CHAPTER X.
CHRISTMAS.
Long before the Christmas dawn was bright enough to bring the blueparrots into plain view on the walls of Joyce's room, she had climbedout of bed to look for her "messages from Noel." The night before,following the old French custom, she had set her little slippers justoutside the threshold. Now, candle in hand, she softly slipped to thedoor and peeped out into the hall. Her first eager glance showed thatthey were full.
Climbing back into her warm bed, she put the candle on the table besideit, and began emptying the slippers. They were filled with bonbons andall sorts of little trifles, such as she and Jules had admired in thegay shop windows. On the top of one madame had laid a slender silverpencil, and monsieur a pretty purse. In the other was a pair of littlewooden shoes, fashioned like the ones that Jules had worn when shefirst knew him. They were only half as long as her thumb, and wrapped ina paper on which was written that Jules himself had whittled them outfor her, with Henri's help and instructions.
"What little darlings!" exclaimed Joyce. "I hope he will think as muchof the scrap-book that I made for him as I do of these. I know that hewill be pleased with the big microscope that Cousin Kate boughtfor him."
She spread all the things out on the table, and gave the slippers afinal shake. A red morocco case, no larger than half a dollar, fell outof the toe of one of them. Inside the case was a tiny buttonhole watch,with its wee hands pointing to six o'clock. It was the smallest watchthat Joyce had ever seen, Cousin Kate's gift. Joyce could hardly keepback a little squeal of delight. She wanted to wake up everybody on theplace and show it. Then she wished that she could be back in the brownhouse, showing it to her mother and the children. For a moment, as shethought of them, sharing the pleasure of their Christmas stockingswithout her, a great wave of homesickness swept over her, and she layback on the pillow with that miserable, far-away feeling that, of allthings, makes one most desolate.
Then she heard the rapid "tick, tick, tick, tick," of the little watch,and was comforted. She had not realized before that time could go sofast. Now thirty seconds were gone; then sixty. At this rate it couldnot be such a very long time before they would be packing their trunksto start home; so Joyce concluded not to make herself unhappy by longingfor the family, but to get as much pleasure as possible out of thisstrange Christmas abroad.
That little watch seemed to make the morning fly. She looked at it atleast twenty times an hour. She had shown it to every one in the house,and was wishing that she could take it over to Jules for him to see,when Monsieur Ciseaux's carriage stopped at the gate. He was on his wayto the Little Sisters of the Poor, and had come to ask Joyce to drivewith him to bring his sister home.
He handed her into the carriage as if she had been a duchess, and thenseemed to forget that she was beside him; for nothing was said all theway. As the horses spun along the road in the keen morning air, the oldman was busy with his memories, his head dropped forward on his breast.The child watched him, entering into this little drama assympathetically as if she herself were the forlorn old woman, and thissilent, white-haired man at her side were Jack.
Sister Denisa came running out to meet them, her face shining and hereyes glistening with tears. "It is for joy that I weep," she exclaimed,"that poor madame should have come to her own again. See the change thathas already been made in her by the blessed news."
Joyce looked down the corridor as monsieur hurried forward to meet theold lady coming towards them, and to offer his arm. Hope hadstraightened the bowed figure; joy had put lustre into her dark eyes andstrength into her weak frame. She walked with such proud statelinessthat the other inmates of the home looked up at her in surprise as shepassed. She was no more like the tearful, broken-spirited woman who hadlived among them so long, than her threadbare dress was like the elegantmantle which monsieur had brought to fold around her.
Joyce had brought a handful of roses to Sister Denisa, who caught themup with a cry of pleasure, and held them against her face as if theycarried with them some sweetness of another world.
Madame came up then, and, taking the nun in her arms, tried to thank herfor all that she had done, but could find no words for a gratitude sodeep, and turned away, sobbing.
They said good-by to Sister Denisa,--brave Little Sister of the Poor,whose only joy was the pleasure of unselfish service; who had no time toeven stand at the gate and be a glad witness of other people's Christmashappiness, but must hurry back to her morning task of dealing out coffeeand clean handkerchiefs to two hundred old paupers. No, there were onlya hundred and ninety-nine now. Down the streets, across the Loire, intothe old village and out again, along the wide Paris road, one of themwas going home.
The carriage turned and went for a little space between brown fields andclosely clipped hedgerows, and then madame saw the windows of her oldhome flashing back the morning sunlight over the high stone wall. Againthe carriage turned, into the lane this time, and now the sunlight wascaught up by the scissors over the gate, and thrown dazzlingly down intotheir faces.
Monsieur smiled as he looked at Joyce, a tender, gentle smile that onewould have supposed never could have been seen on those harsh lips. Shewas almost standing up in the carriage, in her excitement.
"Oh, it has come true!" she cried, clasping her hands together, "Thegates are really opening at last!"
