THE outside door swung open suddenly, letting a cloud of steam into the small, hot kitchen. Charlie Moore, a milk pail in one hand, a lantern in the other, closed the door behind him with a bang, set the pail on the table and stamped the snow from his feet.
"There"s the milk, and I near froze gettin" it," said he, addressing his partner, who was chopping potatoes in a pan on the stove.
"Dose vried bodadoes vas burnt," said the other, wielding his knife vigorously.
"Are, eh? Why didn"t you watch "em instead of readin" your old Scandinavian paper?" answered Charlie, hanging his overcoat and cap behind the door and laying his mittens under the stove to dry. Then he drew up a chair and with much exertion pulled off his heavy felt boots and stood them beside his mittens.
"Why didn"t you shut the gate after you came in from town? The cows got out and went up to Roney"s an" I had to chase "em; "tain"t any joke runnin" round after cows such a night as this." Having relieved his mind of its grievance, Charlie sat down before the oven door, and, opening it, laid a stick of wood along its outer edge and thrust his feet into the hot interior, propping his heels against the stick.
"Look oud for dese har biscuits!" exclaimed his partner, anxiously.
"Oh, hang the biscuits!" was Charlie"s hasty answer. "I"ll watch "em.
Why didn"t you?"
"Ay tank Ay fergit hem."
"Well, you don"t want to forget. A feller forgot his clothes once, an"
he got froze."
"Ay ga.s.s dose faller vas ketch in a sbring snowstorm. Vas dose biscuits done, Sharlie?"
"You bet they are, Nels," replied Charlie, looking into the pan.
"Dan subbar vas ready. Yom on!"
Nels picked up the frying-pan and Charlie the biscuits, and set them on the oilcloth-covered table, where a plate of b.u.t.ter, a jar of plum jelly, and a coffee-pot were already standing.
Outside the frozen kitchen window the snow-covered fields and meadows stretched, glistening and silent, away to the dark belt of timber by the river. Along the deep-rutted road in front a belated lumber-wagon pa.s.sed slowly, the wheels crunching through the packed snow with a wavering, incessant shriek.
The two men hitched their chairs up to the table, and without ceremony helped themselves liberally to the steaming food. For a few moments they seemed oblivious to everything but the demands of hunger. The potatoes and biscuits disappeared with surprising rapidity, washed down by large drafts of coffee. These men, labouring steadily through the short daylight hours in the dry, cold air of the Dakota winter, were like engines whose fires had burned low--they were taking fuel. Presently, the first keen edge of appet.i.te satisfied, they ate more slowly, and Nels, straightening up with a sigh, spoke:
"Ay seen Seigert in town ta-day. Ha vants von hundred fifty fer dose team."
"Come down, eh?" commented Charlie. "Well, they"re worth that. We"d better take "em, Nels. We"ll need "em in the spring if we break the north forty."
"Yas, et"s a nice team," agreed Nels. "Ha vas driven ham ta-day."
"Is he haulin" corn?"
"Na; he had his kids oop gettin" Christmas bresents."
"Chris--By gracious! to-morrow"s Christmas!"
Nels nodded solemnly, as one possessing superior knowledge. Charlie became thoughtful.
"We"ll come in sort of slim on it here, I reckon, Nels. Christmas ain"t right, somehow, out here. Back in Wisconsin, where I came from, there"s where you get your Christmas!" Charlie spoke with the unswerving prejudice of mankind for the land of his birth.
"Yas, dose been right. En da ol" kontry dey havin" gret times Christmas."
Their thoughts were all bent now upon the holiday scenes of the past. As they finished the meal and cleared away and washed the dishes they related incidents of their boyhood"s time, compared, reiterated, and embellished. As they talked they grew jovial, and laughed often.
"The skee broke an" you went over kerplunk, hey? Haw, haw! That reminds me of one time in Wisconsin----"
Something of the joyous spirit of the Christmastide seemed to have entered into this little farmhouse set in the midst of the lonely, white fields. In the hearts of these men, moving about in their dim-lighted room, was reechoed the joyous murmur of the great world without: the gayety of the throngs in city streets, where the brilliant shop-windows, rich with holiday spoils, smile out upon the pa.s.sing crowd, and the clang of street-cars and roar of traffic mingle with the cries of street-venders. The work finished, they drew their chairs to the stove, and filled their pipes, still talking.
"Well, well," said Charlie, after the laugh occasioned by one of Nels"
droll stories had subsided. "It"s nice to think of those old times. I"d hate to have been one of these kids that can"t have any fun, Christmas or any other time."
"Ay ga.s.s dere ain"t anybody much dot don"d have someding dis tams a year."
"Oh, yes, there are, Nels! You bet there are!" Charlie nodded at his partner with serious conviction. "Now, there"s the Roneys," he waved his pipe over his shoulder. "The old man told me to-night when I was up after the cows that he"s sold all the crops except what they need for feedin"--wheat, and corn, and everything, and some hogs besides--and ain"t got hardly enough now for feed and clothes for all that family.
The rent and the lumber he had to buy to build the new barn after the old one burnt ate up the money like fury. He kind of laughed, and said he guessed the children wouldn"t get much Christmas this year. I didn"t think about it"s being so close when he told me."
"No Christmas!" Nels" round eyes widened with astonishment. "Ay tank dose been pooty bad!" He studied the subject for a few moments, his stolid face suddenly grown thoughtful. Charlie stared at the stove. Far away by the river a lonely coyote set up his quick, howling yelp.
"Dere"s been seven kids oop dere," said Nels at last, glancing up as if for corroboration.
"Yes, seven," agreed Charlie.
"Say, do ve need Seigert"s team very pad?"
"Well, now that depends," said Charlie. "Why not?"
"Nothin", only Ay vas tankin" ve might tak" some a das veat we vas goin"
to sell and--and----"
"Yep, what?"
"And dumb it on Roney"s granary floor to-night after dere been asleeb."
Charlie stared at his companion for a moment in silence. Then he rose, and, approaching Nels, examined his partner"s face with solemn scrutiny.
"By the great horn spoon," he announced, finally, "you"ve got a head on you like a balloon, my boy! Keep on gettin" ideas like that, and you"ll land in Congress or the poor-farm before many years!"
Then, abandoning his pretense of gravity, he slapped the other on the back.
"Why didn"t I think of that? It"s the best yet. Seigert"s team? Oh, hang Seigert"s team. We don"t need it. We"ll have a little merry Christmas out of this yet. Only they mustn"t know where it came from. I"ll write a note and stick it under the door, "You"ll find some merry wheat----" No, that ain"t it. "You"ll find some wheat in the granary to give the kids a merry Christmas with," signed, "Santa Claus.""
He wrote out the message in the air with a pointing forefinger. He had entered into the spirit of the thing eagerly.
"It"s half-past nine now," he went on, looking at the clock. "It"ll be eleven time we get the stuff loaded and hauled up there. Let"s go out and get at it. Lucky the bobs are on the wagon; they don"t make such a racket as wheels."
He took the lantern from its nail behind the door and lighted it, after which he put on his boots, cap, and mittens, and flung his overcoat across his shoulders. Nels, meanwhile, had put on his outer garments, also.
"Shut up the stove, Nels." Charlie blew out the light and opened the door. "There, hang it!" he exclaimed, turning back. "I forgot the note.
Ought to be in ink, I suppose. Well, never mind now; we won"t put on any style about it."
He took down a pencil from the shelf, and, extracting a bit of wrapping paper from a bundle behind the wood-box, wrote the note by the light of the lantern.