The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

  * * *

  "... Yes'm," said Flame.

  * * *

  But it was a very frankly disconsolate little girl who stole late that night to her Father's study, and perched herself high on the arm of his chair with her cheek snuggled close to his.

  * * *

  "Of Father-Funny," whispered Flame, "I've got such a queer little pain."

  * * *

  "A pain?" jerked her Father. "Oh dear me! Where is it? Go and find your Mother at once!"

  * * *

  "Mother?" frowned Flame. "Oh it isn't that kind of a pain.--It's in my Christmas. I've got such a sad little pain in my Christmas."

  * * *

  "Oh dear me--dear me!" sighed her Father. Like two people most precipitously smitten with shyness they sat for a moment staring blankly around the room at every conceivable object except each other. Then quite suddenly they looked back at each other and smiled.

  * * *

  "Father," said Flame. "You're not of course a very old man.... But still you are pretty old, aren't you? You've seen a whole lot of Christmasses, I mean?"

  * * *

  "Yes," conceded her Father.

  * * *

  From the great clumsy rolling collar of her blanket wrapper Flame's little face loomed suddenly very pink and earnest.

  * * *

  "But Father," urged Flame. "Did you ever in your whole life spend a Christmas just exactly the way you wanted to? Honest-to-Santa Claus now,--did you _ever_?"

  * * *

  "Why--Why, no," admitted her Father after a second's hesitation. "Why no, I don't believe I ever did." Quite frankly between his brows there puckered a very black frown. "Now take to-morrow, for instance," he complained. "I had planned to go fishing through the ice.... After the morning service, of course,--after we'd had our Christmas dinner,--and gotten tired of our presents,--every intention in the world I had of going fishing through the ice.... And now your Uncle Wally has to go and have a shock! I don't believe it was necessary. He should have taken extra precautions. The least that delicate relatives can do is to take extra precautions at holiday time.... Oh, of course your Uncle Wally has books in his library," he brightened, "very interesting old books that wouldn't be perfectly seemly for a minister of the Gospel to have in his own library.... But still it's very disappointing," he wilted again.

  * * *

  "I agree with you ... utterly, Father-Funny!" said Flame. "But ... Father," she persisted, "Of all the people you know in the world,--millions would it be?"

  * * *

  "No, call it thousands" corrected her Father.

  * * *

  "Well, thousands," accepted Flame. "Old people, young people, fat people, skinnys, cross people, jolly people?... Did you ever in your life know _any one_ who had ever spent Christmas just the way he wanted to?"

  * * *

  "Why ... no, I don't know that I ever did," considered her Father. With his elbows on the arms of his chair, his slender fingers forked to a lovely Gothic arch above the bridge of his nose, he yielded himself instantly to the reflection. "Why ... no, ... I don't know that I ever did," he repeated with an increasing air of conviction.... "When you're young enough to enjoy the day as a 'holler' day there's usually some blighting person who prefers to have it observed as a holy day.... And by the time you reach an age where you really rather appreciate its being a holy day the chances are that you've got a houseful of racketty youngsters who fairly insist on reverting to the 'holler' day idea again."

  * * *

  "U--m--m," encouraged Flame.

  * * *

  --"When you're little, of course," mused her Father, "you have to spend the day the way your elders want you to!... You crave a Christmas Tree but they prefer stockings! You yearn to skate but they consider the weather better for corn-popping! You ask for a bicycle but they had already found a very nice bargain in flannels! You beg to dine the gay-kerchiefed Scissor-Grinder's child, but they invite the Minister's toothless mother-in-law!... And when you're old enough to go courting," he sighed, "your lady-love's sentiments are outraged if you don't spend the day with her and your own family are perfectly furious if you don't spend the day with them!... And after you're married?" With a gesture of ultimate despair he sank back into his cushions. "N--o, no one, I suppose, in the whole world, has ever spent Christmas just exactly the way he wanted to!"

  * * *

  "Well, I," triumphed Flame, "have got a chance to spend Christmas just exactly the way I want to!... The one chance perhaps in a life-time, it would seem!... No heart aches involved, no hurt feelings, no disappointments for anybody! Nobody left out! Nobody dragged in! Why Father-Funny," she cried. "It's an experience that might distinguish me all my life long! Even when I'm very old and crumpled people would point me out on the street and say '_There's_ some one who once spent Christmas just exactly the way she wanted to'!" To a limpness almost unbelievable the eager little figure wilted down within its blanket-wrapper swathings. "And now ..." deprecated Flame, "Mother has gone and wished me on Aunt Minna instead!" With a sudden revival of enthusiasm two small hands crept out of their big cuffs and clutched her Father by the ears. "Oh Father-Funny!" pleaded Flame. "If you were too old to want it for a 'holler' day and not quite old enough to need it for a holy day ... so that all you asked in the world was just to have it a _holly_ day! Something all bright! Red and green! And tinsel! and jingle-bells!... How would you like to have Aunt Minna wished on you?... It isn't you know as though Aunt Minna was a--a pleasant person," she argued with perfectly indisputable logic. "You couldn't wish one 'A Merry Aunt Minna' any more than you could wish 'em a 'Merry Good Friday'!" From the clutch on his ears the small hands crept to a point at the back of his neck where they encompassed him suddenly in a crunching hug. "Oh Father-Funny!" implored Flame, "You were a Lay Reader once! You must have had _very_ amorous eyes! Couldn't you _please_ persuade Mother that..."

