Speaker 1: Christmas waits in Boston. When my friends of the Boston
Daily Advertiser asked me last year to contribute to their
Christmas number, I was very glad to recall this scrap
of mister Ingham's memoirs, for in most modern Christmas stories
I have observed that the rich wake up of a
sudden to befriend the poor, and that the moral is
educed from such compassion. The incidents in this story show
what all life shows, that the poor befriend the rich
as truly as the rich befriend the poor, that in
the Christian life each needs all. I have been asked
a dozen times how far this story is true. Of course,
no such series of incidents has ever taken place in
this order in four or five hours. But there is
nothing told here which has not parallels perfectly fair in
my experience, or in that of any working minister. I
always give myself a Christmas present, and on this particular
year the present was a Carol party, which is about
as good fun all things consenting kindly as a man
can have. Many things must consent. It will appear. First
of all, there must be good sleighing, and second a
fine night for Christmas eve ours are not the carolings
of your poor shivering little east Angles or South Mercians,
where they have to plod round a foot in countries
which do not know what a sleigh ride is. I
had asked Harry to have sixteen of the best voices
in the chapel school to be trained to five or
six good carols, without knowing why. We did not care
to disappoint them. If a February thaw setting in on
the twenty fifth of December should break up the spree
before it began, then I had told Howland that he
must reserve for me a span of good horses and
a sleigh that I could pack sixteen small children into,
tight stowed. Howland is always good about such things. He
knew what the sleigh was for, having done the same
in other years, and made the span four horses of
his own accord, because the children would like it better
and it would be no difference to him. Sunday night,
as the weather nymphs ordered, the wind hauled round to
the northwest and everything froze hard. Monday night things moderated
and the snow began to fall steadily, so steadily, and
so Tuesday night, the Metropolitan people gave up their unequal contest,
all good men and angels rejoicing at their discomfiture, and
only a few of the people in the very lowest
bulgey being ill natured enough to grieve. And thus it
was that by Thursday evening was one hard compact roadway
from Copse Hill to the bone Burner's Gehenna, fit for
good men and angels to ride over, without jar, without noise,
and without fatigue to horse or man. So it was
that when I came down with Lycidas to the chapel
at seven o'clock, I found Harry had gathered there his
eight pretty girls and his eight jolly boys, and had
them practicing for the last time Carol, Carol, Christians, Carol
joyfully Carol for the coming of Christ's Nativity. I think
the children had got an inkling of what was coming,
or perhaps Harry had hinted it to their mother's. Certainly
they were warmly dressed, and when fifteen minutes afterwards Howland
came round with the sleigh, he had put in as
many rugs and bear skins as if he thought the
children were to be taken newborn from their respective cradles.
Great was the rejoicing as the bells of the horses
rang beneath the chapel windows, and Harry did not get
his last de capo for his last carol. Not much matter, indeed,
for they were perfect enough in it. Before midnight, Yissidas
and I tumbled in on the back seat, each with
a child in his lap to keep us warm. I
flanked by Sam Perry, and he by John Rich, both
of the mercurial age and therefore good to do errands.
Harry was in front somewhere flanked in likewise, and the
other children lay miscellaneously in between, like sardines when you
have first opened the box. I had invited Lycidas, because
besides being my best friend, he is the best fellow
in the world, and so deserves the best Christmas Eve
can give him. Under the full moon, on the still
white snow, with sixteen children at the happiest and with
the blessed memories of the best the world has ever had.
There can be nothing better than two or three such hours.
First driver out on Commonwealth Avenue, that will tone down
the horses. Stop on the left after you've passed Fairfield Street.
