Part 1

MARY CHRISTMAS

MARY CHRISTMAS

BY MARY ELLEN CHASE

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1936

_Copyright, 1926_, BY MARY ELLEN CHASE.

_All rights reserved_

Published April, 1926 Reprinted September, 1926 Reprinted January, 1927 Reprinted August, 1936

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS PUBLICATIONS ARE PUBLISHED BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

I CONCERNING A COLLAR AND TIE 3

II A BLUE GINGHAM AND AN ANCIENT LAND 19

III UNBURIED TREASURE 33

IV A WILD CRAB-APPLE TREE 44

V THE GARDEN OF EDEN 50

VI A GOOD SAINT AND A SILVER BOX 68

VII A PILLAR OF FIRE 80

VIII SHOWERS OF GOLD AND PEARLS 91

IX FOLKLORE AND POLITICS 103

X WAYSIDE SACRAMENTS 118

XI SHORT TWILIGHTS AND DRIFTING PETALS 126

XII MARY CHRISTMAS DAYS 138

MARY CHRISTMAS

_His candle shined upon my head, and ... by His light I walked through darkness...._

_My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch._

THE BOOK OF JOB

I

CONCERNING A COLLAR AND TIE

Long years ago, in those speedless days of the late nineties when children dropped homemade curtsies and said, “Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir” quite as a matter of course, when they recited the sixty-three books of the Bible, the kings of Israel, and the twelve disciples according to St. Matthew without the least idea of achievement, when baby specialists and motion pictures were almost unknown, and when the efficacy of springtime asafœtida-bags and of sulphur and molasses taken according to the magic rule of three was sponsored by the most intelligent of parents--years ago, on a certain warm day very early in the month of June, the four Wescott children, who were swinging on a white gate beneath great elm trees, were startled by the most curious and, for the duration of a long half-hour, quite inexplicable behavior on the part of their father. At high noon, just as the church clock was sending twelve mellow, wavering notes down through the sunlit air to cling unseen to tree-tops or to hide in daisy fields--at high noon he came up the street in full view of his neighbors, and halted with no apparent embarrassment before his four awestruck children, _wearing his collar and tie_!

* * * * *

Now, at the imminent risk of ruining the artistic value of this story,--for we know only too well what it means to stop a truly dramatic incident when it wants to go on,--we must, in all fairness to the father of the four Wescotts, on the one hand, describe--since we cannot explain--a certain distressingly peculiar habit of his, and on the other, assure our readers that neither he nor his wife nor his four children had ever because of it suffered the slightest lessening of social standing in their community. For years, during the months of May, June, July, August, and September, it had been Mr. Wescott’s deplorable custom to traverse the distance between his law office over the village grocery store and his home with his collar and tie in his left hand. Otherwise his appearance was above reproach. His neat gray suit was immaculately pressed and brushed, his neat straw hat was placed at a most conservative angle, his neat black shoes shone from his own early-morning labor, the gold-headed cane which he always carried bespoke the gentleman that he was. But--_his collar and tie hung from his left hand_.

No one felt entirely sure as to the date and origin of this custom. Mrs. Wescott, who, it will be readily granted, should have known more about those matters than anyone else, was not secure in her mind concerning them. It is true that once, in the strictest confidence, she disclosed to Mary, the eldest of the four Wescotts, her belief that the habit had originated in those over-heated and perilous days when Father Wescott had been doing his best to save the country in general and the State of Maine in particular from the election of President Cleveland. She furthermore advanced the opinion--which, as Mary grew older, she was inclined to share--that the continuance of the habit should be interpreted as silent proof that Mr. Wescott stood ready to defend with all his might the Republican Party with its splendid principles of “honest money and the chance to earn it.” These, however, logical as they seemed, were only theories. Mr. Wescott himself afforded the only source material, and that material was unfortunately impossible of access, since the whole question with all its ramifications was one which, Mrs. Wescott and her four children had tacitly agreed, was never to be referred to whether in or out of the family circle.

It may easily be surmised that this habit of Mr. Wescott’s had been the source of no little embarrassment to his wife and children, and their splendid loyalty cannot, indeed, be too highly commended. Imagine, if you will, any number of situations in which the recognition of such an extraordinary practice might well have redounded to the discredit of the family, and you will appreciate the truly fine material of which these people were made. But as Mrs. Wescott said, again in confidence to Mary and to Cynthia after she was ten, since they had endured the visit of the Governor of Maine, they need have no fear as to anything which the future might hold in store for them.

