A Christmas Treasury

by Barnes

  There was more dancing, followed by games, in which Aunt Plumy shone pre-eminent, for the supper was off her mind and she could enjoy herself. There were shouts of merriment as the blithe old lady twirled the platter, hunted the squirrel, and went to Jerusalem like a girl of sixteen; her cap in a ruinous condition, and every seam of the purple dress straining like sails in a gale. It was great fun, but at midnight it came to an end, and the young folks, still bubbling over with innocent jollity, went jingling away along the snowy hills, unanimously pronouncing Mrs. Basset’s party the best of the season.

  “Never had such a good time in my life!” exclaimed Sophie, as the family stood together in the kitchen where the candles among the wreaths were going out, and the floor was strewn with wrecks of past joy.

  “I’m proper glad, dear. Now you all go to bed and lay as late as you like to-morrow. I’m so kinder worked up I couldn’t sleep, so Saul and me will put things to rights without a mite of noise to disturb you”; and Aunt Plumy sent them off with a smile that was a benediction, Sophie thought.

  “The dear old soul speaks as if midnight was an unheard-of hour for Christians to be up. What would she say if she knew how we seldom go to bed till dawn in the ball season? I’m so wide awake I’ve half a mind to pack a little. Randal must go at two, he says, and we shall want his escort,” said Emily, as the girls laid away their brocades in the press in Sophie’s room.

  “I’m not going. Aunt can’t spare me, and there is nothing to go for yet,” answered Sophie, beginning to take the white chrysanthemums out of her pretty hair.

  “My dear child, you will die of ennui up here. Very nice for a week or so, but frightful for a winter. We are going to be very gay, and cannot get on without you,” cried Emily dismayed at the suggestion.

  “You will have to, for I’m not coming. I am very happy here, and so tired of the frivolous life I lead in town, that I have decided to try a better one,” and Sophie’s mirror reflected a face full of the sweetest content.

  “Have you lost your mind? experienced religion? or any other dreadful thing? You always were odd, but this last freak is the strangest of all. What will your guardian say, and the world?” added Emily in the awe-stricken tone of one who stood in fear of the omnipotent Mrs. Grundy.

  “Guardy will be glad to be rid of me, and I don’t care that for the world,” cried Sophie, snapping her fingers with a joyful sort of recklessness which completed Emily’s bewilderment.

  “But Mr. Hammond? Are you going to throw away millions, lose your chance of making the best match in the city, and driving the girls of our set out of their wits with envy?”

  Sophie laughed at her friend’s despairing cry, and turning round said quietly,—

  “I wrote to Mr. Hammond last night, and this evening received my reward for being an honest girl. Saul and I are to be married in the spring when Ruth is.”

  Emily fell prone upon the bed as if the announcement was too much for her, but was up again in an instant to declare with prophetic solemnity,—

  “I knew something was going on, but hoped to get you away before you were lost. Sophie, you will repent. Be warned, and forget this sad delusion.”

  “Too late for that. The pang I suffered yesterday when I thought Saul was dead showed me how well I loved him. To-night he asked me to stay, and no power in the world can part us. Oh! Emily, it is all so sweet, so beautiful, that everything is possible, and I know I shall be happy in this dear old home, full of love and peace and honest hearts. I only hope you may find as true and tender a man to live for as my Saul.”

  Sophie’s face was more eloquent than her fervent words, and Emily beautifully illustrated the inconsistency of her sex by suddenly embracing her friend, with the incoherent exclamation, “I think I have, dear! Your brave Saul is worth a dozen old Hammonds, and I do believe you are right.”

  It is unnecessary to tell how, as if drawn by the irresistible magic of sympathy, Ruth and her mother crept in one by one to join the midnight conference and add their smiles and tears, tender hopes and proud delight to the joys of that memorable hour. Nor how Saul, unable to sleep, mounted guard below, and meeting Randal prowling down to soothe his nerves with a surreptitious cigar found it impossible to help confiding to his attentive ear the happiness that would break bounds and overflow in unusual eloquence.

