Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus' Reading List

by A. A. Milne

  "And like enough he'll bring a little something for Mary for a present," Mis' Winslow went on. "How'll she feel then?"

  "Ain't it too bad it ain't last year?" Mis' Moran mourned. "Everything comes too late or too soon or not at all or else too much so, 'seems though."

  Mis' Bates's impulse to nonconformity had not prevented her forehead from being drawn in their common sympathy; but it was a sympathy that saw no practical way out and existed tamely as a high window and not as a wide door.

  "Well," she said, "Mary ain't exactly the one to see it so. You'll never get her to feel bad about anybody not having a Christmas. I donno, if it was any other year, as she'd be planning any different."

  "No," said Mis' Winslow, thoughtfully, "Mary won't do anything. But we could."

  Mis' Bates's forehead took alarm—the alarm of the sympathetic hearer who is challenged to be doer.

  "Do?" she repeated. "You can't go back on the paper at this late day. And you can't give him a Christmas and every other of our children not have any just because we're their parents and still living. There ain't a thing to do."

  Mis' Winslow's eyes were still on her overshoes. "I don't believe there's never 'not a thing' to do," she said, "I don't believe it."

  Mis' Bates looked scandalized. "That's nonsense," she said sharply, "and it's sacrilegious besides. When God means a thing to happen, there's not a thing to do. What about earthquakes and—and cancers?"

  "I don't believe he ever means earthquakes and cancers," said Mis' Winslow, to her overshoes.

  "Prevent 'em, then!" challenged Mis' Bates, triumphantly.

  Mis' Winslow looked up. Her eyes were shining as they had shone sometimes when one of her seven-under-fifteen had given its first sign of consciousness of more than self.

  "I believe we'll do it some day," she said. "I believe there's more to us than we've got any idea of. I believe there's so much to us that one of us that found out about it and told the rest would get hounded out of town. But even now, I bet there's enough to us to do something every time—something every time, no matter what. And I believe there's something we can do about this little orphaned boy's Christmas, if we nip our brains on to it in the right place."

  "Oh, dear," said Mis' Moran, "sometimes when I think about Christmas I almost wish we almost hadn't done the way we're going to do."

  Mis' Bates stiffened.

  "Jane Moran," she said, "do you think it's right to go head over heels in debt to celebrate the birth of our Lord?"

  "No," said Mis' Moran, "I don't. But—"

  "And you know nobody in Old Trail Town could afford any extravagance this year?"

  "Yes," said Mis' Moran, "I do. Still—"

  "And if part could and part couldn't, that makes it all the worse, don't it?"

  "I know," said Mis' Moran, "I know."

  "Well, then," said Mis' Bates triumphantly, "we've done the only way there is to do. Land knows, I wish there was another way. But there ain't."

  Mis' Winslow looked up from her overshoes.

  "I don't believe there's never 'no other way,'" she said. "There's always another way… ."

  "Not without money," said Mis' Bates.

  "Money," Mis' Winslow said, "money. That's like setting up one day of peace on earth, good will to men, and asking admission to it."

  "Mis' Winslow," said Mis' Moran, sadly, "what's the use of saying anything? You know as well as I do that Christmas is abused all up and down the land, and made a day of expense and extravagance and folks overspending themselves. And we've stopped all that in Old Trail Town. And now you're trying to make us feel bad."

  "I ain't," said Mis' Winslow, "we felt bad about it already, and you know it. I'm glad we've stopped all that. But I wish't we had something to put in its place. I wish't we had."

  "What in time are them children doing?" said Mis' Moran, abruptly.

  The three women looked. On the side lawn, where a spreading balsam had been left untrimmed to the ground, stood little Emily Moran and Gussie and Bennet and Tab and Pep. And the four boys had their caps in their hands, and Gussie, having untied her own hood, turned to take off little Emily's. The wind, sweeping sharply round the corner of the house, blew their hair wildly and caught at muffler ends. Mis' Bates and Mis' Moran, with one impulse, ran to the side door, and Mis' Winslow followed.

