the tree right well, and the hare; even the tracks it left in the snow we had seen. ah, those were the yule-tide seasons, when the old domkirke shone with a thousand wax candles on christmas eve; when all business was laid aside to let the world make merry one whole week; when big red apples were roasted on the stove, and bigger doughnuts were baked within it for the long feast! never such had been known since. christmas to-day is but a name, a memory. a door slammed below, and let in the noises of the street. the holly rustled in the draught. some one going out said, "a merry christmas to you all!" in a big, hearty voice. i awoke from my revery to find myself back in new york with a glad glow at the heart. it was not true. i had only forgotten. it was myself that had changed, not christmas. that was here, with the old cheer, the old message of good-will, the old royal road to the heart of mankind. how often had i seen its blessed charity, that never corrupts, make light in the hovels of darkness and despair! how often watched its spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion in those who had, besides themselves, nothing to give! and as often the sight had made whole my faith in human nature. no! christmas was not of the past, its spirit not dead. the lad who fixed the sprig of holly on the stairs knew it; my reporter's note-book bore witness to it. witness of my contrition for the wrong i did the gentle spirit of the holiday, here let the book tell the story of one christmas in the tenements of the poor:-it is evening in grand street. the shops east and west are pouring forth their swarms of workers. street and sidewalk are filled with an eager throng of young men and women, chatting gayly, and elbowing the jam of holiday shoppers that linger about the big stores. the street-cars labor along, loaded down to the steps with passengers carrying bundles of every size and odd shape. along the curb a string of pedlers hawk penny toys in push-carts with noisy clamor, fearless for once of being moved on by the police. christmas brings a two weeks' respite from persecution even to the friendless street-fakir. from the window of one brilliantly lighted store a bevy of mature dolls in dishabille stretch forth their arms appealingly to a troop of factory-hands passing by. the young men chaff the girls, who shriek with laughter and run. the policeman on the corner stops beating his hands together to keep warm, and makes a mock attempt to catch them, whereat their shrieks rise shriller than ever. "them stockin's o' yourn 'll be the death o' santa claus!" he shouts after them, as they dodge. and they, looking back, snap saucily, "mind yer business, freshy!" but their laughter belies their words. "they giv' it to ye straight that time," grins the grocer's clerk, come out to snatch a look at the crowds; and the two swap holiday greetings. at the corner, where two opposing tides of travel form an eddy, the line of push-carts debouches down the darker side street. in its gloom their torches burn with a fitful glare that wakes black shadows among the trusses of the railroad structure overhead. a woman, with worn shawl drawn tightly about head and shoulders, bargains with a pedler for a monkey on a stick and two cents' worth of flitter-gold. five ill-clad youngsters flatten their noses against the frozen pane of the toy-shop, in ecstasy at something there, which proves to be a milk wagon, with driver, horses, and cans that can be unloaded. it is something their minds can grasp. one comes forth with a penny goldfish of pasteboard clutched tightly in his hand, and, casting cautious glances right and left, speeds across the way to the door of a tenement, where a little girl stands waiting. "it's yer chris'mas, kate," he says, and thrusts it into her eager fist. the black doorway swallows them up. across the narrow yard, in the basement of the rear house, the lights of a christmas tree show against the grimy window pane. the hare would never have gone around it, it is so very small. the two children are busily engaged fixing the goldfish upon one of its branches. three little candles that burn there shed light upon a scene of utmost desolation. the room is black with smoke and dirt. in the middle of the floor oozes an oil-stove that serves at once to take the raw edge off the cold and to cook the meals by. half the window panes are broken, and the holes stuffed with rags. the sleeve of an old coat hangs out of one, and beats drearily upon the sash when the wind sweeps over the fence and rattles the rotten shutters. the family wash, clammy and gray, hangs on a clothes-line stretched across the room. under it, at a table set with cracked and empty plates, a discouraged woman sits eying the children's show gloomily. it is evident that she has been drinking. the peaked faces of the little ones wear a famished look. there are three--the third an infant, put to bed in what was once a baby carriage. the two from the street are pulling it around to get the tree in range. the baby sees it, and crows with delight. the boy shakes a branch, and the goldfish leaps and sparkles in the candle-light. "see, sister!" he pipes; "see santa claus!" and they clap their hands in glee. the woman at the table wakes out of her stupor, gazes around her, and bursts into a fit of maudlin weeping. the door falls to. five flights up, another opens upon a bare attic room which a patient little woman is setting to rights. there are only three chairs, a box, and a bedstead in the room, but they take a deal of careful arranging. the bed hides the broken plaster in the wall through which the wind came in; each chair-leg stands over a rat-hole, at once to hide it and to keep the rats out. one is left; the box is for that. the plaster of the ceiling is held up with pasteboard patches. i know the story of that attic. it is one of cruel desertion. the woman's husband is even now living in plenty with the creature for whom he forsook her, not a dozen blocks away, while she "keeps the home together for the childer." she sought justice, but the lawyer demanded a retainer; so she gave it up, and went back to her little ones. for this room that barely keeps the winter wind out she pays four dollars a month, and is behind with the rent. there is scarce bread in the house; but the spirit of christmas has found her attic. against a broken wall is tacked a hemlock branch, the leavings of the corner grocer's fitting-block; pink string from the packing-counter hangs on it in festoons. a tallow dip on the box furnishes the illumination. the children sit up in bed, and watch it with shining eyes. "we're having christmas!" they say. the lights of the bowery glow like a myriad twinkling stars upon the ceaseless flood of humanity that surges ever through the great highway of the homeless. they shine upon long rows of lodging-houses, in which hundreds of young men, cast helpless upon the reef of the strange city, are learning their first lessons of utter loneliness; for what desolation is there like that of the careless crowd when all the world rejoices? they shine upon the tempter setting his snares there, and upon the missionary and the salvation army lass, disputing his catch with him; upon the police detective going his rounds with coldly observant eye intent upon the outcome of the contest; upon the wreck that is past hope, and upon the youth pausing on the verge of the pit in which the other has long ceased to struggle. sights and sounds of christmas there are in plenty in the bowery. balsam and hemlock and fir stand in groves along the busy thoroughfare, and garlands of green embower mission and dive impartially. once a year the old street recalls its youth with an effort. it is true that it is largely a commercial effort; that the evergreen, with an instinct that is not of its native hills, haunts saloon-corners by preference; but the smell of the pine woods is in the air, and--christmas is not too critical--one is grateful for the effort. it varies with the opportunity. at "beefsteak john's" it is content with artistically embalming crullers and mince-pies in green cabbage under the window lamp. over yonder, where the mile-post of the old lane still stands,--in its unhonored old age become the vehicle of publishing the latest "sure cure" to the world,--a florist, whose undenominational zeal for the holiday and trade outstrips alike distinction of creed and property, has transformed the sidewalk and the ugly railroad structure into a veritable bower, spanning it with a canopy of green, under which dwell with him, in neighborly good-will, the young men's christian association and the jewish tailor next door. in the next block a "turkey-shoot" is in progress. crowds are trying their luck at breaking the glass balls that dance upon tiny jets of water in front of a marine view with the moon rising, yellow and big, out of a silver sea. a man-of-war, with lights burning aloft, labors under a rocky coast. groggy sailormen, on shore leave, make unsteady attempts upon the dancing balls. one mistakes the moon for the target, but is discovered in season. "don't shoot that," says the man who loads the guns; "there's a lamp behind it." three scared birds in the window recess try vainly to snatch a moment's sleep between shots and the trains that go roaring overhead on the elevated road. roused by the sharp crack of the rifles, they blink at the lights in the street, and peck moodily at a crust in their bed of shavings. the dime museum gong clatters out its noisy warning that "the lecture" is about to begin. from the concert hall, where men sit drinking beer in clouds of smoke, comes the thin voice of a short-skirted singer, warbling, "do they think of me at home?" the young fellow who sits near the door, abstractedly making figures in the wet track of the "schooners," buries something there with a sudden restless turn, and calls for another beer. out in the street a band strikes up. a host with banners advances, chanting an unfamiliar hymn. in the ranks marches a cripple on crutches. newsboys follow, gaping. under the illuminated clock of the cooper institute the procession halts, and the leader, turning his face to the sky, offers a prayer. the passing crowds stop to listen. a few bare their heads. the devoted group, the flapping banners, and the changing torch-light on upturned faces, make a strange, weird picture. then the drum-beat, and the band files into its barracks across the street. a few of the listeners follow, among them the lad from the concert hall, who slinks shamefacedly in when he thinks no one is looking. down at the foot of the bowery is the "panhandlers' beat," where the saloons elbow one another at every step, crowding out all other business than that of keeping lodgers to support them. within call of it, across the square, stands a church which, in the memory of men yet living, was built to shelter the fashionable baptist audiences of a day when madison square was out in the fields, and harlem had a foreign sound. the fashionable audiences are gone long since. to-day the church, fallen into premature decay, but still handsome in its strong and noble lines, stands as a missionary outpost in the land of the enemy, its builders would have said, doing a greater work than they planned. to-night is the christmas festival of its english-speaking sunday-school, and the pews are filled. the banners of united italy, of modern hellas, of france and germany and england, hang side by side with the chinese dragon and the starry flag--signs of the cosmopolitan character of the congregation. greek and roman catholics, jews and joss-worshippers, go there; few protestants, and no baptists. it is easy to pick out the children in their seats by nationality, and as easy to read the story of poverty and suffering that stands written in more than one mother's haggard face, now beaming with pleasure at the little ones' glee. a gayly decorated christmas tree has taken the place of the pulpit. at its foot is stacked a mountain of bundles, santa claus's gifts to the school. a self-conscious young man with soap-locks has just been allowed to retire, amid tumultuous applause, after blowing "nearer, my god, to thee" on his horn until his cheeks swelled almost to bursting. a trumpet ever takes the fourth ward by storm. a class of little girls is climbing upon the platform. each wears a capital letter on her breast, and has a piece to speak that begins with the letter; together they spell its lesson. there is momentary consternation; one is missing. as the discovery is made, a child pushes past the door-keeper, hot and breathless. "i am in 'boundless love,'" she says, and makes for the platform, where her arrival restores confidence and the language. in the audience the befrocked visitor from up-town sits cheek by jowl with the pigtailed chinaman and the dark-browed italian. up in the gallery, farthest from the preacher's desk and the tree, sits a jewish mother with three boys, almost in rags. a dingy and threadbare shawl partly hides her poor calico wrap and patched apron. the woman shrinks in the pew, fearful of being seen; her boys stand upon the benches, and applaud with the rest. she endeavors vainly to restrain them. "tick, tick!" goes the old clock over the door through which wealth and fashion went out long years ago, and poverty came in. tick, tick! the world moves, with us--without; without or with. she is the yesterday, they the to-morrow. what shall the harvest be? loudly ticked the old clock in time with the doxology, the other day, when they cleared the tenants out of gotham court down here in cherry street, and shut the iron doors of single and double alley against them. never did the world move faster or surer toward a better day than when the wretched slum was seized by the health officers as a nuisance unfit longer to disgrace a christian city. the snow lies deep in the deserted passsageways, and the vacant floors are given over to evil smells, and to the rats that forage in squads, burrowing in the neglected sewers. the "wall of wrath" still towers above the buildings in the adjoining alderman's court, but its wrath at last is wasted. it was built by a vengeful quaker, whom the alderman had knocked down in a quarrel over the boundary line, and transmitted its legacy of hate to generations yet unborn; for where it stood it shut out sunlight and air from the tenements of alderman's court. and at last it is to go, gotham court and all; and to the going the wall of wrath has contributed its share, thus in the end atoning for some of the harm it wrought. tick! old clock; the world moves. never yet did christmas seem less dark on cherry hill than since the lights were put out in gotham court forever. in "the bend" the philanthropist undertaker who "buries for what he can catch on the plate" hails the yule-tide season with a pyramid of green made of two coffins set on end. it has been a good day, he says cheerfully, putting up the shutters; and his mind is easy. but the "good days" of the bend are over, too. the bend itself is all but gone. where the old pig-sty stood, children dance and sing to the strumming of a cracked piano-organ propelled on wheels by an italian and his wife. the park that has come to take the place of the slum will curtail the undertaker's profits, as it has lessened the work of the police. murder was the fashion of the day that is past. scarce a knife has been drawn since the sunlight shone into that evil spot, and grass and green shrubs took the place of the old rookeries. the christmas gospel of peace and good-will moves in where the slum moves out. it never had a chance before. the children follow the organ, stepping in the slush to the music, bareheaded and with torn shoes, but happy; across the five points and through "the bay,"--known to the directory as baxter street,--to "the divide," still chatham street to its denizens, though the aldermen have rechristened it park row. there other delegations of greek and italian children meet and escort the music on its homeward trip. in one of the crooked streets near the river its journey comes to an end. a battered door opens to let it in. a tallow dip burns sleepily on the creaking stairs. the water runs with a loud clatter in the sink: it is to keep it from freezing. there is not a whole window pane in the hall. time was when this was a fine house harboring wealth and refinement. it has neither now. in the old parlor downstairs a knot of hard-faced men and women sit on benches about a deal table, playing cards. they have a jug between them, from which they drink by turns. on the stump of a mantel-shelf a lamp burns before a rude print of the mother of god. no one pays any heed to the hand-organ man and his wife as they climb to their attic. there is a colony of them up there--three families in four rooms. "come in, antonio," says the tenant of the double flat,--the one with two rooms,--"come and keep christmas." antonio enters, cap in hand. in the corner by the dormer-window a "crib" has been fitted up in commemoration of the nativity. a soap-box and two hemlock branches are the elements. six tallow candles and a night-light illuminate a singular collection of rarities, set out with much ceremonial show. a doll tightly wrapped in swaddling-clothes represents "the child." over it stands a ferocious-looking beast, easily recognized as a survival of the last political campaign,--the tammany tiger,--threatening to swallow it at a gulp if one as much as takes one's eyes off it. a miniature santa claus, a pasteboard monkey, and several other articles of bric-à-brac of the kind the tenement affords, complete the outfit. the background is a picture of st. donato, their village saint, with the madonna "whom they worship most." but the incongruity harbors no suggestion of disrespect. the children view the strange show with genuine reverence, bowing and crossing themselves before it. there are five, the oldest a girl of seventeen, who works for a sweater, making three dollars a week. it is all the money that comes in, for the father has been sick and unable to work eight months and the mother has her hands full: the youngest is a baby in arms. three of the children go to a charity school, where they are fed, a great help, now the holidays have come to make work slack for sister. the rent is six dollars--two weeks' pay out of the four. the mention of a possible chance of light work for the man brings the daughter with her sewing from the adjoining room, eager to hear. that would be christmas indeed! "pietro!" she runs to the neighbors to communicate the joyful tidings. pietro comes, with his new-born baby, which he is tending while his wife lies ill, to look at the maestro, so powerful and good. he also has been out of work for months, with a family of mouths to fill, and nothing coming in. his children are all small yet, but they speak english. "what," i say, holding a silver dime up before the oldest, a smart little chap of seven--"what would you do if i gave you this?" "get change," he replies promptly. when he is told that it is his own, to buy toys with, his eyes open wide with wondering incredulity. by degrees he understands. the father does not. he looks questioningly from one to the other. when told, his respect increases visibly for "the rich gentleman." they were villagers of the same community in southern italy, these people and others in the tenements thereabouts, and they moved their patron saint with them. they cluster about his worship here, but the worship is more than an empty form. he typifies to them the old neighborliness of home, the spirit of mutual help, of charity, and of the common cause against the common enemy. the community life survives through their saint in the far city to an unsuspected extent. the sick are cared for; the dreaded hospital is fenced out. there are no italian evictions. the saint has paid the rent of this attic through two hard months; and here at his shrine the calabrian village gathers, in the persons of these three, to do him honor on christmas eve. where the old africa has been made over into a modern italy, since king humbert's cohorts struck the up-town trail, three hundred of the little foreigners are having an uproarious time over their christmas tree in the children's aid society's school. and well they may, for the like has not been seen in sullivan street in this generation. christmas trees are rather rarer over here than on the east side, where the german leavens the lump with his loyalty to home traditions. this is loaded with silver and gold and toys without end, until there is little left of the original green. santa claus's sleigh must have been upset in a snow-drift over here, and righted by throwing the cargo overboard, for there is at least a wagon-load of things that can find no room on the tree. the appearance of "teacher" with a double armful of curly-headed dolls in red, yellow, and green mother-hubbards, doubtful how to dispose of them, provokes a shout of approval, which is presently quieted by the principal's bell. school is "in" for the preliminary exercises. afterward there are to be the tree and ice-cream for the good children. in their anxiety to prove their title clear, they sit so straight, with arms folded, that the whole row bends over backward. the lesson is brief, the answers to the point. "what do we receive at christmas?" the teacher wants to know. the whole school responds with a shout, "dolls and toys!" to the question, "why do we receive them at christmas?" the answer is not so prompt. but one youngster from thompson street holds up his hand. he knows. "because we always get 'em," he says; and the class is convinced: it is a fact. a baby wails because it cannot get the whole tree at once. the "little mother"--herself a child of less than a dozen winters--who has it in charge, cooes over it, and soothes its grief with the aid of a surreptitious sponge-cake evolved from the depths of teacher's pocket. babies are encouraged in these schools, though not originally included in their plan, as often the one condition upon which the older children can be reached. some one has to mind the baby, with all hands out at work. the school sings "santa lucia" and "children of the heavenly king," and baby is lulled to sleep. "who is this king?" asks the teacher, suddenly, at the end of a verse. momentary stupefaction. the little minds are on ice-cream just then; the lad nearest the door has telegraphed that it is being carried up in pails. a little fellow on the back seat saves the day. up goes his brown fist. "well, vito, who is he?" "mckinley!" pipes the lad, who remembers the election just past; and the school adjourns for ice-cream. it is a sight to see them eat it. in a score of such schools, from the hook to harlem, the sight is enjoyed in christmas week by the men and women who, out of their own pockets, reimburse santa claus for his outlay, and count it a joy, as well they may; for their beneficence sometimes makes the one bright spot in lives that have suffered of all wrongs the most cruel,--that of being despoiled of their childhood. sometimes they are little bohemians; sometimes the children of refugee jews; and again, italians, or the descendants of the irish stock of hell's kitchen and poverty row; always the poorest, the shabbiest, the hungriest--the children santa claus loves best to find, if any one will show him the way. having so much on hand, he has no time, you see, to look them up himself. that must be done for him; and it is done. to the teacher in the sullivan street school came one little girl, this last christmas, with anxious inquiry if it was true that he came around with toys. "i hanged my stocking last time," she said, "and he didn't come at all." in the front house indeed, he left a drum and a doll, but no message from him reached the rear house in the alley. "maybe he couldn't find it," she said soberly. did the teacher think he would come if she wrote to him? she had learned to write. together they composed a note to santa claus, speaking for a doll and a bell--the bell to play "go to school" with when she was kept home minding the baby. lest he should by any chance miss the alley in spite of directions, little rosa was invited to hang her stocking, and her sister's, with the janitor's children's in the school. and lo! on christmas morning there was a gorgeous doll, and a bell that was a whole curriculum in itself, as good as a year's schooling any day! faith in santa claus is established in that thompson street alley for this generation at least; and santa claus, got by hook or by crook into an eighth ward alley, is as good as the whole supreme court bench, with the court of appeals thrown in, for backing the board of health against the slum. but the ice-cream! they eat it off the seats, half of them kneeling or squatting on the floor; they blow on it, and put it in their pockets to carry home to baby. two little shavers discovered to be feeding each other, each watching the smack develop on the other's lips as the acme of his own bliss, are "cousins"; that is why. of cake there is a double supply. it is a dozen years since "fighting mary," the wildest child in the seventh avenue school, taught them a lesson there which they have never forgotten. she was perfectly untamable, fighting everybody in school, the despair of her teacher, till on thanksgiving, reluctantly included in the general amnesty and mince-pie, she was caught cramming the pie into her pocket, after eyeing it with a look of pure ecstasy, but refusing to touch it. "for mother" was her explanation, delivered with a defiant look before which the class quailed. it is recorded, but not in the minutes, that the board of managers wept over fighting mary, who, all unconscious of having caused such an astonishing "break," was at that moment engaged in maintaining her prestige and reputation by fighting the gang in the next block. the minutes contain merely a formal resolution to the effect that occasions of mince-pie shall carry double rations thenceforth. and the rule has been kept--not only in seventh avenue, but in every industrial school--since. fighting mary won the biggest fight of her troubled life that day, without striking a blow. it was in the seventh avenue school last christmas that i offered the truant class a four-bladed penknife as a prize for whittling out the truest maltese cross. it was a class of black sheep, and it was the blackest sheep of the flock that won the prize. "that awful savarese," said the principal in despair. i thought of fighting mary, and bade her take heart. i regret to say that within a week the hapless savarese was black-listed for banking up the school door with snow, so that not even the janitor could get out and at him. within hail of the sullivan street school camps a scattered little band, the christmas customs of which i had been trying for years to surprise. they are indians, a handful of mohawks and iroquois, whom some ill wind has blown down from their canadian reservation, and left in these west side tenements to eke out such a living as they can, weaving mats and baskets, and threading glass pearls on slippers and pin-cushions, until, one after another, they have died off and gone to happier hunting-grounds than thompson street. there were as many families as one could count on the fingers of both hands when i first came upon them, at the death of old tamenund, the basket maker. last christmas there were seven. i had about made up my mind that the only real americans in new york did not keep the holiday at all, when, one christmas eve, they showed me how. just as dark was setting in, old mrs. benoit came from her hudson street attic--where she was known among the neighbors, as old and poor as she, as mrs. ben wah, and was believed to be the relict of a warrior of the name of benjamin wah--to the office of the charity organization society, with a bundle for a friend who had helped her over a rough spot--the rent, i suppose. the bundle was done up elaborately in blue cheese-cloth, and contained a lot of little garments which she had made out of the remnants of blankets and cloth of her own from a younger and better day. "for those," she said, in her french patois, "who are poorer than myself;" and hobbled away. i found out, a few days later, when i took her picture weaving mats in her attic room, that she had scarcely food in the house that christmas day and not the car fare to take her to church! walking was bad, and her old limbs were stiff. she sat by the window through the winter evening, and watched the sun go down behind the western hills, comforted by her pipe. mrs. ben wah, to give her her local name, is not really an indian; but her husband was one, and she lived all her life with the tribe till she came here. she is a philosopher in her own quaint way. "it is no disgrace to be poor," said she to me, regarding her empty tobacco-pouch; "but it is sometimes a great inconvenience." not even the recollection of the vote of censure that was passed upon me once by the ladies of the charitable ten for surreptitiously supplying an aged couple, the special object of their charity, with army plug, could have deterred me from taking the hint. very likely, my old friend miss sherman, in her broome street cellar,--it is always the attic or the cellar,--would object to mrs. ben wah's claim to being the only real american in my note-book. she is from down east, and says "stun" for stone. in her youth she was lady's-maid to a general's wife, the recollection of which military career equally condones the cellar and prevents her holding any sort of communication with her common neighbors, who add to the offence of being foreigners the unpardonable one of being mostly men. eight cats bear her steady company, and keep alive her starved affections. i found them on last christmas eve behind barricaded doors; for the cold that had locked the water-pipes had brought the neighbors down to the cellar, where miss sherman's cunning had kept them from freezing. their tin pans and buckets were even then banging against her door. "they're a miserable lot," said the old maid, fondling her cats defiantly; "but let 'em. it's christmas. ah!" she added, as one of the eight stood up in her lap and rubbed its cheek against hers, "they're innocent. it isn't poor little animals that does the harm. it's men and women that does it to each other." i don't know whether it was just philosophy, like mrs. ben wah's, or a glimpse of her story. if she had one, she kept it for her cats. in a hundred places all over the city, when christmas comes, as many open-air fairs spring suddenly into life. a kind of gentile feast of tabernacles possesses the tenement districts especially. green-embowered booths stand in rows at the curb, and the voice of the tin trumpet is heard in the land. the common source of all the show is down by the north river, in the district known as "the farm." down there santa claus establishes headquarters early in december and until past new year. the broad quay looks then more like a clearing in a pine forest than a busy section of the metropolis. the steamers discharge their loads of fir trees at the piers until they stand stacked mountain-high, with foot-hills of holly and ground-ivy trailing off toward the land side. an army train of wagons is engaged in carting them away from early morning till late at night; but the green forest grows, in spite of it all, until in places it shuts the shipping out of sight altogether. the air is redolent with the smell of balsam and pine. after nightfall, when the lights are burning in the busy market, and the homeward-bound crowds with baskets and heavy burdens of christmas greens jostle one another with good-natured banter,--nobody is ever cross down here in the holiday season,--it is good to take a stroll through the farm, if one has a spot in his heart faithful yet to the hills and the woods in spite of the latter-day city. but it is when the moonlight is upon the water and upon the dark phantom forest, when the heavy breathing of some passing steamer is the only sound that breaks the stillness of the night, and the watchman smokes his only pipe on the bulwark, that the farm has a mood and an atmosphere all its own, full of poetry which some day a painter's brush will catch and hold. into the ugliest tenement street christmas brings something of picturesqueness, of cheer. its message was ever to the poor and the heavy-laden, and by them it is understood with an instinctive yearning to do it honor. in the stiff dignity of the brown-stone streets up-town there may be scarce a hint of it. in the homes of the poor it blossoms on stoop and fire-escape, looks out of the front window, and makes the unsightly barber-pole to sprout overnight like an aaron's-rod. poor indeed is the home that has not its sign of peace over the hearth, be it but a single sprig of green. a little color creeps with it even into rabbinical hester street, and shows in the shop-windows and in the children's faces. the very feather dusters in the pedler's stock take on brighter hues for the occasion, and the big knives in the cutler's shop gleam with a lively anticipation of the impending goose "with fixin's"--a concession, perhaps, to the commercial rather than the religious holiday: business comes then, if ever. a crowd of ragamuffins camp out at a window where santa claus and his wife stand in state, embodiment of the domestic ideal that has not yet gone out of fashion in these tenements, gazing hungrily at the announcement that "a silver present will be given to every purchaser by a real santa claus.--m. levitsky." across the way, in a hole in the wall, two cobblers are pegging away under an oozy lamp that makes a yellow splurge on the inky blackness about them, revealing to the passer-by their bearded faces, but nothing of the environment save a single sprig of holly suspended from the lamp. from what forgotten brake it came with a message of cheer, a thought of wife and children across the sea waiting their summons, god knows. the shop is their house and home. it was once the hall of the tenement; but to save space, enough has been walled in to make room for their bench and bed; the tenants go through the next house. no matter if they are cramped; by and by they will have room. by and by comes the spring, and with it the steamer. does not the green branch speak of spring and of hope? the policeman on the beat hears their hammers beat a joyous tattoo past midnight, far into christmas morning. who shall say its message has not reached even them in their slum? where the noisy trains speed over the iron highway past the second-story windows of allen street, a cellar door yawns darkly in the shadow of one of the pillars that half block the narrow sidewalk. a dull gleam behind the cobweb-shrouded window pane supplements the sign over the door, in yiddish and english: "old brasses." four crooked and mouldy steps lead to utter darkness, with no friendly voice to guide the hapless customer. fumbling along the dank wall, he is left to find the door of the shop as best he can. not a likely place to encounter the fastidious from the avenue! yet ladies in furs and silk find this door and the grim old smith within it. now and then an artist stumbles upon them, and exults exceedingly in his find. two holiday shoppers are even now haggling with the coppersmith over the price of a pair of curiously wrought brass candlesticks. the old man has turned from the forge, at which he was working, unmindful of his callers roving among the dusty shelves. standing there, erect and sturdy, in his shiny leather apron, hammer in hand, with the firelight upon his venerable head, strong arms bared to the elbow, and the square paper cap pushed back from a thoughtful, knotty brow, he stirs strange fancies. one half expects to see him fashioning a gorget or a sword on his anvil. but his is a more peaceful craft. nothing more warlike is in sight than a row of brass shields, destined for ornament, not for battle. dark shadows chase one another by the flickering light among copper kettles of ruddy glow, old-fashioned samovars, and massive andirons of tarnished brass. the bargaining goes on. overhead the nineteenth century speeds by with rattle and roar; in here linger the shadows of the centuries long dead. the boy at the anvil listens open-mouthed, clutching the bellows-rope. in liberty hall a jewish wedding is in progress. liberty! strange how the word echoes through these sweaters' tenements, where starvation is at home half the time. it is an all-consuming passion with these people, whose spirit a thousand years of bondage have not availed to daunt. it breaks out in strikes, when to strike is to hunger and die. not until i stood by a striking cloak-maker whose last cent was gone, with not a crust in the house to feed seven hungry mouths, yet who had voted vehemently in the meeting that day to keep up the strike to the bitter end,--bitter indeed, nor far distant,--and heard him at sunset recite the prayer of his fathers: "blessed art thou, o lord our god, king of the world, that thou hast redeemed us as thou didst redeem our fathers, hast delivered us from bondage to liberty, and from servile dependence to redemption!"--not until then did i know what of sacrifice the word might mean, and how utterly we of another day had forgotten. but for once shop and tenement are left behind. whatever other days may have in store, this is their day of play, when all may rejoice. the bridegroom, a cloak-presser in a hired dress suit, sits alone and ill at ease at one end of the hall, sipping whiskey with a fine air of indifference, but glancing apprehensively toward the crowd of women in the opposite corner that surround the bride, a pale little shop-girl with a pleading, winsome face. from somewhere unexpectedly appears a big man in an ill-fitting coat and skullcap, flanked on either side by a fiddler, who scrapes away and away, accompanying the improvisator in a plaintive minor key as he halts before the bride and intones his lay. with many a shrug of stooping shoulders and queer excited gesture, he drones, in the harsh, guttural yiddish of hester street, his story of life's joys and sorrows, its struggles and victories in the land of promise. the women listen, nodding and swaying their bodies sympathetically. he works himself into a frenzy, in which the fiddlers vainly try to keep up with him. he turns and digs the laggard angrily in the side without losing the metre. the climax comes. the bride bursts into hysterical sobs, while the women wipe their eyes. a plate, heretofore concealed under his coat, is whisked out. he has conquered; the inevitable collection is taken up. the tuneful procession moves upon the bridegroom. an essex street girl in the crowd, watching them go, says disdainfully: "none of this humbug when i get married." it is the straining of young america at the fetters of tradition. ten minutes later, when, between double files of women holding candles, the couple pass to the canopy where the rabbi waits, she has already forgotten; and when the crunching of a glass under the bridegroom's heel announces that they are one, and that until the broken pieces be reunited he is hers and hers alone, she joins with all the company in the exulting shout of "mozzel tov!" ("good luck!"). then the _dupka_, men and women joining in, forgetting all but the moment, hands on hips, stepping in time, forward, backward, and across. and then the feast. they sit at the long tables by squads and tribes. those who belong together sit together. there is no attempt at pairing off for conversation or mutual entertainment, at speech-making or toasting. the business in hand is to eat, and it is attended to. the bridegroom, at the head of the table, with his shiny silk hat on, sets the example; and the guests emulate it with zeal, the men smoking big, strong cigars between mouthfuls. "gosh! ain't it fine?" is the grateful comment of one curly-headed youngster, bravely attacking his third plate of chicken-stew. "fine as silk," nods his neighbor in knickerbockers. christmas, for once, means something to them that they can understand. the crowd of hurrying waiters make room for one bearing aloft a small turkey adorned with much tinsel and many paper flowers. it is for the bride, the one thing not to be touched until the next day--one day off from the drudgery of housekeeping; she, too, can keep christmas. a group of bearded, dark-browed men sit apart, the rabbi among them. they are the orthodox, who cannot break bread with the rest, for fear, though the food be kosher, the plates have been defiled. they brought their own to the feast, and sit at their own table, stern and justified. did they but know what depravity is harbored in the impish mind of the girl yonder, who plans to hang her stocking overnight by the window! there is no fireplace in the tenement. queer things happen over here, in the strife between the old and the new. the girls of the college settlement, last summer, felt compelled to explain that the holiday in the country which they offered some of these children was to be spent in an episcopal clergyman's house, where they had prayers every morning. "oh," was the mother's indulgent answer, "they know it isn't true, so it won't hurt them." the bell of a neighboring church tower strikes the vesper hour. a man in working-clothes uncovers his head reverently, and passes on. through the vista of green bowers formed of the grocer's stock of christmas trees a passing glimpse of flaring torches in the distant square is caught. they touch with flame the gilt cross towering high above the "white garden," as the german residents call tompkins square. on the sidewalk the holy-eve fair is in its busiest hour. in the pine-board booths stand rows of staring toy dogs alternately with plaster saints. red apples and candy are hawked from carts. pedlers offer colored candles with shrill outcry. a huckster feeding his horse by the curb scatters, unseen, a share for the sparrows. the cross flashes white against the dark sky. in one of the side streets near the east river has stood for thirty years a little mission church, called hope chapel by its founders, in the brave spirit in which they built it. it has had plenty of use for the spirit since. of the kind of problems that beset its pastor i caught a glimpse the other day, when, as i entered his room, a rough-looking man went out. "one of my cares," said mr. devins, looking after him with contracted brow. "he has spent two christmas days of twenty-three out of jail. he is a burglar, or was. his daughter has brought him round. she is a seamstress. for three months, now, she has been keeping him and the home, working nights. if i could only get him a job! he won't stay honest long without it; but who wants a burglar for a watchman? and how can i recommend him?" a few doors from the chapel an alley sets into the block. we halted at the mouth of it. "come in," said mr. devins, "and wish blind jennie a merry christmas." we went in, in single file; there was not room for two. as we climbed the creaking stairs of the rear tenement, a chorus of children's shrill voices burst into song somewhere above. "it is her class," said the pastor of hope chapel, as he stopped on the landing. "they are all kinds. we never could hope to reach them; jennie can. they fetch her the papers given out in the sunday-school, and read to her what is printed under the pictures; and she tells them the story of it. there is nothing jennie doesn't know about the bible." the door opened upon a low-ceiled room, where the evening shades lay deep. the red glow from the kitchen stove discovered a jam of children, young girls mostly, perched on the table, the chairs, in one another's laps, or squatting on the floor; in the midst of them, a little old woman with heavily veiled face, and wan, wrinkled hands folded in her lap. the singing ceased as we stepped across the threshold. "be welcome," piped a harsh voice with a singular note of cheerfulness in it. "whose step is that with you, pastor? i don't know it. he is welcome in jennie's house, whoever he be. girls, make him to home." the girls moved up to make room. "jennie has not seen since she was a child," said the clergyman, gently; "but she knows a friend without it. some day she shall see the great friend in his glory, and then she shall be blind jennie no more." the little woman raised the veil from a face shockingly disfigured, and touched the eyeless sockets. "some day," she repeated, "jennie shall see. not long now--not long!" her pastor patted her hand. the silence of the dark room was broken by blind jennie's voice, rising cracked and quavering: "alas! and did my saviour bleed?" the shrill chorus burst in:- it was there by faith i received my sight, and now i am happy all the day. the light that falls from the windows of the neighborhood guild, in delancey street, makes a white path across the asphalt pavement. within, there is mirth and laughter. the tenth ward social reform club is having its christmas festival. its members, poor mothers, scrub-women,--the president is the janitress of a tenement near by,--have brought their little ones, a few their husbands, to share in the fun. one little girl has to be dragged up to the grab-bag. she cries at the sight of santa claus. the baby has drawn a woolly horse. he kisses the toy with a look of ecstatic bliss, and toddles away. at the far end of the hall a game of blindman's-buff is starting up. the aged grandmother, who has watched it with growing excitement, bids one of the settlement workers hold her grandchild, that she may join in; and she does join in, with all the pent-up hunger of fifty joyless years. the worker, looking on, smiles; one has been reached. thus is the battle against the slum waged and won with the child's play. tramp! tramp! comes the to-morrow upon the stage. two hundred and fifty pairs of little feet, keeping step, are marching to dinner in the newsboys' lodging-house. five hundred pairs more are restlessly awaiting their turn upstairs. in prison, hospital, and almshouse to-night the city is host, and gives of her plenty. here an unknown friend has spread a generous repast for the waifs who all the rest of the days shift for themselves as best they can. turkey, coffee, and pie, with "vegetubles" to fill in. as the file of eagle-eyed youngsters passes down the long tables, there are swift movements of grimy hands, and shirt-waists bulge, ragged coats sag at the pockets. hardly is the file seated when the plaint rises: "i ain't got no pie! it got swiped on me." seven despoiled ones hold up their hands. the superintendent laughs--it is christmas eve. he taps one tentatively on the bulging shirt. "what have you here, my lad?" "me pie," responds he, with an innocent look; "i wuz scart it would get stole." a little fellow who has been eying one of the visitors attentively takes his knife out of his mouth, and points it at him with conviction. "i know you," he pipes. "you're a p'lice commissioner. i seen yer picter in the papers. you're teddy roosevelt!" the clatter of knives and forks ceases suddenly. seven pies creep stealthily over the edge of the table, and are replaced on as many plates. the visitors laugh. it was a case of mistaken identity. farthest down town, where the island narrows toward the battery, and warehouses crowd the few remaining tenements, the sombre-hued colony of syrians is astir with preparation for the holiday. how comes it that in the only settlement of the real christmas people in new york the corner saloon appropriates to itself all the outward signs of it? even the floral cross that is nailed over the door of the orthodox church is long withered and dead; it has been there since easter, and it is yet twelve days to christmas by the belated reckoning of the greek church. but if the houses show no sign of the holiday, within there is nothing lacking. the whole colony is gone a-visiting. there are enough of the unorthodox to set the fashion, and the rest follow the custom of the country. the men go from house to house, shake hands, and kiss one another on both cheeks, with the salutation, "kol am va antom salimoon." "every year and you are safe," the syrian guide renders it into english; and a non-professional interpreter amends it: "may you grow happier year by year." arrack made from grapes and flavored with aniseseed, and candy baked in little white balls like marbles, are served with the indispensable cigarette; for long callers, the pipe. in a top-floor room of one of the darkest of the dilapidated tenements, the dusty window panes of which the last glow in the winter sky is tinging faintly with red, a dance is in progress. the guests, most of them fresh from the hillsides of mount lebanon, squat about the room. a reed-pipe and a tambourine furnish the music. one has the centre of the floor. with a beer jug filled to the brim on his head, he skips and sways, bending, twisting, kneeling, gesturing, and keeping time, while the men clap their hands. he lies down and turns over, but not a drop is spilled. another succeeds him, stepping proudly, gracefully, furling and unfurling a handkerchief like a banner. as he sits down, and the beer goes around, one in the corner, who looks like a shepherd fresh from his pasture, strikes up a song--a far-off, lonesome, plaintive lay. "'far as the hills,'" says the guide; "a song of the old days and the old people, now seldom heard." all together croon the refrain. the host delivers himself of an epic about his love across the seas, with the most agonizing expression, and in a shockingly bad voice. he is the worst singer i ever heard; but his companions greet his effort with approving shouts of "yi! yi!" they look so fierce, and yet are so childishly happy, that at the thought of their exile and of the dark tenement the question arises, "why all this joy?" the guide answers it with a look of surprise. "they sing," he says, "because they are glad they are free. did you not know?" the bells in old trinity chime the midnight hour. from dark hallways men and women pour forth and hasten to the maronite church. in the loft of the dingy old warehouse wax candles burn before an altar of brass. the priest, in a white robe with a huge gold cross worked on the back, chants the ritual. the people respond. the women kneel in the aisles, shrouding their heads in their shawls; a surpliced acolyte swings his censer; the heavy perfume of burning incense fills the hall. the band at the anarchists' ball is tuning up for the last dance. young and old float to the happy strains, forgetting injustice, oppression, hatred. children slide upon the waxed floor, weaving fearlessly in and out between the couples--between fierce, bearded men and short-haired women with crimson-bordered kerchiefs. a punch-and-judy show in the corner evokes shouts of laughter. outside the snow is falling. it sifts silently into each nook and corner, softens all the hard and ugly lines, and throws the spotless mantle of charity over the blemishes, the shortcomings. christmas morning will dawn pure and white. what the christmas sun saw in the tenements the december sun shone clear and cold upon the city. it shone upon rich and poor alike. it shone into the homes of the wealthy on the avenues and in the up-town streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in by towering tenements down town. it shone upon throngs of busy holiday shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles big and small, all alike filled with christmas cheer and kindly messages from santa claus. it shone down so gayly and altogether cheerily there, that wraps and overcoats were unbuttoned for the north wind to toy with. "my, isn't it a nice day?" said one young lady in a fur shoulder cape to a friend, pausing to kiss and compare lists of christmas gifts. "most too hot," was the reply, and the friends passed on. there was warmth within and without. life was very pleasant under the christmas sun up on the avenue. down in cherry street the rays of the sun climbed over a row of tall tenements with an effort that seemed to exhaust all the life that was in them, and fell into a dirty block, half choked with trucks, with ash barrels and rubbish of all sorts, among which the dust was whirled in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and cranny of the big barracks. they fell upon a little girl, barefooted and in rags, who struggled out of an alley with a broken pitcher in her grimy fist, against the wind that set down the narrow slit like the draught through a big factory chimney. just at the mouth of the alley it took her with a sudden whirl, a cyclone of dust and drifting ashes, tossed her fairly off her feet, tore from her grip the threadbare shawl she clutched at her throat, and set her down at the saloon door breathless and half smothered. she had just time to dodge through the storm-doors before another whirlwind swept whistling down the street. "my, but isn't it cold?" she said, as she shook the dust out of her shawl and set the pitcher down on the bar. "gimme a pint," laying down a few pennies that had been wrapped in a corner of the shawl, "and mamma says make it good and full." "all'us the way with youse kids--want a barrel when yees pays fer a pint," growled the bartender. "there, run along, and don't ye hang around that stove no more. we ain't a steam-heatin' the block fer nothin'." the little girl clutched her shawl and the pitcher, and slipped out into the street where the wind lay in ambush and promptly bore down on her in pillars of whirling dust as soon as she appeared. but the sun that pitied her bare feet and little frozen hands played a trick on old boreas--it showed her a way between the pillars, and only just her skirt was caught by one and whirled over her head as she dodged into her alley. it peeped after her halfway down its dark depths, where it seemed colder even than in the bleak street, but there it had to leave her. it did not see her dive through the doorless opening into a hall where no sun-ray had ever entered. it could not have found its way in there had it tried. but up the narrow, squeaking stairs the girl with the pitcher was climbing. up one flight of stairs, over a knot of children, half babies, pitching pennies on the landing, over wash-tubs and bedsteads that encumbered the next--house-cleaning going on in that "flat"; that is to say, the surplus of bugs was being turned out with petroleum and a feather--up still another, past a half-open door through which came the noise of brawling and curses. she dodged and quickened her step a little until she stood panting before a door on the fourth landing that opened readily as she pushed it with her bare foot. a room almost devoid of stick or rag one might dignify with the name of furniture. two chairs, one with a broken back, the other on three legs, beside a rickety table that stood upright only by leaning against the wall. on the unwashed floor a heap of straw covered with dirty bedtick for a bed; a foul-smelling slop-pail in the middle of the room; a crazy stove, and back of it a door or gap opening upon darkness. there was something in there, but what it was could only be surmised from a heavy snore that rose and fell regularly. it was the bedroom of the apartment, windowless, airless, and sunless, but rented at a price a millionaire would denounce as robbery. "that you, liza?" said a voice that discovered a woman bending over the stove. "run 'n' get the childer. dinner's ready." the winter sun glancing down the wall of the opposite tenement, with a hopeless effort to cheer the back yard, might have peeped through the one window of the room in mrs. mcgroarty's "flat," had that window not been coated with the dust of ages, and discovered that dinner party in action. it might have found a score like it in the alley. four unkempt children, copies each in his or her way of liza and their mother, mrs. mcgroarty, who "did washing" for a living. a meat bone, a "cut" from the butcher's at four cents a pound, green pickles, stale bread and beer. beer for the four, a sup all round, the baby included. why not? it was the one relish the searching ray would have found there. potatoes were there, too--potatoes and meat! say not the poor in the tenements are starving. in new york only those starve who cannot get work and have not the courage to beg. fifty thousand always out of a job, say those who pretend to know. a round half-million asking and getting charity in eight years, say the statisticians of the charity organization. any one can go round and see for himself that no one need starve in new york. from across the yard the sunbeam, as it crept up the wall, fell slantingly through the attic window whence issued the sound of hammer-blows. a man with a hard face stood in its light, driving nails into the lid of a soap box that was partly filled with straw. something else was there; as he shifted the lid that didn't fit, the glimpse of sunshine fell across it; it was a dead child, a little baby in a white slip, bedded in straw in a soap box for a coffin. the man was hammering down the lid to take it to the potter's field. at the bed knelt the mother, dry-eyed, delirious from starvation that had killed her child. five hungry, frightened children cowered in the corner, hardly daring to whisper as they looked from the father to the mother in terror. there was a knock on the door that was drowned once, twice, in the noise of the hammer on the little coffin. then it was opened gently, and a young woman came in with a basket. a little silver cross shone upon her breast. she went to the poor mother, and, putting her hand soothingly on her head, knelt by her with gentle and loving words. the half-crazed woman listened with averted face, then suddenly burst into tears and hid her throbbing head in the other's lap. the man stopped hammering and stared fixedly upon the two; the children gathered around with devouring looks as the visitor took from her basket bread, meat, and tea. just then, with a parting wistful look into the bare attic room, the sun-ray slipped away, lingered for a moment about the coping outside, and fled over the housetops. as it sped on its winter-day journey, did it shine into any cabin in an irish bog more desolate than these cherry street "homes"? an army of thousands, whose one bright and wholesome memory, only tradition of home, is that poverty-stricken cabin in the desolate bog, are herded in such barracks to-day in new york. potatoes they have; yes, and meat at four cents--even seven. beer for a relish--never without beer. but home? the home that was home, even in a bog, with the love of it that has made ireland immortal and a tower of strength in the midst of her suffering--what of that? there are no homes in new york's poor tenements. down the crooked path of the mulberry street bend the sunlight slanted into the heart of new york's italy. it shone upon bandannas and yellow neckerchiefs; upon swarthy faces and corduroy breeches; upon black-haired girls--mothers at thirteen; upon hosts of bow-legged children rolling in the dirt; upon pedlers' carts and rag-pickers staggering under burdens that threatened to crush them at every step. shone upon unnumbered pasquales dwelling, working, idling, and gambling there. shone upon the filthiest and foulest of new york's tenements, upon bandits' roost, upon bottle alley, upon the hidden byways that lead to the tramps' burrows. shone upon the scene of annual infant slaughter. shone into the foul core of new york's slums that was at last to go to the realm of bad memories because civilized man might not look upon it and live without blushing. it glanced past the rag-shop in the cellar, whence welled up stenches to poison the town, into an apartment three flights up that held two women, one young, the other old and bent. the young one had a baby at her breast. she was rocking it tenderly in her arms, singing in the soft italian tongue a lullaby, while the old granny listened eagerly, her elbows on her knees, and a stumpy clay pipe, blackened with age, between her teeth. her eyes were set on the wall, on which the musty paper hung in tatters, fit frame for the wretched, poverty-stricken room, but they saw neither poverty nor want; her