So we dashed up to the front of Halliburton's palace,
where he was keeping his first crist Mistide, and the children,
whom Harry had hushed down for a square or two,
broke forth with good, full voice under his strong lead
in Shepherd of Tender Sheep, singing with all that unconscious
pathos with which children do sing, and starting the tears
in your eyes in the midst of your gladness. The
instant the horse's bells stopped, their voices began. In an
instant more we saw Haliburton and Anna run to the
window and pull up the shades, and in a minute
more faces at all the windows. And so the children
sung through Clement's old hymn. Little did Clement think of
bells and snow as he taught it in his Sunday
school there in Alexandria. But perhaps to day, as they
pin up the laurels and the palm in the chapel
at Alexandria, they are humming the words, not thinking of
Clement more than he thought of us. As the children
closed with swell the true diumphant song to Christ, our King,
Haliburton came running out and begged me to bring them in,
But I told him no. As soon as I could
hush their shouts of Merry Christmas, that we had a
long journey before us, and we must not alight by
the way. And the children broke out with hail to
the night, hail to the day, rather a favorite, quicker
and more to the childish taste perhaps than the other.
And with another Merry Christmas, we were off again, off
the length of Commonwealth Avenue to where it crosses the
Brookline branch of the Mill Dam, dashing along with the
gayest of the sleighing parties. As we came back into
town up Chestnut Street, through Louisbourg Square, ran the sleigh
into a bank on the slope of Pinckney Street in
front of Walter's house, and before they suspected there was
any one had come, the children were singing Carol, Carol Christians,
Carol joyful Ye, kisses flung from the window, kisses flung
back from the street, Merry Christmas again with a good will.
And then one of the girls began.
Speaker 2: When Anna took the baaby and pressed his lips to hers,
and all of them fell in so cheerily.
Speaker 1: Oh dear me, it is a scrap of old from
the Syrian If they did but know it, and when
after this Harry would fain have driven on, because two
carols at one house was the rule. How the little
witches begged that they might sing just one more song there,
because Missus Alexander had been so kind to them when
she showed them about the German stitches. And then up
the hill and over to the north end, and as
far as we could get the horses up into moon Court,
that they might sing to the Italian image Man who
gave Lucy the boy and dog and plaster when she
was sick in the spring. For the children had you
know the choice of where they would go, and they
selected their best friend friends, and will be more apt
to remember the Italian image Man than Chrysostom himself, though
Chrisostom should have made a few remarks to them seventeen
times in the chapel. Then the Italian image Man heard
for the first time in his life, now is the
time of Christmas come and Jesus in his babes abiding.
And then we came up Hanover Street and stopped under
mister Jerry's chapel where they were dressing the walls with
their evergreens, and gave them hail to the night. Hail
to the day, and so down State Street, and stopped
at the Advertiser office, because when the boys gave their
literary entertainment, mister Hale had put in their advertisement for nothing.
And up in the old attic there the compositors were
relieved to hear nor war nor battle sound. The waiting
world was still, so that even the leading editor relaxed
from his gravity, and the in general man from his
more serious views. And the Daily the next morning wished
everybody a merry Christmas with even more unction, and resolved
that in coming years it would have a supplement large
enough to contain all the good wishes. So away again
to the houses of confectioners who had given the children candy,
to Miss Simmons's house because she had been so good
to them in school, to the palaces of millionaires who
had prayed for these children with tears if the children
only knew it, to Doctor Frothingham's in Summer Street. I
remember where we stopped, because the Boston Association of Ministers
met here and out on Dover Street bridge, that the
poor chair mender might hear our carols sung once more
before he heard them better sung in another world where
nothing needs mending.
Speaker 2: King of Glory, King of peace, hear the song and
see the star.
Speaker 1: Welcome be thou. The king was not christ oar save yore,
and all the others wrung out with order or without order,
breaking the hush directly as the horse's bells were stilled,
thrown into the air with all the gladness of childhood, selected,
sometimes as Harry happened to think best for the hearers,
but more often as the jubilant and uncontrolled enthusiasm of
the children bade them break out in the most joyous,
least studied, and purely lyrical of all. Oh, we went
to twenty places that night, I suppose we went to
the grandest places in Boston, and we went to the
meanest everywhere. They wished us a merry Christmas, and we
them everywhere. A little crowd gathered round us, And then
we dashed away far enough to gather quite another crowd,
and then back, perhaps not sorry to double on our
steps if need were, and leaving every crowd with the
happy thought of the star, the main and the child.
