CHAPTER VII
CHRISTMAS
TEN days before Christmas Mary opened the bottom drawer of her bureau,in which she had placed each gift as soon as it was finished, andsitting down on the floor beside it, proceeded to take an inventory ofthe packages within. They were all wrapped, stamped and addressed, butshe had made them ready without a single Christmas thrill. There wasnothing in the climate or surroundings to suggest the holiday season,and she compared this year's preparations with the year before atWarwick Hall, when the very air seemed charged with a spirit ofdelightful expectancy; when everybody had secrets and went aroundsmiling and humming snatches of carols which the choir-girls werepractising for the service in the chapel.
Mechanically she counted the bundles and checked them off her list: theones for Holland, for Joyce, for Eugenia, the bunny doll with thechamois skin head which she had made for little Patricia. She was verywell satisfied with them all, as well as with the fancy trifles she hadmade for Lloyd and Betty and the girls at school, with whom she stillkept up a correspondence. They were inexpensive, but they were originaland appropriate.
Allowing for the crowded condition of the mails, she decided that thepackages which had the longest distance to go should be started thatvery day. These she took from the drawer and piled on her bed, and thengot out her pen to begin the writing of her Christmas letters.
Now one may make all sorts of dainty gifts, and tie them with hollyribbon, and send them away in Christmasy looking packages which willbring a glow to the heart of the one who opens them, and yet do it allwithout one spark of festal feeling herself. But it is impossible towrite a Christmas letter and put the proper zest into its greetings,unless one is a-tingle with it. When Mary discovered that fact, she toreup the sheets on which she had made various beginnings, and put the corkin her ink-bottle.
"I can't do it any more than I could keep Thanksgiving on the Fourth ofJuly or New Year's on April Fool's day," she thought. "Luckily theletters travel faster than second-class mail, so I'll take my packagesto the post-office now, and then go out in the boat awhile, and thinkabout snow and sleigh-bells and holly berries till I work myself up tothe proper mood."
As she started out of the door her mother called to her to remind herthat they needed eggs. That meant that Mary was to go around by the Metzplace to get them on her way home, which would take so much longer thatthere wouldn't be much time for meditation in the boat. But it was ingoing for the eggs that she came across the very inspiration of whichshe was in quest.
Mr. Metz and his wife were sitting on a bench in the sunny garden nearthe kitchen door, when Mary opened the gate. Looking up the path betweenthe stiff rows of coxcombs and prince's feather, she could see that theold lady was knitting, as usual. He sat with a newspaper across hisknees, and his spectacles folded in one hand. The other grasped the endof his long white beard which flowed almost to his lap.
They were both singing; singing with the quavering voices of age, a songwhich they had brought with them from their far away youth in thebeloved Fatherland. It was a song of Christmas joy which they hadcarolled many a time around a candle-lighted tree. Their voices werethin and tremulous, and broke now and then on the high notes, but it wasa gay little tune, very sweet and full of cheer; and Mary, who stoppedto listen just inside the gate, was thankful that they had not heard thelatch click. When it came to an end she waited a moment, hoping therewould be another verse, but they began to talk, and she started on upthe path. But halfway to the house she paused again, for they had begunanother song.
"_Am Weinachtsbaum die Lichter brennen!_"
Their voices came to a sudden stop at the end of that line, however, asthey became aware of an approaching visitor. Mary hurried forwardsaying, "Oh, I understood one word of it. You were singing about aChristmas tree, weren't you? The children in the blue cottages acrossfrom us have been talking about a 'Weinachtsbaum' all week. Please don'tstop. It sounded so sweet as I came in at the gate."
At some other time the old couple might have been hard to persuade, butthe holiday season was their high-tide of the year, and its returnalways swept them along with a rush of happy memories, to a state ofenjoyment that was almost childish in its outward manifestation. Findingthat Mary was really interested in hearing them talk of the customs oftheir youth, they began a series of reminiscences so interesting thatshe could have listened all day.