aged limbs felt not the cold draught from without, in which they shivered; she looked far over the seas to sunny italy, whose music was in her ears. "o dolce napoli," she mumbled between her toothless jaws, "o suol beato----" the song ended in a burst of passionate grief. the old granny and the baby woke up at once. they were not in sunny italy; not under southern, cloudless skies. they were in "the bend," in mulberry street, and the wintry wind rattled the door as if it would say, in the language of their new home, the land of the free: "less music! more work! root, hog, or die!" around the corner the sunbeam danced with the wind into mott street, lifted the blouse of a chinaman and made it play tag with his pigtail. it used him so roughly that he was glad to skip from it down a cellar-way that gave out fumes of opium strong enough to scare even the north wind from its purpose. the soles of his felt shoes showed as he disappeared down the ladder that passed for cellar steps. down there, where daylight never came, a group of yellow, almond-eyed men were bending over a table playing fan-tan. their very souls were in the game, every faculty of the mind bent on the issue and the stake. the one blouse that was indifferent to what went on was stretched on a mat in a corner. one end of a clumsy pipe was in his mouth, the other held over a little spirit-lamp on the divan on which he lay. something fluttered in the flame with a pungent, unpleasant smell. the smoker took a long draught, inhaling the white smoke, then sank back on his couch in senseless content. upstairs tiptoed the noiseless felt shoes, bent on some house errand, to the "household" floors above, where young white girls from the tenements of the bend and the east side live in slavery worse, if not more galling, than any of the galley with ball and chain--the slavery of the pipe. four, eight, sixteen, twenty-odd such "homes" in this tenement, disgracing the very name of home and family, for marriage and troth are not in the bargain. in one room, between the half-drawn curtains of which the sunbeam works its way in, three girls are lying on as many bunks, smoking all. they are very young, "under age," though each and every one would glibly swear in court to the satisfaction of the police that she is sixteen, and therefore free to make her own bad choice. of these, one was brought up among the rugged hills of maine; the other two are from the tenement crowds, hardly missed there. but their companion? she is twirling the sticky brown pill over the lamp, preparing to fill the bowl of her pipe with it. as she does so, the sunbeam dances across the bed, kisses the red spot on her cheek that betrays the secret her tyrant long has known,--though to her it is hidden yet,--that the pipe has claimed its victim and soon will pass it on to the potter's field. "nell," says one of her chums in the other bunk, something stirred within her by the flash, "nell, did you hear from the old farm to home since you come here?" nell turns half around, with the toasting-stick in her hand, an ugly look on her wasted features, a vile oath on her lips. "to hell with the old farm," she says, and putting the pipe to her mouth inhales it all, every bit, in one long breath, then falls back on her pillow in drunken stupor. that is what the sun of a winter day saw and heard in mott street. * * * * * it had travelled far toward the west, searching many dark corners and vainly seeking entry to others; had glided with equal impartiality the spires of five hundred churches and the tin cornices of thirty thousand tenements, with their million tenants and more; had smiled courage and cheer to patient mothers trying to make the most of life in the teeming crowds, that had too little sunshine by far; hope to toiling fathers striving early and late for bread to fill the many mouths clamoring to be fed. the brief december day was far spent. now its rays fell across the north river and lighted up the windows of the tenements in hell's kitchen and poverty gap. in the gap especially they made a brave show; the windows of the crazy old frame-house under the big tree that sat back from the street looked as if they were made of beaten gold. but the glory did not cross the threshold. within it was dark and dreary and cold. the room at the foot of the rickety, patched stairs was empty. the last tenant was beaten to death by her husband in his drunken fury. the sun's rays shunned the spot ever after, though it was long since it could have made out the red daub from the mould on the rotten floor. upstairs, in the cold attic, where the wind wailed mournfully through every open crack, a little girl sat sobbing as if her heart would break. she hugged an old doll to her breast. the paint was gone from its face; the yellow hair was in a tangle; its clothes hung in rags. but she only hugged it closer. it was her doll. they had been friends so long, shared hunger and hardship together, and now---her tears fell faster. one drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll. the last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless jewel. its glory grew and filled the room. gone were the black walls, the darkness, and the cold. there was warmth and light and joy. merry voices and glad faces were all about. a flock of children danced with gleeful shouts about a great christmas tree in the middle of the floor. upon its branches hung drums and trumpets and toys, and countless candles gleamed like beautiful stars. farthest up, at the very top, her doll, her very own, with arms outstretched, as if appealing to be taken down and hugged. she knew it, knew the mission-school that had seen her first and only real christmas, knew the gentle face of her teacher, and the writing on the wall she had taught her to spell out: "in his name." his name, who, she had said, was all little children's friend. was he also her dolly's friend, and would he know it among the strange people? the light went out; the glory faded. the bare room, only colder and more cheerless than before, was left. the child shivered. only that morning the doctor had told her mother that she must have medicine and food and warmth, or she must go to the great hospital where papa had gone before, when their money was all spent. sorrow and want had laid the mother upon the bed he had barely left. every stick of furniture, every stitch of clothing on which money could be borrowed, had gone to the pawnbroker. last of all, she had carried mamma's wedding-ring to pay the druggist. now there was no more left, and they had nothing to eat. in a little while mamma would wake up, hungry. the little girl smothered a last sob and rose quickly. she wrapped the doll in a threadbare shawl as well as she could, tiptoed to the door, and listened a moment to the feeble breathing of the sick mother within. then she went out, shutting the door softly behind her, lest she wake her. up the street she went, the way she knew so well, one block and a turn round the saloon corner, the sunset glow kissing the track of her bare feet in the snow as she went, to a door that rang a noisy bell as she opened it and went in. a musty smell filled the close room. packages, great and small, lay piled high on shelves behind the worn counter. a slovenly woman was haggling with the pawnbroker about the money for a skirt she had brought to pledge. "not a cent more than a quarter," he said, contemptuously, tossing the garment aside. "it's half worn out it is, dragging it back and forth over the counter these six months. take it or leave it. hallo! what have we here? little finnegan, eh? your mother not dead yet? it's in the poor-house ye will be if she lasts much longer. what the----" he had taken the package from the trembling child's hand--the precious doll--and unrolled the shawl. a moment he stood staring in dumb amazement at its contents. then he caught it up and flung it with an angry oath upon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box. "get out o' here, ye finnegan brat," he shouted; "i'll tache ye to come a-guyin' o' me. i'll----" the door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the cold night. the sun saw not its home-coming. it had hidden behind the night clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty. evening had worn into night. the busy city slept. down by the wharves, now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, foot-sore, and shivering with cold. he sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among strangers. he had been alone ever since, but never more so than that night. his money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets for nights. that day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, and one of the two he must do soon. there was the dark river rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since--it was so cold--and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. no one would ever know. he moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more intently. a low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against his. a little crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him nestled in his lap. he had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. its touch recalled him to himself. he got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to the police station near by, and asked for shelter. it was the first time he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link with better days, and thought with a hard sob of home. in the middle of the night he awoke with a start. the locket was gone. one of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. with bitter tears he went up and complained to the sergeant at the desk, and the sergeant ordered him to be kicked out into the street as a liar, if not a thief. how should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? the doorman put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step. * * * * * far from the slumbering city the rising moon shines over a wide expanse of glistening water. it silvers the snow upon a barren heath between two shores, and shortens with each passing minute the shadows of countless headstones that bear no names, only numbers. the breakers that beat against the bluff wake not those who sleep there. in the deep trenches they lie, shoulder to shoulder, an army of brothers, homeless in life, but here at rest and at peace. a great cross stands upon the lonely shore. the moon sheds its rays upon it in silent benediction and floods the garden of the unknown, unmourned dead with its soft light. out on the sound the fishermen see it flashing white against the starlit sky, and bare their heads reverently as their boats speed by, borne upon the wings of the west wind. nibsy's christmas it was christmas eve over on the east side. darkness was closing in on a cold, hard day. the light that struggled through the frozen windows of the delicatessen store and the saloon on the corner, fell upon men with empty dinner-pails who were hurrying homeward, their coats buttoned tightly, and heads bent against the steady blast from the river, as if they were butting their way down the street. the wind had forced the door of the saloon ajar, and was whistling through the crack; but in there it seemed to make no one afraid. between roars of laughter, the clink of glasses and the rattle of dice on the hardwood counter were heard out in the street. more than one of the passers-by who came within range was taken with an extra shiver in which the vision of wife and little ones waiting at home for his coming was snuffed out, as he dropped in to brace up. the lights were long out when the silent streets reëchoed his unsteady steps toward home, where the christmas welcome had turned to dread. but in this twilight hour they burned brightly yet, trying hard to pierce the bitter cold outside with a ray of warmth and cheer. where the lamps in the delicatessen store made a mottled streak of brightness across the flags, two little boys stood with their noses flattened against the window. the warmth inside, and the lights, had made little islands of clear space on the frosty pane, affording glimpses of the wealth within, of the piles of smoked herring, of golden cheese, of sliced bacon and generous, fat-bellied hams; of the rows of odd-shaped bottles and jars on the shelves that held there was no telling what good things, only it was certain that they must be good from the looks of them. and the heavenly smell of spices and things that reached the boys through the open door each time the tinkling bell announced the coming or going of a customer! better than all, back there on the top shelf the stacks of square honey-cakes, with their frosty coats of sugar, tied in bundles with strips of blue paper. the wind blew straight through the patched and threadbare jackets of the lads as they crept closer to the window, struggling hard by breathing on the pane to make their peep-holes bigger, to take in the whole of the big cake with the almonds set in; but they did not heed it. "jim!" piped the smaller of the two, after a longer stare than usual; "hey, jim! them's sante claus's. see 'em?" "sante claus!" snorted the other, scornfully, applying his eye to the clear spot on the pane. "there ain't no ole duffer like dat. them's honey-cakes. me 'n' tom had a bite o' one wunst." "there ain't no sante claus?" retorted the smaller shaver, hotly, at his peep-hole. "there is, too. i seen him myself when he cum to our alley last----" "what's youse kids a-scrappin' fur?" broke in a strange voice. another boy, bigger, but dirtier and tougher-looking than either of the two, had come up behind them unobserved. he carried an armful of unsold "extras" under one arm. the other was buried to the elbow in the pocket of his ragged trousers. the "kids" knew him, evidently, and the smallest eagerly accepted him as umpire. "it's jim w'at says there ain't no sante claus, and i seen him----" "jim!" demanded the elder ragamuffin, sternly, looking hard at the culprit; "jim! yere a chump! no sante claus? what're ye givin' us? now, watch me!" with utter amazement the boys saw him disappear through the door under the tinkling bell into the charmed precincts of smoked herring, jam, and honey-cakes. petrified at their peep-holes, they watched him, in the veritable presence of santa claus himself with the fir-branch, fish out five battered pennies from the depths of his pocket and pass them over to the woman behind the jars, in exchange for one of the bundles of honey-cakes tied with blue. as if in a dream they saw him issue forth with the coveted prize. "there, kid!" he said, holding out the two fattest and whitest cakes to santa claus's champion; "there's yer christmas. run along, now, to yer barracks; and you, jim, here's one for you, though yer don't desarve it. mind ye let the kid alone." "this one'll have to do for me grub, i guess. i ain't sold me 'newses,' and the ole man'll kick if i bring 'em home." before the shuffling feet of the ragamuffins hurrying homeward had turned the corner, the last mouthful of the newsboy's supper was smothered in a yell of "extree!" as he shot across the street to intercept a passing stranger. * * * * * as the evening wore on, it grew rawer and more blustering still. flakes of dry snow that stayed where they fell, slowly tracing the curb-lines, the shutters, and the doorsteps of the tenements with gathering white, were borne up on the storm from the water. to the right and left stretched endless streets between the towering barracks, as beneath frowning cliffs pierced with a thousand glowing eyes that revealed the watch-fires within--a mighty city of cave-dwellers held in the thraldom of poverty and want. outside there was yet hurrying to and fro. saloon doors were slamming, and bare-legged urchins, carrying beer-jugs, hugged the walls close for shelter. from the depths of a blind alley floated out the discordant strains of a vagabond brass band "blowing in" the yule of the poor. banished by police ordinance from the street, it reaped a scant harvest of pennies for christmas cheer from the windows opening on the back yard. against more than one pane showed the bald outline of a forlorn little christmas tree, some stray branch of a hemlock picked up at the grocer's and set in a pail for "the childer" to dance around, a dime's worth of candy and tinsel on the boughs. from the attic over the way came, in spells between, the gentle tones of a german song about the christ-child. christmas in the east side tenements begins with the sunset on the "holy eve," except where the name is as a threat or a taunt. in a hundred such homes the whir of many sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make itself heard above the noise of the great treadmill. to these what was christmas but the name for suffering, reminder of lost kindred and liberty, or the slavery of eighteen hundred years, freedom from which was purchased only with gold. ay, gold! the gold that had power to buy freedom yet, to buy the good-will, ay, and the good name, of the oppressor, with his houses and land. at the thought the tired eye glistened, the aching back straightened, and to the weary foot there came new strength to finish the long task while the city slept. where a narrow passageway put in between two big tenements to a ramshackle rear barrack, nibsy, the newsboy, halted in the shadow of the doorway and stole a long look down the dark alley. he toyed uncertainly with his still unsold papers--worn dirty and ragged as his clothes by this time--before he ventured in, picking his way between barrels and heaps of garbage; past the italian cobbler's hovel, where a tallow dip, stuck in a cracked beer-glass, before a picture of the "mother of god," showed that even he knew it was christmas and liked to show it; past the sullivan flat, where blows and drunken curses mingled with the shriek of women, as nibsy had heard many nights before this one. he shuddered as he felt his way past the door, partly with a premonition of what was in store for himself, if the "old man" was at home, partly with a vague, uncomfortable feeling that somehow christmas eve should be different from other nights, even in the alley; down to its farthest end, to the last rickety flight of steps that led into the filth and darkness of the tenement. up this he crept, three flights, to a door at which he stopped and listened, hesitating, as he had stopped at the entrance to the alley; then, with a sudden, defiant gesture, he pushed it open and went in. a bare and cheerless room; a pile of rags for a bed in the corner, another in the dark alcove, miscalled bedroom; under the window a broken candle and an iron-bound chest, upon which sat a sad-eyed woman with hard lines in her face, peeling potatoes in a pan; in the middle of the room a rusty stove, with a pile of wood, chopped on the floor alongside. a man on his knees in front fanning the fire with an old slouch hat. with each breath of draught he stirred; the crazy old pipe belched forth torrents of smoke at every joint. as nibsy entered, the man desisted from his efforts and sat up, glaring at him--a villainous ruffian's face, scowling with anger. "late ag'in!" he growled; "an' yer papers not sold. what did i tell yer, brat, if ye dared----" "tom! tom!" broke in the wife, in a desperate attempt to soothe the ruffian's temper. "the boy can't help it, an' it's christmas eve. for the love o'----" "the devil take yer rot and yer brat!" shouted the man, mad with the fury of passion. "let me at him!" and, reaching over, he seized a heavy knot of wood and flung it at the head of the boy. nibsy had remained just inside the door, edging slowly toward his mother, but with a watchful eye on the man at the stove. at the first movement of his hand toward the woodpile he sprang for the stairway with the agility of a cat, and just dodged the missile. it struck the door, as he slammed it behind him, with force enough to smash the panel. down the three flights in as many jumps he went, and through the alley, over barrels and barriers, never stopping once till he reached the street, and curses and shouts were left behind. in his flight he had lost his unsold papers, and he felt ruefully in his pocket as he went down the street, pulling his rags about him as much from shame as to keep out the cold. four pennies were all he had left after his christmas treat to the two little lads from the barracks; not enough for supper or for a bed; and it was getting colder all the time. on the sidewalk in front of the notion store a belated christmas party was in progress. the children from the tenements in the alley and across the way were having a game of blind-man's-buff, groping blindly about in the crowd to catch each other. they hailed nibsy with shouts of laughter, calling to him to join in. "we're having christmas!" they yelled. nibsy did not hear them. he was thinking, thinking, the while turning over his four pennies at the bottom of his pocket. thinking if christmas was ever to come to him, and the children's santa claus to find his alley where the baby slept within reach of her father's cruel hand. as for him, he had never known anything but blows and curses. he could take care of himself. but his mother and the baby--and then it came to him with shuddering cold that it was getting late, and that he must find a place to sleep. he weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was in the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too hot for him. there was the hay barge down by the dock, with the watchman who got drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. the chances were at least even of its being available on christmas eve, and of santa claus having thus done him a good turn after all. then there was the snug berth in the sand-box you could curl all up in. nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay barge, so far away and to windward, too. down by the printing-offices there were the steam gratings, and a chance corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where the big presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the day. as he passed them in review, nibsy made up his mind with sudden determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down town. * * * * * the rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and pain that was echoed by a hundred throats. from one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire. the clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. with hooks and axes the firemen rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in the depths the battle was fought and won. the building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the victory there fell a sudden silence. from the cellar-way a grimy, helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms. a tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden, while the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital for the doctor to come quickly. very gently they lifted poor little nisby--for it was he, caught in his berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of the hay barge--into the ambulance that bore him off to the hospital cot, too late. conscious only of a vague discomfort that had succeeded terror and pain, nibsy wondered uneasily why they were all so kind. nobody had taken the trouble to as much as notice him before. when he had thrust his papers into their very faces they had pushed him roughly aside. nibsy, unhurt and able to fight his way, never had a show. sick and maimed and sore, he was being made much of, though he had been caught where the boys were forbidden to go. things were queer, anyhow, and---the room was getting so dark that he could hardly see the doctor's kindly face, and had to grip his hand tightly to make sure that he was there; almost as dark as the stairs in the alley he had come down in such a hurry. there was the baby now--poor baby--and mother--and then a great blank, and it was all a mystery to poor nibsy no longer. for, just as a wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and doctors to his bedside, crying for her boy, nibsy gave up his soul to god. * * * * * it was very quiet in the alley. christmas had come and gone. upon the last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. it had done duty there a dozen times before, that year. upstairs, nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all, old and young, came to see him. even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. cowed and silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the plain little coffin stood, with the lid closed down. a couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove, when there came a timid knock at the door. nobody answering, it was pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking form of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood breathing peep-holes on the window pane of the delicatessen store the night before when nibsy came along. he dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some christmas tree at the grocery. "it's from sante claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "nibsy knows." and he went out. santa claus had come to nibsy, after all, in his alley. and nibsy knew. the little dollar's christmas journey "it is too bad," said mrs. lee, and she put down the magazine in which she had been reading of the poor children in the tenements of the great city that know little of christmas joys; "no christmas tree! one of them shall have one, at any rate. i think this will buy it, and it is so handy to send. nobody would know that there was money in the letter." and she enclosed a coupon in a letter to a professor, a friend in the city, who, she knew, would have no trouble in finding the child, and had it mailed at once. mrs. lee was a widow whose not too great income was derived from the interest on some four per cent government bonds which represented the savings of her husband's life of toil, that was none the less hard because it was spent in a counting-room and not with shovel and spade. the coupon looked for all the world like a dollar bill, except that it was so small that a baby's hand could easily cover it. the united states, the printing on it said, would pay on demand to the bearer one dollar; and there was a number on it, just as on a full-grown dollar, that was the number of the bond from which it had been cut. the letter travelled all night, and was tossed and sorted and bunched at the end of its journey in the great gray beehive that never sleeps, day or night, and where half the tears and joys of the land, including this account of the little dollar, are checked off unceasingly as first-class matter or second or third, as the case may be. in the morning it was laid, none the worse for its journey, at the professor's breakfast plate. the professor was a kindly man, and he smiled as he read it. "to procure one small christmas tree for a poor tenement," was its errand. "little dollar," he said, "i think i know where you are needed." and he made a note in his book. there were other notes there that made him smile again as he saw them. they had names set opposite them. one about a noah's ark was marked "vivi." that was the baby; and there was one about a doll's carriage that had the words "katie, sure," set over against it. the professor eyed the list in mock dismay. "how ever will i do it?" he sighed, as he put on his hat. "well, you will have to get santa claus to help you, john," said his wife, buttoning his greatcoat about him. "and, mercy! the duckses' babies! don't forget them, whatever you do. the baby has been talking about nothing else since he saw them at the store, the old duck and the two ducklings on wheels. you know them, john?" but the professor was gone, repeating to himself as he went down the garden walk, "the duckses' babies, indeed!" he chuckled as he said it, why i cannot tell. he was very particular about his grammar, was the professor, ordinarily. perhaps it was because it was christmas eve. down town went the professor; but instead of going with the crowd that was setting toward santa claus's headquarters, in the big broadway store, he turned off into a quieter street, leading west. it took him to a narrow thoroughfare, with five-story tenements frowning on their side, where the people he met were not so well dressed as those he had left behind, and did not seem to be in such a hurry of joyful anticipation of the holiday. into one of the tenements he went, and, groping his way through a pitch-dark hall, came to a door way back, the last one to the left, at which he knocked. an expectant voice said, "come in," and the professor pushed open the door. the room was very small, very stuffy, and very dark, so dark that a smoking kerosene lamp that burned on a table next the stove hardly lighted it at all, though it was broad day. a big, unshaven man, who sat on the bed, rose when he saw the visitor, and stood uncomfortably shifting his feet and avoiding the professor's eye. the latter's glance was serious, though not unkind, as he asked the woman with the baby if he had found no work yet. "no," she said, anxiously coming to the rescue, "not yet; he was waitin' for a recommend." but johnnie had earned two dollars running errands, and, now there was a big fall of snow, his father might get a job of shovelling. the woman's face was worried, yet there was a cheerful note in her voice that somehow made the place seem less discouraging than it was. the baby she nursed was not much larger than a middle-sized doll. its little face looked thin and wan. it had been very sick, she explained, but the doctor said it was mending now. that was good, said the professor, and patted one of the bigger children on the head. there were six of them, of all sizes, from johnnie, who could run errands, down. they were busy fixing up a christmas tree that half filled the room, though it was of the very smallest. yet, it was a real christmas tree, left over from the sunday-school stock, and it was dressed up at that. pictures from the colored supplement of a sunday newspaper hung and stood on every branch, and three pieces of colored glass, suspended on threads that shone in the smoky lamplight, lent color and real beauty to the show. the children were greatly tickled. "john put it up," said the mother, by way of explanation, as the professor eyed it approvingly. "there ain't nothing to eat on it. if there was, it wouldn't be there a minute. the childer be always a-searchin' in it." "but there must be, or else it isn't a real christmas tree," said the professor, and brought out the little dollar. "this is a dollar which a friend gave me for the children's christmas, and she sends her love with it. now, you buy them some things and a few candles, mrs. ferguson, and then a good supper for the rest of the family. good night, and a merry christmas to you. i think myself the baby is getting better." it had just opened its eyes and laughed at the tree. the professor was not very far on his way toward keeping his appointment with santa claus before mrs. ferguson was at the grocery laying in her dinner. a dollar goes a long way when it is the only one in the house; and when she had everything, including two cents' worth of flitter-gold, four apples, and five candles for the tree, the grocer footed up her bill on the bag that held her potatoes--ninety-eight cents. mrs. ferguson gave him the little dollar. "what's this?" said the grocer, his fat smile turning cold as he laid a restraining hand on the full basket. "that ain't no good." "it's a dollar, ain't it?" said the woman, in alarm. "it's all right. i know the man that give it to me." "it ain't all right in this store," said the grocer, sternly. "put them things back. i want none o' that." the woman's eyes filled with tears as she slowly took the lid off the basket and lifted out the precious bag of potatoes. they were waiting for that dinner at home. the children were even then camping on the doorstep to take her in to the tree in triumph. and now---for the second time a restraining hand was laid upon her basket; but this time it was not the grocer's. a gentleman who had come in to order a christmas turkey had overheard the conversation, and had seen the strange bill. "it is all right," he said to the grocer. "give it to me. here is a dollar bill for it of the kind you know. if all your groceries were as honest as this bill, mr. schmidt, it would be a pleasure to trade with you. don't be afraid to trust uncle sam where you see his promise to pay." the gentleman held the door open for mrs. ferguson, and heard the shout of the delegation awaiting her on the stoop as he went down the street. "i wonder where that came from, now," he mused. "coupons in bedford street! i suppose somebody sent it to the woman for a christmas gift. hello! here are old thomas and snowflake. now, wouldn't it surprise her old stomach if i gave her a christmas gift of oats? if only the shock doesn't kill her! thomas! oh, thomas!" the old man thus hailed stopped and awaited the gentleman's coming. he was a cartman who did odd jobs through the ward, so picking up a living for himself and the white horse, which the boys had dubbed snowflake in a spirit of fun. they were a well-matched old pair, thomas and his horse. one was not more decrepit than the other. there was a tradition along the docks, where thomas found a job now and then, and snowflake an occasional straw to lunch on, that they were of an age, but this was denied by thomas. "see here," said the gentleman, as he caught up with them; "i want snowflake to keep christmas, thomas. take this and buy him a bag of oats. and give it to him carefully, do you hear?--not all at once, thomas. he isn't used to it." "gee whizz!" said the old man, rubbing his eyes with his cap, as his friend passed out of sight, "oats fer christmas! g'lang, snowflake; yer in luck." the feed-man put on his spectacles and looked thomas over at the strange order. then he scanned the little dollar, first on one side, then on the other. "never seed one like him," he said. "'pears to me he is mighty short. wait till i send round to the hockshop. he'll know, if anybody." the man at the pawnshop did not need a second look. "why, of course," he said, and handed a dollar bill over the counter. "old thomas, did you say? well, i am blamed if the old man ain't got a stocking after all. they're a sly pair, he and snowflake." business was brisk that day at the pawnshop. the door-bell tinkled early and late, and the stock on the shelves grew. bundle was added to bundle. it had been a hard winter so far. among the callers in the early afternoon was a young girl in a gingham dress and without other covering, who stood timidly at the counter and asked for three dollars on a watch, a keepsake evidently, which she was loath to part with. perhaps it was the last glimpse of brighter days. the pawnbroker was doubtful; it was not worth so much. she pleaded hard, while he compared the number of the movement with a list sent in from police headquarters. "two," he said decisively at last, snapping the case shut--"two or nothing." the girl handed over the watch with a troubled sigh. he made out a ticket and gave it to her with a handful of silver change. was it the sigh and her evident distress, or was it the little dollar? as she turned to go, he called her back. "here, it is christmas!" he said. "i'll run the risk." and he added the coupon to the little heap. the girl looked at it and at him questioningly. "it is all right," he said; "you can take it; i'm running short of change. bring it back if they won't take it. i'm good for it." uncle sam had achieved a backer. in grand street the holiday crowds jammed every store in their eager hunt for bargains. in one of them, at the knit-goods counter, stood the girl from the pawnshop, picking out a thick, warm shawl. she hesitated between a gray and a maroon-colored one, and held them up to the light. "for you?" asked the salesgirl, thinking to aid her. she glanced at her thin dress and shivering form as she said it. "no," said the girl; "for mother; she is poorly and needs it." she chose the gray, and gave the salesgirl her handful of money. the girl gave back the coupon. "they don't go," she said; "give me another, please." "but i haven't got another," said the girl, looking apprehensively at the shawl. "the--mr. feeney said it was all right. take it to the desk, please, and ask." the salesgirl took the bill and the shawl, and went to the desk. she came back, almost immediately, with the storekeeper, who looked sharply at the customer and noted the number of the coupon. "it is all right," he said, satisfied apparently by the inspection; "a little unusual, only. we don't see many of them. can i help you, miss?" and he attended her to the door. in the street there was even more of a christmas show going on than in the stores. pedlers of toys, of mottoes, of candles, and of knickknacks of every description stood in rows along the curb, and were driving a lively trade. their push-carts were decorated with fir branches--even whole christmas trees. one held a whole cargo of santa clauses in a bower of green, each one with a cedar-bush in his folded arms, as a soldier carries his gun. the lights were blazing out in the stores, and the hucksters' torches were flaring at the corners. there was christmas in the very air and christmas in the storekeeper's till. it had been a very busy day. he thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a moment breathing the brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering the coupon the girl had paid for the shawl. a thin voice at his elbow said: "merry christmas, mr. stein! here's yer paper." it was the newsboy who left the evening papers at the door every night. the storekeeper knew him, and something about the struggle they had at home to keep the roof over their heads. mike was a kind of protégé of his. he had helped to get him his route. "wait a bit, mike," he said. "you'll be wanting your christmas from me. here's a dollar. it's just like yourself: it is small, but it is all right. you take it home and have a good time." was it the message with which it had been sent forth from far away in the country, or what was it? whatever it was, it was just impossible for the little dollar to lie still in the pocket while there was want to be relieved, mouths to be filled, or christmas lights to be lit. it just couldn't, and it didn't. mike stopped around the corner of allen street, and gave three whoops expressive of his approval of mr. stein; having done which, he sidled up to the first lighted window out of range to examine his gift. his enthusiasm changed to open-mouthed astonishment as he saw the little dollar. his jaw fell. mike was not much of a scholar, and could not make out the inscription on the coupon; but he had heard of shinplasters as something they "had in the war," and he took this to be some sort of a ten-cent piece. the policeman on the block might tell. just now he and mike were hunk. they had made up a little difference they'd had, and if any one would know, the cop surely would. and off he went in search of him. mr. mccarthy pulled off his gloves, put his club under his arm, and studied the little dollar with contracted brow. he shook his head as he handed it back, and rendered the opinion that it was "some dom swindle that's ag'in the law." he advised mike to take it back to mr. stein, and added, as he prodded him in an entirely friendly manner in the ribs with his locust, that if it had been the week before he might have "run him in" for having the thing in his possession. as it happened, mr. stein was busy and not to be seen, and mike went home between hope and fear, with his doubtful prize. there was a crowd at the door of the tenement, and mike saw, before he had reached it, running, that it clustered about an ambulance that was backed up to the sidewalk. just as he pushed his way through the throng it drove off, its clanging gong scattering the people right and left. a little girl sat weeping on the top step of the stoop. to her mike turned for information. "susie, what's up?" he asked, confronting her with his armful of papers. "who's got hurted?" "it's papa," sobbed the girl. "he ain't hurted. he's sick, and he was took that bad he had to go, an' to-morrer is christmas, an'--oh, mike!" it is not the fashion of essex street to slop over. mike didn't. he just set his mouth to a whistle and took a turn down the hall to think. susie was his chum. there were seven in her flat; in his only four, including two that made wages. he came back from his trip with his mind made up. "suse," he said, "come on in. you take this, suse, see! an' let the kids have their christmas. mr. stein give it to me. it's a little one, but if it ain't all right i'll take it back and get one that is good. go on, now, suse, you hear?" and he was gone. there was a christmas tree that night in susie's flat, with candles and apples and shining gold, but the little dollar did not pay for it. that rested securely in the purse of the charity visitor who had come that afternoon, just at the right time, as it proved. she had heard the story of mike and his sacrifice, and had herself given the children a one-dollar bill for the coupon. they had their christmas, and a joyful one, too, for the lady went up to the hospital and brought back word that susie's father would be all right with rest and care, which he was now getting. mike came in and helped them "sack" the tree when the lady was gone. he gave three more whoops for mr. stein, three for the lady, and three for the hospital doctor to even things up. essex street was all right that night. "do you know, professor," said that learned man's wife, when, after supper, he had settled down in his easy-chair to admire the noah's ark and the duckses' babies and the rest, all of which had arrived safely by express ahead of him and were waiting to be detailed to their appropriate stockings while the children slept--"do you know, i heard such a story of a little newsboy to-day. it was at the meeting of our district charity committee this evening. miss linder, our visitor, came right from the house." and she told the story of mike and susie. "and i just got the little dollar bill to keep. here it is." she took the coupon out of her purse and passed it to her husband. "eh! what?" said the professor, adjusting his spectacles and reading the number. "if here isn't my little dollar come back to me! why, where have you been, little one? i left you in bedford street this morning, and here you come by way of essex. well, i declare!" and he told his wife how he had received it in a letter in the morning. "john," she said, with a sudden impulse,--she didn't know, and neither did he, that it was the charm of the little dollar that was working again,--"john, i guess it is a sin to stop it. jones's children won't have any christmas tree, because they can't afford it. he told me so this morning when he fixed the furnace. and the baby is sick. let us give them the little dollar. he is here in the kitchen now." and they did; and the joneses, and i don't know how many others, had a merry christmas because of the blessed little dollar that carried christmas cheer and good luck wherever it went. for all i know, it may be going yet. certainly it is a sin to stop it, and if any one has locked it up without knowing that he locked up the christmas dollar, let him start it right out again. he can tell it easily enough. if he just looks at the number, that's the one. little will's message "it is that or starve, captain. i can't get a job. god knows i've tried, but without a recommend, it's no use. i ain't no good at beggin'. and--and--there's the childer." there was a desperate note in the man's voice that made the captain turn and look sharply at him. a swarthy, strongly built man in a rough coat, and with that in his dark face which told that he had lived longer than his years, stood at the door of the detective office. his hand that gripped the door handle shook so that the knob rattled in his grasp, but not with fear. he was no stranger to that place. black bill's face had looked out from the rogues' gallery longer than most of those now there could remember. the captain looked him over in silence. "you had better not, bill," he said. "you know what will come of it. when you go up again it will be the last time. and up you go, sure." the man started to say something, but choked it down and went out without a word. the captain got up and rang his bell. "bill, who was here just now, is off again," he said to the officer who came to the door. "he says it is steal or starve, and he can't get a job. i guess he is right. who wants a thief in his pay? and how can i recommend him? and still i think he would keep straight if he had the chance. tell murphy to look after him and see what he is up to." the captain went out, tugging viciously at his gloves. he was in very bad humor. the policeman at the mulberry street door got hardly a nod for his cheery "merry christmas" as he passed. "wonder what's crossed him," he said, looking down the street after him. the green lamps were lighted and shone upon the hurrying six o'clock crowds from the broadway shops. in the great business buildings the iron shutters were pulled down and the lights put out, and in a little while the reporters' boys that carried slips from headquarters to the newspaper offices across the street were the only tenants of the block. a stray policeman stopped now and then on the corner and tapped the lamp-post reflectively with his club as he looked down the deserted street and wondered, as his glance rested upon the chief's darkened windows, how it felt to have six thousand dollars a year and every night off. in the detective office the sergeant who had come in at roll-call stretched himself behind the desk and thought of home. the lights of a christmas tree in the abutting mott street tenement shone through his window, and the laughter of children mingled with the tap of the toy drum. he pulled down the sash in order to hear better. as he did so, a strong draught swept his desk. the outer door slammed. two detectives came in bringing a prisoner between them. a woman accompanied them. the sergeant pulled the blotter toward him mechanically and dipped his pen. "what's the charge?" he asked. "picking pockets in fourteenth street. this lady is the complainant, mrs. ----" the name was that of a well-known police magistrate. the sergeant looked up and bowed. his glance took in the prisoner, and a look of recognition came into his face. "what, bill! so soon?" he said. the prisoner was sullenly silent. he answered the questions put to him briefly, and was searched. the stolen pocket-book, a small paper package, and a crumpled letter were laid upon the desk. the sergeant saw only the pocket-book. "looks bad," he said with wrinkled brow. "we caught him at it," explained the officer. "guess bill has lost heart. he didn't seem to care. didn't even try to get away." the prisoner was taken to a cell. silence fell once more upon the office. the sergeant made a few red lines in the blotter and resumed his reveries. he was not in a mood for work. he hitched his chair nearer the window and looked across the yard. but the lights there were put out, the children's laughter had died away. out of sorts at he hardly knew what, he leaned back in his chair, with his hands under the back of his head. here it was christmas eve, and he at the desk instead of being out with the old woman buying things for the children. he thought with a sudden pang of conscience of the sled he had promised to get for johnnie and had forgotten. that was hard luck. and what would katie say when---he had got that far when his eye, roaming idly over the desk, rested upon the little package taken from the thief's pocket. something about it seemed to move him with sudden interest. he sat up and reached for it. he felt it carefully all over. then he undid the package slowly and drew forth a woolly sheep. it had a blue ribbon about its neck, with a tiny bell hung on it. the sergeant set the sheep upon the desk and looked at it fixedly for better than a minute. having apparently studied out its mechanism, he pulled its head and it baa-ed. he pulled it once more, and nodded. then he took up the crumpled letter and opened it. this was what he read, scrawled in a child's uncertain hand:-"deer sante claas--pease wont yer bring me a sjeep wat bas. aggie had won wonst. an kate wants a dollie offul. in the reere 718 19th street by the gas house. your friend will." the sergeant read it over twice very carefully and glanced over the page at the sheep, as if taking stock and wondering why kate's dollie was not there. then he took the sheep and the letter and went over to the captain's door. a gruff "come in!" answered his knock. the captain was pulling off his overcoat. he had just come in from his dinner. "captain," said the sergeant, "we found this in the pocket of black bill who is locked up for picking mrs. ----'s pocket an hour ago. it is a clear case. he didn't even try to give them the slip," and he set the sheep upon the table and laid the letter beside it. "black bill?" said the captain, with something of a start; "the dickens you say!" and he took up the letter and read it. he was not a very good penman, was little will. the captain had even a harder time of it than the sergeant had had making out his message. three times he went over it, spelling out the words, and each time comparing it with the woolly exhibit that was part of the evidence, before he seemed to understand. then it was in a voice that would have frightened little will very much could he have heard it, and with a black look under his bushy eyebrows, that he bade the sergeant "fetch bill up here!" one might almost have expected the little white lamb to have taken to its heels with fright at having raised such a storm, could it have run at all. but it showed no signs of fear. on the contrary it baa-ed quite lustily when the sergeant should have been safely out of earshot. the hand of the captain had accidentally rested upon the woolly head in putting down the letter. but the sergeant was not out of earshot. he heard it and grinned. an iron door in the basement clanged and there were steps in the passageway. the doorman brought in bill. he stood by the door, sullenly submissive. the captain raised his head. it was in the shade. "so you are back, are you?" he said. the thief nodded. the captain bent his brows upon him and said with sudden fierceness, "you couldn't keep honest a month, could you?" "they wouldn't let me. who wants a thief in his pay? and the children were starving." it was said patiently enough, but it made the captain wince all the same. they were his own words. but he did not give in so easily. "starving?" he repeated harshly. "and that's why you got this, i suppose," and he pushed the sheep from under the newspaper that had fallen upon it by accident and covered it up. the thief looked at it and flushed to the temples. he tried to speak but could not. his face worked, and he seemed to be strangling. in the middle of his fight to master himself he saw the child's crumpled message on the desk. taking a quick step across the room he snatched it up, wildly, fiercely. "captain," he gasped, and broke down utterly. the hardened thief wept like a woman. the captain rang his bell. he stood with his back to the prisoner when the doorman came in. "take him down," he commanded. and the iron door clanged once more behind the prisoner. ten minutes later the reporters were discussing across the way the nature of "the case" which the night promised to develop. they had piped off the captain and one of his trusted men leaving the building together, bound east. could they have followed them all the way, they would have seen them get off the car at nineteenth street, and go toward the gas house, carefully scanning the numbers of the houses as they went. they found one at last before which they halted. the captain searched in his pocket and drew forth the baby's letter to santa claus, and they examined the number under the gas lamp. yes, that was right. the door was open, and they went right through to the rear. up in the third story three little noses were flattened against the window pane, and three childish mouths were breathing peep-holes through which to keep a lookout for the expected santa claus. it was cold, for there was no fire in the room, but in their fever of excitement the children didn't mind that. they were bestowing all their attention upon keeping the peep-holes open. "do you think he will come?" asked the oldest boy--there were two boys and a girl--of kate. "yes, he will. i know he will come. papa said so," said the child in a tone of conviction. "i'se so hungry, and i want my sheep," said baby will. "wait and i'll tell you of the wolf," said his sister, and she took him on her lap. she had barely started when there were steps on the stairs and a tap on the door. before the half-frightened children could answer it was pushed open. two men stood on the threshold. one wore a big fur overcoat. the baby looked at him in wide-eyed wonder. "is you santa claus?" he asked. "yes, my little man, and are you baby will?" said a voice that was singularly different from the harsh one baby will's father had heard so recently in the captain's office, and yet very like it. "see. this is for you, i guess," and out of the big roomy pocket came the woolly sheep and baa-ed right off as if it were his own pasture in which he was at home. and well might any sheep be content nestling at a baby heart so brimful of happiness as little will's was then, child of a thief though he was. "papa spoke for it, and he spoke for kate, too, and i guess for everybody," said the bogus santa claus, "and it is all right. my sled will be here in a minute. now we will just get to work and make ready for him. all help!" the sergeant behind the desk in the detective office might have had a fit had he been able to witness the goings-on in that rear tenement in the next hour; and then again he might not. there is no telling about those sergeants. the way that poor flat laid itself out of a sudden was fairly staggering. it was not only that a fire was made and that the pantry filled up in the most extraordinary manner; but a real christmas tree sprang up, out of the floor, as it were, and was found to be all besprinkled with gold and stars and cornucopias with sugarplums. from the top of it, which was not higher than santa claus could easily reach, because the ceiling was low, a marvellous doll, with real hair and with eyes that could open and shut, looked down with arms wide open to take kate to its soft wax heart. under the branches of the tree browsed every animal that went into and came out of noah's ark, and there were glorious games of messenger boy and three bad bears, and honey-cakes and candy apples, and a little yellow-bird in a cage, and what not? it was glorious. and when the tea-kettle began to sing, skilfully manipulated by santa claus's assistant, who nominally was known in mulberry street as detective sergeant murphy, it was just too lovely for anything. the baby's eyes grew wider and wider, and kate's were shining with happiness, when in the midst of it all she suddenly stopped and said:-"but where is papa? why don't he come?" santa claus gave a little start at the sudden question, but pulled himself together right away. "why, yes," he said, "he must have got lost. now you are all right we will just go and see if we can find him. mrs. mccarthy here next door will help you keep the kettle boiling and the lights burning till we come back. just let me hear that sheep baa once more. that's right! i bet we'll find papa." and out they went. an hour later, while mr. ----, the magistrate, and his good wife were viewing with mock dismay the array of little stockings at their hearth in their fine up-town house, and talking of the adventure of mrs. ---with the pickpocket, there came a ring at the door-bell and the captain of the detectives was ushered in. what he told them i do not know, but this i do know, that when he went away the honorable magistrate went with him, and his wife waved good-by to them from the stoop with wet eyes as they drove away in a carriage hastily ordered up from a livery stable. while they drove down town, the magistrate's wife went up to the nursery and hugged her sleeping little ones, one after the other, and tear-drops fell upon their warm cheeks that had wiped out the guilt of more than one sinner before, and the children smiled in their sleep. they say among the simple-minded folk of far-away denmark that then they see angels in their dreams. the carriage stopped in mulberry street, in front of police headquarters, and there was great scurrying among the reporters, for now they were sure of their "case." but no "prominent citizen" came out, made free by the magistrate, who opened court in the captain's office. only a rough-looking man with a flushed face, whom no one knew, and who stopped on the corner and looked back as one in a dream and then went east, the way the captain and his man had gone on their expedition personating no less exalted a personage than santa claus himself. that night there was christmas, indeed, in the rear tenement "near the gas house," for papa had come home just in time to share in its cheer. and there was no one who did it with a better will, for the christmas evening that began so badly was the luckiest night in his life. he had the promise of a job on the morrow in his pocket, along with something to keep the wolf from the door in the holidays. his hard days were over, and he was at last to have his chance to live an honest life. and it was the baby's letter to santa claus and the baa sheep that did it all, with the able assistance of the captain and the sergeant. don't let us forget the sergeant. the burgomaster's christmas the burgomaster was in a bad humor. the smoke from his long pipe, which ordinarily rose in leisurely meditative rings signaling official calm and fair weather, came to-day in short, angry puffs as he tossed his mail impatiently about on the desk. a reprimand from headquarters, where they knew about as much of a burgomaster's actual work as he of the prime minister's! less. those bureaucrats never came in touch with real things. he smiled a little grimly as he thought that that was what his own people had said of him when twenty years before he had come from the capital to the little provincial town with his mind firmly made up to many things which--well, a man grows older and wiser. life has its lessons for men, though it pass by the red tape in department bureaus. that never changes. his people and he, now--the stern wrinkle in the furrowed forehead relaxed, and he leaned back in his chair, blowing a long, contented ring, which brought a sigh of relief from the old clerk in the outer office. the skies were clearing. in truth, despite his habitual sternness of manner, there was no more beloved man in the town of hammel than the burgomaster. his kindness of heart was proverbial. the law had in him a faithful executor; the staff of office was no willow wand in his hand to bend to every wind that blew. to the evil-doer he was a hard master, but many were the stories that were whispered of how, having sent a thief to jail, he had taken care of his wife and children, who were not to blame. in fact, word had come from more than one distant town of how this or that ne'er-do-well, after squaring himself with the law in burgomaster brent's jurisdiction, had made a new start, helped somehow where he might have expected frowns and suspicion. but of this, hammel tongues were careful not to wag within that official's hearing. those things were his secret, if, indeed,--the matrons wagged their heads knowingly,--they were not his wife's, the burgomasterinde's; and so they were to stay. whether something of all this had come to smooth the burgomaster's brow or not, it was not for long. there was a tap on the door, and, in answer to his brisk "come in," there entered jens, the forester, with a swarthy, sullen-looking prisoner. jens