At nine, we brought up at my house d Street,
three doors from the corner, and the children picked their
very best for Polly and my six little girls to hear,
and then for the first time we let them jump
out and run in. Polly had some hot oysters for them,
so that the frolic was crowned with a treat. There
was a Christmas cake cut into sixteen pieces, which they
took home to dream upon, and then hoods and muffs
on again. And by ten o'clock or a little after
we had all the girls and all the little ones
at their homes. Four of the big boys, our two
flankers and Harry's right and left hand men, begged that
they might stay till the last moment they could walk
back from the stable, and rather walk than not, indeed,
to which we assented, having gained parental permission. As we
left younger sisters in their respective homes, Lycidas and I
both thought, as we went into these modest houses to
leave the children to say they had been good, and
to wish a merry Christmas ourselves, to fathers, mothers, and
to guardian aunts, that the welcome in these homes was
perhaps the best part of it all. Here was the
great stout sailor boy, whom we had not seen since
he came back from sea. He was a mere child
when he left our school years on years ago for
the East on board Perry's vessel, and had been round
the world. Here was brave missus Masury. I had not
seen her since her mother died. Indeed, mister Ingham, I
got so used to watching then that I cannot sleep
well yet a night's I wish you knew some poor
creature that wanted me to night, if it were only
in memory of Bethlehem. You take a deal o trouble
for the children, said Campbell, as he crushed my hand
in his. But you know they love you, and you
know I would do as much for you and yours,
which I knew was true. What can I send to
your children? Said Dalton, who was finishing sword blades. Ill
wind was fort sumter, but it blew good to poor Dalton,
whom it set up in the world with his sword factory.
Here's an old fashioned tape measure for the girl, and
a chuffilled wimble for the boy. What there is no boy,
Let one of the girls have it. Then it will
count as one more present for her. And so he
pressed his brown paper parcel into my hand. From every house,
though it were the humblest a word of love, as
sweet in truth, as if we could have heard the
voice of angels singing in the sky. I bade Harry
good night, took Lycidas to his lodgings, and gave his
wife my Christmas wishes and good night, and coming down
to the sleigh again, gave way to the feeling which
I think you will all understand, that this was not
the time to stop, but just the time to begin.
For the streets were stiller now, and the moon brighter
than ever, if possible, and the blessings of these simple
people and the grand people, and of the very angels
in heaven who are not bound to the misery of
using words when they have anything worth saying. All these
wishes and blessings were around me, all the purity of
the still winter night, and I didn't want to lose
at all by going to bed to sleep. So I
put the boys all together where they could chatter, and
took one more brisk turn on the two avenues, and then,
passing through Charles Street, I believe I was even thinking
of Cambridge. I noticed the lights in Woodhull's house, and
seeing that they were up, I thought I would make
Fanny a midnight call. She came to the door herself.
I asked if she were waiting up for Santa Claus,
but saw in a moment that I must not joke
with her. She said she had hoped I was her husband.
In a minute. Was one of those contrasts which make
life life. God puts us into the world that we
may try them and be tried by them. Poor Fanny's
mother had been blocked up on the Springfield train as
she was coming on to Christmas. The old lady had
been chilled through and was here in bed now with pneumonia.
Both of Fanny's children had been ailing when she came,
and this morning the doctor had pronounced it scarlet fever.
