The Christmas Megapack

by Reginald Robert

  VI.

  “The Fernald family alone will fill the church,” observed the bachelor son of the house, Ralph. He leaned out from his place at the tail of the procession to look ahead down the line, where the dark figures showed clearly against the snow. By either hand he held a child—his sister Carolyn’s oldest, his brother Edson’s youngest. “So it won’t matter much if nobody else comes out. We’re all here—‘some in rags, and some in tags, and some in velvet gowns’.”

  “I can discern the velvet gowns,” conceded Edson, from his place just in front, where his substantial figure supported his mother’s frail one. “But I fail to make out any rags. Take us by and large, we seem to put up rather a prosperous front. I never noticed it quite so decidedly as this year.”

  “There’s nothing at all ostentatious about the girls’ dressing, dear,” said his mother’s voice in his ear. “And I noticed they all put on their simplest clothes for tonight—as they should.”

  “Oh, yes,” Edson chuckled. “That’s precisely why they look so prosperous. That elegant simplicity—gad!—you should see the bills that come in for it. Jess isn’t an extravagant dresser, as women go—not by a long shot—but!” He whistled a bar or two of ragtime. “I can see myself now, as a lad, sitting on that fence over there—” he indicated a line of rails, half buried in snow, which outlined the borders of an old apple orchard—“counting the quarters in my trousers pockets, earned by hard labor in the strawberry patch. I thought it quite a sum, but it wouldn’t have bought—”

  “A box of the cigars you smoke now,” interjected Ralph unexpectedly, from behind. “Hullo—there’s the church! Jolly, but the old building looks bright, doesn’t it? I didn’t know oil lamps could put up such an illumination. —And see the folks going in!”

  “See them coming—from all directions.” Nan, farther down the line, clutched Sam Burnett’s arm. “Oh, I knew they’d come out—I knew they would!”

  “Of course they’ll come out.” This was Mrs. Oliver. “Locks and bars couldn’t keep a country community at home, when there is anything going on. But as to the feeling—that is a different matter. —Oliver, do take my muff. I want to take off my veil. There will be no chance once I am inside the door. Nan is walking twice as fast now as when we started. She will have us all up the aisle before—”

  “Where’s Billy Sewall bolting to?” Guy sent back this stage-whisper from the front of the procession, to Margaret, his wife, who was walking with Father Fernald, her hand on his gallant arm. In John Fernald’s day a man always offered his arm to the lady he escorted.

  “He caught sight of Mr. Blake, across the road. They’re going in together,” Margaret replied. “I think Mr. Blake is to have a part in the service.”

  “Old Ebenezer Blake? You don’t say!” Father Fernald ejaculated in astonishment. He had not been told of Sewall’s visit to the aged minister. “Well—well—that is thoughtful of William Sewall. I don’t suppose Elder Blake has taken part in a service in fifteen years—twenty, maybe. He used to be a great preacher, too, in his day. I used to listen to him, when I was a young man, and think he could put things in about as interesting a way as any preacher I ever heard. Good man, too, he was—and is. But nobody’s thought of asking him to make a prayer in public since—I don’t know when. —Well, well—look at the people going in! I guess we’d better be getting right along to our seats, or there won’t be any left.”

  VII.

  The organ was playing—very softly. Carolyn was a skilful manipulator of keyboards, and she had discovered that by carefully refraining from the use of certain keys—discreetly marked by postage stamps—she could produce a not unmusical effect of subdued harmony. This unquestionably added very much to the impression of a churchly atmosphere, carried out to the eye by the Christmas wreathing and twining of the heavy ropes of shining laurel leaves, and by the massing of the whole pulpit-front in the soft, dark green of hemlock boughs and holly. To the people who entered the house with vivid memories of the burning July day when words hardly less burning had seemed to scorch the barren walls, this lamp-lit interior, clothed with the garments of the woods and fragrant with their breath, seemed a place so different that it could hardly be the same.

