Darrel of the Blessed Isles by Irving Bacheller

I >> Irving Bacheller >> Darrel of the Blessed Isles

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There was an odd trait in Darrel. In familiar talk he often made
use of "ye"--a shortened you--in speaking to those of old
acquaintance. But when there was man or topic to rouse him into
higher dignity it was more often "thee" or "thou" with him. Trove
made no answer and shortly went away.

In certain court records one may read of the celebrated suit for
divorce which enlivened the winter of that year in the north
country. It is enough to quote the ringing words of one Colonel
Jenkins, who addressed the judge as follows:--

"Picture to yourself, sir, this venerable man, waking from his
dream of happiness to be robbed of his trousers--the very insignia
of his manhood. Picture him, sir, sitting in calico and despair,
mingled with hunger and humiliation. Think of him being addressed
as 'wife.' Being called 'wife,' sir, by this woman he had taken to
his heart and home. That, your Honour, was ingratitude sharper
than a serpent's tooth. Picture him driven from his fireside in
skirts,--the very drapery of humiliation,--skirts, your Honour,
that came barely to the knees and left his nether limbs exposed to
the autumnal breeze and the ridicule of the unthinking. Sir, it is
for you to say how far the widow may go in her oppression. If such
conduct is permitted, in God's name, who is safe?"

"May it please your Honour," said the opposing lawyer, "having
looked upon these pictures of the learned counsel, it is for you to
judge whether you ever saw any that gave you greater joy. They are
above all art, your Honour. In the galleries of memory there are
none like them--none so charming, so delightful. If I were to die
to-morrow, sir, I should thank God that my last hour came not until
I had seen these pictures of Colonel Jenkins; and it may be sir,
that my happiness would even delay the hand of death. My only
regret is that mine is the great misfortune of having failed to
witness the event they portray. Sir, you have a great
responsibility, for you have to judge whether human law may
interfere with the working of divine justice. It was the decree of
fate, your Honour, following his own word and action, that this man
should become as a rag doll in the hands of a termagant. I submit
to you that Providence, in the memory of the living, has done no
better job."

A tumult of applause stopped him, and he sat down.

Brooke was defeated promptly, and known ever after as "The Old Rag
Doll."

XII

The Santa Claus of Cedar Hill

Christmas Eve had come and the year of 1850. For two weeks snow
had rushed over the creaking gable of the forest above Martha
Vaughn's, to pile in drifts or go hissing down the long hillside.
A freezing blast had driven it to the roots of the stubble and sown
it deep and rolled it into ridges and whirled it into heaps and
mounds, or flung it far in long waves that seemed to plunge, as if
part of a white sea, and break over fence and roof and chimney in
their downrush. Candle and firelight filtered through frosty panes
and glowed, dimly, under dark fathoms of the snow sheet now flying
full of voices. Mrs. Vaughn opened her door a moment to peer out.
A great horned owl flashed across the light beam with a snap and
rustle of wings and a cry "oo-oo-oo," lonely, like that, as if it
were the spirit of darkness and the cold wind. Mrs. Vaughn
started, turning quickly and closing the door.

"Ugh! what a sound," said Polly. "It reminds me of a ghost story."

"Well," said the widow, "that thing belongs to the only family o'
real ghosts in the world."

"What was it?" said a small boy. There were Polly and three
children about the fireplace.

"An air cat," said she, shivering, her back to the fire. "They go
'round at night in a great sheet o' feathers an' rustle it, an' I
declare they do cry lonesome. Got terrible claws, too!"

"Ever hurt folks?" one of the boys inquired.

"No; but they're just like some kinds o' people--ye want to let 'em
alone. Any one that'll shake hands with an owl would be fool
enough to eat fish-hooks. They're not made for friendship--those
owls."

"What are they made for?" another voice inquired.

"Just to kill," said she, patting a boy's head tenderly. "They're
Death flying round at night--the angel o' Death for rats an'
rabbits an' birds an' other little creatures. Once,--oh, many
years ago,--it seemed so everything was made to kill. Men were
like beasts o' prey, most of 'em; an' they're not all gone yet.
Went around day an' night killing. I declare they must have had
claws. Then came the Prince o' Peace."

"What did he do to 'em, mother?" said Paul--a boy of seven.

"Well, he began to cut their claws for one thing," said the mother.
"Taught 'em to love an' not to kill. Shall I read you the
story--how he came in a manger?"

"B'lieve I'd rather hear about Injuns," said the boy.

"We shall hear about them too," the mother added. "They're like
folks o' the olden time. They make a terrible fuss; but they've
got to hold still an' have their claws cut."

