A CHRISTMAS CONFESSION[14]
Agnes McClelland Daulton
Philamaclique lay wrapped softly in snow. The trees arching the wide streets swayed in the stinging winter wind and silently dropped their white plumes upon the head of the occasional pedestrian. Over the old town peace brooded. The snow deadened the passing footstep; the runners of the rude sleds, the hoofs of the farm horses, made no sound; sleepy quiet prevailed but for the rare jingle of sleigh-bells or the gay calling of children’s voices.
The rollicking morning sun, having set the town a-glitter without adding a hint of warmth, smiled broadly as he peeped into the snowy-curtained window of a little red brick house on the north side of High Street. Here in the quaint, low sitting-room he found good cheer a-plenty. The red geraniums on the window-sill, the worn but comfortable furniture, the crackling wood fire upon the hearth, the dozing cat upon the hearth-rug, even the creaking of the rocking-chairs, whispered of warmth and rest and homeliness.
“So I just run over to tell you, seein’ the snow wastoo deep for you to get out to prayer-meetin’,” wheezed Mrs. Keel, blinking at the sun and creaking heavily back and forth in the old rush-bottomed rocker. “Says I to Joel at breakfast, ‘Granny Simmers will be pleased as Punch, for she always did love a frolic, so I’ll just run over and tell her while Mellie is washin’ the dishes and I’m waitin’ for the bread to raise’.”
“It was real kind of you, Sister Keel, with your asthmy an’ rheumatiz,” quavered Granny, folding her checked breakfast shawl more closely about her slender shoulders, as she sat excitedly poised like a little gray bird on the edge of her chair. “Jest to think of us Methodists havin’ a Christmas-tree after all these years. My! how I wish it had come in John’s time! I remember once, when we was livin’ out on the farm, says he to me, ‘Polly, if the preacher says we’ll have a tree this year, you and me’ll hitch up Dolly an’ go to town an’ buy a gif’ fer every man, woman, an’ child.’ Dolly was our bay buggy-beast, an’ the best mare in the neighborhood, so John was as choice of her as he was of me ’most, an’ that was a deal for him to offer.”
“Law, Granny, how well I remember him and you ridin’ so happy in that little green wicker sleigh!” exclaimed Mrs. Keel, as she ponderously drew herself from the deeps of her chair. “I must be goin’ now. It was awful nice of Brother Sutton to decide for the Christmas tree when he found the infant class was achin’ for it. His face was beamin’ last night like a seryphim. The children are about wild;Emmie says she wants a pony; guess we’d have some trouble hangin’ that on the tree! Mart wants a gold watch and chain, and Billy says marbles and a gun is good enough for him; but I reckon they’ll all take what they can get. Joel said this mornin’ he’s afraid there’ll be lots of achin’ hearts. There is them little Cotties—who’s a-goin’ to give to them, and the Jacksons, and old Miss Nellie, and Widow Theat. I don’t see how the Millers can do much for Tessie; and poor old Sister Biddle, says she to me last night as we was comin’ out, says she, ‘It’ll be awful sweet to hear Brother Knisley readin’ out, Mis’ Sallie Biddle; seems ’most as if I couldn’t stand it, it’ll be so sweet. I ain’t had a Christmas gif’ since Biddle was courtin’ me sixty years ago.’ The poor old body was just chucklin’ over it; but who’s goin’ to give her anything, I’d like to know?”
“Oh, my me!” sighed Granny, clasping her little wrinkled hands wistfully as she stood at the open door. “I ain’t thought of the gif’s. It was the lights, and the candles a-twinklin’, an’ the music, an’ the children most bustin’ with gladness and wishes. Land! when I was a little girl, how I used to wish we was Moravians; they was always havin’ trees, or candle feasts, or children’s feasts, or Easterin’s, an’ us Methodists didn’t have no excitement ’cept revivals. Law me, what am I sayin’!” she broke off with a chuckle. “As if I didn’t thank the Lord every night for makin’ me a Methodist bred, a Methodist born, a Methodist till I die. It’s the children I’m thinkin’ about.”
Mrs. Keel laughed and held up a fat reproving finger as she called from the gate:
“I guess you ain’t growed up yourself, Granny, for all your eighty years. I’ve said to Joel often, says I, ‘There ain’t a child in this town that is younger at heart than Granny Simmers,’ and says he, ‘Ner a child that’s sweeter ner prettier!’”
