by A. A. Milne
* * *
Caleb, who was next in age to Sarah and as full of mischief, echoed her. "Hang your stocking, Josiah," said he, then he doubled up with laughter, and little Josiah did not know what he was laughing at. His sister Sarah kept a very grave face, although her blue eyes were dancing.
* * *
So it happened that poor little Josiah hung up his stocking on the old-fashioned oven door when he went to bed, and Mrs. Adams, for the sake of her darling Sarah, was seemingly oblivious. She spun at her wheel with her back to the fireplace, but Mr. Ozias Adams, who was Josiah's father and a very severe man, noticed the stocking, and inquired concerning it.
* * *
"Why is Josiah's stocking there?" said he, and he glared at the little blue yarn stocking through his iron-rimmed spectacles.
* * *
Sarah was very quick, and she answered him with a toss of her pretty fair head. "Josiah left it when he went to bed, sir," said she, "and it would be in the way on the floor." Caleb coughed to conceal a chuckle, Mrs. Adams trembled as she whirred her wheel.
* * *
Air. Adams nodded gravely, for the explanation seemed very plausible and simple, and the others, Cynthia, Abel, Jonas, and Abigail, paid no attention. They were not yet in the secret. But when the dignified Ozias Adams and his consort were retired for the night, an excited, giggling, whispering group gathered in the great kitchen, around poor little Josiah's stocking, hanging limp as to appearance, but in reality filled with the blooming fancies of childhood. At that very instant little Josiah was lying awake in his hard bed under the eaves, and it had begun to snow, and white stars drifted in upon his counterpane, and he was listening for the sleigh-bells and the fairy clatter of Santa Claus's reindeers' hoofs upon the roof. Finally Josiah became quite sure that he did hear them, but at that time his blue eyes wore closed.
* * *
His brothers and sisters downstairs were busy for quite a time perpetrating what they meant only for an innocent joke, but it may have been a cruel one. They probably never suspected such a possibility. They were healthy, unimaginative boys and girls, and little Josiah, although of their own blood, was of a different make-up.
* * *
The next morning Josiah was downstairs pattering in his bare feet before even his thrifty parents were up and before the ashes had been raked away from the hearth fire. There hung the blue yarn stocking crammed to the brim, and the baby boy knew that he had really heard Santa Claus riding over the roof the night before. Here was proof positive.
* * *
Josiah, although the great kitchen was very cold, did not shiver in his homespun night-gown. His big blue eyes blazed, his round cheeks glowed with roses, his mouth widened deliciously with joy. He seized upon the stocking and pattered back to his own freezing little nest under the eaves, and then he explored. It was a tragedy of childhood, and one of the tragedies which might have been spared the child. So often the comedies of older people are the tragedies of babyhood, and should never be acted. Poor little Josiah Adams found in his stocking a most wonderful assortment of Christmas presents, collected from the odds and ends of the household stores. There were old nails, a broken back-comb of his sister Abigail's, a discarded front piece of his mother's, an old scratch wig which had belonged to his grandfather Adams, one little red slipper which had belonged to his married sister Dorcas, a knife which his brother Caleb had contributed, utterly destitute of blades, a faded knot of blue ribbon which Sarah had worn in her hair, and, crowning insult, done up carefully in the blue paper in which the sugar loaves of the day came wrapped, the little stick with which his father had chastised him when guilty of childish misdemeanors. That was the very last thing in the stocking, that poor parody of a Christmas stocking, which was never seen again by any of the Adams family for many years, not until Josiah's name, with appropriate texts and funereal verses, had been rudely carved on a rude stone, for the little boy departed this life at an early age. On that Christmas morning Josiah came downstairs with only one stocking on, and his mother's admonitions and his father's stern reproofs and chastising with another little stick were entirely ineffectual to make him reveal the whereabouts of the other with its sorry load of Christmas presents. Mr. Adams never knew about the presents; neither his wife nor children dared tell him, but he did know that Josiah was disobedient, and he commanded and chastised as he esteemed his duty until forced by the singular obstinacy of his little son to give it up.
