Chapter I: Christmas Eve in Oakfield

It was Christmas Eve, and the first snow of the season lay upon the fields of Oakfield, and the wintry wind blew cold and chill through the leafless trees in the yard and shook the windows of the old red farm-house, where Uncle Obed Harris lived, and where in his comfortable kitchen he sat waiting for the supper which his wife, whom everybody knew as Aunt Hannah, or Grandma Harris, was putting upon the table. Across the common and distant from the house a quarter of a mile or more, the stone church was seen with lights shining from every pane of glass, for the worshippers at St. Mark’s had that night, in addition to their usual Christmas-tree, an illumination in honor of Bethlehem’s child, born amid the Judean hills so many years ago. And ever and anon as Uncle Obed took his tea he heard the merry sound of sleigh-bells and the happy voices of the children as they went tripping by, excited and eager to know what the tree held for them on its many and beautiful branches of green.

It was thirteen years since Uncle Obed had been inside his church on Christmas Eve, and during all these years he had nursed only bitter memories of the night when his daughter, Agatha, had made such glorious music in the organ loft, and then sang so sweetly the “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” with a soft look of ecstasy upon her face which the proud old father thought sprang wholly from a love divine, never dreaming of the terrible blow in store for him, when, after the services were over, he waited in vain for Agatha to join him on his homeward walk; Agatha did not come either then or ever after, and he heard next day of a marriage performed by a justice of the peace and knew from the note sent to him that Agatha was gone with the young man whom he had forbidden her ever again to speak to if she cared to be his daughter.

“You must choose between Homer Hastings and me,” he had said, and she had chosen, and his door was henceforth barred against her, and she knew it, and accepted the situation, and wrote once or twice to her mother from New York, and said that she was happy, and told of a little girl baby, whom she called _Ruth_, and who had her grandmother’s soft brown eyes and hair.

Then for a time they lost all trace of her until a letter came, telling them her husband was dead and asking if she might come home; Aunt Hannah pleaded with Uncle Obed then, begging him to go for their child and the little one, who would brighten their lonely lives, but he said: “No, she has made her bed and now she must lie in it. She was my _eyes_, and when they are once pulled out you can’t put them in again.”

Uncle Obed and his wife had married late in life and were old when Agatha was born, and it seemed as if the father loved her more for this, and her desertion of him for a worthless fellow, whose only virtue was his handsome face, had hurt him cruelly, and he would not forgive, and he kept aloof from the Christmas-tree, which was each year set up in the church where other fingers than Agatha’s swept the organ keys, and another voice sang “Glory to God on High.” But he was going to-night; he had promised his wife that he would, and Aunt Hannah’s face had been brighter all the day for that promise, and her step brisker and lighter as she prepared the basket of presents for the poor children of the parish, thinking, as she folded up a pair of lamb’s wool stockings, of the little Ruth whom she had never seen, and whose feet they would just fit. Where was she now, and where was Agatha that wintry day when the snow was drifting down so swiftly, and the wind was blowing so hard over her native hills. Something seemed to bring the absent one nearer to Aunt Hannah, and she almost felt the touch of the chord which was to have a beginning that night far away in New York and which would reach even to her lonely home and make it bright as the sunshine, which, as the day wore to a close, came through the dull gray clouds and fell soft and warm upon the pure white snow.

There was a great crowd in the church that night, and Uncle Obed felt a throb of pain cut like a knife through his heart when he saw the gaily decorated tree, and heard the organ peal and the children’s voices telling of the “wonderful night” when

“Angels and shining immortals,
Crowding the ebony portals,
Fling out their banners of light, on this
Wonderful, wonderful, night.”

He was thinking of thirteen years ago, and the golden head he saw in the gallery where Agatha sat in her bright beauty playing her Christmas songs. But his wife’s thoughts were more with Ruth, the unknown child, and as one after another the little ones went up the aisle, she prayed softly to herself, “God grant me life to see her some day before this very railing.”

And God, who hears and answers the prayer of faith, heard and answered hers, though in a different way from what she had expected. As if the sight of the Christmas-tree and the happy, joyous faces of the children had softened Uncle Obed’s heart, he talked much that night of Agatha and the baby, as he always designated Ruth, who, if living, was then twelve years old at least.

“They haunt me,” he said; “and it seems as if Aggie was here in this very room telling me to do something—I can’t make out what.”

“She has been close to me all day, too,” Aunt Hannah replied, “she or the little one; and before the train came in I was foolish enough to go to her old room to see if all was right in case she came. You know, it is just as she left it, only the curtains are new.”

“Yes, yes, I know, wife,” and Uncle Obed lifted his head suddenly. “Should I be an old fool to go to New York to-morrow and inquire?”

Aunt Hannah had done with kissing years ago, but now her arms were around her husband’s neck in a trice, and her cheek was laid to his as she kissed him fervently, while the great tears choked her utterance and kept her from answering. But she was understood, and the next morning, while the bell was ringing for church and the Christmas sun was shining brightly over the earth, Uncle Obed sat in a corner of the car which was taking him to New York and, as he hoped, to the lost ones he sought. Aunt Hannah ate her Christmas dinner alone that day, and after it was over went to Agatha’s room and kindled a fire upon the hearth, and felt her pulse beat with a new hope as she watched the flames lapping the bits of pine and then leaping up the chimney mouth.

“He may not be home in three or four days,” she said to herself, “but it’s well to be ready; and the room needs airing so much.”

So she opened both the windows, and brushed the snow from the stools, and made the bed up fresh and clean, and gave the pillows a loving pat as she put them in their places, and moved Agatha’s favorite chair nearer to the fire, and put the book of Psalms upon it, with “Doddridge’s Rise and Progress,” and by way of variety laid beside them one of the Waverly Novels which Agatha used to like so much and prefer to Doddridge or the Psalms. This done, she shut the windows but left the blinds open to let the sunshine in, thinking to herself as she went out and closed the door, “I’ll build a fire every day until he comes back with ’em.”

Alas for Aunt Hannah praying so often and waiting so anxiously for him and them, she little knows how long and severely her faith is to be tested, or of the rich fruition which will crown that faith at last.