Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

[See page [139]
A DOZEN YARDS FROM THE TRAPPER’S HUT THEY PLANTED ONE POST

THIS WAY TO
Christmas

BY

RUTH SAWYER

AUTHOR OF

Seven Miles to Arden

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Books by

RUTH SAWYER

THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS. Illustrated. Post 8vo

SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo

THE PRIMROSE RING. Illustrated. Post 8vo

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

This Way to Christmas

Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers

Printed in the United States of America

Published October, 1916

TO

DAVID

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of Mrs. William Sharpe, who has so kindly given her permission for the adaptation of parts of Fiona Macleod’s “Muime Chroisd” for the legend of St. Bridget, told here by Johanna. The author found many fragments of the legend in the north of Ireland; but nowhere was it complete as recorded by Fiona Macleod from the Island of Iona.

THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS

I
THE CHAPTER BEFORE THE BEGINNING

I wonder if you know that stories have a way of beginning themselves? Sometimes they even do more than this. They tell themselves—beginning and ending just where they please—with no consideration at all for the author or the reader.

Perhaps you have discovered this for yourself; you may have in mind this minute some of the stories that you wished had begun long before they did—and others that ended before you thought they had any business doing so. These have a very unpleasant way of leaving your expectations and your interest all agog; and I have not a doubt that you have always blamed the author. This is not fair. In a matter of this kind an author is just as helpless as a reader, and there is no use in trying to coax or scold a story into telling itself her way. As sure as she tries the story gets sulky or hurt, picks up its beginning and ending, and trails away, never to come back; and that story is lost for all time. You may try it yourself if you do not believe me.

Now, if I could have had my way, I should have begun with David in the window nook at dusk-hour, looking out on the Hill Country all white with the gathering snow; and I should have said:

“It was the year after last—and the year before next—and just seven days before Christmas—”

I have begun this way a hundred times, and every time the same thing happens. The story behaves disgracefully. It will have none of my way. I have actually heard it screaming: “No! I won’t begin there! I won’t—I won’t—I won’t!” After which it always runs for the door. As a result I have become completely cowed and I have given in. I am making believe now (and so must you, for it never does to let a story get in a bad humor) that after all this is the best beginning.

It was late fall when David’s world dropped away from him; at least to David that is what seemed to happen. When one loses the very things one always expects to have—big things like mother and father, home and the boys on the block—why, there is not so very much of the world left. To David, speeding toward the Hill Country on the big express with Johanna, it seemed as if there was not enough left to fill even one of the many empty days that lay before him.

It had all come about because of father being a scientist. Just what a scientist was David had never felt quite sure, but he knew it meant having a great deal of knowledge and very little time—time for boys. It also meant forgetting things that even David was supposed to remember; things like going to bed, and coming home at dinner-time, and putting on a coat when it was cold, and rubbers when it rained. Mother always laughed at these and said that father was more trouble to look after than David; and she wondered what she would do if the time ever came when she would have to decide between the two of them, and which needed her most.

And then, without any warning, that time had come. Very suddenly father came home one night and announced that there was a fresh development of an almost unknown bacillus among the soldiers in the Eastern war zone; it was the chance of a lifetime for a scientist, and he would go as soon as he could pack and make necessary arrangements. The next moment he had plunged into his pocket for his note-book, and only David had seen how white and still mother had grown. When she spoke at last there was a funny little catch in her voice that sounded as if it had tried to be a laugh, but somehow could not manage it.

“I hoped and prayed that this wouldn’t happen quite so soon—this having to decide between my big boy and my little boy.”

Father had laughed outright. “Nonsense, there is nothing to decide. Of course you stay with David. The war country is no place for either of you, and I shall manage perfectly by myself.”

“The war country is no place for David; but there are plenty of women over there working side by side with their husbands. Oh, my dear, my dear!”

Mother’s arms had gathered them both in and mother was holding them close. It was to father, however, that she was speaking. “I believe you are my little boy, after all. Manage! Over there! When you can’t take care of yourself in your own civilized country! No, my dear, you need a mother more than David does. Besides, there’s Johanna; we’ll send for her. She will look after David almost as well as I can; but what would she do with you!” This time the laugh had right of way and rippled all over mother’s face.

Father had stopped making notes and was looking at them both with that funny wrinkly smile about his mouth that David loved to see.