saluted and stood, cap in hand. "black hans," he said briefly. "we took him last night in the meadow brake with a young roe." the burgomaster's face grew cold and stern. black hans was an old offender. as a magistrate the burgomaster had given him a chance twice, but he was a confirmed poacher, who would rather lie out in the woods through a cold winter's night on the chance of getting a deer, and of getting into jail, too, than work a day at good wages, clever blacksmith though he was. now he had been caught red-handed, and would be made to suffer for it. the burgomaster bent lowering brows upon the prisoner. "you couldn't keep from stealing the count's deer, not even at christmas," he said harshly. the poacher looked up. rough as he was, he was not a bad-looking fellow. the free, if lawless, life he led was in his face and bearing. "the deer is wild. they're for the man as can take 'em, if the count do claim 'em," he said doggedly, and halted, as with a sudden thought. something had entered with him and the forester, and was even then filling the room with a suggestion of good cheer to come. it was the smell of the yule goose roasting in the burgomaster's kitchen. black hans looked straight into the eye of his inquisitor. "i didn't have none--for me young ones," he added. it was not said defiantly, but as a mere statement of fact. an angry reply rose to the official's lip, but he checked himself. "take him to the lock-up," he ordered shortly, and the forester went out with his charge. the burgomaster heard the outer door close behind them, and turned wearily to his mail. the count had been greatly wrought up over the depredations of black hans and his kind, and would insist on an example being made of him. bad blood always came of these cases, for the game law was not well thought of in the land in these democratic days. there lingered yet resentfully the recollection of the days not so long since when to take "the king's deer" brought a man to the block, or to the treadmill for life. and the family of this fellow black hans, what was to become of them? the burgomaster's gaze wandered abstractedly over the envelop he was opening and rested on an unfamiliar stamp. he held it up and took a closer look. oh, yes; the new christmas stamp. he knew it well enough, with its design of the great sanatorium for tubercular children that had been built out of the proceeds of other years' sales. it was a pretty picture, and a worthy cause. in all denmark there was none that so laid hold of the popular fancy. it was the word "yule," with its magic, that did it. there was no other inscription on the stamp, and none was needed. as his glance dwelt upon it, a curious change came over the picture. it was no longer the great white house that he saw, with its many bright lights, but a wretched hut, with a crooked chimney, and rags stopping a broken pane in its only window. the dull glow of a tallow dip struggled through the grime that lay thick upon the unbroken panes. against one the face of a child was pressed, a poor, pinched face that spoke of cold and hunger and weary waiting for some one who was always late. something that was very much like real pain made the burgomaster wince as the words of black hans came back to him, "i didn't have none--for me young ones." he shook his head impatiently. why, then, did he not work for them, instead of laying it up against his betters? the sober little face at the window kept looking out into the night, straight past the burgomaster, as if he were not there. how many of them in that hut? seven, eight, nine, the burgomaster counted mentally; or was it ten ragged, underfed little ones, with the careworn mother who slaved from sunrise till night for them and her rascal husband? that child annie who limped so pitifully, the district physician had told him that very morning, had tuberculosis of the hip-joint, and it was killing her slowly. poor child! surely this was she at the window. her face looked pinched and small; yet she must be nearly eleven. eleven! the letter dropped unopened from the burgomaster's hand. that would have been the age of their own little girl had she lived. his pipe went out and grew cold; his thoughts were far away. they were travelling slowly back over a road he had shunned these many years, until he had almost lost the trail. his little gertrude, their only child, a happy, winsome elf had filled the house with sunshine and laughter until in one brief month her life had gone out like the flame of a candle and left them alone! since then they had been a lonesome couple. tenderly attached to each other, but both silent, reserved people, husband and wife had locked their grief in their own hearts and tried to live it down. had they? he could even then see his wife at her work in the room across the yard. as she bent over her knitting, he noticed a little stoop which he had not seen before; and surely her hair was turning gray at the temples. his had long been so. they were growing old in their childless home. with a sudden pang there came to him a realization of the selfishness of his grief, which had shut her out of it. christmas eve! what a happy time they used to have together in the old days around the tree! even now he could hear the glad voices of children from the grocer's across the street, where they were making ready for theirs. in their house there had not been one since--since their gertrude left them. there was jens, the forester, carrying in a christmas tree over there even now--jens who had caught black hans. what sort of christmas would they keep in his hut, with the father locked up, sure of a heavy fine, which meant a long time in jail, since he had no money to settle with? the childish face with the grave eyes was at the window again, keeping its dismal watch. eleven years! his mind went back, swiftly this time, over the freshly broken road to the days when the tree was lighted in their home on christmas eve. of all the nights in the year, it had been the loneliest since, with just the two of them alone at the table, growing old. a flood of tenderness swept over the burgomaster, and with it came a sudden resolve. it was not yet too late. he rose and slammed the desk down hard, leaving the rest of his mail unopened. three o'clock! almost time to light the candles, and this night he would light them himself. yes, he would. he tapped on the window and beckoned to jens, who was coming out of the grocery store. in the vestibule they held a brief whispered consultation that concluded with the warning, "and don't you tell my wife." the old clerk heard it and gave a start. what secret did the burgomaster have from the burgomasterinde which jens, the forester, might share? but he remembered the day, in time, and bestowed upon himself a knowing wink. he, too, had his secrets. jens was less quick-witted. he offered some objection apparently, but it was promptly overruled by the burgomaster, who pushed him out with a friendly but decisive nod and bade him be gone. "very little ones--two, mind. and don't let her see." whereupon the burgomaster put on his overcoat and went out, too. before the church bells rang in the holy eve, all the gossips in town were busy with the report that the burgomaster had been buying enough christmas toys and candles to stock an orphan asylum. what had come over the man? five dolls, counted the toy-shop woman, with eyes that grew wide in the telling--five! and they alone, the two of them, in the big house with never a christmas tree there that any one could remember! it must be that they were expecting company. nothing was further from the mind of the burgomasterinde as she went along with her preparations for the holiday. it had been a lonesome day with her, for all she had tried to fill it with housewifely tasks. christmas eve always was. now, as she sat with her knitting, her thoughts dwelt upon the days long gone when it had meant something to them; when a child's laughter had thrilled her mother heart. to her it was no unfamiliar road she was travelling. the memory of her child, which her husband had tried to shut out of his life lest it unman him for his work, she had cherished in her heart, and all life's burdens had been lightened and sweetened by it. her one grief was that this of all things she could not share with him. no one ever heard her speak gertrude's name, but there was sometimes a wistful look in her face which caused the burgomaster vague alarm, and once or twice had led to grave conferences with the family practitioner about mrs. brent's health. the old doctor, who was also the family friend, shook his head. the burgomasterinde was a well woman; his pills were not needed. once he had hinted that her loss--but the burgomaster had interrupted him hastily. she would get over that, if indeed she had not quite forgotten; to stir it up would do no good. and the doctor, who was wise in other ways than those of his books, dropped the subject. the burgomasterinde had seen black hans brought in in charge of jens, and understood what the trouble was. as he was led away to the jail, her woman's heart yearned for his children. she knew them well. the town gossips were right: the path to the poacher's hut her familiar feet had found oftener than her stern husband guessed. the want and neglect in that wretched home stirred her to pity; but more than that it was the little crippled girl who drew her with the memory of her own. she had overheard the doctor telling her husband that there was no help for her where she was, and all day her mind had been busy with half-formed plans to get her away to the great seashore hospital where such cripples were made whole, if there was any help for them. now, as she passed them in review, with the picture of black hans behind the bars for their background, a purpose grew up in her mind and took shape. they should not starve and be cold on christmas eve, if their father _was_ in jail. she would make christmas for them herself. and hard upon the heels of this resolve trod a thought that made her drop her knitting and gaze long and musingly across the yard to the window at which her husband sat buried in his mail. the burgomaster's face was turned from her. she could not see that he held in his hand the very letter with the christmas stamp that had stirred unwonted thoughts within him; but she knew the furrow that had grown in the years of lonely longing. she had watched it deepen, and he had not deceived her, but she had vainly sought a way out. all at once she knew the way. they would keep christmas again as of old, the two--nay, the three of them together. with a quick smile that had yet in it a shadow of fright, she went about carrying out her purpose. so it befell that when jens, the forester, was making off for the woods where the christmas trees grew, shaking his head at the burgomaster's queer commission, the voice of the burgomasterinde called him back to the kitchen door, and he received the second and the greater shock of the day. "get two wee ones," she wound up her directions, "and bring them here to the back door. don't tell my husband, and be sure he does not see." jens stared. "but the burgomaster--" he began. she stopped him. "no matter about the burgomaster," she said briskly. "only don't let him know. bring them here as soon as it is dark." and jens departed, shaking his head in hopeless bewilderment. the early winter twilight had fallen when he returned with two green bundles, one of which by dint of much strategy he smuggled into the front office without the burgomasterinde seeing him, while he delivered the other at the back door without the burgomaster being the wiser, this being made easier by the fact that the latter had not yet returned from his visit to the shops. when, a little while later he came home, tiptoeing in like a guilty santa claus on his early evening rounds, he shut himself in alone. profound quiet reigned in the official residence for a full hour after dark. in both wings of the house the shutters were closed tight. in one the burgomasterinde was presumably busy with her household duties; in the other the burgomaster was occupied with a task that would have made the old clerk doubt the evidence of his eyes had he himself not been at that moment engaged in the same identical business at his own home. two small christmas trees stood upon the table, from which law books and legal papers had been cleared with an unceremonious haste that had left them in an undignified heap on the floor. the burgomaster between them was fixing colored wax candles, cornucopias, and paper dolls in their branches. he eyed a bag of oranges ruefully. they were too heavy for the little trees, but then they would do to bank about the roots. to be sure, they had left these behind in the woods, but the fact was not apparent: each little tree was planted in a huge flower-pot, as jens had received his orders, just as if it had grown there. one brief moment the burgomaster paused in his absurd task. it was when he had put the last candle in place that something occurred to him which made him stand awhile in deep thought, gazing fixedly at the trees. then he went to his desk, and from a back drawer, seldom used, took out something that shone like silver in the light. perhaps it was that which made him screen his eyes with his hand when he saw it. it was a little silver star, such as many a christmas tree bore at its top that night to tell the children of the star of bethlehem. the burgomaster sat and looked at it while the furrow grew deeper in his forehead; then he put it back gently into its envelop and closed the desk. it was nearly time for dinner when he straightened up and heaved a sigh of contentment. the candles on one of the little trees were lighted, and all was ready. "if only," he said uncertainly--"if only she is not in now." could some good fairy have given him second sight to pierce the walls between his office and his wife's room, what he saw there would certainly have made him believe he had taken leave of his senses. jens had just gone out with one christmas tree, all hung with children's toys. on the table stood the other in its pot, a vision of beauty. the mistress of the house sat before it with a little box in her lap from which she took one cherished trinket after another, last of all a silvery angel with folded wings. a tear fell upon it as she set it in the tree, but she wiped this away and stood back, surveying her work with happy eyes. it _was_ beautiful. "i wonder where jonas is. i haven't heard his step for an hour." she listened at the door. all was quiet. "i will just carry it over and surprise him when he comes in." and she went out into the hall with her shining burden. at that precise moment the door of the office was opened, and the burgomaster came out, carrying his christmas tree. they met upon the landing. for a full minute they stood looking at each other in stunned silence. it was the burgomaster who broke it. "you were so lonely," he said huskily, "and i thought of our gertrude." she put down her tree, and went to him. "look, jonas," she said, with her head on his shoulder, and pointed where it stood. he saw through blurring tears the child's precious belongings from her last christmas,--their last christmas,--and he bent down and kissed her. "i know," he said simply; "it was black hans' little annie. see!" he drew her into his office, "i made one for her. jens shall take it over." she hid her face on his breast. "he just went with one from me," she sobbed, struggling between laughter and tears; and as he started, she hugged him close. "but we need this one. i tell you, jonas, what we will do: we will send it to black hans in the jail." and even so it came to pass. to jens's final and utter stupefaction, he was bidden to carry the fourth and last of the trees to the lock-up, where it cheered black hans that christmas eve. it was noticed both by the turnkey and by the poacher that it bore a bright silver star at the top, but neither could know that it was to be a star of hope indeed for little annie and her dark home. for so it had been settled between the burgomaster and his wife, as they pinned it on together and wished each other a right merry christmas, with many, many more to come, that happy night. christmas eve and christmas day. [illustration: daily bread.--page 120.] christmas eve and christmas day. ten christmas stories. by edward e. hale, author of "ten times one is ten," etc. _with illustration by f. o. c. darley_. boston: roberts brothers. 1873. entered according to act of congress, in the year 1872, by edward e. hale, in the office of the librarian of congress, at washington. cambridge: press of john wilson and son. preface. this is a collection of ten christmas stories, some of which have been published before. i have added a little essay, written on the occasion of the first christmas celebrated by the king of italy in rome. the first story has never before been published. it is but fair to say that i have not drawn on imagination for laura's night duty, alone upon her island. this is simply the account of what a brave new-england woman did, under like circumstances, because it was the duty next her hand. if any reader observes a resemblance between her position and that of a boy in another story in this volume, i must disarm censure, by saying, that she had never heard of him when she was called to this duty, and that i had never heard of her when i wrote his story. e. e. h. contents. they saw a great light 1 christmas waits in boston 40 alice's christmas-tree 74 daily bread 98 stand and wait 140 the two princes 188 the story of oello 205 love is the whole 218 christmas and rome 232 the survivor's story 238 the same christmas in old england and new 263 they saw a great light. chapter i. another generation. "here he comes! here he comes!" "he" was the "post-rider," an institution now almost of the past. he rode by the house and threw off a copy of the "boston gazette." now the "boston gazette," of this particular issue, gave the results of the drawing of the great massachusetts state lottery of the eastern lands in the waldo patent. mr. cutts, the elder, took the "gazette," and opened it with a smile that pretended to be careless; but even he showed the eager anxiety which they all felt, as he tore off the wrapper and unfolded the fatal sheet. "letter from london," "letter from philadelphia," "child with two heads,"--thus he ran down the columns of the little page,--uneasily. "here it is! here it is!--drawing of the great state lottery. 'in the presence of the honourable treasurer of the commonwealth, and of their honours the commissioners of the honourable council,--was drawn yesterday, at the state house, the first distribution of numbers'----here are the numbers,--'first combination, 375-1. second, 421-7. third, 591-6. fourth, 594-1. fifth,'"--and here mr. cutts started off his feet,--"'fifth, 219-7.' sybil, my darling! it is so! 219-7! see, dear child! 219-7! 219-7! o my god! to think it should come so!" and he fairly sat down, and buried his head in his hands, and cried. the others, for a full minute, did not dare break in on excitement so intense, and were silent; but, in a minute more, of course, little simeon, the youngest of the tribes who were represented there, gained courage to pick up the paper, and to spell out again the same words which his father had read with so much emotion; and, with his sister sally, who came to help him, to add to the store of information, as to what prize number 5--219-7--might bring. for this was a lottery in which there were no blanks. the old commonwealth of massachusetts, having terrible war debts to pay after the revolution, had nothing but lands in maine to pay them with. now lands in maine were not very salable, and, if the simple and ordinary process of sale had been followed, the lands might not have been sold till this day. so they were distributed by these lotteries, which in that time seemed gigantic. every ticket-holder had some piece of land awarded to him, i think,--but to the most, i fear, the lands were hardly worth the hunting up, to settle upon. but, to induce as many to buy as might, there were prizes. no. 1, i think, even had a "stately mansion" on the land,--according to the advertisement. no. 2 had some special water-power facilities. no. 5, which mr. cutts's ticket had drawn, was two thousand acres on tripp's cove,--described in the programme as that "well-known harbor of refuge, where fifty line of battle ship could lie in safety." to this cove the two thousand acres so adjoined that the programme represented them as the site of the great "mercantile metropolis of the future." samuel cutts was too old a man, and had already tested too critically his own powers in what the world calls "business," by a sad satire, to give a great deal of faith to the promises of the prospectus, as to the commercial prosperity of tripp's cove. he had come out of the revolution a brigadier-general, with an honorable record of service,--with rheumatism which would never be cured,--with a good deal of paper money which would never be redeemed, which the continent and the commonwealth had paid him for his seven years,--and without that place in the world of peace which he had had when these years began. the very severest trial of the revolution was to be found in the condition in which the officers of the army were left after it was over. they were men who had distinguished themselves in their profession, and who had done their very best to make that profession unnecessary in the future. to go back to their old callings was hard. other men were in their places, and there did not seem to be room for two. under the wretched political system of the old confederation there was no such rapid spring of the material prosperity of the country as should find for them new fields in new enterprise. peace did any thing but lead in plenty. often indeed, in history, has plenty been a little coy before she could be tempted, with her pretty tender feet, to press the stubble and the ashes left by the havoc of war. and thus it was that general cutts had returned to his old love whom he had married in a leave of absence just before bunker hill, and had begun his new life with her in old newbury in massachusetts, at a time when there was little opening for him,--or for any man who had spent seven years in learning how to do well what was never to be done again. and in doing what there was to do he had not succeeded. he had just squeezed pork and potatoes and indian meal enough out of a worn-out farm to keep sybil, his wife, and their growing family of children alive. he had, once or twice, gone up to boston to find what chances might be open for him there. but, alas, boston was in a bad way too, as well as samuel cutts. once he had joined some old companions, who had gone out to the western reserve in northern ohio, to see what opening might be there. but the outlook seemed unfavorable for carrying so far, overland, a delicate woman and six little children into a wilderness. if he could have scraped together a little money, he said, he would buy a share in one of the ships he saw rotting in boston or salem, and try some foreign adventure. but, alas! the ships would not have been rotting had it been easy for any man to scrape together a little money to buy them. and so, year in and year out, samuel cutts and his wife dressed the children more and more plainly, bought less sugar and more molasses, brought down the family diet more strictly to pork and beans, pea-soup, hasty-pudding, and rye-and-indian,--and samuel cutts looked more and more sadly on the prospect before these boys and girls, and the life for which he was training them. do not think that he was a profligate, my dear cousin eunice, because he had bought a lottery ticket. please to observe that to buy lottery tickets was represented to be as much the duty of all good citizens, as it was proved to be, eleven years ago, your duty to make havelocks and to knit stockings. samuel cutts, in the outset, had bought his lottery ticket only "to encourage the others," and to do his honorable share in paying the war debt. then, i must confess, he had thought more of the ticket than he had supposed he would. the children had made a romance about it,--what they would do, and what they would not do, if they drew the first prize. samuel cutts and sybil cutts themselves had got drawn into the interest of the children, and many was the night when they had sat up, without any light but that of a pine-torch, planning out the details of the little colony they would form at the east-ward,--if--if only one of the ten great prizes should, by any marvel, fall to him. and now tripp's cove--which, perhaps, he had thought of as much as he had thought of any of the ten--had fallen to him. this was the reason why he showed so much emotion, and why he could hardly speak, when he read the numbers. it was because that had come to him which represented so completely what he wanted, and yet which he had not even dared to pray for. it was so much more than he expected,--it was the dream of years, indeed, made true. for samuel cutts had proved to himself that he was a good leader of men. he knew he was, and many men knew it who had followed him under carolina suns, and in the snows of valley forge. samuel cutts knew, equally well, that he was not a good maker of money, nor creator of pork and potatoes. six years of farming in the valley of the merrimac had proved that to him, if he had never learned it before. samuel cutts's dream had been, when he went away to explore the western reserve, that he would like to bring together some of the best line officers and some of the best privates of the old "fighting twenty-seventh," and take them, with his old provident skill, which had served them so well upon so many camping-grounds, to some region where they could stand by each other again, as they had stood by each other before, and where sky and earth would yield them more than sky and earth have yet yielded any man in eastern massachusetts. well! as i said, the western reserve did not seem to be the place. after all, "the fighting twenty-seventh" were not skilled in the tilling of the land. they furnished their quota when the boats were to be drawn through the ice of the delaware, to assist in rahl's christmas party at trenton. many was the embarkation at the "head of elk," in which the "fighting twenty-seventh" had provided half the seamen for the transport. it was "the fighting twenty-seventh" who cut out the "princess charlotte" cutter in edisto bay. but the "fighting twenty-seventh" had never, so far as any one knew, beaten one sword into one plough-share, nor one spear into one pruning-hook. but tripp's cove seemed to offer a different prospect. why not, with a dozen or two of the old set, establish there, not the new jerusalem, indeed, but something a little more elastic, a little more helpful, a little more alive, than these kiln-dried, sun-dried, and time-dried old towns of the seaboard of massachusetts? at any rate, they could live together in tripp's cove, as they wintered together at valley forge, at bennett's hollow, by the green licks, and in the lykens intervale. this was the question which samuel cutts wanted to solve, and which the fatal figures 219-7 put him in the way of solving. "tripp's cove is our christmas present," said sybil cutts to her husband, as they went to bed. but so far removed were the habits of new england then from the observance of ecclesiastical anniversaries, that no one else had remembered that day that it was christmas which was passing. chapter ii. tripp's cove. call this a long preface, if you please, but it seems to me best to tell this story so that i may explain what manner of people those were and are who lived, live, and will live, at tripp's cove,--and why they have been, are, and will be linked together, with a sort of family tie and relationship which one does not often see in the villages self-formed or formed at hap-hazard on the seaside, on the hillside, or in the prairies of america. tripp's cove never became "the great mercantile city of the future," nor do i believe it ever will. but there samuel cutts lived in a happy life for fifty years,--and there he died, honored, blessed, and loved. by and by there came the second war with england,--the "endymion" came cruising along upon the coast, and picking up the fishing-boats and the coasters, burning the ships on the stocks, or compelling the owners to ransom them. old general cutts was seventy years old then; but he was, as he had always been, the head of the settlement at tripp's,--and there was no lack of men younger than he, the sergeants or the high-privates of the "fighting twenty-seventh," who drilled the boys of the village for whatever service might impend. when the boys went down to runkin's and sent the "endymion's" boats back to her with half their crews dead or dying, faster than they came, old general cutts was with them, and took sight on his rifle as quickly and as bravely as the best of them. and so twenty years more passed on,--and, when he was well nigh ninety, the dear old man died full of years and full of blessings, all because he had launched out for himself, left the life he was not fit for, and undertaken life in which he was at home. yes! and because of this also, when 1861 came with its terrible alarm to the whole country, and its call to duty, all tripp's cove was all right. the girls were eager for service, and the boys were eager for service. the girls stood by the boys, and the boys stood by the girls. the husbands stood by the wives, and the wives stood by the husbands. i do not mean that there was not many another community in which everybody was steadfast and true. but i do mean that here was one great family, although the census rated it as five-and-twenty families,--which had one heart and one soul in the contest, and which went into it with one heart and one soul,--every man and every woman of them all bearing each other's burdens. little sim cutts, who broke the silence that night when the post-man threw down the "boston gazette," was an old man of eighty-five when they all got the news of the shots at fort sumter. the old man was as hale and hearty as are half the men of sixty in this land to-day. with all his heart he encouraged the boys who volunteered in answer to the first call for regiments from maine. then with full reliance on the traditions of the "fighting twenty-seventh," he explained to the fishermen and the coasters that uncle abraham would need them for his web-footed service, as well as for his legions on the land. and they found out their ways to portsmouth and to charlestown, so that they might enter the navy as their brothers entered the army. and so it was, that, when christmas came in 1861, there was at tripp's cove only one of that noble set of young fellows, who but a year before was hauling hemlock and spruce and fir and pine at christmas at the girls' order, and worked in the meeting-house for two days as the girls bade them work, so that when parson spaulding came in to preach his christmas sermon, he thought the house was a bit of the woods themselves. only one! and who was he? how did he dare stay among all those girls who were crying out their eyes, and sewing their fingers to the bones,--meeting every afternoon in one sitting-room or another, and devouring every word that came from the army? they read the worst-spelled letter that came home from mike sawin, and prized it and blessed it and cried over it, as heartily as the noblest description of battle that came from the pen of carleton or of swinton. who was he? ah! i have caught you, have i? that was tom cutts,--the old general's great-grandson,--sim cutts's grandson,--the very noblest and bravest of them all. he got off first of all. he had the luck to be at bull run,--and to be cut off from his regiment. he had the luck to hide under a corn crib, and to come into washington whole, a week after the regiment. he was the first man in maine, they said, to enlist for the three-years' service. perhaps the same thing is said of many others. he had come home and raised a new company,--and he was making them fast into good soldiers, out beyond fairfax court-house. so that the brigadier would do any thing tom cutts wanted. and when, on the first of december, there came up to the major-general in command a request for leave of absence from tom cutts, respectfully referred to colonel this, who had respectfully referred it to general that, who had respectfully referred it to adjutant-general t'other,--all these dignitaries had respectfully recommended that the request be granted. for even in the sacred purlieux of the top major-general's head-quarters, it was understood that cutts was going home for no less a purpose than the being married to the prettiest and sweetest and best girl in eastern maine. well! for my part i do not think that the aids and their informants were in the wrong about this. surely that christmas eve, as laura marvel stood up with tom cutts in front of parson spaulding, in presence of what there was left of the tripp's cove community, i would have said that laura was the loveliest bride i ever saw. she is tall; she is graceful; she has rather a startled look when you speak to her, suddenly or gently, but the startled look just bewitches you. black hair,--she got that from the italian blood in her grandmother's family,--exquisite blue eyes,--that is a charming combination with black hair,--perfect teeth,--and matchless color,--and she had it all, when she was married,--she was a blushing bride and not a fainting one. but then what stuff this is,--nobody knew he cared a straw for laura's hair or her cheek,--it was that she looked "just lovely," and that she was "just lovely,"--so self-forgetful in all her ways, after that first start,--so eager to know just where she could help, and so determined to help just there. why! she led all the girls in the village, when she was only fourteen, because they loved her so. she was the one who made the rafts when there was a freshet,--and took them all out together on the mill-pond. and, when the war came, she was of course captain of the girl's sewing,--she packed the cans of pickles and fruit for the sanitary,--she corresponded with the state adjutant:--heavens! from morning to night, everybody in the village ran to laura,--not because she was the prettiest creature you ever looked upon,--but because she was the kindest, truest, most loyal, and most helpful creature that ever lived,--be the same man or woman. now had you rather be named laura cutts or laura marvel? marvel is a good name,--a weird, miraculous sort of name. cutts is not much of a name. but laura had made up her mind to be laura cutts after tom had asked her about it,--and here they are standing before dear old parson spaulding, to receive his exhortation,--and to be made one before god and man. dear laura! how she had laughed with the other girls, all in a good-natured way, at the good parson's exhortation to the young couples. laura had heard it twenty times,--for she had "stood up" with twenty of the girls, who had dared the enterprise of life before her! nay, laura could repeat, with all the emphasis, the most pathetic passage of the whole,--"and above all,--my beloved young friends,--first of all and last of all,--let me beseech you as you climb the hill of life together, hand with hand, and step with step,--that you will look beyond the crests upon its summit to the eternal lights which blaze in the infinite heaven of the better land beyond." twenty times had laura heard this passage,--nay, ten times, i am afraid, had she, in an honest and friendly way, repeated it, under strict vows of secrecy, to the edification of circles of screaming girls. but now the dear child looked truly and loyally into the old man's face, as he went on from word to word, and only thought of him, and of how noble and true he was,--and of the great master whom he represented there,--and it was just as real to her and to tom cutts that they must look into the heaven of heavens for life and strength, as parson spaulding wanted it to be. when he prayed with all his heart, she prayed; what he hoped, she hoped; what he promised for her, she promised to her father in heaven; and what he asked her to promise by word aloud, she promised loyally and eternally. and tom cutts? he looked so handsome in his uniform,--and he looked like the man he was. and in those days, the uniform, if it were only a flannel fatigue-jacket on a private's back, was as beautiful as the flag; nothing more beautiful than either for eyes to look upon. and when parson spaulding had said the benediction, and the amen,--and when he had kissed laura, with her eyes full of tears,--and when he had given tom cutts joy,--then all the people came up in a double line,--and they all kissed laura,--and they shook hands with tom as if they would shake his hands off,--and in the half-reticent methods of tripp's cove, every lord and lady bright that was in moses marvel's parlor there, said, "honored be the bravest knight, beloved the fairest fair." and there was a bunch of laurel hanging in the middle of the room, as make-believe mistletoe. and the boys, who could not make believe even that they were eighteen, so that they had been left at home, would catch phebe, and sarah, and mattie, and helen, when by accident they crossed underneath the laurel,--and would kiss them, for all their screaming. and soon moses marvel brought in a waiter with wedding-cake, and nathan philbrick brought in a waiter with bride-cake, and pretty mattie marvel brought in a waiter with currant wine. and tom cutts gave every girl a piece of wedding-cake himself, and made her promise to sleep on it. and before they were all gone, he and laura had been made to write names for the girls to dream upon, that they might draw their fortunes the next morning. and before long moses cutts led mrs. spaulding out into the great family-room, and there was the real wedding supper. and after they had eaten the supper, bengel's fiddle sounded in the parlor, and they danced, and they waltzed, and they polkaed to their hearts' content. and so they celebrated the christmas of 1861. too bad! was not it? tom's leave was only twenty days. it took five to come. it took five to go. after the wedding there were but seven little days. and then he kissed dear laura good-by,--with tears running from his eyes and hers,--and she begged him to be sure she should be all right, and he begged her to be certain nothing would happen to him. and so, for near two years, they did not see each other's faces again. * * * * * christmas eve again! moses marvel has driven out his own bays in his own double cutter to meet the stage at fordyce's. on the back seat is mattie marvel, with a rosy little baby all wrapped up in furs, who has never seen his father. where is laura? "here she comes! here she comes!" sure enough! here is the stage at last. job stiles never swept round with a more knowing sweep, or better satisfied with his precious freight at fordyce's, than he did this afternoon. and the curtains were up already. and there is laura, and there is tom! he is pale, poor fellow. but how pleased he is! laura is out first, of course. and then she gives him her hand so gently, and the others all help. and here is the hero at marvel's side, and he is bending over his baby, whom he does not try to lift with his one arm,--and mattie is crying, and i believe old moses marvel is crying,--but everybody is as happy as a king, and everybody is talking at one time,--and all the combination has turned out well. tom cutts had had a hole made through his left thigh, so that they despaired of his life. and, as he lay on the ground, a bit of a shell had struck his left forearm and knocked that to pieces. tom cutts had been sent back to hospital at washington, and reported by telegraph as mortally wounded. but almost as soon as tom cutts got to the lincoln hospital himself, laura cutts got there too, and then tom did not mean to die if he could help it, and laura did not mean to have him. and the honest fellow held to his purpose in that steadfast cutts way. the blood tells, i believe. and love tells. and will tells. how much love has to do with will! "i believe you are a witch, mrs. cutts," the doctor used to say to her. "nothing but good happens to this good-man of yours." bits of bone came out just as they were wanted to. inflammation kept away just as it was told to do. and the two wounds ran a race with each other in healing after their fashion. "it will be a beautiful stump after all," said the doctor, where poor laura saw little beauty. but every thing was beautiful to her, when at last he told her that she might wrap her husband up as well as she knew how, and take him home and nurse him there. so she had telegraphed that they were coming, and that was the way in which it happened that her father and her sister had brought out the baby to meet them both at fordyce's. mattie's surprise had worked perfectly. and now it was time for laura's surprise! after she had her baby in her own arms, and was on the back seat of the sleigh; after tom was well wrapped up by her side, with his well arm just supporting the little fellow's head; after mattie was all tucked in by her father, and mr. marvel himself had looked round to say, "all ready?" then was it that jem marvel first stepped out from the stage, and said, "haven't you one word for me, mattie?" then how they screamed again! for everybody thought jem was in the west indies. he was cruising there, on board the "greywing," looking after blockaders who took the southern route. nobody dreamed of jem's being at christmas. and here he had stumbled on tom and laura in the new haven train as they came on! jem had been sent into new york with a prize. he had got leave, and was on his way to see the rest of them. he had bidden laura not say one word, and so he had watched one greeting from the stage, before he broke in to take his part for another. oh! what an uproarious christmas that was when they all came home! no! tom cutts would not let one of them be sad! he was the cheeriest of them all. he monopolized the baby, and showed immense power in the way of baby talk and of tending. laura had only to sit on the side of the room and be perfectly happy. it was very soon known what the arrivals were. and parson spaulding came in, and his wife. of course the cuttses had been there already. then everybody came. that is the simplest way of putting it. they all would have wanted to come, because in that community there was not one person who did not love laura and tom and jem. but whether they would have come, on the very first night, i am not sure. but this was christmas eve, and the girls were finishing off the meeting-house just as the stage and the sleigh came in. and, in a minute, the news was everywhere. and, of course, everybody felt he might just go in to get news from the fleet or the army. nor was there one household in tripp's cove which was not more or less closely represented in the fleet or the army. so there was really, as the evening passed, a town-meeting in moses marvel's sitting-room and parlor; and whether moses marvel were most pleased, or mrs. marvel, or laura,--who sat and beamed,--or old general simeon cutts, i am sure i do not know. that was indeed a merry christmas! but after that i must own it was hard sledding for tom cutts and for pretty laura. a hero with one blue sleeve pinned neatly together, who, at the best, limps as he walks, quickens all your compassion and gratitude;--yes! but when you are selecting a director of your lumber works, or when you are sending to new york to buy goods, or when you are driving a line of railway through the wilderness, i am afraid you do not choose that hero to do your work for you. or if you do, you were not standing by when tom cutts was looking right and looking left for something to do, so that he might keep the wolf from the door. it was sadly like the life that his great-grandfather, samuel cutts, led at the old farm in old newbury after the old war. tom lost his place when he went to the front, and he could not find it again. laura, sweet girl, never complained. no, nor moses marvel. he never complained, nor would he complain if tom and his wife and children had lived with him till doomsday. "good luck for us," said moses marvel, and those were many words for him to say in one sentence. but tom was proud, and it ground him to the dust to be eating moses marvel's bread when he had not earned it, and to have nothing but his major's pension to buy laura and the babies their clothes with, and to keep the pot a-boiling. of course jem joined the fleet again. nor did jem return again till the war was over. then he came, and came with prize-money. he and tom had many talks of going into business together, with tom's brains and jem's money. but nothing came of this. the land was no place for jem. he was a regular norse man, as are almost all of the tripp's cove boys who have come from the loins of the "fighting twenty-seventh." they sniff the tempest from afar off; and when they hear of puget sound, or of alaska, or of wilkes's antarctic continent, they fancy that they hear a voice from some long-lost home, from which they have strayed away. and so laura knew, and tom knew, that any plans which rested on jem's staying ashore were plans which had one false element in them. the raven would be calling him, and it might be best, once for all, to let him follow the raven till the raven called no more. so jem put his prize-money into a new bark, which he found building at bath; and they called the bark the "laura," and tom and laura cutts went to the launching, and jem superintended the rigging of her himself; and then he took tom and laura and the babies with him to new york, and a high time they had together there. tom saw many of the old army boys, and laura hunted up one or two old school friends; and they saw booth in iago, and screamed themselves hoarse at niblo's, and heard rudolphsen and johannsen in the german opera; they rode in the park, and they walked in the park; they browsed in the astor and went shopping at stewart's, and saw the people paint porcelain at haighwout's; and, by mr. alden's kindness, went through the wonders of harper's. in short, for three weeks, all of which time they lived on board ship, they saw the lions of new york as children of the public do, for whom that great city decks itself and prepares its wonders, albeit their existence is hardly known to its inhabitants. meanwhile jem had chartered the "laura" for a voyage to san francisco. and so, before long, her cargo began to come on board; and she and tom and the babies took a mournful farewell, and came back to tripp's cove again, to moses marvel's house. and poor tom thought it looked smaller than ever, and that he should find it harder than ever to settle down to being of no use to anybody, and to eat moses marvel's bread,--without house or barn, or bin or oven, or board or bed, even the meanest, of his own. poor tom! and this was the reward of being the first man in maine to enter for three years! and then things went worse and worse. moses marvel was as good and as taciturn as ever. but moses marvel's affairs did not run as smoothly as he liked. moses held on, upon one year's cutting of lumber, perfectly determined that lumber should rise, because it ought to; and moses paid very high usury on the money he borrowed, because he would hold on. moses was set in his way,--like other persons whom you and i know,--and to this lumber he held and held, till finally the bank would not renew his notes. no; and they would not discount a cent for him at bangor, and moses came back from a long, taciturn journey he had started on in search of money, without any money; and with only the certainty that if he did not mean to have the sheriff sell his lumber, he must sell it for himself. nay! he must sell it before the fourth of the next month, and for cash; and must sell at the very bottom of a long falling market! poor moses marvel! that operation served to show that he joined all the cutts want of luck with the marvel obstinacy. it was a wretched twelvemonth, the whole of it; and it made that household, and made tom cutts, more miserable and more. then they became anxious about the "laura," and jem. she made almost a clipper voyage to california. she discharged her cargo in perfect order. jem made a capital charter for australia and england, and knew that from england it would be easy to get a voyage home. he sailed from california, and then the letters stopped. no! laura dear, no need in reading every word of the ship-news in the "semi-weekly advertiser;" the name of your namesake is not there. eight, nine, ten months have gone by, and there is no port in christendom which has seen jem's face, or the laura's private signal. do not strain your eyes over the "semi-weekly" more. no! dear laura's eyes will be dimmed by other cares than the ship-news. tom's father, who had shared tom's wretchedness, and would gladly have had them at his home, but that moses marvel's was the larger and the less peopled of the two,--tom's father was brought home speechless one day, by the men who found him where he had fallen on the road, his yoke of oxen not far away, waiting for the voice which they were never to hear again. whether he had fallen from the cart, in some lurch it made, and broken his spine, or whether all this distress had brought on of a sudden a stroke of paralysis, so that he lost his consciousness before he fell, i do not know. nor do i see that it matters much, though the chimney-corners of tripp's cove discuss the question quite eagerly to this hour. he lay there month after month, really unconscious. he smiled gently when they brought him food. he tried to say "thank you," they thought, but he did not speak to the wife of his bosom, who had been the laura marvel of her day, in any different way from that in which he tried to speak to any stranger of them all. a living death he lay in as those tedious months went by. yet my dear laura was as cheerful, and hopeful, and buoyant as ever. tom cutts himself was ashamed to brood when he got a sight of her. mother cutts herself would lie down and rest herself when laura came round, with the two children, as she did every afternoon. moses marvel himself was less taciturn when laura put the boys, one at one side, one at the other, of his chair, at the tea-table. and in both of those broken households, from one end to the other, they knew the magic of dear laura's spells. so that when this christmas came, after poor mr. cutts had been lying senseless so long,--when dear laura bade them all take hold and fit up a christmas-tree, with all the adornments, for the little boys, and for the spaulding children, and the marvel cousins, and the hopkinses, and the tredgolds, and the newmarch children,--they all obeyed her loyally, and without wondering. they obeyed her, with her own determination that they would have one merry christmas more. it seems a strange thing to people who grew up outside of new england. but this was the first christmas tree ever seen at tripp's cove, for all such festivities are of recent importation in such regions. but there was something for every child. they heaped on more wood, and they kept a merry christmas despite the storm without. this was laura's will, and laura had her way. and she had her reward. job stiles came round to the door, when he had put up his horses, and called tom out, and gave him a letter which he had brought from ellsworth. and tom read the letter, and he called laura to read it. and laura left the children, and sat at the kitchen table with him and read it, and said, "thank god! this is a christmas present indeed. could any thing in this world be better?" this is the letter:- john wildair to tom cutts. dear tom,--i am just back from washington. i have seen them all, and have done my best, and have failed. they say and i believe that the collectorship was promised to waters before the old man's death,--that waters had honest claims,--he has but one leg, you know,--and that it must go to him. as for the surveyorship, the gift of that is with plumptre. and you know that i might as well ask the pope to give me any thing as he. and if he hates anybody more than me, why it is your wife's father. so i could do nothing there. let me say this, though it seems nothing. if, while we are waiting to look round, you like to take the bell and hammer light-house, you may have the place to-morrow. of course i know it is exile in winter. but in summer it is lovely. you have your house, your stores, two men under you (they are double lights), and a thousand dollars. i have made them promise to give it to no one till they hear from me. though i know you ought not take any such place, i would not refuse it till i let you know. i send this to ellsworth for the stage-driver to take, and you must send your answer by special messenger, that i may telegraph to washington at once. i am very sorry, dear tom, to have failed you so. but i did my best, you know. merry christmas to laura and the babies. truly yours, john wildair. portland, dec. 24, 1868. that was laura and tom's christmas present. an appointment as light-house keeper, with a thousand a year! * * * * * but even if they had made tom a turnpike keeper, they would not have made laura a misanthrope. he, poor fellow, gladly accepted the appointment. she, sweet creature, as gladly accepted her part of it. early march saw them on the bell and hammer. april saw the early flowers come,--and may saw laura with both her babies on the beach, laughing at them as they wet their feet,--digging holes in the sand for them,--and sending the bigger boy to run and put salt upon the tails of the peeps as they ran along the shore. and tom cutts, when his glass was clear to his mind, and the reflectors polished to meet even his criticism, would come down and hunt up laura and the children. and when she had put the babies to sleep, old mipples, who was another of the descendants of the "fighting twenty-seventh," would say, "just you go out with the major, mum, and if they wake up and i can't still them, i'll blow the horn." not that he ever did blow the horn. all the more certain was laura that she could tramp over the whole island with tom cutts, or she could sit and knit or sew, and tom could read to her, and these days were the happiest days of her married life, and brought back the old sunny days of the times before fort sumter again. ah me! if such days of summer and such days of autumn would last forever! but they will not last forever. november came, and the little colony went into winter quarters. december came. and we were all double-banked with sea-weed. the stoves were set up in-doors. the double doors were put on outside, and we were all ready for the "osprey." the "osprey" was the government steamer which was to bring us our supplies for the winter, chiefly of colza oil,--and perhaps some coal. but the "osprey" does not appear. december is half gone, and no "osprey." we can put the stoves on short allowance, but not our two lanterns. they will only run to the 31st of january, the nights are so long, if the "osprey" does not come before then. that is our condition, when old mipples, bringing back the mail, brings a letter from boston to say that the "osprey" has broken her main-shaft, and may not be repaired before the 15th of january,--that mr. cutts, will therefore, if he needs oil, take an early opportunity to supply himself from the light at squire's,--and that an order on the keeper at squire's is enclosed. to bring a cask of oil from squire's is no difficult task to a tripp's cove man. it would be no easy one, dear reader, to you and me. squire's is on the mainland,--our nearest neighbor at the bell and hammer,--it revolves once a minute, and we watch it every night in the horizon. tom waited day by day for a fine day,--would not have gone for his oil indeed till the new year came in, but that jotham fields, the other assistant, came down with a fever turn wholly beyond laura's management, and she begged tom to take the first fine day to carry him to a doctor. to bring a doctor to him was out of the question. "and what will you do?" said tom. "do? i will wait till you come home. start any fine day after you have wound up the lights on the last beat,--take poor jotham to his mother's house,--and if you want you may bring back your oil. i shall get along with the children very well,--and i will have your dinner hot when you come home." tom doubted. but the next day jotham was worse. mipples voted for carrying him ashore, and laura had her way. the easier did she have it, because the south wind blew softly, and it was clear to all men that the run could be made to squire's in a short two hours. tom finally agreed to start early the next morning. he would not leave his sick man at his mother's, but at squire's, and the people there could put him home. the weather was perfect, and an hour before daylight they were gone. they were all gone,--all three had to go. mipples could not handle the boat alone, nor could tom; far less could one of them manage the boat, take the oil, and see to poor jotham also. wise or not, this was the plan. an hour before daylight they were gone. half an hour after sunrise they were at squire's. but the sun had risen red, and had plumped into a cloud. before jotham was carried up the cliff the wind was northwest, and the air was white with snow. you could not see the house from the boat, nor the boat from the house. you could not see the foremast of the boat from your seat in the stern-sheets, the air was so white with snow. they carried jotham up. but they told john wilkes, the keeper at squire's, that they would come for the oil another day. they hurried down the path to the boat again, pushed her off, and headed her to the northeast determined not to lose a moment in beating back to the bell and hammer. who would have thought the wind would haul back so without a sign of warning? "will it hold up, simon?" said tom to mipples, wishing he might say something encouraging. and all simon mipples would say was,-"god grant it may!" * * * * * and laura saw the sun rise red and burning. and laura went up into the tower next the house, and put out the light there. then she left the children in their cribs, and charged the little boy not to leave till she came back, and ran down to the door to go and put out the other light,--and as she opened it the blinding snow dashed in her face. she had not dreamed of snow before. but her water-proof was on, she pulled on her boots, ran quickly along the path to the other light, two hundred yards perhaps, climbed the stairway and extinguished that, and was at home again before the babies missed her. for an hour or two laura occupied herself with her household cares, and pretended to herself that she thought this was only a snow flurry that would soon clear away. but by the time it was ten o'clock she knew it was a stiff north-wester, and that her husband and mipples were caught on shore. yes, and she was caught with her babies alone on the island. wind almost dead ahead to a boat from squire's too, if that made any difference. that crossed laura's mind. still she would not brood. nay, she did not brood, which was much better than saying she would not brood. it crossed her mind that it was the day before christmas, and that the girls at tripp's were dressing the meeting-house for dear old parson spaulding. and then there crossed her mind the dear old man's speech at all weddings, "as you climb the hill of life together, my dear young friends," and poor laura, as she kissed the baby once again, had courage to repeat it all aloud to her and her brother, to the infinite amazement of them both. they opened their great eyes to the widest as laura did so. nay, laura had the heart to take a hatchet, and work out to leeward of the house, into a little hollow behind the hill, and cut up a savin bush from the thicket, and bring that in, and work for an hour over the leaves so as to make an evergreen frame to hang about general cutts's picture. she did this that tom might see she was not frightened when he got home. _when_ he got home! poor girl! at the very bottom of her heart was the other and real anxiety,--_if_ he got home. laura knew tom, of course, better than he knew himself, and she knew old mipples too. so she knew, as well as she knew that she was rubbing black lead on the stove, while she thought these things over,--she knew that they would not stay at squire's two minutes after they had landed jotham fields. she knew they would do just what they did,--put to sea, though it blew guns, though now the surf was running its worst on the seal's back. she knew, too, that if they had not missed the island, they would have been here, at the latest, before eleven o'clock. and by the time it was one she could no longer doubt that they had lost the island, and were tacking about looking for it in the bay, if, indeed, in that gale they dared to tack at all. no! laura knew only too well, that where they were was beyond her guessing; that the good god and they two only knew. "come here, tom, and let me tell you a story! once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens. and he named one kitten muff, and he named one kitten buff!"