Seventy Christmases they could remember distinctly, besides the dimimpressions of several earlier ones. In the course of describing them itcame about quite naturally that they should sing her the interruptedsong.
The old man, because he spoke better English than his wife, interpretedthe verses first. But even his speech was halting and broken, and hepulled his white beard desperately, and used many despairing gestureswhen he could not find the right word. She, clicking her needles, keptup a constant nodding while he explained.
"On the Christmas tree the lights are burning. The children gaze at thewhat you call it--picture--scene--till the eye laughs and the heartlaughs and the old look Himmelwartz, heavenwards that means, withblessed rapture."
"Yah, yah!" nodded the old wife, prompting him as he paused. "ZweiEngel"--
"Two angels appear," he repeated, going haltingly on with the nextverse. Mary could not understand all that he tried to convey, but shecaught the meaning of the last part, that the day brings God's blessingto young and old alike, to the white as well as the brown hair.
"It is the same all over the world," he said, clearing his throatpreparatory to singing the lines he had just translated.
"We will be alone this year. We cannot go to our children and theycannot come to us. But we shall not feel alone. We will make ready onelittle tree, and in our hearts we will join hands with all the happyones who greet the _Weinachtsbaum_. We will be part of that circle whichreaches around the whole wide world."
The quavering old voices took up the tune, and although Mary recognizedonly three words, Christmas-tree, angels and heavenward, there wassomething in the zest with which they sung it, something in theexpression of the wrinkled old faces, which gave her the inspiration shewas in search of. It was as if she had brought to them a littleunlighted candle, and they had kindled it at the flame of their ownglowing ones.
When Mary went home she was more like her accustomed self than she hadbeen for days. She went dancing into the house with the eggs, andimmediately set about the writing of her Christmas letters in her usualresourceful way. Mrs. Ware looked up, much amused, to see her pilingsome fresh orange peel and bits of broken cedar on the table beside herink-bottle.
"There's nothing like that combination of smells to make you think thatSanta Claus is coming straight down the chimney," exclaimed Marygravely, catching her mother's amused glance. "You may think it isfoolish, but really it makes all the Christmases I have ever known standright up in a row in front of me, whenever I smell that smell."
She rubbed a bit of the fresh peel and then a piece of the cedar betweenher palms to bring out the pungent fragrance, and afterwards, from timeto time, bent over it for another whiff to bring her new inspiration.
By the twentieth of December the last letter and the last out-of-townpackage but one was started on its way. Gay's box of ferns, a mass ofluxuriant, feathery greenness, sat on a window-sill, waiting for itstime to go. The crate in which it was to be shipped stood ready in thewood-shed, even to the address on the express-tag. Then time began todrag. The next two days, although the shortest in the year, seemed manytimes longer than usual.
"It's like trying to keep things hot when somebody is late and keepsdinner waiting," complained Mary. "If you can't eat when it's all ready,some of the things are sure to dry up and some to get cold. I was workedup to quite a festive state of mind day before yesterday, but myenthusiasm is all drying up and cooling off now."
"Here's something to warm it over again," announced Norman, coming infrom the express office with a box on his shoulder. "Here's the firstgift to arrive. Let's open up right now, and op
en each thing that comesafter this _when_ it comes instead of waiting for one grand surprise onChristmas morning. You never will try my way, and it would spread thepleasure out and make it last lots longer if you only would. You'rebound to get more enjoyment out of each thing if you give your undividedattention to it."
For once Norman's suggestion, made yearly, was not opposed, and as hepried the lid off the box Mary flopped down on the floor beside it, Jackwheeled his chair closer, and Mrs. Ware came in from the next room inanswer to their eager calls that it was from Joyce.
Each one of the studio family had contributed to the filling of the box.The holly-wreaths on top, tied with great bows of wide red ribbon, werefrom Miss Henrietta Robbins.
"Don't you know," exclaimed Mary, as she lifted them out and held themup for them all to admire, "that Miss Henrietta has turned that studiointo a perfect bower of Christmas greens? She gives it all the elegantcostly touches that Joyce never could afford, just as she's put thefinishing touch on these wreaths with this beautiful ribbon. It's wideenough and satiny enough for a sash."
