Part 11

Chapter 114,309 wordsPublic domain

The excitement had reached fever-heat on Easter Sunday, that Sunday on which Mrs. Briarley’s precious five-dollar bill was solemnly laid in the contribution plate. She, all her little lone self, was actually paying off part of the church debt! It seemed to her as she left the church that several women looked at her rather oddly—or was it at her hat? She had changed the trimming a little in the front. Perhaps they were admiring it.

She had expected to take little Emily to the children’s service in the afternoon, and when the child fell asleep instead, she went by herself. The service was pretty; it was full of flowers and music and children’s voices. When it was ended she stood in the vestibule, lingering, with her eyes fixed on a group of women talking to Mrs. Beatoun.

Suddenly Mrs. Beatoun detached herself from the group and came forward, with tall figure held erect. There was a breathless pause. Those who were there knew that the wearer of the hat and the owner of the hat had met at last.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Briarley, “I’m so glad you came to speak to me! I’ve been just hoping that you would!”

“Indeed!” said Mrs. Beatoun.

“I wanted to tell you—I’ve never enjoyed going to church as I have to-day.” Mrs. Briarley raised her rapt eyes to those of the rector’s wife, who wore a little half-cynical smile. “I think your husband preaches such beautiful sermons. I never heard any that made me feel so much like—like wanting to be good.” Her voice dropped shyly.

“That is very nice, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Beatoun, politely. “May I ask where you got your hat?”

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked!” said Mrs. Briarley. She was so full of her own earnestness of purpose that she kept on, oblivious to the chill in Mrs. Beatoun’s tone. Her cheeks became pink, her eyes suffused. “I bought it at the rummage sale. Of course it must have been worn before, although it doesn’t look it. I bought it because—I’ve been wanting to tell you that after Mr. Beatoun’s appeal I _couldn’t_ spend the five dollars I had meant to on a hat, although I needed one. I just bought this at the sale, and gave the money to the church. I thought Mr. Beatoun might like to know he had made somebody feel that way. I never have thought of—things—before, and I wanted to thank him. I have been saying to myself, as I stood here, that if you came forward to speak to me, I’d take it as a—sign that I was to tell you this.”

She paused a moment, and then went on. (While you were unburdening your heart, why not tell all?)

“I have a dear little girl at home, and I do so want to learn to be better—for her sake. And I’ve thought if I could know you—I’ve been sort of afraid of you before, but I’m not now. And I love my little girl so _very_ much——” She stopped again.

Something passed from one to the other as they stood there—Mrs. Briarley did not know what. There was a wonderful and sweet gentleness in the face of the older woman as it bent to the simple earnestness of the other. Mrs. Briarley’s one little thought of truth had unerringly met and rounded its circle. It is not only at the sacramental table that we are partakers together of the Bread of Life.

“I’m so glad you told me!” said Mrs. Beatoun. She was not a demonstrative woman, but in that pause she had put her arms round Mrs. Briarley and kissed her, under the very shade of the rummage hat.

“And Mr. Beatoun will be glad, too. No, indeed, you must never be afraid of me again; and you must bring your little girl to see us. It was just sweet of you to think of telling me about the hat.”

“I’ve noticed people looking at it,” said Mrs. Briarley, all in a glow. “I never thought until to-day that it might be a mistake about its being sent to the sale. But you don’t think so?”

“No, it’s not a mistake,” said Mrs. Beatoun, with a sudden smile, as she added “and I’m in a position to know.”

* * * * *

“Yes, I’ve joined the Guild,” said Mrs. Briarley, with pride in her tone. “They’ve made me secretary already.” She did not know how cordially that position was made the portion of the stranger. She was talking to her husband the evening of his return.

“Mrs. Beatoun couldn’t have been more interested about that five dollars if she had given it herself. You’ve no idea how nice everybody in the Guild is to me; they seem to take pains to be kind. But Mrs. Beatoun—there’s something about Mrs. Beatoun I can’t explain!”

“Well?” said her husband, enjoyingly. Mrs. Briarley was in a washed white muslin, with ribbons the exact blue of her innocent eyes. She did not look as if she could be the mother of an Emily.

