A Vintage Christmas

by Thomas Nelson

  By and by the children fell asleep, one on Aunt Cyrilla’s lap and one on Lucy Rose’s, and two on the seat. Aunt Cyrilla and the pale girl helped the mother make up beds for them. The minister gave his overcoat and the sealskin lady came forward with a shawl.

  “This will do for the baby,” she said.

  “We must get up some Santa Claus for these youngsters,” said the khaki boy. “Let’s hang their stockings on the wall and fill ’em up as best we can. I’ve nothing about me but some hard cash and a jack-knife. I’ll give each of ’em a quarter and the boy can have the knife.”

  “I’ve nothing but money either,” said the sealskin lady regretfully.

  Aunt Cyrilla glanced at the little mother. She had fallen asleep with her head against the seat-back.

  “I’ve got a basket over there,” said Aunt Cyrilla firmly, “and I’ve some presents in it that I was taking to my nephew’s children. I’m going to give ’em to these. As for the money, I think the mother is the one for it to go to. She’s been telling me her story, and a pitiful one it is. Let’s make up a little purse among us for a Christmas present.”

  The idea met with favour. The khaki boy passed his cap and everybody contributed. The sealskin lady put in a crumpled note. When Aunt Cyrilla straightened it out she saw that it was for twenty dollars.

  Meanwhile, Lucy Rose had brought the basket. She smiled at Aunt Cyrilla as she lugged it down the aisle and Aunt Cyrilla smiled back. Lucy Rose had never touched that basket of her own accord before.

  Ray’s boat went to Jacky, and Daisy’s doll to his oldest sister, the twins’ lace handkerchiefs to the two smaller girls and the hood to the baby. Then the stockings were filled up with doughnuts and jelly cookies and the money was put in an envelope and pinned to the little mother’s jacket.

  “That baby is such a dear little fellow,” said the sealskin lady gently. “He looks something like my little son. He died eighteen Christmases ago.”

  Aunt Cyrilla put her hand over the lady’s kid glove. “So did mine,” she said. Then the two women smiled tenderly at each other. Afterwards they rested from their labours and all had what Aunt Cyrilla called a “snack” of sandwiches and pound cake. The khaki boy said he hadn’t tasted anything half so good since he left home.

  “They didn’t give us pound cake in South Africa,” he said.

  When morning came the storm was still raging. The children wakened and went wild with delight over their stockings. The little mother found her envelope and tried to utter thanks and broke down; and nobody knew what to say or do, when the conductor fortunately came in and made a diversion by telling them they might as well resign themselves to spending Christmas on the train.

  “This is serious,” said the khaki boy, “when you consider that we’ve no provisions. Don’t mind for myself, used to half rations or no rations at all. But these kiddies will have tremendous appetites.”

  Then Aunt Cyrilla rose to the occasion.

  “I’ve got some emergency rations here,” she announced. “There’s plenty for all and we’ll have our Christmas dinner, although a cold one. Breakfast first thing. There’s a sandwich apiece left and we must fill up on what is left of the cookies and doughnuts and save the rest for a real good spread at dinner time. The only thing is, I haven’t any bread.”

  “I’ve a box of soda crackers,” said the little mother eagerly.

  Nobody in that car will ever forget that Christmas. To begin with, after breakfast they had a concert. The khaki boy gave two recitations, sang three songs, and gave a whistling solo. Lucy Rose gave three recitations and the minister a comic reading. The pale shop girl sang two songs. It was agreed that the khaki boy’s whistling solo was the best number, and Aunt Cyrilla gave him the bouquet of everlastings as a reward of merit.

  Then the conductor came in with the cheerful news that the storm was almost over and he thought the track would be cleared in a few hours.

  “If we can get to the next station we’ll be all right,” he said. “The branch joins the main line there and the tracks will be clear.”

