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+Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, by Edward E. Hale
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
+       Ten Christmas stories
+
+Author: Edward E. Hale
+
+Illustrator: F. O. C. Darley
+
+Release Date: May 20, 2010 [EBook #32455]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 Abbé
+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 destillée. 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 _pièce de résistance_, 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 dépôt 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 dépôt 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 dépôt 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, Cæsar! 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 _étrennes_ and _Noël_ 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
+    révérences. 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 _étrenne_ 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 _cortége_
+    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 _étrenne_. 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 charité_ 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 _curé_ 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 _château_ 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 _étrenne._ 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
+Würtemberg, 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 archèd 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 Cæsar
+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 Cæsar 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, Cæsar," 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, Cæsar," said Dick, "that they have doors in your
+country?"--"Sartin, they do," said poor Cæsar, 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 Cæsar.
+
+"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-à-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 Cæsar 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 caïque 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 coupé, 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, £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 _fête_ 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 Æsop'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 _fêtes_ 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
+Française_,--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 Français'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 BÜRGER'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.
+
+=MIRÈIO.= 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.
+
+=MIRÈIO=: A PASTORAL POEM. From the Provençal 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 Athenæum._
+
+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.
+
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, by Edward E. Hale
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
+       Ten Christmas stories
+
+Author: Edward E. Hale
+
+Illustrator: F. O. C. Darley
+
+Release Date: May 20, 2010 [EBook #32455]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
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+
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+</pre>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="line1">CHRISTMAS EVE</span><br />
+<span class="line2">AND</span><br />
+<span class="line3">CHRISTMAS DAY.</span></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 385px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="385" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="200" height="188" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 573px;">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="573" height="400" alt="DAILY BREAD.&mdash;Page 120." title="" />
+<span class="caption">DAILY BREAD.&mdash;Page 120.</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<p class="center tp"><span class="smcap title1">Christmas Eve</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="title2">AND</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap title3">Christmas Day</span>.<br />
+<br /><br />
+<span class="title4">Ten Christmas Stories.</span><br />
+<br /><br />
+<span class="smcap title5">By EDWARD E. HALE,</span><br />
+
+<span class="title6">AUTHOR OF "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," ETC.</span><br />
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<span class="title7"><i>WITH ILLUSTRATION BY F. O. C.</i>
+<a name="comma" id="comma"></a><ins title="comma in original"><i>DARLEY</i>.</ins></span><br />
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+<span class="title8">BOSTON:</span><br />
+
+<span class="title9">ROBERTS BROTHERS.</span><br />
+
+<span class="title10">1873.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h5>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by<br />
+<br />
+EDWARD E. HALE,<br />
+<br />
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.<br />
+<br /><br /><br />
+CAMBRIDGE:<br />
+PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">This</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The first story has never before been published.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="right">E. E. H.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">They saw a Great Light</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#i">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Christmas Waits in Boston</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ii">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Alice's Christmas-tree</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iii">74</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Daily Bread</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iv">98</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Stand and Wait</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#v">140</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Two Princes</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vi">188</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Story of Oello</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vii">205</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Love is the Whole</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#viii">218</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Christmas and Rome</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ix">232</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Survivor's Story</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#x">238</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The same Christmas in Old England and New</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xi">263</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span>
+<a name="i" id="i"></a><small>THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ANOTHER GENERATION.</small></h2>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/quote.png" width="8" height="7" alt="open quote" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="cap">HERE he comes! here he comes!"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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,"&mdash;thus he ran down the columns of the little page,&mdash;uneasily.
+"Here it is! here it is!&mdash;Drawing of the great State<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> Lottery. 'In the
+presence of the Honourable Treasurer of the Commonwealth, and of their
+Honours the Commissioners of the Honourable Council,&mdash;was drawn
+yesterday, at the State House, the first distribution of
+numbers'&mdash;&mdash;here are the numbers,&mdash;'First combination, 375&ndash;1. Second,
+421&ndash;7. Third, 591&ndash;6. Fourth, 594&ndash;1. Fifth,'"&mdash;and here Mr. Cutts started
+off his feet,&mdash;"'Fifth, 219&ndash;7.' Sybil, my darling! it is so! 219&ndash;7! See,
+dear child! 219&ndash;7! 219&ndash;7! O my God! to think it should come so!"</p>
+
+<p>And he fairly sat down, and buried his head in his hands, and cried.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;219&ndash;7&mdash;might bring.</p>
+
+<p>For this was a lottery in which there were no blanks. The old
+Commonwealth of Massachusetts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> 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,&mdash;with
+rheumatism which would never be cured,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> 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,&mdash;or for any man who had
+spent seven years in learning how to do well what was never to be done
+again.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;what they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> 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,&mdash;if&mdash;if
+only one of the ten great prizes should, by any marvel, fall to him. And
+now Tripp's Cove&mdash;which, perhaps, he had thought of as much as he had
+thought of any of the ten&mdash;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,&mdash;it was the dream of years,
+indeed, made true.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+
+<h2 class="mt"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+CHAPTER II.<br />
+<br />
+<small>TRIPP'S COVE.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Call</span> 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;and there he died, honored, blessed, and
+loved. By and by there came the second war with England,&mdash;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,&mdash;and
+there was no lack of men younger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> &mdash;which had
+one heart and one soul in the contest, and which went into it with one
+heart and one soul,&mdash;every man and every woman of them all bearing each
+other's burdens.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> 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!</p>
+
+<p>And who was he?</p>
+
+<p>How did he dare stay among all those girls who were crying out their
+eyes, and sewing their fingers to the bones,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Who was he?</p>
+
+<p>Ah! I have caught you, have I? That was Tom Cutts,&mdash;the old General's
+great-grandson,&mdash;Sim Cutts's grandson,&mdash;the very noblest and bravest of
+them all. He got off first of all. He had the luck to be at Bull
+Run,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> thing is said of many others. He
+had come home and raised a new company,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> she has rather a startled look when you speak to her,
+suddenly or gently, but the startled look just bewitches you. Black
+hair,&mdash;she got that from the Italian blood in her grandmother's
+family,&mdash;exquisite blue eyes,&mdash;that is a charming combination with black
+hair,&mdash;perfect teeth,&mdash;and matchless color,&mdash;and she had it all, when
+she was married,&mdash;she was a blushing bride and not a fainting one. But
+then what stuff this is,&mdash;nobody knew he cared a straw for Laura's hair
+or her cheek,&mdash;it was that she looked "just lovely," and that she was
+"just lovely,"&mdash;so self-forgetful in all her ways, after that first
+start,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;she packed the cans of pickles and fruit for the
+Sanitary,&mdash;she corresponded with the State Adjutant:&mdash;heavens! from
+morning to night, everybody in the village ran to Laura,&mdash;not because
+she was the prettiest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> creature you ever looked upon,&mdash;but because she
+was the kindest, truest, most loyal, and most helpful creature that ever
+lived,&mdash;be the same man or woman.</p>
+
+<p>Now had you rather be named Laura Cutts or Laura Marvel? Marvel is a
+good name,&mdash;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,&mdash;and here they are standing before dear old Parson
+Spaulding, to receive his exhortation,&mdash;and to be made one before God
+and man.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;"And above all,&mdash;my beloved young friends,&mdash;first of all and
+last of all,&mdash;let me beseech you as you climb the hill of life together,
+hand with hand, and step with step,&mdash;that you will look beyond the
+crests upon its summit to the eternal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> lights which blaze in the
+infinite heaven of the Better Land beyond." Twenty times had Laura heard
+this passage,&mdash;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,&mdash;and of
+the Great Master whom he represented there,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>And Tom Cutts? He looked so handsome in his uniform,&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> And
+when Parson Spaulding had said the benediction, and the Amen,&mdash;and when
+he had kissed Laura, with her eyes full of tears,&mdash;and when he had given
+Tom Cutts joy,&mdash;then all the people came up in a double line,&mdash;and they
+all kissed Laura,&mdash;and they shook hands with Tom as if they would shake
+his hands off,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> 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
+<a name="polkaed" id="polkaed"></a><ins title="original had polked">polkaed</ins> to their
+hearts' content. And so they celebrated the Christmas of 1861.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;with tears running from
+his eyes and hers,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Christmas Eve</span> again!</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> with a
+rosy little baby all wrapped up in furs, who has never seen his father.
+Where is Laura?</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;and Mattie is crying, and I believe old Moses Marvel is
+crying,&mdash;but everybody is as happy as a king, and everybody is talking
+at one time,&mdash;and all the combination has turned out well.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>And now it was time for Laura's surprise!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> 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,&mdash;who sat and
+beamed,&mdash;or old General Simeon Cutts, I am sure I do not know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+That was indeed a merry Christmas!</p>
+
+<p>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;&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jem had chartered the "Laura" for a voyage to San Francisco.
