by A. A. Milne
Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly were brother and sister. He was a little more than sixty, a fine, hale, hearty-looking, handsome man as you could find in a summer’s day, with white hair and a thoughtful, benevolent face, adorned with a full beard as white as his venerable head. Aunt Kindly was five-and-forty or thereabouts; her face a little sad when you looked at it carelessly in its repose, but commonly it seemed cheerful, full of thought and generosity, and handsome withal; for, as her brother told her, “God administered to you the sacrement of beauty in your childhood, and you will walk all your life in the loveliness thereof.”
Uncle Nathan had been an India merchant from his twenty-fifth to about his fiftieth year, and had now, for some years, been living with his sister in his fine, large house,— rich and well educated, devoting his life to study, works of benevolence, to general reform and progress. It was he who had the first anti-slavery lecture delivered in the town, and actually persuaded Mr. Homer, the old minister, to let Mr. Garrison stand in the pulpit on a Wednesday night and preach deliverance unto the captives; but it could be done only once, for the clergymen of the neighborhood thought anti-slavery a desecration of their new wooden meeting-houses. It was he, too, who asked Lucy Stone to lecture on woman’s rights, but the communicants thought it would not do to let a “woman speak in the church,” and so he gave it up. All the country knew and loved him, for he was a natural overseer of the poor, and guardian of the widow and the orphan. How many a girl in the Normal School every night put up a prayer of thanksgiving for him; how many a bright boy in Hanover and Cambridge was equally indebted for the means of high culture, and if not so thankful, why, Uncle Nathan knew that gratitude is too nice and delicate a plant to grow on common soil. Once, when he was twenty-two or three, he was engaged to a young woman of Boston, while he was a clerk in a commission store. But her father, a skipper from Beverly or Cape Cod, who continued vulgar while he became rich, did not like the match. “It won’t do,” said he, “for a poor young man to marry into one of our fust families; what is the use of aristocracy if no distinction is to be made, and our daughters are to marry Tom, Dick, and Harry?” But Amelia took the matter sorely to heart; she kept her love, yet fell into a consumption, and so wasted away; or, as one of the neighbors said, “she was executed on the scaffold of an upstart’s vulgarity.” Nathan loved no woman in like manner afterwards, but after her death went to India, and remained years long. When he returned and established his business in Boston, he looked after her relations, who had fallen into poverty. Nay, out of the mire of infamy he picked up what might have been his nephews and nieces, and, by generous breeding, wiped off from them the stain of their illicit birth. He never spoke of poor Amelia; but he kept a little locket in one end of his purse; none ever saw it but his sister, who often observed him sitting with it in his hand, hand hour by hour looking into the fire of a winter’s night, seeming to think of distant things. She never spoke to him then, but left him alone with his recollections and his dreams. Some of the neighbors said he “worshipped it;” others called it “a talisman.” So indeed it was, and by its enchantment he became a young man once more, and walked through the moonlight to meet an angel, and with her enter their kingdom of heaven. Truly it was a talisman; yet if you had looked at it, you would have seen nothing in it but a little twist of golden hairs tied together with a blue silken thread.
Aunt Kindly had never been married; yet once in her life, also, the right man seemed to offer, and the blossom of love opened with a dear prophetic fragrance in her heart. But as her father was soon after struck with palsy, she told her lover they must wait a little while, for her first duty must be to the feeble old man. But the impatient swain went off and pinned himself to the flightiest little humming-bird in all Soitgoes, and in a month was married, having a long life before him for bitterness and repentance. After the father died, Kindly remained at home; and when Nathan returned, years after, they made one brotherly and sisterly household out of what might else have gladdened two connubial homes. “Not every bud becomes a flower.”
