Or no, that"s a slight slip; it wasn"t exactly Xmas, it was Xmas Eve, Xmas Eve with its mantle of white snow lying beneath the calm moonlight-and, in fact, with practically the above list of accompanying circ.u.mstances with a few obvious emendations.
Yes, it was Xmas Eve.
And more than that!
Listen to where it was Xmas.
It was Xmas Eve on the Old Homestead. Reader, do you know, by sight, the Old Homestead? In the pauses of your work at your city desk, where you have grown rich and avaricious, does it never rise before your mind"s eye, the quiet old homestead that knew you as a boy before your greed of gold tore you away from it? The Old Homestead that stands beside the road just on the rise of the hill, with its dark spruce trees wrapped in snow, the snug barns and the straw stacks behind it; while from its windows there streams a shaft of light from a coal-oil lamp, about as thick as a slate pencil that you can see four miles away, from the other side of the cedar swamp in the hollow. Don"t talk to me of your modern searchlights and your incandescent arcs, beside that gleam of light from the coal-oil lamp in the farmhouse window. It will shine clear to the heart across thirty years of distance. Do you not turn, I say, sometimes, reader, from the roar and hustle of the city with its ill-gotten wealth and its G.o.dless creed of mammon, to think of the quiet homestead under the brow of the hill? You don"t! Well, you skunk!
It was Xmas Eve.
The light shone from the windows of the homestead farm. The light of the log fire rose and flickered and mingled its red glare on the windows with the calm yellow of the lamplight.
John Enderby and his wife sat in the kitchen room of the farmstead. Do you know it, reader, the room called the kitchen?-with the open fire on its old brick hearth, and the cook stove in the corner. It is the room of the farm where people cook and eat and live. It is the living-room. The only other room beside the bedroom is the small room in front, chill-cold in winter, with an organ in it for playing "Rock of Ages" on, when company came. But this room is only used for music and funerals. The real room of the old farm is the kitchen. Does it not rise up before you, reader? It doesn"t? Well, you darn fool!
At any rate there sat old John Enderby beside the plain deal table, his head bowed upon his hands, his grizzled face with its unshorn stubble stricken down with the lines of devastating trouble. From time to time he rose and cast a fresh stick of tamarack into the fire with a savage thud that sent a shower of sparks up the chimney. Across the fireplace sat his wife Anna on a straight-backed chair, looking into the fire with the mute resignation of her s.e.x.
What was wrong with them anyway? Ah, reader, can you ask? Do you know or remember so little of the life of the old homestead? When I have said that it is the Old Homestead and Xmas Eve, and that the farmer is in great trouble and throwing tamarack at the fire, surely you ought to guess!
The Old Homestead was mortgaged! Ten years ago, reckless with debt, crazed with remorse, mad with despair and persecuted with rheumatism, John Enderby had mortgaged his farmstead for twenty-four dollars and thirty cents.
To-night the mortgage fell due, to-night at midnight, Xmas night. Such is the way in which mortgages of this kind are always drawn. Yes, sir, it was drawn with such diabolical skill that on this night of all nights the mortgage would be foreclosed. At midnight the men would come with hammer and nails and foreclose it, nail it up tight.
So the afflicted couple sat.
Anna, with the patient resignation of her s.e.x, sat silent or at times endeavoured to read. She had taken down from the little wall-shelf Bunyan"s Holy Living and Holy Dying. She tried to read it. She could not. Then she had taken Dante"s Inferno. She could not read it. Then she had selected Kant"s Critique of Pure Reason. But she could not read it either. Lastly, she had taken the Farmer"s Almanac for 1911. The books lay littered about her as she sat in patient despair.
John Enderby showed all the pa.s.sion of an uncontrolled nature. At times he would reach out for the crock of b.u.t.termilk that stood beside him and drained a draught of the maddening liquid, till his brain glowed like the coals of the tamarack fire before him.
"John," pleaded Anna, "leave alone the b.u.t.termilk. It only maddens you.
No good ever came of that."
"Aye, la.s.s," said the farmer, with a bitter laugh, as he buried his head again in the crock, "what care I if it maddens me."