  But the faces were the same—the faces. And George Tomlinson did not look at Asa Fraser, though he passed him in the aisle, beard to beard. Miss Jane Pollock stared hard at the back of Mrs. Maria Hill’s bonnet, in the pew in front of her, but when Mrs. Hill turned about to glance up at the organ-loft, to discover who was there, Miss Pollock’s face became as adamant, and her eyes remained fixed on her folded hands until Mrs. Hill had twisted about again, and there was no danger of their glances encountering. All over the church, likewise, were people who avoided seeing each other, though conscious, all down their rigid backbones, that those with whom they had fallen out on that unhappy July day were present.

  There was no vestry in the old meeting-house; no retiring place of any sort where the presiding minister might stay until the moment came for him to make his quiet and impressive entrance through a softly opening pulpit door. So when the Reverend William Sewall of St. John’s, of the neighboring city, came into the North Estabrook sanctuary, it was as his congregation had entered, through the front door and up the aisle.

  There was a turning of heads to see him come, but there was a staring of eyes, indeed, when it was seen by whom he was accompanied. The erect figure of the young man, in his unexceptionable attire, walked slowly, to keep pace with the feeble footsteps of the very old man in his threadbare garments of the cut of half a century ago, and the sight of the two together was one of the most strangely touching things that had ever met the eyes of the people of North Estabrook. It may be said, therefore, that from that first moment there was an unexpected and unreckoned-with influence abroad in the place.

  Now, to the subdued notes of the organ, which had been occupied with one theme, built upon with varying harmonies but ever appearing—though perhaps no ear but a trained one would have recognized it through the veil—was added the breath of voices. It was only an old Christmas carol, the music that of a German folk song, but dear to generations of Christmas singers everywhere. The North Estabrook people recognized it—yet did not recognize it. They had never heard it sung like that before.

  “Holy night! peaceful night! All is dark, save the light Yonder where they sweet vigils keep O’er the Babe, who in silent sleep Rests in heavenly peace.”

  It was the presence of Margaret Sewall Fernald which had made it possible to attempt music at this service—the music which it seemed impossible to do without. Her voice was one of rare beauty, her leadership that of training. Her husband, Guy, possessed a reliable, if uncultivated, bass. Edson had sung a fair tenor in his college glee-club. By the use of all her arts of persuasion Nan had provided an alto singer, from the ranks of the choir which had once occupied this organ-loft—the daughter of Asa Fraser. Whether the quartette thus formed would have passed muster—as a quartette—with the choir-master of St. John’s, may have been a question, but it is certain the music they produced was so far above that which the old church had ever heard before within its walls that had the singers been a detachment from the choir celestial those who heard them could hardly have listened with ears more charmed.

  As “Holy Night” came down to him, William Sewall bent his head. But Ebenezer Blake lifted his. His dim blue eyes looked up—up and up—quite through the old meeting-house roof—to the starry skies where it seemed to him angels sang again. He forgot the people assembled in front of him—he forgot the responsibilities upon his shoulders—those bent shoulders which had long ago laid down such responsibilities. He saw visions. It is the old men who see visions. The young men dream dreams.

  The young city rector read the Christmas Story—out of the worn copy of the Scriptures which had served this pulpit almost from the beginning. He read it in the rich and cultivated voice of his training, but quite simply. Then Margaret sang, to the slender accompaniment of
the little organ, the same solo which a famous soprano had sung that morning at the service at St. John’s—and her brother William, listening from the pulpit, thought she sang it better. There was the quality in Margaret’s voice which reaches hearts—a quality which somehow the famous soprano’s notes had lacked. And every word could be heard, too—the quiet throughout the house was so absolute—except when Asa Fraser cleared his throat loudly in the midst of one of the singer’s most beautiful notes. At the sound Mrs. George Tomlinson gave him a glance which ought to have annihilated him—but it did not. She could not know that the throat-clearing was a high tribute to the song—coming from Asa Fraser.

  “How silently, how silently, The wondrous gift is given; So God imparts to human hearts The blessing of His heaven.... O Holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today.”