  "Emily," said Mis' Moran, "put on your hood this minute."

  "Gussie," said Mis' Bates, "put on your cap this instant second. What you got it off for? And little Emily doing as you do—I'm su'prised at you."

  The children consulted briefly, then Pep turned to the two women, by now coming down the path, Mis' Bates with her apron over her head, Mis' Moran in her shawl.

  "Please," said Pep, "it's a funeral. An' we thought we'd ought to take our caps off till it gets under."

  "A funeral," said Mis' Bates. "Who you burying?"

  "It's just a rehearsal funeral," Pep explained; "the real one's going to be Christmas."

  By now the two women were restoring hood and stocking cap to the little girls, and it was Mis' Winslow, who had followed, who spoke to Pep.

  "Who's dead, Pep?" she asked.

  Between the belief of "Who's dead?" and the skepticism of "Who you burying?" the child was swift to distinguish.

  "Sandy Claus," he answered readily.

  Mis' Winslow stood looking down at him. Pep stepped nearer.

  "We're doing it for little Emily," he said confidentially. "She couldn't get it straight about where Sandy Claus would be this Christmas. The rest of us—knew. But Emily's little—so we thought we'd play bury him on her 'count."

  Mis' Bates, who had not heard, turned from Gussie.

  "Going to do what on Christmas?" she exclaimed. "You ain't to do a thing on Christmas. Or ain't you grown up, after all?"

  "Well, we thought a Christmas funeral wouldn't hurt," interposed Bennet, defensively. "Can't we even have a funeral for fun on Christmas?" he ended, aggrieved.

  "It's Sandy Claus's funeral," observed little Emily putting a curl from her face.

  "We're goin' dress up a Sandy Claus, you know," Pep added, sotto voce. "It's going to be right after breakfast, Christmas."

  "Come on, come ahead, fellows," said Bennet; "I'll be corpse. Keep your lids on. I don't mind. Go ahead, sing."

  Already Mis' Winslow was walking back to the house; the other two women overtook her; and from the porch they heard the children begin to sing:—

  * * *

  "Go bury Saint Nicklis… ."

  * * *

  The rest was lost in the closing of the door.

  Back in the sitting room the women stood looking at one another. Mis' Bates was frowning and all Mis' Moran's expressions were on the verge of dissolving; but in Mis' Winslow's face it was as though she had found some new way of consciousness.

  "Ladies," Mis' Winslow said, "them children are out there pretending to bury Santa Claus—and so are we. And I bet we can't any of us do it."

  In the room, there was a moment of silence in which familiar things seemed to join with their way of saying, "We've been keeping still all the while!" Then Mis' Winslow pushed her hair, regardless of its parting, straight back from her forehead,—a gesture with which she characterized any moment of stress.

  "Ladies," she said, "I don't want we should go back on our paper, either. But mebbe there's more to Christmas than it knows about—or than we know about. Mebbe we can do something that won't interfere with the138 paper we've all signed, and yet that'll be something that is something. Mebbe they's things to use that ain't never been used yet… . Oh, I donno. Nor I guess you donno. But let's us find out!"

  Chapter 9

  Christmas Week came.

  Cities by thousands made preparation. Great shops took on vast cargoes of silk and precious things and seemed ready to sail about, distributing gifts to the town, and thought better of it, and let folk come in numbers to them to pay toll for what they took. Banks opened their doors and poured out, now a little trickling s
tream of pay envelopes, now a torrent of green and gold. Flower stalls drew tribute from a million pots of earth where miracles had been done. Pastry counters, those mock commissariats, delicately masking as servants to necessity, made ready their pretty pretences to nutrition. The woods came moving in—acres of living green, taken in their sleep, their roots left faithful to a tryst with the sap, their tops summoned to bear an hybrid fruitage. From cathedrals rose the voices of children now singing little carols and hymns in praise of the Christ-child, now speaking little verses in praise of the saint, Nicholas, now clamouring for little new possessions. And afar from the fields that lay empty about the clustered roofs of towns came a chorus of voices of the live things, beast and fowl, being offered up in the gorgeous pagan rites of the day.

