I
Those who like a “white Christmas” should see one out on the Western plains, where old Mother Earth lies down for her winter sleep under a coverlet so white that from horizon to horizon there is hardly enough gray to outline her form. The winds play tricks with her in scandalous style out there, making roundness where no roundness is and doing their best to lay bare her very bones. “These winds don’t care a cuss fer clothes,” said Job Tolaver, the stagedriver, once; and John Haloran on his hard missionary rides had thought of it a thousand times since. He was saying it to himself numbly now as with stiffening fingers and head lowered against the gale he drove along the faint track of a road.
His wife threw open the door as he drove up, and a stream of light fell athwart the wagon. There was a barrel in the back.
“Dead, John?—or only half?” Her eager eyes searched his face. She knew the whole pitiful story without a word. The draft had not come. Then, because she knew, she went on gayly, “Or have you gone to peddling? What’s in your barrel?”
house“‘DEAD, JOHN?—OR ONLY HALF?’”
“‘DEAD, JOHN?—OR ONLY HALF?’”
“‘DEAD, JOHN?—OR ONLY HALF?’”
“I don’t know yet,” he said heavily,twisting it into the room. “We’ll see when I’ve fed Daisy.”
When he was gone she eyed the barrel curiously, tilting it and reading aloud:
“It’s not potatoes. It isn’t heavy enough for that.” Then she struck an attitude with clasped hands. “I never saw one before—never! But my prophetic soul tells me this is a missionary barrel. And just two days before Christmas! Well, in the language of my first-born, ‘Hooray!’”
When the minister came in there was a comfortable old coat warmedand waiting for him, and a smoking supper set out on a little table drawn up before the stove.
“Sit down, John. I am going to let you eat here in peace away from the children.” He glanced up questioningly as a roar came from the kitchen, with snarls and growls in various keys. “It’s all right. They are wild animals in a cage and I am the keeper. They are having no end of fun. You had a cold drive.”
“Bitter.”
“You need an ulster with a storm collar.” She glanced involuntarily at the barrel. “Aren’t these potatoes good, John? So mealy one hardly needs butter. Lucky thing, too! You didn’t know I skimped the family outof a pound of butter, did you? Yes, sir, it went into the candy money.” She meant it as a pleasantry, but somehow it failed, and she hurried on. “I wish there were more of the potatoes. Those boys do eat so! But never mind! After Christmas the hens will begin. Funny how hens can tell the time of the year, isn’t it?” She chattered on about anything and everything except the draft.
“This certainly is comfort,” he said at last, relaxing under the genial influence of food and warmth and companionship. “That’s a cold stretch coming out from town.”
“Didn’t you stop anywhere?”
“Yes. At Joe Henderson’s. Mary—his wife died!”
“John!”
“Yes. Died last night. I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life. They think the baby will live; and the poor fellow doesn’t know what to do with it nor where to turn.”
“Oh, John! If only our cow weren’t going dry I would——”
“You shouldn’t do it, anyway,” he said savagely. “You have enough care now for three women!—Mary, the draft didn’t come.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But, John, we’ll get along some way. It can’t last forever. The draft may come next week. And I was joking about the potatoes. We’ve a lot left.”
“It isn’t just the money,” he said, shaking his head despondently; “it’sthe feeling of aloneness in the work. If I felt that the church back of us was doing all it could, it would not be so hard—this ‘hope deferred that maketh the heart sick.’ But sometimes I think—they don’t care.”
“They do, John—they do! Don’t allow yourself to think that. Why, look at this barrel! I know this is from some missionary society, and would any church send us this unless they knew about our work and were thinking of us? Why, of course not! Tell me about the barrel.”
“Well, I went to the post-office the first thing to get the draft. I found instead a letter from this First Church, saying they had sent us a barrel. I went over to the freight office andthere it was. I didn’t have enough—”
“How providential that it came before Christmas!” she interrupted. “I’m crazy to see what’s in it! Aren’t you?”
He did not answer the question directly, being far from feeling her jubilance about it. “We’ll open it after a while,” he said evasively. In his heart he was protesting, “No! I don’t want their barrel! I want my money!”
“But not until the children are off. There will be Christmas things in it that they mustn’t see.... You got the candy, John? But of course you did.”
Her question was unanswered, but she did not notice it.
“Now I really think the animals will have to come in,” she said gayly. “You can be trainer for an hour while this keeper clears up the dishes.”
And with a whoop they were upon him—lion, tiger, kangaroo, and baby bear.
When the children were asleep they brought out the barrel—“our charity box,” the minister called it, half bitterly.
“I can’t help it, John. It may show an impoverished state of the blood—or of the spirit, I don’t know which—but when I think of all the things these children need I am glad of this box. Iam—‘charity’ though you call it! I am almost sorry youspent the money for candy, for of course there will be a lot of it in here. Well, they will have enough for once in their lives! And they are so starved for candy.”
