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."