-whang! what was that? "tom, darling, take care of baby; do not let her get out of the cradle, while mamma goes to the door." downstairs to the door. the gale has doubled its rage. how ever did it get in behind the storm-door outside? that "_whang_" was the blow with which the door, wrenched off its hinges, was flung against the side of the wood-house. nothing can be done but to bolt the storm-door to the other passage, and bolt the outer window shutters, and then go back to the children. "once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens, and he named one minna, and one brenda"-"no, mamma, no! one muff, and one"-"oh, yes! my darling! once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens, and he named one buff, and one muff. and one day he went to walk"-heavens! the lanterns! who was to trim the lamps? strange to say, because this was wholly out of her daily routine, the men always caring for it of course, laura had not once thought of it till now. and now it was after one o'clock. but now she did think of it with a will. "come, tommy, come and help mamma." and she bundled him up in his thickest storm rig. "come up into the lantern." here the boy had never come before. he was never frightened when he was with her. else he might well have been frightened. and he was amazed there in the whiteness; drifts of white snow on the lee-side and the weather-side; clouds of white snow on the south-west sides and north-east sides; snow; snow everywhere; nothing but whiteness wherever he looked round. laura made short shift of those wicks which had burned all through the night before. but she had them ready. she wound up the carcels for their night's work. again and again she drew her oil and filled up her reservoirs. and as she did so, an old text came on her, and she wondered whether father spaulding knew how good a text it would be for christmas. and the fancy touched her, poor child, and as she led little tom down into the nursery again, she could not help opening into the bible parson spaulding gave her and reading:-"'but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.' dear tommy, dear tommy, my own child, we will not sleep, will we? 'while the bridegroom tarried,' o my dear father in heaven, let him come. 'and at midnight there was a cry made, behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him;'" and she devoured little tommy with kisses, and cried, "we will go, my darling, we will go, if he comes at the first hour,--or the second,--or the third! but now tommy must come with mamma, and make ready for his coming." for there were the other lamps to trim in the other tower, with that heavy reach of snow between. and she did not dare leave the active boy alone in the house. little matty could be caged in her crib, and, even if she woke, she would at best only cry. but tom was irrepressible. so they unbolted the lee-door, and worked out into the snow. then poor laura, with the child, crept round into the storm. heavens! how it raged and howled! where was her poor bridegroom now? she seized up tom, and turned her back to the wind, and worked along, go,--step sideway, sideway, the only way she could by step,--did it ever seem so far before? tommy was crying. "one minute more, dear boy. tommy shall see the other lantern. and tommy shall carry mamma's great scissors up the stairs. don't cry, my darling, don't cry." here is the door;--just as she began to wonder if she were dreaming or crazy. not so badly drifted in as she feared. at least she is under cover. "up-a-day, my darling, up-a-day. one, two, what a many steps for tommy! that's my brave boy." and they were on the lantern deck again, fairly rocking in the gale,--and laura was chopping away on her stiff wicks, and pumping up her oil again, and filling the receivers, as if she had ever done it till this christmas before. and she kept saying over to herself,-"then those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps." "and i will light them," said she aloud. "that will save another walk at sundown. and i know these carcels run at least five hours." so she struck a match, and with some little difficulty coaxed the fibres to take fire. the yellow light flared luridly on the white snow-flakes, and yet it dazzled her and tommy as it flashed on them from the reflectors. "will anybody see it, mamma?" said the child. "will papa see it?" and just then the witching devil who manages the fibres of memory, drew from the little crypt in laura's brain, where they had been stored unnoticed years upon years, four lines of leigh hunt's, and the child saw that she was hero:- "then at the flame a torch of fire she lit, and, o'er her head anxiously holding it, ascended to the roof, and, leaning there, lifted its light into the darksome air." if only the devil would have been satisfied with this. but of course she could not remember that, without remembering schiller:- "in the gale her torch is blasted, beacon of the hoped-for strand: horror broods above the waters, horror broods above the land." and she said aloud to the boy, "our torch shall not go out, tommy,--come down, come down, darling, with mamma." but all through the day horrid lines from the same poem came back to her. why did she ever learn it! why, but because dear tom gave her the book himself; and this was his own version, as he sent it to her from the camp in the valley,- "yes, 'tis he! although he perished, still his sacred troth he cherished." "why did tom write it for me?" "and they trickle, lightly playing o'er a corpse upon the sand." "what a fool i am! come, tommy. come, matty, my darling. mamma will tell you a story. once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens. and he named one buff and one muff"-but this could not last for ever. sundown came. and then laura and tommy climbed their own tower,--and she lighted her own lantern, as she called it. sickly and sad through the storm, she could see the sister lantern burning bravely. and that was all she could see in the sullen whiteness. "now, tommy, my darling, we will come and have some supper." "and while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept." "yes, 'tis he; although he perished, still his sacred troth he cherished." "come, tommy,--come tommy,--come, tommy, let me tell you a story." but the children had their supper,--asking terrible questions about papa,--questions which who should answer? but she could busy herself about giving them their oatmeal, and treating them to ginger-snaps, because it was christmas eve. nay, she kept her courage, when tommy asked if santa claus would come in the boat with papa. she fairly loitered over the undressing them. little witches, how pretty they were in their flannel nightgowns! and tommy kissed her, and gave her--ah me!--one more kiss for papa. and in two minutes they were asleep. it would have been better if they could have kept awake one minute longer. now she was really alone. and very soon seven o'clock has come. she does not dare leave the clock-work at the outer lantern a minute longer. tom and mipples wind the works every four hours, and now they have run five. one more look at her darlings. shall she ever see them again in this world? now to the duty next her hand! yes, the wind is as fierce as ever! a point more to the north, laura notices. she has no child to carry now. she tumbles once in the drift. but laura has rolled in snow before. the pile at the door is three feet thick. but she works down to the latch,--and even her poor numb hand conquers it,--and it gives way. how nice and warm the tower is! and how well the lights burn! can they be of any use this night to anybody? o my god, grant that they be of use to him! she has wound them now. she has floundered into the snow again. two or three falls on her way home,--but no danger that she loses the line of march. the light above her own house is before her. so she has only to aim at that. home again! and now to wait for five hours,--and then to wind that light again--at midnight! "and at midnight there was a cry made"--"oh dear!--if he would come,--i would not ask for any cry!"- * * * * * and laura got down her choice inlaid box, that jem brought her from sea,--and which held her treasures of treasures. and the dear girl did the best thing she could have done. she took these treasures out.--you know what they were, do not you? they were every letter tom cutts ever wrote her--from the first boy note in print,--"laura,--these hedgehog quills are for you. i killed him. tom." and laura opened them all,--and read them one by one, each twice,--and put them back, in their order, without folding, into the box. at ten she stopped,--and worked her way upstairs into her own lantern,--and wound its works again. she tried to persuade herself that there was less wind,--did persuade herself so. but the snow was as steady as ever. down the tower-stairs again,--and then a few blessed minutes brooding over matty's crib, and dear little tom who has kicked himself right athwart her own bed where she had laid him. darlings! they are so lovely, their father must come home to see them! back then to her kitchen fire. there are more of dear tom's letters yet. how manly they are,--and how womanly. she will read them all!--will she ever dare to read them all again? yes,--she reads them all,--each one twice over,--and his soldier diary,--which john wildair saved and sent home, and, as she lays it down, the clock strikes twelve. christmas day is born!-"and at midnight there was a cry made, behold, the bridegroom cometh." laura fairly repeated this aloud. she knew that the other carcel must be wound again. she dressed herself for the fight thoroughly. she ran in and trusted herself to kiss the children. she opened the lee-door again, and crept round again into the storm,--familiar now with such adventure. did the surf beat as fiercely on the rocks? surely not. but then the tide is now so low! so she came to her other tower, crept up and wound her clock-work up again, wiped off, or tried to wipe off, what she thought was mist gathering on the glasses, groped down the stairway, and looked up on the steady light above her own home. and the christmas text came back to her. "the star went before them, and stood above the place where the young child was." "a light to lighten the gentiles,--and the glory of my people israel!" "by the way of the sea,"--and this laura almost shouted aloud,--"galilee of the gentiles, the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up." "grant it, merciful father,--grant it for these poor children!" and she almost ran through the heavy drifts, till she found the shelter again of her friendly tower. her darlings had not turned in their bed, since she left them there. and after this laura was at rest. she took down her bible, and read the christmas chapters. it was as if she had never known before what darkness was,--or what the light was, when it came. she took her hymn book and read all the christmas hymns. she took her keble,--and read every poem for advent and the hymn for christmas morning. she knew this by heart long ago. then she took bishop ken's "christian year,"--which tom had given for her last birthday present,--and set herself bravely to committing his "christmas day" to memory:- "celestial harps, prepare to sound your loftiest air; you choral angels at the throne, your customary hymns postpone;" and thus, dear girl, she kept herself from thinking even of the wretched hero and leander lines, till her clock struck three. upstairs then to her own tower, and to look out upon the night. the sister flame was steady. the wind was all hushed. but the snow was as steady, right and left, behind and before. down again, one more look at the darlings, and then, as she walked up and down her little kitchen, she repeated the verses she had learned, and then sat down to- "you with your heavenly ray gild the expanse this day; "you with your heavenly ray gild--the expanse--this day; "you--with--your--heavenly--ray"-dear laura, bless god, she is asleep. "he giveth his beloved sleep." * * * * * her head is thrown back on the projecting wing of grandmamma's tall easy-chair, her arms are resting relaxed on its comfortable arms, her lips just open with a smile, as she dreams of something in the kingdom of god's heaven, when, as the lazy day just begins to grow gray, tom, white with snow to his middle, holding the boat's lantern before him as he steals into her kitchen, crosses the room, and looks down on her,--what a shame to wake her,--bends down and kisses her! dear child! how she started,--"at midnight there is a cry made, behold, the bridegroom cometh,"--"why, tom! oh! my dearest, is it you?" * * * * * "have i been asleep on duty?" this was her first word when she came fairly to herself. "guess not," said old mipples, "both lanterns was burning when i come in. 'most time to put 'em out, major! 'keepers must be diligent to save oil by all reasonable prevision.'" "is the north light burning?" said poor laura. and she looked guiltily at her tell-tale clock. "darling," said tom, reverently, "if it were not burning, we should not be here." and laura took her husband to see the babies, not willing to let his hand leave hers, nor he, indeed, to let hers leave his. old mipples thought himself one too many, and went away, wiping his eyes, to the other light. "time to extinguish it," he said. but before tom and laura had known he was gone, say in half an hour, that is, he was back again, hailing them from below. "major! major! major! an english steamer is at anchor in the cove, and is sending her boat ashore." tom and laura rushed to the window; the snow was all over now, and they could see the monster lying within half a mile. "where would they be, miss cutts, if somebody had not wound up the lamps at midnight? guess they said 'merry christmas' when they see 'em." and laura held her breath when she thought what might have been. tom and mipples ran down to the beach to hail them, and direct the landing. tom and mipples shook the hand of each man as he came ashore, and then laura could see them hurrying to the house together. steps on the landing; steps on the stairway,--the door is open, and,--not tom this time,--but her dear lost brother jem, in the flesh, and in a heavy pea-coat. "merry christmas! laura!" * * * * * "laura," said jem, as they sat at their christmas dinner, "what do you think i thought of first, when i heard the cable run out so like blazes; when i rushed up and saw your yellow lanterns there?" "how should i know, jem?" "'they that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them the light hath shined.'" "but i did not think it was you, laura." christmas waits in boston. i. i always give myself a christmas present. and on this particular year the present was a carol party,--which is about as good fun, all things consenting kindly, as a man can have. many things must consent, as will appear. first of all there must be good sleighing,--and second, a fine night for christmas eve. ours are not the carollings of your poor shivering little east angles or south mercians, where they have to plod round afoot in countries where they do not know what a sleigh-ride is. i had asked harry to have sixteen of the best voices in the chapel school to be trained to eight or ten good carols without knowing why. we did not care to disappoint them if a february thaw setting in on the 24th of december should break up the spree before it began. then i had told howland that he must reserve for me a span of good horses, and a sleigh that i could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed. howland is always good about such things, knew what the sleigh was for, having done the same in other years, and doubled the span of horses of his own accord, because the children would like it better, and "it would be no difference to him." sunday night as the weather nymphs ordered, the wind hauled round to the northwest and everything froze hard. monday night, things moderated and the snow began to fall steadily,--so steadily;--and so tuesday night the metropolitan people gave up their unequal contest, all good men and angels rejoicing at their discomfiture, and only a few of the people in the very lowest _bolgie_, being ill-natured enough to grieve. and thus it was, that by thursday evening was one hard compact roadway from copp's hill to the bone-burner's gehenna, fit for good men and angels to ride over, without jar, without noise and without fatigue to horse or man. so it was that when i came down with lycidas to the chapel at seven o'clock, i found harry had gathered there his eight pretty girls and his eight jolly boys, and had them practising for the last time, "carol, carol, christians, carol joyfully; carol for the coming of christ's nativity." i think the children had got inkling of what was coming, or perhaps harry had hinted it to their mothers. certainly they were warmly dressed, and when, fifteen minutes afterwards, howland came round himself with the sleigh, he had put in as many rugs and bear-skins as if he thought the children were to be taken new born from their respective cradles. great was the rejoicing as the bells of the horses rang beneath the chapel windows, and harry did not get his last _da capo_ for his last carol. not much matter indeed, for they were perfect enough in it before midnight. lycidas and i tumbled in on the back seat, each with a child in his lap to keep us warm; i was flanked by sam perry, and he by john rich, both of the mercurial age, and therefore good to do errands. harry was in front somewhere flanked in likewise, and the twelve other children lay in miscellaneously between, like sardines when you have first opened the box. i had invited lycidas, because, besides being my best friend, he is the best fellow in the world, and so deserves the best christmas eve can give him. under the full moon, on the snow still white, with sixteen children at the happiest, and with the blessed memories of the best the world has ever had, there can be nothing better than two or three such hours. "first, driver, out on commonwealth avenue. that will tone down the horses. stop on the left after you have passed fairfield street." so we dashed up to the front of haliburton's palace, where he was keeping his first christmas tide. and the children, whom harry had hushed down for a square or two, broke forth with good full voice under his strong lead in "shepherd of tender sheep," singing with all that unconscious pathos with which children do sing, and starting the tears in your eyes in the midst of your gladness. the instant the horses' bells stopped, their voices began. in an instant more we saw haliburton and anna run to the window and pull up the shades, and, in a minute more, faces at all the windows. and so the children sung through clement's old hymn. little did clement think of bells and snow, as he taught it in his sunday school there in alexandria. but perhaps to-day, as they pin up the laurels and the palm in the chapel at alexandria, they are humming the words, not thinking of clement more than he thought of us. as the children closed with "swell the triumphant song to christ, our king," haliburton came running out, and begged me to bring them in. but i told him, "no," as soon as i could hush their shouts of "merry christmas;" that we had a long journey before us, and must not alight by the way. and the children broke out with "hail to the night, hail to the day," rather a favorite,--quicker and more to the childish taste perhaps than the other,--and with another "merry christmas" we were off again. off, the length of commonwealth avenue, to where it crosses the brookline branch of the mill-dam,--dashing along with the gayest of the sleighing-parties as we came back into town, up chestnut street, through louisburg square,--we ran the sleigh into a bank on the slope of pinckney street in front of walter's house,--and, before they suspected there that any one had come, the children were singing "carol, carol, christians, carol joyfully." kisses flung from the window; kisses flung back from the street. "merry christmas" again with a good-will, and then one of the girls began "when anna took the baby, and pressed his lips to hers"-and all of them fell in so cheerily. o dear me! it is a scrap of old ephrem the syrian, if they did but know it! and when, after this, harry would fain have driven on, because two carols at one house was the rule, how the little witches begged that they might sing just one song more there, because mrs. alexander had been so kind to them, when she showed them about the german stitches. and then up the hill and over to the north end, and as far as we could get the horses up into moon court, that they might sing to the italian image-man who gave lucy the boy and dog in plaster, when she was sick in the spring. for the children had, you know, the choice of where they would go; and they select their best friends, and will be more apt to remember the italian image-man than chrysostom himself, though chrysostom should have "made a few remarks" to them seventeen times in the chapel. then the italian image-man heard for the first time in his life "now is the time of christmas come," and "jesus in his babes abiding." and then we came up hanover street and stopped under mr. gerry's chapel, where they were dressing the walls with their evergreens, and gave them "hail to the night, hail to the day"; and so down state street and stopped at the advertiser office, because, when the boys gave their "literary entertainment," mr. hale put in their advertisement for nothing, and up in the old attic there the compositors were relieved to hear "nor war nor battle sound," and "the waiting world was still." even the leading editor relaxed from his gravity, and the "in general" man from his more serious views, and the daily the next morning wished everybody a merry christmas with even more unction, and resolved that in coming years it would have a supplement, large enough to contain all the good wishes. so away again to the houses of confectioners who had given the children candy,--to miss simonds's house, because she had been so good to them in school,--to the palaces of millionnaires who had prayed for these children with tears if the children only knew it,--to dr. frothingham's in summer street, i remember, where we stopped because the boston association of ministers met there,--and out on dover street bridge, that the poor chair-mender might hear our carols sung once more before he heard them better sung in another world where nothing needs mending. "king of glory, king of peace!" "hear the song, and see the star!" "welcome be thou, heavenly king!" "was not christ our saviour?" and all the others, rung out with order or without order, breaking the hush directly as the horses' bells were stilled, thrown into the air with all the gladness of childhood, selected sometimes as harry happened to think best for the hearers, but more often as the jubilant and uncontrolled enthusiasm of the children bade them break out in the most joyous, least studied, and purely lyrical of all. o, we went to twenty places that night, i suppose! we went to the grandest places in boston, and we went to the meanest. everywhere they wished us a merry christmas, and we them. everywhere a little crowd gathered round us, and then we dashed away far enough to gather quite another crowd; and then back, perhaps, not sorry to double on our steps if need were, and leaving every crowd with a happy thought of "the star, the manger, and the child!" at nine we brought up at my house, d street, three doors from the corner, and the children picked their very best for polly and my six little girls to hear, and then for the first time we let them jump out and run in. polly had some hot oysters for them, so that the frolic was crowned with a treat. there was a christmas cake cut into sixteen pieces, which they took home to dream upon; and then hoods and muffs on again, and by ten o'clock, or a little after, we had all the girls and all the little ones at their homes. four of the big boys, our two flankers and harry's right and left hand men, begged that they might stay till the last moment. they could walk back from the stable, and "rather walk than not, indeed." to which we assented, having gained parental permission, as we left younger sisters in their respective homes. ii. lycidas and i both thought, as we went into these modest houses, to leave the children, to say they had been good and to wish a "merry christmas" ourselves to fathers, mothers, and to guardian aunts, that the welcome of those homes was perhaps the best part of it all. here was the great stout sailor-boy whom we had not seen since he came back from sea. he was a mere child when he left our school years on years ago, for the east, on board perry's vessel, and had been round the world. here was brave mrs. masury. i had not seen her since her mother died. "indeed, mr. ingham, i got so used to watching then, that i cannot sleep well yet o' nights; i wish you knew some poor creature that wanted me to-night, if it were only in memory of bethlehem." "you take a deal of trouble for the children," said campbell, as he crushed my hand in his; "but you know they love you, and you know i would do as much for you and yours,"--which i knew was true. "what can i send to your children?" said dalton, who was finishing sword-blades. (ill wind was fort sumter, but it blew good to poor dalton, whom it set up in the world with his sword-factory.) "here's an old-fashioned tape-measure for the girl, and a sheffield wimble for the boy. what, there is no boy? let one of the girls have it then; it will count one more present for her." and so he pressed his brown-paper parcel into my hand. from every house, though it were the humblest, a word of love, as sweet, in truth, as if we could have heard the voice of angels singing in the sky. i bade harry good-night; took lycidas to his lodgings, and gave his wife my christmas wishes and good-night; and, coming down to the sleigh again, gave way to the feeling which i think you will all understand, that this was not the time to stop, but just the time to begin. for the streets were stiller now, and the moon brighter than ever, if possible, and the blessings of these simple people and of the grand people, and of the very angels in heaven, who are not bound to the misery of using words when they have anything worth saying,--all these wishes and blessings were round me, all the purity of the still winter night, and i didn't want to lose it all by going to bed to sleep. so i put the boys all together, where they could chatter, took one more brisk turn on the two avenues, and then, passing through charles street, i believe i was even thinking of cambridge, i noticed the lights in woodhull's house, and, seeing they were up, thought i would make fanny a midnight call. she came to the door herself. i asked if she were waiting for santa claus, but saw in a moment that i must not joke with her. she said she had hoped i was her husband. in a minute was one of these contrasts which make life, life. god puts us into the world that we may try them and be tried by them. poor fanny's mother had been blocked up on the springfield train as she was coming on to christmas. the old lady had been chilled through, and was here in bed now with pneumonia. both fanny's children had been ailing when she came, and this morning the doctor had pronounced it scarlet fever. fanny had not undressed herself since monday, nor slept, i thought, in the same time. so while we had been singing carols and wishing merry christmas, the poor child had been waiting, and hoping that her husband or edward, both of whom were on the tramp, would find for her and bring to her the model nurse, who had not yet appeared. but at midnight this unknown sister had not arrived, nor had either of the men returned. when i rang, fanny had hoped i was one of them. professional paragons, dear reader, are shy of scarlet fever. i told the poor child that it was better as it was. i wrote a line for sam perry to take to his aunt, mrs. masury, in which i simply said: "dear mamma, i have found the poor creature who wants you to-night. come back in this carriage." i bade him take a hack at barnard's, where they were all up waiting for the assembly to be done at papanti's. i sent him over to albany street; and really as i sat there trying to soothe fanny, it seemed to me less time than it has taken me to dictate this little story about her, before mrs. masury rang gently, and i left them, having made fanny promise that she would consecrate the day, which at that moment was born, by trusting god, by going to bed and going to sleep, knowing that her children were in much better hands than hers. as i passed out of the hall, the gas-light fell on a print of correggio's adoration, where woodhull had himself written years before, "ut appareat iis qui in tenebris et umbra mortis positi sunt." "darkness and the shadow of death" indeed, and what light like the light and comfort such a woman as my mary masury brings! and so, but for one of the accidents, as we call them, i should have dropped the boys at the corner of dover street, and gone home with my christmas lesson. but it happened, as we irreverently say,--it happened as we crossed park square, so called from its being an irregular pentagon of which one of the sides has been taken away, that i recognized a tall man, plodding across in the snow, head down, round-shouldered, stooping forward in walking, with his right shoulder higher than his left; and by these tokens i knew tom coram, prince among boston princes. not thomas coram that built the foundling hospital, though he was of boston too; but he was longer ago. you must look for him in addison's contribution to a supplement to the spectator,--the old spectator, i mean, not the thursday spectator, which is more recent. not thomas coram, i say, but tom coram, who would build a hospital to-morrow, if you showed him the need, without waiting to die first, and always helps forward, as a prince should, whatever is princely, be it a statue at home, a school at richmond, a newspaper in florida, a church in exeter, a steam-line to liverpool, or a widow who wants a hundred dollars. i wished him a merry christmas, and mr. howland, by a fine instinct, drew up the horses as i spoke. coram shook hands; and, as it seldom happens that i have an empty carriage while he is on foot, i asked him if i might not see him home. he was glad to get in. we wrapped him up with spoils of the bear, the fox, and the bison, turned the horses' heads again,--five hours now since they started on this entangled errand of theirs,--and gave him his ride. "i was thinking of you at the moment," said coram,--"thinking of old college times, of the mystery of language as unfolded by the abbã© faria to edmond dantes in the depths of the chateau d'if. i was wondering if you could teach me japanese, if i asked you to a christmas dinner." i laughed. japan was really a novelty then, and i asked him since when he had been in correspondence with the sealed country. it seemed that their house at shanghae had just sent across there their agents for establishing the first house in edomo, in japan, under the new treaty. everything looked promising, and the beginnings were made for the branch which has since become dot and trevilyan there. of this he had the first tidings in his letters by the mail of that afternoon. john coram, his brother, had written to him, and had said that he enclosed for his amusement the japanese bill of particulars, as it had been drawn out, on which they had founded their orders for the first assorted cargo ever to be sent from america to edomo. bill of particulars there was, stretching down the long tissue-paper in exquisite chirography. but by some freak of the "total depravity of things," the translated order for the assorted cargo was not there. john coram, in his care to fold up the japanese writing nicely, had left on his own desk at shanghae the more intelligible english. "and so i must wait," said tom philosophically, "till the next east india mail for my orders, certain that seven english houses have had less enthusiastic and philological correspondents than my brother." i said i did not see that. that i could not teach him to speak the taghalian dialects so well, that he could read them with facility before saturday. but i could do a good deal better. did he remember writing a note to old jack percival for me five years ago? no, he remembered no such thing; he knew jack percival, but never wrote a note to him in his life. did he remember giving me fifty dollars, because i had taken a delicate boy, whom i was going to send to sea, and i was not quite satisfied with the government outfit? no, he did not remember that, which was not strange, for that was a thing he was doing every day. "well, i don't care how much you remember, but the boy about whom you wrote to jack percival, for whose mother's ease of mind you provided the half-hundred, is back again,--strong, straight, and well; what is more to the point, he had the whole charge of perry's commissariat on shore at yokohama, was honorably discharged out there, reads japanese better than you read english; and if it will help you at all, he shall be here at your house at breakfast." for as i spoke we stopped at coram's door. "ingham," said coram, "if you were not a parson, i should say you were romancing." "my child," said i, "i sometimes write a parable for the atlantic; but the words of my lips are verity, as all those of the sandemanians. go to bed; do not even dream of the taghalian dialects; be sure that the japanese interpreter will breakfast with you, and the next time you are in a scrape send for the nearest minister. george, tell your brother ezra that mr. coram wishes him to breakfast here to-morrow morning at eight o'clock; don't forget the number, pemberton square, you know." "yes, sir," said george; and thomas coram laughed, said "merry christmas," and we parted. it was time we were all in bed, especially these boys. but glad enough am i as i write these words that the meeting of coram set us back that dropped-stitch in our night's journey. there was one more delay. we were sweeping by the old state house, the boys singing again, "carol, carol, christians," as we dashed along the still streets, when i caught sight of adams todd, and he recognized me. he had heard us singing when we were at the advertiser office. todd is an old fellow-apprentice of mine,--and he is now, or rather was that night, chief pressman in the argus office. i like the argus people,--it was there that i was south american editor, now many years ago,--and they befriend me to this hour. todd hailed me, and once more i stopped. "what sent you out from your warm steam-boiler?" "steam-boiler, indeed," said todd. "two rivets loose,--steam-room full of steam,--police frightened,--neighborhood in a row,--and we had to put out the fire. she would have run a week without hurting a fly,--only a little puff in the street sometimes. but there we are, ingham. we shall lose the early mail as it stands. seventy-eight tokens to be worked now." they always talked largely of their edition at the argus. saw it with many eyes, perhaps; but this time, i am sure, todd spoke true. i caught his idea at once. in younger and more muscular times, todd and i had worked the adams press by that fly-wheel for full five minutes at a time, as a test of strength; and in my mind's eye, i saw that he was printing his paper at this moment with relays of grinding stevedores. he said it was so. "but think of it to-night," said he. "it is christmas eve, and not an irishman to be hired, though one paid him ingots. not a man can stand the grind ten minutes." i knew that very well from old experience, and i thanked him inwardly for not saying "the demnition grind," with mantilini. "we cannot run the press half the time," said he; "and the men we have are giving out now. we shall lose all our carrier delivery." "todd," said i, "is this a night to be talking of ingots, or hiring, or losing, or gaining? when will you learn that love rules the court, the camp, and the argus office." and i wrote on the back of a letter to campbell: "come to the argus office, no. 2 dassett's alley, with seven men not afraid to work"; and i gave it to john and sam, bade howland take the boys to campbell's house,--walked down with todd to his office,--challenged him to take five minutes at the wheel, in memory of old times,--made the tired relays laugh as they saw us take hold; and then,--when i had cooled off, and put on my cardigan,--met campbell, with his seven sons of anak, tumbling down the stairs, wondering what round of mercy the parson had found for them this time. i started home, knowing i should now have my argus with my coffee. iii. and so i walked home. better so, perhaps, after all, than in the lively sleigh, with the tinkling bells. "it was a calm and silent night!- seven hundred years and fifty-three had rome been growing up to might, and now was queen of land and sea! no sound was heard of clashing wars,- peace brooded o'er the hushed domain; apollo, pallas, jove, and mars held undisturbed their ancient reign in the solemn midnight, centuries ago!" what an eternity it seemed since i started with those children singing carols. bethlehem, nazareth, calvary, rome, roman senators, tiberius, paul, nero, clement, ephrem, ambrose, and all the singers,--vincent de paul, and all the loving wonder-workers, milton and herbert and all the carol-writers, luther and knox and all the prophets,--what a world of people had been keeping christmas with sam perry and lycidas and harry and me; and here were yokohama and the japanese, the daily argus and its ten million tokens and their readers,--poor fanny woodhull and her sick mother there, keeping christmas too! for a finite world, these are a good many "waits" to be singing in one poor fellow's ears on one christmas tide. "'twas in the calm and silent night!- the senator of haughty rome, impatient urged his chariot's flight, from lordly revel, rolling home. triumphal arches gleaming swell his breast, with thoughts of boundless sway. what recked the _roman_ what befell a paltry province far away, in the solemn midnight, centuries ago! "within that province far away went plodding home a weary boor; a streak of light before him lay, fallen through a half-shut stable door across his path. he passed,--for naught told _what was going on within_; how keen the stars, his only thought, the air how calm and cold and thin, in the solemn midnight, centuries ago!" "streak of light"--is there a light in lycidas's room? they not in bed! that is making a night of it! well, there are few hours of the day or night when i have not been in lycidas's room, so i let myself in by the night-key he gave me, ran up the stairs,--it is a horrid seven-storied, first-class lodging-house. for my part, i had as lief live in a steeple. two flights i ran up, two steps at a time,--i was younger then than i am now,--pushed open the door which was ajar, and saw such a scene of confusion as i never saw in mary's over-nice parlor before. queer! i remember the first thing that i saw was wrong was a great ball of white german worsted on the floor. her basket was upset. a great christmas-tree lay across the rug, quite too high for the room; a large sharp-pointed spanish clasp-knife was by it, with which they had been lopping it; there were two immense baskets of white papered presents, both upset; but what frightened me most was the centre-table. three or four handkerchiefs on it,--towels, napkins, i know not what,--all brown and red and almost black with blood! i turned, heart-sick, to look into the bedroom,--and i really had a sense of relief when i saw somebody. bad enough it was, however. lycidas, but just now so strong and well, lay pale and exhausted on the bloody bed, with the clothing removed from his right thigh and leg, while over him bent mary and morton. i learned afterwards that poor lycidas, while trimming the christmas-tree, and talking merrily with mary and morton,--who, by good luck, had brought round his presents late, and was staying to tie on glass balls and apples,--had given himself a deep and dangerous wound with the point of the unlucky knife, and had lost a great deal of blood before the hemorrhage could be controlled. just before i entered, the stick tourniquet which morton had improvised had slipped in poor mary's unpractised hand, at the moment he was about to secure the bleeding artery, and the blood followed in such a gush as compelled him to give his whole attention to stopping its flow. he only knew my entrance by the "ah, mr. ingham," of the frightened irish girl, who stood useless behind the head of the bed. "o fred," said morton, without looking up, "i am glad you are here." "and what can i do for you?" "some whiskey,--first of all." "there are two bottles," said mary, who was holding the candle,--"in the cupboard, behind his dressing-glass." i took bridget with me, struck a light in the dressing-room (how she blundered about the match), and found the cupboard door locked! key doubtless in mary's pocket,--probably in pocket of "another dress." i did not ask. took my own bunch, willed tremendously that my account-book drawer key should govern the lock, and it did. if it had not, i should have put my fist through the panels. bottle of bedbug poison; bottle marked "bay rum"; another bottle with no mark; two bottles of saratoga water. "set them all on the floor, bridget." a tall bottle of cologne. bottle marked in ms. what in the world is it? "bring that candle, bridget." "eau destillã©e. marron, montreal." what in the world did lycidas bring distilled water from montreal for? and then morton's clear voice in the other room, "as quick as you can, fred." "yes! in one moment. put all these on the floor, bridget." here they are at last. "bourbon whiskey." "corkscrew, bridget." "indade, sir, and where is it?" "where? i don't know. run down as quick as you can, and bring it. his wife cannot leave him." so bridget ran, and the first i heard was the rattle as she pitched down the last six stairs of the first flight headlong. let us hope she has not broken her leg. i meanwhile am driving a silver pronged fork into the bourbon corks, and the blade of my own penknife on the other side. "now, fred," from george within. (we all call morton "george.") "yes, in one moment," i replied. penknife blade breaks off, fork pulls right out, two crumbs of cork come with it. will that girl never come? i turned round; i found a goblet on the washstand; i took lycidas's heavy clothes-brush, and knocked off the neck of the bottle. did you ever do it, reader, with one of those pressed glass bottles they make now? it smashed like a prince rupert's drop in my hand, crumbled into seventy pieces,--a nasty smell of whiskey on the floor,--and i, holding just the hard bottom of the thing with two large spikes running worthless up into the air. but i seized the goblet, poured into it what was left in the bottom, and carried it in to morton as quietly as i could. he bade me give lycidas as much as he could swallow; then showed me how to substitute my thumb for his, and compress the great artery. when he was satisfied that he could trust me, he began his work again, silently; just speaking what must be said to that brave mary, who seemed to have three hands because he needed them. when all was secure, he glanced at the ghastly white face, with beads of perspiration on the forehead and upper lip, laid his finger on the pulse, and said: "we will have a little more whiskey. no, mary, you are overdone already; let fred bring it." the truth was that poor mary was almost as white as lycidas. she would not faint,--that was the only reason she did not,--and at the moment i wondered that she did not fall. i believe george and i were both expecting it, now the excitement was over. he called her mary, and me fred, because we were all together every day of our lives. bridget, you see, was still nowhere. so i retired for my whiskey again,--to attack that other bottle. george whispered quickly as i went, "bring enough,--bring the bottle." did he want the bottle corked? would that kelt ever come up stairs? i passed the bell-rope as i went into the dressing-room, and rang as hard as i could ring. i took the other bottle, and bit steadily with my teeth at the cork, only, of course, to wrench the end of it off. george called me, and i stepped back. "no," said he, "bring your whiskey." mary had just rolled gently back on the floor. i went again in despair. but i heard bridget's step this time. first flight, first passage; second flight, second passage. she ran in in triumph at length, with a _screw-driver_! "no!" i whispered,--"no. the crooked thing you draw corks with," and i showed her the bottle again. "find one somewhere and don't come back without it." so she vanished for the second time. "frederic!" said morton. i think he never called me so before. should i risk the clothes-brush again? i opened lycidas's own drawers,--papers, boxes, everything in order,--not a sign of a tool. "frederic!" "yes," i said. but why did i say "yes"? "father of mercy, tell me what to do." and my mazed eyes, dim with tears,--did you ever shed tears from excitement?--fell on an old razor-strop of those days of shaving, made by c. whittaker, sheffield. the "sheffield" stood in black letters out from the rest like a vision. they make corkscrews in sheffield too. if this whittaker had only made a corkscrew! and what is a "sheffield wimble"? hand in my pocket,--brown paper parcel. "where are you, frederic?" "yes," said i, for the last time. twine off! brown paper off. and i learned that the "sheffield wimble" was one of those things whose name you never heard before, which people sell you in thames tunnel, where a hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a _corkscrew_ fold into one handle. "yes," said i, again. "pop," said the cork. "bubble, bubble, bubble," said the whiskey. bottle in one hand, full tumbler in the other, i walked in. george poured half a tumblerful down lycidas's throat that time. nor do i dare say how much he poured down afterwards. i found that there was need of it, from what he said of the pulse, when it was all over. i guess mary had some, too. this was the turning-point. he was exceedingly weak, and we sat by him in turn through the night, giving, at short intervals, stimulants and such food as he could swallow easily; for i remember morton was very particular not to raise his head more than we could help. but there was no real danger after this. as we turned away from the house on christmas morning,--i to preach and he to visit his patients,--he said to me, "did you make that whiskey?" "no," said i, "but poor dod dalton had to furnish the corkscrew." and i went down to the chapel to preach. the sermon had been lying ready at home on my desk,--and polly had brought it round to me,--for there had been no time for me to go from lycidas's home to d street and to return. there was the text, all as it was the day before:- "they helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, be of good courage. so the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil." and there were the pat illustrations, as i had finished them yesterday; of the comfort mary magdalen gave joanna, the court lady; and the comfort the court lady gave mary magdalen, after the mediator of a new covenant had mediated between them; how simon the cyrenian, and joseph of arimathea, and the beggar bartimeus comforted each other, gave each other strength, common force, _com-fort_, when the one life flowed in all their veins; how on board the ship the tent-maker proved to be captain, and the centurion learned his duty from his prisoner, and how they "_all_ came safe to shore," because the new life was there. but as i preached, i caught frye's eye. frye is always critical; and i said to myself, "frye would not take his illustrations from eighteen hundred years ago." and i saw dear old dod dalton trying to keep awake, and campbell hard asleep after trying, and jane masury looking round to see if her mother did not come in; and ezra sheppard, looking, not so much at me, as at the window beside me, as if his thoughts were the other side of the world. and i said to them all, "o, if i could tell you, my friends, what every twelve hours of my life tells me,--of the way in which woman helps woman, and man helps man, when only the ice is broken,--how we are all rich so soon as we find out that we are all brothers, and how we are all in want, unless we can call at any moment for a brother's hand,--then i could make you understand something, in the lives you lead every day, of what the new covenant, the new commonwealth, the new kingdom is to be." but i did not dare tell dod dalton what campbell had been doing for todd, nor did i dare tell campbell by what unconscious arts old dod had been helping lycidas. perhaps the sermon would have been better had i done so. but, when we had our tree in the evening at home, i did tell all this story to polly and the bairns, and i gave alice her measuring-tape,--precious with a spot of lycidas's blood,--and bertha her sheffield wimble. "papa," said old clara, who is the next child, "all the people gave presents, did not they, as they did in the picture in your study?" "yes," said i, "though they did not all know they were giving them." "why do they not give such presents every day?" said clara. "o child," i said, "it is only for thirty-six hours of the three hundred and sixty-five days, that all people remember that they are all brothers and sisters, and those are the hours that we call, therefore, christmas eve and christmas day." "and when they always remember it," said bertha, "it will be christmas all the time! what fun!" "what fun, to be sure; but, clara, what is in the picture?" "why, an old woman has brought eggs to the baby in the manger, and an old man has brought a sheep. i suppose they all brought what they had." "i suppose those who came from sharon brought roses," said bertha. and alice, who is eleven, and goes to the lincoln school, and therefore knows every thing, said,--"yes, and the damascus people brought damascus wimbles." "this is certain," said polly, "that nobody tried to give a straw, but the straw, if he really gave it, carried a blessing." alice's christmas-tree. chapter i. alice macneil had made the plan of this christmas-tree, all by herself and for herself. she had a due estimate of those manufactured trees which hard-worked "sabbath schools" get up for rewards of merit for the children who have been regular, and at the last moment have saved attendance-tickets enough. nor did alice macneil sit in judgment on these. she had a due estimate of them. but for her christmas-tree she had two plans not included in those more meritorious buddings and bourgeonings of the winter. first, she meant to get it up without any help from anybody. and, secondly, she meant that the boys and girls who had anything from it should be regular laners and by-way farers,--they were to have no tickets of respectability,--they were not in any way to buy their way in; but, for this once, those were to come in to a christmas-tree who happened to be ragged and in the streets when the christmas-tree was ready. so alice asked mr. williams, the minister, if she could have one of the rooms in the vestry when christmas eve came; and he, good saint, was only too glad to let her. he offered, gently, his assistance in sifting out the dirty boys and girls, intimating to alice that there was dirt and dirt; and that, even in those lowest depths which she was plunging into, there were yet lower deeps which she might find it wise to shun. but here alice told him frankly that she would rather try her experiment fairly through. perhaps she was wrong, but she would like to see that she was wrong in her own way. any way, on christmas eve, she wanted no distinctions. that part of her plan went bravely forward. her main difficulty came on the other side,--that she had too many to help her. she was not able to carry out the first part of her plan, and make or buy all her presents herself. for everybody was pleased with this notion of a truly catholic or universal tree; and everybody wanted to help. well, if anybody would send her a box of dominos, or a jack-knife, or an open-eye-shut-eye doll, who was alice to say it should not go on the tree? and when mrs. hesperides sent round a box of fayal oranges, who was alice to say that the children should not have oranges? and when mr. gorham parsons sent in well-nigh a barrel full of hubbardston none-such apples, who was alice to say they should not have apples? so the tree grew and grew, and bore more and more fruit, till it was clear that there would be more than eighty reliable presents on it, besides apples and oranges, almonds and raisins galore. now you see this was a very great enlargement of alice's plan; and it brought her to grief, as you shall see. she had proposed a cosey little tree for fifteen or twenty children. well, if she had held to that, she would have had no more than she and lillie, and mr. williams, and mr. gilmore, and john flagg, and i, could have managed easily, particularly if mamma was there too. there would have been room enough in the chapel parlor; and it would have been, as i believe, just the pretty and cheerful christmas jollity that alice meant it should be. but when it came to eighty presents, and a company of eighty of the unwashed and unticketed, it became quite a different thing. for now alice began to fear that there would not be children enough in the highways and by-ways. so she started herself, as evening drew on, with george, the old faithful black major-domo, and she walked through the worst streets she knew anything of, of all those near the chapel; and, whenever she saw a brat particularly dirty, or a group of brats particularly forlorn, she sailed up gallantly, and, though she was frightened to death, she invited them to the tree. she gave little admittance cards, that said, "7 o'clock, christmas eve, 507 livingstone avenue," for fear the children would not remember. and she told mr. flagg that he and mr. gilmore might take some cards and walk out toward williamsburg, and do the same thing, only they were to be sure that they asked the dirtiest and most forlorn children they saw. there was a friendly policeman with whom alice had been brought into communication by the boys in her father's office, and he also was permitted to give notice of the tree. but he was also to be at the street door, armed with the strong arm of "the people of new york," and when the full quota of eighty had been admitted he was to admit no more. ah me! my poor alice issued her cards only too freely. better indeed, it seemed, had she held to her original plan; at least she thought so, and thinks so to this day. but i am not so certain. a hard time she had of it, however. quarter of seven found the little arabs in crowds around the door, with hundreds of others who thought they also were to find out what a "free lunch" was. the faithful officer purdy was in attendance also; he passed in all who had the cards; he sent away legions, let me say, who had reason to dread him; but still there assembled a larger and larger throng about the door. alice and lillie, and the young gentlemen, and mrs. macneil, were all at work up stairs, and the tree was a perfect beauty at last. they lighted up, and nothing could have been more lovely. "let them in!" said john flagg rushing to the door, where expectant knocks had been heard already. "let them in,--the smallest girls first!" "smallest girls," indeed! the door swung open, and a tide of boy and girl, girl and boy, boy big to hobble-de-hoy-dom, and girl big to young-woman-dom, came surging in, wildly screaming, scolding, pushing, and pulling. omitting the profanity, these are the christmas carols that fell on alice's ear. "out o' that!" "take that, then!" "who are you?" "hold your jaw!" "can't you behave decent?" "you lie!" "get out of my light!" "oh, dear! you killed me!" "who's killed?" "golly! see there!" "i say, ma'am, give me that pair of skates!" "shut up--" and so on, the howls being more and more impertinent, as the shepherds who had come to adore became more and more used to the position they were in. young gilmore, who was willing to oblige alice, but was not going to stand any nonsense, and would have willingly knocked the heads together of any five couples of this rebel rout, mounted on a corner of the railing, which, by mr. williams's prescience had been built around the tree, and addressed the riotous assembly. they stopped to hear him, supposing he was to deliver the gifts, to which they had been summoned. he told them pretty roundly that if they did not keep the peace, and stop crowding and yelling, they should all be turned out of doors; that they were to pass the little girls and boys forward first, and that nobody would have any thing to eat till this was done. some approach to obedience followed. a few little waifs were found, who in decency could be called _little_ girls and boys. but, alas! as she looked down from her chair, alice felt as if most of her guests looked like shameless, hulking big boys and big girls, only too well fitted to grapple with the world, and only too eager to accept its gifts without grappling. she and lillie tried to forget this. they kissed a few little girls, and saw the faintest gleam of pleasure on one or two little faces. but there, also, the pleasure was almost extinct, in fear of the big boys and big girls howling around. so the howling began again, as the distribution went forward. "give me that jack-knife!" "i say, mister, i'm as big as he is," "he had one before and hid it," "be down, tom mulligan,--get off that fence or i'll hide you," "i don't want the book, give me them skates," "you sha'n't have the skates, i'll have 'em myself--" and so on. john flagg finally knocked down tom mulligan, who had squeezed round behind the tree, in an effort to steal something, and had the satisfaction of sending him bellowing from the room, with his face covered with blood from his nose. gilmore, meanwhile, was rapidly distributing an orange and an apple to each, which, while the oranges were sucked, gave a moment's quiet. alice and the ladies, badly frightened, were stripping the tree as fast as they could, and at last announced that it was all clear, with almost as eager joy as half an hour before they had announced that it was all full. "there's a candy horn on top, give me that." "give me that little apple." "give me the old sheep." "hoo! hurrah, for the old sheep!" this of a little lamb which had been placed as an appropriate ornament in front. then began a howl about oranges. "i want another orange." "bill's got some, and i've got none." "i say, mister, give me an orange." to which mister replied, by opening the window, and speaking into the street,--"i