THE DAY OF DAYS[15]
Elsie Singmaster
Upon three hundred and sixty-five days in the year Miss Mary Britton gave; upon one day Miss Mary received. That day was the day before Christmas.
Miss Mary did not receive, however, from the same persons to whom she gave. Miss Mary gave to all the village, a lift here in sickness, a little present of money there in case of need. To Sally Young went a new bonnet, to old Carrie Burrage a warm shawl, to the preacher and his large family unnumbered articles. Miss Mary took old Carrie Burrage, tiresome, ungrateful, self-centered, into her house for a month; she took the Arundel baby for three.
None of these persons remembered Miss Mary at Christmas. The village was poor; it considered Miss Mary rich; it expected her to be generous. Miss Mary’s present came from far away New York; it was the most treasured gift received in the state of Ohio. Years ago, when the Britton fortune was large, when kinsfolk were numerous, when the broad doors of this Britton house stood open to relatives removedto the fourth degree, a young cousin had spent a happy summer under its roof. He had been ill; here, in the country, ministered to with unfailing kindness, he had fully recovered.
Since then, he had never failed to remember his hosts at Christmas time. He had never come again; he grew to be a famous man with whom it was an honor to be connected, but he was never too busy to remember the tastes of his cousins. Miss Mary’s father had had his magazine, her mother a bit of lace, Miss Mary’s brother a riding whip, Miss Mary herself a book. After the father died, two gifts came to Miss Mary’s mother; when all had gone but the lonely daughter, her gift was quadrupled. Of late years, the gift had increased—instead of four books, Miss Mary received twenty.
“You have now more time for reading,” wrote the cousin. “If my taste in books does not please you, you must tell me. It will be just as easy to send you what you like as what I like.”
Miss Mary had no quarrel with her cousin’s taste. If he had sent her a Greek dictionary, she would have treasured it. But he sent her the books she loved, novels, essays, poetry. With them came always a letter with reminders of that happy summer, and expressions of affection.
The box came usually on the last train on Christmas Eve. It was sometimes earlier, but it had never yet been late. Miss Mary always opened the box herself, with many failures of hammer and screwdriver to do proper execution, with excited examinationof bindings, to see that no harm had come to them on their long journey, with pauses and exclamations while titles and frontispieces were examined. Miss Mary had this year a new bookcase for which she had been a long time saving the extra pennies that remained after baker’s and butcher’s bills were paid and the repairs made on the homestead and the outfit for the Arundel baby purchased. The bookcase was already half filled with the overflow from Miss Mary’s other bookcases.
Miss Mary woke on the morning of the day before Christmas with flushed cheeks and an accelerated pulse. This condition was no warning of approaching illness, it indicated only Miss Mary’s usual condition of excitement on this day. For three months past, the Arundel baby in the next room had wakened her drowsy hostess at the crack of dawn, but this morning Miss Mary was dressed before the Arundel baby had opened her brown eyes. Miss Mary’s excitement, however, was not entirely that of joyful anticipation; it was partly alarm. Each year, she prepared herself for disappointment, for the coming of the evening train without any precious freight for her. The cousin was old, ten years older than Miss Mary; he could not live to send her gifts on every Christmas, and when he died, when his box failed to come, she would be alone in the world, without kin, without interests beyond the sleepy village, with nothing to look forward to all her life long.
“I must be prepared for it,” Miss Mary often said to herself.
But she never succeeded in preparing herself. When she woke, she sprang from bed as she used to spring in her childhood.
“I am like the children who call out ‘Christmas gift’ and pound at the door,” said Miss Mary, amused at herself.
It was about nine o’clock when the Arundel baby’s aunt came for her. She was to have come at eight; she was, indeed, to have come yesterday and last week, and, indeed, last month. But the Arundel baby belonged to a weak and shiftless family.
She was much inconvenienced by the delay of the baby’s aunt. To the day before Christmas Miss Mary postponed various duties, her intention being to keep the hours as full as possible so that the time might not drag until the evening train.
The house was yet to be put in order, the wreaths must be hung in the windows, sundry baskets must be packed for distribution in the morning and sundry presents be wrapped for the butcher’s boy and the baker’s man and for James Vanderslice, the expressman. To the baker’s man Miss Mary gave a tie, to the butcher’s boy a pair of suspenders, alternating the gifts with the years, but to James Vanderslice, eagerly watched for at twilight, she gave both, and a little present of money besides.
The Arundel baby’s aunt not only came an hour late, but she stayed for an hour talking about nothing.
The aunt began presently to gossip, and Miss Mary moved uneasily in her chair. She did not like gossip or persons who repeated it. Fortunately, the baker’shorn interrupted with its loud demand, and Miss Mary asked to be excused. When she returned, she brought with her the baby’s hat and coat. Miss Mary was able to dismiss unpleasant persons without their being aware of it. She wrapped the baby up herself and tucked her into the carriage she had bought and kissed her good-by.
