A year's subscription for the Woman's Hearthstone Journal for Maria-Ann.
A small shirt waist ironing-board for Aunt Tryphosa.
1 pair brown woolen gloves and one pair of those fleece-lined beaver gauntlet driving gloves like those of yours, for Chi.
1 blue Kardigan jacket for Chi.
The other things I think I can get at Barton's River.
Your devoted daughter, HAZEL CLYDE.
"Well," said Chi, thoughtfully, as he finished reading them a second time, "I 've got more than one string to my bow this year. Beats all, how Chris'mus limbers up a man's feelin's! Guess 't was meant for all of us children of a lovin' Father." So saying, Chi knelt beside his bed, and, dropping his face in his hands, remained there motionless for a few minutes, while his loving, gentle, manly "soul was on its knees."
XVI
A CHRISTMAS PRELUDE
"It 's goin' to be an awful cold night, grandmarm," said Maria-Ann as she stepped to the door just after sunset on Christmas eve. The old dame followed her and looked out over her shoulder.
"I know 't is; my fingers stuck to the latch when I went out to see after Dorcas. While your gettin' supper, I 'm goin' to bundle up the rooster and the hens, or they 'll freeze their combs, sure's your name's Maria-Ann; looks kinder Chris'musy, don't it?"
"I was just thinkin' of that, grandmarm; just look at that star in the east!" She pointed to a shoulder of the Mountain, where a serene planet was ascending the dark blue heavens. "An' there 's been just enough snow to make all the spruces look like the Sunday School tree, all roped over with pop-corn. Do you remember that last one, grandmarm?"
"I ain't never forgot it, Maria-Ann; that's ten year ago, an' I sha'n't never see another?" She shivered, and drew back out of the keen air.
"Nor I," said Maria-Ann, shutting the door.
"I don't know why not," snapped Aunt Tryphosa, who always contradicted Maria-Ann when she could. "I guess we can have a Chris'mus tree same's other folks; we 've got trees enough."
"That's so," replied Maria-Ann, laughing. "Let's have one to-morrow, grandmarm. I don't see why we can't have a tree just as well as we can have wreaths--see what beauties I 've made! I 've saved the four handsomest for Mis' Blossom an' Mis' Ford."
"You do beat all, Maria-Ann, making wreaths with them greens and bitter-sweet; I wish you 'd hang 'em up to-night; 'twould make the room seem kinder Chris'musy."
"To be sure I will." And Maria-Ann bustled about, hanging the beautiful rounds of green and red in each of the kitchen windows, on the panes of which the frost was already sparkling; then, throwing her shawl over her head, she stepped out into the night and hung one on the outside of the narrow, weather-blackened door. Again within, she set the small, square kitchen table with two plates, two cups and saucers of brown and white crockery, the pewter spoons and horn-handled knives and forks that her grandmother had had when she was first married. Finally, she put on one of the pots of red geranium in the centre and stood back to admire the effect.
"Guess we 'll have a treat to-night, seein' it's night before Chris'mus--fried apples an' pork, an' some toast; an' I 'll cut a cheese to-night, I declare I will, even if grandmarm does scold; she 'll eat it fast enough if I don't say nothin' about it beforehand."
Maria-Ann had formed the habit of thinking aloud, for she had been much alone, and, as she said, "she was a good deal of company for herself."
"Oh, hum!" she sighed, as she cut the pork and sliced the apples, "a cup of tea would be about the right thing this cold night, but there ain't a mite in the house." Then she laughed: "What you talkin' 'bout luxuries for, Maria-Ann Simmons? You be thankful you 've got a livin'. I can make some good cambric-tea, and put a little spearmint in it; that 'll be warmin' as anything." She began to sing in a shrill soprano as she busied herself with the preparations for the supper, while the kettle sang, too, and the pork sizzled in the spider:
"'Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize And sailed through bloody seas?'"
Meanwhile, Aunt Tryphosa, with her lantern in one hand and a bundle of red something in the other, had repaired to the hen-house which was partitioned off from the woodshed.
Had either one of them happened to look out down the Mountain-road just at this time, they would have seen a strange sight.