  Peace fell upon the old house at last, and all slept as if some magic herb had touched their eyelids, bringing blissful dreams and a glad awakening.

  “Can’t we persuade you to come with us, Miss Sophie?” asked Randal next day, as they made their adieux.

  “I’m under orders now, and dare not disobey my superior officer,” answered Sophie, handing her Major his driving gloves, with a look which plainly showed that she had joined the great army of devoted women who enlist for life and ask no pay but love.

  “I shall depend on being invited to your wedding, then, and yours, too, Miss Ruth,” added Randal, shaking hands with “the little baggage,” as if he had quite forgiven her mockery and forgotten his own brief lapse into sentiment.

  Before she could reply Aunt Plumy said, in a tone of calm conviction, that made them all laugh, and some of them look conscious,—

  “Spring is a good time for weddin’s, and I shouldn’t wonder ef there was quite a number.”

  “Nor I”; and Saul and Sophie smiled at one another as they saw how carefully Randal arranged Emily’s wraps.

  Then with kisses, thanks and all the good wishes that happy hearts could imagine, the guests drove away, to remember long and gratefully that pleasant country Christmas.

  The Peterkins’ Christmas-Tree

  Lucretia P. Hale

  Early in the autumn the Peterkins began to prepare for their Christmas-tree. Everything was done in great privacy, as it was to be a surprise to the neighbors, as well as to the rest of the family. Mr. Peterkin had been up to Mr. Bromwick’s wood-lot, and, with his consent, selected the tree. Agamemnon went to look at it occasionally after dark, and Solomon John made frequent visits to it mornings, just after sunrise. Mr. Peterkin drove Elizabeth Eliza and her mother that way, and pointed furtively to it with his whip; but none of them ever spoke of it aloud to each other. It was suspected that the little boys had been to see it Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. But they came home with their pockets full of chestnuts, and said nothing about it.

  At length Mr. Peterkin had it cut down and brought secretly into the Larkins’ barn. A week or two before Christmas a measurement was made of it with Elizabeth Eliza’s yard-measure. To Mr. Peterkin’s great dismay it was discovered that it was too high to stand in the back parlor.

  This fact was brought out at a secret council of Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, Elizabeth Eliza, and Agamemnon.

  Agamemnon suggested that it might be set up slanting; but Mrs. Peterkin was very sure it would make her dizzy, and the candles would drip.

  But a brilliant idea came to Mr. Peterkin. He proposed that the ceiling of the parlor should be raised to make room for the top of the tree.

  Elizabeth Eliza thought the space would need to be quite large. It must not be like a small box, or you could not see the tree.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Peterkin, “I should have the ceiling lifted all across the room; the effect would be finer.”

  Elizabeth Eliza objected to having the whole ceiling raised, because her room was over the back parlor, and she would have no floor while the alteration was going on, which would be very awkward. Besides, her room was not very high now, and, if the floor were raised, perhaps she could not walk in it upright.

  Mr. Peterkin explained that he didn’t propose altering the whole ceiling, but to lift up a ridge across the room at the back part where the tree was to stand. This would make a hump, to be sure, in Elizabeth Eliza’s room; but it would go across the whole room.

  Elizabeth Eliza said she would not mind that. It would be like the cuddy thing that comes up on the deck of a ship, that you sit against, only here you would not have the sea-sickness. She th
ought she should like it, for a rarity. She might use it for a divan.

  Mrs. Peterkin thought it would come in the worn place of the carpet, and might be a convenience in making the carpet over.

  Agamemnon was afraid there would be trouble in keeping the matter secret, for it would be a long piece of work for a carpenter; but Mr. Peterkin proposed having the carpenter for a day or two, for a number of other jobs.

  One of them was to make all the chairs in the house of the same height, for Mrs. Peterkin had nearly broken her spine by sitting down in a chair that she had supposed was her own rocking-chair, and it had proved to be two inches lower. The little boys were now large enough to sit in any chair; so a medium was fixed upon to satisfy all the family, and the chairs were made uniformly of the same height.

