Chapter III: Part 3

John James sat back on his heels and thought a moment. “I can afford it easily; I have been greatly prospered,” said he.

“Wal, you’re lucky--and this is a reg’lar windfall,” said Asher, getting into the boots. John James laughed, slapping him on the back.

“Perfect fit. They’re yours, Asher. Now lend a hand. A man’s long dressing-gown--that’s for father!”

“He won’t know how to act,” said Asher.

“Half a dozen boxes of candy--hope nobody will get ill from them,” went on John James, still investigating. “Here’s--oh, undo this carefully--a fur tippet for Mary!”

“Great snakes!” said Asher, handling it with reverence. “I never see no sech fur as this.”

“Yes, it’s a warm one, I hope,” said John, from the depths of the box.

He brought out mittens for the children, a stunning suit for little John, dresses for Sarah, Mary, and the cousins, more books, mechanical toys that set Asher laughing as if he never would stop.

Asher gazed around the kitchen, which looked like a museum.

“I never see sech a sight,” said he; “I’m sort o’ bewildered. _Is_ this you an’ me, or some other fellows?”

“You’ll find out if you don’t wake up and put all these things on the plates and chairs where they belong. Asher, we must clear up these wrappings. Hold on!--here’s something we overlooked.” He picked up a small box containing four tiny boxes.

“Rings for the children, by jiminy!” said Asher, looking over his shoulder. “Lucky we didn’t cram it into the kindlin’s.”

It was one o’clock before they got to bed; and it seemed as if they were only just asleep before the seven-o’clock alarm went off, and waked them up to a world of snow.

They slept later than usual, but there was a tremendous hustling in that house, once they were fairly awake. When all were dressed and had come down, the shrieks of the children and their own curiosity made it nearly impossible for the women to get breakfast. It was one of their Christmas rules that no gift on the table should be taken up till all were at the board. But Dolly, with low “oh’s” and “ah’s” of delight, touched softly the pink toes and hands of the big “sleeping beauty” in her chair; for the box was too big to go on the table. All their chairs were full, and the steaming breakfast cooled before the jubilant household were ready to eat.

Asher opened his fine new pocket-book, and seeing a piece of paper in it, took it out, stared, put it back, looked at it again with a dazed expression, and got up, overturning his chair. His old father looked up from the warm dressing-gown they had put on him, and which he was smoothing like a pleased child.

“What ails ye, Asher?” asked the old man.

“Sit down, man, sit down!” said John James in an undertone, picking up the chair.

“Lawsee, but I can’t! John, this is too much! Why, John, I never heard--”

“Oh, keep quiet, Asher! Sit down, I tell you!”

“Father, this is a cashier’s draft on a Boston bank for five hundred an’ fifty dollars. It pays the last o’ the mor’gidge an’ interest, father! John, I can’t take it--after all this!” said Asher, waving his hands widely abroad at the gifts around him.

“Nonsense, Asher!--yes, you will, too. Man, I never had such fun in my life before! Pour him some coffee, somebody, please.”

“John!” said Asher, gripping his hand hard and choking.

“You see, Asher, I thought ’twas high time you got paid off for that whipping you took for me long ago, when I deserved it.”

“Oh, thunder!” said Asher, unable to speak another word.

They passed the day quietly together, and it seemed to John James that he never ate so tender a turkey, such exquisitely seasoned vegetables. The plum-pudding with its burning sauce capped the whole, and left them with serene souls.

When dark settled down, and the farm “chores” were done, candles and lamps lit the low-ceiled, comfortable old rooms, and with mirth and jollity they played Christmas games. John James had forgotten all about his other self--the city-man left on the depot platform. His oldest acquaintance wouldn’t have known him as he “marched to Jerusalem,” with his thick, grayish hair rumpled all over his head, or spun the tin pie-plate on the kitchen floor.

But suddenly there came a sound of bells, the tramp of a horse on the cleared path at the side door.

“Somebody’s come in this snow,” said Asher, going to the door. They all pressed forward to see.

“Well, I declare! Hello! Here ye all are!” cried a voice. “Ye didn’t expect me, I’ll be bound. I concluded to come, after all. I was snowed in last night, or I should’a’ got here this mornin’. Merry Christmas to all of ye!”

It was the _real_ John Damon, covered with snow, hungry but jolly. Behind him the driver tugged his bag. John James Alston’s heart gave a great bound, then sunk to the depths of his boots. Amid the amazed silence of the whole family, the real and the false John Damon confronted each other.

“What--what--who’s this?” stammered the newcomer, recognizing the resemblance in a moment, yet unable at once to grasp the astounding audacity of this stranger’s performance. As for the family, they needed but to see the two men together in order to know them apart. In the agitation of the moment, I am afraid the welcome they gave brother John from the West lacked the proper warmth.

John James Alston understood that it was “up to him” to explain. And it was the cool and resourceful city-man, his dignity still touched with the heart-warm jollity of the country John James, who rose to the occasion, and somehow won all hearts to him anew in the utterance of his first few sentences.

