by A. A. Milne
* * *
That night she went after her Bible. “I declare I will read it to-night,” muttered she. “I've paid fur 'em.” She stood eying it. Suddenly she began to cry. “Oh dear!” she groaned; “I can't. There don't anything do any good — the lace curtains, nor payin' fur 'em, nor nothin'. I dun know what I shell do.”
* * *
She looked at the clock. It was about nine. “He won't be gone yet,” said she. She stood motionless, thinking. “If I'm goin' to-night, I've got to,” she muttered. Still she did not start for a while longer. When she did, there was no more hesitation. No argument could have stopped Marg'ret Poole, in her old hood and shawl, pushing up the road, fairly started on her line of duty. When she got to the store she went in directly. The heavy door slammed to, and the glass panels clattered. Mr. White was alone in the store. He was packing up some goods preparatory to closing. Marg'ret went straight up to him, and laid a package before him on the counter.
* * *
“I brought these things back,” said she; “they belong to you.”
* * *
“Why, what is it?” said Mr. White, wonderingly.
* * *
“Some things I stole last Christmas for the children.”
* * *
“What!”
* * *
“I stole 'em.”
* * *
She untied the parcel, and began taking out the things one by one. “They're all here but the candy,” said she; “the children ate that up; an' Aggie bit the head off this pink cat the other day. Then they've jammed this little horse consider'ble. But I brought 'em all back.”
* * *
Mr. White was an elderly, kind-faced man. He seemed slowly paling with amazement as he stared at her and the articles she was displaying.
* * *
“You say you stole them?” said he.
* * *
“Yes; I stole 'em.”
* * *
“When?”
* * *
“The night afore Christmas.”
* * *
“Didn't Henry give 'em to you?”
* * *
“No.”
* * *
“Why, I told him to,” said Mr. White, slowly. “I did the things up for you myself that afternoon. I'd seen you looking kind of wishful, you know, and I thought I'd make you a present of them. I left the bundle on the counter when I went to supper, and told Henry to tell you to take it, and I supposed he did.”
* * *
Marg'ret stood staring. Her mouth was open, her hands were clinched. “I dun know — what you mean,” she gasped out at length.
* * *
“I mean you 'ain't been stealing as much as you thought you had,” said Mr. White. “You just took your own bundle.”
Christmas Jenny
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Christmas Jenny
The day before there had been a rain and a thaw, then in the night the wind had suddenly blown from the north, and it had grown cold. In the morning it was very clear and cold, and there was the hard glitter of ice over everything. The snow-crust had a thin coat of ice, and all the open fields shone and flashed. The tree boughs and trunks, and all the little twigs, were enamelled with ice. The roads were glare and slippery with it, and so were the door-yards. In old Jonas Carey's yard the path that sloped from the door to the well was like a frozen brook.
* * *
Quite early in the morning old Jonas Carey came out with a pail, and went down the path to the well. He went slowly and laboriously, shuffling his feet, so he should not fall. He was tall and gaunt, and one side of his body seemed to slant toward the other, he settled so much more heavily upon one foot. He was somewhat stiff and lame from rheumatism.
* * *
He reached the well in safety, hung the pail, and began pumping. He pumped with extreme slowness and steadiness; a certain expression of stolid solemnity which his face wore never changed.
* * *
When he had filled his pail he took it carefully from the pump spout, and started back to the house, shuffling as before. He was two thirds of the way to the door, when he came to an extremely slippery place. Just there some roots from a little cherry-tree crossed the path, and the ice made a dangerous little pitch over them.
* * *
Old Jonas lost his footing, and sat down suddenly; the water was all spilled. The house door flew open, and an old woman appeared.
* * *
“Oh, Jonas, air you hurt?” she cried, blinking wildly and terrifiedly in the brilliant light.
* * *
The old man never said a word. He sat still and looked straight before him solemnly. “Oh, Jonas, you 'ain't broke any bones, hev you?” The old woman gathered up her skirts and began to edge off the door-step, with trembling knees. Then the old man raised his voice — “Stay where you be,” he said, imperatively. “Go back into the house!”
* * *
He began to raise himself, one joint at a time, and the old woman went back into the house, and looked out of the window at him.
* * *
When old Jonas finally stood upon his feet it seemed as if he had actually constructed himself, so piecemeal his rising had been. He went back to the pump, hung the pail under the spout, and filled it. Then he started on the return with more caution than before. When he reached the dangerous place his feet flew up again, he sat down, and the water was spilled.
* * *
The old woman appeared in the door; her dim blue eyes were quite round, her delicate chin was dropped. “Oh, Jonas!”