  On consulting the carpenter, however, he insisted that the tree could be cut off at the lower end to suit the height of the parlor, and demurred at so great a change as altering the ceiling. But Mr. Peterkin had set his mind upon the improvement, and Elizabeth Eliza had cut her carpet in preparation for it.

  So the folding-doors into the back parlor were closed, and for nearly a fortnight before Christmas there was great litter of fallen plastering, and laths, and chips, and shavings; and Elizabeth Eliza’s carpet was taken up, and the furniture had to be changed, and one night she had to sleep at the Bromwicks’, for there was a long hole in her floor that might be dangerous.

  All this delighted the little boys. They could not understand what was going on. Perhaps they suspected a Christmas-tree, but they did not know why a Christmas-tree should have so many chips, and were still more astonished at the hump that appeared in Elizabeth Eliza’s room. It must be a Christmas present, or else the tree in a box.

  Some aunts and uncles, too, arrived a day or two before Christmas, with some small cousins. These cousins occupied the attention of the little boys, and there was a great deal of whispering and mystery, behind doors, and under the stairs, and in the corners of the entry.

  Solomon John was busy, privately making some candles for the tree. He had been collecting some bayberries, as he understood they made very nice candles, so that it would not be necessary to buy any.

  The elders of the family never all went into the back parlor together, and all tried not to see what was going on. Mrs. Peterkin would go in with Solomon John, or Mr. Peterkin with Elizabeth Eliza, or Elizabeth Eliza and Agamemnon and Solomon John. The little boys and the small cousins were never allowed even to look inside the room.

  Elizabeth Eliza meanwhile went into town a number of times. She wanted to consult Amanda as to how much ice-cream they should need, and whether they could make it at home, as they had cream and ice. She was pretty busy in her own room; the furniture had to be changed, and the carpet altered. The “hump” was higher than she expected. There was danger of bumping her own head whenever she crossed it. She had to nail some padding on the ceiling for fear of accidents.

  The afternoon before Christmas, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and their father collected in the back parlor for a council. The carpenters had done their work, and the tree stood at its full height at the back of the room, the top stretching up into the space arranged for it. All the chips and shavings were cleared away, and it stood on a neat box.

  But what were they to put upon the tree?

  Solomon John had brought in his supply of candles; but they proved to be very “stringy” and very few of them. It was strange how many bayberries it took to make a few candles! The little boys had helped him, and he had gathered as much as a bushel of bayberries. He had put them in water, and skimmed off the wax, according to the directions; but there was so little wax!

  Solomon John had given the little boys some of the bits sawed off from the legs of the chairs. He had suggested that they should cover them with gilt paper, to answer for gilt apples, without telling them what they were for.

  These apples, a little blunt at the end, and the candles, were all they had for the tree!

  After all her trips into town Elizabeth Eliza had forgotten to bring anything for it.

  “I thought of candies and sugar-plums,” she said; “but I concluded if we made caramels ourselves we should not need them. But, then, we have not made caramels. The fact is, that day my head was full of my carpet. I had bumped it pretty badly, too.”

  Mr. Peterkin wished he had taken, instead of a fir-tree, an apple-tree he had seen in October, full of red fruit.

  “But the leaves would have fallen off by this time,” said Elizabeth Eliza.

  “And the apples, too,” said Solomon John.

  “It is odd I should have forgotten, that day I went in on purpose to get the things,” said Elizabeth Eliza, musingly. “But I went from shop to shop, and didn’t know exactly what to get. I saw a great many gilt things for Christmas-trees; but I knew the little boys were making the gilt apples; there were plenty of candles in the shops, but I knew Solomon John was making the candles.”

  Mr. Peterkin thought it was quite natural.

  Solomon John wondered if it were too late for them to go into town now.

  Elizabeth Eliza could not go in the next morning, for there was to be a grand Christmas dinner, and Mr. Peterkin could not be spared, and Solomon John was sure he and Agamemnon would not know what to buy. Besides, they would want to try the candles to-night.