“Well, sir, what do you think about it?” he said, looking straight at David.

David had squared his shoulders and straightened his chin; but it took two hard swallows before he could answer. “I think, sir, that mother is right. You see I’m eight, going on nine; and when a—man’s that old he ought to be able to look after himself for a while. Don’t you think so?”

“He certainly ought to; but it seems that there are some who never are quite able.” And father’s hand had suddenly reached up to mother’s, which was about his shoulder.

That is all there had been to it. The next day Johanna had come—good, Irish Johanna, who had taken care of him as a baby and had stayed until he had outgrown his need of her and she had married Barney. The day after, he had said good-by to the boys on the block; and he had said it as one about to depart upon a rare adventure, taking his leave of less fortunate comrades. He did not intend that they should discover how much of his world had dropped away from him, or how he envied them the continued possession of theirs. Moreover, it increased his courage threefold to make believe that what had happened was not so bad, after all. In this manner he was able to assume an added stature, one fitting his newly acquired manhood, when the time came to swing the door of his home tight shut; and he was able to say a brave good-by to father and mother.

Now it was all over. He and Johanna were speeding toward the Hill Country, and he was glad, very glad, to be a little boy again and snuggle into the hollow of Johanna’s arm as he had been used to doing in the old nursery days. After all, eight-going-on-nine is not so very old.

David wasted no time. Out of the scraps that were left him he tried at once to build up a new world. He looked out of the car window at the fields and houses flying past, and he thought of all the pleasant things Johanna had promised him. Johanna and Barney were the caretakers of a big summer hotel in the mountains. The summer season was over, the hotel closed, and he was going to live with Johanna and Barney in the lodge and have a whole mountain-top to play on. He was going to help Barney cut down next year’s fire-wood and drive the sledge for him over the lumber roads. He was going to make a toboggan-slide down the cleared side of the mountain; he was going to skate on the pond above the beaver dam, and learn to skee, and a crowd of other jolly things. And in the spring there were to be the maple-trees to tap. Only, in the mean time, there were father and mother traveling farther and farther away; and there was Christmas coming nearer and nearer. And how could he ever stand one without the others?

He turned away from the car window and looked at Johanna; and then out popped the most surprising question from her.

“Hark, laddy! Have ye forgotten all about the fairies and the stories Johanna used to tell?”

David smiled without knowing it.

“Why, no. No, I haven’t. A person never entirely forgets about fairies, even if he does grow up—does he? I guess I haven’t been thinking about them lately, that’s all.”

“Sure, and ye haven’t!” Johanna’s voice had the same folksy ring to it that it had in the nursery days. “Faith, ’tis hard keeping them lively when ye are living in the city. Wasn’t I almost giving over believing in them myself, after living there a few years? It wasn’t till I moved to the hilltops and the green country that I got them back again.”

“Have you seen any up there?”

David asked it as one might inquire about the personal habits of Santa Claus or the chances of finding the crock of gold at the rainbow’s end, experiences one has never had oneself, but which one is perfectly willing to credit to another upon receipt of satisfactory evidence. Moreover, fairies were undeniably comfortable to think about just now. And what is more, whenever things happen that seem unreal and that make you feel strange and unreal yourself, that is the very time that fairies become the most real and easy to believe in. David discovered this now, and it made him snuggle closer to Johanna and repeat his question:

“Have you really seen any up there?”

Johanna puckered her forehead and considered for a moment.

“’Tis this way, laddy. I can’t be saying honestly that I have laid my two eyes on one for certain; and then again I can’t say honestly that I haven’t. Many’s the time in the woods or thereabouts that I’ve had the feeling I’ve just stumbled on one, just missed him by a wink, or beaten him there by a second. The moss by the brookside would have a trodden-down look and the bracken would be swaying with no help o’ the wind—for all the world as if a wee man had just been brushing his way through.”

“It might have been a squirrel,” suggested David, the dust of the city still clouding his mind.

“Aye, but I’m thinking it wasn’t. And if there’s a fairy up yonder in the Hill Country I’m thinking ye’ll find him. ’Twill give ye one thing more to do, eh, laddy?” Johanna tightened the arm about him and laughed softly.

“But how would fairies get over here? I shouldn’t think they would ever want to leave Ireland; and I thought they never came out in winter.”

