He lay and looked at her as she sat quietly and gravely at her work under the Picture. Ever since he could remember, her chair at this hour of the day had been in that corner, and low over it had always hung, just as it hung now, that Picture so often explained to him, “The Walk to Emmaus.” How calm and quiet his mother was; and the room, how still and cool after that crowded street! Shutting his aching eyes he could see it again now; the swearing mob of boys and men shoving him on, their brutal faces and gestures, the quarrel, the blows—those he had given and taken—he felt them again, and the burning choke of the final grip and wrestle.
Oh, how his head throbbed and ached! It seemed as if the blood would burst through.
He opened his eyes again. The room was growing darker. He almost forgot his pain for a few moments, noticing how the sunlight was straightened to a narrow lane which reached from the extreme southern end of the window to the floor in front of his mother’s chair. He watched the last rays as they slowly left the floor and stole up her dress to her lap and her breast, leaving all behind and below in shadow. Now they had reached her face. It was bent over her work. Well he knew that was some Christmas gift, may be for him,—some Christmas gift, and tomorrow was Christmas! He looked again to see if he could discover what she was making, but the light had left her now, and had risen to the Picture.
Queer picture that it was! What funny clothes those men wore! Those long gabardines, mother had called them, reaching almost to the ground; shoes that showed the toes, and hoods for hats. One of them had none. How closely they looked at him!. They didn’t even see which way they were going, and what a long way it was, stretching out there, dusty and hot.
The room was quite dark now save for the light on the narrow road there. What was yonder little village in the distance? What kind of a place was Emmaus? His mother had told him about it; only one street, a long and narrow one; and very few trees; and one or two trading shops only; and the houses low and flat-roofed, with no glass in them; and the sun shining down hot and straight between them,—and (oh, how his head ached!) he was out there looking for Bob Sykes. Maybe that was he lying on this rude bench with the low cedar-bush over it. If it were, he would settle matters with him quick. He would show him—but it wasn’t Bob, it was only a sheep-dog asleep. So Tommy turned away and walked slowly along the middle of the street. His face burned with the heat of the sun on his bruises. He was very thirsty. Climbing a little hill over which the road lay, he saw on the other side of it another boy coming toward him. He was rather a peculiar looking boy, with a face thoughtful but pleasant. He was carrying a heavy sheepskin bag over his shoulder. Tommy determined to ask him if he knew where there was some water.
“Hello,” he said, as the boy drew near.
The boy stopped and smiled at Tommy without making reply.
“Where are you going?” said Tommy.
“I am carrying this bag of tools to my father,” the boy answered.
“Do you live here?” asked Tommy. “It doesn’t seem like much of a place.”
“No,” said the boy, “it isn’t much of a place, but I live here.”
“What sort of tools have you got in your bag? Who is your father?”
“My father is a carpenter,” answered the boy.
Tommy gave a long, low whistle. “A carpenter! Why my father owns a store, and we live in one of the best houses in town. Fairfield is the name of my town.”
The boy seemed neither to notice the whistle nor the brag; but, allowing the bag to slip from his shoulders to the ground, stood, still smiling, before Tommy.
Tommy, who somehow had forgotten his pain and thirst, felt embarrassed for a moment. He never before had made that announcement without its awakening at least a little sensation, even if it were no more than a boast in return.
“This is a dull old town,” he finally said. “Many jolly boys around?”
“A good many,” answered the boy.
“Do you get any time to play? I suppose though, you don’t—you have to work most of the time,” added Tommy, encouragingly.
“I work a good deal,” said the boy. “I get time to play, however. I like it.”
“Which, the work or the play?”
“Both.”
“Well,” said Tommy after a pause, “do you ever have any trouble with the boys you play with?”
“No,” said the boy, “I don’t think I do.”
“Well, you must be a queer sort of a boy! Now, there’s Bob Sykes—perhaps you’ve noticed that my eye is hurt, and my face scratched some. Well, we had a little difficulty just a few moments ago; he insulted me, and I won’t take an insult from any one. And I told him to shut up his mouth, and he sassed me back, and called me names, and said I was stuck up and thought I was better than the other boys, and he’d show me that I wasn’t. Of course, I wouldn’t stand that, so I’ve had a fight—and it isn’t the first one either.”
“Yes,” said the boy, “I know that. I feel very sorry for Bob. He hasn’t any mother to go to, you know. He had to wash the blood and dirt off his face as best he could at the town pump; and then wait around the streets until his father came from work. It is pretty hard for a boy to have no place to lay his head.”
“Why, do you know Bob Sykes?” asked Tommy.
“Yes,” answered the boy, “I’ve been with him a good deal.”
“Queer now,” mused Tommy. “I don’t remember of ever seeing you around. But now tell me what you would have done if he had provoked you, and insulted you, too?”