“She has been a good girl,” she said. “You must bring her to see me every week. When she is a little older, I will begin to teach her to read and afterwards to sew patchwork. That is the way I was brought up.”
Miss Mary remained standing, and the baby’s aunt had perforce to remain standing too.
“A child is a great care,” said she, as she raised the corner of her apron to her pale eyes.
“Not if she’s managed with system,” answered Miss Mary in her curt way. “This baby’s been very little care to me; she need be very little to you if you’re systematic.”
“I’m sure I’ll try,” said the baby’s aunt, as she wiped away more tears.
Then the baby carriage was trundled down the street. Miss Mary suffered a slight pang as she saw how cheerfully the baby went, how willing she was to associate with unattractive incompetence, and a sharper pang as she beheld the bump with which the coach took the first crossing; then she went indoors. This was her day, the happiest day of all the year; she could think no more of the Arundel baby.
Miss Mary went first of all to put the baby’s roomin order. She took down the white crib and carried the pieces, one by one, into the attic. Except the bed, nothing belonging to the baby remained, since all had been sent earlier in the day to the house of the aunt. Then, with capable strokes of her strong arms, she swept the room. She had not been brought up to work of this kind, but when change of fortune made it necessary she was quick to teach herself. This morning the swift moving back and forth of the broom gave her pleasure.
When the baby’s room was finished, Miss Mary went to look at the clock. She was surprised to see that it was only half past ten. She was conscious of a jumping feeling in her heart, and she looked out the window as if to ease it. She saw nothing but the familiar houses with their familiar dooryards. It was Miss Mary’s custom to look often out the window on the day before Christmas.
Now, sternly, as usual she began to prepare herself for disappointment.
“Nothing is more probable than that it will not come,” said Miss Mary.
At eleven o’clock, having wrapped her packages and packed her baskets, she looked at the clock again, expecting the hand to stand at twelve. Thereupon she determined that she would look no more. Her simple lunch was usually eaten at one; she decided to have it earlier, in order to have a long afternoon for what she wished to do. In her heart of hearts she knew that the chief of her occupations would be waiting.
Miss Mary washed her dishes slowly, then shebrushed up the kitchen, which needed no brushing. She wished now that she was only beginning her lunch instead of finishing it.
Again Miss Mary went to the window and looked out. The street was still empty, and at sight of it Miss Mary shivered.
“I must not expect anything,” she said sternly.
By half past one she had tied up those of her Christmas packages which remained and had hung the holly wreaths in the front windows. Then she cried out “O dear!” and went to the door. She had not been mistaken: drops of water were falling, the sky was thickly overclouded, the wind was east. Already it sighed mournfully round the corner of the house.
“A rainy Christmas Eve!” cried Miss Mary tragically. “A rainy Christmas Day!”
At two o’clock, she began to give her sitting-room an unnecessary dusting; at half past, she sat down at the window with some sewing; at three, she went to the door again, as if pulled by a rope. When she saw the expressman coming down the street, she clutched the side of the door. But the expressman stopped at the corner house and then turned the head of his old white horse back toward the station.
At half past three, Miss Mary took up some crocheting. The Arundel baby would need new petticoats in the spring, and Miss Mary realized that new petticoats, and the lace for them, if any were had, would have to come from her. But the thread clung to her fingers, the needle slipped from her hand.
“It’s the rheumatism,” she said to herself, grimly. “Old age is here.”
At four o’clock Miss Mary took a book, and in three minutes laid it down. It was one of Cousin John’s books.
“I am a goose,” she announced aloud to her quiet house. “I could even buy a few books for myself and make shift to subscribe to a few magazines if the box does not come. But,”—here Miss Mary covered her face with her hands—“it will mean that I am alone in the world!”
At half past four Miss Mary began to prepare supper, though she usually ate at six. She no longer made excuses to herself; she did not pretend that she was having supper early so as to make the evening long; she sought only to fill the next minute and the next; she was reckless about the later hours.
The evening train came in at six. It was only a country way train with a short run, and it was on time, even on Christmas Eve. With a great jump of her heart, Miss Mary heard its familiar whistle. Allowing for all James Vanderslice’s slowness, he should reach her house in fifteen minutes. It was probable that hers would be the only package he would have to deliver.
Moving with a slow step, she descended to the cellar and put coal on the furnace fire. Temptingly, mockingly, the hammer and screwdriver seemed to thrust themselves to the top of the tool box on the table which she had to pass. Miss Mary did not touch them. She played the part of expecting nothing.
When Miss Mary came up from the cellar, the hands of the clock pointed to twenty minutes after six. She grew red, then pale. Then she opened the door and stood with the rain beating against her. The street was dark and quiet.