“Mr. Damon,” he said, “Asher, my brother,”--he put his hand on Asher’s shoulder and kept it there,--“and all you, my dear, newfound friends, I have to ask your pardon for usurping a position that does not belong to me. I am John J. Alston of New York. I have always been a lonely man. I never married, and have no family ties. I think I never realized how lonely I was until, coming up into this section on business, I heard on every side talk of Christmas, and saw at every station Christmas meetings and greetings, and people going home. Five apartment rooms make my home,” he added with a smile. “While I waited for my train at the Junction, these children claimed me as their uncle, and Sarah here saluted me as her brother.” Sarah looked uncomfortable. “It was very pleasant, and in an unguarded moment I yielded to temptation and came home with them. I didn’t know there were such kind-hearted people alive. I never have had such a good time in my life. May I hope you’ll all pardon me, and let me be a second Uncle John to the end of the chapter?”

Half-way through his little oration he felt Maidie’s hand slip shyly into his. Billy stood close behind him; little John, who had resented being put down, tried to climb up his leg; and Dolly, with her curly-haired beauty in one arm, hung to him whenever she could get a hold. Plainly John James “filled the bill” with them.

“Huh! well! see that now! _My_ nose’s out of joint,” said the Western Uncle John, with a laugh, indicating the children. “I never heard of a thing like this--never. It’s a most astonishing thing--really, now. But I can’t blame you.” He offered his hand to John James. “I don’t see but we’ll have to get acquainted. It’s a great comfort, too, to know that I resemble such a good-looking man!” He scrutinized John James closely. “It almost reconciles me to the loss of my turkey dinner.”

“But you shan’t lose it!” protested Aunt Sarah, amid the babel of tongues wherewith they welcomed the Western uncle afresh, and sought to assure John James of their entire forgiveness and acceptance of him as one of the family. And straightway one of the cousins dragged Uncle John away to the table, with intent to satisfy his hunger, and incidentally to lay before him a history of the whole affair.

Later on, the business of Christmas enjoyment was resumed with--if possible--greater zest than ever; and when, at a shockingly late hour, John James repaired to the mountainous bed in the little room, he knew that peace and good-will were more than mere names, and that he never should repent of the audacious performance which had won him a whole family of country relatives. And while just dropping off to sleep, it came to him that it would be well to look up those Connecticut cousins before next Christmas, and find out what they were like.

[8] Reprinted from “St. Nicholas Magazine,” with permission.

BUNNY FACE AND THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS[9]

_Gertrude A. Kay_

He was such a very little boy and everything about him was pale--hair, eyes, ears, everything. But even though his face was so peaked, his big ears were what you noticed first, and we soon discovered that he could move them most surprisingly--backward and forward. This was something that none of the rest of us could do. It was for this reason probably that we began calling him Bunny Face.

He didn’t have a family, like other children. I don’t know to this day where he came from, but he lived with a woman that he called aunt, whenever he called her anything. But she played very little part in his life, and some folks said that she wasn’t his aunt at all. But our mothers said that this was being inquisitive and told us never, never to say such a thing to Bunny Face. But the grown-ups always stopped talking about it when we were around, so of course we knew there was some more which they never would tell us. Anyway, the aunt’s name was Katie Duckworth, and she had it painted in big letters over her dry-goods store downtown. It was a tiny little store and crowded and dark inside. She was sort of blind and never could find the things that your mother sent you there to buy. There were some folks who said she wasn’t very bright. But to this day, whenever I smell gingham it makes me think of Katie Duckworth and her little dry-goods store.

Although they seemed to get along all right, Bunny Face and his aunt never fixed up in their best clothes and went off together a-hold of hands, as the rest of us did with our mothers or our aunts. But then poor Bunny Face didn’t have any other clothes; though, goodness knows, that didn’t worry him at all. His aunt never sent him to Sunday school and didn’t bother at all when the teacher told her that he played truant. But Bunny Face was good-natured; and if you had ever seen a smile start on his face and spread all over it till it made his ears wiggle, you would have smiled, too, no matter what.

“Why is a goblin, or why isn’t a goblin?” He was fond of asking the rest of us questions like that, and then he would laugh and laugh, just as if he knew the answer himself. He often told us long stories about places he’d been and queer things he’d done, and though we knew that they had never really happened, we didn’t care.

In school he wasn’t any good at all; just sat and looked out of the window and scratched things with his jackknife. He spoiled his books and spilled ink on the floor, but he loved big dictionary words and knew lots of them, so sometimes we didn’t know just what he was talking about. He played truant oftener than any of the big boys; maybe it was because it was so easy for him to get away, being so small he could slip out before teacher noticed.

But the school house janitor--Old Crab, we called him--was always on the lookout for Bunny Face. He was really a terrible person, evil and hateful. He hobbled on one crutch and lived in a battered old shanty by the dump. You see, he didn’t have a wife--dead or something; but the shanty was just full of children. They were all sizes and all starved looking--and bad too.