“I would have forgiven him,” answered the boy.
“Well, I did. There was one spell I just started in and forgave him every day for a week, that was seven times.”
“I would have forgiven him seventy times seven.”
“That is just what my mother always says. Perhaps you know my mother?”
“She knows me, too,” replied the boy.
“That is odd. I didn’t think she knew any of the boys Bob knows.”
“Bob does not know me,” replied the boy; “I know him.”
Just then Tommy’s attention was attracted by a flock of little brown birds passing over their heads. One of the birds flew low and fluttered as if wounded, and fell in the dust near, where it lay beating its little wings, panting and dying. The boy tenderly picked it up.
“Somebody’s hit him with a sling-shot,” said Tommy, carelessly.
The boy smoothed the bruised wing, and straightened the crushed and broken body. The bird ceased fluttering.
“I’m most sorry,” said Tommy, “I didn’t forgive Bob. It makes me feel bad, what you told me about his having no home. Now, mother is something like you. She don’t mind one’s being poor. Why, if I took Bob home with me, mother wouldn’t seem to see his clothes and ragged shoes. She’d just talk to him and treat him like he was the best dressed boy in town. There’s Bill Logan came home to dinner with me once. Mother made me ask him. He is a real poor boy; has to work. His mother washes. He didn’t know what to do nor how to act. He kept his hands in his pockets most all the time. Aunt Lilly said it was shocking. But mother said, ‘Never mind.’ She said she was glad he had his pockets; for his hands were rough and not too clean, and she thought they mortified him. Father went and kissed her then. Don’t tell this. I don’t know what makes me run on and tell you all these things. I never spoke of them before. But I know father was a poor, young working man when he married mother.”
The boy raised his hand, and the sparrow gave a twitter of delight and flew heavenward.
“Why,” exclaimed Tommy in amazement, “you’ve cured him! He is all right. How did you do it? Do you feel sorry for the sparrows as well as Bob?”
“I pity every sparrow that is hurt,” said the boy, “and isn’t Bob of more consequence than a sparrow?”
“I wish,” said Tommy, “I hadn’t fought with Bob. It was most all my fault. I’ve a good mind to tell him so. I wish I was better acquainted with you. If I played with such a boy as you are, now, I’
d be better I am certain. Suppose you come after school nights and play in our yard. Never mind your clothes. Can’t you come?”
“Yes, I will come if you want me to,” answered the boy, looking steadfastly at him a moment; “but now I must be about my father’s business.”
He stooped, lifted the bag of tools to his shoulders, and before Tommy could stay him had moved some steps away.
“Don’t go yet, tell me some more about what you’d do,” and Tommy turned to follow him.
But was it the boy? And was that a bag of tools on his back? It had grown strangely longer and heavier now, so that it dragged on the ground, and the face was the face of the Picture, and lo, it turned toward him, and the hand was raised in benediction and farewell, “I am with you always,” and he was gone.
“Oh! come back, come back,” sobbed Tommy, reaching out his arms and struggling to run after him.
“Poor boy,” said his mother, wiping the blinding tears from his eyes, “your sleep didn’t do you much good.”
“I’ve not been asleep,” said Tommy; “I’ve been talking with—with—Him,” and he spoke low with a longing reverence and pointed to the Picture.
“It was a dream, my child.”
“Mother, it was a vision. I saw Him, when He was a little boy in His own town, Nazareth. And, mother, I even told Him it wasn’t much of a place to live in. He talked to me about Bob. He said you knew Him. I saw him cure a little bird. And oh, mother, He said He would be with me always. He is a little boy like me! I know what to do now. He showed me. I must find Bob; I must have him forgive me. I want to bring him home with me into my bed for tonight.”
He stopped. “Mother,” he said solemnly, “tomorrow is His birthday.”
A NAZARETH CHRISTMAS, by Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
“Now, tell us, mother, again—as ever this night—the story of our brother’s birth.”
“Yes, dear mother, and not forgetting the star; for us no story is like this, not even the story of young King David, although in truth, that is a goodly tale.”
“Then sit, children; lend me your aid with the gifts; and now, as dark comes on, while yet your father and brother are not returned from their work, I will repeat again the oft-told story. I see not how I can forget aught, for it seems ever before me.
“You must know it was between the wet time and the dry when your father and I went up to Judea to be enrolled. Bethlehem was our city. There were a great many journeying in our company to the House of Bread. I was not strong in those days; and so your father obtained an ass for me to ride, while he walked by my side. We traveled slowly, and the early night had already set in when we passed where Rachel rests, and reached the village. In front of the inn at which your father intended stopping, he left my side a moment, while he went to arrange for our stay; but he straightway returned, saying there was no room for us. So we were compelled to go farther; and it was late,—how late I know not,—before we found rest; for at every inn where your father knocked the answer was the same: ‘No room!’ ‘No room!’ Your father bore up bravely, though he had the harder part; while, in my childishness, I was fain to kneel in the chalk-dust of the road, and seek what rest I could. But he upheld me, until, at last, one inn-keeper, seeing what a child I was in truth took pity on me and said:
“I am able to do no more for you than for my poor cattle; but I can give you shelter with them in the cavern stable and a bed if only straw.”
