Fairy Prince and Other Stories.
by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott.
FAIRY PRINCE
In my father"s house were many fancies. Always, for instance, on every Thanksgiving Day it was the custom in our family to _bud_ the Christmas tree.
Young Derry Willard came from Cuba. His father and our father had been chums together at college. None of us had ever seen him before. We were very much excited to have a strange young man invited for Thanksgiving dinner. My sister Rosalee was seventeen. My brother Carol was eleven. I myself was only nine, but with very tall legs.
Young Derry Willard was certainly excited when he saw the Christmas tree. Excited enough, I mean, to shift his eyes for at least three minutes from my sister Rosalee"s face. Lovely as my sister Rosalee was, it had never yet occurred to any of us, I think, until just that moment that she was old enough to have perfectly strange young men stare at her so hard. It made my father rather nervous. He cut his hand on the carving-knife. Nothing ever made my mother nervous.
Except for father cutting his hand it seemed to be a very nourishing dinner. The tomato soup was pink with cream. The roast turkey didn"t look a single sad bit like any one you"d seen before. There was plenty of hard-boiled egg with the spinach. The baked potatoes were frosted with red pepper. There was mince pie. There was apple pie. There was pumpkin pie. There were nuts and raisins. There were gay gold-paper bonbons. And everywhere all through the house the funny blunt smell of black coffee.
It was my brother Carol"s duty always to bring in the Christmas tree. By some strange mix-up of what is and what isn"t my brother Carol was dumb--stark dumb, I mean, and from birth. But tho he had never found his voice he had at least never lost his shining face. Even now at eleven in the twilightly end of a rainy Sunday, or most any day when he had an earache, he still let mother call him "Shining Face." But if any children called him "Shining Face" he kicked them. Even when he kicked people, tho, he couldn"t stop his face shining. It was very cheerful.
Everything about Carol was very cheerful. No matter, indeed, how much we might play and whisper about gifts and tinsels and jolly-colored candles, Christmas never, I think, seemed really _probable_ to any of us until that one jumpy moment, just at the end of the Thanksgiving dinner, when, heralded by a slam in the wood-shed, a hoppytyskip in the hall, the dining-room door flung widely open on Carol"s eyes twinkling like a whole skyful of stars through the s.h.a.ggy, dark branches of a young spruce-tree. It made young Derry Willard laugh right out loud.
"Why, of all funny things!" he said. "On Thanksgiving Day! Why, it looks like a Christmas tree!"
"It is a Christmas tree," explained my sister Rosalee very patiently. My sister Rosalee was almost always very patient. But I had never seen her patient with a young man before. It made her cheeks very pink. "It _is_ a Christmas tree," she explained. "That is, it"s going to be a Christmas tree! Just the very first second we get it "budded" it"ll start right in to be a Christmas tree!"
"_Budded?_" puzzled young Derry Willard. Really for a person who looked so much like the picture of the Fairy Prince in my best story-book, he seemed just a little bit slow.
"Why, of course, it"s got to be _budded_!" I cried. "That"s what it"s for! That"s----"
Instead of just being pink patient my sister Rosalee started in suddenly to be dimply patient too.
"It"s from mother"s Christmas-tree garden, you know," she went right on explaining. "Mother"s got a Winter garden--a Christmas-tree garden!"
"Father"s got a garden, too!" I maintained stoutly. "Father"s is a Spring garden! Reds, blues, yellows, greens, whites! From France! And Holland! And California! And Asia Minor! Tulips, you know. _Buster"s!_ Oh, father"s garden is a _glory_!" I boasted.
"And mother"s garden," said my mother very softly, "is only a story."
"It"s an awfully nice story," said Rosalee.
Young Derry Willard seemed to like stories.
"Tell it!" he begged.
It was Rosalee who told it. "Why, it was when Carol was born," she said.
"It was on a Christmas eve, you know. That"s why mother named him Carol!"
"We didn"t know then, you see"--interrupted my mother very softly--"that Carol had been given the gift of silence rather than the gift of speech."
"And father was so happy to have a boy," dimpled Rosalee, "that he said to mother, "Well, now, I guess you"ve got everything in the world that you want!" And mother said, "Everything--except a spruce forest!" So father bought her a spruce forest," said Rosalee. "That"s the story!"
"Oh, my dear!" laughed my mother. "That isn"t a "story" at all! All you"ve told is the facts! It"s the _feeling_ of the facts that makes a story, you know! It was on my birthday," glowed mother, "that the presentation was to be made! My birthday was in March! I was very much excited and came down to breakfast with my hat and coat on! "Where are you going?" said my husband."
"Oh--Mother!" protested Rosalee. ""Whither away?" was what you"ve always told us he said!"