Fanny had not undressed herself since Monday, nor slept, I
thought in the same time. So while we had been
singing carols and wishing Merry Christmas, this poor child had
been waiting and hoping that her husband or Edward, both
of whom were on the tramp, would find for her
and bring to her the model nurse, who had not
yet appeared. But at midnight, this unknown sister had not arrived,
nor had either of the men returned. When I rang,
Fanny had hoped I was one of them professional paragons,
dear reader, are shy of scarlet fever. I told the
poor child that it was better as it was. I
wrote along for sam Perry to take to his aunt,
Missus Masury, in which I simply said, dear Mamma, I
have found the poor creature who wants you tonight, come
back in this carriage. I bade him to take a
hack at Gates, where they were all up waiting for
the assembly to be done at Papanti's. I sent him
over to Albany Street, and really, as I sat there
trying to soothe Fanny, it seemed to me less time
than it has taken to dictate this little story about
her before. Missus Masury rang gently, and I left them,
having made Fanny promise that she would consecrate the day
which at that moment was born, by trusting God, by
going to bed and going to sleep, knowing that her
children were in much better hands than hers. As I
passed out of the hall, the gas light fell on
a print of Correggio's Adoration, where Woodhull had himself written
years before. But apaiat is qui in tenebris at umbra
mortis possy de sunt darkness and the shadow of death. Indeed,
and what light like the light and comfort such a
woman as my merry Mazurie brings. And so but for
one of those accidents, as we call them, I should
have dropped the boys at the corner of Dover Street
and gone home with my Christmas lesson. But it happened,
as we irreverently say, it happened as we crossed Park Square,
so called from its being an irregular pentagon of which
one of the sides has been taken away, that I
recognized a tall man plodding across the snow, head down,
round shouldered, stooped forward in walking, with his right shoulder
higher than his left. And by these tokens I knew
Tom Corumb, prince among Boston princes, not Thomas Corumb that
built the Foundling Hospital, though he was of Boston too,
but he was longer ago. You must look for him
in Addison's contribution to a Supper to the Spectator, the
old Spectator, I mean, not the Thursday Spectator, which is
more recent. Not Thomas Corum, I say, but Tom Corumb,
who would build a hospital tomorrow if you showed him
the need, without waiting to die first, and always helps
forward as a prince should. Whatever is princely, be it
a statue at home, a school in Richmond, a newspaper
in Florida, a church in Exeter, a steam line to Liverpool,
or a widow who wants a hundred dollars. I wished
him a merry Christmas, and mister Howland, by a fine instinct,
drew up the horses. As I spoke, corumb shook hands,
and as it seldom happens that I have an empty
carriage while he is on foot, I asked him if
I might not see him home. He was glad to
get in. We wrapped him up with the spoils of
the bear, the fox and the bison, turned the horses
heads again, five hours now since they had started on
this tangled errand of theirs, and gave him his ride.
I was thinking of you at the moment, said Coorum,
thinking of old college times, of the mystery of language
as unfolded by the Abbe Faria to Edmund Dantes in
the depths of the Chateau d'If. I was wondering if
you could teach me Japanese. If I asked you to
a Christmas dinner. I laughed, Japan was really a novelty then,
and I asked him since when he had been in
correspondence with that sealed country. It seemed that their house
at Shanghai had just sent across there their agents for
establishing the first house in Edomo in Japan under the
new treaty. Everything looked promising, and the beginnings were made
for the branch which has since become Dot and Trevellion.
There of this he had the first tidings in his letters.
By the mail of that afternoon. John Corum, his brother,
had written to him, and had said that he enclosed
for his amusement the Japanese Bill of Particulars as had
been drawn out on which they had founded their orders
for the first assorted cargo ever to be sent from
America to Edomo. Bill of Particulars there was stretching down
the long tissue paper in exquisite cherography, but by some
freak of the total depravity of things, the translated order
for the assorted cargo was not there. John Corum, in
his care to fold up the Japanese writing nicely, had
left on his own desk at Shanghai. The more intelligible English,
And so I must wait, said Tom, philosophically, till my
next East India mail for my orders. Certain that seven
English houses have had less enthusiastic and philological correspondents than
my brother, I said. I did not see that that
I could not teach him to speak the Taghelian dialects
so well that he could read them with facility before Saturday.
