Treasures of the Snow

by Patricia St John

  “So she did give them to him,” thought Lucien to himself with a little thrill of happiness. “And he does like them!” Then, aloud, he said, “What are you playing at, Dani?”

  Dani jumped and looked up, and saw the boy who had tried to kill his kitten. His first reaction was to seize Klaus around the middle tightly and say, “Go away, you horrid boy!”

  But as he said it, he, although he was only five years old, could not help noticing that Lucien looked very unhappy, and unhappiness was a thing that his friendly little heart could not bear. So, still holding the struggling Klaus very tightly, he added after a moment’s pause, “I’m playing with my fairy Noah animals But ’Nette said I mustn’t talk to you.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt you,” answered Lucien very gently. “And I’m sorry about your leg. That’s why I made those animals for you.”

  “You didn’t make them,” answered Dani cheerfully. “I found them behind the woodpile. The fairies put them there.”

  Lucien was just about to answer when Annette’s voice came sharp and shrill from the door of the chalet.

  “Dani,” she shouted, “come in at once. Supper’s ready.”

  Lucien turned away. “So she didn’t tell him,” he thought rather bitterly. Still, it was nice to know that Dani loved them and played with them. One day he might get the chance to explain, and then perhaps he and Dani would be friends. He climbed the path between the hay fields feeling a bit more cheerful.

  Dani hopped into the kitchen and climbed into his seat, his nose twitching joyfully like a rabbit’s at the smell of Grandmother’s potato soup.

  “’Nette,” began Dani, “Lucien said that he made my fairy Noah animals, but he didn’t, did he? The fairies put them behind the woodpile, didn’t they? He wasn’t speaking the truth, was he?”

  “I’ve told you not to talk to Lucien, Dani,” said Annette crossly. “He’ll only hurt you again. He’s a horrid boy.”

  “Yes,” answered Dani, “and I only talked to him a teeny, weeny bit. But he didn’t, did he, ’Nette? Tell me!”

  Annette hesitated. She was a truthful child, and she did not want to tell a lie. But if Dani knew, he would be so grateful that he would forgive Lucien at once, and go and thank him. And there was no telling where it would all end. They would become friends in a few minutes. It was hard enough as it was to make Dani unfriendly with anybody, but if he knew about the animals it would be quite impossible.

  “You know you found them in the woodpile,” she replied, looking away, “so how could he have made them? Don’t be silly, Dani.”

  “He said he did,” answered Dani, “but I know he didn’t. It must have been the fairies, mustn’t it, ’Nette?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Dani,” replied poor Annette wearily. “How you do chatter! Eat up your soup quickly. It will be all cold.”

  Dani obediently buried his nose in his bowl, but Grandmother, whose dim old eyes saw more than most people’s, looked very hard at Annette. She, too, had heard and wondered at the story of the animals in the woodpile.

  Annette, knowing that Grandmother was looking hard at her, went very red. Going over to the stove, she pretended to help herself to more soup. But she only took a little, for somehow she wasn’t a bit hungry. The day she had looked forward to for so long was all spoiled. She had got the prize she wanted so badly, but it hadn’t made her a bit happy. In fact, she was really miserable.

  She washed up the supper things in silence, tucked up, and kissed a warm, sleepy Dani. Then she slipped out alone into the summer evening. She usually loved being out alone on summer evenings to do just as she pleased—just her and the still blue mountains.

  But tonight it was different. Nothing pleased her, and she could think of nothing but that smashed little horse lying trampled on the ground, and of the light that had died in Dani’s face when she had spoken so crossly to him.

  “Perhaps I shall never like being alone again,” thought poor Annette, and she turned back toward home. “I wish I could tell someone! It wouldn’t be so bad then. I wish Mummy was still alive. Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish I hadn’t done it!”

  15

  Christmas Again—and Gingerbread Bears

  Autumn came, and the cows returned from the high pastures. Dani was growing taller every day, and by October the village cobbler had to make him a new pair of boots. He went to the infant school, too, every day, and Monsieur Burnier paid two big boys one franc each a week to pull him home in the cart.

  And now Christmas had come around again. The snow lay over a foot deep on the chalet roofs, and Papa had to dig a path from the front door to the main sled track. The little stream was silent and frozen, and icicles hung like bright swords from the rocks. Annette and Dani went to school on the sled every morning by starlight, but came home in the sunshine under a deep blue sky, the snow sparkling like jewels.

  Christmas was a very special time to Dani, for all the great events of his life had happened at Christmas. His mother had died on Christmas Eve, and though Dani had never known his mother, he sensed a certain gentle sadness in his father’s face and felt a special tenderness toward him and Annette. Dani himself had had all the mothering he needed from Grandmother and Annette, and the only time he ever thought about his mother was when Grandmother read about heaven in the Bible. Then he would gaze up into her photograph on the wall, and think that when his time came to go to heaven it would be nice to see her kind face, so like Annette’s, looking out for him and smiling to welcome him.