Again he started to speak, but she swept on in full tide of happy talk:
“Before we open it I want to show you the things I already have for them. Of course they will be poor by comparison, so I’ll exhibit them first. This overcoat is Paul’s, made out of that old, old one of yours with the plaid flannel lining. I turned the fuzzy side out. He thinks it’s fine. And with a new one for Paul every overcoat in the line drops a peg and lands on the next younger—so everybody has a change! Then, from thepieces of plaid flannel left I made three good mufflers to tie over their little headies when they scud across the prairies to school.... And here are three pairs of mittens cut from the scraps of the coat. I am so proud of myself over those mittens! I had enough yarn to knit Davie’s, but——”
“There isn’t one woman in a hundred that could have managed so well.”
She snuggled up to him. “That pays me—if I needed pay, which I don’t. It was a work of love and—well, maybe a little necessity. You told me once that I had a genius for poverty.”
“And God knows it has had no chance to lie dormant,” he said bitterly.
“I don’t want it to lie dormant. I want every power I possess brought out to the utmost. I truly have enjoyed concocting these things out of nothing. There’s nothing that makes a woman feel so virtuous, unless it is getting off a lot of neglected letters.... Oh, yes, here are their handkerchiefs—lovely ones made from an old petticoat! But it will make one thing more for the stockings. Isn’t it glorious that no matter how much or how little children have at Christmas, they enjoy it just the same? That is, if they have candy. That is the one indispensable.... And here are the scrapbooks. I’ve been saving pictures all year; the blank pages are for ‘our special artist’—that’s you. I wish Ihad some colored crayons. Oh, they would love colored crayons! And just think!—only ten cents!”
She was sorry the moment she said it, for a shadow fell upon his face.
“But never mind, John,” she said quickly. “Life isn’t made up of pinks and greens, and neither is happiness. You can have a whole lot of happiness in this world in gray—if you only know how; and I’m going to teach these children the secret. Now look at my eatables. It is great fun to make a cookie menagerie with one cutter, and that a rabbit. You see, I stick on a trunk, pull down his ears, round him up a bit, and behold an elephant! Then when I want a camel I give Br’er Rabbit two humps, stretchout his jaws, give him a jab almost anywhere—and there’s your camel! And look at my dachshund. I laughed till I cried over that. Poor Davie wassodistressed when I stretched him out.
“And here’s a nice red apple for each one. Poor Mary Henderson gave them to me the last time I was over there and I’ve been saving them ever since. They are a little specked, but I think they will hold out. I did want the oranges, but ... no, of course you couldn’t when the draft didn’t come. Anyway, with the candy they won’t miss other things. I have the bags all ready—red tarlatan from a peach basket—see?
“There’s just one thing I can’t get around. I do want something to givethe house a Christmas look. I miss that. And there’s not a thing here but sagebrush. At home, in Maryland, we had such quantities of holly; and we always made wreaths for the windows and had mistletoe for the chandeliers, and a roaring fire in the open fireplace, and—I can see those parlors now. Those are the memories that cling to us always, I think. I am so sorry that our children can never have them. I hate to think of their lives being utterly devoid of beauty. The East has more than its share.”
She was talking more to herself than to him, being momentarily carried off her feet, so to speak, by the flood of recollection sweeping over herof the old home with its mighty oaks, its giant elms, and the hills beyond where Christmas trees could be had for the cutting. The sight of his face brought her back to the present.
“But fortunately Christmas is not dependent upon holly and mistletoe,” she said brightly. “They are only the ‘outward, visible sign.’ We will garnish our home with love and good cheer and contentment. After all, they are the ‘inward, spiritual grace.’”
She threw up her head with a gesture habitual to her as if defying fate and its limitations, and his eyes followed her as she moved about the room putting things to rights. What a glorious creature she was!—accepting poverty and bareness as her portionand yet rising above them regally; throwing herself into his work, her own round of toil, her children’s pleasures, the neighborhood sorrows—all with the same exuberance of interest and prodigality of self! What would he have been in his work without her, his “missionary coadjutor,” as he called her? She was so overflowing with vitality, so undaunted, so alive! A thrill passed through him at the wordalive.... Poor Joe Henderson! Suppose—He covered his eyes and his lips moved.
She was on her knees beside him in an instant.
“John, what is it? What are you saying?”
He took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. “I was saying:‘Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all His benefits.’”
“I knew you would come to it, John. Now let’s open the barrel.”
The first thing to come out was a woman’s hat-box—a generous one. For years Mary Haloran had worn a small brown felt, trimmed modestly (as became a missionary’s wife) with two quills and a knot of velvet. The quills were placed at varying angles from year to year, and the velvet was steamed annually. When it got past that it was placed under the family iron and “mirrored.” It always looked respectable, but when Mrs. Haloran saw that spacious box, a swift vision of a black velvet hat with blackplumes and a jet buckle—all new at the same time—rose before her.
