Part 22

"Well," said Calliope, then, "it's the children. No it ain't, it's Friendship. The town's about as broad as a broom straw an' most as deep. Anything differ'nt scares 'em like something wore out'd ought to. Friendship's got an i-dee that Christmas begins in a stocking an' ends off in a candle. It thinks the rest o' the days are reg'lar, self-respecting days, but it looks on Christmas like an extry thing, thrown in to please 'em. It acts as if the rest o' the year was plain cake an' the holidays was the frostin' to be et, an' everybody grab the best themselves, give or take."

"Calliope!" I cried--for this was as if the moon had objected to the heavens.

"Oh, I know I'd ought not to," she said sadly; "but don't folks act as if time was give to 'em to run around wild with, as best suits 'em? Three hundred an' 'leven days a year to use for themselves, an' Sundays an' Christmas an' Thanksgivin' to give away looks to me a rill fair division. But, no. Some folks act like Sundays an' holidays was not only the frostin', but the nuts an' candy an' ice-cream o' things--their ice-cream, to eat an' pass to their own, an' scrape the freezer."

And then came the heart of the matter.

"'T seems," said Calliope, "there's that children's Christmas tree at the new minister's on Christmas Eve. But that ain't till ha'-past seven, an' I done my best to hev some o' the children stop in here on their way, for my little party. An' with one set o' lungs their mas says no, they'd get mussed for the tree if they do. I offered to hev 'em bring their white dresses pinned in papers, an' we'd dress 'em here--I think the grandma ladies'd like that. But their mas says no, pinned in papers'd take the starch out an' their hair'd get all over their heads. An' some o' the mothers says indignant: 'Old ladies from the poorhouse end o' the home--well, I should think not! Children is very easy to take things. If you'd hed young o' your own, you'd think more, Calliope,' they says witherin'."

Her little wrinkled hands were trembling at the enormity.

"I donno," she added, "but I was foolish to try it. But I did want to get a-hold o' somethin' beautiful for them old ladies to see. An', my mind, they ain't much so rilly lovely as little young children, together in a room."

"But, Calliope," I said in distress, "isn't there even one child you can get?"

"No, sir," she said. "Not a one. I been everywhere. You know they ain't any poor in Friendship. We're all comfortable enough off to be overparticular."

"But wouldn't you think," I said, "at Christmas time--"

"Yes, you would," Calliope said, "you would. You'd think Christmas'd make everything kind o' softened up an' differ'nt. Every time I look at the holly myself, I feel like I'd just shook hands with somebody cordial."

None the less--for Calliope had drunk deep of the wine of doing and she never gave up any project--at four o'clock on the day before Christmas I saw the closed 'bus driven by Jimmy Sturgis fare briskly past my house on its way to the "start of the Plank Road," to the Old Ladies' Home. Within, I knew, were quilts and hot stones of Calliope's providing; and Jimmy had hung the 'bus windows with cedar, and two little flags fluttered from the door. It all had a merry, holiday air as Jimmy shook the lines and drew on swiftly through the snow to those wistful nine guests, who at last were to be "in Christmas," too.

"If they can't do nothin' else," Calliope had said, "they can talk over old times, without hot milk interferin'. But I wish, an' I wish--seem's though there'd ought always to be a child around on Star o' Bethlehem night, don't it?"

I dined alone that Star of Bethlehem night, and to dine alone under Christmas candles is never a cheerful business. The Proudfit car was to come for me soon after eight, and at eight I stood waiting at the window of my little living room, saying to myself that if I were to drop from the air to a deserted country road, I should be certain that it was Christmas Eve. You can tell Christmas Eve anywhere, like a sugar-plum, with your eyes shut. It is not the lighted houses, or the close-curtained windows behind which Christmas trees are fruiting; nor yet, in Friendship, will it be the post-office store or the home bakery windows, gay with Christmas trappings. But there is in the world a subdued note of joyful preparation, as if some spirit whom one never may see face to face had on this night a gift of perceptible life. And in spite of my loneliness, my heart upleaped to the note of a distant sleigh-bell jingling an air of "Home, going Home, Christmas Eve and going Home."

Then, when the big Proudfit car came flashing to my door, I had a sweet surprise. For from it, through the snowy dark, came running a little fairy thing, and Viola Ordway danced to my door with her mother, muffled in furs.

"We've been close in the house all day," Mrs. Ordway cried, "and now we've run away to get you. Come!"

As for me, I took Viola in my arms and lifted her to my hall table and caught off her cloak and hood. I can never resist doing this to a child. I love to see the little warm, plump body in its fine white linen emerge rose-wise, from the calyx cloak; and I love that shy first gesture, whatever it may be, of a child so emerging. The turning about, the freeing of soft hair from the neck, the smoothing down of the frock, the half-abashed upward look. Viola did more. She laid one hand on my cheek and held it so, looking at me quite gravely, as if that were some secret sign of brotherhood in the unknown, which she remembered and I, alas! had forgotten. But I perfectly remembered how to kiss her. If only, I thought, all the empty arms could know a Viola. If only all the empty arms, up and down the world, could know a Viola even just at Christmas time. If only--

Over the top of Viola's head I looked across at Nita Ordway, and a sudden joyous purpose lighted all the air about me--as a joyous purpose will. Oh, if only--And then I heard myself pouring out a marvellous jumble of sound and senselessness.

"Nita!" I cried, "you are not a Friendship Village mother! You are not afraid. Viola is not going to the new minister's Christmas tree. Oh, don't you see? It's still early--surely we have time! The grandma ladies must see Viola!"

I remember how Nita Ordway laughed, and her answer made me love her the more--as is the way of some answers.

"I don't catch it--I don't," she said, "but it sounds delicious. All courage, and old ladies, and ample time for everything! If I said, 'Of course,' would that do?"

Already I was tying Viola's hood, and next to taking off a child's hood I love putting one on--surely every one will have noticed how their mouths bud up for kissing. While we sped along the Plank Road toward Calliope's cottage, I poured out the story of who were at her house that night, and why, and all that had befallen. In a moment the great car, devouring its own path of light, set us down at Calliope's gate, and Calliope herself, trim in her gray henrietta, her wrinkled face flushed and shining, came at our summons. And I pushed Viola in before us--little fairy thing in a fluff of white wraps and white furs.

"Look, Calliope!" I cried.

Calliope looked down at her, and I think she can hardly have seen Mrs. Ordway and me at all. She smote her hands softly together.

"Oh," she said, "if it isn't! Oh--a child for Star o' Bethlehem night, after all!"

She dropped to her knees before Viola, touching the little girl's hand almost shyly. There was in Calliope's face when she looked at any child a kind of nakedness of the woman's soul; and she, who was so deft, was curiously awkward in such a presence.

"They're out there in the dinin' room," she whispered, "settin' round the cook stove. I saw they felt some better out there. Le's us leave her go out alone by herself, just the way she is."

And that was what we did. We said something to Viola softly about "the poor grandma ladies, with no little girl to love," and then Calliope opened the door and let her through.