"And isn't it just like little Mrs. Boyd to send _this_!" she cried amoment later, when the opening of a fancy pasteboard box revealed a dollabout six inches long, dressed like a ballet dancer. Its fluffy scarletskirts hid the leaves of a needle-book, concealed among its folds, andfrom the ends of the sash, by which it was intended to dangle, hung atiny emery bag in the shape of a strawberry, and a little silkthimble-case.
"She got the idea for that from the Ladies' Home Magazine, I am sure.She adores the pages that tell how to evolve your entire spring outfitfrom a shoe-string and a strip of left-over embroidery. It's not thatshe's trying to economize. Joyce says she has the piece-bag habit. Thegirls tease her about not being able to see a scrap of goods withoutwishing to find some way to use it, but they love the homey flavor herhome-made things give to the house. She is as old-fashioned and dear inher ways as she is in her ideas of art."
"That is an unusually pretty doll," remarked Mrs. Ware as Mary swung itaround by its sash.
"Yes," she answered, "it's the kind Hazel Lee and I were always wishingfor. Ours were flaxen haired, and this has raven curls. We would havecalled her 'Lady Agatha' if we had had her then. I believe I'll name herthat now," she added with a glance towards Jack to see if he understoodthe allusion.
But Jack was not noticing. He was turning the pages of a handsomelyillustrated work on Geology, a book he had long wanted to own. Joyce hadhad little to spend this year compared with last, but in her hurriedshopping expeditions, she had considered the tastes and needs of eachone so well that every gift was hailed with delight.
"Norman's way is a dandy one," acknowledged Mary, as she opened a box offine stationery engraved with her monogram, the first she had everowned. "Now I can write my note to Gay on this. If we had waited Ishould have had to use the common paper that we buy at the drug-storeby the pound, because it is cheap. And it's so nice too, to have theseholly-wreaths beforehand."
She danced away to hang them in the windows, and to swing the LadyAgatha from a corner of the mirror over her bureau, where her hiddenneedle-book could readily be reached. Then she thriftily gathered upevery bit of ribbon and tinsel from the discarded wrappings, smoothedout the tissue paper and picked loose from it all the adhering sealsthat had not been broken in the process of tearing open the packages.
"Here's seven whole seals with holly on them," she announced to hermother, "six with Santa Claus heads and four with the greeting MerryChristmas. I'm going to use them over again in doing up the rest of mypackages. That box that the doll came in is exactly what I want to putthe candy in that I made for the Barnabys. And that plain one that holdsthe stuffed dates that Lucy Boyd sent will do for the candy I'm going tosend Mr. and Mrs. Metz. All I'll need to do is to cover it with some ofthis holly paper and tie it with the same gold cord. I'll find a use fornearly everything I've saved before the week is over."
She said it in a tone of such deep satisfaction that Norman looked upfrom the book and other gifts in which he had seemed absorbed, to laughat her.
"Mary is like that old woman who wrote those recipes for cheap pies inthat old New England cook-book we have at home," he said to his mother."She thinks 'a little Ingenuity added to almost any material that comesto hand will make a tasty pie!' You ought to send the Ladies' HomeMagazine some pointers, Mary, on '_How to make Christmas gifts forothers on the wrappings of those sent you_.' Didn't some one saysomething about the _scrap-bag_ habit awhile ago?"
Mary's only answer was a saucy grimace. She could afford to let himtease her about her squirrel instinct for hoarding, when it gave her somuch satisfaction to add to her store of scraps. She had all sorts ofthings to draw on in emergencies. In the one month they had been inBauer she had nearly filled a shoe-box with odds and ends. She hadsheets of tin-foil, saved from packages of chocolate, picture cards,little bottles and boxes and various samples of toilet articles sent outby firms who advertise their goods in that way.