But I could do a good deal better. Did he
remember writing a note to old Jack per for me
five years ago? No, he remembered no such thing. He
knew Jack Perceval, but he never wrote a note to
him in his life. Did he remember giving me fifty
dollars because I had taken a delicate boy whom I
was going to send to sea, and I was not
quite satisfied with the government outfit. No, he did not
remember that, which was not strange, for that was a
thing he was doing every day. Well, I don't care
how much you remember. But the boy about whom you
wrote to Jack Percival, for whose mother's ease of mind
you provided that half hundred is back again, strong, straight
and well. And what is more, to the point, he
had the whole charge of Perry's Commissariat on shore at Yokohama.
He was honorably discharged out there. He reads Japanese better
than you read English, and if it will help you
at all, he shall be here at your house at breakfast.
For as I spoke, we stopped at Korum's door. Ingham
said Corum, if you were not a person, I should
say you were romance. My child said I. I sometimes
write a parable for the Atlantic, but the words of
my lips are verity. As all those of the Sandemanians
go to bed, do not even dream of the Taglian dialects.
Be sure that the Japanese interpreter will breakfast with you.
And the next time you are in a scrape, send
for the nearest Minister George. Tell your brother Ezra that
mister Corum wishes him to breakfast here tomorrow morning at
eight o'clock. Don't forget the number Pemberton Square. You know, yes, sir,
said George, and Thomas Corum laughed, said Merry Christmas, and
we parted. It was time we were all in bed,
especially these boys. But glad enough, am I as I
write these words, that the meeting of Corum set us back,
that dropped stitch in our night's journey. There was one
more delay. We were sweeping by the old State House.
The boys were singing again, Carol, Carol Christians as we
dashed along the still streets, when I caught sight of
Adam's Todd, and he recognized me. He had heard us
singing when we were at the Advertiser office. Tod is
an old fellow apprentice of mine, and he is now,
or rather was that night, chief pressman in the Argus office.
I like the Argus people. It was there that I
was South American editor, now many years ago, and they
befriend me to this hour. Tod hailed me, and once
more I stopped. What sent you out from your warm
steam boiler? Steam boiler, indeed, said Tod, two rivets loose,
steam room full of steam. Police frightened neighborhood in a row,
and we had to put out the fire. She would
have run a week without hurting a fly, only a
little puff in the streets sometimes. But there we are Ingham.
We shall lose the early mail as it stands, seventy
eight tokens to be worked. Now. They always talked largely
of their addition at the Argus, saw it with many
eyes perhaps, But this time. I am sure Tod spoke true.
I caught his idea at once. In younger and more
muscular times, Tod and I had worked the Adam's press
by that fly wheel for full five minutes at a
time as a test of our strength. And in my
mind's eye I saw that he was printing his paper
at this moment with relays of grinding stevedores. He said
it was so, but think of it to night, said he.
It is Christmas Eve, and not an irishman to be hired,
though one paid him in ingots. Not a man can
stand the grind ten minutes. I knew that very well
from old experience, and I thanked him inwardly for not
saying the damnation grind with Mantini. We cannot run the
press half the time, said he. And the men we
have are giving out. Now we shall lose all our
carrier delivery. Tod said, I is this a knight to
be talking of ingots or hiring, or losing or gaining?
When will you learn that love rules the court, the
camp and the argus office. And I wrote, on the
back of a letter to Campbell, come to the Argus
Office number two. Dassett's alley with seven men, not afraid
to work. Bade Howland take the boys to Campbell's house,
walked down with Tod to his office, challenged him to
take five minutes at the wheel in memory of old times.
Made the tired relays laugh when they saw us take hold.
And then, when I had cooled off and put on
my card again, met Campbell with his seven sons of Annak,
tumbling down the stairs, wondering what round of mercy the
parson had found for them this time. I started home,
knowing I should now have my argus with my coffee,
and so I walked home better so perhaps, after all,
than in the lively sleigh with the tinkling bells. It
was a calm and silent night. Seven hundred years and
fifty three had Rome been growing up to might, and
now was queen of land and sea. No sound was
heard of clashing wars, Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain. Apollo, Pallace,
Jove and Mars held undisturbed their ancient reign in the
solemn midnight centuries ago. What an eternity it seemed, since
I started with those children singing carols Bethlehem, Nazareth, calvary Rome.