+And so, before long, her cargo began to come on board; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;like other persons whom you and I know,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>This is the letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">JOHN WILDAIR TO TOM CUTTS.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Tom</span>,&mdash;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,&mdash;that Waters had honest claims,&mdash;he has but one
+leg, you know,&mdash;and that it must go to him. As for the
+surveyorship, the gift of that is with Plumptre. And you know
+that I might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="center nb">Truly yours,</p>
+<p class="right nt nb"><span class="smcap">John Wildair.</span></p>
+<p class="noi nt"><span class="smcap">Portland</span>, Dec. 24, 1868.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+That was Laura and Tom's Christmas present. An appointment as
+light-house keeper, with a thousand a year!</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">But</span> 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,&mdash;and May saw Laura with both her babies on the beach, laughing at
+them as they wet their feet,&mdash;digging holes in the sand for them,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> 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!</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> and may not be repaired before the 15th of January,&mdash;that
+Mr. Cutts, will therefore, if he needs oil, take an early opportunity to
+supply himself from the light at Squire's,&mdash;and that an order on the
+keeper at Squire's is enclosed.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;our nearest neighbor at the Bell and Hammer,&mdash;it
+revolves once a minute, and we watch it every night in the horizon. Tom
+waited day by day for a fine day,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"And what will you do?" said Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"Do? I will wait till you come home. Start any fine day after you have
+wound up the lights on the last beat,&mdash;take poor Jotham to his mother's
+house,&mdash;and if you want you may bring back your oil. I shall get along
+with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> children very well,&mdash;and I will have your dinner hot when you
+come home."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+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?</p>
+
+<p>"Will it hold up, Simon?" said Tom to Mipples, wishing he might say
+something encouraging.</p>
+
+<p>And all Simon Mipples would say was,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"God grant it may!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p><i>When</i> he got home! Poor girl! at the very bottom of her heart was the
+other and real anxiety,&mdash;<i>if</i> 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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<a name="page" id="page"></a><ins title="page numbering as in
+the original publication"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391"
+id="Page_391">[39<sup>1</sup>]</a></span></ins> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Whang!</p>
+
+<p>What was that?</p>
+
+<p>"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 "<i>whang</i>" 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Once there was a little boy, and he had two kittens, and he named one
+Minna, and one Brenda"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, mamma, no! one Muff, and one"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! my darling! once there was a little boy, and he had two
+kittens, and he named one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[39<sup>2</sup>]</a></span> Buff, and one Muff. And one day he went to
+walk"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[39<sup>3</sup>]</a></span> 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'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,&mdash;or the
+second,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>So they unbolted the lee-door, and worked out into the snow. Then poor
+Laura, with the child, crept round into the storm. Heavens!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[39<sup>4</sup>]</a></span> 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,&mdash;step sideway,
+sideway, the only way she could by step,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>Here is the door;&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[39<sup>5</sup>]</a></span> 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then at the flame a torch of fire she lit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, o'er her head anxiously holding it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ascended to the roof, and, leaning there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lifted its light into the darksome air."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>If only the devil would have been satisfied with this. But of course she
+could not remember that, without remembering Schiller:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In the gale her torch is blasted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beacon of the hoped-for strand:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Horror broods above the waters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Horror broods above the land."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>And she said aloud to the boy, "Our torch shall not go out, Tommy,&mdash;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!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[39<sup>6</sup>]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yes, 'tis he! although he perished,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still his sacred troth he cherished."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Why did Tom write it for me?"</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And they trickle, lightly playing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er a corpse upon the sand."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"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"&mdash; But this could not last for ever. Sundown
+came. And then Laura and Tommy climbed their own tower,&mdash;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,&mdash;come Tommy,&mdash;come, Tommy, let me tell you
+a story."</p>
+
+<p>But the children had their supper,&mdash;asking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[39<sup>7</sup>]</a></span> terrible questions about
+papa,&mdash;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&mdash;ah
+me!&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;and even her poor numb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[39<sup>8</sup>]</a></span> hand
+conquers it,&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>She has wound them now. She has floundered into the snow again. Two or
+three falls on her way home,&mdash;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,&mdash;and then to
+wind that light again&mdash;at midnight!</p>
+
+<p>"And at midnight there was a cry made"&mdash;"oh dear!&mdash;if he would come,&mdash;I
+would not ask for any cry!"&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>And Laura got down her choice inlaid box, that Jem brought her from
+sea,&mdash;and which held her treasures of treasures. And the dear girl did
+the best thing she could have done. She took these treasures out.&mdash;You
+know what they were, do not you? They were every letter Tom Cutts ever
+wrote her&mdash;from the first boy note in print,&mdash;"Laura,&mdash;these hedgehog
+quills are for you. I killed him. <span class="smcap">Tom</span>." And Laura opened them all,&mdash;and
+read them one by one,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[39<sup>9</sup>]</a></span> each twice,&mdash;and put them back, in their order,
+without folding, into the box. At ten she stopped,&mdash;and worked her way
+upstairs into her own lantern,&mdash;and wound its works again. She tried to
+persuade herself that there was less wind,&mdash;did persuade herself so. But
+the snow was as steady as ever. Down the tower-stairs again,&mdash;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,&mdash;and how womanly. She will read them all!&mdash;will she
+ever dare to read them all again?</p>
+
+<p>Yes,&mdash;she reads them all,&mdash;each one twice over,&mdash;and his soldier
+diary,&mdash;which John Wildair saved and sent home, and, as she lays it
+down, the clock strikes twelve. Christmas day is born!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3910" id="Page_3910">[39<sup>10</sup>]</a></span> trusted herself to kiss the children. She opened the lee-door
+again, and crept round again into the storm,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"A light to lighten the Gentiles,&mdash;and the glory of my people Israel!"</p>
+
+<p>"By the way of the sea,"&mdash;and this Laura almost shouted aloud,&mdash;"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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>And after this Laura was at rest. She took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3911" id="Page_3911">[39<sup>11</sup>]</a></span> down her Bible, and read the
+Christmas chapters. It was as if she had never known before what
+darkness was,&mdash;or what the Light was, when it came. She took her Hymn
+Book and read all the Christmas Hymns. She took her Keble,&mdash;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,"&mdash;which
+Tom had given for her last birthday present,&mdash;and set herself bravely to
+committing his "Christmas Day" to memory:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Celestial harps, prepare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To sound your loftiest air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You choral angels at the throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your customary hymns postpone;"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3912" id="Page_3912">[39<sup>12</sup>]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You with your heavenly ray<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gild the expanse this day;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You with your heavenly ray<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gild&mdash;the expanse&mdash;this day;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You&mdash;with&mdash;your&mdash;heavenly&mdash;ray"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">Dear Laura, bless God, she is asleep. "He giveth his beloved sleep."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<p>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,&mdash;what a shame to wake her,&mdash;bends down and kisses
+<a name="quote" id="quote"></a><ins title="closing quotation marks removed">her!</ins></p>
+
+<p>Dear child! How she started,&mdash;"At midnight there is a cry made, Behold,
+the bridegroom cometh,"&mdash;"Why, Tom! Oh! my dearest, is it you?"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<p>"Have I been asleep on duty?" This was her first word when she came
+fairly to herself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3913" id="Page_3913">[39<sup>13</sup>]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Is the north light burning?" said poor Laura. And she looked guiltily
+at her tell-tale clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling," said Tom, reverently, "if it were not burning, we should not
+be here."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Major! Major! Major! An English steamer is at anchor in the cove, and
+is sending her boat ashore."</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3914" id="Page_3914">[39<sup>14</sup>]</a></span> 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,&mdash;the door is open, and,&mdash;not Tom this time,&mdash;but her dear lost
+brother Jem, in the flesh, and in a heavy pea-coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Merry Christmas! Laura!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know, Jem?"</p>
+
+<p>"'They that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them the light hath
+shined.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But I did not think it was you, Laura."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+<a name="ii" id="ii"></a><small>CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>I.</h2>
+
+<p class="cap">I ALWAYS give myself a Christmas present. And on this particular year
+the present was a Carol party,&mdash;which is about as good fun, all things
+consenting kindly, as a man can have.</p>
+
+<p>Many things must consent, as will appear. First of all there must be
+good sleighing,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> 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,&mdash;so
+steadily;&mdash;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 <i>Bolgie</i>,
+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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> eight jolly
+boys, and had them practising for the last time,</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Carol, carol, Christians,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carol joyfully;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carol for the coming<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Christ's nativity."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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 <i>da capo</i> for his
+last carol. Not much matter indeed, for they were perfect enough in it
+before midnight.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Shepherd of tender sheep,"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> 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</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Swell the triumphant song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Christ, our King,"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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</p>
+
+<div class="blocka">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hail to the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hail to the day,"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">rather a favorite,&mdash;quicker and more to the childish taste perhaps than
+the other,&mdash;and with another "Merry Christmas" we were off again.</p>
+
+<p>Off, the length of Commonwealth Avenue, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> where it crosses the
+Brookline branch of the Mill-Dam,&mdash;dashing along with the gayest of the
+sleighing-parties as we came back into town, up Chestnut Street, through
+Louisburg Square,&mdash;we ran the sleigh into a bank on the slope of
+Pinckney Street in front of Walter's house,&mdash;and, before they suspected
+there that any one had come, the children were singing</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Carol, carol, Christians,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carol joyfully."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When Anna took the baby,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pressed his lips to hers"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+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</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now is the time of Christmas come,"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">and</p>
+
+<div class="blocka">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Jesus in his babes abiding."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+<div class="blocka">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hail to the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hail to the day";<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> the old attic there the
+compositors were relieved to hear</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nor war nor battle sound,"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">and</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The waiting world was still."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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,&mdash;to Miss Simonds's house, because she had been so
+good to them in school,&mdash;to the palaces of millionnaires who had prayed
+for these children with tears if the children only knew it,&mdash;to Dr.