“They might come because they had been locked out.” Johanna’s eyes suddenly began to dance mysteriously, and she put her lips close to David’s ear that the noise and jar of the train might not drown one word of what she was going to say:

“Whist, laddy! Do ye mind what day it is? ’Tis the very last day of the fairy summer, the last day when they’ll be making the rings and dancing the reels over in Ireland.”

“Why, it’s Hallowe’en,” remembered David.

“Aye, that’s what! And after this night the fairies bolt the doors of their raths fast with magic and never come out again till May Eve, barring once in a white winter or so when they come out on Christmas Eve. But it happens every so often that a fairy gets locked out on this night. He stays dancing too long, or playing too many tricks, and when he gets back to the rath ’tis past cock-crow and the door is barred against him. Then there’s naught for him to do but to bide how and where he can till opening time comes on May Eve.”

“And if—and if—”

“Sure, if one should get locked out this night, what’s to prevent his coming over? What’s more likely than that he’d be saying to himself, ‘Faith, Ireland’ll be a mortal lonely place with the rest o’ the lads gone. I’ll try my luck in another country.’ And with that he follows the rest of the Irish and emigrates over here. And if he ever lands, ye mark my word, laddy, he’ll make straight for the Hill Country! That is, if he’s not there already ahead of himself.”

Johanna laughed and David laughed with her.

“Sure, there’s a heap o’ sense in some nonsense, mind that! And never be so foolish, just because ye grow up and get a little book knowledge, as to turn up your nose and mock at the things ye loved and believed in when ye were a little lad. Them that do, lose one of the biggest cures for heartache there is in the world, mind that!”

David turned back to the window. Already, beyond the foreground of passing woods and meadows, he could catch glimpses of the Hill Country, hazy and purple, lying afar off. Johanna was right. It was better to think of the locked-out fairy than of himself. He found himself wondering if fairies grew lonesome as humans did, and if it was as hard to be locked out of a rath as a home. He wondered if all the fairies were grown up or if there were boy and girl fairies, and father and mother fairies. He would ask Johanna some time, when he was sure he could ask it with a perfectly steady voice. But most of all, he wondered about opening time; and he wished with all his heart that he knew just when opening time would come for him. Until then, he must keep very busy with the fire-wood and the sled and the toboggan-slide and the skating and skeeing and Christmas.

What kind of a Christmas was it going to be?

The train climbed half-way to the top of the highest hill and there it left David and Johanna. Barney was waiting for them with the horses and the big wagon to carry them up the rest of the way; and to David it seemed a very lonesome way. The stars were out before they reached the lodge, but even in the starlight he could see that they were alone on the hilltop except for the great, shadowy, closed hotel and the encompassing fir-trees.

“Ye’ll not be troubled with noise, and ye’ll not be pestered with neighbors,” laughed Barney, as he helped David to clamber down from the wagon. “Johanna says that in the winter there is nobody alive in these parts but the creatures and the ‘heathens’ and ourselves.”

II
THE LOCKED-OUT FAIRY

Two months had passed since David had come to the Hill Country—two months in which he had thrown himself with all the stoutness of heart he could muster into the new life and the things Johanna had promised. He had spent long, crisp November days with Barney in the woods, watching him fell the trees marked for fire-wood and learning to use his end of a cross-cut saw. When the snow came and the lumber roads were packed hard for sledding he had shared in the driving of the team and the piling of the logs. He had learned to skee and to snow-shoe; already he had dulled his skates on the pond above the beaver dam. Yet in spite of all these things, in spite of Barney’s good-natured comradeship and Johanna’s faithful care and love, the ache in his heart had grown deeper until his loneliness seemed to shut him in like the snow-capped hills about him. And now it was seven days before Christmas—and not a word had been said concerning it.

David had begun to wonder if in all that country of bare hilltops and empty valleys, of snow and fir-tree and wild creature, there was anything out of which one could possibly make a Christmas. And slowly the conviction had been borne in upon him that there was not. The very thought of the toy-stores in the city, of the windows with their displays of Christmas knickknacks, of the street booths covered with greens, of what the boys on the block were doing and talking about, of the memories of all the other Christmases that had been, brought unspeakable pangs to his soul. He wondered how he was ever going to stand it—this Christmas that was no Christmas.