Bunny Face knew the woods all about as most children knew their own back lot, and he used to walk miles and miles through any kind of weather, for, as he said, things happened in the woods and there were water spirits down in the creek. He kept track of all the little animals, and he knew what trees had squirrels living in them and where certain birds had their nests. But when he told about them the creatures that lived in the woods seemed exactly like folks. Well, late one afternoon on his way home, when he’d been prowling around all day, he heard a most awful racket, then barking. And suddenly a Maltese cat flattened itself and wiggled under the fence and shot up a tree. Bunny Face looked over the fence into the garden. Yes, there was the very dog, only he was tied. Right that minute an old man came out and said “Well, well,” and “What, what,” the way old people do.

“Is she yours?” Bunny Face pointed up in the branches.

“No, sonny,” answered the old man.

“Guess I’ll get her then,” said Bunny Face; and he began to coax “Nice kitty, nice kitty” till the cat came down within reach. She was a poor, thin thing with eager eyes and shabby ears. But he thought that she had a fine coat.

“Let’s give her some supper,” said the old man.

So that is the way it came about that Bunny Face and the Parson started being friends.

Right away they began to get acquainted there in the kitchen while the cat lapped milk, and the Parson invited Bunny Face to stay to supper. He said that he could, all right; so that was settled and they went into the other room to sit by the fire till suppertime.

“Think I’ll take my cat,” said Bunny Face.

“Why not call her Agnes, after my old horse?” said the Parson.

And so the Maltese cat was named Agnes.

It was nice and warm in the Parson’s house, and there were lots of things to ask questions about. There were two big creaking chairs in front of the fire, and the old man sat in one and Bunny Face sat in the other and held Agnes on his lap. Finally the cat went to sleep, and they talked. Bunny Face told his new friend about a lot of things. And the Parson told about his horse that he had had once and about the dog that had barked at Agnes.

Just then a little bell rang, and the Parson said that supper was ready. They went out and washed their hands under the pump, then sat down to the table in the kitchen, where there was an old lady. The Parson said that she was his sister and then he told her who Bunny Face was. After that the old man said a grace and they ate little biscuits with honey and different things and Bunny Face enjoyed himself very much indeed. But the old lady wasn’t a bit like anyone he had ever seen before, because her face was different. And when Bunny Face started home she tied his muffler and asked if he was warm enough. He took Agnes with him and said, yes, he’d come again. And the Parson stood in the door and held the lamp up over his head till Bunny Face got ’way down the road.

The next morning there was snow on the ground, and the children at school began to talk about Christmas. And very soon all the shops fixed up their show windows with Christmas things. But Hampton’s Toy Shop was the finest. Everyone thought so, and each day we were nearly late at school because we stood and looked in so long. Old Mrs. Hampton always clerked with a black satin apron on and a scoopy black hat, and she wore thick glasses to look at the price with. Though the children didn’t buy, they always asked how much everything was.

One day Bunny Face followed some of the other children in, and there hanging up on the wall he saw a picture. It showed Santa Claus himself, pack and all, coming out of a little house with a bright green door and a red chimney. But there was something about that picture that made him feel very queer. Finally he knew what it was. It was the trees. You see, he knew exactly where those big, tall pine trees were, out on Clark’s road. He was sure of it. But he’d find out for himself. Anyway there wouldn’t be a picture of Santa Claus’ house if he really didn’t have one, and why wouldn’t it be out on Clark’s road anyway? He kept on thinking about it all the morning.

So that afternoon he played truant again. It was a cold day, and the snowflakes nipped you on the cheeks as they flew past, but Bunny Face pulled down his cap and hurried on. He scrambled over fences and took all the short cuts across the snowy fields that led off toward Clark’s road. It was a long way to go on such a cold day, but he kept saying to himself what fun it would be when he got there to knock on Santa Claus’ door. Then he’d wait and Santa Claus would say “Come in”--just like that, and open would pop the door and there he, Bunny Face, would be standing. Of course he’d tell Santa Claus right away who he was, and Santa Claus would probably say, “Stay to supper, won’t you?” Then he’d see all the toys that were ready for Christmas, and may be Santa Claus would say, “Help yourself, Bunny Face; pick out something nice.”

Now the road curves just before you come to those tall pines, and Bunny Face decided to close his eyes and take five hundred steps, then open them quick, for there he’d be exactly in front of Santa Claus’ house. It kept him busy counting steps, and he got mixed up and maybe he cheated a little to make five hundred come sooner, but finally it was four hundred and ninety-eight, then four hundred and ninety-nine. Then he opened his eyes.

The wind was whistling through the branches and blowing the snow in cloudy rings under the tall black trees. But no little Santa Claus’ house with a green door and red chimney was standing there. Bunny Face couldn’t see a house anywhere. Then he knew how cold he was, and his feet didn’t _feel_ at all. He rubbed his eyes, for this was the place. Those were the very trees surely. Then he tried to think of all the other tall pine trees that he knew. Of course, maybe he had made a mistake; he would look at Mrs. Hampton’s picture again tomorrow. There was nothing to do now but to go back across the cold, white fields. He tried not to think about eating supper with Santa Claus and choosing a present for himself.

It seemed a thousand times farther going back than it had coming; indeed he thought that he never, _never_ would get there. But at last, just as the street lights were coming on, he opened the door of Katie Duckworth’s store and dragged himself over to the stove.