* * *
“Go back!” cried the old man, with an imperative jerk of his head toward her, and she retreated. This time he arose more quickly, and made quite a lively shuffle back to the pump.
* * *
But when his pail was filled and he again started on the return, his caution was redoubled. He seemed to scarcely move at all. When he approached the dangerous spot his progress was hardly more perceptible than a scaly leaf-slug's. Repose almost lapped over motion. The old woman in the window watched breathlessly.
* * *
The slippery place was almost passed, the shuffle quickened a little — the old man sat down again, and the tin pail struck the ice with a clatter.
* * *
The old woman appeared. “Oh, Jonas!”
* * *
Jonas did not look at her; he sat perfectly motionless. “Jonas, air you hurt? Do speak to me for massy sake!” Jonas did not stir.
* * *
Then the old woman let herself carefully off the step. She squatted down upon the icy path, and hitched along to Jonas. She caught hold of his arm — “Jonas, you don't feel as if any of your bones were broke, do you?” Her voice was almost sobbing, her small frame was all of a tremble.
* * *
“Go back!” said Jonas. That was all he would say. The old woman's tearful entreaties did not move him in the least. Finally she hitched herself back to the house, and took up her station in the window. Once in a while she rapped on the pane, and beckoned piteously.
* * *
But old Jonas Carey sat still. His solemn face was inscrutable. Over his head stretched the icy cherry branches, full of the flicker and dazzle of diamonds. A woodpecker flew into the tree and began tapping at the trunk, but the ice-enamel was so hard that he could not get any food. Old Jonas sat so still that he did not mind him. A jay flew on the fence within a few feet of him; a sparrow pecked at some weeds piercing the snow-crust beside the door. Over in the east arose the mountain, covered with frosty foliage full of silver and blue and diamond lights. The air was stinging. Old Jonas paid no attention to anything. He sat there.
* * *
The old woman ran to the door again. “Oh, Jonas, you'll freeze, settin' there!” she pleaded. “Can't you git up? Your bones ain't broke, air they?” Jonas was silent.
* * *
“Oh, Jonas, there's Christmas Jenny comin' down the road — what
do you s'pose she'll think?”
* * *
Old Jonas Carey was unmoved, but his old wife eagerly watched the woman coming down the road. The woman looked oddly at a distance: like a broad green moving bush; she was dragging something green after her too. When she came nearer one could see that she was laden with evergreen wreaths; her arms were strung with them; long sprays of ground-pine were wound around her shoulders, she carried a basket trailing with them, and holding also many little bouquets of bright-colored everlasting flowers. She dragged a sled, with a small hemlock-tree bound upon it. She came along sturdily over the slippery road. When she reached the Carey gate she stopped and looked over at Jonas. “Is he hurt?” she sung out to the old woman.
* * *
“I dunno — he's fell down three times.”
* * *
Jenny came through the gate, and proceeded straight to Jonas. She left her sled in the road. She stooped, brought her basket on a level with Jonas's head, and gave him a little push with it. “What's the matter with ye?” Jonas did not wink. “Your bones ain't broke, are they?”
* * *
Jenny stood looking at him for a moment. She wore a black hood, her large face was weather-beaten, deeply tanned, and reddened. Her features were strong, but heavily cut. She made one think of those sylvan faces with features composed of bark-wrinkles and knot-holes, that one can fancy looking out of the trunks of trees. She was not an aged woman, but her hair was iron gray, and crinkled as closely as gray moss.
* * *
Finally she turned toward the house. “I'm comin' in a minute,” she said to Jonas's wife, and trod confidently up the icy steps.
* * *
“Don't you slip,” said the old woman, tremulously.
* * *
“I ain't afraid of slippin'.” When they were in the house she turned around on Mrs. Carey, “Don't you fuss, he ain't hurt.”
* * *
“No, I don't s'pose he is. It's jest one of his tantrums. But I dunno what I am goin' to do. Oh, dear me suz, I dunno what I am goin' to do with him sometimes!”
* * *
“Leave him alone — let him set there.”
* * *
“Oh, he's tipped all that water over, an' I'm afeard he'll — freeze down. Oh dear!”
* * *
“Let him freeze! Don't you fuss, Betsey.”
* * *
“I was jest goin' to git breakfast. Mis' Gill she sent us in two sassage-cakes. I was goin' to fry 'em, an' I jest asked him to go out an' draw a pail of water, so's to fill up the tea-kittle. Oh dear!”
* * *
Jenny set her basket in a chair, strode peremptorily out of the house, picked up the tin pail which lay on its side near Jonas, filled it at the well, and returned. She wholly ignored the old man. When she entered the door his eyes relaxed their solemn stare at vacancy, and darted a swift glance after her.