  Then William Sewall made a prayer. Those who had been looking to see old Elder Blake take this part in the service began to wonder if he had been asked into the pulpit simply as a courtesy. They supposed he could pray, at least. They knew he had never ceased doing it—and for them. Elder Blake had not an enemy in the village. It seemed strange that he couldn’t be given some part, in spite of his extreme age. To be sure, it was many years since anybody had asked him to take part in any service whatsoever, even a funeral service—for which, as is well understood, a man retains efficiency long after he has ceased to be of use in the pulpit, no matter how devastating may be the weather. But that fact did not seem to bear upon the present situation.

  A number of people, among them Miss Jane Pollock, were beginning to feel more than a little indignant about it, and so lost the most of Sewall’s prayer, which was a good one, and not out of the prayer-book, though there were phrases in it which suggested that source, as was quite natural. The city man meant to do it all, then. Doubtless he thought nobody from the country knew how to do more than to pronounce the benediction. Doubtless that was to be Elder Blake’s insignificant part—to pronounce the—

  Miss Jane Pollock looked up quickly. She had been staring steadily at the back of Maria Hill’s mink collar, in front of her, through the closing sentences of the prayer. But what was this? Elder Blake had risen and was coming forward. Was he going to read a hymn? But he had no book. And he had taken off his spectacles. He could see better, as was known, without his spectacles, when looking at a distance.

  William Sewall’s prayer was not ended. He could no longer be heard by the people, but in his seat, behind the drooping figure of the old man, he was asking things of the Lord as it seemed to him he had never asked anything before. Could His poor, feeble, “superannuated” old servant ever speak the message that needed to be spoken that night? William Sewall felt more than ever that he himself could not have done it. Could Ebenezer Blake?

  “Make him strong, O God—make him strong,” requested William Sewall, fervently. Then, forgetting even a likeness to prayer-book phrase, he added, with fists unconsciously tight-clenched, in the language of the athletic field where a few years back he himself had taken part in many a hard-fought battle— “Help him to buck up!”

  VIII.

  They talk about it yet, in North Estabrook, though it happened a year ago. Nobody knew how it was that from a frail old man with a trembling voice, which, in its first sentences, the people back of the middle of the church could hardly hear, there came to stand before them a fiery messenger from the skies. But such was the miracle—for it seemed no less. The bent figure straightened, the trembling voice grew clear and strong, the dim eyes brightened, into the withered cheeks flowed color—into the whole aged personality came slowly but surely back the fires of youth. And once more in a public place Ebenezer Blake became the mouthpiece of the Master he served.

  Peace and good will? Oh, yes—he preached it—no doubt of that. But it was no milk-and-water peace, no sugar-and-spice good will. There was flesh and blood in the message he gave them, and it was the message they needed. Even his text was not the gentle part of the Christmas prophecy, it was the militant part— “And the government shall be upon His shoulder.” They were not bidden to lie down together like lambs, they were summoned to march together like lions—the lions of the Lord. As William Sewall looked down into the faces of the people and watched the changing expressions there, he felt that the strange, strong, challenging words were going home. He saw stooping shoulders straighten even as the preacher’s had straightened; he saw heads come up, and eyes grow light;—most of all, he saw that at last the people had forgotten one another and were remembering—God.

  Suddenly the sermon ended. As preachers of a later day have learned the art of stopping abruptly with a striking climax, so this preacher from an earlier generation, his message delivered, ceased to speak. He left his hearers breathless. But after a moment’s pause, during which the silence was a thing to be felt, the voice spoke again. It no longer rang—it sank into a low pleading, in words out of the Book upon which the clasped old hands rested:

  “Now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of Thy servant and his supplications, and cause Thy face to shine upon Thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake.”

  IX.

  Up in the choir-loft, chokily Guy whispered to Margaret, “Can’t we end with ‘Holy Night,’ again? Nothing else seems to fit, after that.”