+Frothingham's in Summer Street, I remember, where we stopped because the
+Boston Association of Ministers met there,&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"King of glory, king of peace!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hear the song, and see the Star!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Welcome be thou, heavenly King!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Was not Christ our Saviour?"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">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</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><a name="quote2" id="quote2"></a><ins title="single quote changed to double">"The</ins>
+star, the manger, and the Child!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>At nine we brought up at my house, D Street, three doors from the
+corner, and the children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>II.</h2>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> 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,"&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> humblest, a word of love, as sweet, in truth, as if
+we could have heard the voice of angels singing in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> 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,</p>
+
+<p class="noi">"Ut appareat iis qui in tenebris et umbra mortis positi sunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Darkness and the shadow of death" indeed, and what light like the light
+and comfort such a woman as my Mary Masury brings!</p>
+
+<p>And so, but for one of the accidents, as we call them, I should have
+dropped the boys at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> the corner of Dover Street, and gone home with my
+Christmas lesson.</p>
+
+<p>But it happened, as we irreverently say,&mdash;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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> 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,&mdash;five hours now
+since they started on this entangled errand of theirs,&mdash;and gave him his
+ride. "I was thinking of you at the moment," said Coram,&mdash;"thinking of
+old college times, of the mystery of language as unfolded by the Abb&eacute;
+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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;and he is now, or rather was that night, chief pressman in the
+Argus office. I like the Argus people,&mdash;it was there that I was South
+American Editor, now many years ago,&mdash;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,&mdash;steam-room full of steam,&mdash;police frightened,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>&mdash;neighborhood in
+a row,&mdash;and we had to put out the fire. She would have run a week
+without hurting a fly,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> be talking of ingots, or hiring, or losing, or
+gaining? When will you learn that Love rules the court, the camp, and
+the Argus
+<a name="quote3" id="quote3"></a><ins title="added closing quotation mark">office."</ins> 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,&mdash;walked down with Todd to his
+office,&mdash;challenged him to take five minutes at the wheel, in memory of
+old times,&mdash;made the tired relays laugh as they saw us take hold; and
+then,&mdash;when I had cooled off, and put on my Cardigan,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>III.</h2>
+
+<p>And so I walked home. Better so, perhaps, after all, than in the lively
+sleigh, with the tinkling bells.</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It was a calm and silent night!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Seven hundred years and fifty-three<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had Rome been growing up to might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And now was queen of land and sea!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No sound was heard of clashing wars,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Held undisturbed their ancient reign<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In the solemn midnight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Centuries ago!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;Vincent de
+Paul, and all the loving wonder-workers, Milton and Herbert and all the
+carol-writers, Luther and Knox and all the prophets,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Twas in the calm and silent night!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The senator of haughty Rome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impatient urged his chariot's flight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From lordly revel, rolling home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Triumphal arches gleaming swell<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His breast, with thoughts of boundless sway.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What recked the <i>Roman</i> what befell<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A paltry province far away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In the solemn midnight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Centuries ago!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Within that province far away<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Went plodding home a weary boor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A streak of light before him lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fallen through a half-shut stable door<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across his path. He passed,&mdash;for naught<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Told <i>what was going on within</i>;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How keen the stars, his only thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The air how calm and cold and thin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In the solemn midnight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Centuries ago!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Streak of light"&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;I was younger then than I am
+now,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> 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,&mdash;towels, napkins, I know not what,&mdash;all brown
+and red and almost black with blood! I turned, heart-sick, to look into
+the bedroom,&mdash;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,&mdash;who, by good luck, had brought
+round his presents late, and was staying to tie on glass balls and
+apples,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"O Fred," said Morton, without looking up, "I am glad you are here."</p>
+
+<p>"And what can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some whiskey,&mdash;first of all."</p>
+
+<p>"There are two bottles," said Mary, who was holding the candle,&mdash;"in the
+cupboard, behind his dressing-glass."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> 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 destill&eacute;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?</p>
+
+<p>I turned round; I found a goblet on the washstand;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> 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,&mdash;a nasty smell of whiskey on the floor,&mdash;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,&mdash;that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> was the only reason she did not,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>So I retired for my whiskey again,&mdash;to attack that other bottle. George
+whispered quickly as I went, "Bring enough,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>screw-driver</i>!</p>
+
+<p>"No!" I whispered,&mdash;"no. The crooked thing you draw corks with," and I
+showed her the bottle again. "Find one somewhere and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> don't come back
+without it." So she vanished for the second time.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederic!" said Morton. I think he never called me so before. Should I
+risk the clothes-brush again? I opened Lycidas's own drawers,&mdash;papers,
+boxes, everything in order,&mdash;not a sign of a tool.</p>
+
+<p>"Frederic!" "Yes," I said. But why did I say "Yes"? "Father of Mercy,
+tell me what to do."</p>
+
+<p>And my mazed eyes, dim with tears,&mdash;did you ever shed tears from
+excitement?&mdash;fell on an old razor-strop of those days of shaving, made
+by <span class="smcap">C. Whittaker, SHEFFIELD</span>. 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"?</p>
+
+<p>Hand in my pocket,&mdash;brown paper parcel.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<i>corkscrew</i> fold into one handle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As we turned away from the house on Christmas morning,&mdash;I to preach and
+he to visit his patients,&mdash;he said to me, "Did you make that whiskey?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said I, "but poor Dod Dalton had to furnish the corkscrew."</p>
+
+<p>And I went down to the chapel to preach. The sermon had been lying ready
+at home on my desk,&mdash;and Polly had brought it round to me,&mdash;for there
+had been no time for me to go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> from Lycidas's home to D Street and to
+return. There was the text, all as it was the day before:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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."</p></div>
+
+<p>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, <i>com-fort</i>, 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 "<i>All</i> 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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> 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,&mdash;of the way in
+which woman helps woman, and man helps man, when only the ice is
+broken,&mdash;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,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;precious with a spot of Lycidas's blood,&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I, "though they did not all know they were giving them."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do they not give such presents every day?" said Clara.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And when they always remember it," said Bertha, "it will be Christmas
+all the time! What
+<a name="quote4" id="quote4"></a><ins title="added closing quotation mark">fun!"</ins></p>
+
+<p>"What fun, to be sure; but, Clara, what is in the picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose those who came from Sharon brought roses," said Bertha. And
+Alice, who is eleven, and goes to the Lincoln School, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> therefore
+knows every thing, said,&mdash;"Yes, and the Damascus people brought Damascus
+wimbles."</p>
+
+<p>"This is certain," said Polly, "that nobody tried to give a straw, but
+the straw, if he really gave it, carried a blessing."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+<a name="iii" id="iii"></a><small>ALICE'S CHRISTMAS-TREE.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2><small>CHAPTER I.</small></h2>
+
+<p class="cap">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,&mdash;they
+were to have no tickets of respectability,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>That part of her plan went bravely forward.</p>
+
+<p>Her main difficulty came on the other side,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them in!" said John Flagg rushing to the door, where expectant
+knocks had been heard already. "Let them in,&mdash;the smallest girls
+first!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Out o' that!" "Take that, then!" "Who are you?" "Hold your jaw!"
+<a name="quote5" id="quote5"></a><ins title="added opening quotation mark">"Can't</ins>
+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&mdash;" 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>They stopped to hear him, supposing he was to deliver the gifts, to
+which they had been summoned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Some approach to obedience followed. A few little waifs were found, who
+in decency could be called <i>little</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> myself&mdash;" 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."</p>
+
+<p>To which Mister replied, by opening the window, and speaking into the
+street,&mdash;"I say, Purdy, call four officers and come up and clear this
+room."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;or would have been the impression of any
+one who only had her point of view.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+<small>CHAPTER II.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Perhaps</span> the reader is willing to take another point of view.</p>
+
+<p>As the group stood there, talking over the riot as Mrs. MacNeil called
+it,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,"&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> 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
+<a name="hauled" id="hauled"></a><ins title="haled in original">hauled</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;but to his own relief.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a mean thing it is, all of it," said he,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> "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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+names of baptism she was better acquainted than I am, had shared a
+similar fate.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2><small>CHAPTER III.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> hose company. "Come here, Bill. I got something
+to show you."</p>
+
+<p>Bill had already carried home and put in safe keeping a copy of
+Routledge's "Robinson Crusoe," which had been given to him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Golly!" said Bill, "I guess so."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+"Bill, let's buy them little shoes, and give 'em to her."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"They is handsome," said Bill, meditatingly. "Ain't the blue ones
+handsomest?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Bill Floyd did not dissent, being indeed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>Tom was found as easily as Bill. But it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>To the discussions of this committee I need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> through, on Christmas eve. After this, there was really no
+difficulty about their going into the shoe-shop, and none about
+consummating the purchase,&mdash;to the utter astonishment of the dealer. The
+gold shoes were bought, rolled up in paper, and ready for delivery.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, ma'am," said Tom, who had been commissioned as
+spokesman,&mdash;"if you please, them 's our Christmas present to you, ma'am.