For the next two days every mail brought greetings and remembrances tosome one of the family, sometimes to all, so that the hours slipped byat a fairly rapid pace. One of the gifts which gave Mary most pleasurewas the chiffon scarf that Lloyd sent. It was like the one Roberta worethe first evening Mary had seen her, and which she rapturously comparedto "a moonbeam spangled with dew-drops," only she thought hers farlovelier than Roberta's. A dozen times a day she slipped into her roomto take the floating, filmy web from its box, and spread it out to gloatover it. She had to try the effects of different lights on it, sunshineand moonlight and the rays of the lamp. She spread it over differentdresses, white, pink and green, to see which produced the prettiestglimmers, and Norman caught her once posing before a mirror with itdraped over head, and teased her all the rest of the evening.
Betty's gift was a simple, inexpensive one, intended merely as agreeting. It was only a green bay-berry candle, but the card tied to itby a scarlet bow bore the verse:
"This bay-berry candle's tongue of flame Bears message. Prithee hear it! _While it burns mid your Christmas greens I'm with you all in spirit!_"
"I'm glad that it's a big fat candle," said Mary, passing it around foreach one to enjoy the spicy, aromatic fragrance. "It'll burn a longtime."
She lighted it Christmas eve and put it in the centre of the table withone of the holly-wreaths laid around the base, and the tongue of flamedid seem to "bear message." It started Mary to talking of her absentfriend; of the bloodstone and the Good Times book Betty had given her.Of Betty's clear brown eyes and dearer ways, of Betty's sweetconsideration for others, of her talent for writing which was sure tomake her famous some day. She talked of her all during supper, notnoticing that Jack was unusually silent, and that his eyes restedoftener on the candle than it did on his plate.
As they left the table Mr. Metz appeared at the door like a veritableold Santa Claus, with his long white beard and eyes a-twinkle. In onearm he carried a big round hat-box full of nuts, in the other twobottles of home-made wine. His own pecan trees and vineyard hadfurnished his offering. He thanked them so volubly in his broken way forthe little gifts that Norman had carried over when he went for the milk,and delivered his nuts and wine with such benign smiles and a flow ofgood wishes from his wife and himself, that Mary gave a skip ofpleasure when she closed the door after him. She went back to thekitchen singing:
"'Now jingle, jingle, come Kris Kringle!' Oh, I feel as if the oldfellow himself had really been here. He and Betty's candle have given mea real Night-before-Christmas-and-all-through-the-house feeling. It'slovely!"
They had had supper so early that it was barely dusk outdoors when sheand Norman started to take the box of ferns to the rectory. When theyhad passed the cotton field, the bend in the road soon brought them tothe edge of the village, and the beginning of the short thoroughfarewhich led to the main street, past the cotton-gin and the FreeCamp-yard.
The Free Camp-yard was always an interesting place to both of them, andthe
y never passed it without looking in. It was a large lot surroundedby a high board fence. Low sheds were built along one side within theenclosure, in which both men and beasts might find shelter in time ofstorm. Usually they slept in the open, however, with little campfireshere and there to boil their coffee and give them light. Peddlers,hucksters and belated country people were its usual patrons. Butsometimes one saw a family of armadillo hunters on their way to thecurio dealers, with crates full of the queer nine-banded shells whichcan be made into baskets, simply by tying the head and tail together.
One evening Mary saw two country belles, putting the finishing touchesto their toilets behind a wagon, by the aid of a pocket-mirror. They hadcome in for one of the Saturday night balls, held regularly in the townhall. The week before, part of a disbanded freak show had taken refugein the camp-yard. Norman, peeping through a knot-hole, the gate beingshut, had seen the Armless Man scratch a match and light a fire with histoes.
It was deserted to-night, except for a dilapidated covered wagon whichhad driven in a few minutes before. It was drawn by a big bony horse anda dejected little burro, and piled high with household goods. A gaunt,rough-looking man with a week's stubble of red beard on his chin, wasbeginning to unhitch. His wife, who was only a young thing, and prettyin a worn, faded way, put down the sleeping baby that she had beenholding, and stretched her arms wearily. She seemed too tired andlistless to move till one of the two children, who were climbing downover the wheel, fell and began to whimper. A pair of hounds that hadtrailed along behind dropped down under the wagon as if they hadfollowed a long way and were utterly exhausted.