""Whither away?" of course _was_ what he said!" laughed my mother.
""Why, I"m going to find my spruce forest!" I told him. "And I can"t wait a moment longer! Is it the big one over beyond the mountain?" I implored him. "Or the little grove that the deacon tried to sell you last year?""
"And they never budged an inch from the house!" interrupted Rosalee. "It was the funniest----"
Over in the corner of the room my father laughed out suddenly. My father had left the table. He and Carol were trying very hard to make the spruce-tree stand upright in a huge pot of wet earth. The spruce-tree didn"t want to stand upright. My father laughed all over again. But it wasn"t at the spruce-tree. "Well, now, wouldn"t it have been a pity," he said, "to have made a perfectly good lady fare forth on a cold March morning to find her own birthday present?"
My mother began to clap her hands. It was a very little noise. But jolly.
"It came by mail!" she cried. "My whole spruce forest! In a package no bigger than my head!"
"Than your rather fluffy head!" corrected my father.
"Three hundred spruce seedlings!" cried my mother. "Each one no bigger than a wisp of gra.s.s! Like little green ferns they were! So tender! So fluffing! So helpless!"
"Heigh-O!" said young Derry Willard. "Well, I guess you laughed--then!"
When grown-up people are trying to remember things outside themselves I"ve noticed they always open their eyes very wide. But when they are remembering things inside themselves they shut their eyes very tight. My mother shut her eyes very tight.
"No--I didn"t exactly laugh," said my mother. "And I didn"t exactly cry."
"You wouldn"t eat!" cried Rosalee. "Not all day, I mean! Father had to feed you with a spoon! It was in the wing-chair! You held the box on your knees! You just shone--and shone--and _shone_!"
"It would have been pretty hard," said my mother, "not to have shone a--little! To brood a baby forest in one"s arms--if only for a single day--? Think of the experience!" Even at the very thought of it she began to _shine_ all over again! "Funny little fluff o" green," she laughed, "no fatter than a fern!" Her voice went suddenly all wabbly like a preacher"s. "But, oh, the glory of it!" she said. "The potential majesty! Great sweeping branches--! Nests for birds, shade for lovers, masts for ships to plow the great world"s waters--timbers perhaps for cathedrals! O--h," shivered my mother. "It certainly gave one a very queer feeling! No woman surely in the whole wide world--except the Mother of the Little Christ--ever felt so astonished to think what she had in her lap!"
Young Derry Willard looked just a little bit nervous.
"Oh, but of course mother couldn"t begin all at once to raise cathedrals!" I hastened to explain. "So she started in raising Christmas presents instead. We raise all our own Christmas presents! And just as soon as Rosalee and I are married we"re going to begin right away to raise our children"s Christmas presents too! Heaps for everybody, even if there is a hundred! Carol, of course, won"t marry because he can"t propose! Ladies don"t like written proposals, father says! Ladies----"
Young Derry Willard asked if he might smoke. He smoked cigarets. He took them from a gold-looking case. They smelled very romantic. Everything about him smelled very romantic. His hair was black. His eyes were black. He looked as tho he could cut your throat without flinching if you were faithless to him. It was beautiful.
I left the table as soon as I could. I went and got my best story-book.
I was perfectly right. He looked _exactly_ like the picture of the Fairy Prince on the front page of the book. There were heaps of other pictures, of course. But only one picture of a Fairy Prince. I looked in the gla.s.s. I looked just exactly the way I did before dinner. It made me feel queer. Rosalee didn"t look at all the way she looked before dinner.
It made me feel _very_ queer.
When I got back to the dining-room everybody was looking at the little spruce-tree--except young Derry Willard and Rosalee. Young Derry Willard was still looking at Rosalee. Rosalee was looking at the toes of her slippers. The fringe of her eyelashes seemed to be an inch long. Her cheeks were so pink I thought she had a fever. No one else came to _bud_ the Christmas tree except Carol"s tame c.o.o.n and the tame crow. Carol is very unselfish. He always _buds_ one wish for the c.o.o.n. And one for the crow. The tame c.o.o.n looked rather jolly and gold-powdered in the firelight. The crow never looked jolly. I have heard of white crows. But Carol"s crow was a very dark black. Wherever you put him he looked like a sorrow. He sat on the arm of Rosalee"s chair and nibbed at her pink sleeve. Young Derry Willard pushed him away. Young Derry Willard and Rosalee tried to whisper. I heard them.
"How old are you?" whispered Rosalee.
"I"m twenty-two," whispered young Derry Willard.
"O--h," said Rosalee.
"How young are you?" whispered Derry Willard.
"I"m seventeen," whispered Rosalee.
"O--h," said Derry Willard.