  It was his own birthday, too, and this year he was six. He had thought for a long time about being six, and he expected to wake up quite a new child on the morning of Christmas Eve. So it was rather disappointing to find, as he lay in the warm, shuttered darkness, that he really felt no bigger or stronger or more important than before. Then he remembered that he was going to see the Christmas tree in the church, and Grandmother had made a special cake for his birthday, and after that there was no room for disappointed thoughts any longer.

  Of course, according to Dani, Christmas was Klaus’s birthday, too. It wasn’t really Klaus’s birthday because Klaus must have been at least a fortnight old when she crept into Dani’s slipper, but Dani had never thought of that.

  Best of all, it was the birthday of the Lord Jesus, and although Dani did not talk about it very much, he thought about it a lot. It made him strangely happy to know that he shared the birthday of the perfect child.

  “What could I give to the little Lord Jesus for a birthday present?” he had asked, resting his elbows on Grandmother’s knee and looking up into her face.

  “You can give your own self to Him,” Grandmother had answered, pausing a moment in her knitting. “And you can ask Him to make you very loving and obedient. That will please Him better than anything.”

  So throughout Christmas, Dani tried to be loving and obedient in order to please the child whose birthday he shared, and his love just overflowed to everyone. He tidied Grandmother’s workbox and wiped the dishes for Annette. In the afternoon he went out to the shed and visited the cows in turn, wishing Happy Christmas into their silky ears. And at the end of the day, when he said his prayers, he whispered, “I hope I am giving you a happy birthday, little Lord Jesus.”

  So Dani had a perfect birthday, and when evening came and it was time to wrap up warmly and go down to the church, his happiness was complete.

  To begin with, there was the ride on the sled between Papa and Annette, with the cold air making his nose feel as though it wasn’t there. It was almost full moon, and the white mountains looked quite silvery. All the trees in the forest were weighed down with snow, and the lower branches trembled as they rushed past. Annette held him tightly around the middle, which made him feel very warm and safe.

  Out of the wood, over the bumpy little bridge and down across the last field with a cold rush, there was the little church with the rosy light of hundreds of candles streaming from the windows and door, and the villagers greeting each other in the porch. Dani
was carried up the aisle in Papa’s arms and placed on the front bench with the other children from the infant school—thirty little rosy-faced children in woolly hoods gazing in wonder at the tree. Only three days ago it had been weighed down with snow in the cold forest near Dani’s house. Now it was decorated and sparkling, covered with oranges, chocolate sticks, and shining gingerbread bears.

  Dani was glad he was sitting in front, partly because he could see the tree, and partly because he could see his picture. It hung behind the pulpit—a great big picture of the Good Samaritan. It was hung in a wooden frame and had been drawn by a famous Swiss artist. Dani loved the kind face of the Good Samaritan, and he loved the little donkey. But best of all he loved the big St. Bernard dog that trotted along beside them. It was exactly like Rudolf, the St. Bernard dog that pulled the milk cart around the market square. He actually belonged to the milkman, but all the little children in the village thought he belonged to them. They climbed on his back and flung their fat, tight arms around his fluffy neck, and he licked them and patted them and was so patient with them, as though they were a crowd of naughty puppies. That was why every toddler in the church loved to come to church and see the picture of the Good Samaritan, with Rudolph trotting beside him.

  The older children sang a carol first. Annette was singing it with the others, and her thoughts flew back to that Christmas night when she had first held Dani in her arms. How they had welcomed him and watched him. Yet no one but His mother had welcomed Baby Jesus. “They laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

  The carol finished, the older children went back to their seats and the infant school trotted to the front. Dani got left behind because crutches do not move as fast as sturdy legs, but they waited for him, and everyone in the audience smiled as he reached his place with a final hop and turned his happy face toward them.

  Dani glanced up at the bright star on top of the Christmas tree and saw it reflected on the shining gingerbread bears below, and forgot what he was singing because he was wondering which particular bear was going to belong to him. There was one that looked as if it was laughing. The baker had accidentally given a little twist to its snout. Dani decided he would like that one.

  As the children went back to their seats, the old pastor climbed into the pulpit. He had been pastor in that village for forty-five years and everybody loved him. His shoulders were bowed and his skin tanned, for he still climbed the mountain in all weather to visit his church members. His beard was so long and white that Dani got him mixed up in his mind with Father Christmas.

  He looked down on the people he loved and knew so well. He was a very old man. This might be his last Christmas message. He prayed that he might speak words that would not be forgotten.

  Annette listened rather dreamily to the story she knew so well, half thinking of other things, until the old man suddenly repeated the words that had haunted her every Christmas.

  “There was no room for them—no room for Him!”

  In the slow manner of some very old people, he repeated it three times, and each time Annette thought the words sounded sadder. How quickly she would have opened her door!

  “And yet,” went on the old man, “tonight the Savior is standing at closed doors. There are still hearts that have never made room for Him. This is what He says: ‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in.’

  “What will you do about Him this Christmas? Will you open the door, or will you leave Him standing outside? Will those sad words be said about you, ‘There was no room for Him’?”

  “I should like to ask Him to come in,” thought Annette. “I wonder what it all means. The clergyman spoke about asking Him to come into our hearts. I wonder if I could ask Him into my heart.”