+Them 's gold shoes. And please,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>To this they agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, I went there last week Monday, with Meg McManus. I say, fellars,
+it's real good fun."</p>
+
+<p>The other fellows, having on the unfamiliar best rig, were well aware
+that they must not descend to their familiar haunts, and all consented.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+To his amazement the same result followed the next night. And to his
+greater amazement, the next.</p>
+
+<p>To Alice's amazement, she received on Twelfth Night a gilt valentine
+envelope, within which, on heavily ruled paper, were announced these
+truths:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span class="smcap">Marm</span>,&mdash;The mitins wur Nora Killpatrick's. She lives inn Water
+street place behind the Lager Brewery.</p>
+
+<div class="blockb">
+<p class="center nb">Yours to command,</p>
+<p class="rightb nt nb"><span class="smcap">William Floyd.</span></p>
+<p class="rightb nt nb"><span class="smcap">Thomas Mulligan.</span></p>
+<p class="rightb nt nb"><span class="smcap">Patrick Crehore.</span></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The names which they could copy from signs were correctly spelled.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> present, said: "You don't remember me." I owned innocence.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Mulligan&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>And I said I would do so.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+<a name="iv" id="iv"></a><small>DAILY BREAD.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>I.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A QUESTION OF NOURISHMENT.</small></h2>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/quote.png" width="8" height="7" alt="open quote" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="cap">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.</p>
+
+<p>"He is certainly no worse," said Mary: "the
+<a name="doctor" id="doctor"></a><ins title="docter in original">doctor</ins> says, maybe
+a shade better. At least," she said, sitting on the lower step, and
+holding her husband's hand, and still whispering,&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Nourishment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, nourishment,&mdash;and I own my heart sunk as he said so. Poor little
+thing, he loathes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Then poor Mary explained more at length that Emily had brought in Dr.
+Cummings's Manual<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 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,&mdash;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> dole,&mdash;and so poor Mary's heart was
+lifted day by day.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>II.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ST. VICTORIA'S DAY.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">St. Victoria's</span> 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,&mdash;or she thought he did. He
+was long coming up stairs. And when he came in she saw that he was
+excited by something,&mdash;was really even then panting for breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I am here at last," he said. "Did you think I should fail you?"</p>
+
+<p>Why, no,&mdash;poor innocent Mary had not thought any such thing. She had
+known he would come,&mdash;and baby was so well that she had not minded his
+delay.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+Morton looked up at the close drawn shades, which shut out the light,
+and said, "You did not think of the storm?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>III.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ST. VICTORIA'S DAY IN THE COUNTRY.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Five</span> 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&mdash;as how
+should they?</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>So this St. Victoria's day was a great day of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> 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,&mdash;what woman does not enjoy a clear coast,
+if it only be early enough in the morning?&mdash;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,&mdash;careful and
+discriminating in the nice chemistry of her mixtures and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> 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,&mdash;and she was satisfied with
+the color; from the other oven came the turkey, which she proposed to
+have cold,&mdash;as a relay, or <i>pi&egrave;ce de r&eacute;sistance</i>, 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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;between her and the barn, the ground was bare. But all that
+snow&mdash;and who should say how much more?&mdash;was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> 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&mdash;snow&mdash;snow&mdash;as if it would never be done.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;went up into the loft and pitched down hay enough for
+all,&mdash;went down stairs to the pigs and cared for them,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> in Boston." This was
+the thought that crossed her mind. Dear Huldah,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;and then to wondering whether Cephas was
+in earnest in that half nonsense he wrote about Sibyl Dyer,&mdash;and then
+the clock struck six!</p>
+
+<p>No bells yet,&mdash;no husband,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> drift as high as Huldah's shoulders at the
+barn door. Lantern on the ground; snow-shovel in both hands now. One,
+two, three!&mdash;one cubic foot out. One, two, three!&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>And this time Huldah undresses the baby, puts on her yellow flannel
+night-gown,&mdash;makes the whole as long as it may be,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;lantern again,&mdash;sack and hood again.
+The men will be in no case for milking when they come. So Huldah brings
+together their pails,&mdash;takes her shovel once more and her lantern,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> 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,&mdash;in
+an instant had on her boots and sack and hood, had crossed to the barn,
+and slid open the great barn door,&mdash;and stood there with her
+light,&mdash;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 d&eacute;p&ocirc;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Huldah heard their stories with all their infinite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> 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,&mdash;"No trains on time to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;"if John had only gone into partnership with Joe Winter."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>IV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>HOW THEY BROKE THE BLOCKADE.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Three</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> down hay for the cows and horses, and yoking the oxen
+for the terrible onset of the day. It was bright star-light
+above,&mdash;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,&mdash;say two hundred
+miles, more or less,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> 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,&mdash;more than half way to their
+point of delivery,&mdash;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,&mdash;such as fought the battle of Bunker Hill,
+and threw the tea into Boston harbor,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> put up at his barn. It was quite
+clear, indeed, to the experts that that time was not far distant.</p>
+
+<p>And so, indeed, it proved. By three in the afternoon, John and Reuben
+and the other leaders of the advance party&mdash;namely, the whole of it, for
+such is the custom of New England&mdash;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 d&eacute;p&ocirc;t of milk&mdash;two hundred and
+thirty-nine cans&mdash;as far as Lovejoy's. What supply might have worked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> 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 d&eacute;p&ocirc;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>They established the basis of their pyramid, and met the three new
+jumpers with their makers as they went back for more. This party<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> of tea
+again,&mdash;for no man touched spirit that day nor that night,&mdash;they
+reported at the new station by the mowing-lot.</p>
+
+<p>And Silas Lovejoy&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a man's duty," he said to himself: "they would not let me go
+with the fifth regiment,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"It was the winter wild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While the heaven-born child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All meanly wrapt, in the rude manger lies."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Winter wild, indeed," said Silas aloud; and, if he had only known it,
+at that moment the sun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> beneath his feet was crossing the meridian,
+midnight had passed already, and Christmas day was born!</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Only with speeches fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">She wooes the gentle air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hide her guilty front with innocent snow."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"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?</p>
+
+<p>If he were not afraid of its coming at once, he would have run back to
+the causeway to look for their lights,&mdash;and perhaps they had a fire. Why
+had he not brought an axe for a fire? "That rail fence above would have
+served perfectly,&mdash;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&mdash;with an axe&mdash;with an axe&mdash;with an&mdash;axe"&mdash;"I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> am going to sleep,"
+cried Silas,&mdash;aloud again this time,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;black on the
+snow, with a red lantern by it. Then they will stop. Shall I&mdash;I
+will&mdash;just go back to see if the lights are at the bend. I will leave
+the lantern here on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> 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,&mdash;kneel, sir! Fire! Good enough for deserters!" And so poor
+Silas worked back again to the lantern.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;as far as soldier tramp was possible with those
+trailing snow-shoes,&mdash;tried again on "No war nor battle sound," broke
+down on "Cynthia's seat" and the "music of the spheres;" but at
+last,&mdash;working on "beams," "long beams," and "that with long beams,"&mdash;he
+caught the stanzas he was feeling for, and broke out exultant with,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block4">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+<span class="i2">"At last surrounds their sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A globe of circular light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That with long beams the shame-faced night arrayed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The helmed cherubim<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sworded seraphim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are seen in glittering ranks&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Globe of circular light&mdash;am I dreaming, or have they come!"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>slowed</i> and the engine passed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;forty men now assisting.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>V.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CHRISTMAS MORNING.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+broke, and poor Robert, as soon as light would serve, had gone to the
+neighbors all,&mdash;their nearest intimates they had tried the night
+before,&mdash;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,&mdash;who should say what?&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Mrs. Walter, you do not remember me," said this eager girl,
+crossing the room and taking her by both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no&mdash;yes&mdash;do I?" said Mary, crying and laughing together.</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;we all know
+how low he is,&mdash;and perhaps he will share my Jennie's breakfast. Dear
+Mrs. Walter, do let me try."</p>
+
+<p>Then Mary saw that the little woman's cloak and hat were already thrown
+off,&mdash;which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> not seemed strange to her before,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;as Julia was saying she would stay, and how
+they could try again, and could do this and that,&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p class="nb">The blockade was broken, and</p>
+
+<p class="nt"><span class="smcap">The milk had come!</span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> Nor
+did John know it, nor the paladins who fought that day at his side. Nor
+did Silas Lovejoy know it.</p>
+
+<p>But the good God and all good angels knew it. Why ask for more?</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Has the reader a delicate infant? Let him send for Dr.