Yes, the Ogre, whatever may have been its name, no longer lived. Itsspell was broken, for now the giant scissors no longer barred the way.Slowly the great gate swung open, and the carriage passed through. Joycesprang out and ran on ahead to open the door. Hand in hand, just as whenthey were little children, Martin and Desire, this white-haired brotherand sister went back to the old home together; and it was Christmas Day,in the morning.
* * * * *
At five o'clock that evening the sound of Gabriel's accordeon wentechoing up and down the garden, and thirty little children weremarching to its music along the paths, between the rows of bloominglaurel. Joyce understood, now, why the room where the Christmas treestood had been kept so carefully locked. For two days that room had beenempty and the tree had been standing in Monsieur Ciseaux's parlor.Cousin Kate and madame and Berthe and Marie and Gabriel had all beenover there, busily at work, and neither she nor Jules had suspected whatwas going on down-stairs.
Now she marched with the others, out of the garden and across the road,keeping time to the music of the wheezy old accordion that Gabrielplayed so proudly. Surely every soul, in all that long procession filingthrough the gate of the giant scissors, belonged to the kingdom ofloving hearts and gentle hands; for they were all children who passedthrough, or else mothers who carried in their arms the little ones who,but for these faithful arms, must have missed this Noel fete.
Jules had been carried down-stairs and laid on a couch in the corner ofthe room where he could see the tree to its best advantage. Beside himsat his great-aunt, Desire, dressed in a satin gown of silvery gray thathad been her mother's, and looking as if she had just stepped out fromthe frame of the portrait up-stairs. She held Jules's hand in hers, asif with it she grasped the other Jules, the little brother of the oldendays for whom this child had been named. And she told him stories of hisgrandfather and his father. Then Jules found that this Aunt Desire hadknown his mother; had once sat on the vine-covered porch while he ranafter fireflies on the lawn in his little white dress; had heard thesong the voice still sang to him in his dreams:
"Till the stars and the angels come to keep Their watch where my baby lies fast asleep."
When she told him this, with her hand stroking his and folding it tightwith many tender little claspings, he felt that he had found a part ofhis old home, too, as well as Aunt Desire.
One by one the tapers began to glow on the great tree, and when it wasall ablaze the doors were opened for the children to flock in. Theystood about the room, bewildered at first, for not one of them had everseen such a sight before; a tree that glittered and sparkled and shone,that
bore stars and rainbows and snow wreaths and gay toys. At firstthey only drew deep, wondering breaths, and looked at each other withshining eyes. It was all so beautiful and so strange.
Joyce flew here and there, helping to distribute the gifts, feeling herheart grow warmer and warmer as she watched the happy children. "Mylittle daughter never had anything like that in all her life," said onegrateful mother as Joyce laid a doll in the child's outstretched arms."She'll never forget this to her dying day, nor will any of us, dearmademoiselle! We knew not what it was to have so beautiful a Noel!"
When the last toy had been stripped from the branches, it was CousinKate's turn to be surprised. At a signal from madame, the children begancircling around the tree, singing a song that the sisters at the villageschool had taught them for the occasion. It was a happy little songabout the green pine-tree, king of all trees and monarch of the woods,because of the crown he yearly wears at Noel. At the close every childcame up to madame and Cousin Kate and Joyce, to say "Thank you, madame,"and "Good night," in the politest way possible.
Gabriel's accordion led them out again, and the music, growing fainterand fainter, died away in the distance; but in every heart that heard ithad been born a memory whose music could never be lost,--the memory ofone happy Christmas.
Joyce drew a long breath when it was all over, and, with her arm aroundMadame Desire's shoulder, smiled down at Jules.
"How beautifully it has all ended!" she exclaimed. "I am sorry that wehave come to the place to say 'and they all lived happily ever after,'for that means that it is time to shut the book."
"Dear heart," murmured Madame Desire, drawing the child closer to her,"it means that a far sweeter story is just beginning, and it is you whohave opened the book for me."
Joyce flushed with pleasure, saying, "I thought this Christmas would beso lonely; but it has been the happiest of my life."
"HE TOOK THE LITTLE FELLOW'S HAND IN HIS."]
"And mine, too," said Monsieur Ciseaux from the other side of Jules'scouch. He took the little fellow's hand in his. "They told me about thetree that you prepared for me. I have been up to look at it, and now Ihave come to thank you." To the surprise of every one in the room,monsieur bent over and kissed the flushed little face on the pillow.Jules reached up, and, putting his arms around his uncle's neck, laidhis cheek a moment against the face of his stern old kinsman. Not aword was said, but in that silent caress every barrier of coldness andreserve was forever broken down between them. So the little Prince cameinto his kingdom,--the kingdom of love and real home happiness.
* * * * *
It is summer now, and far away in the little brown house across the seasJoyce thinks of her happy winter in France and the friends that shefound through the gate of the giant scissors. And still those scissorshang over the gate, and may be seen to this day, by any one who takesthe trouble to walk up the hill from the little village that lies justacross the river Loire, from the old town of Tours.
THE END.
The Gate of the Giant Scissors Page 10