""O, no," said she, regretfully; "yet I wish we could, it"s _so pretty_!""
"Say no more, aunt. I see the good fairy must pop a cap into the window on Christmas morning. Indeed, it shall be done. How they will wonder where it came from, and talk about it for months to come!"
"Well, then," continued her aunt, "in the next street to ours there is a miserable building, that looks as if it were just going to topple over; and away up in the third story, in a little room just under the eaves, live two poor, lonely old women. They are both nearly on to ninety. I was in there day before yesterday. One of them is constantly confined to her bed with rheumatism; the other, weak and feeble, with failing sight and trembling hands, totters about, her only helper; and they are entirely dependent on charity."
"Can"t they do any thing? Can"t they knit?" said Eleanor.
"You are young and strong, Eleanor, and have quick eyes and nimble fingers; how long would it take you to knit a pair of stockings?"
"I?" said Eleanor. "What an idea! I never tried, but I think I could get a pair done in a week, perhaps."
"And if somebody gave you twenty-five cents for them, and out of this you had to get food, and pay room rent, and buy coal for your fire, and oil for your lamp----"
"Stop, aunt, for pity"s sake!"
"Well, I will stop; but they can"t: they must pay so much every month for that miserable sh.e.l.l they live in, or be turned into the street. The meal and flour that some kind person sends goes off for them just as it does for others, and they must get more or starve; and coal is now scarce and high priced."
"O aunt, I"m quite convinced, I"m sure; don"t run me down and annihilate me with all these terrible realities. What shall I do to play good fairy to these poor old women?"
"If you will give me full power, Eleanor, I will put up a basket to be sent to them that will give them something to remember all winter."
"O, certainly I will. Let me see if I can"t think of something myself."
"Well, Eleanor, suppose, then, some fifty or sixty years hence, _if_ you were old, and your father, and mother, and aunts, and uncles, now so thick around you, lay cold and silent in so many graves--you have somehow got away off to a strange city, where you were never known--you live in a miserable garret, where snow blows at night through the cracks, and the fire is very apt to go out in the old cracked stove--you sit crouching over the dying embers the evening before Christmas--n.o.body to speak to you, n.o.body to care for you, except another poor old soul who lies moaning in the bed. Now, what would you like to have sent you?"
"O aunt, what a dismal picture!"
"And yet, Ella, all poor, forsaken old women are made of young girls, who expected it in their youth as little as you do, perhaps."
"Say no more, aunt. I"ll buy--let me see--a comfortable warm shawl for each of these poor women; and I"ll send them--let me see--O, some tea--nothing goes down with old women like tea; and I"ll make John wheel some coal over to them; and, aunt, it would not be a very bad thought to send them a new stove. I remember, the other day, when mamma was pricing stoves, I saw some such nice ones for two or three dollars."
"For a new hand, Ella, you work up the idea very well," said her aunt.
"But how much ought I to give, for any one case, to these women, say?"
"How much did you give last year for any single Christmas present?"
"Why, six or seven dollars for some; those elegant souvenirs were seven dollars; that ring I gave Mrs. B. was twenty."
"And do you suppose Mrs. B. was any happier for it?"
"No, really, I don"t think she cared much about it; but I had to give her something, because she had sent me something the year before, and I did not want to send a paltry present to one in her circ.u.mstances."
"Then, Ella, give the same to any poor, distressed, suffering creature who really needs it, and see in how many forms of good such a sum will appear. That one hard, cold, glittering ring, that now cheers n.o.body, and means nothing, that you give because you must, and she takes because she must, might, if broken up into smaller sums, send real warm and heartfelt gladness through many a cold and cheerless dwelling, through many an aching heart."
"You are getting to be an orator, aunt; but don"t you approve of Christmas presents, among friends and equals?"
"Yes, indeed," said her aunt, fondly stroking her head. "I have had some Christmas presents that did me a world of good--a little book mark, for instance, that a certain niece of mine worked for me, with wonderful secrecy, three years ago, when she was not a young lady with a purse full of money--that book mark was a true Christmas present; and my young couple across the way are plotting a profound surprise to each other on Christmas morning. John has contrived, by an hour of extra work every night, to lay by enough to get Mary a new calico dress; and she, poor soul, has bargained away the only thing in the jewelry line she ever possessed, to be laid out on a new hat for him.