  She nodded, her eyes wet. It had not been thought best to ask the congregation to sing. There was no knowing whether anybody would sing if they were asked. Now, it seemed fortunate that it had been so arranged, for somehow the congregation did not look exactly as if it could sing. Certainly not George Tomlinson, for he had a large frog in his throat. Not Asa Fraser, for he had a furious cold in his head. Not Maria Hill, for though she hunted vigorously, high and low, for her handkerchief, she was unable to locate it, and the front of her best black silk was rapidly becoming shiny in spots—a fact calculated to upset anybody’s singing. Not even Miss Jane Pollock, for though no tears bedewed her bright black eyes, there was a peculiar heaving quality in her breathing, which suggested an impediment of some sort not to be readily overcome. And it may be safely said that there was not a baker’s dozen of people left in the church who could have carried through the most familiar hymn without breaking down.

  So the four in the organ loft sang “Holy Night” again. They could not have done a better thing. It is a holy night, indeed, when a messenger from heaven comes down to this world of ours, though he take the form of an old, old man with a peaceful face—but with eyes which can flash once more with a light which is not of earth, and with lips upon which, for one last mighty effort, has been laid a coal from off the altar of the great High Priest.

  “Silent Night! Holy night! Darkness flies, all is light! Shepherds hear the angels sing— Hallelujah! hail the king! Jesus Christ is here!”

  X.

  George Tomlinson came heavily out of his pew. He had at last succeeded in getting rid of the frog in his throat—or thought he had. It had occurred to him that perhaps he ought to go up and speak to Elder Blake—now sitting quietly in his chair, with William Sewall bending over him—though he didn’t know exactly what to say that would seem adequate to the occasion.

  At the same moment, Asa Fraser, still struggling with the cold in his head, emerged from his pew, directly opposite. The two men did not look at each other. But as they had been accustomed to allow their meeting glances to clash with the cutting quality of implacable resentment, this dropping of the eyes on the part of each might have been interpreted to register a distinct advance toward peace.

  As each stood momentarily at the opening of his pew, neither quite determined whether to turn his face pulpit-ward or door-ward, Samuel Burnett, coming eagerly up to them from the door-ward side, laid a friendly hand on either black-clad arm. Whether Sam was inspired by Heaven, or only by his own strong common-sense and knowledge of men, will never be known. But he had been a popular man in North Estabrook, ever since he had first begun to come there to se
e Nancy Fernald, and both Tomlinson and Fraser heartily liked and respected him—a fact he understood and was counting on now.

  “Wasn’t it great, Mr. Tomlinson?” said Sam, enthusiastically. “Great—Mr. Fraser?” He looked, smiling, into first one austere face and then the other. Then he gazed straight ahead of him, up at Elder Blake. “Going up to tell him so? So am I!” He pressed the two arms, continuing in his friendly way to retain his hold on both. “In all the years I’ve gone to church, I’ve never heard preaching like that. It warmed up my heart till I thought it would burst—and it made me want to go to work.”

  Almost without their own volition Tomlinson and Fraser found themselves proceeding toward the pulpit—yet Sam’s hands did not seem to be exerting any force. The force came from his own vigorous personality, which was one that invariably inspired confidence. If Burnett was going up to speak to the Elder, it seemed only proper that they, the leading men of the church, should go too.

  William Sewall, having assured himself that his venerable associate was not suffering from a more than natural exhaustion after his supreme effort, stood still by his side, looking out over the congregation. He now observed an interesting trio approaching the platform, composed of his valued friend, Samuel Burnett—his fine face alight with his purpose—and two gray-bearded men of somewhat unpromising exterior, but plainly of prominence in the church, by the indefinable look of them. He watched the three climb the pulpit stairs, and come up to the figure in the chair—Sam, with tact, falling behind.

  “You did well, Elder—you did well,” said George Tomlinson, struggling to express himself, and finding only this time-worn phrase. He stood awkwardly on one foot, before Ebenezer Blake, like an embarrassed schoolboy, but his tone was sincere—and a trifle husky, on account of the untimely reappearance of the frog in his throat.