"Ah, John, you"d better be employed in reading the Good Book than in your wild courses. Here take it, father, and read it"-and she handed to him the well-worn black volume from the shelf. Enderby paused a moment and held the volume in his hand. He and his wife had known nothing of religious teaching in the public schools of their day, but the first-cla.s.s non-sectarian education that the farmer had received had stood him in good stead.
"Take the book," she said. "Read, John, in this hour of affliction; it brings comfort."
The farmer took from her hand the well-worn copy of Euclid"s Elements, and laying aside his hat with reverence, he read aloud: "The angles at the base of an isoceles triangle are equal, and whosoever shall produce the sides, lo, the same also shall be equal each unto each."
The farmer put the book aside.
"It"s no use, Anna. I can"t read the good words to-night."
He rose, staggered to the crock of b.u.t.termilk, and before his wife could stay his hand, drained it to the last drop.
Then he sank heavily to his chair.
"Let them foreclose it, if they will," he said; "I am past caring."
The woman looked sadly into the fire.
Ah, if only her son Henry had been here. Henry, who had left them three years agone, and whose bright letters still brought from time to time the gleam of hope to the stricken farmhouse.
Henry was in Sing Sing. His letters brought news to his mother of his steady success; first in the baseball nine of the prison, a favourite with his wardens and the chaplain, the best bridge player of the corridor. Henry was pushing his way to the front with the old-time spirit of the Enderbys.
His mother had hoped that he might have been with her at Xmas, but Henry had written that it was practically impossible for him to leave Sing Sing. He could not see his way out. The authorities were arranging a dance and sleighing party for the Xmas celebration. He had some hope, he said, of slipping away unnoticed, but his doing so might excite attention.
Of the trouble at home Anna had told her son nothing.
No, Henry could not come. There was no help there. And William, the other son, ten years older than Henry. Alas, William had gone forth from the homestead to fight his way in the great city! "Mother," he had said, "when I make a million dollars I"ll come home. Till then good-bye," and he had gone.
How Anna"s heart had beat for him. Would he make that million dollars? Would she ever live to see it? And as the years pa.s.sed she and John had often sat in the evenings picturing William at home again, bringing with him a million dollars, or picturing the million dollars sent by express with love. But the years had pa.s.sed. William came not. He did not come. The great city had swallowed him up as it has many another lad from the old homestead.
Anna started from her musing-
What was that at the door? The sound of a soft and timid rapping, and through the gla.s.s of the door-pane, a face, a woman"s face looking into the fire-lit room with pleading eyes. What was it she bore in her arms, the little bundle that she held tight to her breast to shield it from the falling snow? Can you guess, reader? Try three guesses and see. Right you are. That"s what it was.
The farmer"s wife went hastily to the door.
"Lord"s mercy!" she cried, "what are you doing out on such a night?
Come in, child, to the fire!"
The woman entered, carrying the little bundle with her, and looking with wide eyes (they were at least an inch and a half across) at Enderby and his wife. Anna could see that there was no wedding-ring on her hand.
"Your name?" said the farmer"s wife.
"My name is Caroline," the girl whispered. The rest was lost in the low tones of her voice. "I want shelter," she paused, "I want you to take the child."
Anna took the baby and laid it carefully on the top shelf of the cupboard, then she hastened to bring a gla.s.s of water and a dough-nut, and set it before the half-frozen girl.
"Eat," she said, "and warm yourself."
John rose from his seat.
"I"ll have no child of that sort here," he said.
"John, John," pleaded Anna, "remember what the Good Book says: "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another!""
John sank back in his chair.
And why had Caroline no wedding-ring? Ah, reader, can you not guess. Well, you can"t. It wasn"t what you think at all; so there. Caroline had no wedding-ring because she had thrown it away in bitterness, as she tramped the streets of the great city. "Why," she cried, "should the wife of a man in the penitentiary wear a ring."
Then she had gone forth with the child from what had been her home.
It was the old sad story.
She had taken the baby and laid it tenderly, gently on a seat in the park. Then she walked rapidly away. A few minutes after a man had chased after Caroline with the little bundle in his arms. "I beg your pardon," he said, panting, "I think you left your baby in the park." Caroline thanked him.
Next she took the baby to the Grand Central Waiting-room, kissed it tenderly, and laid it on a shelf behind the lunch-counter.
A few minutes an official, beaming with satisfaction, had brought it back to her.