Uncle Nathan sat there, his locket in his hand, looking into the fire; and as the wind roared in the chimney, and the brands crackled and snapped, he thought he saw faces in the fire; and when the sparks rose up in a little cloud, which the country children call “the people coming out of the meeting-house,” he thought he saw faces in the fire; they seemed to take the form of the boys and girls as he had lately seen them rushing out of the Union School-house, which held all the children in the village; and as he recognized one after the other, he began to wonder and conjecture what would be the history of this or that particular child. While he sat thus in his waking dream, he looked fixedly at the locket and the blue thread which tied together those golden rays of a summer sun, now all set and vanished and gone, but which was once the morning light of all his promised days; and as his eyes, full of waking dreams, fell on the fire again, a handsome young woman seemed to come forth from between the brands, and the locks of her hair floated out and turned into boys and girls, of various ages, from babyhood to youth; all looking somewhat like him and also like the fair young woman. But the brand rolled over, and they all vanished in a little puff of smoke.
Aunt Kindly sat at the table reading the Bible. I don’t know why she read the Gospels, for she knew them all four by heart, and could repeat them from end to end. But Sunday night, when none of the neighbors were there, and she and Nathan were all alone, she took her mother’s great squared Bible and read therein. This night she had been reading, in chapter xxxi. of Proverbs, the character of a noble woman; and, finishing the account, turned and read the 28th verse a second time,—
"Her children rise up and call her blessed."
I do not know why she read that verse, nor what she thought of it; but she repeated it to herself three or four times,—
"Her children rise up and call her blessed."
As she was taking up the venerable old volume to lay it away for the night, it opened by accident at Luke xiv., and her eye fell on verses 12, 13—
"But when thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends not thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbor, lest they also call thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee."
She sat a moment recollecting that Jesus said,—
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and had also denounced woe on all such as cause these little ones to offend, and declared that in heaven their angels continually behold the face of the Father.
After a few minutes she turned to Nathan, who had replaced the brands in hopes to bring back the vision by his “faculty divine,” and said,— “Brother, I wonder if it would not be better to make a little change in our way of keeping Christmas. It is a good thing to call together the family once a year,— our brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces,— we all of us love the children so much, and have a good time. I would not give that up. The dinner is very well; but the evening goes off a little heavy; that whist playing, we both dislike it; so much talk about such trifles. What if we should have a Child’s Festival on Christmas night, and ask all the little folks in the town to your nice New Hall,— it will be done before that time, won’t it? It will be a good christening for it; and Mr. Garrison, whom you have asked to speak there on New-Year’s day, will like it all the better if baptized by these little ones, who ‘are of the kingdom of heaven.’ Surely little children may run before the great Liberator.”
“Just what I was thinking of,” said Uncle Nathan; “as I looked at the sparks of fire, I was saying to myself, ’I have not quite done my duty to the boys and girls in Soitgoes.’ You and I,” said he, rather sadly, putting the locket in his purse and pressing the gold ring gently down on it, “you and I have no children. But I sometimes feel like adopting all the boys and girls in the parish; and when I saw that
great troop of them come out of the school-house last week, I felt a little reproach, that, while looking after their fathers and mothers, I had not done more for the children.”
“I am sure you gave the town that great new school-house,” said Kindly.
“Yes, that’s nothing. I furnished the money and the general idea; Eliot Cabot drew the plan,— capital plan it is too; and Jo Atkins took the job. I paid the bills. But how will you arrange it for Christmas?”
“Well,” said Kindly, who had an organizing head, “we’ll have a Children’s Party. I’ll ask all under fifteen, and if some older ones come in, no matter; I hope they will. Of course the fathers and mothers are to come and look on, and have a real good time. We will have them in the New Hall. I wonder why they call it the New Hall; there never was any old one. We will have some plain cake and lemonade, music, dancing, little games, and above all a CHRISTMAS TREE. There shall be gifts on it for all the children under twelve. The people who are well to do will give something to buy the gifts for the children of their own standing, and you and I will make up what is wanting for the poor ones. We’ll have little games as well as a dance. Mrs. Toombs,— Sally Wilkins that used to be,— the minister’s wife, has a deal of skill in setting little folks to play; she has not had much use for it, poor thing, since her marriage, six or seven years ago. What a wild romp she used to be! but as good as Sunday all the time. Sally will manage the games; I’ll see to the dancing.”