"Did you ever see anything so forlorn in all your life!" exclaimedNorman as they passed on. "And Christmas eve, too. I don't suppose thosepoor little kids will have a thing."
"No, I suppose not," answered Mary. "It seems a shame, too, whenthere'll probably be a tree in every house in Bauer. Mrs. Metz says thatis one custom that they keep up here as faithfully as they do in the oldcountry. Even the poorest families will manage to get one somehow."
"Those were cute kids," Norman went on, too much interested in what hehad just seen to put the subject by. "That oldest little girl with theyellow curls looked like a big doll, and the little one is almost aspretty."
He spoke of them again on the way back, after they had left the ferns atthe rectory, and turned homeward. The lights were beginning to twinkleall down the long street. In every house they passed, where the shadeshad not been drawn, they could see a tree, standing all ready for thelighting, from gift-laden base to top-most taper. As they drew near thecamp-yard again they saw the red-whiskered man going into the cornergrocery with a tin pail on his arm. At the camp-yard gate they lookedin. A small fire had been started, over which a battered coffee-pot hadbeen set to boil. The burro and the bony horse were munching fodder nearthe wagon, but the woman and the children had disappeared.
"There they are," whispered Mary, pointing down the road a little way toa group standing in front of the pretty green and white cottage next tothe cotton gin. The lace curtains had been dropped over the windows, butthey did not hide the gay scene within. The family was having itscelebration early, because the two small lads for whom it was designedwere so young that their bedtime came early. They were handsome littlefellows, one in kilts and the other just promoted to trousers. The giftshanging from the lighted boughs were many and costly. The two littleones outside looking in, had never seen anything so fine and beautifulbefore, and stood gazing in round-eyed wonder. Attracted by the musicthey had strayed down from the camp-yard, and their mother had followedwith the sleeping baby thrown across her shoulder, to bring them back.Now she, too, stood and stared.
The phonograph was still playing when Mary and Norman reached the gate,so they paused to listen, also, more interested in the watchers outsidehowever, than the revellers within.
Presently Mary turned to the woman, saying, "It's pretty, _isn't_ it?"in such a friendly way that her remark called out an equally friendlyresponse, and in a few moments she had learned what she wanted most toknow about the strangers. They were moving on to the next county, havingalready been two days and a night on the road. Her man thought he couldfind work in the cedar brakes.
They stood talking until the phonograph stopped, then a glance over hershoulder told the woman that her husband was returning to the wagon, andshe turned to go. The children were loath to leave, however.
"It's their first sight of Sandy Claws," she remarked as if to explaintheir unwillingness. Then as one of them stumbled and caught at herskirts she added impatiently, "I reckon it's likely to be your last. Hedon't care anything for the likes of _us_."
It was said so bitterly, that as Norman trudged on in the oppositedirection with his sister, he exclaimed in a regretful tone, "It's toobad that we didn't find out about them sooner, in time to fix somethingfor them. It sort of spoils my own Christmas to think of those kidsgoing without."
"They are not going without," replied Mary promptly, who had beenthinking rapidly as she walked. "We've got to get something ready forthem before they shut their eyes to-night."
"Huh, I'd like to know how you'll do it this late," Norman answered.
She laughed in reply, saying teasingly, "Who was it said that 'A littleIngenuity added to almost any material that comes to hand will make atasty pie?' Well, it will make a tasty tree too. If you'll help I'llhave one ready in an hour."
His skeptical "I don't believe it! Why, you _can't_!" was all she neededto start her to working out her resolution with the force of a youngwhirlwind. She could plan with lightning-like rapidity when any needarose.
"I said if you'd all help," she reminded him.
As soon as he had expressed a hearty willingness to do anything he couldto carry "Sandy Claws" to the camp-yard, she began.