“My me!” whispered Granny as she closed the door, her soft wrinkled cheeks delicately flushed at the unexpected compliment. “John said I’d never git over bein’ a girl, an’ here I be blushin’ like a fool ’cause old Joel Keel says I ain’t bad-lookin’.”
There was much bustling going on in the trim little “brick” that morning. Martha Morris, Granny’s “help,” had never known her mistress to be so concerned about the crispness of the pepper-cakes, the spiciness of the pig and horse ginger cookies, the brownness of the twisted doughnuts, or the flakiness of the mince pies that were resting by noon in savory richness on the pantry shelf. Then, when dinner was over and the dishes washed, Granny demanded that she herself be taken in hand.
“Law, Granny, you ain’t goin’ up town in such a snow as this!” protested Martha, as she lovingly tucked the thin white hair under the velvet cap and folded the kerchief about her neck.
“Indeed I am, Marthy,” replied Granny with prompt decision. “The sun is shinin’ grand, an’ Billy Sharp went along with the snow shovel while you was washin’ the dishes. Just wrap me up warm an’ I’ll get along first rate.”
“Better let me go, too,” argued Martha, as she pinned Granny’s “Bay State” firmly under her chin with the big glass brooch with its precious lock of gray hair safely inclosed, and tied her nubia over her cap. “You might slip and fall. I won’t feel safe one minute till you are back home.”
“Land, Marthy! every born soul knows me. Ain’t I Granny to the hull town, for all I ain’t got a chick ner a child? My me! it’s sixty years since John an’ me laid ’Rastus away; fifty since little Mary, her father’s darlin’, slipped off to heaven. Seems like my old heart goes out in love to everybody ’count of them three, John and my two babies, waitin’ for me in one of the Father’s mansions. Hope there’s a chimbly corner—John always loved it so on a winter’s night; an’ I hope there’s roses growin’ by the doorstep, so it will seem like home to ’em all; an’, Marthy, if I fall there ain’t a soul but would be ready to pick me up, an’ a smile for me, bless ’em! I jest wonder sometimes how it comes everybody is so kind an’ good. It’s a lovely world, that’s what it is.”
“Now,” said Granny to herself, as she teetered along on the icy walk toward the busy stores, “John said a gif’ for every man, woman, an’ child. Guess I can remember the hull lot, as there’s only six men an’ I’ve got the women writ down; an’ for the children, well, I’ll buy till my money gives out, an’ I reckon I’ll get enough. Kind of pitiful about Sister Biddle. My! what a dashin’, lovely girl she was when I first see her at the Beals’ apple-parin’! Shewas Sallie Neely then, pretty as a picture, hair and eyes like jet, an’ cheeks pink as roses, an’ so tall an’ slender. I recollect how she picked me up an’ whirled me round; she was as light as a feather on her feet, an’ said, ‘Polly Whitehead, was there ever such a morsel of a girl as you are? If I was a man, I’d marry you ’fore night.’ An’ John said he said to himself she’d have had a hard time of it, for he made up his mind then an’ there to have me himself. Yes, I’ll get Sallie Neely a red plush album an’ put John’s picture in it; she’d admire to get that!”
Granny hesitated.
“Well, did you ever!” she gasped. “I ain’t never thought of it before; who’ll give anything to me, Polly Simmers? John would, dear John, but he’s gone, an’ I ain’t got a blood akin in the town, an’ they’ve all got such a lot to give to. Mebby I wouldn’t mind much, but it—would—be kind of mortifyin’ to be the only one forgot, for I’m bound they sha’n’t be another soul left out. I wonder if I dare!”
Long shafts of light from the bare, uncurtained windows of the old church lay across the snow, as the cracked bell jangled through the crisp air its Christmas greeting. The jingle of sleigh-bells, the creaking of the runners, merry voices, bits of song, gay laughter, united in a Christmas carol redolent with Christmas spirit—Peace on earth, good will to men.
Granny, leaning on Martha’s strong arm, fairly shivered with excitement and delight. She knew that not a soul called by the clamor of that bell had been forgotten. There had been no need of stinting, for Granny’s acres were broad and fruitful and her wants few. Gift after gift had her withered hands tied into pretty parcels. The pen had creaked and sputtered across the paper as she marked them, for she had refused all help from curious but loving Martha, only asking that there be a good fire made in the air-tight stove in the spare chamber. There she worked alone, but happy, Martha well knew, as she stood with her ear pressed to the crack of the door, having found the keyhole stopped with cotton.