  * * *

  With a crisp flutter of skirts Flame's Mother, herself, appeared abruptly in the door. Her manner was very excited.

  * * *

  "Why wherever in the world have you people been?" she cried. "Are you stone deaf? Didn't you hear the telephone? Couldn't you even hear me calling? Your Uncle Wally is worse! That is he's better but he thinks he's worse! And they want us to come at once! It's something about a new will! The Lawyer telephoned! He advises us to come at once! They've sent an automobile for us! It will be here any minute!... But whatever in the world shall we do about Flame?" she cried distractedly. "You know how Uncle Wally feels about having young people in the house! And she can't possibly go to Aunt Minna's till to-morrow! And...."

  * * *

  "But you see I'm not going to Aunt Minna's!" announced Flame quite serenely. Slipping down from her Father's lap she stood with a round, roly-poly flannel sort of dignity confronting both her parents. "Father says I don't have to!"

  * * *

  "Why, Flame!" protested her Father.

  * * *

  "No, of course, you didn't say it with your mouth," admitted Flame. "But you said it with your skin and bones!--I could feel it working."

  * * *

  "Not go to your Aunt Minna's?" gasped her Mother. "What do you want to do?... Stay at home and spend Christmas with the Lay Reader?"

  * * *

  "When you and Father talk like that," murmured Flame with some hauteur, "I don't know whether you're trying to run him down ... or run him up."

  * * *

  "Well, how do you feel about him yourself?" veered her Father quite irrelevantly.

  * * *

  "Oh, I like him--some," conceded Flame. In her bright cheeks suddenly an even brighter color glowed. "I like him when he leaves out the Litany," she said. "I've told him I like him when he leaves out the Litany.--He's leaving it out more and more I notice.--Yes, I like him very much."

  * * *

  "But this Aunt Minna business," veered back her Father suddenly. "What _do_ you want to do? That's just the question. What _do_ you w
ant to do?"

  * * *

  "Yes, what do you want to do?" panted her Mother.

  * * *

  "I want to make a Christmas for myself!" said Flame. "Oh, of course, I know perfectly well," she agreed, "that I could go to a dozen places in the Parish and be cry-babied over for my presumable loneliness. And probably I _should_ cry a little," she wavered, "towards the dessert--when the plum pudding came in and it wasn't like Mother's.--But if I made a Christmas of my own--" she rallied instantly. "Everything about it would be brand-new and unassociated! I tell you I _want_ to make a Christmas of my own! It's the chance of a life-time! Even Father sees that it's the chance of a life-time!"

  * * *

  "Do you?" demanded his wife a bit pointedly.

  * * *

  "_Honk-honk!_" screamed the motor at the door.

  * * *

  "Oh, dear me, whatever in the world shall I do?" cried Flame's Mother. "I'm almost distracted! I'm--"

  * * *

  "When in Doubt do as the Doubters do," suggested Flame's Father quite genially. "Choose the most doubtful doubt on the docket and--Flame's got a pretty level head," he interrupted himself very characteristically.

  * * *

  "No young girl has a level heart," asserted Flame's Mother. "I'm so worried about the Lay Reader."

  * * *

  "Lay Reader?" murmured her Father. Already he had crossed the threshold into the hall and was rummaging through an over-loaded hat rack for his fur coat. "Why, yes," he called back, "I quite forgot to ask. Just what kind of a Christmas is it, Flame, that you want to make?" With unprecedented accuracy he turned at the moment to force his wife's arms into the sleeves of her own fur coat.

  * * *

  Twice Flame rolled up her cuffs and rolled them down again before she answered.

  * * *

  "I--I want to make a Surprise for Miss Flora," she confided.

  * * *

  "_Honk-honk!_" urged the automobile.

  * * *

  "For Miss Flora?" gasped her Mother.

  * * *

  "Miss Flora?" echoed her Father.

  * * *

  "Why, at the Rattle-Pane House, you know!" rallied Flame. "Don't you remember that I called there this afternoon? It--it looked rather lonely there.--I--think I could fix it."

  * * *

  "Honk-honk-honk!" implored the automobile.

  * * *

  "But who _is_ this Miss Flora?" cried her Mother. "I never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! How do we know she's respectable?"

  * * *

  "Oh, my dear," deprecated Flame's Father. "Just as though the owners of the Rattle-Pane House would rent it to any one who wasn't respectable!"

  * * *

  "Oh, she's _very_ respectable," insisted Flame. "Of a lineage so distinguished--"

  * * *

  "How old might this paragon be?" queried her Father.