* * *
“Now fill up the kittle, an' fry the sassages,” she said to Mrs. Carey.
* * *
“Oh, I'm afeard he won't git up, an' they'll be cold! Sometimes his tantrums last a consider'ble while. You see he sot down three times, an' he's awful mad.”
* * *
“I don't see who he thinks he's spitin'.”
* * *
“I dunno, 'less it's Providence.”
* * *
“I reckon Providence don't care much where he sets.”
* * *
“Oh, Jenny, I'm dreadful afeard he'll freeze down.”
* * *
“No, he won't. Put on the sassages.”
* * *
Jonas's wife went about getting out the frying-pan, crooning over her complaint all the time. “He's dreadful fond of sassages,” she said, when the odor of the frying sausages became apparent in the room.
* * *
“He'll smell 'em an' come in,” remarked Jenny, dryly. “He knows there ain't but two cakes, an' he'll be afeard you'll give me one of 'em.”
* * *
She was right. Before long the two women, taking sly peeps from the window, saw old Jonas lumberingly getting up. “Don't say nothin' to him about it when he comes in,” whispered Jenny.
* * *
When the old man clumped into the kitchen, neither of the women paid any attention to him. His wife turned the sausages, and Jenny was gathering up her wreaths. Jonas let himself down into a chair, and looked at them uneasily. Jenny laid down her wreaths. “Goin' to stay to breakfast?” said the old man.
* * *
“Well, I dunno,” replied Jenny. “Them sassages do smell temptin'.”
* * *
All Jonas's solemnity had vanished, he looked foolish and distressed.
* * *
“Do take off your hood, Jenny,” urged Betsey. “I ain't very fond of sassages myself, an' I'd jest as liv's you'd have my cake as not.”
* * *
Jenny laughed broadly and good-naturedly, and began gathering up her wreaths again. “Lor', I don't want your sassage-cake,” said she. “I've had my breakfast. I'm goin' down to the village to sell my wreaths.”
* * *
Jonas's face lit up. “Pleasant day, ain't it?” he remarked, affably.
* * *
Jenny grew sober. “I don't think it's a very pleasant day; guess you wouldn't if you was a woodpecker or a blue-jay,” she replied.
* * *
Jonas looked at her with stupid inquiry.
* * *
“They can't git no breakfast,” said Jenny. “They can't git through the ice on the trees. They'll starve if there ain't a thaw pretty soon. I've got to buy 'em somethin' down to the store. I'm goin' to feed a few of 'em. I ain't goin' to see 'em dyin' in my door-yard if I can help it. I've given 'em all I could spare from my own birds this mornin'.”
* * *
“It's too bad, ain't it?”
* * *
“I think it's too bad. I was goin' to buy me a new caliker dress if this freeze hadn't come, but I can't now. What it would cost will save a good many lives. Well, I've got to hurry along if I'm goin' to git back to-day.”
* * *
Jenny, surrounded with her trailing masses of green, had to edge herself through the narrow doorway. She went straight to the village and peddled her wares from house to house. She had her regular customers. Every year, the week before Christmas, she came down from the mountain with her evergreens. She was popularly supposed to earn quite a sum of money in that way. In the summer she sold vegetables, but the green Christmas traffic was regarded as her legitimate business — it had given her her name among the villagers. However, the fantastic name may have arisen from the popular conception of Jenny's character. She also was considered somewhat fantastic, although there was no doubt of her sanity. In her early youth she had had an unfortunate love affair that was supposed to have tinctured her whole life with an alien element. “Love-cracked,” people called her.
* * *
“Christmas Jenny's kind of love-cracked,” they said. She was Christmas Jenny in midsummer, when she came down the mountain laden with green peas and string-beans and summer squashes.
* * *
She owned a little house and a few acres of cleared land on the mountain, and in one way or another she picked up a living from it.
* * *
It was noon to-day before she had sold all her evergreens and started up the mountain road for home. She had laid in a small stock of provisions, and she carried them in the basket which had held the little bunches of life-everlasting and amaranth flowers and dried grasses.
* * *
The road wound along the base of the mountain. She had to follow it about a mile, then she struck into a cart-path which led up to the clearing where her house was.
* * *
After she passed Jonas Carey's there were no houses and no people, but she met many living things that she knew. A little field-mouse scratching warily from cover to cover, lest his enemies should spy him, had appreciati
ve notice from Jenny Wrayne. She turned her head at the call of a jay, and she caught a glimmer of blue through the dazzling white boughs. She saw with sympathetic eyes a woodpecker drumming on the ice-bound trunk of a tree. Now and then she scattered, with regretful sparseness, some seeds and crumbs from her parcels.