"The minute we get home, you hack off one of the bottom branches of thatcedar tree outside the gate; a good bushy one about three feet high. Putit into the box that Joyce's presents came in, and nail it in placewith cleats made from the lid. Better weight it with some stones in thebottom, and we can tack green crepe paper all over the base. We'venothing but ordinary white candles, but we can cut them in two, and wirethem on with hairpins, and cover the pins with tinfoil out of myscrap-box that you make so much fun of. That will be _your_ part.
"There's some corn already popped, waiting till I get back, to be madeinto balls. I'll get mamma to string it instead, and Jack to make a lotof little gilt cornucopias out of some stuff I've saved. I'm sure he'lldonate the candy cane Joyce sent as a joke, although he is so fond ofold-fashioned striped peppermint sticks. We'll break it up into shortpieces and hang that on. And we can tie up a few dates and nuts intotiny packages. There are fancy papers and ribbons galore in thataforesaid scrap-box. I'll think of more after we get started. Come on,let's race the rest of the way. The one who gets there first can tellthe others."
Norman reached the front door several yards ahead of Mary, but he didnot claim his privilege. He merely rushed into the kitchen for ahatchet, calling as he dashed out again, "Sixty minutes to make aChristmas tree in! Everybody get to work." Mary did not stop to takeoff her hat. Throwing off her coat, she began talking "on the bounce" asJack said, for she hurried from one room to the other, explaining at thetop of her voice, while she gathered up pop-corn, scrap-box, paste-tubeand scissors. Her enthusiasm was so contagious, her description of thecamp-yard pilgrims so appealing, that by the time she had finished herbreathless account of them Jack had begun cutting squares of gilt paperand Mrs. Ware was stringing corn as if they were working to win a wager.
The race against time was the most exciting experience they had had inBauer. They watched the clock with many laughing exclamations, but wereworking too fast to talk much. In twenty minutes Norman brought in ashapely little tree firmly fastened on a green base. In thirty minutesmore the candles were wired in place; a few skilful twists had turnedpart of the tinfoil into silvery ornaments to hang beneath, while therest had gone to the making of a great
star to blaze on the top-mostbough. White strings of pop-corn were festooned around it like garlandsof snow. Every branch was bright with gilt and silver and blue and redpackages, holding only a nut or a sweetmeat it is true, but adding muchto the gay attire of the tree.
A little pocket-mirror flashed from one bough, a fancy sample bottle ofperfume hung from another. A miniature cake of scented soap and manyfluttering picture cards bore witness to the resources of the scrap-box.Then exclaiming over a sudden happy thought Mary darted into the bedroomand took down Lady Agatha. Three snips of the scissors robbed her of theneedle book hidden under her fluffy scarlet skirts and of the emery bagand thimble case tied to her sash ends, and left her no longer useful;only so ornamental that any little girl would have been glad to take herto her arms and affection.
"I know Mrs. Boyd wouldn't mind my passing it on to those children,"Mary said as she tied it to one of the highest branches, "if she knewthat it makes me happy as well as them."
"But," asked Norman, "what if Goldilocks and her sister both want toplay with it at the same time? What will the left-out one do?"
Mary thought an instant and then flew to the tray of her trunk to snatchout a woolly toy lamb, that had fallen to her lot from the mockChristmas tree at Warwick Hall.
"I brought it down to Texas with me because Dorene said that 'everywherethat Mary went the lamb was sure to go.' I expected to keep it always asa reminder of that lovely evening, but--" with a half stifled sigh, "itwill do them more good than me."
When that was in place she gave one last glance around the room to seewhat else she could appropriate. Her eyes fell on the holly wreaths.
"Those red bows will make lovely hair-ribbons," she cried. "We can sparetwo of them. Hurry, mamma, and help me untie them! The needle-book mayas well go too. Pin it on, Norman, and stick a date in the thimble bagand swing it up, Jack."
In the meantime Norman had been lighting the candles in order that theymight see how it looked when it was all ashine, and it stood now, a verycreditable and a very bright little tree. There were none of thespun-glass birds and crystal icicles and artificial fruits that had madelittle Patricia's tree such a gorgeous affair the year before, and wereprobably making it beautiful to-night, but there was sparkle and colorand glow and charm of beribboned packages, enough to make little eyeswho saw such a sight for the first time believe that it was the work ofmagic hands.