  Mr. Peterkin asked if the presents everybody had been preparing would not answer. But Elizabeth Eliza knew they would be too heavy.

  A gloom came over the room. There was only a flickering gleam from one of Solomon John’s candles that he had lighted by way of trial.

  Solomon John again proposed going into town. He lighted a match to examine the newspaper about the trains. There were plenty of trains coming out at that hour, but none going in except a very late one. That would not leave time to do anything and come back.

  “We could go in, Elizabeth Eliza and I,” said Solomon John, “but we should not have time to buy anything.”

  Agamemnon was summoned in. Mrs. Peterkin was entertaining the uncles and aunts in the front parlor. Agamemnon wished there was time to study up something about electric lights. If they could only have a calcium light! Solomon John’s candle sputtered and went out.

  At this moment there was a loud knocking at the front door. The little boys, and the small cousins, and the uncles and aunts, and Mrs. Peterkin, hastened to see what was the matter.

  The uncles and aunts thought somebody’s house must be on fire. The door was opened, and there was a man, white with flakes, for it was beginning to snow, and he was pulling in a large box.

  Mrs. Peterkin supposed it contained some of Elizabeth Eliza’s purchases, so she ordered it to be pushed into the back parlor, and hastily called back her guests and the little boys into the other room. The little boys and the small cousins were sure they had seen Santa Claus himself.

  Mr. Peterkin lighted the gas. The box was addressed to Elizabeth Eliza. It was from the lady from Philadelphia! She had gathered a hint from Elizabeth Eliza’s letters that there was to be a Christmas-tree, and had filled this box with all that would be needed.

  It was opened directly. There was every kind of gilt hanging-thing, from gilt pea-pods to butterflies on springs. There were shining flags and lanterns, and bird-cages, and nests with birds sitting on them, baskets of fruit, gilt apples and bunches of grapes, and, at the bottom of the whole, a large box of candles and a box of Philadelphia bonbons!

  Elizabeth Eliza and Solomon John could scarcely keep from screaming. The little boys and the small cousins knocked on the folding-doors to ask what was the matter.

  Hastily Mr. Peterkin and the rest took out the things and hung them on the tree, and put on the candles.

  When all was done, it looked so well that Mr. Peterkin exclaimed:—

  “Let us light the candles now, and send to invite all the neighbors to-night, and have the tree on Christmas Eve!”

  And so it was that the Peterkins had their Christmas-tree the day
before, and on Christmas night could go and visit their neighbors.

  Christmas; or, The Good Fairy

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  “O dear! Christmas is coming in a fortnight, and I have got to think up presents for every body!” said young Ellen Stuart, as she leaned languidly back in her chair. “Dear me, it’s so tedious! Every body has got every thing that can be thought of.”

  “O, no,” said her confidential adviser, Miss Lester, in a soothing tone. “You have means of buying every thing you can fancy; and when every shop and store is glittering with all manner of splendors, you cannot surely be at a loss.”

  “Well, now, just listen. To begin with, there’s mamma. What can I get for her? I have thought of ever so many things. She has three card cases, four gold thimbles, two or three gold chains, two writing desks of different patterns; and then as to rings, brooches, boxes, and all other things, I should think she might be sick of the sight of them. I am sure I am,” said she, languidly gazing on her white and jeweled fingers.

  This view of the case seemed rather puzzling to the adviser, and there was silence for a few moments, when Ellen, yawning, resumed:—

  “And then there’s Cousins Jane and Mary; I suppose they will be coming down on me with a whole load of presents; and Mrs. B. will send me something—she did last year; and then there’s Cousins William and Tom—I must get them something; and I would like to do it well enough, if I only knew what to get.”

  “Well,” said Eleanor’s aunt, who had been sitting quietly rattling her knitting needles during this speech, “it’s a pity that you had not such a subject to practice on as I was when I was a girl. Presents did not fly about in those days as they do now. I remember, when I was ten years old, my father gave me a most marvelously ugly sugar dog for a Christmas gift, and I was perfectly delighted with it, the very idea of a present was so new to us.”