But my, how his heart jumped! For there, stretching out and looking very long, was Agnes fast asleep under the stove. He’d somehow forgotten about Agnes today, but he pulled her out and held her tight. How soft and warm and gentle she was!

Katie Duckworth was selling red mittens to a woman who said they were for Christmas, and she bought hair ribbons and handkerchiefs and a lot more presents before she left. Bunny Face saw that his aunt had been putting Christmas trimmings around the store while he was away. It looked quite fine. But it seemed queer, too, that she’d never talked about Christmas.

It seemed to Bunny Face that every single child had money to spend--for presents for other folks, mind you. This was all new to Bunny Face, for he had supposed that Santa Claus brought all the presents to everybody.

So Bunny Face concluded that he must have some Christmas secrets too. He’d give presents to people himself and have surprises and whisper like other folks. But how about the presents--what were they to be? That puzzled him. He sat by the stove and thought and thought. The next day he went for a walk. And after a while he found himself on the last street of the town just where the fields began. Ahead were the snowy woods and the frozen creek.

“Guess I’ll look for the pine trees,” said Bunny Face. This had been in his head all the time, and he only said that to surprise himself. If he could only really find Santa Claus he’d be all right. Then he’d explain that all he had was Agnes, and she wasn’t a Christmas present to be given away. And he knew that there was no other way out of it; he must find him. So that day he visited all the pine trees that were anywhere about. But not under one of them did he find a house, let alone Santa Claus’ house.

He knew that it must be getting late, for the sun was big and red and low down behind things. He was coming to the dump, which was mostly covered with snow, but the janitor’s shanty looked black and gloomy and only a little thin blue smoke was coming out of the chimney.

Suddenly a snowball whizzed past his head, and he saw the biggest dump child duck behind the corner; then snowballs began coming from every way, for the other dump children had come out. After a while they got tired and began to talk. Bunny Face started it by asking if they knew where Santa Claus’ house was. The real little dump children stared, but the big ones looked ugly.

“Santy Claus your granny!” they said. “Who put that in your head? Anyway if there was one, our old man would take his shotgun to him.”

As Bunny Face trudged on, it came to him that there would be other folks beside himself who would not get presents on Christmas. It made him feel a little better to count them.

“First,” he said, “there’s me; second, Agnes; next, the dump children. Let’s see--fourth, the janitor, of course. And fifth?” He might as well use up all his fingers. “Fifth--Madam Iceberg. Yes, that was a good one, for she wouldn’t get presents or give them.”

But you don’t know who Madam Iceberg was. She was the most-wondered-about person anywhere around. Long ago she used to go traveling, and have visitors from away off come to see her. At those times the big house would be lighted from top to bottom, with all sorts of things going on. Then she was really beautiful to look at. But mercy me, how she’d gone off these last years! Now her hair was far too yellow and her cheeks far too pink and her eyes were--uneasy.

There were No Trespassing signs all over her place; and rather than buy at any of our stores, she used to drive every day in her high carriage over to the next town and do all of her shopping there. So you can see that she wasn’t at all friendly with any of us thereabout.

Of course little Bunny Face had never talked to her, but he felt sure Santa Claus wouldn’t risk bothering much around her chimneys.

So with his head filled with these thoughts he went on till he came to the Parson’s little white house. Bunny Face decided to knock on the door and ask how the dog was. And the door was quickly opened by the Parson himself, who invited him right in.

And the Parson’s sister got him some supper, and he sat on a little stool by the fire and ate it while he told them about hunting for Santa Claus’ house. Then Bunny Face said that he knew five folks that wouldn’t have any Christmas, yes, sir. “Me,” he said, “Agnes, the dump children, the janitor, and Madam Iceberg.”

“Well, maybe not,” said the Parson.

Then he talked about something else, and asked Bunny Face if he had ever heard the Christmas Story. As Bunny Face didn’t know that there was one, he shook his head. So the Parson opened a book and turned pages, then read: “‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.’”

When it was finished the Parson closed the book, saying: “It’s the Spirit of Christmas, sonny--the Spirit of Christmas that the world needs.”

Bunny Face liked the idea. Spirits were a sort of ghosts or goblins; he knew that much. Not like Santa Claus at all--fat and pink, but different. He’d rather think that the Spirit was like a beautiful lady, a sort of fairy. So that’s what he was thinking about one day coming home from school, when he heard the sound of sleigh bells behind him. He turned around and waited, for hopping bobs in those days was a great sport with the children. But it wasn’t a bobsled at all, but Madam Iceberg’s fine green sleigh, fur rugs and all.

“Who’s afraid?” said Bunny Face to himself as the sleigh glided past him, and he hopped lightly on behind, to the surprise of all the people in the street.

On they went, Bunny Face, holding on for dear life, and Madam Iceberg in all her furs sitting there as grim as an image. They went very fast and soon all the shops were left behind, and the houses, and they started to climb the hill toward the big gate.

Then something made her look around suddenly and their eyes met. “Well,” she said, surprised, “who are you?”

“Bunny Face,” he answered promptly.

For a minute she looked as if she might laugh; but she didn’t. Then she said, “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes,” said Bunny Face; “they all call you Madam Iceberg.”