“I believe Mrs. Beatoun is really—fond of me!”

“That’s very strange,” said Mrs. Briarley’s husband.

Madonna of the Toys: A Christmas Story

“I don’t know what to give him for Christmas!”

Mrs. Tom looked tragically at the group consulting over their father-in-law in the old-fashioned library. Miss Clara, the unmarried daughter, had left the room.

“We have a picture,” announced Mrs. Andrew complacently; “a cathedral interior, beautifully dark and perspective. Little Mary has a cup and saucer, and Francis a whisk broom.”

“My boys can give black-bordered silk handkerchiefs,” said Mrs. Frank. “Clara suggests that I have that armchair re-covered, the one he never sits in.”

“Malcolm had better get him another dozen cases of mineral water,” said Mrs. Malcolm. “When it’s in the house he drinks it. But that hardly seems enough, father’s so generous to us. I shall buy a small refrigerator for his room—it’s so useful in sickness.”

“What do you think of rubber water-bags in assorted sizes?” suggested Mrs. Walter eagerly. “If he had a pain in two or three places at once they’d be very handy.”

“Ah!” Mrs. Frank lowered her voice. “I dread coming here Christmas afternoon and staying to supper; don’t you? _We_ can get along all right, and the little girls bring their dolls, but boys are so restless—and men, too! It was so different when Kate and her children were living here, but last year——! Clara doesn’t know how to make the house attractive.”

“She worries so now that father has to stay up-stairs,” agreed Mrs. Malcolm feelingly. “The boys love their grandfather, but there’s nothing for them to do. Why, Violet, you’re not going?”

“I must,” answered a girl with reddish hair and pretty, long-lashed eyes, who was Mrs. Arthur. She had risen, and was throwing a white boa around her neck. Her white teeth flashed suddenly in a smile: “I never was of so much importance before. Good-bye, everybody!”

She ran down the hall, looking in at an open doorway to call an audacious “Last tag!” to a tall old man who sat there reading, and receive his quick, amused response before she went swiftly homeward.

Violet’s appointment with the baby was very important indeed. As she sat afterwards in the darkened nursery, with the infant’s little downy head against her warm breast, her thoughts went back to grandfather. Somehow his Christmas prospects depressed her—the dark picture and the mineral water, the re-covered chair, the refrigerator and the rubber bags seemed so unlightsome; there was nothing from which the most willing mind could conjure festivity. Even the perennial handkerchiefs and whisk brooms and cups and saucers failed to cheer her. It seemed dreadful to be so old that you weren’t supposed to want anything anybody else did, to have everything so tiresomely suitable. Violet had an irreverent desire to send her father-in-law a pink necktie or a flippant poster.

There could be no greater contrast to the needs of Age than this softly-curtained place, with its white furniture, and a blue rug in front of the brass andirons on which the pine logs burned aromatically. A blue and white bassinet swung by a gilded rod, and a white willow hamper showed the blue satin-lined tray, filled with miniature ivory toilet articles, and tiny garments, laced and ribboned—all the dainty appanage of a “first” baby.

A silver and mother-of-pearl rattle and a French clown, belled and tinselled, on a white stick, lay upon the blue table-cover, while a large drum, fastened on the wall above, showed that in the pride of welcoming a boy love hadn’t been able to wait for him to grow into his heritage.

Her sisters-in-law characterized Violet fondly as a mere child; in truth she was a jolly little girl, but underneath the jollity were the directness and insight, and the shy, deep feeling of a child, so hidden as to be almost unguessed. Only her husband saw and reverenced that unfathomed sweetness. But even he did not know of those far-off journeys which her spirit took in company with her little new-born son, in the wonder of his soft, warm mouth, his tiny feet, and unconscious, clasping fingers.

The birth of her child had been to Violet also the birth of Thought; she pondered on the mysteries; for the first time she realized the existence of that great chain whose links are composed alternately of life and death, with the coming and the going of generations. In this infant life she saw the time when her own days should be numbered, and grew pale, yet unafraid, as she held him closer, because the goodness of God was so near.