"I know, too, a washerwoman who has a poor, lame boy--a patient, gentle little fellow--who has lain quietly for weeks and months in his little crib, and his mother is going to give him a splendid Christmas present."
"What is it, pray?"
"A whole orange! Don"t laugh. She will pay ten whole cents for it; for it shall be none of your common oranges, but a picked one of the very best going! She has put by the money, a cent at a time, for a whole month; and n.o.body knows which will be happiest in it, Willie or his mother. These are such Christmas presents as I like to think of--gifts coming from love, and tending to produce love; these are the appropriate gifts of the day."
"But don"t you think that it"s right for those who _have_ money to give expensive presents, supposing always, as you say, they are given from real affection?"
"Sometimes, undoubtedly. The Savior did not condemn her who broke an alabaster box of ointment--_very precious_--simply as a proof of love, even although the suggestion was made, "This might have been sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor." I have thought he would regard with sympathy the fond efforts which human love sometimes makes to express itself by gifts, the rarest and most costly. How I rejoiced with all my heart, when Charles Elton gave his poor mother that splendid Chinese shawl and gold watch! because I knew they came from the very fulness of his heart to a mother that he could not do too much for--a mother that has done and suffered every thing for him. In some such cases, when resources are ample, a costly gift seems to have a graceful appropriateness; but I cannot approve of it if it exhausts all the means of doing for the poor; it is better, then, to give a simple offering, and to do something for those who really need it."
Eleanor looked thoughtful; her aunt laid down her knitting, and said, in a tone of gentle seriousness, "Whose birth does Christmas commemorate, Ella?"
"Our Savior"s, certainly, aunt."
"Yes," said her aunt. "And when and how was he born? In a stable! laid in a manger; thus born, that in all ages he might be known as the brother and friend of the poor. And surely, it seems but appropriate to commemorate his birthday by an especial remembrance of the lowly, the poor, the outcast, and distressed; and if Christ should come back to our city on a Christmas day, where should we think it most appropriate to his character to find him? Would he be carrying splendid gifts to splendid dwellings, or would he be gliding about in the cheerless haunts of the desolate, the poor, the forsaken, and the sorrowful?"
And here the conversation ended.
"What sort of Christmas presents is Ella buying?" said Cousin Tom, as the waiter handed in a portentous-looking package, which had been just rung in at the door.
"Let"s open it," said saucy Will. "Upon my word, two great gray blanket shawls! These must be for you and me, Tom! And what"s this? A great bolt of cotton flannel and gray yarn stockings!"
The door bell rang again, and the waiter brought in another bulky parcel, and deposited it on the marble-topped centre table.
"What"s here?" said Will, cutting the cord. "Whew! a perfect nest of packages! oolong tea! oranges! grapes! white sugar! Bless me, Ella must be going to housekeeping!"
"Or going crazy!" said Tom; "and on my word," said he, looking out of the window, "there"s a drayman ringing at our door, with a stove, with a teakettle set in the top of it!"
"Ella"s cook stove, of course," said Will; and just at this moment the young lady entered, with her purse hanging gracefully over her hand.
"Now, boys, you are too bad!" she exclaimed, as each of the mischievous youngsters were gravely marching up and down, attired in a gray shawl.
"Didn"t you get them for us? We thought you did," said both.
"Ella, I want some of that cotton flannel, to make me a pair of pantaloons," said Tom.
"I say, Ella," said Will, "when are you going to housekeeping? Your cooking stove is standing down in the street; "pon my word, John is loading some coal on the dray with it."
"Ella, isn"t that going to be sent to my office?" said Tom; "do you know I do so languish for a new stove with a teakettle in the top, to heat a fellow"s shaving water!"
Just then, another ring at the door, and the grinning waiter handed in a small brown paper parcel for Miss Ella. Tom made a dive at it, and staving off the brown paper, developed a jaunty little purple velvet cap, with silver ta.s.sels.
"My smoking cap, as I live!" said he; "only I shall have to wear it on my thumb, instead of my head--too small entirely," said he, shaking his head gravely.
"Come, you saucy boys," said Aunt E., entering briskly, "what are you teasing Ella for?"
"Why, do see this lot of things, aunt! What in the world is Ella going to do with them?"