“Possibly,” was all she said.

Bunny Face was about to let go when she turned around again and said, “Now hold on tight.” They were turning in through the big iron gates which stood open.

Then the sleigh stopped in front of the house, and Madam Iceberg handed Bunny Face one of her bundles to carry, saying, “Here, boy, take this.” The driver looked surprised, and so did the maid who opened the door; but nobody said a word--just followed her inside.

It was big and dark and quiet in the house. Then suddenly Bunny Face saw something that made him stop short and drop the bundle.

“_There’s_ the Spirit of Christmas,” he shouted as loud as he could shout.

“Where--what?” asked the lady, ever so surprised.

“There on the wall,” cried Bunny Face, running quickly past the amazed group and stopping in front of the portrait of a beautiful person in white with flowers in her hair.

“You silly boy!” said Madam Iceberg. “That’s only my portrait--when I was married.”

“Oh, it’s not you,” said Bunny Face, giving her a long look and shaking his head. “It’s the Spirit of Christmas. I’ve found her, I’ve found her!” he cried, jumping about and clapping his hands.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about at all, Mr. Bunny Face, but come over here and sit down, and we’ll hear all about it.”

“Well, there’s lots about it,” said Bunny Face; “and you’re in it, too, for you aren’t going to have any Christmas--you, and the school janitor, and the dump children, and Agnes, and me--none of us are going to get presents.”

Then Bunny Face told her about Agnes, and the Parson, and the dump children who didn’t believe in Santa Claus or anything. “That’s about all,” he said, “except Santa Claus’ house, and I couldn’t find that.”

So Bunny Face stood up and said he must go, and when he looked back Madam Iceberg had sunk down deep in her chair, so that he could hardly see her. But the Spirit of Christmas on the wall looked like a white angel.

Something exciting and most surprising happened the next day. The school janitor, Old Crab, was in jail. Yes, sir; and the big boys were down there trying to see him through the bars. He had been caught in Madam Iceberg’s house the night before, stealing. The servants found him as he was getting away with a big roast under his arm.

Everybody was wondering what she would do about it. Would she have him let off maybe, because it was so near Christmas? But nobody really expected her to do that. And just then the Parson came walking along with his sister, and this one and that one told him that he was the very person to go up and talk to the madam about letting the janitor go. It was his duty. But he shook his head and said that “it wouldn’t do a bit of good, not a bit!” But his sister said, “Oh, Archibald, do!” So he went, the poor man.

When he rang the bell he told himself that he was a fool for coming; but the door opened just then, so he couldn’t run; and the maid was saying, “Come in, please.” And after a while Madam Iceberg came walking in.

“Oh, you’ve come to talk about little Bunny Face, I know,” she said, smiling and holding out her hand. “He has the most fantastic ideas,” she said, “and he calls my portrait in the hall the Spirit of Christmas, though I can’t see why.”

You can guess how surprised the Parson was; but he asked to see the picture, and said he quite agreed with Bunny Face. And Madam Iceberg looked pleased. Then they talked on and on, but not a word was said about the janitor until the Parson was about to leave. Then he told her. But he didn’t seem at all astonished when she said to let him go--by all means. Yes, certainly, considering the season and all that sort of thing.

A few minutes later the Reverend Mr. Brisbane was seen walking out through the big gates quite smartly and smiling most pleasantly.

Then one day Madam Iceberg’s big green sleigh stopped right in front of Katie Duckworth’s store, which was the first time that that had ever happened. And she got out herself and walked in. All the customers in the store turned around and stared.

“Ah, here you are, Mr. Bunny Face. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I want you to help me--that is, I want you to join me in some secrets and surprises.”

Just then Katie Duckworth came over to see what was wanted, and Madam Iceberg explained very politely that she would like to borrow her nephew for a little while to help with some Christmas plans.

Katie Duckworth said, “All right, ma’am.”

So Bunny Face got his cap and muffler and followed Madam Iceberg out to the big green sleigh. Then she told the driver to drive around a bit, because she and the young man must have a talk.

“Now, Mr. Bunny Face, please begin and name over that list of folks who won’t have any Christmas this year,” said the lady.

“Well,” said Bunny Face, “there’s me, of course, and Agnes, then the dump children, and the janitor and--and you.”

“All right,” said Madam Iceberg; “and I want you to help me make plans. Will you?”

“Sure,” chirped Bunny Face. “Toys?”

“Yes, indeed, toys,” she said. “But where do we get them?”

“Why, old Mrs. Hampton’s Toy Shop, of course,” said Bunny Face.

So the lady bent forward and said, “Mrs. Hampton’s Toy Shop, driver.”

When old Mrs. Hampton saw them and knew who it was, she took off her thick glasses, then put them back on again quickly. But she didn’t say “Run along,” today, but “What can I do for you?”

And before Madam Iceberg could answer Mrs. Hampton, Bunny Face grabbed her skirt and, pulling her along, pointed to a picture of Santa Claus coming out of a funny little house under some tall pine trees.

“That’s it,” he said; “Santa Claus’ house.”

“So it is,” said Madam Iceberg; “Sure enough; that’s the house that you were hunting, isn’t it?”