"Done!" cried Mary triumphantly, "and in only fifty-eight minutes!"
"Well, I didn't believe it would be possible," acknowledged Norman."I'll bet it's the only tree in Texas trimmed in such short order."
When he and Mary reached the camp-yard again, they found the familysitting around the smouldering fire, listening to the phonograph whichwas still playing in the cottage down the road. The quilts were spreadout in the wagon, ready for the night, but the children, who had sleptmost of the afternoon on their tiresome journey, could not be induced toclimb in while the music lasted.
The two bearers of Yule-tide cheer set the tree down and reconnoiteredthrough cracks in the fence. "The man looks awfully down in the mouth,"whispered Norman. "So does she. Shall we tell them 'Sandy Claws' sentit?"
"No," Mary whispered back. "They look so forlorn and friendless, and thewoman seemed to feel so left out of everything, that it might do themgood to tell them we brought it because the angels sang peace on earth,good-will to men, and that it's a sort of sign that they're _not_ leftout. They're to have a part in it too."
Norman turned his eye from the knot-hole to gape at her. "Well!" washis whispered ejaculation. "If you want all _that_ said you'll have tosay it yourself. I'm no preacher."
"Come on then," said Mary boldly. She knew what she wanted to convey tothem but the words stuck in her throat, and she never could rememberafterwards exactly what she blurted out as they put the tree down infront of the astonished family and then turned and ran. However, herwords must have carried some of the good cheer she intended, for whenshe and Norman paused again outside, she at the knot-hole this time andhe at the crack, it gave them each a queer little flutter inside to seethe expression on the pleased faces and hear their exclamations ofwonder.
"They couldn't be more surprised if it had dropped right down out of thesky," whispered Norman. "Now the kids are getting over their daze a bit.They're hopping around just like they saw the Kramer boys do."
"See, they've found Lady Agatha," answered Mary. "Just _look_ atGoldilocks now! Did you ever see such an ecstatic little face. Iwouldn't have missed it for anything. Now they've got the lamb. I'm soglad I thought of it, for the Kramers had a whole bunch of little whitesheep around the base of their tree."
They were both very quiet when they finally turned away from the fenceand started home. They did not speak till they reached the whitemoonlighted road, stretching past the cotton field. Then Mary looked upat the stars saying reverently, "Somehow I feel as if we'd been takingpart in the _first_ Christmas. It was a sort of camp-yard that the Starof Bethlehem led to. Don't you remember, 'there was no room in the inn'for the Child and His mother? It was a manger the gold and frankincenseand myrrh were carried to. I feel as if we'd been following along--alittle way at least--on the trail of the Wise Men."
"Me too," confessed Norman. Then nothing more was said for a long time.Mary could find no words for the next thoughts which puzzled her. Shewas picturing all the Christmas trees of the world brought together inone place, and trying to imagine the enormous forest they would make.Then she fell to wondering what it was about them that should make "theeye laugh and the heart laugh, and bring a blessing to the silver hairas well as brown" as the old couple had sung in the garden. All over theworld it was so.
Since looking into the windows at other peoples' trees, and then causingone to bloom and bear fruit herself for the homeless campers, she feltthat she had joined hands with that circle which reaches around theworld. She was no longer an alien and stranger among the people ofBauer. The "Weinachtsbaum" had given her a happy bond of understandingand kinship. It had taken the hard, hopeless look out of the older facesaround the camp-fire, for awhile at least, and made the little onesradiant. And at home--she remembered gratefully how Jack had burst outwhistling several times while he helped to trim it. And the tune thatcame in such lusty, rollicking outbursts was one which he never whistledexcept when he was in high good humor with himself and all the universe.She was sure that he wasn't acting then--he couldn't have been justpretending that he was glad, for it sounded as it always used to do backat the Wigwam. She wondered why the tree had had that effect.