Presently she sat down by a table, where there were candles, and
began reading aloud from a county paper. She read anecdotes of
men, remarkable for their success and piety, and an account of
Indian fighting, interrupted, as a red man lifted his tomahawk to
slay, by the rattle of an arrow on the buttery door.

It was off the cross-gun of young Paul. He had seen everything in
the story and had taken aim at the said Indian just in the nick of
time.

She read, also, the old sweet story of the coming of the Christ
Child.

"Some say it was a night like this," said she, as the story ended.

Paul had listened, his thin, sober face glowing.

"I'll bet Santa Claus was good to him," said he. "Brought him
sleds an' candy an' nuts an' raisins an' new boots an' everything."

"Why do you think so?" asked his mother, who was now reading
intently.

"'Cos he was a good boy. He wouldn't cry if he had to fill the
wood box; would he, mother?"

That query held a hidden rebuke for his brother Tom.

"I do not know, but I do not think he was ever saucy or spoke a bad
word."

"Huh!" said Tom, reflectively; "then I guess he never had no
mustard plaster put on him."

The widow bade him hush.

"Er never had nuthin' done to him, neither," the boy continued,
rocking vigorously in his little chair.

"Mustn't speak so of Christ," the mother added.

"Wal," said Paul, rising, "I guess I'll hang up my stockin's."

"One'll do, Paul," said his sister Polly, with a knowing air.

"No, 'twon't," the boy insisted. "They ain't half 's big as yours.
I'm goin' t' try it, anyway, an' see what he'll do to 'em."

He drew off his stockings and pinned them carefully to the braces
on the back of a chair.

"Well, my son," said Mrs. Vaughn, looking over the top of her
paper, "it's bad weather; Santa Claus may not be able to get here."

"Oh, yes, he can," said the boy, confidently, but with a little
quiver of alarm in his voice. "I'm sure he'll come. He has a team
of reindeers. 'An' the deeper the snow the faster they go.'"

Soon the others bared their feet and hung their stockings on four
chairs in a row beside the first.

Then they all got on the bed in the corner and pulled a quilt over
them to wait for Santa Claus. The mother went on with her reading
as they chattered.

Sleep hushed them presently. But for the crackling of the fire,
and the push and whistle of the wind, that room had become as a
peaceful, silent cave under the storm.

The widow rose stealthily and opened a bureau drawer. The row of
limp stockings began to look cheerful and animated. Little
packages fell to their toes, and the shortest began to reach for
the floor. But while they were fat in the foot they were still
very lean in the leg.

Her apron empty, Mrs. Vaughn took her knitting to the fire, and
before she began to ply the needles, looked thoughtfully at her
hands. They had been soft and shapely before the days of toil. A
frail but comely woman she was, with pale face, and dark eyes, and
hair prematurely white.

She had come west--a girl of nineteen--with her young husband, full
of high hopes. That was twenty-one years ago, and the new land had
poorly kept its promise.

And the children--"How many have you?" a caller had once inquired.
"Listen," said she, "hear 'em, an' you'd say there were fifteen,
but count 'em an' they're only four."

The low, weathered house and sixty acres were mortgaged. Even the
wilderness had not wholly signed off its claim. Every year it
exacted tribute, the foxes taking a share of her poultry, and the
wild deer feeding on her grain.

A little beggar of a dog, that now lay in the firelight, had
offered himself one day, with cheerful confidence, and been
accepted. Small, affectionate, cowardly, irresponsible, and
yellow, he was in the nature of a luxury, as the widow had once
said. He had a slim nose, no longer than a man's thumb, and ever
busy. He was a most prudent animal, and the first day found a
small opening in the foundation of the barn through which he betook
himself always at any sign of danger. He soon buried his bones
there, and was ready for a siege if, perchance, it came. One blow
or even a harsh word sent him to his refuge in hot haste. He had
learned early that the ways of hired men were full of violence and
peril. Hospitality and affection had won his confidence but never
deprived him of his caution.

Presently there came a heavy step and a quick pull at the
latch-string. An odd figure entered in a swirl of snow--a real
Santa Claus, the mystery and blessing of Cedar Hill. For five
years, every Christmas Eve, in good or bad weather, he had come to
four little houses on the Hill, where, indeed, his coming had been
as a Godsend. Whence he came and who he might be none had been
able to guess. He never spoke in his official capacity, and no
citizen of Faraway had such a beard or figure as this man. Now his
fur coat, his beard, and eyebrows were hoary with snow and frost.
Icicles hung from his mustache around the short clay pipe of
tradition. He lowered a great sack and brushed the snow off it.
He had borne it high on his back, with a strap at each shoulder.