But Bunny Face didn’t answer. He had his head on one side and was staring with all his eyes.

The lady puckered her lips and pointed and sort of blinked; so old Mrs. Hampton wrote in her order book: “1 framed picture, entitled The House of Santa Claus.”

“Now,” said Madam Iceberg in a business-like tone, “let’s begin to buy toys.”

“Who for?” asked Bunny Face.

“For your dump children,” answered Madam Iceberg.

So Bunny Face began. “That and that and that,” he said, pointing at fire engines and kites and hobbyhorses. And they bought dolls and dishes and sewing baskets for girls.

Then Madam Iceberg paid for the things out of her purse, and told Mrs. Hampton to send them up to her house, and said “Good-day.”

The other customers looked too surprised to speak when the lady and the little boy closed the door behind them.

When they were back in the sleigh and all covered up, she said, “Now how about Agnes’ present?”

“She hasn’t any place to sleep,” said Bunny Face, “but under the stove.”

“All right,” said Madam Iceberg; “then probably a basket with a red cushion in it would please her; don’t you think it might?”

Yes, Bunny Face thought that it might.

So the lady said that she would make the red cushion herself; then she told the driver to go to the hardware store, and they went in and she bought several baskets.

“But,” said Bunny Face, “Agnes only needs one.”

“I’m thinking of the janitor and some others on your list,” said Madam Iceberg.

“Are we going to give him a present?” asked Bunny Face.

“Certainly,” said Madam Iceberg, “for he’s on your list.” So at the next store she bought good things to fill baskets. Bunny Face thought she’d never stop.

“And now,” she said, “we’re finished.”

“There are two more names yet,” said Bunny Face.

“What?” said Madam Iceberg, with the twinkle look. “Two more?”

“Sure,” said Bunny Face. “Yours and mine.”

“Oh, that is so,” she said; “but I’ll have to talk to Santa Claus about your present, so that you’ll be surprised. That’s one of my secrets, you know.”

Of course that sounded pretty pleasant to Bunny Face--talking to Santa Claus about secrets and surprises. But something worried him at the same time: What was Madam Iceberg to get? And he grew so quiet that finally she bent over and looked at him.

“I don’t know what you are going to get for Christmas,” said Bunny Face slowly.

“Well, I know what I want,” said the lady gayly.

“Oh, what?” asked Bunny Face, sitting up straight.

“Why, a little guest on Christmas day,” she answered.

“A little what?” asked Bunny Face, for that wasn’t a present at all.

“Yes, a little guest, one Mr. Bunny Face, to come early on Christmas morning and stay all day. And to go around with me and help with all the secrets and surprises.”

When Bunny Face got out of the sleigh in front of Katie Duckworth’s store he not only felt that he had found Santa Claus’ house on Clark’s road, but that he had been talking with the Spirit of Christmas as well. But it was true, all of it, and the driver was to come for him early on Christmas morning; and Agnes could go too.

Now, Bunny Face had never had a secret before in his whole life, and he found that keeping one was not as easy as he had expected. But he did enjoy sing-songing to the rest of us children “I have a secret I won’t tell,” as we all walked to school. But nobody really believed it, for who could have a secret with Katie Duckworth?

As you might know, Bunny Face was up pretty early on Christmas morning, all ready, holding Agnes and watching out the front window. You could hear sleigh bells everywhere and people’s voices calling, “Same to you,” and “Merry Christmas.”

Then came a sleigh, around the corner, and stopped in front of Katie Duckworth’s store. The driver jumped out and ran in with a basket with red ribbons flying and a letter tied to the handle. The letter said “A happy Christmas to Miss Duckworth,” and please to allow her nephew to come and spend the day.

Katie untied the ribbons and looked inside, and there were oranges and nuts that they could see; and so she said “All right” to Bunny Face, who picked up Agnes and said good-by. As they went through the gate, Bunny Face saw wreaths in all the windows and over the big door, and Madam Iceberg was standing there, waving her hand.

“Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!” she said.

And then it really began. First there were all the wreaths, and pine branches over the fireplace, and candles, and right under the Spirit of Christmas there was a trimmed Christmas tree. My, my, such a tree! You never saw the like. But under the tree--toys, toys! toys! Beginning with a velocipede--there was a sled, games, books, skates, a dark lantern. Oh, goodness me! I can’t tell you all the things that there were. And if you’ll believe it, there was the picture of Santa Claus’ house--the very one!

For a minute Bunny Face just couldn’t talk; then he jumped up and down and ran back and forth, pulling Madam Iceberg around by the hand, showing her this one and that one, and how it worked. My, how they laughed at everything. “For Miss Agnes from Bunny Face and Madam Iceberg” was what it said on the letter tied to one Christmas present. And beside the basket and the red cushion was a ball for her to play with. Bunny Face put her in and held her down with both hands till she went to sleep.

“And now, Mr. Bunny Face,” said the lady, “we must go and take care of those other surprises.”

“To the dump?” asked Bunny Face.

“Yes, and on the way back we’ll stop at your Parson’s,” said Madam Iceberg.