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,All seated on the ground,The angels of the Lord came down,And glory shone around,”
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,All seated on the ground,The angels of the Lord came down,And glory shone around,”
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,All seated on the ground,The angels of the Lord came down,And glory shone around,”
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angels of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around,”
quavered the old voice. And Martha never knew it was not Granny Simmers who sang so joyfully within, but pretty Polly Whitehead in the choir of the old meeting-house, looking on the same hymn-book with handsome young John Simmers, the catch of the valley.
“Just fairly takes my breath away,” wheezed Mrs. Keel, meeting Granny at the door of the church. “Don’t seem like the same place. Now ain’t it pretty?”
Granny caught her breath.
Could this be the little church she knew so well? Before that altar, she, a bride, had stood with John; there they had carried Baby Rastus and Mary for baptism; there the casket had rested that awful day when she had found herself alone.
A crude little sanctuary, always bare and cheerless to the beauty-loving eye, yet rich with tenderest memories to Granny; to-night, ablaze with lights, roped with greenery, gay with flags, joyful with the hum of merry voices, it seemed some new and unexplored fairyland. And there upon the rostrum in all its glory, tall, straight, and beautiful, twinkling with candles, festooned with strings of popcorn and cranberries, glittering with tinsel stars and silver crowns, adorned with bobinet stockings cubby and knubby with candy and nuts, hung with packages big and little, stood the tree, the tree!
“Let me set down till I get my breath, Marthy,” cackled Granny, excitedly. “Jest get my specks out of my pocket, will you, child? My, my! if only John an’ ’Rastus an’ little Mary was here now!”
Sitting straight in the corner of her pew, her spectacles on the extreme end of her nose, her bonnet tipped rakishly to one side in her joy, her black-woolen-mittened hands crossed demurely in her lap, she, the happiest child of them all, listened to the exercise. Carolers and speech-makers found naught but sympathy in her sweet face.
When the last speaker had tiptoed to his seat and the infant class was growing unruly in the amen corner—the sight of the bobinet stockings and mysteriouspackages being too much for the patience of their baby souls—Brother Knisley carefully mounted the step-ladder and the distribution of the gifts began.
“Billy Keel, Tessie Miller—Dora Jackson, Mrs. Sallie Biddle,” haltingly read the Brother. The sight of Sallie’s wild delight over the red plush album almost moved Granny to tears. “Mrs. Polly Simmers, Martha Morris—Mrs. Polly Simmers, Mrs. Joel Keel—Mrs. Polly Simmers,” then again and again until the pew in which Granny sat was filled and overflowed into her lap. Wide-eyed, at first happy, then more and more distressed grew the small face under its rakish bonnet.
“Mrs. Polly Simmers, Miss Nelly Sanford—Mrs. Polly Simmers—” Oh, would they never cease? Martha, chuckling with joy, gathered them in one by one.
“There, Granny, guess it ain’t hard to see who is the favorite in this town,” she whispered vehemently. “Law’s sakes, if here ain’t another; that makes twenty-one! Wonder what it is? It feels for all the world like a milk-strainer, but I never heard of such a thing hung on a tree.”
Granny’s face flushed, puckered, and flamed into crimson.
“Don’t talk so loud, Marthy. Ain’t you got no manners! Oh, whatever, ever shall I do?”
“Do?” wheezed Mrs. Keel, leaning over the back of her pew. “Do? Why, take every one of ’em and enjoy ’em. Ain’t one but what’s filled with love,even if it is a milk-strainer, though I can’t see why anybody come to think of that.”
“Goodness knows, we needed it bad enough,” returned Martha, shrilly, over Mrs. Keel’s shoulder. “I’ve been jaw-smithin’ about it fer the last month, but she wus always forgittin’ it.”
“Looks to me as if that was a coal-hod,” remarked Billy Keel, prodding a bulky bundle on Granny’s lap with a fat forefinger.
“You hush up, Billy Keel,” exclaimed Granny, resentfully. “I ain’t makin’ any remark about your gif’s, be I?”
Billy, as much astonished as if one of his pet doves had pecked him, hung his head in shame.
“Mrs. Polly Simmers,” announced the Brother, pompously, as he slowly clambered to the floor; “that is the last gif’.”