The sack was now about half full of things. He took out three big
bundles and laid them on the table. They were evidently for the
widow herself, who quickly stepped to the bedside.

"Come, children," she whispered, rousing them; "here is Santa
Claus."

They scrambled down, rubbing their eyes. Polly took the hands of
the two small boys and led them near him. Paul drew his hand away
and stood spellbound, eyes and mouth open. He watched every motion
of the good Saint, who had come to that chair that held the little
stockings. Santa Claus put a pair of boots on it. They were
copper-toed, with gorgeous front pieces of red morocco at the top
of the leg. Then, as if he had some relish of a joke, he took them
up, looked them over thoughtfully, and put them in the sack again,
whereupon the boy Paul burst into tears. Old Santa Claus, shaking
with silent laughter, replaced them in the chair quickly,

As if to lighten the boy's heart he opened a box and took out a
mouth-organ. He held it so the light sparkled on its shiny side.
Then he put his pipe in his pocket and began to dance and play
lively music. Step and tune quickened. The bulky figure was
flying up and down above a great clatter of big boots, his head
wagging to keep time. The oldest children were laughing, and the
boy Paul, he began to smile in the midst of a great sob that shook
him to the toes. The player stopped suddenly, stuffed the
instrument in a stocking, and went on with his work. Presently he
uncovered a stick of candy long as a man's arm. There were spiral
stripes of red from end to end of it. He used it for a fiddle-bow,
whistling with terrific energy and sawing the air. Then he put
shawls and tippets and boots and various little packages on the
other chairs.

At last he drew out of the sack a sheet of pasteboard, with string
attached, and hung it on the wall. It bore the simple message,
rudely lettered in black, as follows:--

"Mery Crismus. And Children i have the
honnor to remane, Yours Respec'fully
SANDY CLAUS."

His work done, he swung the pack to his shoulders and made off as
they all broke the silence with a hearty "Thank you, Santa Claus!"

They listened a moment, as he went away with a loud and merry laugh
sounding above the roar of the wind. It was the voice of a big and
gentle heart, but gave no other clew. In a moment cries of
delight, and a rustle of wrappings, filled the room. As on wings
of the bitter wind, joy and good fortune had come to them, and, in
that little house, had drifted deep as the snow without.

The children went to their beds with slow feet and quick pulses.
Paul begged for the sacred privilege of wearing his new boots to
bed, but compromised on having them beside his pillow. The boys
went to sleep at last, with all their treasures heaped about them.
Tom shortly rolled upon the little jumping-jack, that broke away
and butted him in the face with a loud squawk. It roused the boy,
who promptly set up a defence in which the stuffed hen lost her
tail-feathers and the jumping-jack was violently put out of bed.
When the mother came to see what had happened, order had been
restored--the boys were both sleeping.

It was an odd little room under bare shingles above stairs. Great
chests, filled with relics of another time and country, sat against
the walls. Here and there a bunch of herbs or a few ears of corn,
their husks braided, hung on the bare rafters. The aroma of the
summer fields--of peppermint, catnip, and lobelia--haunted it.
Chimney and stovepipe tempered the cold. A crack in the gable end
let in a sift of snow that had been heaping up a lonely little
drift on the bare floor. The widow covered the boys tenderly and
took their treasures off the bed, all save the little wooden
monkey, which, as if frightened by the melee, had hidden far under
the clothes. She went below stairs to the fire, which every cold
day was well fed until after midnight, and began to enjoy the sight
of her own gifts. They were a haunch of venison, a sack of flour,
a shawl, and mittens. A small package had fallen to the floor. It
was neatly bound with wrappings of blue paper. Under the last
layer was a little box, the words "For Polly" on its cover. It
held a locket of wrought gold that outshone the light of the
candles. She touched a spring, and the case opened. Inside was a
lock of hair, white as her own. There were three lines cut in the
glowing metal, and she read them over and over again:--

"Here are silver and gold,
The one for a day of remembrance between thee and dishonour,
The other for a day of plenty between thee and want."

She went to her bed, presently, where the girl lay sleeping, and,
lifting dark masses of her hair, kissed a ruddy cheek. Then the
widow stood a moment, wiping her eyes.