say, purdy, call four officers and come up and clear this room." the room did not wait for the officers: it cleared itself very soon on this order, and was left a scene of wreck and dirt. orange-peel trampled down on the floor; cake thrown down and mashed to mud, intermixed with that which had come in on boots, and the water which had been slobbered over from hasty mugs; the sugar plums which had fallen in scrambles, and little sprays of green too, trodden into the mass,--all made an aspect of filth like a market side-walk. and poor alice was half crying and half laughing; poor lillie was wholly crying. gilmore and flagg were explaining to each other how gladly they would have thrashed the whole set. the thought uppermost in alice's mind was that she had been a clear, out and out fool! and that, probably, is the impression of the greater part of the readers of her story,--or would have been the impression of any one who only had her point of view. chapter ii. perhaps the reader is willing to take another point of view. as the group stood there, talking over the riot as mrs. macneil called it,--as john flagg tried to make alice laugh by bringing her a half-piece of frosted pound-cake, and proving to her that it had not been on the floor,--as she said, her eyes streaming with tears, "i tell you, john! i am a fool, and i know i am, and nobody but a fool would have started such a row,"--as all this happened, patrick crehore came back for his little sister's orange which he had wrapped in her handkerchief and left on one of the book-racks in the room. patrick was alone now, and was therefore sheepish enough, and got himself and his orange out of the room as soon as he well could. but he was sharp enough to note the whole position, and keen enough to catch alice's words as she spoke to mr. flagg. indeed, the general look of disappointment and chagrin in the room, and the contrast between this filthy ruin and the pretty elegance of half an hour ago, were distinct enough to be observed by a much more stupid boy than patrick crehore. he went down stairs and found bridget waiting, and walked home with the little toddler, meditating rather more than was his wont on alice's phrase, "i tell you, i am a fool." meditating on it, he hauled bridget up five flights of stairs and broke in on the little room where a table spread with a plentiful supply of tea, baker's bread, butter, cheese, and cabbage, waited their return. jerry crehore, his father, sat smoking, and his mother was tidying up the room. "and had ye a good time, me darling? and ye 've brought home your orange, and a doll too, and mittens too. and what did you have, pat?" so pat explained, almost sulkily, that he had a checker-board, and a set of checker-men, which he produced; but he put them by as if he hated the sight of them, and for a minute dropped the subject, while he helped little biddy to cabbage. he ate something himself, drank some tea, and then delivered his rage with much unction, a little profanity, great incoherency,--but to his own relief. "it's a mean thing it is, all of it," said he, "i'll be hanged but it is! i dunno who the lady is; but we've made her cry bad, i know that; and the boys acted like nick. they knew that as well as i do. the man there had to knock one of the fellows down, bedad, and served him right, too. i say, the fellows fought, and hollared, and stole, and sure ye 'd thought ye was driving pigs down the eighth avenue, and i was as bad as the worst of 'em. that's what the boys did when a lady asked 'em to christmas." "that was a mean thing to do," said jerry, taking his pipe from his mouth for a longer speech than he had ever been known to make while smoking. mrs. crehore stopped in her dish-wiping, sat down, and gave her opinion. she did not know what a christmas-tree was, having never seed one nor heared of one. but she did know that those who went to see a lady should show manners and behave like jintlemen, or not go at all. she expressed her conviction that tom mulligan was rightly served, and her regret that he had not two black eyes instead of one. she would have been glad, indeed, if certain floyds, and sullivans, and flahertys with whose names of baptism she was better acquainted than i am, had shared a similar fate. this oration, and the oracle of his father still more, appeased pat somewhat; and when his supper was finished, after long silence, he said, "we'll give her a christmas present. we will. tom mulligan and bill floyd and i will give it. the others sha'n't know. i know what we'll give her. i'll tell bill floyd that we made her cry." chapter iii. after supper, accordingly, pat crehore repaired to certain rendezvous of the younger life of the neighborhood, known to him, in search of bill floyd. bill was not at the first, nor at the second, there being indeed no rule or principle known to men or even to archangels by which bill's presence at any particular spot at any particular time could be definitely stated. but bill also, in his proud free-will, obeyed certain general laws; and accordingly pat found him inspecting, as a volunteer officer of police, the hauling out and oiling of certain hose at the house of a neighboring hose company. "come here, bill. i got something to show you." bill had already carried home and put in safe keeping a copy of routledge's "robinson crusoe," which had been given to him. he left the hose inspection willingly, and hurried along with pat, past many attractive groups, not even stopping where a brewer's horse had fallen on the ground, till pat brought him in triumph to the gaudy window of a shoe-shop, lighted up gayly and full of the wares by which even shoe-shops lure in customers for christmas. "see there!" said pat, nearly breathless. and he pointed to the very centre of the display, a pair of slippers made from bronze-gilt kid, and displaying a hideous blue silk bow upon the gilding. for what class of dancers or of maskers these slippers may have been made, or by what canon of beauty, i know not. only they were the centre of decoration in the shoe-shop window. pat looked at them with admiration, as he had often done, and said again to bill floyd, "see there, ain't them handsome?" "golly!" said bill, "i guess so." "bill, let's buy them little shoes, and give 'em to her." "give 'em to who?" said bill, from whose mind the christmas-tree had for the moment faded, under the rivalry of the hose company, the brewer's horse, and the shop window. "give 'em to who?" "why, her, i don't know who she is. the gal that made the what-do-ye-call-it, the tree, you know, and give us the oranges, where old purdy was. i say, bill, it was a mean dirty shame to make such a row there, when we was bid to a party; and i want to make the gal a present, for i see her crying, bill. crying cos it was such a row." again, i omit certain profane expressions which did not add any real energy to the declaration. "they is handsome," said bill, meditatingly. "ain't the blue ones handsomest?" "no," said pat, who saw he had gained his lodgment, and that the carrying his point was now only a matter of time. "the gould ones is the ones for me. we'll give 'em to the gal for a christmas present, you and i and tom mulligan." bill floyd did not dissent, being indeed in the habit of going as he was led, as were most of the "rebel rout" with whom he had an hour ago been acting. he assented entirely to pat's proposal. by "christmas" both parties understood that the present was to be made before twelfth night, not necessarily on christmas day. neither of them had a penny; but both of them knew, perfectly well, that whenever they chose to get a little money they could do so. they soon solved their first question, as to the cost of the coveted slippers. true, they knew, of course, that they would be ejected from the decent shop if they went in to inquire. but, by lying in wait, they soon discovered delia sullivan, a decent-looking girl they knew, passing by, and having made her their confidant, so far that she was sure she was not fooled, they sent her in to inquire. the girl returned to announce, to the astonishment of all parties, that the shoes cost six dollars. "hew!" cried pat, "six dollars for them are! i bought my mother's new over-shoes for one." but not the least did he 'bate of his determination, and he and bill floyd went in search of tom mulligan. tom was found as easily as bill. but it was not so easy to enlist him. tom was in a regular corner liquor store with men who were sitting smoking, drinking, and telling dirty stories. either of the other boys would have been whipped at home if he had been known to be seen sitting in this place, and the punishment would have been well bestowed. but tom mulligan had had nobody thrash him for many a day till john flagg had struck out so smartly from the shoulder. perhaps, had there been some thrashing as discriminating as jerry flaherty's, it had been better for tom mulligan. the boys found him easily enough, but, as i said, had some difficulty in getting him away. with many assurances, however, that they had something to tell him, and something to show him, they lured him from the shadow of the comfortable stove into the night. pat crehore, who had more of the tact of oratory than he knew, then boldly told tom mulligan the story of the christmas-tree, as it passed after tom's ejection. tom was sour at first, but soon warmed to the narrative, and even showed indignation at the behavior of boys who had seemed to carry themselves less obnoxiously than he did. all the boys agreed, that but for certain others who had never been asked to come, and ought to be ashamed to be there with them as were, there would have been no row. they all agreed that on some suitable occasion unknown to me and to this story they would take vengeance on these tidds and sullivans. when pat crehore wound up his statement, by telling how he saw the ladies crying, and all the pretty room looking like a pig-sty, tom mulligan was as loud as he was in saying that it was all wrong, and that nobody but blackguards would have joined in it, in particular such blackguards as the tidds and sullivans above alluded to. then to tom's sympathizing ear was confided the project of the gold shoes, as the slippers were always called, in this honorable company. and tom completely approved. he even approved the price. he explained to the others that it would be mean to give to a lady any thing of less price. this was exactly the sum which recommended itself to his better judgment. and so the boys went home, agreeing to meet christmas morning as a committee of ways and means. to the discussions of this committee i need not admit you. many plans were proposed: one that they should serve through the holidays at certain ten-pin alleys, known to them; one that they should buy off fogarty from his newspaper route for a few days. but the decision was, that pat, the most decent in appearance, should dress up in a certain sunday suit he had, and offer the services of himself, and two unknown friends of his, as extra cork-boys at birnebaum's brewery, where tom mulligan reported they were working nights, that they might fill an extra order. this device succeeded. pat and his friends were put on duty, for trial, on the night of the 26th; and, the foreman of the corking-room being satisfied, they retained their engagements till new year's eve, when they were paid three dollars each, and resigned their positions. "let's buy her three shoes!" said bill, in enthusiasm at their success. but this proposal was rejected. each of the other boys had a private plan for an extra present to "her" by this time. the sacred six dollars was folded up in a bit of straw paper from the brewery, and the young gentlemen went home to make their toilets, a process they had had no chance to go through, on christmas eve. after this, there was really no difficulty about their going into the shoe-shop, and none about consummating the purchase,--to the utter astonishment of the dealer. the gold shoes were bought, rolled up in paper, and ready for delivery. bill floyd had meanwhile learned, by inquiry at the chapel, where she lived, though there were doubts whether any of them knew her name. the others rejected his proposals that they should take street cars, and they boldly pushed afoot up to clinton avenue, and rang, not without terror, at the door. terror did not diminish when black george appeared, whose acquaintance they had made at the tree. but fortunately george did not recognize them in their apparel of elegance. when they asked for the "lady that gave the tree," he bade them wait a minute, and in less than a minute alice came running out to meet them. to the boys' great delight, she was not crying now. "if you please, ma'am," said tom, who had been commissioned as spokesman,--"if you please, them's our christmas present to you, ma'am. them's gold shoes. and please, ma'am, we're very sorry there was such a row at the christmas, ma'am. it was mean, ma'am. good-by, ma'am." alice's eyes were opening wider and wider, nor at this moment did she understand. "gold shoes," and "row at the christmas," stuck by her, however; and she understood there was a present. so, of course, she said the right thing, by accident, and did the right thing, being a lady through and through. "no, you must not go away. come in, boys, come in. i did not know you, you know." as how should she. "come in and sit down." "can't ye take off your hat?" said tom, in an aside to pat, who had neglected this reverence as he entered. and tom was thus a little established in his own esteem. and alice opened the parcel, and had her presence of mind by this time; and, amazed as she was at the gold shoes, showed no amazement,--nay, even slipped off her own slipper, and showed that the gold shoe fitted, to the delight of tom, who was trying to explain that the man would change them if they were too small. she found an apple for each boy, thanked and praised each one separately; and the interview would have been perfect, had she not innocently asked tom what was the matter with his eye. tom's eye! why, it was the black eye john flagg gave him. i am sorry to say bill floyd sniggered; but pat came to the front this time, and said "a man hurt him." then alice produced some mittens, which had been left, and asked whose those were. but the boys did not know. "i say, fellars, i'm going down to the writing-school, at the union," said pat, when they got into the street, all of them being in the mood that conceals emotion. "i say, let's all go." to this they agreed. "i say, i went there last week monday, with meg mcmanus. i say, fellars, it's real good fun." the other fellows, having on the unfamiliar best rig, were well aware that they must not descend to their familiar haunts, and all consented. to the amazement of the teacher, these three hulking boys allied themselves to the side of order, took their places as they were bidden, turned the public opinion of the class, and made the botany bay of the school to be its quietest class that night. to his amazement the same result followed the next night. and to his greater amazement, the next. to alice's amazement, she received on twelfth night a gilt valentine envelope, within which, on heavily ruled paper, were announced these truths:- marm,--the mitins wur nora killpatrick's. she lives inn water street place behind the lager brewery. yours to command, william floyd. thomas mulligan. patrick crehore. the names which they could copy from signs were correctly spelled. to pat's amazement, tom mulligan held on at the writing-school all winter. when it ended, he wrote the best hand of any of them. to my amazement, one evening when i looked in at longman's, two years to a day after alice's tree, a bright black-eyed young man, who had tied up for me the copy of masson's "milton," which i had given myself for a christmas present, said: "you don't remember me." i owned innocence. "my name is mulligan--thomas mulligan. would you thank mr. john flagg, if you meet him, for a christmas present he gave me two years ago, at miss alice macneil's christmas-tree. it was the best present i ever had, and the only one i ever deserved." and i said i would do so. * * * * * i told alice afterward never to think she was going to catch all the fish there were in any school. i told her to whiten the water with ground-bait enough for all, and to thank god if her heavenly fishing were skilful enough to save one. daily bread. i. a question of nourishment. "and how is he?" said robert, as he came in from his day's work, in every moment of which he had thought of his child. he spoke in a whisper to his wife, who met him in the narrow entry at the head of the stairs. and in a whisper she replied. "he is certainly no worse," said mary: "the doctor says, maybe a shade better. at least," she said, sitting on the lower step, and holding her husband's hand, and still whispering,--"at least he said that the breathing seemed to him a shade easier, one lung seemed to him a little more free, and that it is now a question of time and nourishment." "nourishment?" "yes, nourishment,--and i own my heart sunk as he said so. poor little thing, he loathes the slops, and i told the doctor so. i told him the struggle and fight to get them down his poor little throat gave him more flush and fever than any thing. and then he begged me not to try that again, asked if there were really nothing that the child would take, and suggested every thing so kindly. but the poor little thing, weak as he is, seems to rise up with supernatural strength against them all. i am not sure, though, but perhaps we may do something with the old milk and water: that is really my only hope now, and that is the reason i spoke to you so cheerfully." then poor mary explained more at length that emily had brought in dr. cummings's manual[1] about the use of milk with children, and that they had sent round to the corlisses', who always had good milk, and had set a pint according to the direction and formula,--and that though dear little jamie had refused the groats and the barley, and i know not what else, that at six he had gladly taken all the watered milk they dared to give him, and that it now had rested on his stomach half an hour, so that she could not but hope that the tide had turned, only she hoped with trembling, because he had so steadily refused cow's milk only the week before. [1] has the reader a delicate infant? let him send for dr. cummings's little book on milk for children. this rapid review in her entry, of the bulletins of a day, is really the beginning of this christmas story. no matter which day it was,--it was a little before christmas, and one of the shortest days, but i have forgotten which. enough that the baby, for he was a baby still, just entering his thirteenth month,--enough that he did relish the milk, so carefully measured and prepared, and hour by hour took his little dole of it as if it had come from his mother's breast. enough that three or four days went by so, the little thing lying so still on his back in his crib, his lips still so blue, and his skin of such deadly color against the white of his pillow, and that, twice a day, as dr. morton came in and felt his pulse, and listened to the panting, he smiled and looked pleased, and said, "we are getting on better than i dared expect." only every time he said, "does he still relish the milk?" and every time was so pleased to know that he took to it still, and every day he added a teaspoonful or two to the hourly dole,--and so poor mary's heart was lifted day by day. this lasted till st. victoria's day. do you know which day that is? it is the second day before christmas; and here, properly speaking, the story begins. ii. st. victoria's day. st. victoria's day the doctor was full two hours late. mary was not anxious about this. she was beginning to feel bravely about the boy, and no longer counted the minutes till she could hear the door-bell ring. when he came he loitered in the entry below,--or she thought he did. he was long coming up stairs. and when he came in she saw that he was excited by something,--was really even then panting for breath. "i am here at last," he said. "did you think i should fail you?" why, no,--poor innocent mary had not thought any such thing. she had known he would come,--and baby was so well that she had not minded his delay. morton looked up at the close drawn shades, which shut out the light, and said, "you did not think of the storm?" "storm? no!" said poor mary. she had noticed, when robert went to the door at seven and she closed it after him, that some snow was falling. but she had not thought of it again. she had kissed him, told him to keep up good heart, and had come back to her baby. then the doctor told her that the storm which had begun before daybreak had been gathering more and more severely; that the drifts were already heavier than he remembered them in all his boston life; that after half an hour's trial in his sleigh he had been glad to get back to the stable with his horse; and that all he had done since he had done on foot, with difficulty she could not conceive of. he had been so long down stairs while he brushed the snow off, that he might be fit to come near the child. "and really, mrs. walter, we are doing so well here," he said cheerfully, "that i will not try to come round this afternoon, unless you see a change. if you do, your husband must come up for me, you know. but you will not need me, i am sure." mary felt quite brave to think that they should not need him really for twenty-four hours, and said so; and added, with the first smile he had seen for a fortnight: "i do not know anybody to whom it is of less account than to me, whether the streets are blocked or open. only i am sorry for you." poor mary, how often she thought of that speech, before christmas day went by! but she did not think of it all through st. victoria's day. her husband did not come home to dinner. she did not expect him. the children came from school at two, rejoicing in the long morning session and the half holiday of the afternoon which had been earned by it. they had some story of their frolic in the snow, and after dinner went quietly away to their little play-room in the attic. and mary sat with her baby all the afternoon,--nor wanted other company. she could count his breathing now, and knew how to time it by the watch, and she knew that it was steadier and slower than it was the day before. and really he almost showed an appetite for the hourly dole. her husband was not late. he had taken care of that, and had left the shop an hour early. and as he came in and looked at the child from the other side of the crib, and smiled so cheerfully on her, mary felt that she could not enough thank god for his mercy. iii. st. victoria's day in the country. five and twenty miles away was another mother, with a baby born the same day as jamie. mary had never heard of her and never has heard of her, and, unless she reads this story, never will hear of her till they meet together in the other home, look each other in the face, and know as they are known. yet their two lives, as you shall see, are twisted together, as indeed are all lives, only they do not know it--as how should they? a great day for huldah stevens was this st. victoria's day. not that she knew its name more than mary did. indeed it was only of late years that huldah stevens had cared much for keeping christmas day. but of late years they had all thought of it more; and this year, on thanksgiving day, at old mr. stevens's, after great joking about the young people's housekeeping, it had been determined, with some banter, that the same party should meet with john and huldah on christmas eve, with all huldah's side of the house besides, to a late dinner or early supper, as the guests might please to call it. little difference between the meals, indeed, was there ever in the profusion of these country homes. the men folks were seldom at home at the noon-day meal, call it what you will. for they were all in the milk-business, as you will see. and, what with collecting the milk from the hill-farms, on the one hand, and then carrying it for delivery at the three o'clock morning milk-train, on the other hand, any hours which you, dear reader, might consider systematic, or of course in country life, were certainly always set aside. but, after much conference, as i have said, it had been determined at the thanksgiving party that all hands in both families should meet at john and huldah's as near three o'clock as they could the day before christmas; and then and there huldah was to show her powers in entertaining at her first state family party. so this st. victoria's day was a great day of preparation for huldah, if she had only known its name, as she did not. for she was of the kind which prepares in time, not of the kind that is caught out when the company come with the work half done. and as john started on his collection beat that morning at about the hour robert, in town, kissed mary good-by, huldah stood on the step with him, and looked with satisfaction on the gathering snow, because it would make better sleighing the next day for her father and mother to come over. she charged him not to forget her box of raisins when he came back, and to ask at the express if anything came up from town, bade him good-by, and turned back into the house, not wholly dissatisfied to be almost alone. she washed her baby, gave him his first lunch and put him to bed. then, with the coast fairly clear,--what woman does not enjoy a clear coast, if it only be early enough in the morning?--she dipped boldly and wisely into her flour-barrel, stripped her plump round arms to their work, and began on the pie-crust which was to appear to-morrow in the fivefold forms of apple, cranberry, marlboro', mince, and squash,--careful and discriminating in the nice chemistry of her mixtures and the nice manipulations of her handicraft, but in nowise dreading the issue. a long, active, lively morning she had of it. not dissatisfied with the stages of her work, step by step she advanced, stage by stage she attained of the elaborate plan which was well laid out in her head, but, of course, had never been intrusted to words, far less to tell-tale paper. from the oven at last came the pies,--and she was satisfied with the color; from the other oven came the turkey, which she proposed to have cold,--as a relay, or _piã¨ce de rã©sistance_, for any who might not be at hand at the right moment for dinner. into the empty oven went the clove-blossoming ham, which, as it boiled, had given the least appetizing odor to the kitchen. in the pretty moulds in the woodshed stood the translucent cranberry hardening to its fixed consistency. in other moulds the obedient calf's foot already announced its willingness and intention to "gell" as she directed. huldah's decks were cleared again, her kitchen table fit to cut out "work" upon,--all the pans and plates were put away, which accumulate so mysteriously where cooking is going forward; on its nail hung the weary jigger, on its hook the spicy grater, on the roller a fresh towel. everything gave sign of victory, the whole kitchen looking only a little nicer than usual. huldah herself was dressed for the afternoon, and so was the baby; and nobody but as acute observers as you and i would have known that she had been in action all along the line and had won the battle at every point, when two o'clock came, the earliest moment at which her husband ever returned. then for the first time it occurred to huldah to look out doors and see how fast the snow was gathering. she knew it was still falling. but the storm was a quiet one, and she had had too much to do to be gaping out of the windows. she went to the shed door, and to her amazement saw that the north wood-pile was wholly drifted in! nor could she, as she stood, see the fences of the roadway! huldah ran back into the house, opened the parlor door and drew up the curtain, to see that there were indeed no fences on the front of the house to be seen. on the northwest, where the wind had full sweep,--between her and the barn, the ground was bare. but all that snow--and who should say how much more?--was piled up in front of her; so that unless huldah had known every landmark, she would not have suspected that any road was ever there. she looked uneasily out at the northwest windows, but she could not see an inch to windward: dogged snow--snow--snow--as if it would never be done. huldah knew very well then that there was no husband for her in the next hour, nor most like in the next or the next. she knew very well too what she had to do; and, knowing it, she did it. she tied on her hood, and buttoned tight around her her rough sack, passed through the shed and crossed that bare strip to the barn, opened the door with some difficulty, because snow was already drifting into the doorway, and entered. she gave the cows and oxen their water and the two night horses theirs,--went up into the loft and pitched down hay enough for all,--went down stairs to the pigs and cared for them,--took one of the barn shovels and cleared a path where she had had to plunge into the snow at the doorway, took the shovel back, and then crossed home again to her baby. she thought she saw the empsons' chimney smoking as she went home, and that seemed companionable. she took off her over-shoes, sack, and hood, said aloud, "this will be a good stay-at-home day," brought round her desk to the kitchen table, and began on a nice long letter to her brother cephas in seattle. that letter was finished, eight good quarto pages written, and a long delayed letter to emily tabor, whom huldah had not seen since she was married; and a long pull at her milk accounts had brought them up to date,--and still no john. huldah had the table all set, you may be sure of that; but, for herself, she had had no heart to go through the formalities of lunch or dinner. a cup of tea and something to eat with it as she wrote did better, she thought, for her,--and she could eat when the men came. it is a way women have. not till it became quite dark, and she set her kerosene lamp in the window that he might have a chance to see it when he turned the locust grove corner, did huldah once feel herself lonely, or permit herself to wish that she did not live in a place where she could be cut off from all her race. "if john had gone into partnership with joe winter and we had lived in boston." this was the thought that crossed her mind. dear huldah,--from the end of one summer to the beginning of the next, joe winter does not go home to his dinner; and what you experience to-day, so far as absence from your husband goes, is what his wife experiences in boston ten months, save sundays, in every year. i do not mean that huldah winced or whined. not she. only she did think "if." then she sat in front of the stove and watched the coals, and for a little while continued to think "if." not long. very soon she was engaged in planning how she would arrange the table to-morrow,--whether mother stevens should cut the chicken-pie, or whether she would have that in front of her own mother. then she fell to planning what she would make for cynthia's baby,--and then to wondering whether cephas was in earnest in that half nonsense he wrote about sibyl dyer,--and then the clock struck six! no bells yet,--no husband,--no anybody. lantern out and lighted. rubber boots on, hood and sack. shed-shovel in one hand, lantern in the other. roadway still bare, but a drift as high as huldah's shoulders at the barn door. lantern on the ground; snow-shovel in both hands now. one, two, three!--one cubic foot out. one, two, three!--another cubic foot out. and so on, and so on, and so on, till the doorway is clear again. lantern in one hand, snow-shovel in the other, we enter the barn, draw the water for cows and oxen,--we shake down more hay, and see to the pigs again. this time we make beds of straw for the horses and the cattle. nay, we linger a minute or two, for there is something companionable there. then we shut them in, in the dark, and cross the well-cleared roadway to the shed, and so home again. certainly mrs. empson's kerosene lamp is in her window. that must be her light which gives a little halo in that direction in the falling snow. that looks like society. and this time huldah undresses the baby, puts on her yellow flannel night-gown,--makes the whole as long as it may be,--and then, still making believe be jolly, lights another lamp, eats her own supper, clears it away, and cuts into the new harper which john had brought up to her the day before. but the harper is dull reading to her, though generally so attractive. and when her plymouth-hollow clock consents to strike eight at last, huldah, who has stinted herself to read till eight, gladly puts down the "travels in arizona," which seem to her as much like the "travels in peru," of the month before, as those had seemed like the "travels in chinchilla." rubber boots again,--lantern again,--sack and hood again. the men will be in no case for milking when they come. so huldah brings together their pails,--takes her shovel once more and her lantern,--digs out the barn drift again, and goes over to milk little carry and big fanchon. for, though the milking of a hundred cows passes under those roofs and out again every day, huldah is far too conservative to abandon the custom which she inherits from some thorfinn or some elfrida, and her husband is well pleased to humor her in keeping in that barn always, at least two of the choicest three-quarter blood cows that he can choose, for the family supply. only, in general, he or reuben milks them; as duties are divided there, this is not huldah's share. but on this eve of st. spiridion the gentle creatures were glad when she came in; and in two journeys back and forth huldah had carried her well-filled pails into her dairy. this helped along the hour, and just after nine o'clock struck, she could hear the cheers of the men at last. she ran out again with the ready lighted lantern to the shed-door,--in an instant had on her boots and sack and hood, had crossed to the barn, and slid open the great barn door,--and stood there with her light,--another hero for another leander to buffet towards, through the snow. a sight to see were the two men, to be sure! and a story, indeed, they had to tell! on their different beats they had fought snow all day, had been breaking roads with the help of the farmers where they could, had had to give up more than half of the outlying farms, sending such messages as they might, that the outlying farmers might bring down to-morrow's milk to such stations as they could arrange, and, at last, by good luck, had both met at the dã©pã´t in the hollow, where each had gone to learn at what hour the milk-train might be expected in the morning. little reason was there, indeed, to expect it at all. nothing had passed the station-master since the morning express, called lightning by satire, had slowly pushed up with three or four engines five hours behind its time, and just now had come down a messenger from them that he should telegraph to boston that they were all blocked up at tyler's summit,--the snow drifting beneath their wheels faster than they could clear it. above, the station-master said, nothing whatever had yet passed winchendon. five engines had gone out from fitchburg eastward, but in the whole day they had not come as far as leominster. it was very clear that no milk-train nor any other train would be on time the next morning. such was, in brief, john's report to huldah, when they had got to that state of things in which a man can make a report; that is, after they had rubbed dry the horses, had locked up the barn, after the men had rubbed themselves dry, and had put on dry clothing, and after each of them, sitting on the fire side of the table, had drunk his first cup of tea, and eaten his first square cubit of dipped-toast. after the dipped-toast, they were going to begin on huldah's fried potatoes and sausages. huldah heard their stories with all their infinite little details; knew every corner and turn by which they had husbanded strength and life; was grateful to the corbetts and varnums and prescotts and the rest, who, with their oxen and their red right hands, had given such loyal help for the common good; and she heaved a deep sigh when the story ended with the verdict of the failure of the whole,--"no trains on time to-morrow." "bad for the boston babies," said reuben bluntly, giving words to what the others were feeling. "poor little things!" said huldah, "alice has been so pretty all day." and she gulped down just one more sigh, disgusted with herself, as she remembered that "if" of the afternoon,--"if john had only gone into partnership with joe winter." iv. how they broke the blockade. three o'clock in the morning saw huldah's fire burning in the stove, her water boiling in the kettle, her slices of ham broiling on the gridiron, and quarter-past three saw the men come across from the barn, where they had been shaking down hay for the cows and horses, and yoking the oxen for the terrible onset of the day. it was bright star-light above,--thank heaven for that. this strip of three hundred thousand square miles of snow cloud, which had been drifting steadily cast over a continent, was, it seemed, only twenty hours wide,--say two hundred miles, more or less,--and at about midnight its last flecks had fallen, and all the heaven was washed black and clear. the men were well rested by those five hours of hard sleep. they were fitly dressed for their great encounter and started cheerily upon it, as men who meant to do their duty, and to both of whom, indeed, the thought had come, that life and death might be trembling in their hands. they did not take out the pungs to-day, nor, of course, the horses. such milk as they had collected on st. victoria's day they had stored already at the station, and at stacy's; and the best they could do to-day would be to break open the road from the four corners to the station, that they might place as many cans as possible there before the down-train came. from the house, then, they had only to drive down their oxen that they might work with the other teams from the four corners; and it was only by begging him, that huldah persuaded reuben to take one lunch-can for them both. then, as reuben left the door, leaving john to kiss her "good-by," and to tell her not to be alarmed if they did not come home at night,--she gave to john the full milk-can into which she had poured every drop of carry's milk, and said, "it will be one more; and god knows what child may be crying for it now." so they parted for eight and twenty hours; and in place of huldah's first state party of both families, she and alice reigned solitary that day, and held their little court with never a suitor. and when her lunch-time came, huldah looked half-mournfully, half-merrily, on her array of dainties prepared for the feast, and she would not touch one of them. she toasted some bread before the fire, made a cup of tea, boiled an egg, and would not so much as set the table. as has been before stated, this is the way with women. and of the men, who shall tell the story of the pluck and endurance, of the unfailing good-will, of the resource in strange emergency, of the mutual help and common courage with which all the men worked that day on that well-nigh hopeless task of breaking open the highway from the corners to the station? well-nigh hopeless, indeed; for although at first, with fresh cattle and united effort, they made in the hours, which passed so quickly up to ten o'clock, near two miles headway, and had brought yesterday's milk thus far,--more than half way to their point of delivery,--at ten o'clock it was quite evident that this sharp northwest wind, which told so heavily on the oxen and even on the men, was filling in the very roadway they had opened, and so was cutting them off from their base, and, by its new drifts, was leaving the roadway for to-day's milk even worse than it was when they began. in one of those extemporized councils, then,--such as fought the battle of bunker hill, and threw the tea into boston harbor,--it was determined, at ten o'clock, to divide the working parties. the larger body should work back to the four corners, and by proper relays keep that trunk line of road open, if they could; while six yoke, with their owners, still pressing forward to the station, should make a new base at lovejoy's, where, when these oxen gave out, they could be put up at his barn. it was quite clear, indeed, to the experts that that time was not far distant. and so, indeed, it proved. by three in the afternoon, john and reuben and the other leaders of the advance party--namely, the whole of it, for such is the custom of new england--gathered around the fire at lovejoy's, conscious that after twelve hours of such battle as pavia never saw, nor roncesvalles, they were defeated at every point but one. before them the mile of road which they had made in the steady work of hours was drifted in again as smooth as the surrounding pastures, only if possible a little more treacherous for the labor which they had thrown away upon it. the oxen which had worked kindly and patiently, well handled by good-tempered men, yet all confused and half dead with exposure, could do no more. well, indeed, if those that had been stalled fast, and had had to stand in that biting wind after gigantic effort, escaped with their lives from such exposure. all that the men had gained was that they had advanced their first dã©pã´t of milk--two hundred and thirty-nine cans--as far as lovejoy's. what supply might have worked down to the four corners behind them, they did not know and hardly cared, their communications that way being well-nigh cut off again. what they thought of, and planned for, was simply how these cans at lovejoy's could be put on any downward train. for by this time they knew that all trains would have lost their grades and their names, and that this milk would go into boston by the first engine that went there, though it rode on the velvet of a palace car. what train this might be, they did not know. from the hill above lovejoy's they could see poor old dix, the station-master, with his wife and boys, doing his best to make an appearance of shovelling in front of his little station. but dix's best was but little, for he had but one arm, having lost the other in a collision, and so as a sort of pension the company had placed him at this little flag-station, where was a roof over his head, a few tickets to sell, and generally very little else to do. it was clear enough that no working parties on the railroad had worked up to dix, or had worked down; nor was it very likely that any would before night, unless the railroad people had better luck with their drifts than our friends had found. but, as to this, who should say? snow-drifts are "mighty onsartain." the line of that road is in general northwest, and to-day's wind might have cleaned out its gorges as persistently as it had filled up our crosscuts. from lovejoy's barn they could see that the track was now perfectly clear for the half mile where it crossed the prescott meadows. i am sorry to have been so long in describing thus the aspect of the field after the first engagement. but it was on this condition of affairs that, after full conference, the enterprises of the night were determined. whatever was to be done was to be done by men. and after thorough regale on mrs. lovejoy's green tea, and continual return to her constant relays of thin bacon gilded by unnumbered eggs; after cutting and coming again upon unnumbered mince-pies, which, i am sorry to say, did not in any point compare well with huldah's,--each man thrust many doughnuts into his outside pockets, drew on the long boots again, and his buckskin gloves and mittens, and, unencumbered now by the care of animals, started on the work of the evening. the sun was just taking his last look at them from the western hills, where reuben and john could see huldah's chimney smoking. the plan was, by taking a double hand-sled of lovejoy's, and by knocking together two or three more, jumper-fashion, to work their way across the meadow to the railroad causeway, and establish a milk dã©pã´t there, where the line was not half a mile from lovejoy's. by going and coming often, following certain tracks well known to lovejoy on the windward side of walls and fences, these eight men felt quite sure that by midnight they could place all their milk at the spot where the old farm crossing strikes the railroad. meanwhile, silas lovejoy, a boy of fourteen, was to put on a pair of snow-shoes, go down to the station, state the case to old dix, and get from him a red lantern and permission to stop the first train where it swept out from the pitman cut upon the causeway. old dix had no more right to give this permission than had the humblest street-sweeper in ispahan, and this they all knew. but the fact that silas had asked for it would show a willingness on their part to submit to authority, if authority there had been. this satisfied the new england love of law, on the one hand. on the other hand, the train would be stopped, and this satisfied the new england determination to get the thing done any way. to give additional force to silas, john provided him with a note to dix, and it was generally agreed that if dix wasn't ugly, he would give the red lantern and the permission. silas was then to work up the road and station himself as far beyond the curve as he could, and stop the first down-train. he was to tell the conductor where the men were waiting with the milk, was to come down to them on the train, and his duty would be done. lest dix should be ugly, silas was provided with lovejoy's only lantern, but he was directed not to show this at the station until his interview was finished. silas started cheerfully on his snow-shoes; john and lovejoy, at the same time, starting with the first hand-sled of the cans. first of all into the sled, john put huldah's well-known can, a little shorter than the others, and with a different handle. "whatever else went to boston," he said, "that can was bound to go through." they established the basis of their pyramid, and met the three new jumpers with their makers as they went back for more. this party enlarged the base of the pyramid; and, as they worked, silas passed them cheerfully with his red lantern. old dix had not been ugly, had given the lantern and all the permission he had to give, and had communicated some intelligence also. the intelligence was, that an accumulated force of seven engines, with a large working party, had left groton junction downward at three. nothing had arrived upward at groton junction; and, from boston, dix learned that nothing more would leave there till early morning. no trains had arrived in boston from any quarter for twenty-four hours. so long the blockade had lasted already. on this intelligence, it was clear that, with good luck, the down-train might reach them at any moment. still the men resolved to leave their milk, while they went back for more, relying on silas and the "large working party" to put it on the cars, if the train chanced to pass before any of them returned. so back they fared to lovejoy's for their next relay, and met john and reuben working in successfully with their second. but no one need have hurried; for, as trip after trip they built their pyramid of cans higher and higher, no welcome whistle broke the stillness of the night, and by ten o'clock, when all these cans were in place by the rail, the train had not yet come. john and reuben then proposed to go up into the cut, and to relieve poor silas, who had not been heard from since he swung along so cheerfully like an "excelsior" boy on his way up the alps. but they had hardly started, when a horn from the meadow recalled them, and, retracing their way, they met a messenger who had come in to say that a fresh team from the four corners had been reported at lovejoy's, with a dozen or more men, who had succeeded in bringing down nearly as far as lovejoy's mowing-lot near a hundred more cans; that it was quite possible in two or three hours more to bring this over also,--and, although the first train was probably now close at hand, it was clearly worth while to place this relief in readiness for a second. so poor silas was left for the moment to his loneliness, and reuben and john returned again upon their steps. they passed the house where they found mrs. lovejoy and mrs. stacy at work in the shed, finishing off two more jumpers, and claiming congratulation for their skill, and after a cup of tea again,--for no man touched spirit that day nor that night,--they reported at the new station by the mowing-lot. and silas lovejoy--who had turned the corner into the pitman cut, and so shut himself out from sight of the station light, or his father's windows, or the lanterns of the party at the pyramid of cans--silas lovejoy held his watch there, hour by hour, with such courage as the sense of the advance gives boy or man. he had not neglected to take the indispensable shovel as he came. in going over the causeway he had slipped off the snow-shoes and hung them on his back. then there was heavy wading as he turned into the pitman cut, knee deep, middle deep, and he laid his snow-shoes on the snow and set the red lantern on them, as he reconnoitred. middle deep, neck deep, and he fell forward on his face into the yielding mass. "this will not do, i must not fall like that often," said silas to himself, as he gained his balance and threw himself backward against the mass. slowly he turned round, worked back to the lantern, worked out to the causeway, and fastened on the shoes again. with their safer help he easily skimmed up to pitman's bridge, which he had determined on for his station. he knew that thence his lantern could be seen for a mile, and that yet there the train might safely be stopped, so near was the open causeway which he had just traversed. he had no fear of an up-train behind him. so silas walked back and forth, and sang, and spouted "pieces," and mused on the future of his life, and spouted "pieces" again, and sang in the loneliness. how the time passed, he did not know. no sound of clock, no baying of dog, no plash of waterfall, broke that utter stillness. the wind, thank god, had at last died away; and silas paced his beat in a long oval he made for himself, under and beyond the bridge, with no sound but his own voice when he chose to raise it. he expected, as they all did, that every moment the whistle of the train, as it swept into sight a mile or more away, would break the silence; so he paced, and shouted, and sang. "this is a man's duty," he said to himself: "they would not let me go with the fifth regiment,--not as a drummer boy; but this is duty such as no drummer boy of them all is doing. company, march!" and he "stepped forward smartly" with his left foot. "really i am placed on guard here quite as much as if i were on picket in virginia." "who goes there?" "advance, friend, and give the countersign." not that any one did go there, or could go there; but the boy's fancy was ready, and so he amused himself during the first hours. then he began to wonder whether they were hours, as they seemed, or whether this was all a wretched illusion,--that the time passed slowly to him because he was nothing but a boy, and did not know how to occupy his mind. so he resolutely said the multiplication-table from the beginning to the end, and from the end to the beginning,--first to himself, and again aloud, to make it slower. then he tried the ten commandments. "thou shalt have none other gods before me:" easy to say that beneath those stars; and he said them again. no, it is no illusion. i must have been here hours long! then he began on milton's hymn:- "it was the winter wild, while the heaven-born child, all meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies." "winter wild, indeed," said silas aloud; and, if he had only known it, at that moment the sun beneath his feet was crossing the meridian, midnight had passed already, and christmas day was born! "only with speeches fair she wooes the gentle air to hide her guilty front with innocent snow." "innocent, indeed," said poor silas, still aloud, "much did he know of innocent snow!" and vainly did he try to recall the other stanzas, as he paced back and forth, round and round, and began now to wonder where his father and the others were, and if they could have come to any misfortune. surely, they could not have forgotten that he was here. would that train never come? if he were not afraid of its coming at once, he would have run back to the causeway to look for their lights,--and perhaps they had a fire. why had he not brought an axe for a fire? "that rail fence above would have served perfectly,--nay, it is not five rods to a load of hickory we left the day before thanksgiving. surely one of them might come up to me with an axe. but maybe there is trouble below. they might have come with an axe--with an axe--with an axe--with an--axe"--"i am going to sleep," cried silas,--aloud again this time,--as his head dropped heavily on the handle of the shovel he was resting on there in the lee of the stone wall. "i am going to sleep,--that will never do. sentinel asleep at his post. order out the relief. blind his eyes. kneel, sir. make ready. fire. that, sir, for sentinels asleep." and so silas laughed grimly, and began his march again. then he took his shovel and began a great pit where he supposed the track might be beneath him. "anything to keep warm and to keep awake. but why did they not send up to him? why was he here? why was he all alone? he who had never been alone before. was he alone? was there companionship in the stars,--or in the good god who held the stars? did the good god put me here? if he put me here, will he keep me here? or did he put me here to die! to die in this cold? it is cold,--it is very cold! is there any good in my dying? the train will run down, and they will see a dead body lying under the bridge,--black on the snow, with a red lantern by it. then they will stop. shall i--i will--just go back to see if the lights are at the bend. i will leave the lantern here on the edge of this wall!" and so silas turned, half benumbed, worked his way nearly out of the gorge, and started as he heard, or thought he heard, a baby's scream. "a thousand babies are starving, and i am afraid to stay here to give them their life," he said. "there is a boy fit for a soldier! order out the relief! drum-head court-martial! prisoner, hear your sentence! deserter, to be shot! blindfold,--kneel, sir! fire! good enough for deserters!" and so poor silas worked back again to the lantern. and now he saw and felt sure that orion was bending downward, and he knew that the night must be broken; and, with some new hope, throwing down the shovel with which he had been working, he began his soldier tramp once more,--as far as soldier tramp was possible with those trailing snow-shoes,--tried again on "no war nor battle sound," broke down on "cynthia's seat" and the "music of the spheres;" but at last,--working on "beams," "long beams," and "that with long beams,"--he caught the stanzas he was feeling for, and broke out exultant with,- "at last surrounds their sight, a globe of circular light that with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed; the helmed cherubim and sworded seraphim are seen in glittering ranks--" "globe of circular light--am i dreaming, or have they come!"-come they had! the globe of circular light swept full over the valley, and the scream of the engine was welcomed by the freezing boy as if it had been an angel's whisper to him. not unprepared did it find him. the red lantern swung to and fro in a well-practised hand, and he was in waiting on his firmest spot as the train _slowed_ and the engine passed him. "do not stop for me," he cried, as he threw his weight heavily on the tender side, and the workmen dragged him in. "only run slow till you are out of the ledge: we have made a milk station at the cross-road." "good for you!" said the wondering fireman, who in a moment understood the exigency. the heavy plough threw out the snow steadily still, in ten seconds they were clear of the ledge, and saw the fire-light shimmering on the great pyramids of milk-cans. slower and slower ran the train, and by the blazing fire stopped, for once, because its masters chose to stop. and the working party on the train cheered lustily as they tumbled out of the cars, as they apprehended the situation, and were cheered by the working party from the village. two or three cans of milk stood on the embers of the fire, that they might be ready for the men on the train with something that was at least warm. an empty passenger car was opened and the pyramids of milk-cans were hurried into it,--forty men now assisting. "you will find joe winter at the boston station," said john stevens to the "gentlemanly conductor" of the express, whose lightning train had thus become a milk convoy. "tell winter to distribute this among all the carts, that everybody may have some. good luck to you. good-by!" and the engines snorted again, and john stevens turned back, not so much as thinking that he had made his christmas present to a starving town. v. christmas morning. the children were around robert walter's knees, and each of the two spelled out a verse of the second chapter of luke, on christmas morning. and robert and mary kneeled with them, and they said together, "our father who art in heaven." mary's voice broke a little when they came to "daily bread," but with the two, and her husband, she continued to the end, and could say "thine is the power," and believe it too. "mamma," whispered little fanny, as she kissed her mother after the prayer, "when i said my prayer up stairs last night, i said 'our daily milk,' and so did robert." this was more than poor mary could bear. she kissed the child, and she hurried away. for last night at six o'clock it was clear that the milk was sour, and little jamie had detected it first of all. then, with every one of the old wiles, they had gone back over the old slops; but the child, with that old weird strength, had pushed them all away. christmas morning broke, and poor robert, as soon as light would serve, had gone to the neighbors all,--their nearest intimates they had tried the night before,--and from all had brought back the same reply; one friend had sent a wretched sample, but the boy detected the taint and pushed it, untasted, away. dr. morton had the alarm the day before. he was at the house earlier than usual with some condensed milk, which his wife's stores had furnished; but that would not answer. poor jamie pushed this by. there was some smoke or something,--who should say what?