“And, children, I was very thankful for this. I had been told before that to me a Prince should be born; that, girl as I was, as mother, should clasp in my arms a Savior-child. I believed the words of the angel,—for was I not of the house of David?—and ever treasured them in my heart. Now, how strange should it be that not in my peaceful Nazareth, not in this, our own home, but: there, and that weary night of all nights, beside me on the straw should be laid my infant son!
“I knew immediately what to call him, for, as I have often told you, the angel had named him ‘Jesus.’ ‘Even so,’ the angel had said; ‘for he shall save his people from their sins.’ I have wondered much what that means for your brother.”
“Watch well your work, children! Burn not the cakes. Fold with care the mantles and the coats. This garment we will lay aside for patches. It repays not labor to put new to old; and, James, test well the skins before you fill them with the wine. We know not to whom your brother bears the gifts of his handiwork tonight, but he knows who needs them most, and naught must be lost or wasted.
“Where was I in the story, children?”
“The baby on the hay, sweet mother.”
“Ah, yes, I mind me now. I took him in my arms. To me no child had ever looked the same. But now, a marvel! The rock stable, which before had seemed dark indeed, lighted only by our dim lamps, suddenly shone full of light. I raised my eyes, and there, before and above me, seemingly through a rent in the roof, I beheld a most large and luminous star. Verily, I had not seen the opening in the roof when I had lain me down, but now I could do naught else but look from my baby’s face beside me, along the floods of light to the star before.
“And now, without, rose a cry: ‘We are come to behold the King. We are guided.’ And, entering the stable, clad in their coats of sheepskin, with their slings and crooks yet in their hands, came shepherds, I cannot now recall the number.”
“I had wrapped my babe in his clothes, and had lain him in his manger. And now it was so that as soon as their eyes fell upon his face, they sank to their knees and worshiped him.”
“‘Heard you not,’ spake a white-bearded shepherd to me; ‘heard you not, young Mother Mary, the angels’ song?’”
“‘Meseems I have long heard it, and can hear naught else, good father,’ I answered.”
“To us it came,’ he said, ‘in the first watch of this night, and with it music not of earth.’”
“Afterward came the learned ones from the Eastern countries,—I know not now the land. The gifts they brought him made all the place seem like a king’s palace; and with all their gifts they gave him worship also.”
“And I lay watching it all. And it shall be always so, I thought.”
“But these, though wise men, were not of our race, and could not follow the guiding star with our faith. Wherefore, so much stir had they made throughout the kingdom, inquiring publicly concerning this, your brother, that, through the jealousy of Herod, great was the trouble and misery that fell upon the innocent after their going.”
“But hearken, children; I hear even now your father and your brother coming from their work. Place quickly the gifts within the basket.”
It is a gentle figure that bends among mother and children, and a tender voice that questions:
“Shall I bear forth the gifts?”
“They are ready now, my son. Even this moment thy brother James placed the last within the basket, but canst thou not partake of the evening meal before thou goest with them? Thou art but a lad, to go forth alone after a day of toil.”
“Nay, but I must be about the Master’s work; and, look, the stars are rising. I should tarry not, for they who toil long rest early.”
“For whom is thy service tonight, my son? Last birth-night it was to the sorrowing; before that to the blind, and even yet to the deaf and the lame. And whither tend thy footsteps now?”
“To the tempted ones, mother.”
“And thou shalt stay their feet, dear boy, for rememberest not the Immanuels of last year? How the sorrowful found strange, staying joy in their hearts? How the blind said, as thou named their gifts, and placed them in their hands, that it seemed they could straightway behold them? How even the dumb gave forth pleasant sounds like music from their helpless tongues? and how even the lame well-nigh leaped from their lameness, for the light of thy young face? But when thou comest to thy crown and throne thou needest not got forth alone upon thy birth-night, but send out thy gifts with love and plenty.”
“I know not, my mother.”
“But all will be thine
? What said the angel: ‘The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and of his kingdom there shall be no end!’ It may be soon, we know not, for lo! King David was but a boy, and at his daily toil, when he was called to reign over the house of Jacob. Forget not, thou art born the King.”
“Oh, gladden not thy heart, loved mother, with this joy. I seek not to behold the future, but I see not in this world my kingdom, for the rose blossoms I pluck from out the hedge-rows fall; and it is their thorn branch that ever within my hands twines into a crown.”
The Second Christmas Megapack Page 62