XIII

A Christmas Adventure

Long before daylight one could hear the slowing of the wind. Its
caravan now reaching eastward to mid-ocean was nearly passed.
Scattered gusts hurried on like weary and belated followers. Then,
suddenly, came a silence in which one might have heard the dust of
their feet falling, their shouts receding in the far woodland. The
sun rose in a clear sky above the patched and ragged canopy of the
woods--a weary multitude now resting in the still air.

The children were up looking for tracks of reindeer and breaking
paths in the snow. Sunlight glimmered in far-flung jewels of the
Frost King. They lay deep, clinking as the foot sank in them. At
the Vaughn home it was an eventful day. Santa Claus--well, he is
the great Captain that leads us to the farther gate of childhood
and surrenders the golden key. Many ways are beyond the gate, some
steep and thorny; and some who pass it turn back with bleeding feet
and wet eyes, but the gate opens not again for any that have
passed. Tom had got the key and begun to try it. Santa Claus had
winked at him with a snaring eye, like that of his aunt when she
had sugar in her pocket, and Tom thought it very foolish. The boy
had even felt of his greatcoat and got a good look at his boots and
trousers. Moreover, when he put his pipe away, Tom saw him take a
chew of tobacco--an abhorrent thing if he were to believe his
mother.

"Mother," said he, "I never knew Santa Claus chewed tobacco."

"Well, mebbe he was Santa Claus's hired man," said she.

"Might 'a' had the toothache," Paul suggested, for Lew Allen, who
worked for them in the summer time, had an habitual toothache,
relieved many times a day by chewing tobacco.

Tom sat looking into the fire a moment.

Then he spoke of a matter Paul and he had discussed secretly.

"Joe Bellus he tol' me Santa Claus was only somebody rigged up t'
fool folks, an' hadn't no reindeers at all."

The mother turned away, her wits groping for an answer.

"Hadn't ought 'a' told mother, Tom," said Paul, with a little
quiver of reproach and pity. "'Tain't so, anyway--we know 'tain't
so."

He was looking into his mother's face.

"Tain't so," Paul repeated with unshaken confidence.

"Mus'n't believe all ye hear," said the widow, who now turned to
the doubting Thomas.

And that very moment Tom was come to the last gate of childhood,
whereon are the black and necessary words, "Mus'n't believe all ye
hear."

The boys in their new boots were on the track of a painter. They
treed him, presently, at the foot of the stairs.

"How'll we kill him?" one of them inquired.

"Just walk around the tree once," said the mother, "an' you'll
scare him to death. Why don't ye grease your boots?"

"'Fraid it'll take the screak out of 'em," said Paul, looking down
thoughtfully at his own pair.

"Well," said she, "you'll have me treed if you keep on. No hunter
would have boots like that. A loud foot makes a still gun."

That was her unfailing method of control--the appeal to
intelligence. Polly sat singing, thoughtfully, the locket in her
hand. She had kissed the sacred thing and hung it by a ribbon to
her neck and bathed her eyes in the golden light of it and begun to
feel the subtle pathos in its odd message. She was thinking of the
handsome boy who came along that far May-day with the drove, and
who lately had returned to be her teacher at Linley School. Now,
he had so much dignity and learning, she liked him not half so well
and felt he had no longer any care for her. She blushed to think
how she had wept over his letter and kissed it every day for weeks.
Her dream was interrupted, presently, by the call of her brother
Tom. Having cut the frost on a window-pane, he stood peering out.
A man was approaching in the near field. His figure showed to the
boot-top, mounting hills of snow, and sank out of sight in the deep
hollows. It looked as if he were walking on a rough sea. In a
moment he came striding over the dooryard fence on a pair of
snowshoes.

"It's Mr. Trove, the teacher," said Polly, who quickly began to
shake her curls.

As the door swung open all greeted the young man. Loosening his
snow-shoes, he flung them on the step and came in, a foxtail
dangling from his fur cap.

He shook hands with Polly and her mother, and lifted Paul to the
ceiling. "Hello, young man!" said he. "If one is four, how many
are two?"

"If you're speaking of new boots," said the widow, "one is at least
fifteen."

The school teacher made no reply, but stood a moment looking down
at the boy.

"It's a cold day," said Polly.

"I like it," said the teacher, lifting his broad shoulders and
smiting them with his hands. "God has been house cleaning. The
dome of the sky is all swept and dusted. There isn't a cobweb
anywhere. Santa Claus come?"

"Yes," said the younger children, who made a rush for their gifts
and laid them on chairs before him.

"Grand old chap!" said he, staring thoughtfully at the flannel cat
in his hands. "Any idea who it is?"

"Can't make out," said Mrs. Vaughn; "very singular man."