He was such a very little baby that he was not much of anything as yet to any one but his mother, though his father was indeed unmeasurably proud of him as a son and heir, and regarded him with deeply expectant, if amused, affection. But to Violet he was a wellspring not only of the traditional pleasure but of infinitely more. As one who stands with the ear to a sea-shell, rapt with the sound of the mysterious murmurs of the far-off ocean, so Violet, when she sat bending over her baby, felt a deep, tremulous connection with beautiful, unseen things that were holiness unto the Lord. She was so happy that she longed for every one to be happy; her child-heart even yearned maternally over grandfather, who had lived so many years that people couldn’t see that he was still young. She was a partner in the secret; if she called “Last tag” to him it was because she knew he liked it. He was a kind, wise old man, who submitted patiently to Miss Clara’s fusses and restrictions because he saw the love back of them; and he had lived his life so fully and well that it did not seem worth while to strive to live it now. Yet sometimes, as Violet divined, he was contented to dwell in the past because the present was a little lonely now that the house was no longer the rallying-place for the young, as in the time of his daughter Kate, who had children of her own.

“Little blessedest! I want your grandfather to have a Merry Christmas,” said Violet confidingly to the baby in her arms, who raised his tiny lashes as if in response, and looked at her an instant before the lids fell shut again. She pressed him closer in adoration. “Oh, aren’t you sweet, _aren’t_ you sweet!” and fell to kissing him softly, a process from which she found that mothers gain wisdom.

“Did you decide what to get for father yesterday?” asked her husband the next morning. He was a man of noticeably fine appearance, and a lawyer of repute; it was still a wonder in the family how he had ever come to marry Violet, who yet seemed to suit him exactly.

“No,” answered Violet

“Then I think you’d better get that new dictionary I was speaking of; it’s published by Worden. I’ll leave you the money.”

“I thought he had so many dictionaries.”

“My dear child, that’s just the reason for giving him another.”

“I will not get him a dictionary,” said Violet. Yet she weakened after a tour through the shops. She could find nothing for her father-in-law that appealed in the least to an imagination all ready to be fired. Yet it was joy to be out for Christmas shopping in the crisp air to one who had been so little able lately to go abroad, while before her raptured vision she saw ever a wee sock hung by the nursery hearth, and a tiny lighted tree. Many little children were to be made happy this holy-tide because her child had come to her—Violet’s thank-offering had flowed by many streams to reach unseen baby hands. As she went along now she stopped to slip coins into the palms of longing boys and girls looking in at Christmas-decked windows.

“Oh, _Violet_!”

It was Mrs. Tom who clutched her. “Isn’t it dreadful—the rush! I’m nearly dragged to pieces. I’ve just bought an inkstand for father, in the shape of a peach, with a thermometer on it—the kind of thing no one ever uses, but I was desperate. I’ve a big woolly sheep for your baby, but if you think he’s too little for it——”

“Oh, _no_!” cried Violet, her face rosy with pleasure. “How dear of you!” She could have embraced Mrs. Tom before crossing over to the toy store, a ravishing spot, one window of which was given up to regiments and regiments of lead soldiers afoot and on horseback, on a green plain dotted with little round white tents. The other window was filled with dolls sitting at tea-tables, swinging, or lying in pink or blue-and-white beds like the baby’s at home. When Violet was a little girl she had always been taken through this shop at Christmas time; it was one of the delights of the season, but never had it seemed so delightful as now, when she was buying toys for a “first” Christmas, while music-boxes played, and animals squeaked, and rattling, whirring mechanical toys ran riot.

She stopped at last by a counter laden with glittering tree ornaments. Opposite were shelves filled with stationary engines varied with an occasional boat or locomotive. There seemed to be no clerk there, but a small boy, seven or eight years of age, with a white sailor cap pushed back to make a halo around his short golden curls, was walking backward and forward, regarding the display with rapt, angelic eyes, and incidentally putting out the tip of his chubby forefinger to touch a cylinder or an electric battery. Looking up suddenly he caught Violet’s eye; they both smiled, and she came over to him. So might her own little boy look some day.

“Do you like engines?”