+Cummings's little book on Milk for Children.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+<a name="v" id="v"></a>STAND AND WAIT.</h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>I.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CHRISTMAS EVE.</small></h2>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/quote.png" width="8" height="7" alt="open quote" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="cap">THEY'VE come! they've come!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;"She has not come, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>It was Huldah Root, Grace's older sister, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> and side illustration of the great
+glory of the celebration, which was, that Huldah, after her two years'
+absence,&mdash;Huldah was to come home.</p>
+
+<p>And now she had not come,&mdash;nay, was not coming!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">Boston, Dec. 24, 1848.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Father and Mother</span>,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class="center nb">Your own loving</p>
+<p class="right nt"><span class="smcap">Huldah</span>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> her flesh and blood is as good as
+theirs; and that, with all their airs and their money, they've no
+business to"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;everything happens."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<p>Huldah Root, you see, was a servant with the Bartletts, in Boston. When
+she was only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> 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&mdash;who, on the roll-call of the census-man,
+probably rated as a nursery-maid in the house&mdash;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&mdash;and
+modestly knew that she was&mdash;the most essential person in the stunned
+family circle.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> 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,"&mdash;Six o'clock. Poor Horace
+stirs, turns, flings his arm over. "Mother&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>So opened Huldah's Christmas morning.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> breath more lightly than he did before? All is well.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think not. I do not think we can spare her."</p>
+
+<p>The boy Horace is new-born that day; a New Year's gift to his mother. So
+pass Huldah's holidays.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>II.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CHRISTMAS AGAIN.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Fourteen</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>So among a hundred other letters, as October opens, Horace writes
+this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right nb"><span class="smcap">Talbot Court House, Va.</span>,</p>
+<p class="right nt nb pr">Oct. 3, 1863.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Huldah</span>,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> of course; but it is all in the good cause. Perhaps
+you know some nice women,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p class="center nb pr">Always yours,</p>
+<p class="right nt nb"><span class="smcap">Horace Bartlett</span>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;"Another alarm from
+Early?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Off, who are off?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;three or four regiments,
+<a name="thirteen" id="thirteen"></a><ins title="thirteeen in original">thirteen</ins> hundred men, and
+all their guns."</p>
+
+<p>"And with no fighting?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>,&mdash;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,&mdash;some hurt pretty badly.</p>
+
+<p class="right">Ever <span class="ws">yours,      H.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>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, C&aelig;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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,"&mdash;and
+the handsome boy smiled,&mdash;"do as well for him as you did for me." So<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Then came day and night, week in and out, of army system, and womanly
+sensibility; that quiet, cheerful, <i>homish</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>It is the surgeon-in-chief, who happens to give our particular Christmas
+dinner,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Surgeon's Tale</span>;<br />
+<span class="smcap">The General's Tale</span>;</p>
+
+<p class="noi">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</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Orderly's Tale.</span></p>
+
+<p class="noi">Your handsome friend from Wisconsin shall tell</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The German's Tale.</span></p>
+
+<p class="noi">I shall be encouraged to tell</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Prisoner's Tale.</span></p>
+
+<p class="noi">And you"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And I?" said Huldah laughing, because he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall tell</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Saint's Tale.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>Barthow spoke with real feeling, which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> 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</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Superintendent of Special Relief's
+Tale.</span></p>
+
+<p class="noi">It is a little unromantic to the sound; but that's what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see," persisted the major, "if Superintendent of Special Relief
+means Saint in Latin, why we should not say so."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you noticed that black-whiskered fellow, under the gallery, by the
+north window?&mdash;Yes, the same. He is French, enlisted, I think, in New
+London. I came to him just now, managed to say <i>&eacute;trennes</i> and <i>No&euml;l</i> 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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> 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,&mdash;if there were
+two drops of red wine,&mdash;<i>du vin de mon pays, madame</i>; 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 <i>vin rouge</i> of
+Bourgogne. Would not Mr. Dickens make a pretty story of that for
+you,&mdash;'<span class="smcap">The Frenchman's Story</span>'?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>You are not going to hear the eight stories. Mr. Dickens was not there;
+nor, indeed, was I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> 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,&mdash;if one could have analyzed it,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we have any toasts?" said the doctor, when his nuts and raisins
+and apples at last appeared.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+"Oh, no! no toasts,&mdash;nothing so stiff as that."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"One toast, at least, then," said the doctor. "Colonel Bartlett, will
+you name the toast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only one toast?" said Horace; "that is a hard selection: we must vote
+on that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" said a dozen voices; and a dozen laughing assistants at the
+feast offered their advice.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not give 'The trepanned people'?" said Worster, laughing,
+"or 'The silver-headed gentlemen'?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+"Give 'Saints and Sinners,'" said Major Barthow, after the first outcry
+was hushed.</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>He took them all by surprise. There was a general shout; and the ladies
+all rose, and dropped mock courtesies.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>III.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CHRISTMAS AGAIN.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">So</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> sitting in her veranda, looking
+down on the Pamunkey River. You think that, do not you?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a Christmas of hers, about which she wrote a letter; and, as it
+happens, it was a letter to Mrs. Barthow.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">HULDAH ROOT TO AGNES BARTHOW.</p>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Villers-Bocage</span>, Dec. 27, 1868.</p>
+
+<p>... Here I was, then, after this series of hopeless blunders,
+sole alone at the <i>gare</i> [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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I found a funny little carriage, with a funny old man who
+did not understand my <i>patois</i> any better than I did his; but he
+understood a franc-piece. I had my guide-book, and I said
+<i>auberge</i>; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>enfans terribles</i> 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,&mdash;I have a sketch of
+another just like her,&mdash;and she dropped a courtesy, and in a
+very mild <i>patois</i> said she hoped the children did not trouble
+madame. And I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> 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 <i>Anglaise</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I said I was not <i>Anglaise</i>,&mdash;and here the story begins; for I
+said I was <i>Americaine</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Americaine! est-il possible? Jeannette, Gertrude, faites vos
+r&eacute;v&eacute;rences. Madame est Americaine."</p>
+
+<p>And, sure enough, they all dropped preternatural courtesies. And
+then the most eager enthusiasm; how fond they all were of <i>les
+Americaines</i>, but how no <i>Americaines</i> 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 <i>&eacute;trenne</i> to madame? And I know not what
+beside.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> admiring <i>cort&eacute;ge</i>
+whispering now to the street full of admirers that madame was
+<i>Americaine</i>, I returned to the Three Cygnets.</p>
+
+<p>And in the evening they all came. Really, you should see the
+pretty basket they brought for an <i>&eacute;trenne</i>. 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,&mdash;a black-whiskered man, who used
+to sing a little song about <i>le vin rouge</i> of Bourgogne.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;well, it was another thing. My hostess knew that they
+were coming, and had me in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"You served in America, did you not?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, madame! I did not know my mother had told you."</p>
+
+<p>No more did she, indeed; and she looked astonished. But I
+persevered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You seem strong and well."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, madame!"</p>
+
+<p>"How long since you returned?"</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as there was peace, madame. We were mustered out in
+June, madame."</p>
+
+<p>"And does your arm never trouble you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, never, madame! I did not know my mother had told you."</p>
+
+<p>New astonishment on the part of the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"You never had another piece of bone come out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, madame! how did madame know? I did not know my mother
+had told you!"</p>
+
+<p>And by this time I could not help saying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> "You Normans care
+more for Christmas than we Americans; is it not so, my brave?"</p>
+
+<p>And this he would not stand; and he said stoutly, "Ah, no,
+madame! no, no, <i>jamais</i>!" 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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do the Normans ever drink Burgundy?" and to my old hostess,
+"Madame, could you bring us a flask <i>du vin rouge de
+Bourgogne</i>?" and then I hummed his little chanson, I am sure
+Colonel Barthow will remember it,&mdash;"<i>Deux&mdash;gouttes&mdash;du vin rouge
+du Bourgogne.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>s&oelig;ur de la charit&eacute;</i> who had had the care of dear
+Louis when he was hurt, and that it was I he had told of that
+very day,&mdash;for the thousandth time, I believe,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> were not satisfied,&mdash;the women with kissing me, or the men
+with shaking hands with each other,&mdash;the whole <i>auberge</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>cur&eacute;</i> 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 <i>ch&acirc;teau</i> 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 <i>&eacute;trenne.</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> 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
+<i>sac de nuit</i> to make me <i>aspettabile</i>; and here I ate my
+Christmas dinner. Tell the Colonel that here is "<span class="smcap">The Traveller's
+Tale</span>;" and that is why the letter is so long.</p>
+
+<p class="center nb">Most truly yours,</p>
+<p class="right nt nb"><span class="smcap">Huldah Root</span>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>IV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ONE CHRISTMAS MORE.</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Into this Saints' Rest, there have drifted together, by the eternal law
+of attraction,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> 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,&mdash;our Huldah and Mrs. Philbrick too, you have seen before,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"But you said there were six in all."</p>
+
+<p>Did I? I suppose there are. "Mrs. Philbrick,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> are there five captains in
+your establishment, or six?"</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+"Will he dine with you to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid not; but we shall see him at the Christmas-tree after
+dinner. There is to be a tree."</p>
+
+<p>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,"&mdash;the only copy
+I ever saw. We asked Huldah about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was a present from Mr. Burchstadt, a rich manufacturer in
+W&uuml;rtemberg, 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."</p>
+
+<p>On the other side was Kaulbach's own study of Elizabeth of Hungary,
+dropping her apron full of roses.</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh! what a sight the apron discloses;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The viands are changed to real roses!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>When I asked Huldah where that came from, she blushed, and said, "Oh,
+that was a present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> saints had
+befriended were in a scrape,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes 'm, Mr. Corbet."</p>
+
+<p>But the bell rang a fourth time, and a fifth.</p>
+
+<p>"Isabel, you can go to the door. Mr. Corbet must have stepped out."</p>
+
+<p>So Isabel went out, but returned with a face as broad as a soup-plate.