--it would not do. the doctor could see in an instant how his patient had fallen back in the night. that weird, anxious, entreating look, as his head lay back on the little pillow, had all come back again. robert and robert's friends, gaisford and warren, had gone down to the old colony, to the worcester, and to the hartford stations. perhaps their trains were doing better. the door-bell rang yet again. "mrs. appleton's love to mrs. walter, and perhaps her child will try some fresh beef-tea." as if poor jamie did not hate beef-tea; still morton resolutely forced three spoonfuls down. half an hour more and mrs. dudley's compliments. "mrs. dudley heard that mrs. walter was out of milk, and took the liberty to send round some very particularly nice scotch groats, which her brother had just brought from edinburgh." "do your best with it, fanny," said poor mary, but she knew that if jamie took those scotch groats it was only because they were a christmas present. half an hour more! three more spoonfuls of beef-tea after a fight. door-bell again. carriage at the door. "would mrs. walter come down and see mrs. fitch? it was really very particular." mary was half dazed, and went down, she did not know why. "dear mrs. walter, you do not remember me," said this eager girl, crossing the room and taking her by both hands. "why, no--yes--do i?" said mary, crying and laughing together. "yes, you will remember, it was at church, at the baptism. my jennie and your jamie were christened the same day. and now i hear,--we all know how low he is,--and perhaps he will share my jennie's breakfast. dear mrs. walter, do let me try." then mary saw that the little woman's cloak and hat were already thrown off,--which had not seemed strange to her before,--and the two passed quietly up stairs together; and julia fitch bent gently over him, and cooed to him, and smiled to him, but could not make the poor child smile. and they lifted him so gently on the pillow,--but only to hear him scream. and she brought his head gently to her heart, and drew back the little curtain that was left, and offered to him her life; but he was frightened, and did not know her, and had forgotten what it was she gave him, and screamed again; and so they had to lay him back gently upon the pillow. and then,--as julia was saying she would stay, and how they could try again, and could do this and that,--then the door-bell rang again, and mrs. coleman had herself come round with a little white pitcher, and herself ran up stairs with it, and herself knocked at the door! the blockade was broken, and the milk had come! * * * * * mary never knew that it was from huldah stevens's milk-can that her boy drank in the first drop of his new life. nor did huldah know it. nor did john know it, nor the paladins who fought that day at his side. nor did silas lovejoy know it. but the good god and all good angels knew it. why ask for more? and you and i, dear reader, if we can forget that always our daily bread comes to us, because a thousand brave men and a thousand brave women are at work in the world, praying to god and trying to serve him, we will not forget it as we meet at breakfast on this blessed christmas day! stand and wait. i. christmas eve. "they've come! they've come!" this was the cry of little herbert as he ran in from the square stone which made the large doorstep of the house. here he had been watching, a self-posted sentinel, for the moment when the carriage should turn the corner at the bottom of the hill. "they've come! they've come!" echoed joyfully through the house; and the cry penetrated out into the extension, or ell, in which the grown members of the family were, in the kitchen, "getting tea" by some formulas more solemn than ordinary. "have they come?" cried grace; and she set her skillet back to the quarter-deck, or after-part of the stove, lest its white contents should burn while she was away. she threw a waiting handkerchief over her shoulders, and ran with the others to the front door, to wave something white, and to be in at the first welcome. young and old were gathered there in that hospitable open space where the side road swept up to the barn on its way from the main road. the bigger boys of the home party had scattered half-way down the hill by this time. even grandmamma had stepped down from the stone, and walked half-way to the roadway. every one was waving something. those who had no handkerchiefs had hats or towels to wave; and the more advanced boys began an undefined or irregular cheer. but the carryall advanced slowly up the hill, with no answering handkerchief, and no bonneted head stretched out from the side. and, as it neared sam and andrew, their enthusiasm could be seen to droop, and george and herbert stopped their cheers as it came up to them; and before it was near the house, on its grieved way up the hill, the bad news had come up before it, as bad news will,--"she has not come, after all." it was huldah root, grace's older sister, who had not come. john root, their father, had himself driven down to the station to meet her; and abner, her oldest brother, had gone with him. it was two years since she had been at home, and the whole family was on tiptoe to welcome her. hence the unusual tea preparation; hence the sentinel on the doorstep; hence the general assembly in the yard; and, after all, she had not come! it was a wretched disappointment. her mother had that heavy, silent look, which children take as the heaviest affliction of all, when they see it in their mother's faces. john root himself led the horse into the barn, as if he did not care now for anything which might happen in heaven above or in earth beneath. the boys were voluble in their rage: "it is too bad!" and, "grandmamma, don't you think it is too bad?" and, "it is the meanest thing i ever heard of in all my life!" and, "grace, why don't you say anything? did you ever know anything so mean?" as for poor grace herself, she was quite beyond saying anything. all the treasured words she had laid up to say to huldah; all the doubts and hopes and guesses, which were secret to all but god, but which were to be poured out in huldah's ear as soon as they were alone, were coming up one by one, as if to choke her. she had waited so long for this blessed fortnight of sympathy, and now she had lost it. grace could say nothing. and poor grandmamma, on whom fell the stilling of the boys, was at heart as wretched as any of them. somehow, something got itself put on the supper-table; and, when john root and abner came in from the barn, they all sat down to pretend to eat something. what a miserable contrast to the christmas eve party which had been expected! the observance of christmas is quite a novelty in the heart of new england among the lords of the manor. winslow and brewster, above plymouth rock, celebrated their first christmas by making all hands work all day in the raising of their first house. it was in that way that a christian empire was begun. they builded better than they knew. they and theirs, in that hard day's work, struck the key-note for new england for two centuries and a half. and many and many a new englander, still in middle life, remembers that in childhood, though nurtured in christian homes, he could not have told, if he were asked, on what day of the year christmas fell. but as new england, in the advance of the world, has come into the general life of the world, she has shown no inaptitude for the greater enjoyments of life; and, with the true catholicity of her great congregational system, her people and her churches seize, one after another, all the noble traditions of the loftiest memories. and so in this matter we have in hand; it happened that the roots, in their hillside home, had determined that they would celebrate christmas, as never had roots done before since josiah root landed at salem, from the "hercules," with other kentish people, in 1635. abner and gershom had cut and trimmed a pretty fir-balsam from the edge of the hotchkiss clearing; and it was now in the best parlor. grace, with mary bickford, her firm ally and other self, had gilded nuts, and rubbed lady apples, and strung popped corn; and the tree had been dressed in secret, the youngsters all locked and warned out from the room. the choicest turkeys of the drove, and the tenderest geese from the herd, and the plumpest fowls from the barnyard, had been sacrificed on consecrated altars. and all this was but as accompaniment and side illustration of the great glory of the celebration, which was, that huldah, after her two years' absence,--huldah was to come home. and now she had not come,--nay, was not coming! as they sat down at their barmecide feast, how wretched the assemblage of unrivalled dainties seemed! john root handed to his wife their daughter's letter; she read it, and gave it to grace, who read it, and gave it to her grandmother. no one read it aloud. to read aloud in such trials is not the custom of new england. boston, dec. 24, 1848. dear father and mother,--it is dreadful to disappoint you all, but i cannot come. i am all ready, and this goes by the carriage that was to take me to the cars. but our dear little horace has just been brought home, i am afraid, dying; but we cannot tell, and i cannot leave him. you know there is really no one who can do what i can. he was riding on his pony. first the pony came home alone; and, in five minutes after, two policemen brought the dear child in a carriage. his poor mother is very calm, but cannot think yet, or do anything. we have sent for his father, who is down town. i try to hope that he may come to himself; but he only lies and draws long breaths on his little bed. the doctors are with him now; and i write this little scrawl to say how dreadfully sorry i am. a merry christmas to you all. do not be troubled about me. your own loving huldah. p.s. i have got some little presents for the children; but they are all in my trunk, and i cannot get them out now. i will make a bundle monday. good-by. the man is waiting. this was the letter that was passed from hand to hand, of which the contents slowly trickled into the comprehension of all parties, according as their several ages permitted them to comprehend. sam, as usual, broke the silence by saying,-"it is a perfect shame! she might as well be a nigger slave! i suppose they think they have bought her and sold her. i should like to see 'em all, just for once, and tell 'em that her flesh and blood is as good as theirs; and that, with all their airs and their money, they've no business to"-"sam," said poor grace, "you shall not say such things. huldah has stayed because she chose to stay; and that is the worst of it. she will not think of herself, not for one minute; and so--everything happens." and grace was sobbing beyond speech again; and her intervention amounted, therefore, to little or nothing. the boys, through the evening, descanted among themselves on the outrage. grandmamma, and at last their mother, took successive turns in taming their indignation; but, for all this, it was a miserable evening. as for john root, he took a lamp in one hand, and "the weekly tribune" in the other, and sat before the fire, and pretended to read; but not once did john root change the fold of the paper that evening. it was a wretched christmas eve; and, at half-past eight, every light was out, and every member of the household was lying stark awake, in bed. * * * * * huldah root, you see, was a servant with the bartletts, in boston. when she was only sixteen, she was engaged at her "trade," as a vest-maker, in that town; and, by some chance, made an appointment to sew as a seamstress at mrs. bartlett's for a fortnight. there were any number of children to be clothed there; and the fortnight extended to a month. then the month became two months. she grew fond of mrs. bartlett, because mrs. bartlett grew fond of her. the children adored her; and she kept an eye to them; and it ended in her engaging to spend the winter there, half-seamstress, half-nurse, half-nursery-governess, and a little of everything. from such a beginning, it had happened that she had lived there six years, in confidential service. she could cook better than anybody in the house,--better than mrs. bartlett herself; but it was not often that she tried her talent there. on a birthday perhaps, in august, she would make huckleberry cakes, by the old homestead "receipt," for the children. she had the run of all their clothes as nobody else did; took the younger ones to be measured; and saw that none of the older ones went out with a crack in a seam, or a rough edge at the foot of a trowser. it was whispered that minnie had rather go into the sewing-room to get huldah to "show her" about "alligation" or "square-root," than to wait for miss thurber's explanations in the morning. in fifty such ways, it happened that huldah--who, on the roll-call of the census-man, probably rated as a nursery-maid in the house--was the confidential friend of every member of the family, from mr. bartlett, who wanted to know where "the intelligencer" was, down to the chore-boy who came in to black the shoes. and so it was, that, when poor little horace was brought in with his skull knocked in by the pony, huldah was--and modestly knew that she was--the most essential person in the stunned family circle. while her brothers and sisters were putting out their lights at new durham, heart-sick and wounded, huldah was sitting in that still room, where only the rough broken breathing of poor horace broke the sound. she was changing, once in ten minutes, the ice-water cloths; was feeling of his feet sometimes; wetting his tongue once or twice in an hour; putting her finger to his pulse with a native sense, which needed no second-hand to help it; and all the time, with the thought of him, was remembering how grieved and hurt and heart-broken they were at home. every half-hour or less, a pale face appeared at the door; and huldah just slid across the room, and said, "he is really doing nicely, pray lie down;" or, "his pulse is surely better, i will certainly come to you if it flags;" or "pray trust me, i will not let you wait a moment if he needs you;" or, "pray get ready for to-morrow. an hour's sleep now will be worth everything to you then." and the poor mother would crawl back to her baby and her bed, and pretend to try to sleep; and in half an hour would appear again at the door. one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock. how companionable dr. lowell's clock seems when one is sitting up so, with no one else to talk to! four o'clock at last; it is really growing to be quite intimate. five o'clock. "if i were in dear durham now, one of the roosters would be calling,"--six o'clock. poor horace stirs, turns, flings his arm over. "mother--o huldah! is it you? how nice that is!" and he is unconscious again; but he had had sense enough to know her. what a blessed christmas present that is, to tell that to his poor mother when she slides in at daybreak, and says, "you shall go to bed now, dear child. you see i am very fresh; and you must rest yourself, you know. do you really say he knew you? are you sure he knew you? why, huldah, what an angel of peace you are!" so opened huldah's christmas morning. * * * * * days of doubt, nights of watching. every now and then the boy knows his mother, his father, or huldah. then will come this heavy stupor which is so different from sleep. at last the surgeons have determined that a piece of the bone must come away. there is the quiet gathering of the most skilful at the determined hour; there is the firm table for the little fellow to lie on; here is the ether and the sponge; and, of course, here and there, and everywhere, is huldah. she can hold the sponge, or she can fetch and carry; she can answer at once if she is spoken to; she can wait, if it is waiting; she can act, if it is acting. at last the wretched little button, which has been pressing on our poor boy's brain, is lifted safely out. it is in morton's hand; he smiles and nods at huldah as she looks inquiry, and she knows he is satisfied. and does not the poor child himself, even in his unconscious sleep, draw his breath more lightly than he did before? all is well. "who do you say that young woman is?" says dr. morton to mr. bartlett, as he draws on his coat in the doorway after all is over. "could we not tempt her over to the general hospital?" "no, i think not. i do not think we can spare her." the boy horace is new-born that day; a new year's gift to his mother. so pass huldah's holidays. ii. christmas again. fourteen years make of the boy whose pony has been too much for him a man equal to any prank of any pony. fourteen years will do this, even to boys of ten. horace bartlett is the colonel of a cavalry regiment, stationed just now in west virginia; and, as it happens, this twenty-four-year-old boy has an older commission than anybody in that region, and is the post commander at talbot c. h., and will be, most likely, for the winter. the boy has a vein of foresight in him; a good deal of system; and, what is worth while to have by the side of system, some knack of order. so soon as he finds that he is responsible, he begins to prepare for responsibility. his staff-officers are boys too; but they are all friends, and all mean to do their best. his surgeon-in-charge took his degree at washington last spring; that is encouraging. perhaps, if he has not much experience, he has, at least, the latest advices. his head is level too; he means to do his best, such as it is; and, indeed, all hands in that knot of boy counsellors will not fail for laziness or carelessness. their very youth makes them provident and grave. so among a hundred other letters, as october opens, horace writes this:- talbot court house, va., oct. 3, 1863. dear huldah,--here we are still, as i have been explaining to father; and, as you will see by my letter to him, here we are like to stay. thus far we are doing sufficiently well. as i have told him, if my plans had been adopted we should have been pushed rapidly forward up the valley of the yellow creek; badger's corps would have been withdrawn from before winchester; wilcox and steele together would have threatened early; and then, by a rapid flank movement, we should have pounced down on longstreet (not the great longstreet, but little longstreet), and compelled him to uncover lynchburg; we could have blown up the dams and locks on the canal, made a freshet to sweep all the obstructions out of james river, and then, if they had shown half as much spirit on the potomac, all of us would be in richmond for our christmas dinner. but my plans, as usual, were not asked for, far less taken. so, as i said, here we are. well, i have been talking with lawrence worster, my surgeon-in-charge, who is a very good fellow. his sick-list is not bad now, and he does not mean to have it bad; but he says that he is not pleased with the ways of his ward-masters; and it was his suggestion, not mine, mark you, that i should see if one or two of the sanitary women would not come as far as this to make things decent. so, of course, i write to you. don't you think mother could spare you to spend the winter here? it will be rough, of course; but it is all in the good cause. perhaps you know some nice women,--well, not like you, of course; but still, disinterested and sensible, who would come too. think of this carefully, i beg you, and talk to father and mother. worster says we may have three hundred boys in hospital before christmas. if jubal early should come this way, i don't know how many more. talk with mother and father. always yours, horace bartlett. p. s. i have shown worster what i have written; he encloses a sort of official letter which may be of use. he says, "show this to dr. hayward; get them to examine you and the others, and then the government, on his order, will pass you on." i enclose this, because, if you come, it will save time. of course huldah went. grace starr, her married sister, went with her, and mrs. philbrick, and anna thwart. that was the way they happened to be all together in the methodist church that had been, of talbot court house, as christmas holidays drew near, of the year of grace, 1863. she and her friends had been there quite long enough to be wonted to the strangeness of december in the open air. on her little table in front of the desk of the church were three or four buttercups in bloom, which she had gathered in an afternoon walk, with three or four heads of hawksweed. "the beginning of one year," huldah said, "with the end of the other." nay, there was even a stray rose which dr. sprigg had found in a farmer's garden. huldah came out from the vestry, where her own bed was, in the gray of the morning, changed the water for the poor little flowers, sat a moment at the table to look at last night's memoranda, and then beckoned to the ward-master, and asked him, in a whisper, what was the movement she had heard in the night,--"another alarm from early?" "no, miss; not an alarm. i saw the colonel's orderly as he passed. he stopped here for dr. fenno's case. there had come down an express from general mitchell, and the men were called without the bugle, each man separately; not a horse was to neigh, if they could help it. and really, miss, they were off in twenty minutes." "off, who are off?" "the whole post, miss, except the relief for to-day. there are not fifty men in the village besides us here. the orderly thought they were to go down to braxton's; but he did not know." here was news indeed! news so exciting that huldah went back at once, and called the other women; and then all of them together began on that wretched business of waiting. they had never yet known what it was to wait for a real battle. they had had their beds filled with this and that patient from one or another post, and had some gun-shot wounds of old standing among the rest; but this was their first battle if it were a battle. so the covers were taken off that long line of beds, down on the west aisle, and from those under the singers' seat; and the sheets and pillow-cases were brought out from the linen room, and aired, and put on. our biggest kettles are filled up with strong soup; and we have our milk-punch, and our beef-tea all in readiness; and everybody we can command is on hand to help lift patients and distribute food. but there is only too much time. will there never be any news? anna thwart and doctor sprigg have walked down to the bend of the hill, to see if any messenger is coming. as for the other women, they sit at their table; they look at their watches; they walk down to the door; they come back to the table. i notice they have all put on fresh aprons, for the sake of doing something more in getting ready. here is anna thwart. "they are coming! they are coming! somebody is coming. a mounted man is crossing the flat, coming towards us; and the doctor told me to come back and tell." five minutes more, ten minutes more, an eternity more, and then, rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat, the mounted man is here. "wagons right behind. we bagged every man of them at wyatt's. got there before daylight. colonel white's men from the yellows came up just at the same time, and we pitched in before they knew it,--three or four regiments, thirteen hundred men, and all their guns." "and with no fighting?" "oh, yes! fighting of course. the colonel has got a train of wagons down here with the men that are hurt. that's why i am here. here is his note." thus does the mounted man discharge his errand backward. dear doctor,--we have had great success. we have surprised the whole post. the company across the brook tried hard to get away; and a good many of them, and of sykes's men, are hit; but i cannot find that we have lost more than seven men. i have nineteen wagons here of wounded men,--some hurt pretty badly. ever yours, h. so there must be more waiting. but now we know what we are waiting for; and the end will come in a finite world. thank god, at half-past three, here they are! tenderly, gently. "hush, sam! hush, cã¦sar! you talk too much." gently, tenderly. twenty-seven of the poor fellows, with everything the matter, from a burnt face to a heart stopping its beats for want of more blood. "huldah, come here. this is my old classmate, barthow; sat next me at prayers four years. he is a major in their army, you see. his horse stumbled, and pitched him against a stone wall; and he has not spoken since. don't tell me he is dying; but do as well for him, huldah,"--and the handsome boy smiled,--"do as well for him as you did for me." so they carried barthow, senseless as he was, tenderly into the church; and he became e, 27, on an iron bedstead. not half our soup was wanted, nor our beef-tea, nor our punch. so much the better. then came day and night, week in and out, of army system, and womanly sensibility; that quiet, cheerful, _homish_, hospital life, in the quaint surroundings of the white-washed church; the pointed arches of the windows and the faded moreen of the pulpit telling that it is a church, in a reminder not unpleasant. two or three weeks of hopes and fears, failures and success, bring us to christmas eve. * * * * * it is the surgeon-in-chief, who happens to give our particular christmas dinner,--i mean the one that interests you and me. huldah and the other ladies had accepted his invitation. horace bartlett and his staff, and some of the other officers, were guests; and the doctor had given his own permit that major barthow might walk up to his quarters with the ladies. huldah and he were in advance, he leaning, with many apologies, on her arm. dr. sprigg and anna thwart were far behind. the two married ladies, as needing no escort, were in the middle. major barthow enjoyed the emancipation, was delighted with his companion, could not say enough to make her praise the glimpses of virginia, even if it were west virginia. "what a party it is, to be sure!" said he. "the doctor might call on us for our stories, as one of dickens's chiefs would do at a christmas feast. let's see, we should have the surgeon's tale; the general's tale; for we may at least make believe that hod's stars have come from washington. then we must call in that one-eyed servant of his; and we will have the orderly's tale. your handsome friend from wisconsin shall tell the german's tale. i shall be encouraged to tell the prisoner's tale. and you"-"and i?" said huldah laughing, because he paused. "you shall tell the saint's tale." barthow spoke with real feeling, which he did not care to disguise. but huldah was not there for sentiment; and without quivering in the least, nor making other acknowledgment, she laughed as she knew she ought to do, and said, "oh, no! that is quite too grand, the story must end with the superintendent of special relief's tale. it is a little unromantic to the sound; but that's what it is." "i don't see," persisted the major, "if superintendent of special relief means saint in latin, why we should not say so." "because we are not talking latin," said huldah. "listen to me; and, before we come to dinner, i will tell you a story pretty enough for dickens, or any of them; and it is a story not fifteen minutes old. "have you noticed that black-whiskered fellow, under the gallery, by the north window?--yes, the same. he is french, enlisted, i think, in new london. i came to him just now, managed to say _ã©trennes_ and _noã«l_ to him, and a few other french words, and asked if there were nothing we could do to make him more at home. oh, no! there was nothing; madame was too good, and everybody was too good, and so on. but i persisted. i wished i knew more about christmas in france; and i staid by. 'no, madame, nothing; there is nothing. but, since you say it,--if there were two drops of red wine,--_du vin de mon pays, madame_; but you could not here in virginia.' could not i? a superintendent of special relief has long arms. there was a box of claret, which was the first thing i saw in the store-room the day i took my keys. the doctor was only too glad the man had thought of it; and you should have seen the pleasure that red glass, as full as i could pile it, gave him. the tears were running down his cheeks. anna, there, had another frenchman; and she sent some to him: and my man is now humming a little song about the _vin rouge_ of bourgogne. would not mr. dickens make a pretty story of that for you,--'the frenchman's story'?" barthow longed to say that the great novelist would not make so pretty a story as she did. but this time he did not dare. you are not going to hear the eight stories. mr. dickens was not there; nor, indeed, was i. but a jolly christmas dinner they had; though they had not those eight stories. quiet they were, and very, very happy. it was a strange thing,--if one could have analyzed it,--that they should have felt so much at home, and so much at ease with each other, in that queer virginian kitchen, where the doctor and his friends of his mess had arranged the feast. it was a happy thing, that the recollections of so many other christmas homes should come in, not sadly, but pleasantly, and should cheer, rather than shade the evening. they felt off soundings, all of them. there was, for the time, no responsibility. the strain was gone. the gentlemen were glad to be dining with ladies, i believe: the ladies, unconsciously, were probably glad to be dining with gentlemen. the officers were glad they were not on duty; and the prisoner, if glad of nothing else, was glad he was not in bed. but he was glad for many things beside. you see it was but a little post. they were far away; and they took things with the ease of a detached command. "shall we have any toasts?" said the doctor, when his nuts and raisins and apples at last appeared. "oh, no! no toasts,--nothing so stiff as that." "oh, yes! oh, yes!" said grace. "i should like to know what it is to drink a toast. something i have heard of all my life, and never saw." "one toast, at least, then," said the doctor. "colonel bartlett, will you name the toast?" "only one toast?" said horace; "that is a hard selection: we must vote on that." "no, no!" said a dozen voices; and a dozen laughing assistants at the feast offered their advice. "i might give 'the country;' i might give 'the cause;' i might give 'the president:' and everybody would drink," said horace. "i might give 'absent friends,' or 'home, sweet home;' but then we should cry." "why do you not give 'the trepanned people'?" said worster, laughing, "or 'the silver-headed gentlemen'?" "why don't you give 'the staff and the line'?" "why don't you give 'here's hoping'?" "give 'next christmas.'" "give 'the medical department; and may they often ask us to dine!'" "give 'saints and sinners,'" said major barthow, after the first outcry was hushed. "i shall give no such thing," said horace. "we have had a lovely dinner; and we know we have; and the host, who is a good fellow, knows the first thanks are not to him. those of us who ever had our heads knocked open, like the major and me, do know. fill your glasses, gentlemen; i give you 'the special diet kitchen.'" he took them all by surprise. there was a general shout; and the ladies all rose, and dropped mock courtesies. "by jove!" said barthow to the colonel, afterwards, "it was the best toast i ever drank in my life. anyway, that little woman has saved my life. do you say she did the same to you?" iii. christmas again. so you think that when the war was over major barthow, then major-general, remembered huldah all the same, and came on and persuaded her to marry him, and that she is now sitting in her veranda, looking down on the pamunkey river. you think that, do not you? well! you were never so mistaken in your life. if you want that story, you can go and buy yourself a dime novel. i would buy "the rescued rebel;" or, "the noble nurse," if i were you. after the war was over, huldah did make colonel barthow and his wife a visit once, at their plantation in pocataligo county; but i was not there, and know nothing about it. here is a christmas of hers, about which she wrote a letter; and, as it happens, it was a letter to mrs. barthow. huldah root to agnes barthow. villers-bocage, dec. 27, 1868. ... here i was, then, after this series of hopeless blunders, sole alone at the _gare_ [french for station] of this little out-of-the-way town. my dear, there was never an american here since christopher columbus slept here when he was a boy. and here, you see, i was like to remain; for there was no possibility of the others getting back to me till to-morrow, and no good in my trying to overtake them. all i could do was just to bear it, and live on, and live through from thursday to monday; and, really, what was worst of all was that friday was christmas day. well, i found a funny little carriage, with a funny old man who did not understand my _patois_ any better than i did his; but he understood a franc-piece. i had my guide-book, and i said _auberge_; and we came to the oddest, most outlandish, and old-fashioned establishment that ever escaped from one of julia nathalie woman's novels. and here i am. and the reason, my dear mrs. barthow, that i take to-day to write to you, you and the colonel will now understand. you see it was only ten o'clock when i got here; then i went to walk, many _enfans terribles_ following respectfully; then i came home, and ate the funny refection; then i got a nap; then i went to walk again, and made a little sketch in the churchyard: and this time, one of the children brought up her mother, a funny norman woman, in a delicious costume,--i have a sketch of another just like her,--and she dropped a courtesy, and in a very mild _patois_ said she hoped the children did not trouble madame. and i said, "oh, no!" and found a sugar-plum for the child and showed my sketch to the woman; and she said she supposed madame was _anglaise_. i said i was not _anglaise_,--and here the story begins; for i said i was _americaine_. and, do you know, her face lighted up as if i had said i was st. gulda, or st. hilda, or any of their northmen saints. "americaine! est-il possible? jeannette, gertrude, faites vos rã©vã©rences. madame est americaine." and, sure enough, they all dropped preternatural courtesies. and then the most eager enthusiasm; how fond they all were of _les americaines_, but how no _americaines_ had ever come before! and was madame at the three cygnets? and might she and her son and her husband call to see madame at the three cygnets? and might she bring a little _ã©trenne_ to madame? and i know not what beside. i was very glad the national reputation had gone so far. i really wished i were charles sumner (pardon me, dear agnes), that i might properly receive the delegation. but i said, "oh, certainly!" and, as it grew dark, with my admiring _cortã©ge_ whispering now to the street full of admirers that madame was _americaine_, i returned to the three cygnets. and in the evening they all came. really, you should see the pretty basket they brought for an _ã©trenne_. i could not guess then where they got such exquisite flowers; these lovely stephanotis blossoms, a perfect wealth of roses, and all arranged with charming taste in a quaint country basket, such as exists nowhere but in this particular section of this quaint old normandy. in came the husband, dressed up, and frightened, but thoroughly good in his look. in came my friend; and then two sons and two wives, and three or four children: and, my dear agnes, one of the sons, i knew him in an instant, was a man we had at talbot court house when your husband was there. i think the colonel will remember him,--a black-whiskered man, who used to sing a little song about _le vin rouge_ of bourgogne. he did not remember me; that i saw in a moment. it was all so different, you know. in the hospital, i had on my cap and apron, and here,--well, it was another thing. my hostess knew that they were coming, and had me in her largest room, and i succeeded in making them all sit down; and i received my formal welcome; and i thanked in my most parisian french; and then the conversation hung fire. but i took my turn now, and turned round to poor louis. "you served in america, did you not?" said i. "ah, yes, madame! i did not know my mother had told you." no more did she, indeed; and she looked astonished. but i persevered,- "you seem strong and well." "ah, yes, madame!" "how long since you returned?" "as soon as there was peace, madame. we were mustered out in june, madame." "and does your arm never trouble you?" "oh, never, madame! i did not know my mother had told you." new astonishment on the part of the mother. "you never had another piece of bone come out?" "oh, no, madame! how did madame know? i did not know my mother had told you!" and by this time i could not help saying, "you normans care more for christmas than we americans; is it not so, my brave?" and this he would not stand; and he said stoutly, "ah, no, madame! no, no, _jamais_!" and began an eager defence of the religious enthusiasm of the americans, and their goodness to all people who were good, if people would only be good. but still he had not the least dream who i was. and i said,- "do the normans ever drink burgundy?" and to my old hostess, "madame, could you bring us a flask _du vin rouge de bourgogne_?" and then i hummed his little chanson, i am sure colonel barthow will remember it,--"_deux--gouttes--du vin rouge du bourgogne._" my dear mrs. barthow, he sprang from his chair, and fell on his knees, and kissed my hands, before i could stop him. and when his mother and father, and all the rest, found that i was the particular _soeur de la charitã©_ who had had the care of dear louis when he was hurt, and that it was i he had told of that very day,--for the thousandth time, i believe,--who gave him that glass of claret, and cheered up his christmas, i verily believe they would have taken me to the church to worship me. they were not satisfied,--the women with kissing me, or the men with shaking hands with each other,--the whole _auberge_ had to be called in; and poor i was famous. i need not say i cried my eyes out; and when, at ten o'clock, they let me go to bed, i was worn out with crying, and laughing, and talking, and listening; and i believe they were as much upset as i. now that is just the beginning; and yet i see i must stop. but, for forty-eight hours, i have been simply a queen. i can hardly put my foot to the ground. christmas morning, these dear thibault people came again; and then the _curã©_ came; and then some nice madame perrons came, and i went to mass with them; and, after mass, their brother's carriage came; and they would take no refusals; but with many apologies to my sweet old hostess, at the three cygnets, i was fain to come up to m. firmin's lovely _chã¢teau_ here, and make myself at home till my friends shall arrive. it seems the poor thibaults had come here to beg the flowers for the _ã©trenne._ it is really the most beautiful country residence i have seen in france; and they live on the most patriarchal footing with all the people round them. i am sure i ought to speak kindly of them. it is the most fascinating hospitality. so here am i, waiting, with my little _sac de nuit_ to make me _aspettabile_; and here i ate my christmas dinner. tell the colonel that here is "the traveller's tale;" and that is why the letter is so long. most truly yours, huldah root. iv. one christmas more. this last christmas party is huldah's own. it is hers, at least, as much as it is any one's. there are five of them, nay, six, with equal right to precedence in the john o' groat's house, where she has settled down. it is one of those comfortable houses which are still left three miles out from the old state house in boston. it is not all on one floor; that would be, perhaps, too much like the golden courts of heaven. there are two stories; but they are connected by a central flight of stairs of easy tread (designed by charles cummings); so easy, and so stately withal, that, as you pass over them, you always bless the builder, and hardly know that you go up or down. five large rooms on each floor give ample room for the five heads of the house, if, indeed, there be not six, as i said before. into this saints' rest, there have drifted together, by the eternal law of attraction,--huldah, and ellen philbrick (who was with her in virginia, and in france, and has been, indeed, but little separated from her, except on duty, for twenty years), and with them three other friends. these women,--well, i cannot introduce them to you without writing three stories of true romance, one for each. this quiet, strong, meditative, helpful saint, who is coming into the parlor now, is helen touro. she was left alone with her baby when "the empire state" went down; and her husband was never heard of more. the love of that baby warmed her to the love of all others; and, when i first knew her, she was ruling over a home of babies, whose own mothers or fathers were not,--always with a heart big enough to say there was room for one more waif in that sanctuary. that older woman, who is writing at the davenport in the corner, lightened the cares and smoothed the daily life of general schuyler in all the last years of his life, when he was in the cabinet, in brazil, and in louisiana. his wife was long ill, and then died. his children needed all a woman's care; and this woman stepped to the front, cared for them, cared for all his household, cared for him: and i dare not say how much is due to her of that which you and i say daily we owe to him. miss peters, i see you know. she served in another regiment; was at the head of the sweetest, noblest, purest school that ever trained, in five and twenty years, five hundred girls to be the queens in five hundred happy and strong families. all of these five,--our huldah and mrs. philbrick too, you have seen before,--all of them have been in "the service;" all of them have known that perfect service is perfect freedom. i think they know that perfect service is the highest honor. they have together taken this house, as they say, for the shelter and home of their old age. but huldah, as she plays with your harry there, does not look to me as if she were superannuated yet. "but you said there were six in all." did i? i suppose there are. "mrs. philbrick, are there five captains in your establishment, or six?" "my dear mr. hale, why do you ask me? you know there are five captains and one general. we have persuaded seth corbet to make his home here,--yes, the same who went round the world with mrs. cradock. since her death, he has come home to boston; and he reports to us, and makes his head-quarters here. he sees that we are all right every morning; and then he goes his rounds to see every grandchild of old mr. cradock, and to make sure that every son and daughter of that house is 'all right.' sometimes he is away over night. this is when somebody in the whole circle of all their friends is more sick than usual, and needs a man nurse. that old man was employed by old mr. cradock, in 1816, when he first went to housekeeping. he has had all the sons and all the daughters of that house in his arms; and now that the youngest of them is five and twenty, and the oldest fifty, i suppose he is not satisfied any day until he has seen that they and theirs, in their respective homes, are well. he thinks we here are babies; but he takes care of us all the more courteously." "will he dine with you to-day?" "i am afraid not; but we shall see him at the christmas-tree after dinner. there is to be a tree." you see, this house was dedicated to the apotheosis of noble ministry. over the mantel-piece hung raphael morghen's large print of "the lavatio," caracci's picture of "the washing of the feet,"--the only copy i ever saw. we asked huldah about it. "oh, that was a present from mr. burchstadt, a rich manufacturer in wã¼rtemberg, to ellen. she stumbled into one of those villages when everybody was sick and dying of typhus, and tended and watched and saved, one whole summer long, as mrs. ware did at osmotherly. and this mr. burchstadt wanted to do something, and he sent her this in acknowledgment." on the other side was kaulbach's own study of elizabeth of hungary, dropping her apron full of roses. "oh! what a sight the apron discloses; the viands are changed to real roses!" when i asked huldah where that came from, she blushed, and said, "oh, that was a present to me!" and led us to steinler's exquisite "good shepherd," in a larger and finer print than i had ever seen. six or eight gentlemen in new york, who, when they were dirty babies from the gutter, had been in helen touro's hands, had sent her a portfolio of beautiful prints, each with this same idea, of seeking what was lost. this one she had chosen for the sitting-room. and, on the fourth side, was that dashing group of horace vernet's, "gideon crossing jordan," with the motto wrought into the frame, "faint, yet pursuing." these four pictures are all presents to the "girls," as i find i still call them; and, on the easel, miss peters had put her copy of "the tribute money." there were other pictures in the room; but these five unconsciously told its story. the five "girls" were always all together at christmas; but, in practice, each of them lived here only two-fifths of her time. "we make that a rule," said ellen laughing. "if anybody comes for anybody when there are only two here, those two are engaged to each other; and we stay. not but what they can come and stay here if we cannot go to them." in practice, if any of us in the immense circles which these saints had befriended were in a scrape,--as, if a mother was called away from home, and there were some children left, or if scarlet fever got into a house, or if the children had nobody to go to mt. desert with them, or if the new house were to be set in order, and nobody knew how,--in any of the trials of well-ordered families, why, we rode over to the saints' rest to see if we could not induce one of the five to come and put things through. so that, in practice, there were seldom more than two on the spot there. but we do not get to the christmas dinner. there were covers for four and twenty; and all the children besides were in a room upstairs, presided over by maria munro, who was in her element there. then our party of twenty-four included men and women of a thousand romances, who had learned and had shown the nobility of service. one or two of us were invited as novices, in the hope perhaps that we might learn. scarcely was the soup served when the door-bell rang. nothing else ever made huldah look nervous. bartlett, who was there, said in an aside to me, that he had seen her more calm when there was volley firing within hearing of her store-room. then it rang again. helen touro talked more vehemently; and mrs. bartlett at her end, started a great laugh. but, when it rang the third time, something had to be said; and huldah asked one of the girls, who was waiting, if there were no one attending at the door. "yes 'm, mr. corbet." but the bell rang a fourth time, and a fifth. "isabel, you can go to the door. mr. corbet must have stepped out." so isabel went out, but returned with a face as broad as a soup-plate. "mr. corbet is there, ma'am." sixth door-bell peal,--seventh, and eighth. "mary, i think you had better see if mr. corbet has gone away." mary returns, face one broad grin. "no, ma'am, mr. corbet is there." heavy steps in the red parlor. side door-bell--a little gong, begins to ring. front bell rings ninth time, tenth, and eleventh. saint john, as we call him, had seen that something was amiss, and had kindly pitched in with a dissertation on the passage of the red-river dam, in which the gravy-boats were steamships, and the cranberry was general banks, and the aids were spoons. but, when both door-bells rang together, and there were more steps in the hall, huldah said, "if you will excuse me," and rose from the table. "no, no, we will not excuse you," cried clara hastings. "nobody will excuse you. this is the one day of the year when you are not to work. let me go." so clara went out. and after clara went out, the door-bells rang no more. i think she cut the bell-wires. she soon came back, and said a man was inquiring his way to the "smells;" and they directed him to "wait's mills," which she hoped would do. and so huldah's and grace's stupendous housekeeping went on in its solid order, reminding one of those well-proportioned worcester teas which are, perhaps, the crown and glory of the new england science in this matter. i ventured to ask sam root, who sat by me, if the marlborough were not equal to his mother's. and we sat long; and we laughed loud. we talked war and poetry and genealogy. we rallied helen touro about her housekeeping; and dr. worster pretended to give a list of surgeons and majors and major-generals who had made love to huldah. by and by, when the grapes and the bonbons came, the sixteen children were led in by maria munro, who had, till now, kept them at games of string and hunt the slipper. and, at last, seth corbet flung open the door into the red parlor to announce "the tree." sure enough, there was the tree, as the five saints had prepared it for the invited children,--glorious in gold, and white with wreaths of snow-flakes, and blazing with candles. sam root kissed grace, and said, "o grace! do you remember?" but the tree itself did not surprise the children as much as the five tables at the right and the left, behind and before, amazed the sainted five, who were indeed the children now. a box of the _vin rouge de bourgogne_, from louis, was the first thing my eye lighted on, and above it a little banner read, "huldah's table." and then i saw that there were these five tables, heaped with the christmas offerings to the five saints. it proved that everybody, the world over, had heard that they had settled down. everybody in the four hemispheres,--if there be four,--who had remembered the unselfish service of these five, had thought this a fit time for commemorating such unselfish love, were it only by such a present as a lump of coal. almost everybody, i think, had made seth corbet a confidant; and so, while the five saints were planning their pretty tree for the sixteen children, the north and the south, and the east and the west, were sending myrrh and frankincense and gold to them. the pictures were hung with southern moss from barthow. boys, who were now men, had sent coral from india, pearl from ceylon, and would have been glad to send ice from greenland, had christmas come in midsummer; there were diamonds from brazil, and silver from nevada, from those who lived there; there were books, in the choicest binding, in memory of copies of the same word, worn by travel, or dabbled in blood; there were pictures, either by the hand of near friendship, or by the master hand of genius, which brought back the memories, perhaps, of some old adventure in "the service,"--perhaps, as the kaulbach did, of one of those histories which makes all service sacred. in five and twenty years of life, these women had so surrounded themselves, without knowing it or thinking of it, with loyal, yes, adoring friends, that the accident of their finding a fixed home had called in all at once this wealth of acknowledgment from those whom they might have forgotten, but who would never forget them. and, by the accident of our coming together, we saw, in these heaps on heaps of offerings of love, some faint record of the lives they had enlivened, the wounds they had stanched, the tears they had wiped away, and the homes they had cheered. for themselves, the five saints--as i have called them--were laughing and crying together, quite upset in the surprise. for ourselves, there was not one of us who, in this little visible display of the range of years of service, did not take in something more of the meaning of,-"he who will be chief among you, let him be your servant." the surprise, the excitement, the laughter, and the tears found vent in the children's eagerness to be led to their tree; and, in three minutes, ellen was opening boxes, and huldah pulling fire-crackers, as if they had not been thrown off their balance. but, when each boy and girl had two arms full, and the fir balsam sent down from new durham was nearly bare, edgar bartlett pointed to the top bough, where was a brilliant not noticed before. no one had noticed it,--not seth himself,--who had most of the other secrets of that house in his possession. i am sure that no man, woman, or child knew how the thing came there: but seth lifted the little discoverer high in air, and he brought it down triumphant. it was a parcel made up in shining silvered paper. seth cut the strings. it contained twelve maltese crosses of gold, with as many jewels, one in the heart of each,--i think the blazing twelve of the revelations. they were displayed on ribbons of blue and white, six of which bore huldah's, helen's, ellen philbrick's, hannah's, miss peters's, and seth corbet's names. the other six had no names; but on the gold of these was marked,--"from huldah, to ----" "from helen, to -----" and so on, as if these were decorations which they were to pass along. the saints themselves were the last to understand the decorations; but the rest of us caught the idea, and pinned them on their breasts. as we did so, the ribbons unfolded, and displayed the motto of the order:-"henceforth i call you not servants, i have called you friends." it was at that christmas that the "order of loving service" was born. the two princes. a story for children. i. there was a king of hungary whose name was adelbert. when he lived at home, which was not often, it was in a castle of many towers and many halls and many stairways, in the city of buda, by the side of the river donau. he had four daughters, and only one son, who was to be the king after him, whose name was ladislaus. but it was the custom of those times, as boys and girls grew up, to send them for their training to some distance from their home, even for many months at a time, to try a little experiment on them, and see how they fared; and so, at the time i tell you of, there was staying in the castle of buda the prince bela, who was the son of the king of bohemia; and he and the boy ladislaus studied their lessons together, and flew their kites, and hunted for otters, and rode with the falconers together. one day as they were studying with the tutor, who was a priest named stephen, he gave to them a book of fables, and each read a fable. ladislaus read the fable of the sky-lark. the sky-lark sat on the topmost bough of the savy-tree, and was waked by the first ray of the sun. then the sky-lark flew and flew up and up to the topmost arch of the sky, and sang the hymn of the morning. but a frog, who was croaking in the cranberry marsh, said, "why do you take such pains and fly so high? the sun shines here, and i can sing here." and the bird said, "god has made me to fly. god has made me to see. i will fly as high as he will lift me, and sing so loud that all shall hear me." * * * * * and when the little prince ladislaus had read the fable, he cried out, "the sky-lark is the bird for me, and i will paint his picture on my shield after school this morning." then the prince bela read the next fable,--the fable of the water-rat. a good beaver found one day a little water-rat almost dead. his father and mother had been swept away by a freshet, and the little rat was almost starved. but the kind beaver gave him of her own milk, and brought him up in her own lodge with her children, and he got well, and could eat, and swim, and dive with the best of them. but one day there was a great alarm, that the beavers' dam was giving way before the water. "come one, come all," said the grandfather of the beavers, "come to the rescue." so they all started, carrying sticks and bark with them, the water-rat and all. but as they swam under an old oak-tree's root, the water-rat stopped in the darkness, and then he quietly turned round and went back to the hut. "it will be hard work," said he "and there are enough of them." there were enough of them. they mended the dam by working all night and by working all day. but, as they came back, a great wave of the freshet came pouring over the dam and, though the dam stood firm, the beavers were swept away,--away and away, down the river into the sea, and they died there. and the water-rat lived in their grand house by himself, and had all their stores of black-birch bark and willow bark and sweet poplar bark for his own. * * * * * "that was a clever rat," said the prince bela. "i will paint the rat on my shield, when school is done." and the priest stephen was very sad when he said so; and the prince ladislaus was surprised. so they went to the play-room and painted their shields. the shields were made of the bark of hemlock-trees. ladislaus chipped off the rough bark till the shield was white, and made on the place the best sky-lark he could paint there. and bela watched him, and chipped off the rough bark from his shield, and said, "you paint so well, now paint my water-rat for me." "no," said ladislaus, though he was very good-natured, "i cannot paint it well. you must paint it yourself." and bela did so. ii. so the boys both grew up, and one became king of hungary, and one was the king of the bohemians. and king ladislaus carried on his banner the picture of a sky-lark; and the ladies of the land embroidered sky-larks for the scarfs and for the pennons of the soldiers, and for the motto of the banner were the latin words "propior deo," which mean "nearer to god." and king bela carried the water-rat for his cognizance; and the ladies of his land embroidered water-rats for the soldiers; and his motto was "enough." and in these times a holy man from palestine came through all the world; and he told how the pilgrims to the tomb of christ were beaten and starved by the saracens, and how many of them were dying in dungeons. and he begged the princes and the lords and ladies, for the love of god and the love of christ, that they would come and rescue these poor people, and secure the pilgrims in all coming time. and king ladislaus said to his people, "we will do the best we can, and serve god as he shows us how!" and the people said, "we will do the best we can, and save the people of christ from the infidel!" and they all came together to the place of arms; and the king chose a hundred of the bravest and healthiest of the young men, all of whom told the truth, and no one of whom was afraid to die, and they marched with him to the land of christ; and as they marched they sang, "propior deo,"--"nearer to thee." and peter the hermit went to bohemia, and told the story of the cruel saracens and the sufferings of the pilgrims to king bela and his people. and the king said, "is it far away?" and the hermit said, "far, far away." and the king said, "ah, well,--they must get out as they got in. we will take care of bohemia." so the hermit went on to saxony, to tell his story. and king ladislaus and his hundred true young men rode and rode day by day, and came to the mount of olives just in time to be at the side of the great king godfrey, when he broke the paynim's walls, and dashed into the city of jerusalem. and king ladislaus and his men rode together along the way of tears, where christ bore the cross-beam upon his shoulder, and he sat on the stone where the cross had been reared, and he read the gospel through again; and there he prayed his god that he might always bear his cross bravely, and that, like the lord jesus, he might never be afraid to die. iii. and when they had all come home to hungary, their time hung very heavy on their hands. and the young men said to the king, "lead us to war against the finns, or lead us to war against the russ." but the king said, "no! if they spare our people, we spare their people. let us have peace." and he called the young men who had fought with him, and he said, "the time hangs heavy with us; let us build a temple here to the living god, and to the honor of his son. we will carve on its walls the story we have seen, and while we build we will remember zion and the way of tears." and the young men said, "we are not used to building." "nor am i," said the king; "but let us build, and build as best we can, and give to god the best we have and the best we know." so they dug the deep trenches for the foundations, and they sent north and south, and east and west for the wisest builders who loved the lord christ; and the builders came, and the carvers came, and the young men learned to use the chisel and the hammer; and the great cathedral grew year by year, as a pine-tree in the forest grows above the birches and the yew-trees on the ground. and once king bela came to visit his kinsman, and they rode out to see the builders. and king ladislaus dismounted from his horse, and asked bela to dismount, and gave to him a chisel and a hammer. "no," said the king bela, "it will hurt my hands. in my land we have workmen whom we pay to do these things. but i like to see you work." so he sat upon his horse till dinner-time, and he went home. and year by year the cathedral grew. and a thousand pinnacles were built upon the towers and on the roof and along the walls; and on each pinnacle there fluttered a golden sky-lark. and on the altar in the cathedral was a scroll of crimson, and on the crimson scroll were letters of gold, and the letters were in the latin language, and said "propior deo," and on a blue scroll