“Yes,” said the boy with a deep, indrawn breath. He forestalled criticism: “I’m not too little to have one; my papa says so! He’ll run it for me. He’s down-stairs now.” He pointed to the shelf. “Do you see this one? That’s where you pour the alcohol in—and this is the steam gauge—and here’s the safety-valve. She’s a hummer! And this ’lectric—that’s a hummer, too!”

“Oh,” said Violet. She sought for more definite accomplishment. “What do they do?”

“They go!” answered the little boy. “And they set other things going, too, if you want ’em.” He indicated an array near by: fountains, a man sawing wood, a printing press, and the like. “You ’tach ’em by a thread. See that one up there?” He pointed to a large cylinder of grey burnished steel. His tone fell to one of reverence. “It pumps water!”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Violet with delightful appreciation. “I’m so glad to talk to you because I have a little boy myself, but he isn’t as big as you—he’s only six weeks old.”

“Gee!” said the little boy with his angelic smile. “I never knew any one as little as that.” He stopped disapprovingly. “Why, that’s only a _baby_!”

“Ah, that’s what people call him,” said Violet, sagely; “they think he can’t even talk. Of course he doesn’t really say anything, but we have long conversations together—I always know what he means.”

The little boy nodded. “My mamma and I talk that way too,” he said simply.

“Then there’s another one—I wish you’d tell me what to buy for him—he’s about seventy or eighty years older.”

“But that’s an old man!” cried the boy in wonder.

Violet shook her head. “Oh, no! Of course, that’s what people call him,” she explained again, tolerantly; “but we know better.”

The boy looked at her debatingly. “Is it ‘Once Upon a Time,’ or is it ‘A True Story’?” he asked.

“It’s both,” said Violet.

Their eyes met this time in the joyousness of mutual understanding.

“I like you, I like you,” cried the little boy, and tucked his hand into hers, jumping along with both feet in short flying leaps. “Come here! I’ll show you what to buy for him, I’ll show you; _that_! Oh, there’s my papa beckoning to me!”

He dropped her hand and disappeared like a flash in the crowd by the stairs.

“Well,” said Violet to herself, staring in front of her. “Well—why not?”

“I couldn’t get here a minute sooner—I _had_ to lie down after I got them all out of the house.”

Mrs. Tom, arriving late at the paternal mansion on Christmas afternoon, was taking off her wraps in the hall as she looked in at the circle of sisters-in-law sitting around the fire in the drawing-room, warm with the smell of cedar, and bedecked with scarlet holly. Through the open doorway beyond the mahogany table, set with the old white-and-gold china, showed promise of good things to come.

“How cozy you all look in here—but where are the others?” asked Mrs. Tom.

Miss Clara spread out her hands with a gesture of dismay, belied by her beaming face.

“Well, you’ll never guess—every man and boy is up-stairs with father, trying to run that crazy engine Violet sent him; it’s one of those dreadful electrical things. If I’d had the remotest idea what was in the box—and she never even told Arthur! You can’t get one of them out of that room, except to—— Listen to that!”

A boy’s footsteps came hurtling down the back stairs, and a moment later an excited voice called:

“Will it work?”

“No,” came from above.

“Oh, I see what’s the matter. Will it work now?”

“No.”

“Wait a moment till I come up.”

“They’ve been doing that for two mortal hours,” said Mrs. Malcolm placidly. “They have miles of wire trying to attach something—don’t ask me what, for I haven’t the faintest idea. Of course it won’t work; engines never do; if they did all the occupation would be gone. My husband is just as bad as the rest. They all have engines at home, but they say Violet’s beats the lot. Just hear that child laugh; she’s been up there all the afternoon. We’ve been having the most beautifully restful time down here by ourselves. I haven’t seen father look so happy in months, and in all that clatter! _Did_ you hear that Kate is coming back?”

“Will you listen to that!” said Mrs. Walter.

The inevitable footsteps were clattering again madly down-stairs, with the accompanying voice:

“Will it work?”

“No.”

“Oh, I guess I see what’s the matter with it this time. Will it work now?”

“No.”

“Wait till I come up!”