+"Mr. Corbet is there, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Sixth door-bell peal,&mdash;seventh, and eighth.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, I think you had better see if Mr. Corbet has gone away."</p>
+
+<p>Mary returns, face one broad grin.</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, Mr. Corbet is there."</p>
+
+<p>Heavy steps in the red parlor. Side door-bell&mdash;a little gong, begins to
+ring. Front bell rings ninth time, tenth, and eleventh.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, there was the tree, as the five saints had prepared it for
+the invited children,&mdash;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 <i>vin rouge de Bourgogne</i>, 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,&mdash;if there be four,&mdash;who had remembered the unselfish
+service of these five, had thought this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> 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,"&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> 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&mdash;as I have
+called them&mdash;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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He who will be chief among you, let him be your servant."</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> Edgar Bartlett pointed to the top bough, where was a brilliant
+not noticed before. No one had noticed it,&mdash;not Seth himself,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>It contained twelve Maltese crosses of gold, with as many jewels, one in
+the heart of each,&mdash;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,&mdash;"From Huldah, to &mdash;&mdash;" "From Helen, to &mdash;&mdash;-" 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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Henceforth I call you not servants, I have called you friends."</p>
+
+<p>It was at that Christmas that the "<span class="smcap">Order of Loving Service</span>" was born.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+<small><a name="vi" id="vi"></a>THE TWO PRINCES.</small><br />
+<br />
+<small><small>A STORY FOR CHILDREN.</small></small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2>I.</h2>
+
+<p class="cap">THERE was a King of Hungary whose name was Adelbert.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Ladislaus read the fable of the</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>SKY-LARK.</b></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<p>And when the little Prince Ladislaus had read the fable, he cried out,
+"The sky-lark is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> the bird for me, and I will paint his picture on my
+shield after school this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Prince Bela read the next fable,&mdash;the fable of the</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>WATER-RAT.</b></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> 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,&mdash;away and
+away, down the river into the sea, and they died there.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+II.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">So</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> 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,"&mdash;"Nearer to Thee."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>III.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>And the young men said, "We are not used to building."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor am I," said the King; "but let us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> build, and build as best we can,
+and give to God the best we have and the best we know."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>So he sat upon his horse till dinner-time, and he went home.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>IV.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>And the King said, "Is the Duke dead, whom we saw at Bucharest; is the
+Emperor dead, who met me at Constantinople?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said King Ladislaus, "I will live as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>And the people left the holes of pestilence and came and lived in the
+open air of God.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> and blessing of the fresh air of God. And there grew a new and
+beautiful city there.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<h2>V.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>And the Blacksmith Robert turned to the people, and with his loud voice,
+told what the King had said.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>And the King called the Queen hastily, and they and their children led
+the host to the great Cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>And he read the other gospel where the Lord says, "And I, if I be lifted
+up, will draw all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And the Lady Constance and her daughters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> the King had said, "It is far away; and we have
+'enough' in Bohemia."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And he said to King Ladislaus,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember both," said the King. And he was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"God has been very kind to you," said the beggar; "and He has been very
+hard to me."</p>
+
+<p>And the King said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>But the old priest Stephen, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"God is always kind. But God will not give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+<small><a name="vii" id="vii"></a>THE STORY OF OELLO.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+
+<p class="cap">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,&mdash;nor do I know what the place was,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;and when night came she asked her husband to
+forgive her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> if she had troubled him, and he asked her to forgive
+him,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+"I do not know," said Oello, "why they should want to hurt us."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know why they should want to," said he, "but I am afraid they
+will hurt us."</p>
+
+<p>"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</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I will spin their flax,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And weave their thread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pound their corn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bake their bread.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"How will you tell them that you will do this?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I will do it," said Oello, "and that will be better than telling them."</p>
+
+<p>"But do not you just wish," said he, "that you could speak five little
+words of their
+<a name="language" id="language"></a><ins title="langauge in original">language</ins>, to say to them that we come as
+friends, and not as enemies?"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> 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,</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Like battle target red,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rushes to his burning bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dyes the whole wave with ruddy light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then sinks at once, and all is night."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Oello and her husband laughed very heartily when they knew they were
+alone. Oello made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> 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,&mdash;a feat these people had never
+seen before.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+The savage people looked on with wonder and terror. They cried out when
+they saw the blaze, "They are children of the sun,&mdash;they are children of
+the sun!"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+written: "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;I did what I could,&mdash;say no more, say no more."</p>
+
+<p>And as the year passed by, she and her husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> so that the cruel Spaniards
+swept them and theirs away. But for hundreds of years they lived
+peacefully and happily,&mdash;growing more and more civilized with every
+year, because the young Oello and her husband Manco had done what they
+could for them.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> loving, true, unselfish life have told in God's
+service. And he would have known it, though you and I&mdash;who are we?&mdash;had
+never heard her name!</p>
+
+<p>Forgotten! do not ever think that anything is forgotten!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+<small><a name="viii" id="viii"></a>LOVE IS THE WHOLE.</small><br />
+<br />
+<small><small>A STORY FOR CHILDREN.</small></small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="cap">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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> 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,"&mdash;and so he died.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, it was only that evening, when the day's work of all the
+six was done&mdash;and for boys and girls, it was hard work, too&mdash;Fanny<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> 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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The children had a happy evening. They were frightened when they went to
+bed&mdash;the little ones&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> 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.
+<a name="Snyder" id="Snyder"></a><ins title="Sydner in original">Snyder</ins> agreed
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+"I could have told him," said Walter, "but I did not choose to; I could
+have told him that love was the whole."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block4">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Holy cell and holy shrine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the Maid and Child divine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Remember, thou that seest her bending<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">O'er that babe upon her knee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All heaven is ever thus extending<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Its arms of love round thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such love shall bless our arch&egrave;d porch;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crowned with his cross, our cot becomes a church."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> 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,&mdash;"Love is the whole."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> 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,&mdash;'Love is the
+whole.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+<small><a name="ix" id="ix"></a>CHRISTMAS AND ROME.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="cap">THE first Christmas this in which a Roman Senate has sat in Rome since
+the old-fashioned Roman Senates went under,&mdash;or since they "went up," if
+we take the expressive language of our Chicago friends.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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 C&aelig;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> Sulpicius
+Quirinus or Quirinius,&mdash;a great man in his day, for whom Augustus asked
+for a triumph,&mdash;is rescued from complete forgetfulness because that baby
+happened to be born in Syria when his census was going on!</p>
+
+<p>I always liked to think that some day when Augustus C&aelig;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&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>Five hundred years after, the whole scene is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> 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&mdash;which to this hour
+preserves most distinctly, perhaps, the memory of what Rome was&mdash;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,&mdash;"rather angels;" and with other
+sacred <i>bon-mots</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>A few years more and this monk is Bishop of Rome. True to the promise of
+the market-place,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+<small><a name="x" id="x"></a>THE SURVIVOR'S STORY.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="cap">FORTUNATELY we were with our wives.</p>
+
+<p>It is in general an excellent custom, as I will explain if opportunity
+is given.</p>
+
+<p>First, you are thus sure of good company.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was Christmas eve!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> and waded along the white
+street, not to the Massasoit,&mdash;no, but to the old Eagle and Star, which
+was still standing, and was a favorite with us youngsters. Good waffles,
+maple syrup <i>ad lib.</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> Hosanna,&mdash;a name I have never met with elsewhere.)</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We waded and ploughed our way through the snow to church. I think Mr.
+Rumfry, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>For people who have their wives with them, it is not difficult to
+provide entertainment on such an occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Bertha," said Wolfgang, "could you not entertain us with one of your
+native dances?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;black, as was expected,&mdash;with a
+shining face, and white teeth, and in shirt sleeves, and broad grins.
+"Do you tell me, C&aelig;sar," said John, "that in your country they do not
+wear their coats on Christmas day?"&mdash;"Sartin, they do, sir, when they go
+out doors."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you tell me, C&aelig;sar," said Dick, "that they have doors in your
+country?"&mdash;"Sartin, they do," said poor C&aelig;sar, flurried.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Never, sar," said poor C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>"Do they dance without music?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sar; never."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+"Go, then," I said in my sternest accents,&mdash;"go fetch a zittern, or a
+banjo, or a kit, or a hurdy-gurdy, or a fiddle."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;first with precision, then in sport, then in wild
+holiday frenzy. We began with waltzes,&mdash;so great is the convenience of
+travelling with your wives,&mdash;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 <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i>. 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,&mdash;right and left, first two forward, right
+hand across, <i>pastorale</i>,&mdash;the whole series of them;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> 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 C&aelig;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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>What we really did was this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>John Blatchford said,&mdash;"Let us all tell stories." It was growing dark
+and he had put more logs on the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Heap on more wood, the wind is chill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But let it whistle as it will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll keep our merry Christmas still."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>She said that because it was in "Bertha's Visit," a very stupid book
+which she remembered.</p>
+
+<p>Then Wolfgang told</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE PENNY-A-LINER'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>[Wolfgang is a reporter, or was then, on the staff of the "Star."]</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> feet of my fellow-passenger,&mdash;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,&mdash;for
+we were old friends,&mdash;I was counsel against him in the Ogden case. Said
+Webster to me,&mdash;"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?"</p>
+
+<p>I said I liked the idea, but the expression seemed involved.</p>
+
+<p>"And it is involved," said Webster; "but I can't improve it."</p>
+
+<p>"How would this do?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!</span>'"</p>
+
+<p>"Capital!" he said, "capital! write that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>All of us applauded the story.</p>
+
+<p>Phebe then told</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE SCHOOLMISTRESS'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;disfranchised by the law? Ha! I saw!</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;old and young, innocent
+girls and sturdy men,&mdash;I so taught the multiplication-table,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;the despised boarding-mistress,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Then was hushed the harp of Phebe, and Dick told his story.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>He ceased. Then Sarah Blatchford told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE WHEELER AND WILSON'S OPERATIVE'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;this fatal gift of beauty bade them spare my life!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> a cannon-wheel, a coffee-mill, and
+two nut-crackers. And with this I made the under-clothing for the palace
+and the Zenana.</p>
+
+<p>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 ca&iuml;que to South Boston. No more! such
+memories oppress me.</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was hushed. I told my tale in turn.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE CONDUCTOR'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>I was poor. Let this be my excuse, or rather my apology. I entered a
+Third Avenue car at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 coup&eacute;, with George to drive me; and never
+have I entered the cleanly, sweet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> and airy carriage provided for the
+public. I cannot; conscience is too much for me. You see in me a
+monument of crime.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE WIFE OF BIDDEFORD'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>At the time you speak of, I was the private governess of two lovely
+boys, Julius and Pompey,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+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!</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were going to say in a hotter place," said John
+Blatchford; and he told his story:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE STOKER'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> safe in our hands. He
+reconsidered his purpose. We came safe to port and did&mdash;nothing.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;"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.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped lightly to one of the public desks. I took one of the blanks.
