"Returning from the Hall, the old man had slipped upon a bit of ice, and lay stunned in the snow.
"Patty began to cry. "I think he"s dead!" she sobbed.
""He is so very old, I don"t wonder," I murmured; "but perhaps he"s not.
I"ll fetch father."
"My father and Kitty were soon on the spot. Kitty was as strong as a man; and they carried Father Christmas between them into the kitchen.
There he quickly revived.
"I must do Kitty the justice to say that she did not utter a word of complaint at the disturbance of her labours; and that she drew the old man"s chair close up to the oven with her own hand. She was so much affected by the behaviour of his dog that she admitted him even to the hearth; on which puss, being acute enough to see how matters stood, lay down with her back so close to the spaniel"s that Kitty could not expel one without kicking both.
"For our parts, we felt sadly anxious about the tree; otherwise we could have wished for no better treat than to sit at Kitty"s round table taking tea with Father Christmas. Our usual fare of thick bread and treacle was to-night exchanged for a delicious variety of cakes, which were none the worse to us for being "tasters and wasters"--that is, little bits of dough, or shortbread, put in to try the state of the oven, and certain cakes that had got broken or burnt in the baking.
"Well, there we sat, helping Old Father Christmas to tea and cake, and wondering in our hearts what could have become of the tree.
"Patty and I felt a delicacy in asking Old Father Christmas about the tree. It was not until we had had tea three times round, with tasters and wasters to match, that Patty said very gently: "It"s quite dark now." And then she heaved a deep sigh.
"Burning anxiety overcame me. I leaned toward Father Christmas, and shouted--I had found out that it was needful to shout----
""I suppose the candles are on the tree now?"
""Just about putting of "em on," said Father Christmas.
""And the presents, too?" said Patty.
""Aye, aye, _to_ be sure," said Father Christmas, and he smiled delightfully.
"I was thinking what further questions I might venture upon, when he pushed his cup toward Patty saying, "Since you are so pressing, miss, I"ll take another dish."
"And Kitty, swooping on us from the oven, cried, "Make yourself at home, sir; there"s more where these came from. Make a long arm, Miss Patty, and hand them cakes."
"So we had to devote ourselves to the duties of the table; and Patty, holding the lid with one hand and pouring with the other, supplied Father Christmas"s wants with a heavy heart.
"At last he was satisfied. I said grace, during which he stood, and, indeed, he stood for some time afterward with his eyes shut--I fancy under the impression that I was still speaking. He had just said a fervent "amen," and reseated himself, when my father put his head into the kitchen, and made this remarkable statement:
""Old Father Christmas has sent a tree to the young people."
"Patty and I uttered a cry of delight, and we forthwith danced round the old man, saying, "How nice! Oh, how kind of you!" which I think must have bewildered him, but he only smiled and nodded.
""Come along," said my father. "Come, children. Come, Reuben. Come, Kitty."
"And he went into the parlour, and we all followed him.
"My G.o.dmother"s picture of a Christmas-tree was very pretty; and the flames of the candles were so naturally done in red and yellow that I always wondered that they did not shine at night. But the picture was nothing to the reality. We had been sitting almost in the dark, for, as Kitty said, "Firelight was quite enough to burn at meal-times." And when the parlour door was thrown open, and the tree, with lighted tapers on all the branches, burst upon our view, the blaze was dazzling, and threw such a glory round the little gifts, and the bags of coloured muslin, with acid drops and pink rose drops and comfits inside, as I shall never forget. We all got something; and Patty and I, at any rate, believed that the things came from the stores of Old Father Christmas. We were not undeceived even by his gratefully accepting a bundle of old clothes which had been hastily put together to form his present.
"We were all very happy; even Kitty, I think, though she kept her sleeves rolled up, and seemed rather to grudge enjoying herself (a weak point in some energetic characters). She went back to her oven before the lights were out and the angel on the top of the tree taken down. She locked up her present (a little work-box) at once. She often showed it off afterward, but it was kept in the same bit of tissue paper till she died. Our presents certainly did not last so long!
"The old man died about a week afterward, so we never made his acquaintance as a common personage. When he was buried, his little dog came to us. I suppose he remembered the hospitality he had received.
Patty adopted him, and he was very faithful. Puss always looked on him with favour. I hoped during our rambles together in the following summer that he would lead us at last to the cave where Christmas-trees are dressed. But he never did.
"Our parents often spoke of his late master as "old Reuben," but children are not easily disabused of a favourite fancy, and in Patty"s thoughts and in mine the old man was long gratefully remembered as Old Father Christmas."
XX
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
CHARLES d.i.c.kENS
MASTER Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs.
Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn"t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn"t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook"s next door to each other, with a laundress"s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quant.i.ty of flour.
Everybody had something to say about it, but n.o.body said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit"s elbow stood the family display of gla.s.ses.
Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. G.o.d bless us!"
Which all the family re-echoed.
"G.o.d bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
XXI
HOW CHRISTMAS CAME TO THE SANTA MARIA FLATS[N]
ELIA W. PEATTIE
THERE were twenty-six flat children, and none of them had ever been flat children until that year. Previously they had all been home children and as such had, of course, had beautiful Christmases, in which their relations with Santa Claus had been of the most intimate and personal nature.