The end of a holiday is the dearest part of a happy one, when the jewels are counted over, to be strung on the silver thread of memory. The lights were turned down low in the nursery, so that the flames of the fire of aromatic pine were reflected rosily from the white surface of the enamelled furniture, as Violet sat there in her loose blue gown, her reddish hair half curling over her shoulders, rocking her little son with his head pressed against her white bosom. After all the merry Christmas Day, after all the clatter, and jollity, and family chatter, the supper, the plum pudding, and the lighted candles, and the children’s carols of the Child Divine, she was back here once more with her little, little son—the life that was mysteriously her life too. Ah, not because of the feasting and the presents, nor the merry companionship, not all because of the inspiring engine even, had the day been Christmas indeed to an old man and those who felt the sweetness, unknowing. Through Violet’s happiness had come the Angel Note.

The drum hung upon the wall, and set out on the blue rug was a small farmyard of animals, with the large white woolly sheep and a brown tin cow on wheels, towering above them. On the table stood a tiny Christmas tree, decked with a red, a blue and a yellow candle, a little horse, a little horn, a candy hen and a glittering star, and on the mantel was a paper angel in white and tinsel with dovelike wings and floating hair.

Violet’s husband coming through the room put his hand tenderly on her hair as he passed.

“Little mother!” he said.

She leaned her head back against his hand, her eyes mutely acknowledging his caress, before she withdrew once more into that holy place where she lived to-night with the child, and where even the man she loved could not follow her.

The Name of The Firm

“So you’ve lost your place,” said his mother.

She looked with tender thoughtful eyes at the lad before her, and smoothed his fair hair with a hand that had to reach up to touch it, for she was a little woman.

“Yes,” said the boy, with a lip that he could not keep from quivering a little. “Somehow I didn’t expect it. Of course, I know lots of the fellows have been turned off lately; times are dull just now, and the firm always cut down the force when they can. It’s easy enough to take on new men when they want them, and those who have been there longest have first right to stay. I know that. But somehow I had thought that father’s work with them——”

“Yes,” said his mother. She sat down in a low chair, and with a gesture drew the boy to her side. “You say you had not expected to be turned away, Francis. Neither had I thought of it! There were reasons—— Your father thought that your future was assured, at least, if only—only as an atonement to him. The firm did not promise me to take care of you, to be sure, but it was understood. They sent at once, you know, and offered you the position. It was only right that you should begin at the bottom of the ladder.”

“The bottom of the ladder is about under ground there,” said the boy with a whimsical shake of his head. “It’s pretty low down, I can tell you! Why there are firms not a quarter so rich as they who pay their boys more—enough for car-fare and shoes and lunch, _anyway_—of course, though that’s one of the ways they _get_ rich. I’m not complaining. But I thought to-day if father were the head of the business, and I had been one of Mr. Nelson’s boys——”

“Your father loved Mr. Nelson,” said the mother, after a silence during which the two had sat with clasped hands. “And Mr. White too,” she added.

“And didn’t they love him?”

“Yes, once—before they began to make so much money, and after it,—perhaps—sometimes! I don’t know. Mr. Nelson was moved when he came to see me that first time; he meant to be kind about you. To your father he was always the friend he had loved even when he was cut to the heart with John Nelson’s altered ways. There are some people who are _born_ constant.”

“But don’t you mind,” said the boy, a little wistfully, “that I am thrown out of the place? I walked around the town two hours this morning before I could make up my mind to come and tell you, though I knew it Friday. I was afraid it would be too great a shock to you; and yet you don’t seem to think anything of it at all.”

“You will be taken back with a larger salary,” said his mother quietly. “You need not look so startled, Francis. I know Nelson and White—what they used to be, and what they are now; I know them thoroughly. If there were any other way—— Dear, there are some things that I cannot tell you, but your father’s son shall not be turned from his old firm while I live. They must respect the honour of their name. No, don’t tell me not to go to them! I’ll not shame you. I am not going to beg them to take you back again, I have the right to demand it. Trust me, Francis!”

“I do, mother,” said the boy, but half doubtfully, as he stooped and kissed the face raised to his.

It was a pretty face, with a broad low forehead and clear grey eyes, dark now with a purpose that he could not understand. He felt uncomfortable without knowing why, as he met their gaze. There was something in them that was not like mother.