* * *
Josiah seemed to forget all about his attempt at celebrating Christmas. He was sweet-tempered, although quick, and, while possessed of a strong will, not sulky. He seems to have been as happy as most children until he passed away at an early age, although he was never strong and always more sensitive than was good for him. The little stone had stood over his grave for two years before the Christmas Eve when Caleb came in with his arms full of wood for the hearth fire and a very sober face. One of his coat pockets was bulging. That was the winter when Mrs. Adams was laid up with the rheumatism. Mr. Adams had died the year after Josiah, and of the brothers and sisters there were only Caleb and Sarah at home. The others had married during the two years. After Caleb had heaped more wood on the fire and stacked up the rest on the hearth, he turned and looked at Sarah, who was knitting stockings. "What is that in your pocket and why do you look so sober, Caleb?" said she.
* * *
Caleb slowly drew from his pocket little Josiah's Christmas stocking. "Found it under the wood-pile," he stated laconically, but his face worked.
* * *
Sarah laid down her knitting. "So that was where he hid it," she said in a quivering voice.
* * *
Caleb nodded.
* * *
"It has been there all the time; poor little Josiah," said Sarah.
* * *
She began to weep. Caleb put the stocking away in a drawer of the highboy and stalked out of the room. Sarah wept softly lest her mother hear. She was alone in the great firelit room. A pot of rose geranium, all in flower, stood on a little table under a south window, and a delicate breath of perfume came in Sarah's face when she finally dried her eyes and looked up. Nobody would ever know how sorry she was about Josiah's Christmas stocking. It no longer seemed at all funny to her. She was older and had had trouble, and she understood better the heart of a child.
* * *
The tall clock ticked, the fire glowed and snapped, and the rose geranium in the window gave out its sweetness. Sarah began to wonder where Caleb was, for it was nearly supper-time. Suddenly she rose and stole softly across the room to the door of the bedroom where her mother lay. Sarah peeped in. Mrs. Adams was fast asleep. Then Sarah muffled herself quickly in hood and shawl, and ran softly across the room to the rose geranium; then she went out, closing the door softly. The room was still faintly scented with the blossoms, but the green plant stood robbed of its pink crown.
* * *
When Sarah reached the graveyard and little Josiah's headstone, she started at the sight of her brother Caleb. He had just finished planting a tiny perfect evergreen tree on the snowy mound. Sarah, without a word, placed her bunch of geraniums in the close-set greenness of the tree, which seemed suddenly to bloom. Then the brother and sister went home. Sarah looked up at a great planet burning out in the violet gloom of the sunset sky, and said in a voice which was sad, yet sweet with a timid hope: "How bright that star is."
* * *
"Real bright," assented Caleb. Then neither spoke again all the way home.
The Brownie's Xmas
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Brownie's Xmas
THE Brownie who lives in the forest,
Oh, the Christmas bells they ring!
Has done for the farmer's children
Full many a kindly thing:
* * *
When their cows were lost in the gloaming,
He has driven them safely home;
He has led their bees to the flowers,
To fill up their golden comb;
* * *
At her spinning the little sister
Had napped till the setting sun—
She awoke, and the kindly Brownie
Had gotten it neatly done;
* * *
Oh, the Christmas bells they are ringing!
The mother she was away,
And the Brownie played with the baby,
And tended it all the day;
* * *
The Brownie who lives in the forest,
Oh, the Christmas bells they ring!
Has done for the farmer's children
Full many a kindly thing.
'Tis true that they never spied him,
Though their eyes were so sharp and bright,
But there were the tasks all nicely done,
And never a soul in sight.
* * *
But the poor little friendly Brownie,
His life was a weary thing;
For he never had been in holy church
And heard the children sing;
* * *
And he never had had a Christmas,
Nor bent in prayer his knee;
He had lived for a thousand years,
And all weary-worn was he.
* * *
Or that was the story the children
Had heard at their mother's side;
And together they talked it over,
One merry Christmas-tide.
* * *
The pitiful little sister
With her braids of paly gold,
And the little elder brother,
And the darling five-year-old,
* * *
All stood in the western window—
'Twas toward the close of day—
And they talked about the Brownie
While resting from their play.
* * *
"The Brownie, he has no Christmas,"
The dear little sister said;
A-shaking sadly as she spoke
Her glossy, yellow head;
* * *
"The Brownie, he has no Christmas;
While so many gifts had we,
Last night they fairly bent to the floor
The boughs of the Christmas-tree."