The gubernatorial guest dined with the Wescotts on an August noon when Mary was eleven, just ten months, in fact, before the beginning of the events which make up this story. He had communicated his nearness to Mr. Wescott, who had hurried home at ten o’clock to warn his wife, to change his clothes, and to decree blue serge for the children. As Mrs. Wescott tied a new tie for him under a fresh collar, misgivings would arise in spite of her, and more than once a warning trembled on her lips. But she controlled herself, true even then to her sense of loyalty, and reasonably secure in her faith that he could not, in view of the distinction about to fall upon the family, so far forget himself. Imagine, then, her distress when, an hour later, she saw her husband conducting their distinguished guest up the street, his head erect and crowned with the top hat which he had chosen for this unusual occasion, his clean collar and new tie gently swinging from his left hand! Imagine, too, the consternation of the children, who sat primly on the front porch in Sunday serge, the girls in Mother Hubbards, the boys as Lord Fauntleroyish as serge would admit, and rehearsed their salutations. Can the mild remonstrance which sprang to Mrs. Wescott’s lips as she stood in the doorway to receive her guest be wondered at?

“Father, how _could_ you!” she said in an undertone, after the Governor had been duly presented. The accusing eyes of his four children, who were engaged in making their curtsies and bows, added poignancy to her thrust. His eyes followed their hostile glances, and his cheeks colored. One could only believe that he, the author of their disgrace, had been, up to this moment, entirely unconscious of the incriminating articles in his hand.

It is extremely comforting, however, to be able to assure our readers that no dire results followed this act, which we must believe to have been quite unpremeditated on the part of Mr. Wescott. The Governor having been shown upstairs by Mary Wescott to wash, he repaired hastily to his own room, from whence he emerged almost simultaneously with his honored guest, his appearance entirely conventional and his native gallantry unimpaired. But although the dinner was a complete success from every point of view, although upon his departure the Governor assured his hostess in most lavish terms of his deep regard for her husband, the ensuing legislative season was an anxious one for Mrs. Wescott. Was it not possible, nay even probable, that habit might assert itself even in the State capital? This fear so plucked at her that she was tormented by frequent nightmares, in the worst of which she saw her husband on a freezing winter day emerge from behind the white marble pillars of the government building, descend the long flight of steps, and walk through the city streets to his Augusta hotel, his collar and tie in his hand. Her cries awoke Cynthia in the next room, but to her startled questions her mother confessed only vaguely to having seen in her sleep a most terrifying thing. Nor were Cynthia’s far more insistent morning queries productive of anything more definite.

Relief came in the shape of a legislator and friend from a neighboring town, who, upon meeting Mrs. Wescott at a county convention of the church, remarked in the course of conversation that she would never know her husband in the ultra-dignified gentleman who lent tone to the State Senate. Circumspect as were his words and uncompromising as was his manner, Mrs. Wescott could only infer that he meant to allay her fears, and the sense of freedom which she henceforth experienced, in spite of her embarrassment at the time of the conversation, was immeasurable.

Nor must we for a moment allow our readers to imagine that this habit, which we have been at such pains to describe, had ever in the slightest degree impaired the really enviable position which the Wescotts maintained in the community. The energies of Mr. Wescott had been dedicated, not merely to the affairs of his State and nation, but to those of his native village as well. Her he had served, in the phrase of the Scriptures, from his youth up. Fence-viewer and Pound-keeper at twenty, he had passed successively through the lesser town offices until now, on the fair side of forty, he was Moderator of the annual Town Meeting, First Selectman, and, most honored of all positions, Judge of the Municipal Court. Mrs. Wescott, in spite of the facts that she had never played bridge in her life, that she belonged to no Women’s Clubs and had never given an afternoon paper on “A Brief Survey of English Literature,” and that woman suffrage, a measure at that time in slight favor among some Western states, had received from her only a kind of pitying amazement, was held in deepest respect by the village at large and was, moreover, I dare say, a very happy woman--that is, as women go. As for the four Wescott children, Mary, Cynthia, Roger, and John, they were quite as promising as it is ever well or needful that children should be.

And now to return to our exasperated story, which, for the last ten minutes, has been fuming with impatience.

* * * * *

Years ago, on a certain warm day very early in the month of June, the four Wescott children, who were swinging on a white gate beneath great elm trees, were startled by the most curious and, for the duration of a long half-hour, quite inexplicable behavior on the part of their father. At high noon, just as the church clock was sending twelve mellow, wavering notes down through the sunlit air to cling unseen to tree-tops or to hide in daisy fields--at high noon he came up the street in full view of all his neighbors, and halted with no apparent embarrassment before his four awestruck children, _wearing his collar and tie_!