“The children can’t dance,” said Uncle Nathan; “you know there never was a dancing-school in town.”
“Yes they can,” said Kindly. “The girls will dance by nature, and the boys will fall in, rather more clumsily of course. But it will do well enough for us. Besides, they have all had more practice than you think for. You shall get the pine-tree, or hemlock, and buy the things,— I’ll tell you what, to-morrow morning,— and I will manage the rest.”
The next morning it was fine, bright weather; and the garments blossomed white on the clotheslines all round the village; and with no small delight the housewives looked on these perennial hanging-gardens, periodically blooming, even in a New England winter. Uncle Nathan mentioned his sister’s plan to one of his neighbors, who said, “Never’ll go here!” “But why not?” “Oh, there’s Deacon Willberate and Squire Allen are at loggerheads about the allusion to slavery which Rev. Mr. Freeman made in his prayer six months ago. They had a quarrel then, you know, and have not spoken since. If the Deacon likes it, the Squire won’t, and vice versa. Then, Colonel Stearns has had a quarrel and a lawsuit with John Wilkinson about that little patch of meadow. They won’t go; each is afraid of meeting the other. Half the parish has some miff against the other half. I believe there never was such a place for little quarrels since the Dutch took Holland. There’s a tempest in every old woman’s teapot. Widow Seedyweedy won’t let her daughters come, because, as she says, you are a temperance man, and said, at the last meeting, that rum made many a widow in Soitgoes, and sent three quarters of the paupers to the almshouse. She declared, the next day, that you were ’personal, and injured her feelings; and ’twas all because you was rich and she was a poor lone widow, with nothing but her God to trust in.’”
“Oh, dear me,” said Uncle Nathan, “it is a queer world,— a queer world; but after all it’s the best we’ve got. Let us try to make it better still.”
Aunt Kindly could not sleep much all night for thinking over the details of the plan. Before morning it all lay clear in her mind. Monday afternoon she went round to talk with the neighbors and get all things ready. Most of them liked it; but some thought it was “queer,” and wondered “what our pious fathers would think of keeping Christmas in New England.” A few had “religious scruples,” and would do nothing about it. The head of the Know-nothing lodge said it was “a Furrin custom, and I want none o’ them things; but Ameriky must be ruled by ’Mericans; and we’ll have no Disserlutions of the Union, and no Popish ceremonies like a Christmas Tree. If you begin so, you’ll have the Pope here next, and the fulfilment of the seventeenth chapter of Revelations.”
Hon. Jeduthan Stovepipe also opposed it. He was a rich hatter from Boston, and a “great Democrat;” who, as he said, had lately “purchased grounds in Soitgoes, intending to establish a family.” He “would not like to have Cinderella Jane and Edith Zuleima mix themselves up with widow Wheeler’s children,— whose father was killed on the railroad five or six years before,— for their mother takes in washing. No, Sir,” said he; “it will not do. You have no daughters to marry, no sons to provide for. It will do well enough for you to talk about ‘equality,’ about ‘meeting the whole neighborhood,’ and that sort of thing; but I intend to establish a family; and I set my face against all promiscuous assemblages of different classes of society. It is bad enough on Sundays, when each man can sit buttoned up in his own pew; but a festival for all sorts and conditions of children,— its is contrary to the genius of our republican institutions.” His wife thought quite differently; but the poor thing did not dare say her soul was her own in his presence. Aunt Kindly went off with rather a heavy heart, remembering that Jeduthan was the son of a man sent to the State Prison for horse stealing, and born in the almshouse at Bankton Four Corners, and had been bound out as apprentice by the selectmen of the town.