Well, right then the sleigh came jingling around the house and stopped at the door, and what do you suppose? Well, all those toys from Mrs. Hampton’s Toy Shop were packed in that sleigh, which made it look exactly like Santa Claus’. It was a strange sight, that sleigh full of toys stopping in front of the janitor’s shanty. The dump children heard the bells and came tumbling out pellmell to see what there was to see.

“Merry Christmas, everybody!” said Madam Iceberg, beginning to hand them toys. Then came the big basket with the Christmas dinner for the janitor and all the children.

“Next to the Parson’s; then home again, Mr. Bunny Face, and you will please hand him this?” said Madam Iceberg as she put a letter into his pocket.

But the Parson and his sister heard the sleigh bells coming, and the door was open before they got there, and everyone was saying “Merry Christmas!” and “The same to you!” as fast and loud as he could.

Then Bunny Face said to the Parson, taking out the letter, “I am to hand you this.”

And the Parson took it and read, “With every good wish from your friends, Bunny Face and Madam Iceberg.” And he seemed greatly pleased, and said: “Well, I guess we all know something about the Spirit of Christmas now.”

“It’s her, it’s her,” shouted Bunny Face, pointing at Madam Iceberg, and he flew over and shook her by the coat, saying, “Now I know what those words mean.”

And she looked very happy as they started toward home.

“Fe, fi, fo, fum! I smell a turkey,” said the lady as the door was opened, and they went into the hall. “Let’s be quick.”

So taking off their things--and a-hold of hands--they went out where a table was set with two chairs, one for Bunny Face and one for her. And in the center there were red candles burning, and a Santa Claus with a pack on his back. Then they sat down and Madam Iceberg leaned over and said, “Merry Christmas, _Sunny_ Face--for that is what I am going to call you.”

And he said, “Same to you!” and a big smile started and ran clear across his face and both ears wiggled pleasantly.

Then the dinner began to come in. First a turkey on a big platter, all trimmed up and so brown and shiny that it looked varnished. Next were all sorts of dishes of different things with covers over them to keep them hot, and you couldn’t begin to guess what was in them all. “A little more gravy over everything” or “Do have another drumstick,” Madam Iceberg would say.

Then finally they both leaned back in their chairs and didn’t eat any more. They talked about all sorts of things and asked each other questions, back and forth--and he asked her if she knew any stories!

She said: “You’re right I do, Mr. Sunny Face. Come, let’s go in by the fire and tell them there.”

So they took hold of hands and went.

[9] By special permission of Gertrude A. Kay and the “Ladies’ Home Journal.”

THE CHRISTMAS TREE[10]

_Mary Austin_

Eastward from the Sierras rises a strong red hill known as Pine Mountain, though the Indians call it The Hill of Summer Snow. At its foot stands a town of a hundred board houses, given over wholly to the business of mining. The noise of it goes on by day and night,--the creak of the windlasses, the growl of the stamps in the mill, the clank of the cars running down to the dump, and from the open doors of the drinking saloons, great gusts of laughter and the sound of singing. Billows of smoke roll up from the tall stacks and by night are lit ruddily by the smelter fires all going at a roaring blast.

Whenever the charcoal-burner’s son looked down on the red smoke, the glare, and the hot breath of the furnaces, it seemed to him like an exhalation from the wickedness that went on continually in the town; though all he knew of wickedness was the word, a rumor from passers-by, and a kind of childish fear. The charcoal-burner’s cabin stood on a spur of Pine Mountain two thousand feet above the town, and sometimes the boy went down to it on the back of the laden burros when his father carried charcoal to the furnaces. All else that he knew were the wild creatures of the mountain, the trees, the storms, the small flowering things, and away at the back of his heart a pale memory of his mother like the faint forest odor that clung to the black embers of the pine. They had lived in the town when the mother was alive and the father worked in the mines. There were not many women or children in the town at that time, but mining men jostling with rude quick ways; and the young mother was not happy.

“Never let my boy grow up in such a place,” she said as she lay dying; and when they had buried her in the coarse shallow soil, her husband looked for comfort up toward The Hill of Summer Snow shining purely, clear white and quiet in the sun. It swam in the upper air above the sooty rock of the town and seemed as if it called. Then he took the young child up to the mountain, built a cabin under the tamarack pines, and a pit for burning charcoal for the furnace fires.

No one could wish for a better place for a boy to grow up in than the slope of Pine Mountain. There was the drip of pine balm and a wind like wine, white water in the springs, and as much room for roaming as one desired. The charcoal-burner’s son chose to go far, coming back with sheaves of strange bloom from the edge of snow banks on the high ridges, bright spar or peacock-painted ores, hatfuls of berries, or strings of shining trout. He played away whole mornings in glacier meadows where he heard the eagle scream; walking sometimes in a mist of cloud he came upon deer feeding, or waked them from their lair in the deep fern. On snow-shoes in winter he went over the deep drifts and spied among the pine tops on the sparrows, the grouse, and the chilly robins wintering under the green tents. The deep snow lifted him up and held him among the second stories of the trees. But that was not until he was a great lad, straight and springy as a young fir. As a little fellow he spent his days at the end of a long rope staked to a pine just out of reach of the choppers and the charcoal-pits. When he was able to go about alone, his father made him give three promises: never to follow a bear’s trail nor meddle with the cubs, never to try to climb the eagle rocks after the young eagles, never to lie down nor to sleep on the sunny, south slope where the rattlesnakes frequented. After that he was free of the whole wood.