They who had been too amazed to run to meet him in their usual fashion silently opened the gate for him, all having dismounted and taken their stand in twos on either side, Mary and Roger on the right, John and Cynthia on the left. They could not be mistaken in their conviction that something extraordinary had happened. Even John at five was so sure that he asked not a question. He simply stared, round-eyed, at his father’s neat throat. As for the others, they were conscious of a suppressed excitement in their father’s manner, which, added to the incriminating evidence of his unusual appearance, left not the shadow of a doubt.

They continued to stare, now at him, now at one another, as he passed through the gate without any suggestion that they follow him, and up the driveway to the house. Whatever it was, he would tell their mother first, and their part was to wait. This they did with their ears strained for the slightest sound which might serve as a clue.

Their mother was bustling about in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to the dinner for which Mary and Cynthia had already set the table. She was singing “Shall We Gather at the River,” but her sweet, plaintive assurance that all the Wescotts would “gather with the saints” was suddenly halted by the appearance of her husband in the doorway. Listening outside, the children were quick to catch the interruption. She was surprised, they knew, and they all felt for a moment an unexpressed thrill of pride that they had first experienced the sensation. Then--

“Why, Father!” they heard her say. Surely she also was not able to believe her eyes!

A second or two of torturing silence, during which even breathing was painful. Then the draft of the stove slammed shut,--to keep the dinner from burning, they knew,--footsteps, and a streak of blue, their mother’s gingham, through the windows of the dining-room, the closing of a door. They knew what that meant. Their father had beckoned their mother to the library, the seat of all family councils, punishments, and Christmas secrets.

They might have talked then--perhaps it is singular that they did not--but, since guesses seemed futile in the expectation of such a stupendous happening as all things prophesied, they continued to stand by the gate, staring alternately at one another and at the silent windows of the library. It is altogether safe to predict, however, that each of the four, from Mary to John, cast careful, inward glances over the things each had been doing for the space of a week. There was none of them who could not easily recall certain uncomfortable sessions introduced in some such manner; and yet within the memory of none of them had any misdemeanor, even of the most startling import, caused such initial behavior from their father.

His sudden reappearance on the porch mercifully quieted certain misgivings in the mind of Roger, who was beginning to realize that, if he had counted ten, he should probably not have thrown the minister’s son off the back fence into a burdock clump, and in the heart of Cynthia, who had not felt right for a week because she had refused to lend _Little Women_ to the Closson children, who, being the offspring of a fisherman, smelt rather loathsomely of clams and fish. He came down the driveway, walking rapidly, his collar and tie still in their rightful places. As he passed the children by the white gate, he paused for a moment.

“There’s company for dinner, children,” said he. “Please mind your manners.”

They said, “Yes, sir” in a disappointed chorus. Although they had not known exactly for what they were hoping, they all realized at once that it was _not_ company for dinner. The announcement, in fact, was like a dash of cold water. Roger made bold to question him.

“Is it the Governor again?” he asked.

“No,” answered his father. (Mary thought she detected here a slight rise of color to his cheeks, a circumstance easily accounted for if our readers will but recall that visit which brought such consternation in the wake of its honor.) Then he passed quickly through the gate and down the graveled sidewalk in the direction of his office.

The children looked at one another, all alike unwilling to recognize that the very pleasurable suspense they had experienced must be satisfied by a guest for dinner, probably by some neighboring lawyer, who would talk about the tariff and keep them too long at the table. But the older ones still clung hopefully to the strange air of mystery about their father. That and the startling innovation in his appearance could not, they told themselves, portend the usual dinner-guest.

“I suppose it will mean blue serge,” sighed Cynthia resignedly, “though it’s much too hot.”

“I suppose it will,” said Mary.

“I can’t,” said Roger, all the time knowing that he could and would. “There’s a baseball game at two--sharp.”

John said nothing, mostly because at five it takes all one’s time to keep one’s mental balance in any such maelstrom of excitement as this. Moreover, he knew he must do just as he was told.

“The Parker children all have new best dresses, made especially for summer,” contributed Cynthia, “muslin with dots. That makes five apiece for them.”

“It’s a silly extravagance,” said Mary. (The words and the opinion belonged to her mother.) “Blue serge will do till Father gets the fall election.”

But, to the surprise of all, the call to blue serge was not forthcoming. They heard the draft of the stove opened, and smelt the crisp, luscious odor of well-cooked meat and of freshly baked bread. They heard their mother’s quick, sure steps going from kitchen to dining-room and back again. Mary and Cynthia exchanged puzzled glances. Neither could remember a time when they had not been called in to help with the last things about the table.

“For, even if we’re not needed, what about the discipline?” thought Mary.

The petals from the orchard trees beyond the driveway drifted through the warm, bright air like great, lazy snowflakes. A pair of bluebirds circled about in the white fragrance and in the drowsy murmur of bees.