  Hither and yonder in every city the grown townsfolk ran. The most had lists of names,—Grace, Margaret, Laura, Alice, Miriam, John, Philip, Father, Mother,—beautiful names and of rich portent, so that, remembering the time, one would have said that these were entered there with some import of special comradeship, of being face to face, of having realized in little what will some day be true in large. But on looking closer, the lists were found to have quite other connotations: as, Grace, bracelet; Margaret, spangled scarf; Laura, chafing-dish; Philip, smoking set; Father (Memo: Ask mother what she thinks he'd like). And every name, it seemed, stood for some bestowal of new property, mostly of luxuries, and chiefly of luxuries of decoration. And the minds of the buying adults were like lakes played upon by clouds and storm birds and lightning, and, to be sure, many stars—but all in unutterable confusion.

  Also from the cargo-laden shops there came other voices in thousands, but these were mostly answers. And when one, understanding Christmas, listened to hear what part in it these behind the counter played, he heard from them no voice of sharing in the theory of peace, or even of truce, but instead:—

  "Two a yard and double width. Jewelry is in the Annex. Did you want three pairs of each? Veils and neckwear three aisles over. Leather, glassware, baskets, ribbons, down the store beyond the notions. Toys and dolls are in the basement—toys and dolls are in the basement. Jewelry is in the Annex… ."

  So that a great part of the town seemed some strong chorus of invocation to new possessions.

  But there were other voices. Whole areas of every town lay, perforce, within the days of Christmas Week—it must have been so, for there is only one calendar to embrace humanity, as there is only one way of birth and breath and death, one source of tears, one functioning for laughter. But to these reaches of the town the calendar was like another thing, for though it was upon them in name, its very presence was withdrawn. In those ill-smelling stairways and lofts there was little to divulge the imminence of anything other than themselves. And wherever some echo of Christmas Week had crept, the wistfulness or the lust was for possession also; but here one could understand its insistence. So here the voices said only, "I wish—I wish," and "I choose this—and this," at windows; or, "If I had back my nickel… ." "Don't you go expecting nothink!" And over these went the whirr of machinery, beat of treadles, throb of engines, or the silence of forced idleness, or of the disease of dereliction. It was a time of many pagan observances, as when some were decked in precious stuffs and some were thrown to lions.

  To all these in the towns Christmas Week came. And of them all not many stood silent and looked Christmas Week in the face. Yet it is a human experience that none is meant to die without sharing. For the season is the symbol of what happens to folk if they claim it.

  Christmas is the time of withdrawal of most material life. It is the time when nature subtracts the externals, hides from man the phenomena of even her evident processes. Left alone, his thought turns inward and outward—which is to say, it lays hold upon the flowing force so slightly externalized in himself. If he finds in his own being a thousand obstructions, a thousand persons,—dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers,—he will try to escape from them all, back to the externals. But if he finds there a channel which the substance of being is using, he will be no stranger, but a familiar, with himself. Only when the channel has been long cleared, when there has left it all consciousness of striving, of self in any form, only when he finds himself empty, ready, immaculate, will he have the divine adventure. For it is then that in him the spirit of God will have its birth, then that he will first understand his own nature … the nature of being.

  Then the turn of the year comes in, the year begins to mount. Birth is in it, growth is in it, Spring is in it. Sometime, away back in beginnings, they knew this. They knew that the time of the Winter solstice is in some strange fashion the high moment of the year, as the beginning of new activity in nature and in the gods. They solemnized the return of the fiery sun wheel; they traced in those solstice days the operations on earth of Odin and Berchta. They knew in themselves a thing they could not name. And when the supreme experience took place in Christ, they made the one experience typify the other, and became conscious of the divine nature of this nativity. So, by the illuminati, the prophets, the adepts, the time that followed was yearly set aside—forty days of dwelling within the temple of self, forty days of reverence for being, of consciousness of new birth. Then the emergence, then the apotheosis of expression typifying and typified by Spring—the time when bursting, pressing life almost breaks bounds, when birth and the impulse to birth are in every form of life, without and within. These festivals are not arbitrary in date. They grow out of the universal experience.