underneath, in the language of the people they were translated, and it said, "nearer to thee." iv. and another hermit came, and he told the king that the black death was ravaging the cities of the east; that half the people of constantinople were dead; that the great fair at adrianople was closed; that the ships on the black sea had no sailors; and that there would be no food for the people on the lower river. and the king said, "is the duke dead, whom we saw at bucharest; is the emperor dead, who met me at constantinople?" "no, your grace," said the hermit, "it pleases the lord that in the black death only those die who live in hovels and in towns. the lord has spared those who live in castles and in palaces." "then," said king ladislaus, "i will live as my people live, and i will die as my people die. the lord jesus had no pillow for his head, and no house for his lodging; and as the least of his brethren fares so will i fare, and as i fare so shall they." so the king and the hundred braves pitched their tents on the high land above the old town, around the new cathedral, and the queen and the ladies of the court went with them. and day by day the king and the queen and the hundred braves and their hundred ladies went up and down the filthy wynds and courts of the city, and they said to the poor people there, "come, live as we live, and die as we die." and the people left the holes of pestilence and came and lived in the open air of god. and when the people saw that the king fared as they fared, the people said, "we also will seek god as the king seeks him, and will serve him as he serves him." and day by day they found others who had no homes fit for christian men, and brought them upon the high land and built all together their tents and booths and tabernacles, open to the sun and light, and to the smile and kiss and blessing of the fresh air of god. and there grew a new and beautiful city there. and so it was, that when the black death passed from the east to the west, the angel of death left the city of buda on one side, and the people never saw the pestilence with their eyes. the angel of death passed by them, and rested upon the cities of bohemia. v. and king ladislaus grew old. his helmet seemed to him more heavy. his sleep seemed to him more coy. but he had little care, for he had a loving wife, and he had healthy, noble sons and daughters, who loved god, and who told the truth, and who were not afraid to die. but one day, in his happy prosperity, there came to him a messenger running, who said in the council, "your grace, the red russians have crossed the red river of the north, and they are marching with their wives and their children with their men of arms in front, and their wagons behind, and they say they will find a land nearer the sun, and to this land are they coming." and the old king smiled; and he said to those that were left of the hundred brave men who took the cross with him, "now we will see if our boys could have fought at godfrey's side. for us it matters little. one way or another way we shall come nearer to god." and the armorers mended the old armor, and the young men girded on swords which had never been tried in fight, and the pennons that they bore were embroidered by their sweethearts and sisters as in the old days of the crusades, and with the same device of a sky-lark in mid-heaven, and the motto, "nearer, my god, to thee." and there came from the great cathedral the wise men who had come from all the lands. they found the king, and they said to him, "your grace, we know how to build the new defences for the land, and we will guard the river ways, that the barbarians shall never enter them." and when the people knew that the red russians were on the way, they met in the square and marched to the palace, and robert the smith mounted the steps of the palace and called the king. and he said, "the people are here to bid the king be of good heart. the people bid me say that they will die for their king and for his land." and the king took from his wife's neck the blue ribbon that she wore, with a golden sky-lark on it, and bound it round the blacksmith's arm, and he said, "if i die, it is nothing; if i live, it is nothing; that is in god's hand. but whether we live or die, let us draw as near him as we may." and the blacksmith robert turned to the people, and with his loud voice, told what the king had said. and the people answered in the shout which the hungarians shout to this day, "let us die for our king! let us die for our king!" and the king called the queen hastily, and they and their children led the host to the great cathedral. and the old priest stephen, who was ninety years old, stood at the altar, and he read the gospel where it says, "fear not, little flock, it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." and he read the other gospel where the lord says, "and i, if i be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." and he read the epistle where it says, "no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." and he chanted the psalm, "the lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer." and fifty thousand men, with one heart and one voice, joined with him. and the king joined, and the queen to sing, "the lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer." and they marched from the cathedral, singing in the language of the country, "propior deo," which is to say in our tongue, "nearer, my god, to thee." and the aged braves who had fought with godfrey, and the younger men who had learned of arms in the university, went among the people and divided them into companies for the war. and robert the blacksmith, and all the guild of the blacksmiths, and of the braziers, and of the coppersmiths, and of the whitesmiths, even the goldsmiths, and the silversmiths, made weapons for the war; and the masons and the carpenters, and the ditchers and delvers marched out with the cathedral builders to the narrow passes of the river, and built new the fortresses. and the lady constance and her daughters, and every lady in the land, went to the churches and the convents, and threw them wide open. and in the kitchens they baked bread for the soldiers; and in the churches they spread couches for the sick or for the wounded. and when the red russians came in their host, there was not a man, or woman, or child in all hungary but was in the place to which god had called him, and was doing his best in his place for his god, for the church of christ, and for his brothers and sisters of the land. and the host of the red russians was turned aside, as at the street corner you have seen the dirty water of a gutter turned aside by the curbstone. they fought one battle against the hungarian host, and were driven as the blackbirds are driven by the falcons. and they gathered themselves and swept westward; and came down upon the passes to bohemia. and there were no fortresses at the entrance to bohemia; for king bela had no learned men who loved him. and there was no army in the plains of bohemia; for his people had been swept away in the pestilence. and there were no brave men who had fought with godfrey, and knew the art of arms, for in those old days the king had said, "it is far away; and we have 'enough' in bohemia." so the red russians, who call themselves the szechs, took his land from him; and they live there till this day. and the king, without a battle, fled from the back-door of his palace, in the disguise of a charcoal-man; and he left his queen and his daughters to be cinder-girls in the service of the chief of the red russians. and the false charcoal-man walked by day, and walked by night, till he found refuge in the castle of the king ladislaus; and he met him in the old school-room where they read the fables together. and he remembered how the water-rat came to the home of the beavers. and he said to king ladislaus,-"ah, me! do you remember when we were boys together? do you remember the fable of the sky-lark, and the fable of the water-rat?" "i remember both," said the king. and he was silent. "god has been very kind to you," said the beggar; "and he has been very hard to me." and the king said nothing. but the old priest stephen, said,-"god is always kind. but god will not give us other fruit than we sow seed for. the king here has tried to serve god as he knew how; with one single eye he has looked on the world of god, and he has made the best choice he knew. and god has given him what he thought not of: brave men for his knights; wise men for his council; a free and loving people for his army. and you have not looked with a single eye; your eye was darkened. you saw only what served yourself. and you said, 'this is enough;' and you had no brave men for your knights; no wise men for your council; no people for your army. you chose to look down, and to take a selfish brute for your adviser. and he has led you so far. we choose to look up; to draw nearer god; and where he leads we follow." then king ladislaus ordered that in the old school-room a bed should be spread for bela; and that every day his breakfast and his dinner and his supper should be served to him; and he lived there till he died. the story of oello. once upon a time there was a young girl, who had the pretty name of oello. i say, once upon a time, because i do not know when the time was,--nor do i know what the place was,--though my story, in the main, is a true story. i do not mean that i sat by and saw oello when she wove and when she spun. but i know she did weave and did spin. i do not mean that i heard her speak the word i tell of; for it was many, many hundred years ago. but i do know that she must have said some such words; for i know many of the things which she did, and much of what kind of girl she was. she grew up like other girls in her country. she did not know how to read. none of them knew how to read. but she knew how to braid straw, and to make fish-nets and to catch fish. she did not know how to spell. indeed, in that country they had no letters. but she knew how to split open the fish she had caught, how to clean them, how to broil them on the coals, and how to eat them neatly. she had never studied the "analysis of her language." but she knew how to use it like a lady; that is, prettily, simply, without pretence, and always truly. she could sing her baby brother to sleep. she could tell stories to her sisters all day long. and she and they were not afraid when evening came, or when they were in any trouble, to say a prayer aloud to the good god. so they got along, although they could not analyze their language. she knew no geography. she could count her fingers, and the stars in the southern cross. she had never seen orion, or the stars in the great bear, or the pole-star. oello was very young when she married a young kinsman, with whom she had grown up since they were babies. nobody knows much about him. but he loved her and she loved him. and when morning came they were not afraid to pray to god together,--and when night came she asked her husband to forgive her if she had troubled him, and he asked her to forgive him,--so that their worries and trials never lasted out the day. and they lived a very happy life, till they were very old and died. there is a bad gap in the beginning of their history. i do not know how it happened. but the first i knew of them, they had left their old home and were wandering alone on foot toward the south. sometimes i have thought a great earthquake had wrecked their old happy home. sometimes i have thought there was some horrid pestilence, or fire. no matter what happened, something happened,--so that oello and her husband, of a hot, very hot day, were alone under a forest of laurels mixed with palms, with bright flowering orchids on them, looking like a hundred butterflies; ferns, half as high as the church is, tossing over them; nettles as large as trees, and tangled vines, threading through the whole. they were tired, oh, how tired! hungry, oh, how hungry! and hot and foot-sore. "i wish so we were out of this hole," said he to her, "and yet i am afraid of the people we shall find when we come down to the lake side." "i do not know," said oello, "why they should want to hurt us." "i do not know why they should want to," said he, "but i am afraid they will hurt us." "but we do not want to hurt them," said she. "for my part, all i want is a shelter to live under; and i will help them take care of their children, and 'i will spin their flax, and weave their thread, and pound their corn, and bake their bread.'" "how will you tell them that you will do this?" said he. "i will do it," said oello, "and that will be better than telling them." "but do not you just wish," said he, "that you could speak five little words of their language, to say to them that we come as friends, and not as enemies?" oello laughed very heartily. "enemies," said she, "terrible enemies, who have two sticks for their weapons, two old bags for their stores, and cotton clothes for their armor. i do not believe more than half the army will turn out against us." so oello pulled out the potatoes from the ashes, and found they were baked; she took a little salt from her haversack or scrip, and told her husband that dinner would be ready, if he would only bring some water. he pretended to groan, but went, and came in a few minutes with two gourds full, and they made a very merry meal. * * * * * the same evening they came cautiously down on the beautiful meadow land which surrounded the lake they had seen. it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. it was an hour before sunset,--the hour, i suppose, when all countries are most beautiful. oello and her husband came joyfully down the hill, through a little track the llamas had made toward the water, wondering at the growth of the wild grasses, and, indeed, the freshness of all the green; when they were startled by meeting a horde of the poor, naked, half-starved indians, who were just as much alarmed to meet with them. i do not think that the most stupid of them could have supposed oello an enemy, nor her husband. for they stepped cheerfully down the path, waving boughs of fresh cinchona as tokens of peace, and looking kindly and pleasantly on the poor indians, as i believe nobody had looked on them before. there were fifty of the savages, but it was true that they were as much afraid of the two young northerners as if they had been an army. they saw them coming down the hill, with the western sun behind them, and one of the women cried out, "they are children of the sun, they are children of the sun!" and oello and her husband looked so as if they had come from a better world that all the other savages believed it. but the two young people came down so kindly and quickly, that the indian women could not well run away. and when oello caught one of the little babies up, and tossed it in her arms, and fondled it, and made it laugh, the little girl's mother laughed too. and when they had all once laughed together, peace was made among them all, and oello saw where the indian women had been lying, and what their poor little shelters were, and she led the way there, and sat down on a log that had fallen there, and called the children round her, and began teaching them a funny game with a bit of crimson cord. nothing pleases savage people or tame people more than attention to their children, and in less time than i have been telling this they were all good friends. the indian women produced supper. pretty poor supper it was. some fresh-water clams from the lake, some snails which oello really shuddered at, but some bananas which were very nice, and some ulloco, a root oello had never seen before, and which she thought sickish. but she acted on her motto. "i will do the best i can," she had said all along; so she ate and drank, as if she had always been used to raw snails and to ulloco, and made the wild women laugh by trying to imitate the names of the strange food. in a few minutes after supper the sun set. there is no twilight in that country. when the sun goes down, "like battle target red,- he rushes to his burning bed, dyes the whole wave with ruddy light, then sinks at once, and all is night." the savage people showed the strangers a poor little booth to sleep in, and went away to their own lairs, with many prostrations, for they really thought them "children of the sun." oello and her husband laughed very heartily when they knew they were alone. oello made him promise to go in the morning early for potatoes, and oca, and mashua, which are two other tubers like potatoes which grow there. "and we will show them," said she, "how to cook them." for they had seen by the evening feast, that the poor savage people had no knowledge of the use of fire. so, early in the morning, he went up a little way on the lake shore, and returned with strings of all these roots, and with another string of fish he had caught in a brook above. and when the savage people waked and came to oello's hut, they found her and her husband just starting their fire,--a feat these people had never seen before. he had cut with his copper knife a little groove in some soft palm-wood, and he had fitted in it a round piece of iron-wood, and round the iron-wood had bound a bow-string, and while oello held the palm-wood firm, he made the iron-wood fly round and round and round, till the pith of the palm smoked, and smoked, and at last a flake of the pith caught fire, and then another and another, and oello dropped other flakes upon these, and blew them gently, and fed them with dry leaves, till they were all in a blaze. the savage people looked on with wonder and terror. they cried out when they saw the blaze, "they are children of the sun,--they are children of the sun!"--and ran away. oello and her husband did not know what they said, and went on broiling the fish and baking the potatoes, and the mashua, and the oca, and the ulloco. and when they were ready, oello coaxed some of the children to come back, and next their mothers came and next the men. but still they said, "they are children of the sun." and when they ate of the food that had been cooked for them, they said it was the food of the immortals. now, in oello's home, this work of making the fire from wood had been called menial work, and was left to servants only. but even the princes of that land were taught never to order another to do what they could not do themselves. and thus it happened that the two young travellers could do it so well. and thus it was, that, because they did what they could, the savage people honored them with such exceeding honor, and because they did the work of servants they called them gods. as it is written: "he who is greatest among you shall be your servant." and this was much the story of that day and many days. while her husband went off with the men, taught them how he caught the fish, and how they could catch huanacos, oello sat in the shade with the children, who were never tired of pulling at the crimson cord around her waist, and at the tassels of her head-dress. all savage children are curious about the dress of their visitors. so it was easy for oello to persuade them to go with her and pick tufts of wild cotton, till they had quite a store of it, and then to teach them to spin it on distaffs she made for them from laurel-wood, and at last to braid it and to knit it,--till at last one night, when the men came home, oello led out thirty of the children in quite a grand procession, dressed all of them in pretty cotton suits they had knit for themselves, instead of the filthy, greasy skins they had always worn before. this was a great triumph for oello; but when the people would gladly have worshipped her, she only said, "i did what i could,--i did what i could,--say no more, say no more." and as the year passed by, she and her husband taught the poor people how, if they would only plant the maize, they could have all they wanted in the winter, and if they planted the roots of the ulloco, and the oca, and the mashua, and the potato, they would have all they needed of them; how they might make long fish-ways for the fish, and pitfalls for the llama. and they learned the language of the poor people, and taught them the language to which they themselves were born. and year by year their homes grew neater and more cheerful. and year by year the children were stronger and better. and year by year the world in that part of it was more and more subdued to the will and purpose of a good god. and whenever manco, oello's husband, was discouraged, she always said, "we will do the best we can," and always it proved that that was all that a good god wanted them to do. it was from the truth and steadiness of those two people, manco and oello, that the great nation of peru was raised up from a horde of savages, starving in the mountains, to one of the most civilized and happy nations of their times. unfortunately for their descendants, they did not learn the use of iron or gunpowder, so that the cruel spaniards swept them and theirs away. but for hundreds of years they lived peacefully and happily,--growing more and more civilized with every year, because the young oello and her husband manco had done what they could for them. they did not know much. but what they knew they could do. they were not, so far as we know, skilful in talking. but they were cheerful in acting. they did not hide their light under a bushel. they made it shine on all that came around. their duties were the humblest, only making a fire in the morning, cleaning potatoes and cooking them, spinning, braiding, twisting, and weaving. this was the best oello could do. she did that, and in doing it she reared an empire. we can contrast her life with that of the savages around her. as we can see a drop of blood when it falls into a cup of water, we can see how that one life swayed theirs. if she had lived among her kindred, and done at home these simple things, we should never have heard her name. but none the less would she have done them. none the less, year in and year out, century in and century out, would that sweet, loving, true, unselfish life have told in god's service. and he would have known it, though you and i--who are we?--had never heard her name! forgotten! do not ever think that anything is forgotten! love is the whole. a story for children. this is a story about some children who were living together in a western state, in a little house on the prairie, nearly two miles from any other. there were three boys and three girls; the oldest girl was seventeen, and her oldest brother a year younger. their mother had died two or three years before, and now their father grew sick,--more sick and more, and died also. the children were taking the best care they could of him, wondering and watching. but no care could do much, and so he told them. he told them all that he should not live long; but that when he died he should not be far from them, and should be with their dear mother. "remember," he said, "to love each other. be kind to each other. stick together, if you can. or, if you separate, love one another as if you were together." he did not say any more then. he lay still awhile, with his eyes closed; but every now and then a sweet smile swept over his face, so that they knew he was awake. then he roused up once more, and said, "love is the whole, george; love is the whole,"--and so he died. i have no idea that the children, in the midst of their grief and loneliness, took in his meaning. but afterwards they remembered it again and again, and found out why he said it to them. any of you would have thought it a queer little house. it was not a log cabin. they had not many logs there. but it was no larger than the log cabin which general grant is building in the picture. there was a little entry-way at one end, and two rooms opening on the right as you went. a flight of steps went up into the loft, and in the loft the boys slept in two beds. this was all. but if they had no rooms for servants, on the other hand they had no servants for rooms. if they had no hot-water pipes, on the other hand a large kettle hung on the crane above the kitchen fire, and there was but a very short period of any day that one could not dip out hot water. they had no gas-pipes laid through the house. but they went to bed the earlier, and were the more sure to enjoy the luxury of the great morning illumination by the sun. they lost but few steps in going from room to room. they were never troubled for want of fresh air. they had no door-bell, so no guest was ever left waiting in the cold. and though they had no speaking-tubes in the house, still they found no difficulty in calling each other if ethan were up stairs and alice wanted him to come down. their father was buried, and the children were left alone. the first night after the funeral they stole to their beds as soon as they could, after the mock supper was over. the next morning george and fanny found themselves the first to meet at the kitchen hearth. each had tried to anticipate the other in making the morning fire. each confessed to the other that there had been but little sleep, and that the night had seemed hopelessly long. "but i have thought it all over," said the brave, stout boy. "father told us to stick together as long as we can. and i know i can manage it. the children will all do their best when they understand it. and i know, though father could not believe it, i know that i can manage with the team. we will never get in debt. i shall never drink. drink and debt, as he used to say, are the only two devils. never you cry, darling fanny, i know we can get along." "george," said fanny, "i know we can get along if you say so. i know it will be very hard upon you. there are so many things the other young men do which you will not be able to do; and so many things which they have which you might have. but none of them has a sister who loves them as i love you. and, as he said, 'love is the whole.'" i suppose those words over the hearth were almost the only words of sentiment which ever passed between those two about their plans. but from that moment those plans went forward more perfectly than if they had been talked over at every turn, and amended every day. that is the way with all true stories of hearth and home. for instance, it was only that evening, when the day's work of all the six was done--and for boys and girls, it was hard work, too--fanny and george would have been glad enough, both of them, to take each a book, and have the comfort of resting and reading. but george saw that the younger girls looked down-cast and heavy, and that the boys were whispering round the door-steps as if they wanted to go down to the blacksmith's shop by way of getting away from the sadness of the house. he hated to have them begin the habit of loafing there, with all the lazy boys and men from three miles round. and so he laid down his book, and said, as cheerily as if he had not laid his father's body in the grave the day before,-"what shall we do to-night that we can all do together? let us have something that we have never had before. let us try what mrs. chisholm told us about. let us act a ballad." of course the children were delighted with acting. george knew that, and fanny looked across so gratefully to him, and laid her book away also; and, in a minute, ethan, the young carpenter of the family, was putting up sconces for tallow candles to light the scenes, and fanny had sarah and alice out in the wood-house, with the shawls, and the old ribbons, and strips of bright calico, which made up the dresses, and george instructed walter as to the way in which he should arrange his armor and his horse, and so, after a period of preparation, which was much longer than the period of performance, they got ready to act in the kitchen the ballad of lochinvar. the children had a happy evening. they were frightened when they went to bed--the little ones--because they had been so merry. they came together with george and fanny, and read their bible as they had been used to do with their father, and the last text they read was, "love is the fulfilling of the law." so the little ones went to bed, and left george and fanny again together. "pretty hard, was it not?" said she, smiling through her tears. "but it is so much best for them that home should be the happiest place of all for them. after all, 'love is the whole.'" and that night's sacrifice, which the two older children made to the younger brothers and sisters as it were over their father's grave, was the beginning of many such nights, and of many other joint amusements which the children arranged together. they read dickens aloud. they cleared out the corn-room at the end of the wood-house for a place for their dialogues and charades. the neighbors' children liked to come in, and, under very strict rules of early hours and of good behavior, they came. and george and fanny found, not only that they were getting a reputation for keeping their own little flock in order, but that the nicest children all around were intrusted to their oversight, even by the most careful fathers and mothers. all this pleasure to the children came from the remembrance that "love is the whole." far from finding themselves a lonely and forsaken family, these boys and girls soon found that they were surrounded with friends. george was quite right in assuming that he could manage the team, and could keep the little farm up, not to its full production under his father, but to a crop large enough to make them comfortable. every little while there had to be a consultation. mr. snyder came down one day to offer him forty dollars a month and his board, if he would go off on a surveying party and carry chain for the engineers. it would be in a good line for promotion. forty dollars a month to send home to fanny was a great temptation. and george and fanny put an extra pine-knot on the fire, after the children had gone to bed, that they might talk it over. but george declined the proposal, with many thanks to mr. snyder. he said to him, "that, if he went away, the whole household would be very much weakened. the boys could not carry on the farm alone, and would have to hire out. he thought they were too young for that. after all, mr. snyder, 'love is the whole.'" and mr. snyder agreed with him. then, as a few years passed by, after another long council, in which another pine-knot was sacrificed on the hearth, and in which walter assisted with george and fanny, it was agreed that walter should "hire out." he had "a chance," as they said, to go over to the stacy brothers, in the next county. now the stacy brothers had the greatest stock farm in all that part of illinois. they had to hire a great deal of help, and it was a great question to george and fanny whether poor walter might not get more harm than good there. but they told walter perfectly frankly their doubts and their hopes. and he said boldly, "never you fear me. do you think i am such a fool as to forget? do i not know that 'love is the whole'? shall i ever forget who taught us so?" and so it was determined that he should go. yes, and he went. the stacys' great establishment was different indeed from the little cabin he had left. but the other boys there, and the men he met, norwegians, welshmen, germans, yankees, all sorts of people, all had hearts just like his heart. and a helpful boy, honest as a clock and brave as st. paul, who really tried to serve every one as he found opportunity, made friends on the great stock farm just as he had in the corn-room at the end of the wood-house. and once a month, when their wages were paid, he was able to send home the lion's share of his to fanny, in letters which every month were written a little better, and seemed a little more easy for him to write. and when thanksgiving came, mr. george stacy sent him home for a fortnight, with a special message to his sister, "that he could not do without him, and he wished she would send him a dozen of such boys. he knew how to raise oxen, he said; but would miss fanny tell him how she brought up boys like walter?" "i could have told him," said walter, "but i did not choose to; i could have told him that love was the whole." and that story of walter is only the story of the way in which ethan also kept up the home tie, and came back, when he got a chance, from his voyages. his voyages were not on the sea. he "hired out" with a canal-boatman. sometimes they went to the lake, and once they set sail there and came as far as cleveland. ethan made a great deal of fun in pretending to tell great sea-stories, like swiss family robinson and sinbad the sailor. fresh-water voyaging has its funny side, as has the deep-sea sailing. but ethan did not hold to it long. his experience with grain brought him at last to chicago, and he engaged there in the work of an elevator. but he lived always the old home life. there were three other boys he got acquainted with, one at mr. eggleston's church, one at the custom house, and one at the place where he got his dinner, and they used to come up to his little room in the seventh story of the mckenzie house, and sit on his bed and in his chairs, just as the boys from the blacksmith's came into the corn-room. these four boys made a literary club "for reading shakespeare and the british essayists." often did they laugh afterwards at its title. they called it the club of the tetrarchy, because they thought it grand to have a greek name. whatever its name was, it kept them out of mischief. these boys grew up to be four ruling powers in western life. and when, years after, some one asked ethan how it was that he had so stanch a friend in torrey, ethan told the history of the seventh-story room at the mckenzie house, and he said, "love is the whole." central in all his life was the little cabin of two rooms and a loft over it. there is no day of his life, from that time to this, of which fanny cannot tell you the story from his weekly letters home. for though she does not live in the cabin now, she keeps the old letters filed and in order, and once a week steadily ethan has written to her, and the letters are all sealed now with his own seal-ring, and on the seal-ring is carved the inscription, "love is the whole." i must not try to tell you the story of alice's fortunes, or sarah's. every day of their lives was a romance, as is every day of yours and mine. every day was a love-story, as may be every day of yours and mine, if we will make it so. as they all grew older their homes were all somewhat parted. the boys became men and married. the girls became women and married. george never pulled down the old farm-house, not even when he and mr. vaux built the beautiful house that stands next to it to-day. he put trellises on the sides of it. he trained cotoneaster and roxbury wax-work over it. he carved a cross himself, and fastened it in the gable. above the door, as you went in, was a picture of mary mother and her child, with this inscription:- "holy cell and holy shrine, for the maid and child divine! remember, thou that seest her bending o'er that babe upon her knee, all heaven is ever thus extending its arms of love round thee. such love shall bless our archã¨d porch; crowned with his cross, our cot becomes a church." and in that little church he gathered the boys and girls of the neighborhood every sunday afternoon, and told them stories and they sang together. and on the week days he got up children's parties there, which all the children thought rather the best experiences of the week, and he and his wife and his own children grew to think the hours in the cabin the best hours of all. there were pictures on the walls; they painted the windows themselves with flower-pictures, and illuminated them with colored leaves. but there were but two inscriptions. these were over the inside of the two doors, and both inscriptions were the same,--"love is the whole." they told all these stories, and a hundred more, at a great thanksgiving party after the war. walter and his wife and his children came from sangamon county; and the general and all his family came down from winetka; and fanny and the governor and all their seven came all the way from minnesota; and alice and her husband and all her little ones came up the river, and so across from quincy; and sarah and gilbert, with the twins and the babies, came in their own carriage all the way from horace. so there was a thanksgiving dinner set for all the six, and the six husbands and wives, and the twenty-seven children. in twenty years, since their father died, those brothers and sisters had lived for each other. they had had separate houses, but they had spent the money in them for each other. no one of them had said that anything he had was his own. they had confided wholly each in each. they had passed through much sorrow, and in that sorrow had strengthened each other. they had passed through much joy, and the joy had been multiplied tenfold because it was joy that was shared. at the thanksgiving they acted the ballad of lochinvar again, or rather some of the children did. and that set fanny the oldest and sarah the youngest to telling to the oldest nephews and nieces some of the stories of the cabin days. but fanny said, when the children asked for more, "there is no need of any more,--'love is the whole.'" christmas and rome. the first christmas this in which a roman senate has sat in rome since the old-fashioned roman senates went under,--or since they "went up," if we take the expressive language of our chicago friends. and pius ix. is celebrating christmas with an uncomfortable look backward, and an uncomfortable look forward, and an uncomfortable look all around. it is a suggestive matter, this italian parliament sitting in rome. it suggests a good deal of history and a good deal of prophecy. "they say" (whoever they may be) that somewhere in rome there is a range of portraits of popes, running down from never so far back; that only one niche was left in the architecture, which received the portrait of pius ix., and that then that place was full. maybe it is so. i did not see the row. but i have heard the story a thousand times. be it true, be it false, there are, doubtless, many other places where portraits of coming popes could be hung. there is a little wall-room left in the city hall of new york. there are, also, other palaces in which popes could live. palaces are as plenty in america as are pullman cars. but it is possible that there are no such palaces in rome. so this particular christmas sets one careering back a little, to look at that mysterious connection of rome with christianity, which has held on so steadily since the first christmas got itself put on historical record by a roman census-maker. humanly speaking, it was nothing more nor less than a roman census which makes the word bethlehem to be a sacred word over all the world to-day. to any person who sees the humorous contrasts of history there is reason for a bit of a smile when he thinks of the way this census came into being, and then remembers what came of it. here was a consummate movement of augustus, who would fain have the statistics of his empire. such excellent things are statistics! "you can prove anything by statistics," says mr. canning, "except--the truth." so augustus orders his census, and his census is taken. this quirinus, or quirinius, pro-consul of syria, was the first man who took it there, says the bible. much appointing of marshals and deputy-marshals,--men good at counting, and good at writing, and good at collecting fees! doubtless it was a great staff achievement of quirinus, and made much talk in its time. and it is so well condensed at last and put into tables with indexes and averages as to be very creditable, i will not doubt, to the census bureau. but alas! as time rolls on, things change, so that this very quirinus, who with all a pro-consul's power took such pains to record for us the number of people there were in bethlehem and in judah, would have been clean forgotten himself, and his census too, but that things turned bottom upward. the meanest child born in bethlehem when this census business was going on happened to prove to be king of the world. it happened that he overthrew the dynasty of cã¦sar augustus, and his temples, and his empire. it happened that everything which was then established tottered and fell, as the star of this child arose. and the child's star did rise. and now this publius sulpicius quirinus or quirinius,--a great man in his day, for whom augustus asked for a triumph,--is rescued from complete forgetfulness because that baby happened to be born in syria when his census was going on! i always liked to think that some day when augustus cã¦sar was on a state visit to the temple of fortune some attentive clerk handed him down the roll which had just come in and said, "from syria, your highness!" that he might have a chance to say something to the emperor; that the emperor thanked him, and, in his courtly way, opened the roll so as to seem interested; that his eye caught the words "bethlehem--village near jerusalem," and the figures which showed the number of the people and of the children and of all the infants there. perhaps. no matter if not. sixty years after, augustus' successor, nero, set fire to rome in a drunken fit. the temple of fortune caught the flames, and our roll, with bethlehem and the count of joseph's possessions twisted and crackled like any common rag, turned to smoke and ashes, and was gone. that is what such statistics come to! five hundred years after, the whole scene is changed. the church of christ, which for hundreds of years worshipped under-ground in rome, has found air and sunlight now. it is almost five hundred years after paul enters rome as a prisoner, after nero burned rome down, that a monk of st. andrew, one of the more prominent monasteries of the city of rome, walking through that great market-place of the city--which to this hour preserves most distinctly, perhaps, the memory of what rome was--saw a party of fair-haired slaves for sale among the rest. he stops to ask where they come from, and of what nation they are; to be told they are "angli." "rather angeli," says gregory,--"rather angels;" and with other sacred _bon-mots_ he fixes the pretty boys and pretty girls in his memory. nor are these familiar plays upon words to be spoken of as mere puns. gregory was determined to attempt the conversion of the land from which these "angels" came. he started on the pilgrimage, which was then a dangerous one; but was recalled by the pope of his day, at the instance of his friends, who could not do without him. a few years more and this monk is bishop of rome. true to the promise of the market-place, he organizes the christian mission which fulfils his prophecy. he sends austin with his companions to the island of the fair-haired slave boys; and that new step in the civilization of that land comes, to which we owe it that we are met in this church, nay, that we live in this land this day. so far has the star of the baby of bethlehem risen in a little more than five centuries. a christian dominion has laid its foundations in the eternal city. and you and i, gentle reader, are what we are and are where we are because that monk of st. andrew saw those angel boys that day in a roman market-place. the survivor's story. fortunately we were with our wives. it is in general an excellent custom, as i will explain if opportunity is given. first, you are thus sure of good company. for four mortal hours we had ground along, and stopped and waited and started again, in the drifts between westfield and springfield. we had shrieked out our woes by the voices of fire-engines. brave men had dug. patient men had sate inside, and waited for the results of the digging. at last, in triumph, at eleven and three-quarters, as they say in cinderella, we entered the springfield station. it was christmas eve! leaving the train to its devices, blatchford and his wife (her name was sarah), and i with mine (her name was phebe), walked quickly with our little sacks out of the station, ploughed and waded along the white street, not to the massasoit,--no, but to the old eagle and star, which was still standing, and was a favorite with us youngsters. good waffles, maple syrup _ad lib._, such fixings of other sorts as we preferred, and some liberty. the amount of liberty in absolutely first-class hotels is but small. a drowsy boy waked, and turned up the gas. blatchford entered our names on the register, and cried at once, "by george, wolfgang is here, and dick! what luck!" for dick and wolfgang also travel with their wives. the boy explained that they had come up the river in the new-haven train, were only nine hours behind time, had arrived at ten, and had just finished supper and gone to bed. we ordered rare beef-steak, waffles, dip-toast, omelettes with kidneys, and omelettes without; we toasted our feet at the open fire in the parlor; we ate the supper when it was ready; and we also went to bed; rejoicing that we had home with us, having travelled with our wives; and that we could keep our merry christmas here. if only wolfgang and dick and their wives would join us, all would be well. (wolfgang's wife was named bertha, and dick's was named hosanna,--a name i have never met with elsewhere.) bed followed; and i am a graceless dog that i do not write a sonnet here on the unbroken slumber that followed. breakfast, by arrangement of us four, at nine. at 9.30, to us enter bertha, dick, hosanna, and wolfgang, to name them in alphabetical order. four chairs had been turned down for them. four chops, four omelettes, and four small oval dishes of fried potatoes had been ordered, and now appeared. immense shouting, immense kissing among those who had that privilege, general wondering, and great congratulating that our wives were there. solid resolution that we would advance no farther. here, and here only, in springfield itself, would we celebrate our christmas day. it may be remarked in parenthesis that we had learned already that no train had entered the town since eleven and a quarter; and it was known by telegraph that none was within thirty-four miles and a half of the spot, at the moment the vow was made. we waded and ploughed our way through the snow to church. i think mr. rumfry, if that is the gentleman's name who preached an admirable christmas sermon, in a beautiful church there is, will remember the platoon of four men and four women, who made perhaps a fifth of his congregation in that storm,--a storm which shut off most church-going. home again; a jolly fire in the parlor, dry stockings, and dry slippers. turkeys, and all things fitting for the dinner; and then a general assembly, not in a caravanserai, not in a coffee-room, but in the regular guests' parlor of a new-england second-class hotel, where, as it was ordered, there were no "transients" but ourselves that day; and whence all the "boarders" had gone either to their own rooms, or to other homes. for people who have their wives with them, it is not difficult to provide entertainment on such an occasion. "bertha," said wolfgang, "could you not entertain us with one of your native dances?" "ho! slave," said dick to hosanna, "play upon the virginals." and hosanna played a lively arab air on the tavern piano, while the fair bertha danced with a spirit unusual. was it indeed in memory of the christmas of her own dear home in circassia? all that, from "bertha" to "circassia," is not so. we did not do this at all. that was all a slip of the pen. what we did was this. john blatchford pulled the bell-cord till it broke (they always break in novels, and sometimes they do in taverns). this bell-cord broke. the sleepy boy came; and john said, "caitiff, is there never a barber in the house?" the frightened boy said there was; and john bade him send him. in a minute the barber appeared,--black, as was expected,--with a shining face, and white teeth, and in shirt sleeves, and broad grins. "do you tell me, cã¦sar," said john, "that in your country they do not wear their coats on christmas day?"--"sartin, they do, sir, when they go out doors." "do you tell me, cã¦sar," said dick, "that they have doors in your country?"--"sartin, they do," said poor cã¦sar, flurried. "boy," said i, "the gentlemen are making fun of you. they want to know if you ever keep christmas in your country without a dance." "never, sar," said poor cã¦sar. "do they dance without music?" "no, sar; never." "go, then," i said in my sternest accents,--"go fetch a zittern, or a banjo, or a kit, or a hurdy-gurdy, or a fiddle." the black boy went, and returned with his violin. and as the light grew gray, and crept into the darkness, and as the darkness gathered more thick and more, he played for us and he played for us, tune after tune; and we danced,--first with precision, then in sport, then in wild holiday frenzy. we began with waltzes,--so great is the convenience of travelling with your wives,--where should we have been, had we been all sole alone, four men? probably playing whist or euchre. and now we began with waltzes, which passed into polkas, which subsided into round dances; and then in very exhaustion we fell back in a grave quadrille. i danced with hosanna; wolfgang and sarah were our _vis-ã -vis_. we went through the same set that noah and his three boys danced in the ark with their four wives, and which has been danced ever since, in every moment, on one or another spot of the dry earth, going round it with the sun, like the drumbeat of england,--right and left, first two forward, right hand across, _pastorale_,--the whole series of them; we did them with as much spirit as if it had been on a flat on the side of ararat, ground yet too muddy for croquet. then blatchford called for "virginia reel," and we raced and chased through that. poor cã¦sar began to get exhausted, but a little flip from down stairs helped him amazingly. and, after the flip, dick cried, "can you not dance 'money-musk'?" and in one wild frenzy of delight we danced "money-musk" and "hull's victory" and "dusty miller" and "youth's companion," and "irish jigs" on the closet-door lifted off for the occasion, till the men lay on the floor screaming with the fun, and the women fell back on the sofas, fairly faint with laughing. * * * * * all this last, since the sentence after "circassia," is a mistake. there was not any bell, nor any barber, and we did not dance at all. this was all a slip of my memory. what we really did was this:-john blatchford said,--"let us all tell stories." it was growing dark and he had put more logs on the fire. bertha said,- "heap on more wood, the wind is chill; but let it whistle as it will, we'll keep our merry christmas still." she said that because it was in "bertha's visit," a very stupid book which she remembered. then wolfgang told the penny-a-liner's story. [wolfgang is a reporter, or was then, on the staff of the "star."] when i was on the "tribune" (he never was on the "tribune" an hour, unless he calls selling the "tribune" at fort plains being on the "tribune"). but i tell the story as he told it. he said,-when i was on the "tribune," i was despatched to report mr. webster's great reply to hayne. this was in the days of stages. we had to ride from baltimore to washington early in the morning to get there in time. i found my boots were gone from my room when the stage-man called me, and i reported that speech in worsted slippers my wife had given me the week before. as we came into bladensburg it grew light, and i recognized my boots on the feet of my fellow-passenger,--there was but one other man in the stage. i turned to claim them, but stopped in a moment, for it was webster himself. how serene his face looked as he slept there! he woke soon, passed the time of day, offered me a part of a sandwich,--for we were old friends,--i was counsel against him in the ogden case. said webster to me,--"steele, i am bothered about this speech: i have a paragraph in it which i cannot word up to my mind." and he repeated it to me. "how would this do?" said he. "'let us hope that the sense of unrestricted freedom may be so intertwined with the desire to preserve a connection of the several parts of the body politic, that some arrangement, more or less lasting, may prove in a measure satisfactory.' how would that do?" i said i liked the idea, but the expression seemed involved. "and it is involved," said webster; "but i can't improve it." "how would this do?" said i. "'liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!'" "capital!" he said, "capital! write that down for me." at that moment we arrived at the capitol steps. i wrote down the words for him, and from my notes he read them, when that place in the speech came along. all of us applauded the story. phebe then told the schoolmistress's story. you remind me of the impression that very speech made on me, as i heard henry chapin deliver it at an exhibition at leicester academy. i resolved then that i would free the slave, or perish in the attempt. but how? i, a woman,--disfranchised by the law? ha! i saw! i went to arkansas. i opened a "normal college, or academy for teachers." we had balls every second night, to make it popular. immense numbers came. half the teachers of the southern states were trained there. i had admirable instructors in oil painting and music,--the most essential studies. the arithmetic i taught myself. i taught it well. i achieved fame. i achieved wealth; invested in arkansas five per cents. only one secret device i persevered in. to all,--old and young, innocent girls and sturdy men,--i so taught the multiplication-table, that one fatal error was hidden in its array of facts. the nine line is the difficult one. i buried the error there. "nine times six," i taught them, "is fifty-six." the rhyme made it easy. the gilded falsehood passed from lip to lip, from state to state,--one little speck in a chain of golden verity. i retired from teaching. slowly i watched the growth of the rebellion. at last the aloe blossom shot up,--after its hundred years of waiting. the southern heart was fired. i brooded over my revenge. i repaired to richmond. i opened a first-class boarding-house, where all the cabinet, and most of the senate, came for their meals; and i had eight permanents. soon their brows clouded. the first flush of victory passed away. night after night, they sat over their calculations, which all came wrong. i smiled,--and was a villain! none of their sums would prove. none of their estimates matched the performance! never a muster-roll that fitted as it should do! and i,--the despised boarding-mistress,--i alone knew why! often and often, when memminger has said to me, with an oath, "why this discordancy in our totals?" have my lips burned to tell the secret! but no! i hid it in my bosom. and when, at last, i saw a black regiment march into richmond, singing "john brown," i cried, for the first time in twenty years, "nine times six is fifty-four;" and gloated in my sweet revenge. then was hushed the harp of phebe, and dick told his story. the inspector of gas-meters' story. mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. it is well-nigh thirty years since i was walking by the owego and ithaca railroad,--a crooked road, not then adapted to high speed. of a sudden i saw that a long cross timber, on a trestle, high above a swamp, had sprung up from its ties. i looked for a spike with which to secure it. i found a stone with which to hammer the spike. but, at this moment, a train approached, down hill. i screamed. they heard! but the engine had no power to stop the heavy train. with the presence of mind of a poet, and the courage of a hero, i flung my own weight on the fatal timber. i would hold it down, or perish. the engine came. the elasticity of the pine timber whirled me in the air! but i held on. the tender crossed. again i was flung in wild gyrations. but i held on. "it is no bed of roses," i said; "but what act of parliament was there that i should be happy." three passenger cars, and ten freight cars, as was then the vicious custom of that road, passed me. but i held on, repeating to myself texts of scripture to give me courage. as the last car passed, i was whirled into the air by the rebound of the rafter. "heavens!" i said, "if my orbit is a hyperbola, i shall never return to earth." hastily i estimated its ordinates, and calculated the curve. what bliss! it was a parabola! after a flight of a hundred and seventeen cubits, i landed, head down, in a soft mud-hole. in that train was the young u. s. grant, on his way to west point for examination. but for me the armies of the republic would have had no leader. i pressed my claim, when i asked to be appointed to england. although no one else wished to go, i alone was forgotten. such is gratitude with republics! he ceased. then sarah blatchford told the wheeler and wilson's operative's story. my father had left the anchorage of sorrento for a short voyage, if voyage it may be called. life was young, and this world seemed heaven. the yacht bowled on under close-reefed stay-sails, and all was happy. suddenly the corsairs seized us: all were slain in my defence; but i,--this fatal gift of beauty bade them spare my life! why linger on my tale! in the zenana of the shah of persia i found my home. "how escape his eye?" i said; and, fortunately, i remembered that in my reticule i carried one box of f. kidder's indelible ink. instantly i applied the liquid in the large bottle to one cheek. soon as it was dry, i applied that in the small bottle, and sat in the sun one hour. my head ached with the sunlight, but what of that? i was a fright, and i knew all would be well. i was consigned, so soon as my hideous deficiencies were known, to the sewing-room. then how i sighed for my machine! alas! it was not there; but i constructed an imitation from a cannon-wheel, a coffee-mill, and two nut-crackers. and with this i made the under-clothing for the palace and the zenana. i also vowed revenge. nor did i doubt one instant how; for in my youth i had read lucretia borgia's memoirs, and i had a certain rule for slowly slaying a tyrant at a distance. i was in charge of the shah's own linen. every week, i set back the buttons on his shirt collars by the width of one thread; or, by arts known to me, i shrunk the binding of the collar by a like proportion. tighter and tighter with each week did the vice close around his larynx. week by week, at the high religious festivals, i could see his face was blacker and blacker. at length the hated tyrant died. the leeches called it apoplexy. i did not undeceive them. his guards sacked the palace. i bagged the diamonds, fled with them to trebizond, and sailed thence in a caã¯que to south boston. no more! such memories oppress me. her voice was hushed. i told my tale in turn. the conductor's story. i was poor. let this be my excuse, or rather my apology. i entered a third avenue car at thirty-sixth street, and saw the conductor sleeping. satan tempted me, and i took from him his badge, 213. i see the hated figures now. when he woke, he knew not he had lost it. the car started, and he walked to the rear. with the badge on my coat, i collected eight fares within, stepped forward, and sprang into the street. poverty is my only apology for the crime. i concealed myself in a cellar where men were playing with props. fear is my only excuse. lest they should suspect me, i joined their game, and my forty cents were soon three dollars and seventy. with these ill-gotten gains, i visited the gold exchange, then open evenings. my superior intelligence enabled me to place well my modest means, and at midnight i had a competence. let me be a warning to all young men. since that night, i have never gambled more. i threw the hated badge into the river. i bought a palace on murray hill, and led an upright and honorable life. but since that night of terror the sound of the horse-cars oppresses me. always since, to go up town or down, i order my own coupã©, with george to drive me; and never have i entered the cleanly, sweet, and airy carriage provided for the public. i cannot; conscience is too much for me. you see in me a monument of crime. i said no more. a