And then Roger from the top of the gatepost gave a shout. He had seen his father’s hat just topping the hill that led from the village.

“They’re coming--whoever it is!” he cried.

II

A BLUE GINGHAM AND AN ANCIENT LAND

They were coming! They topped the hill; they passed the academy with its white columns and ancient date in gilded figures; they passed the Blodgett house, within which Miss Sarah Blodgett peered from the sidelights of the front entrance, mistrust and amazement in her sharp face; they passed the church with its green shutters and westward-pointing weathercock; they passed the crossroads where Pleasant Street saunters across Maple; they entered upon that long stretch of elm-shaded gravel walk, which, quite unimpaired by other houses, leads to the Wescott gate. Still the four Wescotts by that gate said not one word or made the slightest move toward going to meet their father. Indeed, they were quite too busily engaged in trying to set their mental houses to rights to do anything but stare. And stare they did!

Their father was coming up the street, laden with a huge and shining black bag or pack, which he carried most awkwardly by means of bands across one shoulder. By his side walked the strangest person the four Wescotts had ever seen. She was tall, and the queer folds of her black dress gave place above the waist to a velvet bodice of the same color, only laced with gold cord that tied at the throat. Her sleeves were full and white, and their edges of lace fell almost over her dark, long-fingered hands. They could see that her hair was as black and shining as her bodice or as the covering of her great bundle, for the handkerchief of red silk which had once covered it had fallen back and lay on her shoulders. They saw, too, the gold coins, suspended in tiny rings of gold, that hung from her ears, and the string of great red stones around her neck. Then, as she came nearer and they stared more breathlessly than ever, Roger at the coins, John at the necklace, Cynthia and Mary at the gold-laced bodice and peculiar sleeves, they saw that she had soft, dark eyes such as they had never seen before--eyes which, they somehow all at once knew, had looked upon things unfamiliar and far away.

At the gate their father recalled them to their senses.

“Children, this is our new friend, Mary Christmas,” he said, lifting the latch, and allowing his guest to precede him into the driveway. “Come and speak to her.”

They came forward then with the bows and curtsies which had been, as far back as they could remember, the necessary accompaniment to the reception of all visitors; but they were surprised almost to the point of being startled when this dark stranger with the great eyes bent suddenly and kissed the hands which they gave to her, at the same time murmuring unfamiliar words.

It was just at the moment when Mary Christmas kissed the dimple between the second and third finger of John’s square little hand that Mary Wescott saw something which the others had quite overlooked. There were traces of tears on the brown face of their guest--quite unmistakable, tiny paths, which, dry as they now were, bore certain and tragic proof in their downward course across her smooth cheeks. And as Mary Wescott stared at those barely discernible lines, a singular thing happened to her. She who had seen tears and the traces of them in plenty during her twelve years began to feel suddenly as though she had never really seen them before in all her life. Those dry, white stains on the face of Mary Christmas were doing a strange thing to her, which she did not understand or like at all. They were shutting out all the people about her, her father, John, Roger, Cynthia, even Mary Christmas herself, the sunlight, the drifting petals of apple blossoms, and in their places were trying to show her Things which were not things at all. They were making her dimly aware that the sorrows in the world, the pitiful sufferings of the aged, the bewildering anguish of young people, the broken hearts of little children, are all a part of a great mantle of sorrow that encircles the whole wide earth in its dark, smothering folds. She drew back frightened; but just at that moment her mother, in blue gingham, appeared on the front steps.

Now that blue gingham was a wonder-working fabric. It chased away the Things that Mary Wescott might have seen, and kept her a little girl for a whole year longer. The suddenness of it there on the porch brought back her father and the others, and, in spite of a peculiar clutching at her throat and the entirely absurd idea that she had been away somewhere, made her quite herself again. So when John, suddenly freeing himself from Cynthia’s grasp, ran boldly after Mary Christmas and his father and, to the astonishment of everyone, put his hand in the dark one of the stranger to lead her to his mother, she could follow with Roger and Cynthia, smiling at his unaccustomed friendliness and sharing their eager excitement in each new happening of this most extraordinary occasion.

That dinner and the afternoon hours that followed were memorable ones in Wescott history. Mary Christmas sat at the table in the seat of honor at their father’s right, those disturbing marks of tears quite washed from her face, the red silk handkerchief tied neatly over her dark hair. Appetites languished among the Wescott children; and for once penalties were mercifully withheld from those who could eat no potato. Four pairs of eyes traveled from headdress to gold lacings, from brown cheeks, now flushed with color, to long brown fingers; four pairs of ears strained to detect among the broken, rhythmic fragments of her speech familiar everyday words that they could understand.