Roman senators Tiberius, Paul, Nero, Clement, Ephraim Ambrose, and all
the singers Vincent de Paul, and all the loving wonder
workers Milton and Herbert, and all the carol writers Luther
and Knox, and all the prophets. What a world of
people had been keeping Christmas with Sam Perry and Lycidas
and Harry and me. And here were Yokohama and the Japanese,
the Daily Argus and its ten million tokens and their readers.
Poor Fanny Woodhull and her sick mother there keeping Christmas too,
for a finite world. These are a good many weights
to be singing in one poor fellow's ears on one
Christmas tide. Twas in the calm and silent night, the
Senator of haughty Rome, impatient urged his chariot's flight from
lordly revel, roiling home, triumphal arches, gleaming, swell his breast
with thoughts of boundless sway. What wrecked the Roman? What
befell a paltry province far away in the solemn midnight
centuries ago? Within that province, far away went plodding home
a weary bore, a streak of light before him lay
fallen through a half shut stable door. Across his path.
He passed for naught, told him what was going on within?
How keen the stars? His only thought the air? How
calm and cold and thin in the solemn midnight centuries ago?
Streak of light? Is there a light in Lycidiss's room?
They not in bed? That is making a night of it. Well,
there are few hours of the day or night when
I have not been in Lycidiss's room. So I let
myself in by the night key he gave me, ran
up the stairs. It is a horrid seven story first
class lodging house. For my part, I had as leef
live in a steeple two flights. I ran up two
steps at a time. I was younger then than I
am now, pushed open the door, which was ajar, and
saw such a scene of confusion as I never saw
in Mary's over nice parlor before, or queer. I remember.
The first thing that I saw was wrong was a
great ball of white German worsted on the floor. Her
basket was upset. A great Christmas tree lay across the rug,
quite too high for the room. A large, sharp pointed
Spanish clasp knife was by it, with which they had
been lopping it. There were two immense baskets of white
papered presents, both upset. But what frightened me most was
the center table, three or four handkerchiefs on it, towels, napkins,
I know not what, all brown and red and almost
black with blood. I turned heartsick to look into the bedroom,
and I really had a sense of relief when I
saw somebody bad enough. It was, however, Lycidys, but just
now so strong and well, lay pale and exhausted on
the bloody bed, with the clothing removed from his right
leg and thigh, while over him bent Merry and more Morton.
I learned afterwards that poor Lycidas, while trimming the Christmas
tree and talking merrily with Mary and Morton, who by
good luck had brought round his presence late and was
staying to tie on glass balls and apples, had given
himself a deep and dangerous wound with the point of
the unlucky knife, and had lost a great deal of
blood before the hemorrhage could be controlled. Just before I
had entered the stick tourniquet which Morton had improvised had
slipped in poor Mary's unpracticed hand at the moment he
was about to secure the bleeding artery, and the blood
followed in such a gush as compelled him to give
his whole attention to stopping its flow. He only knew
my entrance by the ah mister Ingham, of the frightened
Irish girl, who stood uselessly by the head of the bed.
Oh Fred said Morton, without looking up. I'm glad you're here,
and what can I do for you? Some whisky? First
of all, there are two bottles, said men who was
holding the candle in the cupboard behind the dressing glass.
I took Bridget with me, struck a light in the
dressing room. How she blundered about the match and found
the cupboard door locked, the key doubtless in Mary's pocket,
probably in the pocket of another dress I did not ask,
took my own bunch, willed tremendously that my account book
drawer key should govern this lock, and it did. If
it had not, I should have put my fist through
the panels. Bottle of bed bug poison, bottle marked bay rum,
another bottle with no mark. Two bottles of Saratoga water,
set them all on the floor. Bridget a tall bottle
of cologne, bottle marked in manuscript. What in the world
is it? Bring that candle? Bridget O distillay maron Montreal?