* * *
Then the little elder brother,
He spake up in his turn,
His sweet blue eyes were beaming,
And his cheeks began to burn:
* * *
"Let us make up for the Brownie
A Christmas bundle now,
To leave in the forest pathway
Where the great oak branches bow.
* * *
"We'll mark it, 'For the Brownie,'
And 'A Merry Christmas Day! '
And he will be sure to find it,
For he must go home that way!"
* * *
Then the tender little sister
With her braids of paly gold,
And the little elder brother,
And the darling five-year-old,
* * *
Made up a Christmas bundle
All tied with ribbons gay,
And marked it, "For the Brownie,"
With "A Merry Christmas Day!"
* * *
And then in the winter twilight,
With shouts of loving glee,
They hied to the wood, and left their gift
Under the great oak-tree.
* * *
While the farmer's fair little children
Slept sweet that Christmas night,
Two wanderers through the forest
Came in the clear moonlight.
* * *
And neither of them was the Brownie,
But sorry were both as he;
And their hearts, with every footstep,
Were aching heavily.
* * *
A slender man with an organ
Strapped on by a leathern band,
And a little girl with a tambourine
A-holding close to his hand.
* * *
And the little girl with the tambourine,—
Her gown was thin and old;
And she toiled through the great white forest,
A-shining with the cold.
* * *
"And what is there here to do?" she said;
"I'm froze i' the light o' the moon!
Shall we play to these sad old forest trees
Some merry and jigging tune?
* * *
"And, father, you know it is Christmas-time;
And had we staid i' the town,
And I gone to one o' the Christmas-trees,
A gift might have fallen down!
* * *
"You cannot certainly know it would not!
I'd ha' gone right under the tree I
Are you sure that never one Christmas
Is meant for you and me?"
* * *
"These dry, dead leaves," he answered her,
"Which the forest casteth down,
Are more than you'd get from a Christmas-tree
In the merry and thoughtless town.
* * *
"Though to-night be the Christ's own birth-
day night,
And all the world has grace,
There is not a home in all the world
Which has for us a place."
* * *
Slow plodding adown the forest path,
"Now, what is this?" he said;
Then he lifted the children's bundle,
And "For the Brownie," read.
* * *
The tears came into his weary eyes:
"Now if this be done," said he,
"Somewhere in the world perhaps there is
A place for you and me!"
* * *
Then the bundle he opened softly:
"This is children's tender thought;
Their own little Christmas presents
They have to the Brownie brought.
* * *
"If there lives such tender pity
Toward a thing so dim and low,
* * *
There must be kindness left on earth
Of which I did not know.
* * *
"Oh, children, there's never a Brownie
That sorry, uncanny thing;
* * *
But nearest and next are the homeless
When the Christmas joy-bells ring."
* * *
Loud laughed the little daughter,
As she gathered the toys in her gown:
"Oh, father, this oak is my Christmas-tree,
And my present has fallen down!"
* * *
Then away they went through the forest,
The wanderers, hand in hand;
And the snow, they were both so merry,
It glinted like golden sand.
* * *
Down the forest the elder brother,
In the morning clear and cold,
Came leading the little sister,
And the darling five-year-old.
* * *
"Oh," he cries, "he's taken the bundle!"
As carefully round he peers;
"And the Brownie has gotten a Christmas
After a thousand years!"
The Christmas Ball
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Christmas Ball
THE fiddlers were scraping so cheerily, O,
With a one, two, three, and a one, two, three,
And the children were dancing so merrily, O,
All under the shade of the Christmas-tree.
* * *
O, bonny the fruit on its branches which
grows!
And the mistletoe bough from the ceiling hung!
The fiddlers they rosined their squeaking
bows,
And the brave little lads their partners
&n
bsp; swung.
* * *
Oh, the fiddlers they played such a merry tune,
With a one, two, three, and a one, two, three,
And the children they blossomed like roses
in June,
All under the boughs of the Christmas-tree.
* * *
And the fiddlers were scraping so merrily, O,
With a one, two, three, and
a one, two, three;
And the children were dancing so cheerily, O,
All under the shade of the
Christmas-tree—
* * *
The girl-fairy in cobweb frock.
When, all of a sudden, a fairyland crew