  At noon they had dinner. The train hands were invited in to share it. The minister carved the chicken with the brakeman’s jack-knife and the khaki boy cut up the tongue and the mince pies, while the sealskin lady mixed the raspberry vinegar with its due proportion of water. Bits of paper served as plates. The train furnished a couple of glasses, a tin pint cup was discovered and given to the children, Aunt Cyrilla and Lucy Rose and the sealskin lady drank, turn about, from the latter’s graduated medicine glass, the shop girl and the little mother shared one of the empty bottles, and the khaki boy, the minister, and the train men drank out of the other bottle.

  Everybody declared they had never enjoyed a meal more in their lives. Certainly it was a merry one, and Aunt Cyrilla’s cooking was never more appreciated; indeed, the bones of the chicken and the pot of preserves were all that was left. They could not eat the preserves because they had no spoons, so Aunt Cyrilla gave them to the little mother.

  When all was over, a hearty vote of thanks was passed to Aunt Cyrilla and her basket. The sealskin lady wanted to know how she made her pound cake, and the khaki boy asked for her receipt for jelly cookies. And when two hours later the conductor came in and said the snowploughs had got along and they’d soon be starting, they all wondered if it could really be less than twenty-four hours since they met.

  “I feel as if I’d been campaigning with you all my life,” said the khaki boy.

  At the next station they all parted. The little mother and the children had to take the next train back home. The minister stayed there, and the khaki boy and the sealskin lady changed trains. The sealskin lady shook Aunt Cyrilla’s hand. She no longer looked discontented or cross.

  “This has been the pleasantest Christmas I have ever spent,” she said heartily. “I shall never forget that wonderful basket of yours. The little shop girl is going home with me. I’ve promised her a place in my husband’s store.”

  When Aunt Cyrilla and Lucy Rose reached Pembroke there was nobody to meet them because everyone had given up expecting them. It was not far from the station to Edward’s house and Aunt Cyrilla elected to walk.

  “I’ll carry the basket,” said Lucy Rose.

  Aunt Cyrilla relinquished it with a smile. Lucy Rose smiled too.

  “It’s a blessed old basket,” said the latter, “and I love it. Please forget all the silly things I ever said about it, Aunt C’rilla.”

  WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

  1837-1920

  CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

  The little girl came into her papa’s study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began:

  “Well, once there was a little pig—”

  She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word. She said she had heard little pig stories till she was perfectly sick of them.

  “Well, what kind of story shall I tell, then?”

  “About Christmas. It’s getting to be the season. It’s past Thanksgiving already.”

  “It seems to me,” argued her papa, “that I’ve told as often about Christmas as I have about little pigs.”

  “No difference! Christmas is more interesting.”

  “Well!” Her papa roused himself from his writing by a great effort. “Well, then, I’ll tell you about the little girl that wanted it Christmas every day in the year. How would you like that?”

  “First-rate!” said the little girl; and she nestled into comfortable shape in his lap, ready for listening.

  “Very well, then, this little pig,—Oh, what are you pounding me for?”

  “Because you said little pig instead of little girl.”

  “I should like to know what’s the difference between a little pig and a little girl that wanted it Christmas every day!”

  “Papa!” said the little girl, warningly, “if you don’t go on, I’ll give it to y
ou!” And at this her papa darted off like lightning, and began to tell the story as fast as he could.

  Well, once there was a little girl who liked Christmas so much that she wanted it to be Christmas every day in the year; and as soon as Thanksgiving was over she began to send postal cards to the old Christmas Fairy to ask if she mightn’t have it. But the old Fairy never answered any of the postals; and, after a while, the little girl found out that the Fairy was pretty particular, and wouldn’t notice anything but letters, not even correspondence cards in envelopes; but real letters on sheets of paper, and sealed outside with a monogram,—or your initial, anyway. So, then, she began to send her letters; and in about three weeks—or just the day before Christmas, it was—she got a letter from the Fairy, saying she might have it Christmas every day for a year, and then they would see about having it longer.