  Just for a moment Annette thought it rather a nice idea, and looked around to see whether other people thought it was, too. As she looked around, she suddenly noticed Lucien sitting on the other side of the church with his mother and sister.

  As she caught sight of him she realized that she couldn’t ask Jesus to come into her heart because her heart was full of hatred for Lucien. Jesus would not want to come into an angry, unforgiving heart. Either she would have to forgive and be kind, or else the Lord Jesus would have to stay outside.

  She didn’t want to forgive and be kind. Not yet. There was something else, too. She had broken Lucien’s carving and let him think it was the cat, and cheated him of his prize. If the Lord Jesus came into her heart, He would have something to say to her about that, and she didn’t want to listen.

  The sermon was over, but she had not heard much of it because she had been so busy with her thoughts. Dani nudged her to make her see that it was time for him to go up and get his gingerbread bear.

  The church was full of a low murmur of conversation, and the little ones were pushing forward toward the tree. Monsieur Pilet, the woodcutter, was handing out bears. Dani gave his sleeve a firm tug and pointed to the bear at the top, which he wanted.

  “Please, I want that one,” he whispered, “that one up there. Please, I want it very badly!”

  Because of the crutches, and because it was Christmas, Monsieur Pilet moved the ladders, moved the children, and moved the lower lights, and with great difficulty he climbed up and took hold of the bear that Dani wanted.

  Dani was dragged home through the starlight and the snow with the bear he had specially chosen close to him. Every time he looked down at that merry curved snout he chuckled, as though he and his bear had some private Christmas joke between them that nobody else knew about.

  16

  Klaus Goes Missing

  Christmas Day was over, and Dani was asleep with his flushed cheek lying on his arm. Papa was in the stable, and Annette and Grandmother sat one each side of the stove. Grandmother was knitting white woollen stockings for her grandchildren, and Annette was supposed to be patching her pinafore. Actually, her pinafore had slipped to the ground and she was simply staring in front of her with her head resting on her hands.

  “Annette,” said Grandmother suddenly, without looking up from her knitting, “have you had a happy Christmas?”

  “Yes, thank you, Grandmother,” replied Annette rather dully, because that’s what she thought she ought to say. Then she added suddenly, “Grandmother, what does it mean when it says that Jesus knocks at the door of our hearts?”

  “It means,” said Grandmother, laying down her knitting and giving Annette her whole attention, “that Jesus sees that your life is full of wrong things and dark thoughts. He came down and died on the cross so that He could be punished for all those wrong deeds and dark thoughts instead of you. Then He came back to life again so that He could come into your life and live in you, and turn out all those wrong thoughts, and put His good loving thoughts in you instead. It’s like someone knocking at the door of a dirty, dark, dusty house and saying, ‘If you will let me in I will take away the dust and the darkness and make it beautiful and bright.’ But remember, Jesus never pushes His way in—He only asks if He may come in. That is what knocking means. You have to say, ‘Yes, Lord Jesus, I need you and I want you to come and live in me.’ That’s what opening the door means.”

  Annette’s eyes were fixed on Grandmother. There was a long, long pause.

  Annette broke the silence.

  “But Grandmother,” she said, drawing her stool nearer and leaning against the old woman’s knee, “if you hated someone, you could not ask Jesus to come in, could you?”

  “If you hate someone,” said Grandmother, “it just shows how badly you need to ask Him to come in. The darker the room, the more it needs the light.”

  “But I couldn’t stop hating Lucien,” said Annette softly, fingering her long plaits thoughtfully.

  “No,” said Grandmother. “You’re quite right. None of us can stop ourselves thinking wrong thoughts, and it isn’t much good trying. But Annette, when you come down in the morning and find this room d
ark with the shutters closed, do you say to yourself, ‘I must chase away the darkness and the shadows first, and then I will open the shutters and let in the sun’? Do you waste time trying to get rid of the dark?”

  “Of course not,” said Annette.

  “Then how do you get rid of the dark?”

  “I pull back the shutters, of course, and then the light comes in!”

  “But what happens to the dark?”

  “I don’t know. It just goes when the light comes!”

  “That is just what happens when you ask the Lord Jesus to come in,” said Grandmother. “He is love, and when love comes in, hatred and selfishness and unkindness will give way to it, just as the darkness gives way when you let in the sunshine. To try to chase it out alone would be like trying to chase the shadows out of a dark room. It would be a waste of time.”

  Annette did not answer. She only sat for a little time staring at the wall. Then she picked up her pinafore with a sigh and worked at it in silence. After a while she got up, kissed her grandmother good night very quietly, and went up to bed.

  But she could not go to sleep for a long time. She lay in the dark, tossing and turning and wondering.

  “It’s quite true,” she said to herself. “If I asked Him to come in, I should have to be friends with Lucien, and I don’t want to be. I suppose I should have to tell how I broke his carving, and I could never, never do that. I shall just have to try and forget about the knocking. And yet I feel so terribly miserable.”

  She did not know yet that the child who hears the Lord Jesus knocking, and shuts Him out, is also shutting out happiness. She thought she could forget all about it and find some other way of being happy. So she turned over her pillow, and made herself count the goats running to pasture until she fell asleep.