At the next house, Miss Robinson liked it; but hoped she “would not ask that family o’niggers,— that would make it so vulgar;” and she took a large pinch of Scotch snuff, and waddled off to finish her ironing. Mrs. Deacon Jackson— she was a second wife, with no children— hoped that “Sally Bright would not be asked, because her father was in the State Prison for passing counterfeit money; and the example would be bad, not friendly to law and order.” But as Aunt Kindly went out, she met the old Deacon himself,— one of those dear, good, kind souls, who were born to be deacons of the Christian religion, looking like one of the eight beatitudes; and as you stopped to consider which of that holy family he most resembled, you found he looked like all of them. “Well!” said he, “now ma’am, I like that. That will be a Christian Christmas,— not a Heathen Christmas. Of course you’ll ask all the children of ’respectable people;’ but I want the poor ones, too. Don’t let anybody frighten you from asking Sip Tidy’s children. I don’t know that I like colored folks particularly, but I think God does, or he would not have colored ’em, you know. Then do let us have all of Jo Bright’s little ones. When I get into the State Prison, I hope somebody’ll look after my family. I know you will. I don’t mean to go there; but who knows? ’If everybody had his deserts, who would escape a flogging?’ as the old saying is. Here’s five dollars towards expenses; and if that ain’t enough, I’ll make it ten. Elizabeth will help you make the cake, &c. You shall have as many eggs as you want. Hens hain’t laid well since Thanksgiving; now they do nothing else.”
Captain Weldon let one iron cool on the anvil, and his bellows sigh out its last breath in the fire and burn the other iron, while he talked with Aunt Kindly about it. The Captain was a widower, about fifty years old, with his house full of sons and daughters. He liked it. Patty, his oldest daughter, could help. There were two barrels of apples, three or four dollars in money, and more if need be. “That is what I call the democracy of Christianity,” said the good man. “I shall see half the people in the village; they’ll be in here to get their horses corked before the time comes, and I’ll help the thing along a little. I’ll bring the old folks, and we’ll sing some of the old tunes; all of us will have a real old-fashioned good time.” Almira, his daughter, about eighteen years old, ran out to talk with Kindly, and offered to do all sorts of work, if she would only tell her what. “Perhaps Edward will come, too,” said Kindly. “Do you want him?” asked Almira. “Oh, certainly; want all the LOVERS,” replied she,— not looking to see how her face kindled, like a handsome morning in May.
One sour old man, who lived off the road, did not like it. ’Twas a Popish custom; and said, “I always fast on Christmas.” His family knew they did, and many a
day besides; for he was so covetous that he grudged the water which turned his own mill.
Mr. Toombs, a young minister, who had been settled six or seven years, and loved the commandments of religion much better than the creed of theology, entered into it at once, and promised to come, and not wear his white cravat. His wife, Sally Wilkins that used to be, took to it with all her might.
So all things were made ready. Farmers sent in apples and boiled chestnuts; and there were pies, and cookies, and all manner of creature comforts. The German who worked for the cabinet-maker decorated the hall, just as he had done in Wittenberg often before; for he was an exile from the town where Martin Luther sleeps, and his Katherine, under the same slab. There were branches of Holly with their red berries, Wintergreen and Pine boughs, and Hemlock and Laurel, and such other handsome things as New England can afford even in winter. Besides, Captain Weldon brought a great Orange-tree, which he and Susan had planted the day after their marriage, nearly thirty years before. “Like Christmas itself,” as he said,— “it is a history and a prophecy; full of fruit and flowers, both.” Roses, and Geraniums, and Chrysanthemums, and Oleanders were there, adding to the beauty.
All the children in the village were there. Sally Bright wore the medal she won the last quarter at the Union School. Sip Tidy’s six children were there; and all the girls and boys from the poor-house. The Widow Wheeler and her children thought no more of the railroad accident. Captain Weldon, Deacon Jackson and his wife, and the Minister were there; all the Selectmen, and the Town Clerk, and the Schoolmasters and Schoolma’ams, and the Know-nothing Representative from the South Parish; great, broad-shouldered farmers came in, with Baldwin apples in their cheeks as well as in their cellars at home, and their trim tidy wives. Eight or ten Irish children came also,— Bridget, Rosanna, Patrick, and Michael, and Mr. And Mrs. O’Brien themselves. Aunt Kindly had her piano there, and played and sung.