And this is how it happened that at dusk-hour, seven days before Christmas, a very low-spirited boy of eight—going-on-nine—sat curled up on the window-seat of the lodge, looking out through the diamond panes and wishing with all his heart that he was somebody else in some other place and that it was some other time of the year.

Barney was always bedding down the horses at this time and Johanna was getting supper; and as there was never anything in particular for David to do it had become a custom with him to watch for the lighting of the lamps in the cabins of the “heathen.” There were four cabins—only one was a cottage; and he could see them all from the lodge by a mere change of position or window. Somehow he liked them, or thought he should like them if he knew them, in spite of all the unalluring things Johanna had said about them. According to her the families who lived in them were outcasts, speaking strange tongues and worshiping strange gods, and quite unfit to cross the door-steps of honest Christian folk. David hardly knew whether Barney shared this opinion or not. Barney teased Johanna a good deal and laughed at her remarks every time she aired her grievance: that there should be no decent neighbors like themselves on all that barren hilltop. In his own heart David clung persistently to the feeling that he should like them all if he ever got near enough to make their acquaintance.

It was always the “lunger’s” lamp that shone out first in the dusk. David could usually tell to the minute when it would be lighted by watching the shadow on the foot-hill. Johanna was uncertain from what country these neighbors had come, but she thought it was Portugal. And Portuguese! Words always failed her when she tried to convey to David the exact place that Portuguese held among the heathen; but he was under the impression that it must be very near the top. One of these neighbors was sick with bad lungs, so his family had come to try the open-air cure of the hills; and they had been here since early spring. David never saw their tiny spark of a light spring out against the dark of the gathering gloom that he did not make a wish that the “lunger” might be a good deal better the next day.

Across the ridge from the foot-hill lay the lumber-camp, and here David always looked for the second light. The camp was temporarily deserted, the company having decided to wait a year or two before cutting down any more timber, and the loggers had been sent to another camp farther north. Only the cook, an old negro, had remained behind to guard the property from fire and poachers, and he it was that lighted in his shack the solitary lamp that sent its twinkling greeting up to David every night.

Straight down the hill shone the third light from the trapper’s cabin, and it was always close to dark before that was lighted. What the trapper’s nationality was Johanna had never happened to specify; but she had often declared that he was one of those bad-looking dark men from the East—Asia, perhaps; and she had not a doubt that he had come to the woods to escape the law. David’s mental picture of him was something quite dreadful; and yet when his light sprang out of the dark and twinkled at him up the white slope he always found himself desperately sorry for the trapper, alone by himself with the creatures he had trapped or shot—and his thoughts.

The fourth light came through another window, shining up from the opposite slope of the hill—the slope that led toward the station and the village beyond. This was the flagman’s light and it hung in the little hut by the junction where the main railroad crossed the circuit line. It was always lighted when David looked for it, and he always sat watching until he should see the colored signal-lights swing out on the track beyond, for then he knew the flagman’s work was over for the day—that is, if all was well on the road. It happened sometimes, however, that there was a snow-slide down the ravine above the crossing, or sometimes a storm uprooted a tree and hurled it across the track, and then the flagman was on guard all night. Now, the flagman was German; and Johanna’s voice always took on a particularly forbidding and contemptuous tone whenever she spoke of him. David had often marveled at this, for in the city his father had friends who were German and they were very good friends. Once David had spoken his mind:

“I don’t see why you call him a heathen, Johanna, just because he was born in the country that’s making the war. It wasn’t his fault—and I don’t see why that’s any reason for treating him as if he had made the trouble himself.”

“Well, how do ye think we’d be treated if we were over there now in that heathen’s country? Sure, ye wouldn’t find them loving us any to speak of.” Johanna’s lips had curled scornfully. “Ye can take my word for it, laddy, if we were there the same as he’s here we would be counting ourselves lucky to be alive at all, and not expecting to be asked in for any tea-drinking parties.”

It troubled David, none the less, this strange unfriendliness of Johanna’s; and this night the weight of it hung particularly heavy upon him. He turned back to his window-nook with a heart made heavier by this condition of alienage. No family, no neighbors, no Christmas—it was a dreary outlook; and he could not picture a single face or a single hearthside behind those four lights that blinked at him in such a friendly fashion.