“Hemustcome,” whispered Miss Mary.
But the expressman did not come. When Miss Mary went indoors, it was half past six. Until seven she walked up and down her sitting-room. Then her lips tightened.
“I am going to bed,” she said aloud.
Miss Mary fixed her fires for the night; she set out the milk pail on the shelf on the back porch; she wound the clock and took her lamp and climbed the stairway and undressed and lay down in her bed. Then, metaphorically and actually, she turned her face to the wall.
But at eight o’clock she was still awake. At half past eight she sprang from bed, thinking she heard a rap at the door; at nine she lighted her lamp and looked at the clock. All within and without the house was as silent as midnight. Then poor Miss Mary yielded herself to despair.
“I do not know what is the matter with me. This had to happen sometime! But I am utterly desolate and forlorn. Christmas is a dreadful time when you grow old. But I have been trying to prepare myself for years! I do not know what is the matter with me.”
The ticking of the clock seemed to fill the quiet house. Miss Mary grew more and more nervous. Again she sprang from bed.
“If I have some exercise, perhaps I shall sleep!”
But exercise did not bring sleep. Miss Mary went into her father’s room and her brother’s room, and into her mother’s room, which had lately been the Arundel baby’s, and tears ran down her cheeks. It was not a journey from which she need have expected much repose of spirit.
“If they could only come back!” she cried. “If things could only be as they used to be on Christmas! If I were only not alone in the world!”
Then Miss Mary did an extraordinary thing. She was standing in her mother’s room, where the Arundel baby’s bed had stood. In this room her childish difficulties had been adjusted, her childish troubles soothed. She lifted her head as if she heard a voice speaking to her, and then she laughed almost hysterically.
“Iwillhave a merry Christmas,” she cried suddenly.
At once, hurrying back to her bedroom, she began to dress feverishly, hastily, with fingers that trembled over hooks and buttons. Still she talked to herself. She seemed to be saying over and over that she would get herself a Christmas gift. When she was dressed, she hurried down the steps at perilous speed and went into the cellar and put the draught on the furnace. Apparently grief had crazed her.
Still Miss Mary’s strange course was not at an end. She put on her shawl and bonnet and opened the door and went out, forgetting to turn the key, and hurried down the street in the rain without anumbrella. Following straight the course that the Arundel baby’s aunt had taken, she knocked at a mean little door. Within was a light and the sound of voices. In answer to a loud “Come in!” Miss Mary opened the door and entered.
The Arundel baby’s aunt, however lugubrious and tearful she might be in the presence of Miss Mary, had other moments when she allowed herself to be merry and comfortable. She was now surrounded by her friends,—Miss Mary recognized each one of the doubtful guests,—refreshments were being passed, hilarity was at its height. The Arundel baby—Miss Mary saw her at the same instant that she beheld the hands of the clock pointing to midnight—lay asleep in her carriage in the corner. She had not been undressed; her cheeks were flushed as if a slight fever might have added a stain of red to cheeks already red from crying.
Miss Mary said not a word in reproof; she lifted the baby from the carriage and took her under her shawl and bade the baby’s aunt come to see her on the morrow and stalked out. Neither the baby’s aunt nor her guests made reply. They all had been at some time Miss Mary’s pensioners; it was more than probable that they would need her help again.
Miss Mary walked with rapid steps back to her house. The clouds had parted, the dashes of rain were fitful, the wind had veered to the north; but she was not aware of the change. In the dark corner of her porch stood a wooden box, and pinned to it was a scrap of paper on which James Vanderslice explainedthat he would tell her tomorrow why he had been so late in delivering her parcel. Miss Mary saw neither box nor paper; she would not see them until morning.
In the kitchen the fire was glowing, and Miss Mary sat down before it, bonneted and shawled, with the Arundel baby in her arms. She was trembling, her breath came in gasps. Presently she opened the shawl and looked down. The Arundel baby was still sleeping, with her mouth pursed up in her funny fashion, and her damp hair curled tightly over her head. Miss Mary regarded her solemnly, even with awe, as if she beheld some unaccountable object. Then she heaved a long and happy sigh, and her tears began to fall. She remembered that Christmas Day had come; she thought with tender heart of that other Baby, whom she had for a little while forgotten; she prayed that He would help her make the Arundel baby a good girl.
“I shall have something to think of! I shall have some one that is mine! This,” said good Miss Mary with trembling lips, “this was what was the matter with me!”
FOOTNOTES:[15]By permission of the author and the “Youth’s Companion.” This story was printed in the “Youth’s Companion,” December 23, 1926.
[15]By permission of the author and the “Youth’s Companion.” This story was printed in the “Youth’s Companion,” December 23, 1926.
[15]By permission of the author and the “Youth’s Companion.” This story was printed in the “Youth’s Companion,” December 23, 1926.