“I am glad the first thing is for you,” John Haloran said. “You deserve it.”
They laughed at her efforts to untie it; her fingers were clumsy in her excitement. But it was open at last. She held up to view an old white Leghorn covered with faded flowers. For one moment neither of them spoke. Then her sense of humor came to the rescue and she burst into hysterical laughter.
Putting on the hat she bowed low. “The Reverend Mrs. Haloran, missionary coadjutor! Well, let’s see if we can’t find something to go with it!”
She found it. And again her ringing laughter pealed out while the minister stood by, the embodiment of outraged dignity. To him there was nothing amusing in this sight. Somebody has said that “for taking us over a trying place a sense of humor is better than the grace of God.” Humor was but rudimentary in John Haloran at best, and to-day it was absolutely lacking.
“It is an outrage!” he said.
“Itisan outrage, John. I grant it. But it’s funny!”
It is not our purpose to give here the contents of that barrel. It is sufficient to say that after the first few garments hope died.
gift“AN OLD WHITE LEGHORN COVERED WITH FADED FLOWERS.”
“AN OLD WHITE LEGHORN COVERED WITH FADED FLOWERS.”
“AN OLD WHITE LEGHORN COVERED WITH FADED FLOWERS.”
“That is all,” said Mrs. Haloran atlast. “No, here is a dear little suit, just right for Davie. And, John, read this note: ‘It was my little boy’s that is gone.’” Her overwrought nerves gave way then. “Oh, John,” she cried, her head on his breast, his arms around her, “we have Davie, anyway, if we haven’t the clothes for him. Poor, poor mother!”
A moment later she was putting the garments back.
“It is a disappointment,” she said, “but we certainly will not let it spoil our Christmas. We are no worse off, at any rate, than we were before. The things I have will insure the children’s good time. The candy alone would do that.... John, get me the candy! I’m going to fill the bags now—totake away the bad taste of this barrel.”
The moment which John Haloran had been dreading was upon him.
“Mary, I didn’t get the candy.”
“Didn’t get it?” she echoed blankly.
“No. I used the money to finish paying freight on this barrel.”
“John Haloran! Youdidn’t!”
“There was no other way. I hadn’t enough without.”
“The children’s candy money!” she said slowly. “Money that I have been hoarding up, five cents at a time, for months!... Why, John, Davie has been praying for candy!”
“What could I do, Mary? They wouldn’t let me have it at the freight office without the money. I barelyhad enough as it was. And I supposed, of course, there would be things in it for the children—never dreamed of anything else.”
“For fifty cents,” she said as if to herself, not heeding him, “they could have got enough candy to satisfy these children—and they didn’t do it! And for one dollar they could have given them a Christmas that they would never have forgotten. Theycould! One dollar at the ten-cent store would have got them a book and a toy apiece, and two pounds of ten cent candy. And our children would have thought that was a glorious Christmas—poor little tads!”
She had been speaking slowly and in a low voice. Now she said withsudden anger: “I know the kind of women that sent these things. They are the kind that go up and down fashionable city streets saying to every acquaintance they meet: ‘Do tell me what to get for my boy! He has everything in the world you can think of now!’... And I would be satisfied with one dollar for my four! Then after Christmas they groan: ‘WhatshallI do with all these things?’... And I would be glad to pick up after mine all Christmas week if they only had something to throw around! There’s nothing right nor fair about it! Now!”
This mood was so new to her that her husband was speechless before it.
“Well! this barrel is going back tothem—to-morrow. To think of their expecting us to pay freight on the wretched thing!”
“Mary! You wouldn’t do that!”
“I would—and shall! I’m going to give these people one lesson in giving that they won’t forget! A Christmas box for a lot of children out on the plains and no candy in it! And Davie praying for candy!... Well! he’s going to have it. I’ll take this barrel back to town to-morrow myself; and when I come back I shall have the candy.”
“Wife, you know I would be only too glad to give you the money if I had it. But I have only two cents left in my pocket until the draft comes!... Are you going to ask credit?”Asking credit was the one humiliation they had spared themselves.
“No. I am going to pay money for it—good money—but I am going to have it!”
In all their life together he had never seen her like this. He watched her with fascinated eyes. Going to the mantel, she took down a box with a slit in the top. It was their missionary bank and was held as sacred from profaning touch as the ark of the Lord. She was tearing it open.
“Mary!” he cried, aghast. “Not the missionary money! You wouldn’t take that! ‘Will a man rob God?’”
“I’d rob anybody!” she said, turning upon him like a lioness defending her young. “I’m going to have aChristmas for my children with candy in it if the heathen go—to perdition!”
He saw then that she was past talking to.