When Mathew, for so the boy was called, was ten years old, he began to be of use about the charcoal pits, to mark the trees for cutting, to sack the coals, to keep the house, and cook his father’s meals. He had no companions of his own age nor wanted any, for at this time he loved the silver firs. A group of them grew in a swale below the cabin, tall and fine; the earth under them was slippery and brown with needles. Where they stood close together with over-lapping boughs the light among the tops was golden green, but between the naked boles it was a vapor thin and blue. These were the old trees that had wagged their tops together for three hundred years. Around them stood a ring of saplings and seedlings scattered there by the parent firs, and a little apart from these was the one that Mathew loved. It was slender of trunk and silvery white, the branches spread out fanwise to the outline of a perfect spire. In the spring, when the young growth covered it as with a gossamer web, it gave out a pleasant odor, and it was to him like the memory of what his mother had been. Then he garlanded it with flowers and hung streamers of white clematis all heavy with bloom upon its boughs. He brought it berries in cups of bark and sweet water from the spring; always as long as he knew it, it seemed to him that the fir tree had a soul.

The first trip he had ever made on snow-shoes was to see how it fared among the drifts. That was always a great day when he could find the slender cross of its topmost bough above the snow. The fir was not very tall in those days, but the snows as far down on the slope as the charcoal-burner’s cabin lay shallowly. There was a time when Mathew expected to be as tall as the fir, but after a while the boy did not grow so fast and the fir kept on adding its whorl of young branches every year.

Mathew told it all his thoughts. When at times there was a heaviness in his breast which was really a longing for his mother, though he did not understand it, he would part the low spreading branches and creep up to the slender trunk of the fir. Then he would put his arms around it and be quiet for a long beautiful time. The tree had its own way of comforting him; the branches swept the ground and shut him in dark and close. He made a little cairn of stones under it and kept his treasures there.

Often as he lay snuggled up to the heart of the tree, the boy would slip his hand over the smooth intervals between the whorls of boughs, and wonder how they knew the way to grow. All the fir trees are alike in this, that they throw out their branches from the main stem like the rays of a star, one added to another with the season’s growth. They stand out stiffly from the trunk, and the shape of each new bough in the beginning and the shape of the last growing twig when they have spread out broadly with many branchlets, bending with the weight of their own needles, is the shape of a cross; and the topmost sprig that rises above all the star-built whorls is a long and slender cross, until by the springing of new branches it becomes a star. So the two forms go on running into and repeating each other, and each star is like all the stars, and every bough is another’s twin. It is this trim and certain growth that sets out the fir from all the mountain trees, and gives to the young saplings a secret look as they stand straight and stiffly among the wild brambles on the hill. For the wood delights to grow abroad at all points, and one might search a summer long without finding two leaves of the oak alike, or any two trumpets of the spangled mimulus. So, as at that time he had nothing better worth studying about, Mathew noticed and pondered the secret of the silver fir, and grew up with it until he was twelve years old and tall and strong for his age. By this time the charcoal-burner began to be troubled about the boy’s schooling.

Meantime there was rioting and noise and coming and going of strangers in the town at the foot of Pine Mountain, and the furnace blast went on ruddily and smokily. Because of the things he heard Mathew was afraid, and on rare occasions when he went down to it he sat quietly among the charcoal sacks, and would not go far away from them except when he held his father by the hand. After a time it seemed life went more quietly there, flowers began to grow in the yards of the houses, and they met children walking in the streets with books upon their arms.

“Where are they going, father?” said the boy.

“To school,” said the charcoal-burner.

“And may I go?” asked Mathew.

“Not yet, my son.”

But one day his father pointed out the foundations of a new building going up in the town.

“It is a church,” he said, “and when that is finished it will be a sign that there will be women here like your mother, and then you may go to school.”

Mathew ran and told the fir tree all about it.

“But I will never forget you, never,” he cried, and he kissed the trunk. Day by day, from the spur of the mountain, he watched the church building, and it was wonderful how much he could see in that clear, thin atmosphere; no other building in town interested him so much. He saw the walls go up and the roof, and the spire rise skyward with something that glittered twinkling on its top. Then they painted the church white and hung a bell in the tower. Mathew fancied he could hear it of Sundays as he saw the people moving along like specks in the streets.

“Next week,” said the father, “the school begins, and it is time for you to go as I promised. I will come to see you once a month, and when the term is over you shall come back to the mountain.” Mathew said goodby to the fir tree, and there were tears in his eyes though he was happy. “I shall think of you very often,” he said, “and wonder how you are getting along. When I come back I will tell you everything that happens. I will go to church, and I am sure I shall like that. It has a cross on top like yours, only it is yellow and shines. Perhaps when I am gone I shall learn why you carry a cross, also.” Then he went a little timidly, holding fast by his father’s hand.