+I filled it out, "John Blatchford, &pound;1747 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>," 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.</p>
+
+<p>We then asked Hosanna for her story.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+<b>THE N. E. HISTORICAL GENEALOGIST'S STORY.</b></p>
+
+<p>"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!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> 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?</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;for we
+were travelling with our wives,&mdash;had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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 &amp; 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> it,
+I was thrown senseless, at last, into a deep snow-bank near the United
+States Arsenal.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I am sorry to say that the others have never been found.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+<small><a name="xi" id="xi"></a>THE SAME CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW.</small></h1>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="cap">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 <i>f&ecirc;te</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the story as William Bradford tells it:</p>
+
+<p>"Ye 16. <i>day</i> 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. <i>day</i> begane<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> to erecte ye first house
+for comone use to receive them and their goods."</p>
+
+<p>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"&mdash;if by good luck
+you be of Yankee blood, and do either of these praiseworthy things&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Know then, that when the poor Mayflower at last got across the Atlantic,
+Massachusetts stretched out her right arm to welcome her, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> 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,&mdash;which was Sunday,&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> 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.
+<a name="Wednesday" id="Wednesday"></a><ins title="original punctuation retained">Wednesday,</ins></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> 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&mdash;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. <i>day</i> begane to erect
+ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>They did their best to desecrate Christmas, and they did it by laying
+one of the cornerstones of an empire.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if the reader wants to imagine the scene,&mdash;the Christmas
+celebration or the Christmas desecration, he shall call it which he
+will, according as he is Roman or Puritan himself,&mdash;I cannot give him
+much material to spin his thread from. Here is the little story in the
+language of the time:</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;no
+Christian Registers for them to warm their cold hands by), used to
+pledge themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> 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,&mdash;after the
+fashion known to readers of Sanford and Merton in an after age,&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> Forty or fifty Englishmen, in hats and
+doublets and hose of that fashion, with those odd English axes that you
+may see in your &AElig;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 <i>vivant</i>, if you can.</p>
+
+<p>To help myself in the matter, I sometimes group them on the bank there
+just above the brook,&mdash;you can see the place to-day, if it will do you
+any good&mdash;at some moment when the women have come ashore to see how the
+work goes on&mdash;and remembering that Mrs. Hemans says "they sang"&mdash;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 <i>prima assoluta
+soprano</i> and Mrs. Carver as <i>prima assoluta contralto</i>,&mdash;I range on the
+right the men with W. Bradford and W. Brewster as leaders&mdash;and between,
+facing us, the audience,&mdash;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,</p>
+
+<p class="center">Suoni la tromba,</p>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;and on the ground, picking at the stalkes of the
+corne, a flocke of large blacke birds such as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> women stripped them they had, cleaned
+them, spytted them, basted them, and roasted them, and thus we had fresh
+foule to our dinner."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> 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, <i>askuta squash</i>."</p>
+
+<p>But this letter, I am sorry to say, has not yet been found.</p>
+
+<p>Whether they had roast turkey for Christmas I do not know. I do know,
+thanks to the recent discovery of the old Bradford manuscript,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+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&mdash;as those who went on board filled it, passed
+it, and refilled it&mdash;ends the history of the first Christmas in New
+England.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+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,&mdash;I went into the chronicles of Spain, where I thought
+they would take pains about Christmas,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;with the Palatinate quite in the vocative,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+bloodless campaign, King Louis returns to Paris, "and there," says
+Bassompierre, "he celebrated the <i>f&ecirc;tes</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> 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 <i>Mercure
+Fran&ccedil;aise</i>,&mdash;flattering and obsequious Annual Register of those
+days:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"And the King," continues the <i>Mercure</i>, "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 <i>noblesse</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> He
+arrived at Dover the same evening, and did not depart from Dover until
+the Monday after."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Mercure Fran&ccedil;ais's</i> account of
+the Christmas holidays,&mdash;flattering and obsequious, as I said:</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> 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,&mdash;at all events, we have as much fuel here as they have at St.
+James's.</p>
+
+<p>Of this precious embassy, dear reader, there is not a word, I think, in
+Hume, or Lingard, or the "Pictorial"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the first notice of the embassy:</p>
+
+<p>Dec. 13. Letter from Sir Robert Naunton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>So they knew, it seems, ten days before we started, what we were coming
+for.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> and declined showing them the fortress. They are
+entertained as well as the town can afford."</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;head of his chamber-door&mdash;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 <i>in the street</i>; 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> King was so angry that he made Cadenet
+apologize. Alas for the Court of Governor John Carver on this
+side,&mdash;four days old to-day&mdash;if Massasoit should send us an ambassador!
+<i>We</i> 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!</p>
+
+<p>The Domestic Archives give another glimpse:</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and at
+Lord Doncaster's entertainment&mdash;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?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;a confederation against Spanish
+power, and asked his Majesty to abandon the rebellious princes,&mdash;but he
+refused unless they might have toleration." The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> Ambassador was followed
+to Rochester for the debts of some of his train,&mdash;but got well home to
+Paris and New Style.</p>
+
+<p>And so he vanishes from English history.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment the whole embassy seemed a failure in England,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> four or five stories, wherein commonly the
+uppermost room is worst furnished.'"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>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&mdash;Revolution&mdash;1715&mdash;1745&mdash;Preston-Pans, Falkirk and
+Culloden&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>On the one side Christmas is celebrated by fifty outcasts chopping wood
+for their fires&mdash;and out of the celebration springs an empire. On the
+other side it is celebrated by the <i>noblesse</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> 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!</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>So it was that John Carver and his men, trying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> to avoid the celebration
+of the day, built better than they knew indeed, and, in their faith,
+laid a corner-stone for an empire.</p>
+
+<p>And James and Cadenet trying to serve themselves&mdash;forgetful of the
+spirit of the day, as they pretended to honor it&mdash;were so successful
+that they destroyed a dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>There is moral enough for our truer Christmas holidays as 1867 leads in
+the new-born sister.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p class="noi"><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_2"><span class="label">[A]</span></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.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h5 class="pb">Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son.</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title11">ROBERTS BROTHERS'</span><br />
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+
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+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
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+
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+
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+
+<p class="hang"><b>FROM THE NILE TO THE JORDAN.</b> Footsteps of the Israelites from
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+
+<p class="hang"><b>THORVALDSEN, HIS LIFE AND WORKS.</b> From the French of <span class="smcap">Henri Plon</span>
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+
+<p class="hang"><b>MIR&Egrave;IO.</b> <span class="smcap">A Poem.</span> By <span class="smcap">Frederic Mistral</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Harriet W.
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+
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+
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+
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+Price $1.50.</p>
+
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+
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+
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+
+<p class="hang"><b>SIX OF ONE BY HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER.</b> A Novelette. By Mrs.
+<span class="smcap">Harriet Beecher Stowe</span>, Mrs. <span class="smcap">A. D. T. Whitney</span>, Miss <span class="smcap">Lucretia
+Hale</span>, Rev. <span class="smcap">E. E. Hale</span>, <span class="smcap">F. B. Perkins</span>, and <span class="smcap">F. W. Loring</span>. 16mo.
+Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>AUNT JO'S SCRAP-BAG.</b> By <span class="smcap">Louisa M. Alcott</span>, author of "Little
+Women," "An Old-Fashioned Girl," "Little Men." With
+Illustrations. Price $1.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>OUT OF TOWN.</b> By <span class="smcap">F. C. Burnand</span>, author of "Happy Thoughts." Price
+$1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>OUTLINES TO SHAKESPEARE.</b> Designed and Engraved by <span class="smcap">Moritz
+Retzsch</span>. 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.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.</b> Illuminated by <span class="smcap">W.</span> and <span class="smcap">G. Hudsley</span>.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Charles Rolf</span>. Chromo-lithographed by <span class="smcap">W. R. Tymms</span>.
+One volume, folio, superbly bound in illuminated morocco-cloth,
+gilt. Price $12.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>FALSTAFF AND HIS COMPANIONS.</b> Twenty Designs in Silhouette, by
+<span class="smcap">Paul Konewka</span>. With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Hermann Kurz</span>, and
+Explanatory Text selected from Shakespeare. One volume, square
+8vo, cloth, gilt. Price $3.00. Morocco antique Price $6.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>THE UNKNOWN RIVER:</b> <span class="smcap">An Etcher's Voyage of Discovery</span>. By <span class="smcap">P. G.