  The little girl was a good deal excited already, preparing for the old-fashioned, once-a-year Christmas that was coming the next day, and perhaps the Fairy’s promise didn’t make such an impression on her as it would have made at some other time. She just resolved to keep it to herself, and surprise everybody with it as it kept coming true; and then it slipped out of her mind altogether.

  She had a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early, so as to let Santa Claus have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was up the first of anybody and went and felt them, and found hers all lumpy with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes, and pocket-books and rubber balls and all kinds of small presents, and her big brother’s with nothing but the tongs in them, and her young lady sister’s with a new silk umbrella, and her papa’s and mamma’s with potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue paper, just as they always had every Christmas. Then she waited around till the rest of the family were up, and she was the first to burst into the library, when the doors were opened, and look at the large presents laid out on the library-table—books, and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and breast-pins, and dolls, and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs, and ink-stands, and skates, and snow-shovels, and photograph-frames, and little easels, and boxes of water-colors, and Turkish paste, and nougat, and candied cherries, and dolls’ houses, and waterproofs,—and the big Christmas-tree, lighted and standing in a waste-basket in the middle.

  She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she did not want any breakfast; and the whole forenoon the presents kept pouring in that the expressman had not had to deliver the night before; and she went ’round giving the presents she had got for other people and came home and ate turkey and cranberry dinner, and plum-pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges and more candy, and then went home and coasted and came in with a stomache-ache, crying, and her papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of fool’s paradise another year, and they had a light supper, and pretty early everybody went to bed cross.

  Here the little girl pounded her papa in the back, again.

  “Well, what now? Did I say pigs?”

  “You made them act like pigs.”

  “Well, didn’t they?”

  “No matter; you oughtn’t to put it into a story.”

  “Very well, then, I’ll take it all out.”

  Her father went on:

  The little girl slept very heavily, and she very late, but she was wakened at last by the other children dancing ’round her bed with their stockings full of presents in their hands.

  “What is it?” said the little girl, and she rubbed her eyes and tried to rise up in bed.

  “Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!” they all shouted, and waved their stockings.

  “Nonsense! It was Christmas yesterday.”

  Her brothers and sisters just laughed. “We don’t know about that. It’s Christmas to-day, anyway. You come into the library and see.”

  Then all at once it flashed on the little girl that the Fairy was keeping her promise, and her year of Christmases was beginning. She was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up like a lark—a lark that had overeaten itself and gone to bed cross—and darted into the library. There it was again! Books and portfolios, and boxes of stationery, and breast-pins—

  “You needn’t go over it all, Papa; I guess I can remember just what was there,” said the little girl.

  Well, and there was the Christmas-tree blazing away, and the family picking out their presents, but looking pretty sleepy, and her father perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. “I’m sure I don’t see how I’m to dispose of all these things,” said her mother, and her father said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the little girl as the best kind of a joke; and so she ate so much candy she didn’t want any breakfast, and went ’round carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a—

  “Papa!”

  “Well, what now?”

  “What did you promise, you forgetful thing?”

  “Oh! oh, yes!”

  Well, the next day, it was just the same thing over again, but everybody getting crosser; and at the end of a week’s time so many people had lost their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers anywhere; they perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to recover their tempers they usually got somebody else’s, and it made the most dreadful mix.

  The little girl began to get frightened, keeping the secret all to herself; she wanted to tell her mother, but she didn’t dare to; and she was ashamed to ask the Fairy to take back her gift, it seemed ungrateful and ill-bred, and she thought she would try to stand it, but she hardly knew how she could, for a whole year. So it went on and on, and it was Christmas on St. Valentine’s Day, and Washington’s Birthday, just the same as any day, and it didn’t skip even the First of April, though everything was counterfeit that day, and that was some little relief.

  After a while, coal and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many had been wrapped up in tissue paper to fool papas and mammas with. Turkeys got to be about a thousand dollars apiece—

  “Papa!”