"Generous, too," the teacher added. "That's the best cat I ever
saw, Tom. If I had my way, the cats would all be made of flannel.
Miss Polly, what did you get?"

"This," said Polly, handing him the locket.

"Beautiful!" said he, turning it in his hand. "Anything inside?"

Polly showed him how to open it. He sat a moment or more looking
at the graven gold.

"Strange!" said he, presently, surveying the wrought cases,

Mrs. Vaughn was now at his elbow.

"Strange?" she inquired.

"Well, long ago," said he, "I heard of one like it. Some time it
may solve the mystery of your Santa Claus."

An ear of the teacher had begun to swell and redden.

"Should have pulled my cap down," said he, as the widow spoke of
it. "Frost-bitten years ago, and if I'm out long in the cold, I
begin to feel it."

"Must be very painful," said Polly, as indeed it was.

"No," said he, with a little squint as he touched the aching
member. "It's good--I rather like it. I wouldn't take anything
for that ear. It--it--" He hesitated, as if trying to recall the
advantages of a chilled ear. "Well, I shouldn't know I had any
ears if it weren't for that one. Come, Paul, put on your cap an'
mittens. We'll take a sack and get some green boughs for your
mother."

He put on snow-shoes, wrapped the boy snugly in a shawl, and,
seating him on a snowboat, made off, hauling it with a rope over
white banks and hollows toward the big timber. The dog, Bony, came
along with them, wallowing to his ears and barking merrily. Since
morning the sun had begun to warm the air, and a light breeze had
risen. The boy sat bracing on a rope fastened before and looped
around him. As they went along he was oversown with sparkling
crystals. They made his cheeks tingle, and almost took his breath
as he went plunging into steep hollows. Often he tipped over and
sank in the white deep. Then Trove hauled him out, brushed him a
little, and set him back on the boat again. Snow lay deep and
level in the woods--a big, white carpet, seamed with tiny tracks
and figured with light and shadow. Trove stopped a moment, looking
up at the forest roof. They could hear a baying of hounds in the
far valley. Down the dingle near them a dead leaf was drumming on
a bough--a clock of the wood telling the flight of seconds. Above,
they could hear the low creak of brace and rafter and great waves
of the upper deep sweeping over and breaking with a loud wash on
reefs of evergreen. The little people of this odd winter land had
begun to make roads from tree to tree and from thicket to thicket.
A partridge had broken out of her cave, and they followed the track
of her snow-shoes down the side-hill to a little brook. Under its
ice roof they could hear the tinkling water. Above them the brook
fell from a rock shelf, narrow and high as a man's head. The fall
was muted to a low murmur under its vault of ice.

"Come, Paul," said Trove, as he lifted the small boy; "here's a
castle of King Frost. There are thousands in his family, and he's
many castles. Building new ones every day somewhere. Goes north
in the spring, and when he moves out they begin to rot and tumble."

He cleared a space for the boy to stand upon. Then he brushed away
the snow blanket flung loosely over the vault of ice. A wonderful
bit of masonry stood exposed. Near its centre were two columns,
large and rugose, each tapering to a capital and cornice. Between
them was a deep lattice of crystal. Some bars were clear, some
yellow as amber, and all were powdered over with snow, ivory-white.
Under its upper part they could see a grille of frostwork,
close-wrought, glistening, and white. It was the inner gate of the
castle, and each ray of light, before entering, had to pay a toll
of its warmth. On either side was a rough wall of ice, with here
and there a barred window. The snow cleared away, they could hear
the song of falling water. The teacher put his ear to the ice
wall. Then he called the boy.

"Listen," said he; "it's the castle bell." Indeed, the whole
structure rang like a bell, if one put his ear down to hear it.

"See!" said he, presently, stirring a heap of tiny crystals in his
palm. "Here are the bricks he builds with, and the water of the
brook is his mortar."

Near the bank was an opening partly covered with snow. It led to a
cavern behind the ice curtain under the rock floor of the brook
above.

The teacher took off his snow-shoes. In a moment they had crawled
through and were crouching on a frosty bed of pebbles. A warm glow
lit the long curtain of ice. Beams of sunlight fell through
windows oddly mullioned with icicles and filtered in at the lattice
of crystal. They jewelled the grille of frostwork and flung a
sprinkle of gold on the falling water. The breath of the
waterfall, rising out of bubbles, filled its castle with the very
wine of life. The narrow hall rang with its music.

"See the splendour of a king's home," said the teacher, his eyes
brimming.

The boy, young as he was, had seen and felt the beauty and mystery
of the place, and never forgot it.

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