+Hamerton</span>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD MORNING.</b> <span class="smcap">A Poem</span>. By Lord <span class="smcap">Houghton</span>. With
+Illuminations and Etchings on copper, by <span class="smcap">Walter Severn</span>. One
+volume, quarto, illuminated, cloth, gilt. Price $4.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>SING SONG</b>: <span class="smcap">A Nursery Rhyme Book</span>. By <span class="smcap">Christina
+<a name="fullstop" id="fullstop"></a><ins title="inserted fullstop">G.</ins> Rossetti</span>.
+One Hundred and Twenty Songs, with an Illustration to each Song,
+by <span class="smcap">Arthur Hughes</span>, engraved by the <span class="smcap">Dalziels</span>. One volume, thin
+8vo, cloth, gilt. Price $2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>THE NEW-YEAR'S BARGAIN.</b> <span class="smcap">A Christmas Story for Children.</span> By <span class="smcap">Susan
+Coolidge</span>. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Addie Ledyard</span>. One volume,
+square 16mo, cloth, gilt. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>PAUL OF TARSUS</b>: An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the
+Apostle of the
+<a name="stop2" id="stop2"></a><ins title="added fullstop">Gentiles.</ins> By a Graduate. 16mo. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>MY HEALTH.</b> By <span class="smcap">F. C. Burnand</span>, author of "Happy Thoughts." Volume
+X. Handy-volume Series. Red cloth. Price $1.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>ARABESQUES.</b> <span class="smcap">Monare&mdash;Apollyona&mdash;Domitia&mdash;Ombra.</span> Four Stories of
+the Supernatural. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Richard S. Greenough</span>. With Medallions
+and Initial Letters. Red-line border printed on heavy laid
+paper. One elegant 16mo volume, bound in cloth, gilt. Price
+$2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>ENGLISH LESSONS FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE.</b> By <span class="smcap">E. A. Abbott, M. A.</span>, and
+<span class="smcap">J. R. Seeley, M. A.</span> (author of "Ecce Homo"). One volume, 16mo,
+cloth. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>CUES FROM ALL QUARTERS</b>; <span class="smcap">or, Literary Musings of a Clerical
+Recluse</span>. By <span class="smcap">Francis Jacox</span>. One volume, 16mo. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>RADICAL PROBLEMS.</b> By Rev. <span class="smcap">C. A. Bartol</span>. One volume, 16mo. Price
+$2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH</b>; <span class="smcap">or, The Future Life according to
+Science</span>. By <span class="smcap">Louis Figuier</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">S. R. Crocker.</span> Editor
+of the "Literary World." One volume, 16mo. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>THE ROSE-GARDEN.</b> <span class="smcap">A Novelette.</span> By the author of "Unawares." 16mo.
+Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>UNAWARES</b>. <span class="smcap">A Novelette.</span> By <span class="smcap">Frances M. Peard</span>. 16mo. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>SAILING ON THE NILE.</b> By <span class="smcap">Laurent Laporte</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Virginia
+Vaughan</span>. 16mo. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>MIR&Egrave;IO</b>: <span class="smcap">A Pastoral Poem</span>. From the Proven&ccedil;al of <span class="smcap">M. Mistral</span>, by
+Miss <span class="smcap">Harriet W. Preston</span>. Gilt top. Price $2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="hang"><b>THE VICAR'S DAUGHTER.</b> <span class="smcap">A Novel.</span> By <span class="smcap">George Macdonald</span>. With many
+original Illustrations. Price $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="hang pb"><b>AFTER ALL, NOT TO CREATE ONLY.</b> <span class="smcap">Walt Whitman's American Institute
+Poem.</span> 12mo, cloth, limped covers. Price 30 cents.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title11">MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title5"><i>JEAN INGELOW.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="title3">OFF THE SKELLIGS.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="title5">A NOVEL.</span><br />
+<br />
+By <span class="smcap">Jean Ingelow</span>. 16mo. 670 pages. Price $1.75</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>From the Literary World.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>"The first novel from the pen of one of the most popular poets of the
+age&mdash;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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>Extract from a private letter,&mdash;not intended for publication,&mdash;the
+hearty opinion of one of the most popular and favorite writers of the
+present day:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>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.</i>"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title8">Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers,</span></p>
+<p class="right pb"><span class="title8"><big>ROBERTS BROTHERS</big></span>, <span class="title5 smcap">Boston</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title11">MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap title3">Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="title5">BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT.</span><br />
+<br />
+<big>Vol. I. Comprising "My Boys," &amp;c. 16mo. Cloth, gilt. Price $1.00.</big></p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>From the London Athen&aelig;um.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>From the New York Tribune.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>Mrs. Hale, in Godey's Lady's Book.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>From the Providence Press.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>This is Louisa Alcott's Christmas tribute to the young people, and it
+is, like herself, <i>good</i>. In making selections, "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag"
+must not be forgotten. There will be a vacant place where this little
+volume is not.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title8"><i>Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers,</i></span></p>
+<p class="right pb"><span class="title8"><big>ROBERTS BROTHERS</big></span>, <span class="title5 smcap">Boston</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title11">MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title11">THE DOLL-WORLD SERIES.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="title5">BY MRS. ROBERT O'REILLY.</span><br />
+<br />
+<big>Comprising "Doll World," "Deborah's Drawer," and "Daisy's Companions."</big></p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>From the Boston Daily Advertiser.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and in a high degree&mdash;every one of the
+very peculiar and varied characteristics which fit one to be a good
+writer for the young. She is humorous,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>reality</i>; 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 <i>note</i> 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 <i>truth</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>From the New York Tribune.</b></i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="title8"><i>Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers,</i></span></p>
+<p class="right pb"><span class="title8"><big>ROBERTS BROTHERS</big></span>, <span class="title5 smcap">Boston</span>.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Transcriber's Note</h3>
+
+<table summary="Transcriber's Notes">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2" colspan="2">Page numbering in the original goes from 39 to  <a href="#page">39<sup>1</sup> through to 39<sup>14</sup></a>
+before recommencing the sequence from 40.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2" colspan="2">Variations in hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the
+original publication. Changes to the original have been made as
+follows:</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Title&nbsp;Page</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+    Comma changed to fullstop at the end of the line
+    WITH ILLUSTRATION BY F. O. C. <a href="#comma">DARLEY.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 19</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+    polked to their hearts' content changed to
+    <a href="#polkaed">polkaed</a> to their hearts' content</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 39<sup>12</sup></td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    Quotation mark removed from the end of the line
+    down and kisses <a href="#quote">her!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 48</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    Single quotation mark replaced by double before
+    <a href="#quote2">"The</a> star, the manger, and the Child!"</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 60</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    Quotation mark added at the end of
+    the court, the camp, and the Argus <a href="#quote3">office."</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 72</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    Quotation mark added at the end of
+    What <a href="#quote4">fun!"</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 79</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    Quotation mark added before
+    <a href="#quote5">"Can't</a> you behave</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 84</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    haled Bridget up five flights of stairs changed to
+    <a href="#hauled">hauled</a> Bridget up five flights of stairs</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page &nbsp; 98</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    docter says, maybe a shade changed to
+    <a href="#doctor">doctor</a> says, maybe a shade</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page&nbsp;158</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    three or four regiments, thirteeen changed to
+    three or four regiments, <a href="#thirteen">thirteen</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page&nbsp;208</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    words of their langauge changed to
+    words of their <a href="#language">language</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl3">Page&nbsp;225</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+
+    And Mr. Sydner agreed with changed to
+    And Mr. <a href="#Snyder">Snyder</a> agreed with</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl" colspan="2">In the promotional pages at the end of the book:<br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+    A $ sign has been added to
+    670 pages. Price <a href="#dollar">$1.75.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+    A fullstop has been added after the initial G in
+    A NURSERY RHYME BOOK. By CHRISTINA <a href="#fullstop">G.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl2">
+    A fullstop has been added after
+    of the Apostle of the <a href="#stop2">Gentiles.</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, by Edward E. Hale
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 32455-h.htm or 32455-h.zip *****
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+Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, by Edward E. Hale
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
+       Ten Christmas stories
+
+Author: Edward E. Hale
+
+Illustrator: F. O. C. Darley
+
+Release Date: May 20, 2010 [EBook #32455]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 Abbe
+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 destillee. 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 _piece de resistance_, 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 depot 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 depot 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 depot 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, Caesar! 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 _etrennes_ and _Noel_ 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
+    reverences. 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 _etrenne_ 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 _cortege_
+    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 _etrenne_. 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 charite_ 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 _cure_ 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 _chateau_ 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 _etrenne._ 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
+Wuertemberg, 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 arched 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 Caesar
+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 Caesar 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, Caesar," 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, Caesar," said Dick, "that they have doors in your
+country?"--"Sartin, they do," said poor Caesar, 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 Caesar.
+
+"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-a-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 Caesar 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 caique 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 coupe, 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, L1747 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 _fete_ 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 AEsop'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 _fetes_ 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
+Francaise_,--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 Francais'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.
+
+
+
+
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+$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.
+
+=MIREIO=: A PASTORAL POEM. From the Provencal 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 Athenaeum._
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, by Edward E. Hale
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY ***
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+***** This file should be named 32455.txt or 32455.zip *****
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