  Is it not then cause for stupefaction that this time of "divine bestowal" should have become so physical a thing? From the ancient perception, to have slipped into a sense of annual social comradeship and good will and peace was natural and fine—to live in the little what will some day be true in the large. But from this to have plunged down into a time of frantic physical bestowals, of "present trading," of lists of Grace and Margaret and Philip, of teeming shops with hunting and hunted creatures within, of sacrificial trees and beasts, of a sovereign sense of good for me and mine and a shameless show of Lord and Lady Bountiful … how can that have come about, how can the great festival have been so dishonoured?

  Not all dishonoured, for within it is its own vitality which nothing can dishonour. Through all the curious variations which it receives at our hands, something shines and sings: self-giving, joy giving, a vast, dim upflickering on humanity of what this thing really is that it seeks to observe, this thing that grips men so that no matter what they are about, they will drop it at the touch of the gong and turn to some expression, however crooked and thwarted, of the real spirit of the time. If in war, then bayonets are stacked and holly-wreathed, and candles stuck on each point! If at sea, some sailor climbs out on the bowsprit with a wreath of green. If on the western plains, a turkey wishbone for target will make the sport, at fifty paces; if at home, some great extravagance or some humble gift or some poignant wish will point the day; if at church, then mass and carol; in certain hearts, reverence,—everywhere the time takes hold of folk and receives whatever of greatness or grotesqueness they choose to give it… . So, too, the actual and vital experience which it brings to humanity is universal, is offered with cosmic regularity, cannot be escaped. Through all the tumult of the time, Christmas Week and the time that lies near to it is always waiting to claim its own, to take to itself those who will not be deceived, who see in the stupendous yearly pageant only the usual spectacle of humanity trying to say divine things in terms of things physical, because the time for the universal expression is not yet come.

  When that time comes … when the time of the worship of things shall be past; when the tribal sense of holiday shall have given place to the family sense, and that family shall be mankind; when shall never be seen the anomaly of celebrating in a glorification of little family tables—whose crumbs fall to those without—the birth of him who preached brotherhood; and the mockery of observing with wanton spending the birth of him who had not where to lay his head; when the rudiments of divine pe
rception, of self-perception, of social perception, shall have grown to their next estate; when the area of consciousness shall be extended yet farther toward the outermost; when that new knowledge with which the air is charged shall let man begin to know what he is … when that time comes, they will look back with utmost wonder at our uncouth gropings to note and honour something whose import we so obscurely discern; but perhaps, too, with wonder that so much of human love and divining should shine for us through the mists we make.

  Chapter 10

  Two days before Christmas Ellen Bourne went through the new-fallen snow of their wood lot. Her feet left scuffled tracks clouded about by the brushing of her gown's wet hem and by a dragging corner of shawl. She came to a little evergreen tree, not four feet tall, with low-growing boughs, and she stood looking at it until her husband, who was also following the snow-filled path, overtook her.

  "Matthew," she said then, "will you cut me that?"

  Matthew Bourne stood with his ax on his shoulder and looked a question in slow preparation to ask one.

  "I just want it," she said; "I've—took a notion."

  He said that she had a good many notions, it seemed to him. But he cut the little tree, with casual ease and no compunctions, and they dragged it to their home, the soft branches patterning the snow and obscuring their footprints.

  "It's like real Christmas weather," Ellen said. "They can't stop that coming, anyhow."

  In the kitchen Ellen's father sat before the open oven door of the cooking stove, letting the snow melt from his heavy boots.

  "Hey," he said, "I was beginning to think you'd forgot about supper. What was in the trap?"

  At once Ellen began talking rapidly. "Oh," she said, "we'll have some muffins to-night, father. The kind you like, with—"

  "Well, what was in the trap?" the old man demanded peevishly. "Why don't you answer back? What was, Mat?"