  * * *

  "Old?" puzzled Flame. To her startled mind two answers only presented themselves.... Should she say "Oh, she's only just weaned," or "Well,--she was invented about 1406?" Between these two dilemmas a single compromise suggested itself. "She's _awfully_ wrinkled," said Flame; "that is--her face is. All wizened up, I mean."

  * * *

  "Oh, then of course she _must_ be respectable," twinkled Flame's Father.

  * * *

  "And is related in some way," persisted Flame, "to Edward the 2nd--Duke of York."

  * * *

  "Of that guarantee of respectability I am, of course, not quite so sure," said her Father.

  * * *

  With a temperish stamping of feet, an infuriate yank of the door-bell, Uncle Wally's chauffeur announced that the limit of his endurance had been reached.

  * * *

  Blankly Flame's Mother stared at Flame's Father. Blankly Flame's Father returned the stare.

  * * *

  "Oh, _p-l-e-a-s-e_!" implored Flame. Her face was crinkled like fine crêpe.

  * * *

  "Smooth out your nose!" ordered her Mother. On the verge of capitulation the same familiar fear assailed her. "Will you promise not to see the Lay Reader?" she bargained.

  * * *

  "--Yes'm," said Flame.

  Part 2

  It's a dull person who doesn't wake up Christmas Morning with a curiously ticklish sense of Tinsel in the pit of his stomach!--A sort of a Shine! A kind of a Pain!

  * * *

  "Glisten and Tears,

  Pang of the years."

  * * *

  That's Christmas!

  * * *

  So much was born on Christmas Day! So much has died! So much is yet to come! Balsam-Scented, with the pulse of bells, how the senses sing! Memories that wouldn't have batted an eye for all the Gabriel Trumpets in Eternity leaping to life at the sound of a twopenny horn! Merry Folk who were with us once and are no more! Dream Folk who have never been with us yet but will be some time! Ache of old carols! Zest of new-fangled games! Flavor of puddings! Shine of silver and glass! The pleasant frosty smell of the Express-man! The Gift Beautiful! The Gift Dutiful! The Gift that Didn't Come! _Heigho_! Manger and Toy-Shop,--Miracle and Mirth,--

  * * *

  "Glisten and Tears,

  LAUGH at the years!"

  * * *

  _That's_ Christmas!

  * * *

  Flame Nourice certainly was willing to laugh at the years. Eighteen usually is!

  * * *

  Waking at Dawn two single thoughts consumed her,--the Lay Reader, and the humpiest of the express packages downstairs.

  * * *

  The Lay Reader's name was Bertrand. "Bertrand the Lay Reader," Flame always called him. The rest of the Parish called him Mr. Laurello.

  * * *

  It was the thought of Bertrand the Lay Reader that made Flame laugh the most.

  * * *

  "As long as I've promised most faithfully not to see him," she laughed, "how can I possibly go to church? For the first Christmas in my life," she laughed, "I won't have to go to church!"

  * * *

  With this obligation so cheerfully canceled, the exploration of the humpiest express package loomed definitely as the next task on the horizon.

  * * *

  Hoping for a fur coat from her Father, fearing for a set of encyclopedias from her Mother, she tore back the wrappings with eager hands only to find,--all-astonished, and half a-scream,--a gay, gauzy layer of animal masks nosing interrogatively up at her. Less practical surely than the fur coat,--more amusing, certainly, than encyclopedias,--the funny "false faces" grinned up at her with a curiously excitative audacity. Where from?--No identifying card! What for? No conceivable clew!--Unless perhaps just on general principles a donation for the Sunday School Christmas Tree?--But there wasn't going to be any tree! Tentatively she reached into the box and touched the fiercely striped face of a tiger, the fantastically exaggerated beak of a red and green parrot. "U-m-m-m," mused Flame. "Whatever in the world shall I do with them?" Then quite abruptly she sank back on her heels and began to laugh and laugh and laugh. Even the Lay Reader had not received such a laughing But even to herself she did not say just what she was laughing at. It was a time for deeds, it would seem, and not for words.

  * * *

  Certainly the morning was very full of deeds!

  * * *

  There was, of course, a present from her Mother to be opened,--warm, woolly stockings and things like that. But no one was ever swerved from an original purpose by trying on warm, woolly stockings. And from her Father there was the most absurd little box no bigger than your nose marked, "For a week in New York," and stuffed to the brim with the sweetest bright green dollar bills. But, of course, you couldn't try those on. And half the Parish sent presents. But no Parish ever sent presents that needed to be tried on. No gay, fluffy scarfs,--no lacey, frivolous pettiskirts,--no bright delaying hat-ribbons! Just books,--illustrated poems usually, very wholesome pickles,--and always a huge motto to recommend, "Pea
ce on Earth, Good Will to Men."--To "Men"?--Why not to Women?--Why not at least to "_Dogs_?" questioned Flame quite abruptly.