And then, like an answer, a verse popped into her thoughts; one that shehad spelled out long ago for Grandmother Ware, letter by letter, onelittle finger pointing to each in turn. It was a verse from Revelation,about the tree that stands on either side of the river, clear ascrystal, "_which bare twelve manner of fruit, and the leaves were forthe healing of the nations_."
Then all of a sudden she understood why those shining boughs with theirstrange fruitage of gifts have power to bring hope and good cheer tolonely hearts the world over. They are the symbols, which the Spirit ofChristmas sets ashine, of that Tree of Life. And the Spirit of Christmasis only another name for Love, and it is Love alone, the human anddivine together, which can bring about the healing needed by hearts inevery nation.
All this did not come to Mary in words. She could not have expressed itto any one else, but it sent her on her way, deeply, quietly glad.
Next morning while she was stooping before the oven, basting the turkeywhich the Barnabys had sent with their greetings, Jack called her to thefront window where he was sitting.
A covered wagon was creaking slowly by, drawn by a big horse and alittle burro. The cover was looped up, and in the back end, carefullytied to the tail-gate, stood the tree which had taken them fifty-eightminutes to prepare, but whose memory would not be effaced in that manyyears from the minds of the two children, seated on the quilts besideit.
"I'm so glad you got to see them," said Mar
y. "Aren't they dear? And oh,look! Goldilocks is still holding Lady Agatha, and the other one'shugging the woolly lamb!"
When the wagon was entirely out of sight Mary started back to her turkeybasting, but stopped a moment to take another look at the gifts spreadout on the side table. Several things had been added to them thatmorning; a dissected puzzle picture which Norman had made for her, aspool case that Jack had whittled out, and a strip of exquisitelyembroidered rosebuds that Mrs. Ware had wrought to be put into a whitedress. There was also a pot of white hyacinths from the rectory, andMary held her face down against the cool snow of their blossoms, takingin their sweetness in long breaths.
"It's been a pretty full Christmas, hasn't it!" exclaimed Jack as hewatched her.
"It's really been one of the nicest I ever had," she answered, "for onereason because it's lasted so long. Norman's plan is a success."
That night after supper Norman insisted on taking his mother down intothe village to look at the lighted windows. After they had gone Marytook out her Good Times book to record the happenings of the day. Shehad a few more notes of acknowledgment to write also, and was glad thatJack was busy with his own writing. She noticed that he was using Indiaink and a crow-quill pen, but thought nothing of that as he was alwaysexperimenting with them.
Joyce was not the only one of the children who had inherited artisticability. Jack never attempted pictures, but he did beautiful lettering;odd initials and old English script, and had copied verses for calendarsand fly-leaf inscriptions. Joyce said some of his pen-and-ink work wasas beautifully done as the letters she had seen in old missals, made bythe monks.
Nearly an hour went by. Mary addressed her last envelope. He laid downhis pen and pushed a narrow strip of cardboard towards her.
"I've made you one more present to end the day with, Mary," he saidjokingly. "It's a bookmark."
Inside a narrow border of conventional scrollwork was one line, and theline was from the verse which she had quoted so disastrously that day atthe creek-bank:
"Close all the roads of all the world, _Love's_ road is open still!"
As she looked up to speak he interrupted her hurriedly:
"Yes, I know how miserable I made you that day with my outburst againstfate, and I've felt that you've never believed me since when I laughedand joked and said that I enjoyed things. But that was only one timethat I gave way, just once that I got down in the dumps and I don't wantyou to think that is my usual state of feelings. Really I'm getting moreout of life than you imagine. I'm putting up the best fight I can. Ijust wanted you to know that although every other road in the world isclosed against me I can still scrape along pretty comfortably becausethat last line is true. Love's road is open still. You all have made ita good wide one for me, and made it worth while for me to travel it withyou cheerfully to the end. I'm perfectly willing to, _now_."
"Oh, Jack!" cried Mary in a voice that trembled with both joy and tears."I've had a happy Christmas, but knowing you feel that way is the verybest part of all!"