Along the white roadway, sparkling in the light of the rising moon, came six silent forms in Indian file. Two were harnessed to small loaded sledges. Sometimes, all six gesticulated wildly; at others, the two who brought up the rear of the file silently danced and capered back and forth across the narrow way. They drew near the house on the woodshed side; the first two freed themselves from the sledges, and left them under one of the unlighted windows. Then all six, attracted by the glimmer of the lantern shining from the one small aperture of the hen-house, stole up noiselessly and looked in.
What they saw proved too much for their risibles, and suppressed giggles and snickers and choking laughter nearly betrayed their presence to the old dame within.
On the low roost sat Aunt Tryphosa's noble Plymouth Rock rooster, and beside him, in an orderly row, her ten hens. Every hen had on her head a tiny flannel hood--some were red, some were white--the strings knotted firmly under their bills by Aunt Tryphosa's old fingers trembling with the cold.
She was just blanketing the rooster, who submitted with a meekness which proved undeniably that he was under petticoat government, for all the airs he gave himself with his wives. The funny, little, hooded heads twisting and turning, the "aks" and "oks" which accompanied Aunt Tryphosa in her labor of love, the wild stretching and flapping of wings, all furnished a scene never to be forgotten by the six pairs of laughing eyes that beheld it.
The moment the old dame took up her lantern, the spectators sped around the corner. Under the dark windows they noiselessly unloaded the wood-sleds, and silently carried bundles, baskets, and burlap-bags around to the front door.
At last they had fairly barricaded it, and the tallest of the party, after fastening a piece of paper in the Christmas wreath that Maria-Ann had hung up only a half-hour before, motioned to the others to step up to the kitchen window.
Just one glimpse they had through the thickening frost and the wreathing green: a glimpse of the kitchen table, the steaming apples, the pot of red geranium, the two cups of smoking spearmint tea, and of two heads--the one white, the other brown--bent low over folded, toil-worn hands in the reverent attitude for the evening "grace."
"For what we are now about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful," said Aunt Tryphosa, in a quavering voice.
"Amen," said Maria-Ann, heartily--"Land sakes, grandmarm! how you scairt me, looking up so sudden!" she exclaimed, almost in the same breath.
"Thought I heerd somethin'," said the old dame, holding her head in a listening attitude--"Hark!"
"I don't hear nothin', grandmarm. Now, just eat your apples while they 're hot. What did you think you heard?" she continued, dishing the apples.
"I thought I heerd it when I was out in the shed, too."
"I should n't wonder if 't was a deer. I saw one come into the clearing this afternoon, an' seein' 't was Christmas evening, I put a good bundle of hay out to the south door of the cow-shed."
"Guess 't was that, then," said Aunt Tryphosa. "You clear up, Maria-Ann, an' I 'll keep up a good fire, for I want to finish off them stockings for Ben Blossom an' Chi. I s'pose you 've got your things ready in case we see a team go by to-morrow?"
"Yes, they 're all ready," said her granddaughter, rather absently, and set about washing the few dishes.
When all was done, neatly and quickly as Maria-Ann so well knew how, she flung on her shawl, saying:
"I 'm goin' out a minute to see if the bundle of hay is gone, and besides, I want to look at the moon on the snow; it's the first time I 've seen it so this year." She opened the door--
"Oh, Luddy!" she screamed, as bundle, and basket, and bag toppled over into the room.
"Land sakes alive!" quavered Aunt Tryphosa, hurrying to the rescue.
"Did n't I tell you I heerd somethin'? What be they?"
"Presents!" cried Maria-Ann, pulling, and hauling, and gathering up, and finally getting the door shut.
"Seems to me I see somethin' white catched onto the door 'fore you shut it," said Aunt Tryphosa. "Better look an' see." Again her granddaughter opened the door, and found the strip of paper on which was written;
"Merry Christmas! with best wishes of Benjamin and Mary Blossom and May, Malachi Graham and Rose Eleanor Blossom, March Blossom and Hazel Clyde, Benjamin Budd Blossom and Cherry Elizabeth Blossom of the N.B.B.O.O., and of John Curtis Clyde of New York; U.S.A.; N.A.; W.H."