  “Well, what?”

  “You’re beginning to fib.”

  “Well, two thousand, then.”

  And they got to passing off almost anything for turkeys,—half-grown humming-birds, and even rocs out of the Arabian Nights,—the real turkeys were so scarce. And cranberries—well, they asked a diamond apiece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for Christmas-trees, and where the woods and orchards used to be, it looked just like a stubble-field, with the stumps. After a while they had to make Christmas-trees out of rags, and stuff them with bran, like old-fashioned dolls; but there were plenty of rags, because people got so poor, buying presents for one another, that they couldn’t get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones to tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poorhouse, except the confectioners, and the fancy store-keepers, and the picture-booksellers, and the expressmen; and they all got so rich and proud that they would hardly wait upon a person when he came to buy; it was perfectly shameful!

  Well, after it had gone on about three or four months, the little girl, whenever she came into the room in the morning and saw those great ugly lumpy stockings dangling at the fire-place, and the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to just sit down and burst out crying. In six months she was perfectly exhausted; she couldn’t even cry any more; she just lay on the lounge and rolled her eyes and panted. About the beginning of October she took to sitting down on dolls, wherever she found them,—French dolls, or any kind,—she hated the sight of them so; and by Thanksgiving she was crazy, and just slammed her presents across the room.

  By that time people didn’t carry presents around nicely any more. They flung them over the fence, or through the window, or anything; and, instead of running their tongues out and taking great pains to write “For dear Papa,” or “Mamma,” or “Brother,” or “Sister,” or “Susie,” or “Sammie,” or �
��Billie,” or “Bobby,” or “Jimmie,” or “Jennie,” or whoever it was, and troubling to get the spelling right, and then signing their names, and “‘Xmas, 188—,” they used to write in the gift-books, “Take it, you horrid old thing!” and then go and bang it against the front door. Nearly everybody had built barns to hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed, and then they used to let them lie out in the rain, or anywhere. Sometimes the police used to come and tell them to shovel their presents off the sidewalk, or they would arrest them.

  “I thought you said everybody had gone to the poor-house,” interrupted the little girl.

  “They did go, at first,” said her papa; “but after a while the poor-houses got so full that they had to send the people back to their own houses. They tried to cry, when they got back, but they couldn’t make the least sound.”

  “Why couldn’t they?”

  “Because they had lost their voices, saying ‘Merry Christmas’ so much. Did I tell you how it was on the Fourth of July?”

  “No; how was it?” And the little girl nestled closer, in expectation of something uncommon.

  Well, the night before, the boys stayed up to celebrate, as they always do, and fell asleep before twelve o’clock, as usual, expecting to be awakened by the bells and cannon. But it was nearly eight o’clock before the first boy in the United States woke up, and then he found out what the trouble was. As soon as he could get his clothes on, he ran out of the house and smashed a big cannon-torpedo down on the pavement; but it didn’t make any more noise than a damp wad of paper, and, after he tried about twenty or thirty more, he began to pick them up and look at them. Every single torpedo was a big raisin! Then he just streaked it upstairs, and examined his fire-crackers and toy-pistol and two-dollar collection of fireworks, and found that they were nothing but sugar and candy painted up to look like fireworks! Before ten o’clock, every boy in the United States found out that his Fourth of July things had turned into Christmas things; and then they just sat down and cried,—they were so mad. There are about twenty million boys in the United States, and so you can imagine what a noise they made. Some men got together before night, with a little powder that hadn’t turned into purple sugar yet, and they said they would fire off one cannon, anyway. But the cannon burst into a thousand pieces, for it was nothing but rock-candy, and some of the men nearly got killed. The Fourth of July orations all turned into Christmas carols, and when anybody tried to read the Declaration, instead of saying, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary,” he was sure to sing, “God rest you, merry gentlemen.” It was perfectly awful.