moment's pause, a few natural tears, and a single sigh hushed the assembly; then bertha, with her siren voice, told-the wife of biddeford's story. at the time you speak of, i was the private governess of two lovely boys, julius and pompey,--pompey the senior of the two. the black-eyed darling! i see him now. i also see, hanging to his neck, his blue-eyed brother, who had given pompey his black eye the day before. pompey was generous to a fault; julius, parsimonious beyond virtue. i therefore instructed them in two different rooms. to pompey, i read the story of "waste not, want not." to julius, on the other hand, i spoke of the all-love of his great mother nature, and her profuse gifts to her children. leaving him with grapes and oranges, i stepped back to pompey, and taught him how to untie parcels so as to save the string. leaving him winding the string neatly, i went back to julius, and gave to him ginger-cakes. the dear boys grew from year to year. they outgrew their knickerbockers, and had trousers. they outgrew their jackets, and became men; and i felt that i had not lived in vain. i had conquered nature. pompey, the little spendthrift, was the honored cashier of a savings bank, till he ran away with the capital. julius, the miser, became the chief croupier at the new crockford's. one of those boys is now in botany bay, and the other is in sierra leone! "i thought you were going to say in a hotter place," said john blatchford; and he told his story:-the stoker's story. we were crossing the atlantic in a cunarder. i was second stoker on the starboard watch. in that horrible gale we spoke of before dinner, the coal was exhausted, and i, as the best-dressed man, was sent up to the captain to ask what we should do. i found him himself at the wheel. he almost cursed me and bade me say nothing of coal, at a moment when he must keep her head to the wind with her full power, or we were lost. he bade me slide my hand into his pocket, and take out the key of the after freight-room, open that, and use the contents for fuel. i returned hastily to the engine-room, and we did as we were bid. the room contained nothing but old account books, which made a hot and effective fire. on the third day the captain came down himself into the engine-room, where i had never seen him before, called me aside, and told me that by mistake he had given me the wrong key; asking me if i had used it. i pointed to him the empty room: not a leaf was left. he turned pale with fright. as i saw his emotion he confided to me the truth. the books were the evidences or accounts of the british national debt; of what is familiarly known as the consolidated fund, or the "consols." they had been secretly sent to new york for the examination of james fiske, who had been asked to advance a few millions on this security to the english exchequer, and now all evidence of indebtedness was gone! the captain was about to leap into the sea. but i dissuaded him. i told him to say nothing; i would keep his secret; no man else knew it. the government would never utter it. it was safe in our hands. he reconsidered his purpose. we came safe to port and did--nothing. only on the first quarter-day which followed, i obtained leave of absence, and visited the bank of england, to see what happened. at the door was this placard,--"applicants for dividends will file a written application, with name and amount, at desk a, and proceed in turn to the paying teller's office." i saw their ingenuity. they were making out new books, certain that none would apply but those who were accustomed to. so skilfully do men of government study human nature. i stepped lightly to one of the public desks. i took one of the blanks. i filled it out, "john blatchford, â£1747 6_s._ 8_d._," and handed it in at the open trap. i took my place in the queue in the teller's room. after an agreeable hour, a pile, not thick, of bank of england notes was given to me; and since that day i have quarterly drawn that amount from the maternal government of that country. as i left the teller's room, i observed the captain in the queue. he was the seventh man from the window, and i have never seen him more. we then asked hosanna for her story. the n. e. historical genealogist's story. "my story," said she, "will take us far back into the past. it will be necessary for me to dwell on some incidents in the first settlement of this country, and i propose that we first prepare and enjoy the christmas-tree. after this, if your courage holds, you shall hear an over-true tale." pretty creature, how little she knew what was before us! as we had sat listening to the stories, we had been preparing for the tree. shopping being out of the question, we were fain from our own stores to make up our presents, while the women were arranging nuts, and blown egg-shells, and pop-corn strings from the stores of the "eagle and star." the popping of corn in two corn-poppers had gone on through the whole of the story-telling. all being so nearly ready, i called the drowsy boy again, and, showing him a very large stick in the wood-box, asked him to bring me a hatchet. to my great joy he brought the axe of the establishment, and i bade him farewell. how little did he think what was before him! so soon as he had gone i went stealthily down the stairs, and stepping out into the deep snow, in front of the hotel, looked up into the lovely night. the storm had ceased, and i could see far back into the heavens. in the still evening my strokes might have been heard far and wide, as i cut down one of the two pretty norways that shaded mr. pynchon's front walk, next the hotel. i dragged it over the snow. blatchford and steele lowered sheets to me from the large parlor window, which i attached to the larger end of the tree. with infinite difficulty they hauled it in. i joined them in the parlor, and soon we had as stately a tree growing there as was in any home of joy that night in the river counties. with swift fingers did our wives adorn it. i should have said above, that we travelled with our wives, and that i would recommend that custom to others. it was impossible, under the circumstances, to maintain much secrecy; but it had been agreed that all who wished to turn their backs to the circle, in the preparation of presents, might do so without offence to the others. as the presents were wrapped, one by one, in paper of different colors, they were marked with the names of giver and receiver, and placed in a large clothes-basket. at last all was done. i had wrapped up my knife, my pencil-case, my letter-case, for steele, blatchford, and dick. to my wife i gave my gold watch-key, which fortunately fits her watch; to hosanna, a mere trifle, a seal ring i wore; to bertha, my gold chain; and to sarah blatchford, the watch which generally hung from it. for a few moments, we retired to our rooms while the pretty hosanna arranged the forty-nine presents on the tree. then she clapped her hands, and we rushed in. what a wondrous sight! what a shout of infantine laughter and charming prattle! for in that happy moment were we not all children again? i see my story hurries to its close. dick, who is the tallest, mounted a step-ladder, and called us by name to receive our presents. i had a nice gold watch-key from hosanna, a knife from steele, a letter-case from phebe, and a pretty pencil-case from bertha. dick had given me his watch-chain, which he knew i fancied; sarah blatchford, a little toy of a geneva watch she wore; and her husband, a handsome seal ring, a present to him from the czar, i believe; phebe, that is my wife,--for we were travelling with our wives,--had a pencil-case from steele, a pretty little letter-case from dick, a watch-key from me, and a french repeater from blatchford; sarah blatchford gave her the knife she carried, with some bright verses, saying that it was not to cut love; bertha, a watch-chain; and hosanna a ring of turquoise and amethysts. the other presents were similar articles, and were received, as they were given, with much tender feeling. but at this moment, as dick was on the top of the flight of steps, handing down a red apple from the tree, a slight catastrophe occurred. the first i was conscious of was the angry hiss of steam. in a moment i perceived that the steam-boiler, from which the tavern was warmed, had exploded. the floor beneath us rose, and we were driven with it through the ceiling and the rooms above,--through an opening in the roof into the still night. around us in the air were flying all the other contents and occupants of the star and eagle. how bitterly was i reminded of dick's flight from the railroad track of the ithaca & owego railroad! but i could not hope such an escape as his. still my flight was in a parabola; and, in a period not longer than it has taken to describe it, i was thrown senseless, at last, into a deep snow-bank near the united states arsenal. tender hands lifted me and assuaged me. tender teams carried me to the city hospital. tender eyes brooded over me. tender science cared for me. it proved necessary, before i recovered, to amputate my two legs at the hips. my right arm was wholly removed, by a delicate and curious operation, from the socket. we saved the stump of my left arm, which was amputated just below the shoulder. i am still in the hospital to recruit my strength. the doctor does not like to have me occupy my mind at all; but he says there is no harm in my compiling my memoirs, or writing magazine stories. my faithful nurse has laid me on my breast on a pillow, has put a camel's-hair pencil in my mouth, and, feeling almost personally acquainted with john carter, the artist, i have written out for you, in his method, the story of my last christmas. i am sorry to say that the others have never been found. the same christmas in old england and new. the first christmas in new england was celebrated by some people who tried as hard as they could not to celebrate it at all. but looking back on that year 1620, the first year when christmas was celebrated in new england, i cannot find that anybody got up a better _fãªte_ than did these lincolnshire weavers and ploughmen who had got a little taste of dutch firmness, and resolved on that particular day, that, whatever else happened to them, they would not celebrate christmas at all. here is the story as william bradford tells it: "ye 16. _day_ ye winde came faire, and they arrived safe in this harbor. and after wards tooke better view of ye place, and resolved wher to pitch their dwelling; and ye 25. _day_ begane to erecte ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods." you see, dear reader, that when on any 21st or 22d of december you give the children parched corn, and let them pull candy and swim candles in nut-shells in honor of the "landing of the forefathers"--if by good luck you be of yankee blood, and do either of these praiseworthy things--you are not celebrating the anniversary of the day when the women and children landed, wrapped up in water-proofs, with the dog and john carver in headpiece, and morion, as you have seen in many pictures. that all came afterward. be cool and self-possessed, and i will guide you through the whole chronology safely--old style and new style, first landing and second landing, sabbaths and sundays, carver's landing and mary chilton's landing, so that you shall know as much as if you had fifteen ancestors, a cradle, a tankard, and an oak chest in the mayflower, and you shall come out safely and happily at the first christmas day. know then, that when the poor mayflower at last got across the atlantic, massachusetts stretched out her right arm to welcome her, and she came to anchor as early as the 11th of november in provincetown harbor. this was the day when the compact of the cabin of the mayflower was signed, when the fiction of the "social compact" was first made real. here they fitted their shallop, and in this shallop, on the sixth of december, ten of the pilgrims and six of the ship's crew sailed on their exploration. they came into plymouth harbor on the tenth, rested on watson's island on the eleventh,--which was sunday,--and on monday, the twelfth, landed on the mainland, stepping on plymouth rock and marching inland to explore the country. add now nine days to this date for the difference then existing between old style and new style, and you come upon the twenty-first of december, which is the day you ought to celebrate as forefathers' day. on that day give the children parched corn in token of the new provant, the english walnut in token of the old, and send them to bed with elder brewster's name, mary chilton's, edward winslow's, and john billington's, to dream upon. observe still that only these ten men have landed. all the women and children and the other men are over in provincetown harbor. these ten, liking the country well enough, go across the bay to provincetown where they find poor bradford's wife drowned in their absence, and bring the ship across into plymouth harbor on the sixteenth. now you will say of course that they were so glad to get here that they began to build at once; but you are entirely mistaken, for they did not do any such thing. there was a little of the john bull about them and a little of the dutchman. the seventeenth was sunday. of course they could not build a city on sunday. monday they explored, and tuesday they explored more. wednesday, "after we had called on god for direction, we came to this resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places, which we thought most fitting for us; for we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer." observe, this is the pilgrims' or forefathers' beer, and not the beer of the ship, of which there was still some store. acting on this resolution they went ashore again, and concluded by "most voices" to build plymouth where plymouth now is. one recommendation seems to have been that there was a good deal of land already clear. but this brought with it the counter difficulty that they had to go half a quarter of a mile for their wood. so there they left twenty people on shore, resolving the next day to come and build their houses. but the next day it stormed, and the people on shore had to come back to the ship, and richard britteridge died. and friday it stormed so that they could not land, and the people on the shallop who had gone ashore the day before could not get back to the ship. saturday was the twenty-third, as they counted, and some of them got ashore and cut timber and carried it to be ready for building. but they reserved their forces still, and sunday, the twenty-fourth, no one worked of course. so that when christmas day came, the day which every man, woman and child of them had been trained to regard as a holy day--as a day specially given to festivity and specially exempted from work, all who could went on shore and joined those who had landed already. so that william bradford was able to close the first book of his history by saying: "ye 25. _day_ begane to erect ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods." now, this all may have been accidental. i do not say it was not. but when i come to the record of christmas for next year and find that bradford writes: "one ye day called chrismas-day, ye gov'r caled them out to worke (as was used)," i cannot help thinking that the leaders had a grim feeling of satisfaction in "secularizing" the first christmas as thoroughly as they did. they wouldn't work on sunday, and they would work on christmas. they did their best to desecrate christmas, and they did it by laying one of the cornerstones of an empire. now, if the reader wants to imagine the scene,--the christmas celebration or the christmas desecration, he shall call it which he will, according as he is roman or puritan himself,--i cannot give him much material to spin his thread from. here is the little story in the language of the time: "munday the 25. day, we went on shore, some to fell tymber, some to saw, some to riue, and some to carry, so no man rested all that day, but towards night some as they were at worke, heard a noyse of some indians, which caused vs all to goe to our muskets, but we heard no further, so we came aboord againe, and left some twentie to keepe the court of gard; that night we had a sore storme of winde and rayne. "munday the 25. being christmas day, we began to drinke water aboord, but at night the master caused vs to have some beere, and so on board we had diverse times now and then some beere, but on shore none at all." there is the story as it is told by the only man who chose to write it down. let us not at this moment go into an excursus to inquire who he was and who he was not. only diligent investigation has shown beside that this first house was about twenty feet square, and that it was for their common use to receive them and their goods. the tradition says that it was on the south side of what is now leyden street, near the declivity of the hill. what it was, i think no one pretends to say absolutely. i am of the mind of a dear friend of mine, who used to say that, in the hardships of those first struggles, these old forefathers of ours, as they gathered round the fires (which they did have--no christian registers for them to warm their cold hands by), used to pledge themselves to each other in solemn vows that they would leave to posterity no detail of the method of their lives. posterity should not make pictures out of them, or, if it did, should make wrong ones; which accordingly, posterity has done. what was the nature, then, of this twenty-foot-square store-house, in which, afterward, they used to sleep pretty compactly, no man can say. dr. young suggests a log cabin, but i do not believe that the log cabin was yet invented. i think it is more likely that the englishmen rigged their two-handled saws,--after the fashion known to readers of sanford and merton in an after age,--and made plank for themselves. the material for imagination, as far as costume goes, may be got from the back of a fifty-dollar national bank-note, which the well-endowed reader will please take from his pocket, or from a roll of lorillard's tobacco at his side, on which he will find the good reduction of weir's admirable picture of the embarkation. or, if the reader has been unsuccessful in his investment in lorillard, he will find upon the back of the one-dollar bank-note a reduced copy of the fresco of the "landing" in the capitol, which will answer his purpose equally well. forty or fifty englishmen, in hats and doublets and hose of that fashion, with those odd english axes that you may see in your ã�sop's fable illustrations, and with their double-handled saws, with a few beetles, and store of wedges, must make up your tableau, dear reader. make it _vivant_, if you can. to help myself in the matter, i sometimes group them on the bank there just above the brook,--you can see the place to-day, if it will do you any good--at some moment when the women have come ashore to see how the work goes on--and remembering that mrs. hemans says "they sang"--i throw the women all in a chorus of soprano and contralto voices on the left, mrs. winslow and mrs. carver at their head, mrs. w. as _prima assoluta soprano_ and mrs. carver as _prima assoluta contralto_,--i range on the right the men with w. bradford and w. brewster as leaders--and between, facing us, the audience,--who are lower down in the valley of the brook, i place giovanni carver (tenor) and odoardo winslow (basso) and have them sing in the english dialect of their day, suoni la tromba, carver waving the red-cross flag of england, and winslow swinging a broadaxe above his head in similar revolutions. the last time i saw any puritans doing this at the opera, one had a star-spangled banner and the other an italian tricolor,--but i am sure my placing on the stage is more accurate than that. but i find it very hard to satisfy myself that this is the correct idealization. yet mrs. hemans says the songs were "songs of lofty cheer," which precisely describes the duet in puritani. it would be an immense satisfaction, if by palimpsest under some old cash-book of that century, or by letters dug out from some family collection in england, one could just discover that "john billington, having become weary with cutting down a small fir-tree which had been allotted to him, took his snaphance and shot with him, and calling a dog he had, to whom in the low countries the name crab had been given, went after fowle. crossing the brook and climbing up the bank to an open place which was there, he found what had been left by the savages of one of their gardens,--and on the ground, picking at the stalkes of the corne, a flocke of large blacke birds such as he had never seen before. his dogge ran at them and frightened them, and they all took wing heavily, but not so quick but that billington let fly at them and brought two of them down,--one quite dead and one hurt so badly that he could not fly. billington killed them both and tyed them together, and following after the flocke had another shot at them, and by a good providence hurte three more. he tyed two of these together and brought the smallest back to us, not knowing what he brought, being but a poor man and ignorant. hee is but a lazy fellowe, and was sore tired with the weight of his burden, which was nigh fortie pounds. soe soon as he saw it, the governour and the rest knew that it was a wild turkie, and albeit he chid billington sharply, he sent four men with him, as it were calebs and joshuas, to bring in these firstlings of the land. they found the two first and brought them to us; but after a long search they could not find the others, and soe gave them up, saying the wolves must have eaten them. there were some that thought john billington had never seen them either, but had shot them with a long bowe. be this as it may, mistress winslow and the other women stripped them they had, cleaned them, spytted them, basted them, and roasted them, and thus we had fresh foule to our dinner." i say it would have been very pleasant to have found this in some palimpsest, but if it is in the palimpsest, it has not yet been found. as the arab proverb says, "there is news, but it has not yet come." i have failed, in just the same way, to find a letter from that rosy-cheeked little child you see in sargent's picture, looking out of her great wondering eyes, under her warm hood, into the desert. i overhauled a good many of the cotton manuscripts in the british museum (otho and caligula, if anybody else wants to look), and mr. sainsbury let me look through all the portfolios i wanted in the state paper office, and i am sure the letter was not there then. if anybody has found it, it has been found since i was there. if it ever is found, i should like to have it contain the following statement:-"we got tired of playing by the fire, and so some of us ran down to the brook, and walked till we could find a place to cross it; and so came up to a meadow as large as the common place in leyden. there was a good deal of ice upon it in some places, but in some places behind, where there were bushes, we found good store of berries growing on the ground. i filled my apron, and william took off his jerkin and made a bag of it, and we all filled it to carry up to the fire. but they were so sour, that they puckered our mouths sadly. but my mother said they were cranberries, but not like your cranberries in lincolnshire. and, having some honey in one of the logs the men cut down, she boiled the cranberries and the honey together, and after it was cold we had it with our dinner. and besides, there were some great pompions which the men had brought with them from the first place we landed at, which were not like cinderella's, but had long tails to them, and of these my mother and mrs. brewster and mrs. warren, made pies for dinner. we found afterwards that the indians called these pompions, _askuta squash_." but this letter, i am sorry to say, has not yet been found. whether they had roast turkey for christmas i do not know. i do know, thanks to the recent discovery of the old bradford manuscript, that they did have roast turkey at their first thanksgiving. the veritable history, like so much more of it, alas! is the history of what they had not, instead of the history of what they had. not only did they work on the day when all their countrymen played, but they had only water to drink on the day when all their countrymen drank beer. this deprivation of beer is a trial spoken of more than once; and, as lately as 1824, mr. everett, in his pilgrim oration, brought it in high up in the climax of the catalogue of their hardships. how many of us in our school declamations have stood on one leg, as bidden in "lovell's speaker," raised the hand of the other side to an angle of forty-five degrees, as also bidden, and repeated, as also bidden, not to say compelled, the words, "i see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their almost desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five-months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of plymouth, weak and exhausted from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes." little did these men of 1620 think that the time would come when ships would go round the world without a can of beer on board; that armies would fight through years of war without a ration of beer or of spirit, and that the builders of the lawrences and vinelands, the pioneer towns of a new christian civilization, would put the condition into the title-deeds of their property that nothing should be sold there which could intoxicate the buyer. poor fellows! they missed the beer, i am afraid, more than they did the play at christmas; and as they had not yet learned how good water is for a steady drink, the carnal mind almost rejoices that when they got on board that christmas night, the curmudgeon ship-master, warmed up by his christmas jollifications, for he had no scruples, treated to beer all round, as the reader has seen. with that tankard of beer--as those who went on board filled it, passed it, and refilled it--ends the history of the first christmas in new england. * * * * * it is a very short story, and yet it is the longest history of that christmas that i have been able to find. i wanted to compare this celebration of christmas, grimly intended for its desecration, with some of the celebrations which were got up with painstaking intention. but, alas, pageants leave little history, after the lights have smoked out, and the hangings have been taken away. leaving, for the moment, king james's christmas and englishmen, i thought it would be a pleasant thing to study the contrast of a christmas in the countries where they say christmas has its most enthusiastic welcome. so i studied up the war in the palatinate,--i went into the chronicles of spain, where i thought they would take pains about christmas,--i tried what the men of "la religion," the huguenots, were doing at rochelle, where a great assembly was gathering. but christmas day would not appear in memoirs or annals. i tried rome and the pope, but he was dying, like the king of spain, and had not, i think, much heart for pageantry. i looked in at vienna, where they had all been terribly frightened by bethlem gabor, who was a great transylvanian prince of those days, a sort of successful kossuth, giving much hope to beleaguered protestants farther west, who, i believe, thought for a time that he was some sort of seal or trumpet, which, however, he did not prove to be. at this moment of time he was retreating i am afraid, and at all events did not set his historiographer to work describing his christmas festivities. passing by bethlem gabor then, and the rest, from mere failure of their chronicles to make note of this christmas as it passed, i returned to france in my quest. louis xiii. was at this time reigning with the assistance of luynes, the short-lived favorite who preceded richelieu. or it would, perhaps, be more proper to say that luynes was reigning under the name of louis xiii. louis xiii. had been spending the year in great activity, deceiving, thwarting, and undoing the protestants of france. he had made a rapid march into their country, and had spread terror before him. he had had mass celebrated in navarreux, where it had not been seen or heard in fifty years. with bethlem gabor in the ablative,--with the palatinate quite in the vocative,--these poor huguenots here outwitted and outgeneralled, and brewster and carver freezing out there in america, the reformed religion seems in a bad way to one looking at that christmas. from his triumphal and almost bloodless campaign, king louis returns to paris, "and there," says bassompierre, "he celebrated the _fãªtes_ this christmas." so i thought i was going to find in the memoirs of some gentleman at court, or unoccupied mistress of the robes, an account of what the most christian king was doing, while the blisters were forming on john carver's hands, and while john billington was, or was not, shooting wild turkeys on that eventful christmas day. but i reckoned without my king. for this is all a mistake, and whatever else is certain, it seems to be certain that king louis xiii. did not keep either christmas in paris, either the christmas of the old style, or that of the new. such, alas, is history, dear friend! when you read in to-night's "evening post" that your friend dalrymple is appointed minister to russia, where he has been so anxious to go, do not suppose he will make you his secretary of legation. alas! no; for you will read in to-morrow's "times" that it was all a mistake of the telegraph, and that the dispatch should have read "o'shaughnessy," where the dispatch looked like "dalrymple." so here, as i whetted my pencil, wetted my lips, and drove the attentive librarian at the astor almost frantic as i sent him up stairs for you five times more, it proved that louis xiii. did not spend christmas in paris, but that bassompierre, who said so, was a vile deceiver. here is the truth in the _mercure franã§aise_,--flattering and obsequious annual register of those days: "the king at the end of this year, visited the frontiers of picardy. in this whole journey, which lasted from the 14th of december to the 12th of january (new style), the weather was bad, and those in his majesty's suite found the roads bad." change the style back to the way our puritans counted it, and observe that on the same days, the 5th of december to the 3d of january, old style, those in the suite of john carver found the weather bad and the roads worse. let us devoutly hope that his most christian majesty did not find the roads as bad as his suite did. "and the king," continues the _mercure_, "sent an extraordinary ambassador to the king of great britain, at london, the marshal cadenet" (brother of the favorite luynes). "he departed from calais on friday, the first day of january, very well accompanied by _noblesse_. he arrived at dover the same evening, and did not depart from dover until the monday after." be pleased to note, dear reader, that this monday, when this ambassador of a most christian king departs from dover, is on monday the 25th day of december, of old style, or protestant style, when john carver is learning wood-cutting, by way of encouraging the others. let us leave the king of france to his bad roads, and follow the fortunes of the favorite's brother, for we must study an english christmas after all. we have seen the christmas holidays of men who had hard times for the reward of their faith in the star of bethlehem. let us try the fortunes of the most christian king's people, as they keep their second christmas of the year among a protestant people. observe that a week after their own christmas of new style, they land in old style england, where christmas has not yet begun. here is the _mercure franã§ais's_ account of the christmas holidays,--flattering and obsequious, as i said: "marshal cadenet did not depart from dover till the monday after" (christmas day, o. s.). "the english master of ceremonies had sent twenty carriages and three hundred horses for his suite." (if only we could have ten of the worst of them at plymouth! they would have drawn our logs for us that half quarter of a mile. but we were not born in the purple!) "he slept at canterbury, where the grand seneschal of england, well accompanied by english noblemen, received him on the part of the king of england. wherever he passed, the officers of the cities made addresses to him, and offers, even ordering their own archers to march before him and guard his lodgings. when he came to gravesend, the earl of arundel visited him on the part of the king, and led him to the royal barge. his whole suite entered into twenty-five other barges, painted, hung with tapestry, and well adorned" (think of our poor, rusty shallop there in plymouth bay), "in which, ascending the thames, they arrived in london friday the 29th december" (january 8th, n. s.). "on disembarking, the ambassador was led by the earl of arundel to the palace of the late queen, which had been superbly and magnificently arranged for him. the day was spent in visits on the part of his majesty the king of great britain, of the prince of wales, his son, and of the ambassadors of kings and princes, residing in london." so splendidly was he entertained, that they write that on the day of his reception he had four tables, with fifty covers each, and that the duke of lennox, grand master of england, served them with magnificent order. "the following sunday" (which we could not spend on shore), "he was conducted to an audience by the marquis of buckingham," (for shame, jamie! an audience on sunday! what would john knox have said to that!) "where the french and english nobility were dressed as for a great feast day. the whole audience was conducted with great respect, honor, and ceremony. the same evening, the king of great britain sent for the marshal by the marquis of buckingham and the duke of lennox; and his majesty and the ambassador remained alone for more than two hours, without any third person hearing what they said. the following days were all receptions, banquets, visits, and hunting-parties, till the embassy departed." that is the way history gets written by a flattering and obsequious court editor or organ at the time. that is the way, then, that the dread sovereign of john carver and edward winslow spent his christmas holidays, while they were spending theirs in beginning for him an empire. dear old william brewster used to be a servant of davison's in the days of good queen bess. as he blows his fingers there in the twenty-foot storehouse before it is roofed, does he tell the rest sometimes of the old wassail at court, and the christmas when the earl of southampton brought will. shakespeare in? perhaps those things are too gay,--at all events, we have as much fuel here as they have at st. james's. of this precious embassy, dear reader, there is not a word, i think, in hume, or lingard, or the "pictorial"--still less, if possible, in the abridgments. would you like, perhaps, after this truly elegant account thus given by a court editor, to look behind the canvas and see the rough ends of the worsted? i always like to. it helps me to understand my morning "advertiser" or my "evening post," as i read the editorial history of to-day. if you please, we will begin in the domestic state papers of england, which the good sense of somebody, i believe kind sir francis palgrave, has had opened for you and me and the rest of us. here is the first notice of the embassy: dec. 13. letter from sir robert naunton to sir george calvert.... "the king of france is expected at calais. the marshal of cadenet is to be sent over to calumniate those of the religion (that is, the protestants), and to propose madme. henriette for the prince." so they knew, it seems, ten days before we started, what we were coming for. dec. 22. john chamberlain to sir dudley carleton. "in spite of penury, there is to be a masque at court this christmas. the king is coming in from theobalds to receive the french ambassador, marshal cadenet, who comes with a suite of 400 or 500." what was this masque? could not mr. payne collier find up the libretto, perhaps? was it faith, valor, hope, and love, founding a kingdom, perhaps? faith with a broadaxe, valor and hope with a two-handled saw, while love dug post-holes and set up timbers? or was it a less appropriate masque of king james' devising? dec. 25. this is our day. francis willisfourd, governor of dover castle to lord zouch, warden of the cinque ports. "a french ambassador has landed with a great train. i have not fired a salute, having no instructions, and declined showing them the fortress. they are entertained as well as the town can afford." observe, we are a little surly. we do not like the french king very well, our own king's daughter being in such straits yonder in the palatinate. what do these papists here? that is the only letter written on christmas day in the english "domestic archives" for that year! christmas is for frolic here, not for letter-writing, nor house-building, if one's houses be only built already! but on the 27th, wednesday, "lord arundel has gone to meet the french ambassador at gravesend." and a very pretty time it seems they had at gravesend, when you look on the back of the embroidery. arundel called on cadenet at his lodgings, and cadenet did not meet him till he came to the stair--head of his chamber-door--nor did he accompany him further when he left. but arundel was even with him the next morning. he appointed his meeting for the return call _in the street_; and when the barges had come up to somerset house, where the party was to stay, arundel left the ambassador, telling him that there were gentlemen who would show him his lodging. the king was so angry that he made cadenet apologize. alas for the court of governor john carver on this side,--four days old to-day--if massasoit should send us an ambassador! _we_ shall have to receive him in the street, unless he likes to come into a palace without a roof! but, fortunately, he does not send till we are ready! the domestic archives give another glimpse: dec. 30. thomas locke to carleton: "the french ambassador has arrived at somerset house with a train so large that some of the seats at westminster hall had to be pulled down to make room at their audience." and in letters from the same to the same, of january 7, are accounts of entertainments given to the ambassador at his first audience (on that sunday), on the 4th at parliament house, on the 6th at a masque at whitehall, where none were allowed below the rank of a baron--and at lord doncaster's entertainment--where "six thousand ounces of gold are set out as a present," says the letter, but this i do not believe. at the hampton entertainment, and at the masque there were some disputes about precedency, says john chamberlain in another letter. dear john chamberlain, where are there not such disputes? at the masque at whitehall he says, "a puritan was flouted and abused, which was thought unseemly, considering the state of the french protestants." let the marshal come over to gov. john carver's court and see one of our masques there, if he wants to know about puritans. "at lord doncaster's house the feast cost three thousand pounds, beside three hundred pounds worth of ambergris used in the cooking," nothing about that six thousand ounces of gold. "the ambassador had a long private interview with the king; it is thought he proposed mad. henriette for the prince. he left with a present of a rich jewel. he requested liberation of all the imprisoned priests in the three kingdoms, but the answer is not yet given." by the eleventh of january the embassy had gone, and thomas locke says cadenet "received a round answer about the protestants." let us hope it was so, for it was nearly the last, as it was. thomas murray writes that he "proposed a match with france,--a confederation against spanish power, and asked his majesty to abandon the rebellious princes,--but he refused unless they might have toleration." the ambassador was followed to rochester for the debts of some of his train,--but got well home to paris and new style. and so he vanishes from english history. his king made him duke of chaulnes and peer of france, but his brother, the favorite died soon after, either of a purple fever or of a broken heart, and neither of them need trouble us more. at the moment the whole embassy seemed a failure in england,--and so it is spoken of by all the english writers of the time whom i have seen. "there is a flaunting french ambassador come over lately," says howel, "and i believe his errand is naught else but compliment.... he had an audience two days since, where he, with his train of ruffling long-haired monsieurs, carried himself in such a light garb, that after the audience the king asked my lord keeper bacon what he thought of the french ambassador. he answered, that he was a tall, proper man. 'aye,' his majesty replied, 'but what think you of his head-piece? is he a proper man for the office of an ambassador?' 'sir,' said bacon, 'tall men are like houses of four or five stories, wherein commonly the uppermost room is worst furnished.'" hard, this, on us poor six-footers. one need not turn to the biography after this, to guess that the philosopher was five feet four. i think there was a breeze, and a cold one, all the time, between the embassy and the english courtiers. i could tell you a good many stories to show this, but i would give them all for one anecdote of what edward winslow said to madam carver on christmas evening. they thought it all naught because they did not know what would come of it. we do know. and i wish you to observe, all the time, beloved reader, whom i press to my heart for your steadiness in perusing so far, and to whom i would give a jewel had i one worthy to give, in token of my consideration (how you would like a royalston beryl or an attleboro topaz).[a] i wish you to observe, i say, that on the christmas tide, when the forefathers began new england, charles and henrietta were first proposed to each other for that fatal union. charles, who was to be charles the first, and henrietta, who was to be mother of charles the second, and james the second. so this was the time, when were first proposed all the precious intrigues and devisings, which led to charles the second, james the second, james the third, so called, and our poor friend the pretender. civil war--revolution--1715--1745--preston-pans, falkirk and culloden--all are in the dispatches cadenet carries ashore at dover, while we are hewing our timbers at the side of the brook at plymouth, and making our contribution to protestant america. [a] mrs. hemans says they did not seek "bright jewels of the mine," which was fortunate, as they would not have found them. attleboro is near plymouth rock, but its jewels are not from mines. the beryls of royalston are, but they are far away. other good mined jewels, i think, new england has none. her garnets are poor, and i have yet seen no good amethysts. on the one side christmas is celebrated by fifty outcasts chopping wood for their fires--and out of the celebration springs an empire. on the other side it is celebrated by the _noblesse_ of two nations and the pomp of two courts. and out of the celebration spring two civil wars, the execution of one king and the exile of another, the downfall twice repeated of the royal house, which came to the english throne under fairer auspices than ever. the whole as we look at it is the tale of ruin. those are the only two christmas celebrations of that year that i have found anywhere written down! you will not misunderstand the moral, dear reader, if, indeed, you exist; if at this point there be any reader beside him who corrects the proof! sublime thought of the solemn silence in which these words may be spoken! you will not misunderstand the moral. it is not that it is better to work on christmas than to play. it is not that masques turn out ill, and that those who will not celebrate the great anniversaries turn out well. god forbid! it is that these men builded better than they knew, because they did with all their heart and all their soul the best thing that they knew. they loved christ and feared god, and on christmas day did their best to express the love and the fear. and king james and cadenet,--did they love christ and fear god? i do not know. but i do not believe, nor do you, that the masque of the one, or the embassy of the other, expressed the love, or the hope, or the faith of either! so it was that john carver and his men, trying to avoid the celebration of the day, built better than they knew indeed, and, in their faith, laid a corner-stone for an empire. and james and cadenet trying to serve themselves--forgetful of the spirit of the day, as they pretended to honor it--were so successful that they destroyed a dynasty. there is moral enough for our truer christmas holidays as 1867 leads in the new-born sister. cambridge: press of john wilson and son. roberts brothers' latest new books. superb holiday books for the season of 1872-73. =jean ingelow's poems.= embellished with more than one hundred illustrations. a new edition, with the addition of a new photographic likeness of miss ingelow from a recent sitting to elliot and fry, of london. one small quarto volume, cloth, gilt and black lettered, and gilt edges. price $7.50. morocco, elegant. price $12.00. =moritz retzsch's outlines to bã�rger's ballads.= comprising the ballads of lenora, the lay of the brave man, and the pastor's daughter of taubenhain. oblong folio, cloth, black and gilt lettered. price $5.00. morocco antique and extra. price $9.00. the outlines are printed in germany from the original plates made by retzsch, and the book is a companion volume to our popular editions of "outlines to shakespeare" and "lay of the bell," by the same artist. altogether it will be one of the most desirable books of the present holiday season. =from the nile to the jordan.= footsteps of the israelites from egypt to sinai. with fourteen autotype illustrations, after david roberts, r. a. small quarto, superbly bound in cloth, gilt and black lettered, and illuminated. price $6.00. =thorvaldsen, his life and works.= from the french of henri plon by miss luyster. with thirty-five illustrations, from the master's compositions, a portrait of thorvaldsen by horace vernet, and a view of the thorvaldsen museum in copenhagen, printed in paris on india paper. one elegant 12mo volume, cloth, gilt, bevelled boards. price $2.50. =mirã�io.= a poem. by frederic mistral. translated by harriet w. preston. with vignette title by billings. one elegant red-line volume, cloth, gilt top. price $2.00. morocco antique, or calf, extra gilt. price $5.50. =memoirs of madame desbordes-valmore.= by the late c. a. sainte-beuve. with a selection from her poems. translated by harriet w. preston. square 16mo, cloth, bevelled boards, gilt top. price $1.50. =nile sketches.= by carl werner. second series. with magnificent chromo-lithographs 18x25, mounted suitable for framing. price $28.00. =christmas eve and christmas day=: ten christmas stories. by edward e. hale. with frontispiece by darley. 16mo, cloth, gilt. price $1.50. =the tall student.= from the german, by charles t. brooks. with fifteen grotesque designs. square 16mo, cloth, gilt, bevelled boards. price 75 cts. =happy thought hall.= by f. c. burnand, author of "happy thoughts." with illustrations. price $2.00. =off the skelligs.= a novel. by jean ingelow. 16mo. 670 pages. price $1.75. =six of one by half a dozen of the other.= a novelette. by mrs. harriet beecher stowe, mrs. a. d. t. whitney, miss lucretia hale, rev. e. e. hale, f. b. perkins, and f. w. loring. 16mo. price $1.50. =aunt jo's scrap-bag.= by louisa m. alcott, author of "little women," "an old-fashioned girl," "little men." with illustrations. price $1.00. =out of town.= by f. c. burnand, author of "happy thoughts." price $1.25. =outlines to shakespeare.= designed and engraved by moritz retzsch. one hundred and one plates, with explanatory text. one volume, oblong folio, superbly bound in cloth, gilt and black-lettered. price $9.00. morocco antique. price $15.00. =the sermon on the mount.= illuminated by w. and g. hudsley. illustrated by charles rolf. chromo-lithographed by w. r. tymms. one volume, folio, superbly bound in illuminated morocco-cloth, gilt. price $12.00. =falstaff and his companions.= twenty designs in silhouette, by paul konewka. with an introduction by hermann kurz, and explanatory text selected from shakespeare. one volume, square 8vo, cloth, gilt. price $3.00. morocco antique price $6.00. =the unknown river:= an etcher's voyage of discovery. by p. g. hamerton, author of "thoughts about art" and "a painter's camp." with 37 illustrations etched from nature by the author. one volume, 8vo, cloth, gilt. price $6.00. morocco antique. price $9.00. =good night and good morning.= a poem. by lord houghton. with illuminations and etchings on copper, by walter severn. one volume, quarto, illuminated, cloth, gilt. price $4.50. =sing song=: a nursery rhyme book. by christina g. rossetti. one hundred and twenty songs, with an illustration to each song, by arthur hughes, engraved by the dalziels. one volume, thin 8vo, cloth, gilt. price $2.00. =the new-year's bargain.= a christmas story for children. by susan coolidge. with illustrations by addie ledyard. one volume, square 16mo, cloth, gilt. price $1.50. =paul of tarsus=: an inquiry into the times and the gospel of the apostle of the gentiles. by a graduate. 16mo. price $1.50. =my health.= by f. c. burnand, author of "happy thoughts." volume x. handy-volume series. red cloth. price $1.00. =arabesques.= monare--apollyona--domitia--ombra. four stories of the supernatural. by mrs. richard s. greenough. with medallions and initial letters. red-line border printed on heavy laid paper. one elegant 16mo volume, bound in cloth, gilt. price $2.00. =english lessons for english people.= by e. a. abbott, m. a., and j. r. seeley, m. a. (author of "ecce homo"). one volume, 16mo, cloth. price $1.50. this little manual (reprinted from early sheets of the english edition by arrangement with the authors), intended not only for a text-book in advanced schools and colleges, but for the general reader, will be found to be an invaluable assistant to those acquiring a method of speaking and writing the english language correctly. prof. seeley, the author of "ecce homo," has the reputation of being one of the most perfect of english scholars. =cues from all quarters=; or, literary musings of a clerical recluse. by francis jacox. one volume, 16mo. price $1.50. =radical problems.= by rev. c. a. bartol. one volume, 16mo. price $2.00. =the to-morrow of death=; or, the future life according to science. by louis figuier. translated by s. r. crocker. editor of the "literary world." one volume, 16mo. price $1.50. =the rose-garden.= a novelette. by the author of "unawares." 16mo. price $1.50. =unawares=. a novelette. by frances m. peard. 16mo. price $1.50. =sailing on the nile.= by laurent laporte. translated by virginia vaughan. 16mo. price $1.50. =mirã�io=: a pastoral poem. from the provenã§al of m. mistral, by miss harriet w. preston. gilt top. price $2.00. =the vicar's daughter.= a novel. by george macdonald. with many original illustrations. price $1.50. =after all, not to create only.= walt whitman's american institute poem. 12mo, cloth, limped covers. price 30 cents. messrs. roberts brothers' publications. _jean ingelow._ off the skelligs. a novel. by jean ingelow. 16mo. 670 pages. price $1.75 _from the literary world._ "the first novel from the pen of one of the most popular poets of the age--written, too, in the author's maturity, when her name is almost exclusively associated with verse, so far as literature is concerned, and therefore to be regarded as a deliberate work, and one in which she challenges the decisive judgment of the public--will be read with universal and eager interest.... we have read this book with constantly increasing pleasure. it is a novel with a soul in it, that imparts to the reader an influence superior to mere momentary entertainment; it is not didactic, but it teaches; it is genuine, fresh, healthy, presents cheerful views of life, and exalts nobility of character without seeming to do so." extract from a private letter,--not intended for publication,--the hearty opinion of one of the most popular and favorite writers of the present day:-"_thanks for the book. i sat up nearly all night to read it, and think it very charming.... i hope she will soon write again; for we need just such simple, pure, and cheerful stories here in america, where even the nursery songs are sensational, and the beautiful old books we used to love are now called dull and slow. i shall sing its praises loud and long, and set all my boys and girls to reading 'off the skelligs,' sure that they will learn to love it as well as they do her charming songs. if i could reach so far, i should love to shake hands with miss ingelow, and thank her heartily for this delightful book._" sold everywhere. mailed, postpaid, by the publishers, roberts brothers, boston. messrs. roberts brothers' publications. aunt jo's scrap-bag. by louisa m. alcott. vol. i. comprising "my boys," &c. 16mo. cloth, gilt. price $1.00. _from the london athenã¦um._ a collection of fugitive tales and sketches which we should have been sorry to lose. miss alcott's boys and girls are always delightful in her hands. she throws a loving glamour over them; and she loves them herself so heartily that it is not possible for the reader to do otherwise. we have found the book very pleasant to read. _from the new york tribune._ the large and increasing circle of juveniles who sit enchanted year in and out round the knees of miss alcott will hail with delight the publication of "aunt jo's scrap-bag." the most taking of these taking tales is, to our fancy, "my boys;" but all possess the quality which made "little women" so widely popular, and the book will be welcomed and read from maine to florida. _mrs. hale, in godey's lady's book._ these little stories are in every way worthy of the author of "little women." they will be read with the sincerest pleasure by thousands of children, and in that pleasure there will not be a single forbidden ingredient. "my boys," which, opening upon by chance, we read through at a sitting, is charming. ladislas, the noble, sweet-tempered pole, is the original of laurie, ever to be remembered by all "aunt jo's" readers. _from the providence press._ dear aunt jo! you are embalmed in the thoughts and loves of thousands of little men and little women. your scrap-bag is rich in its stores of good things. pray do not close and put it away quite yet. this is louisa alcott's christmas tribute to the young people, and it is, like herself, _good_. in making selections, "aunt jo's scrap-bag" must not be forgotten. there will be a vacant place where this little volume is not. _sold everywhere. mailed, postpaid, by the publishers,_ roberts brothers, boston. messrs. roberts brothers' publications. the doll-world series. by mrs. robert o'reilly. comprising "doll world," "deborah's drawer," and "daisy's companions." three beautiful volumes, illustrated and bound in cloth, black and gilt lettered, and put up in a neat box. price $3.00; or, separately, $1.00 each. _from the boston daily advertiser._ one rarely meets with three so thoroughly charming and satisfactory books for children as the "doll-world series," by mrs. robert o'reilly. their author seems to possess--and in a high degree--every one of the very peculiar and varied characteristics which fit one to be a good writer for the young. she is humorous,--one ought perhaps to say funny, for that is the word which the children understand best; and mrs. o'reilly's wit is not the sly satire which appeals in a kind of aside to the adults present, but the bubbling merriment which is addressed directly to the ready risibles of her proper audience. she is pathetic also, with the keen, transitory pathos which belongs to childhood, a pathos never too much elaborated or too distressingly prolonged. she is abundantly dramatic. her stories are full of action. her incidents, though never forced or unnatural, are almost all picturesque, and they succeed one another rapidly. nevertheless we have not yet noted mrs. o'reilly's chief excellence as a story-writer, nor is it easy to find a single word to express that admirable quality. we come nearest it, perhaps, when we say that her tales have absolute _reality_; there is in them no suggestion of being made up, no visible composition. the illusion of her pictures is so perfect that it is not illusion. this _note_ of reality, which ought to be prevalent in any romance, is positively indispensable in a juvenile one, and it is perfectly delivered by one only of our native writers of children's books. that one is of course miss alcott. her "little women" are as real as daisy grey and bessie somers; the "little men" very nearly so. we have other writers who approach miss alcott, more or less closely: mrs. walker, aunt fanny, susan coolidge in the more realistic parts of the "new year's bargain;" and indeed the latter writer comes so near _truth_, and is also so like the author of the "doll world" stories in the quality of her talent, that one hopes her next essay may be absolutely successful in this regard. _from the new york tribune._ the pretty edition of mrs. robert o'reilly's works, just issued by messrs. roberts brothers, will be welcome to a throng of juvenile readers as the first gift-book of the autumn. it is hard to say which of the three charming volumes comprised in this series will be most liked at the nursery hearth. we fancy "doll world" appeals most tenderly to the affections of little matrons with baby-houses and families of wood and wax to care for; though "deborah's drawer," with its graceful interlinking of story with story, is sure to be the elected favorite of many. our own preference is for "daisy's companions," and this for a reason less comprehensible to children than to older people; namely, that the story closes, leaving the characters in the midst of their childish lives, and without hint of further fate or development. there are few books for children which we can recommend so thoroughly and so heartily as hers. and as one of our wise men has told us that "there is a want of principle in making amusements for children dear," messrs. roberts brothers deserve thanks for giving us these volumes in a form at once so tasteful and so inexpensive. _sold everywhere. mailed, postpaid, by the publishers,_ roberts brothers, boston. transcriber's notes: page numbering in the original goes from 39 to 39^1 through to 39^{14} before recommencing the sequence from 40. variations in hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original publication. changes to the original have been made as follows: title page comma changed to fullstop at the end of the line _with illustration by f. o. c. darley_. page 19 polked to their hearts' content _changed to_ polkaed to their hearts' content page 39^{12} quotation mark removed from the end of the line down and kisses her! page 48 single quotation mark replaced by double before "the star, the manger, and the child!" page 60 quotation mark added at the end of the court, the camp, and the argus office." page 72 quotation mark added at the end of what fun!" page 79 quotation mark added before "can't you behave page 84 haled bridget up five flights of stairs _changed to_ hauled bridget up five flights of stairs page 98 docter says, maybe a shade _changed to_ doctor says, maybe a shade page 158 three or four regiments, thirteeen _changed to_ three or four regiments, thirteen page 208 words of their langauge _changed to_ words of their language page 225 and mr. sydner agreed with _changed to_ and mr. snyder agreed with in the promotional pages at the end of the book: a $ sign has been added to 670 pages. price $1.75. a fullstop has been added after the initial g in a nursery rhyme book. by christina g. a fullstop has been added after of the apostle of the gentiles. 