What in the world did Lycidas bring distilled water from
Montreal for? And then Morton's clear voice in the other room,
M as quick as you can, Fred, yes, in one moment,
put all these on the floor, Bridget, Here they are
at last, bourbon, whiskey, corkscrew, Bridget Indeed, sir, and where
is it? Where? I don't know? Run down as quick
as you can and bring it. His wife cannot leave him,
So Bridget ran. And the first I heard was the
rattle as she pitched down the last six stairs of
the first flight headlong. Let us hope she has not
broken her leg. I meanwhile, am driving a silver pronged
fork into the bourbon cork and the blade of my
own penknife on the other side. Now, Fred from George within,
we all call Morton. George Yes. In one moment, I replied,
penknife breaks off, fork, pulls right out two crumbs of cork.
Come with it? Will that girl never come? I turned round.
I found a goblet on the washstand. I took Lycidas's
heavy clothes brush and knocked off the neck of the bottle.
Did you ever do it, reader, with one of those
pressed glass bottles they make? Now? It smashed like a
prince Rupert's drop in my hand, crumbled into seventy pieces,
a nasty smell of whiskey on the floor, and I
holding just the hard bottom of the thing, with two
large spikes running worthless up into the air. But I
seized the goblet, poured into it what was left in
the bottom, and carried it into Morton as quickly as
I could. He bade me give Lycidas as much as
he could swallow, then showed me how to substitute my
thumb for his and compress that great artery. When he
was satisfied that he could trust me, he began his
work again, silently, just speaking what must be said to
that brave Mary, who seemed to have three hands because
he needed them. When all was secure, he glanced at
the ghastly white face with beads of perspiration on the
forehead and upper lip, laid his finger on the pulse
and said, we will have a little more whisky. No, Mary,
you are overdone. Already, let Fred bring it. The truth
was that poor Mary was almost as white as Lycidys.
She would not faint. That was the only reason she
did not, And at the moment I wondered that she
did not fall. I believe George and I were both
expecting it. Now the excitement was over. He called her
Mary and me Fred, because we were all together every
day of our lives. So I retired from my whisky
again to attack that other bottle. George whispered quickly as
I went, bring enough, bring the bobble. Did he want
the bottle corked? Would that celt ever come upstairs? Bridget,
you see, was still nowhere. I passed the bell rope
as I went into the dressing room and rang as
hard as I could ring. I took the other bottle
and bit steadily with my teeth at the cork, only
of course, to wrench the end of it off. George
called me, and I stepped back. No, said he bring
your whisky. Mary had just rolled gently back on to
the floor. I went again in despair, but I heard
Bridget's step this time. First flight first passage, second flight,
second passage. She ran in in triumph at length with
a screwdriver. No, I whispered, no, the crooked thing you
draw corks with, And I showed her the bottle again.
Find one somewhere and don't come back without it. So
she vanished for the second time. Frederick said, morton, I
think he's never called me so before. Should I risk
the clothes brush again? I opened Lycidis's own drawers, papers, boxes,
everything in order, but not a sign of a tool. Frederick, Yes,
I said, But why did I say? Yes, Father of Mercy,
tell me what to do. And my mazed eyes dim
with tears. Did you ever shed tears from excitement? Fell
on an old razor strop of those days of shaving
made by C. Whittaker Sheffield? The Sheffield stood in black
letters out from the rest like a vision. They make
corkscrews in Sheffield too, If this Whittaker had only made
a corkscrew. And what is a Sheffield wimble? Hand in
my pocket? Brown paper parcel? Where are you? Frederick? Yes,
I said, for the last time, twine off, brown paper off?