“Ahem!” began Brother Sutton, his mild old eyes beaming with joy as he looked over his congregation. He drew his tall length to its uttermost, set the tips of his fingers together, and teetered slowly back and forth from toe to heel. “Ahem! It has been gratifying indeed to see so much generosity. But most of all it has pleased us to see that the receiver of the lion’s share has been our aged sister, Mrs. Polly Simmers. It is delightful that her unselfish life, her high sense of honor, her sweet sympathy, has been appreciated.”
Granny, her face deathly pale, every hint of the Christmas joy of the early evening gone from her eyes, now dulled with agony, arose trembling in her pew.
But Brother Sutton’s eyes brightened as he saw her.
“Our aged sister wishes to speak to us, I see,” he said, kindly, “and I know all the little folks will be very quiet.”
“I jest want to say,” gasped Granny, clutching nervously at the pew in front of her, “I jest want to say that I’m a wicked old sinner, that I’m a liar and a cheat and a disgrace to my church.”
The audience, as if electrified, turned toward her in amazement; even the children dropped their gifts to stare at Granny, as she stood pale, wild-eyed, and self-accusing.
“My heart’s ’most bustin’ with your goodness,” went on the quavering old voice, “and I’ve got to tell or I’ll die ’fore mornin’, an’ I can’t go to John an’ ’Rastus an’ little Mary with a lie on my soul, even if the good Lord would forgive me for their sakes an’ let me in. That day I set out to buy a gif’ fer every man, woman, an’ child in the church the devil kept tellin’ me they wouldn’t be nothin’ fer old Granny Simmers, an’ the more I thought the more I got a hankerin’ to hear my name read with the rest; an’ the bad man he said to me, says he, ‘Granny Simmers, why don’t you buy some things for yourself an’ put them on the tree; nobody’d be the wiser. Needn’t buy anything extravagant,’ says he, ‘jest plain needcessities that Marthy’s been urgin’. Since you are buyin’ for everybody in the church, there’s no harm—John said every man, woman, an’ child.’
“I didn’t have an idee that anybody would thinkof old me, so I says to the bad man at last, says I, ‘Jest a few things, devil, jest a few—a milk-strainer that Marthy has been jawin’ about, a coal-hod, a tack-hammer, an’ a new calico I had been needin’ for some time; then I got a couple of new pie tins an’ a soapstone ’cause Marthy cracked the old one. An’ I never once thought of it bein’ a sin, an’ I tied ’em up with ribbons an’ tissue-paper, an’ sung as I did it—I was just as happy as a child. But when I saw how you’d all remembered me, an’ heard Brother Knisley readin’ gif’ after gif’, an’ I seed how I’d doubted your friendship an’ knowed you never dreamed I was actin’ a lie, I just felt so pusly mean I couldn’t stand that you should believe all them gif’s come from love. I guess I ain’t fit for anything but churchin’.”
Shaking with sobs, the little woman dropped back in her seat to be received into Martha’s loving arms.
“Brother Sutton”—it was Mrs. Keel’s asthmatic wheeze that broke the silence—“Brother Sutton, I’ve got a few words to say, and as I look about at the streamin’ eyes of this congregation I know you’ll all agree with me. If there is a dear saint on earth, who has stood by us in our sorrows an’ our joys, who’s hovered over our death-beds and welcomed our babies, it’s Granny Simmers. If there’s a soul of honor, a childlike conscience, and one of the Lord’s own, it is this blessed little woman. I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but my heart’s ’most broke for the poor little soul. Ain’t no more sin in her gentle little heart than there is in a baby’s.”
“Amen!” came from every side.
But Brother Sutton, his face beaming with tenderness, had come swiftly down the aisle and was bending over Granny.
“Sister,” he said, taking her little wrinkled hands in his, “believe me, God forgave you this before you asked it; and as for us, look about you, and what do you see in the faces of your friends? Come one and all and give her your tenderest greetings.”
Kneeling by the bed that night in her little white gown and cap, as she pressed her face in the pillow where John’s head had rested for so many years, Granny poured out a humble and a contrite heart. “An’, Lord,” she added, “please tell John an’ the children that I give every one of them things to Mis’ Cottie, an’ I’m startin’ out again with falterin’ steps toward the heavenly home.”
FOOTNOTES:[14]By permission of the author and the “Outlook.”
[14]By permission of the author and the “Outlook.”
[14]By permission of the author and the “Outlook.”