And then I learned that the Sheffield wimble was one
of those things whose name you never heard before, which
people sell you in Thames Tunnel, where a hoof cleaner,
a gimlet, a screwdriver, and a corkscrew fold up into
one handle. Yes, I said again, Pop said the cork bubble, Bubble, bubble,
said the whisky bottle in one hand, full tumbler in
the other. I walked in. George poured half a tumblerfull
down Lycidas's throat that time, Nor do I dare say
how much he poured down. Afterwards, I found that there
was need of it, from what he said of the
pulse when it was all over. I guess Mary had
some too. This was the turning point. He was exceedingly weak,
and we sat by him in turn through the night,
giving at short intervals stimulants and such food as he
could swallow easily. For I remember Morton was very particular
not to raise his head more than we could help.
But there was no real danger after this. As we
turned away from the house on Christmas morning, I to
preach and he to visit his patients. He said to me,
did you make that whisky? No, said I, But poor
DoD Dalton had to furnish the corkscrew. And I went
down to the chapel to preach. The sermon had been
lying ready at home on my desk, and Polly had
brought it round to me, for there had been no
time for me to go from Lycidas's home to d
Street and to return. There was the text, all as
it was the day before. They helped every one his neighbor,
and every one said to his brother, be of good courage.
So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth
with the hammer, him that smote with the anvil. And
there were all the pat illustrations as I had finished
writing them yesterday, of the comfort Mary Magdalen gave Joanna
the court Lady, and the comfort the court Lady gave
Mary Magdalen after the mediator of a new covenant had
mediated between them. How Simon the Syrenean and Joseph of
Arimathea and the beggar Bartimaeus comforted each other, gave each
other strength, common force, comfort when the one life flowed
in all their veins. How on board the ship the
tent maker proved to be captain, and the centurion learned
his duty from his prisoner, And how they all came
safe to shore because the new life was there. But
as I preached, I caught Fry's eye. Fry is always critical,
And I said to myself, Fry would not take his
illustrations from eighteen hundred years ago. And I saw dear
Old DoD Dalton trying to keep awake, and Campbell hard
asleep after trying, and Jane Masury looking round to see
if her mother did not come in, and Ezra Shepherd
looking not so much at me as at the window
beside me, as if his thoughts were on the other
side of the world. And I said to them, all, Oh,
if I could tell you, my friends, what every twelve
hours of my life tells me, of the way in
which woman helps woman and man helps man when only
the ice is broken, how we are all rich so
soon as we find out that we are all brothers,
and how we are all in want unless we can
call at any moment for a brother's hand. Then I
could make you understand something in the lives you lead
every day, of what the new Covenant, the new Commonwealth,
the new Kingdom is to be. But I did not
dare tell DoD Dalton what Campbell had been doing for Todd,
nor did I dare tell Campbell by what unconscious arts
Old Dodd had been helping Lycidas. Perhaps the sermon would
have been better if I had done so. But when
we had our tree in the evening at home, I
did tell all this story to Polly and the bairns,
and I gave Alice her measuring tape precious with a
spot of Lycidas's blood, and Bertha her sheffield wimble. Papa,
said old Clara, who is the next child? All the
people gave presents, didn't they as they did in the
picture in your study? Yes, said I, though they did
not all know they were giving them. Why did they
not give such presents every day? Said Clara, oh child?
I said, it is only for thirty six hours of
the three hundred and sixty five days that all people
remember that they are all brothers and sisters. And those
are the hours that we call therefore Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day. And when they always remember it, said Bertha,
it will be Christmas all the time. What fun? What fun,
to be sure? But Clara, what is in the picture?
Why an old woman has brought eggs to the baby
in the manger, and an old man has brought a sheep.
I suppose they all brought what they had, And I
Suppose those who came from Charon brought roses, said Bertha,
and Alice, who is eleven and goes to the Lincoln
School and therefore knows everything, said yes, And the Damascus
people brought Damascus wimbles. This is certain, said Polly, that
nobody tried to give a straw, but the straw, if
he gave it, carried a blessing. End of Christmas Waits
in Boston by Edward Everett Hale