He realized suddenly that he was very tired. Half the day he had spent clearing a space on the beaver pond big enough for skating; and clearing off a day’s fall of snow with a shovel and a broom is hard work. He leaned against the window niche and pillowed his head on his arm. He guessed he would go to bed right after supper. Wouldn’t it be fun now, if he could wish himself into one of those cabins, whichever one he chose, and see what was happening there this minute? If he had found the locked-out fairy Johanna had talked so much about he might have learned wishing magic from him. What had happened to the fairy, anyway? Of course it was half a tale and half a joke; nevertheless the locked-out fairy had continued to seem very real to him through these two months of isolation, and wherever he had gone his eye had been always alert for some sign of him. Unbelievable as it may seem, the failure to find him had brought keen disappointment. David had speculated many times as to where he might be living, where he would find his food, how he would keep himself warm. A fairy’s clothes were very light, according to Johanna. Undoubtedly he had come over in just his green jerkin and knee-breeches, with stockings and slippers to match; and these were not fit covering for winter weather like this.

David smiled through half-shut eyes. The fairy might steal a pelt from the trapper’s supply; that would certainly keep him warm; and if he were anything of a tailor he could make himself a cap and a coat in no time. Or, better yet, he might pick out one that just fitted him and creep into it without having to make it over; a mink’s skin would be about the right size, or a squirrel’s. His smile deepened at his own conceit. Then something in the dusk outside caught his eye. Some small creature was hopping across the snow toward the lodge.

David flattened his nose to the window to see better, and made out very distinctly the pointed ears, curved back, and long, bushy tail of a squirrel—a gray squirrel. At once he thought of some nuts in his jacket pocket, nuts left over from an after-dinner cracking. He dug for them successfully, and opening the window a little he dropped them out. Nearer came the squirrel, fearlessly eager, oblivious of the eyes that were watching him with growing interest. He reached the nuts and was nosing them about for the most appetizing when he sat up suddenly on his hind legs, clutching the nut of his choice between his forepaws, and cocking his head as he did so toward the window.

The effect on David was magical. He gave his eyes one insistent rub and then he opened the window wider.

“Come in,” he called, softly. “Please do come in!”

For he had seen under the alert little ears something quite different from the sharp nose and whiskers of the every-day squirrel. There were a pair of blue eyes that winked outrageously at him, while a round, smooth face wrinkled into smiles and a mouth knowingly grinned at him. It was the locked-out fairy at last!

He bobbed his head at David’s invitation, fastened his little white teeth firmly in the nut, and scrambled up the bush that grew just outside. A minute more and he was through the window and down beside David on the seat.

“Ah—ee, laddy, where have your eyes been this fortnight?” he asked. “I’ve whisked about ye and chattered down at ye from half a score o’ pine-trees—and ye never saw me!”

David colored shamefully.

“Never mind. ’Tis a compliment ye’ve been paying to my art,” and the fairy cocked his head and whisked his tail and hopped about in the most convincing fashion.

David held his sides and rocked back and forth with merriment. “It’s perfect,” he laughed; “simply perfect!”

“Aye, ’tis fair; but I’ve not mastered the knack o’ the tail yet. I can swing it grand, but I can’t curl it up stylish. I can fool the mortals easy enough, but ye should see the looks the squirrels give me sometimes when I’m after trying to show off before them.”

There was nothing but admiration in David’s look of response. “The coat fits you splendidly,” he said.

“Sure—’tis as snug as if it grew on me. But I miss my pockets, and I’m not liking the color as well as if it were green.”

David laughed again. “Why, I believe you are as Irish as Johanna.”

“And why shouldn’t I be? Faith, there are worse faults, I’m thinking. Now tell me, laddy, what’s ailing ye? Ye’ve been more than uncommon downhearted lately.”

“How did you know?”

“Could a wee fairy man be watching ye for a fortnight, coming and going, and not know?”

“Well, it’s lonesomeness; lonesomeness and Christmas.” David owned up to it bravely.

“’Tis easy guessing ye’re lonesome—that’s an ailment that’s growing chronic on this hillside. But what’s the matter with Christmas?”

“There isn’t any. There isn’t going to be any Christmas!” And having at last given utterance to his state of mind, David finished with a sorrowful wail.

“And why isn’t there, then? Tell me that.”

“You can’t make Christmas out of miles of snow and acres of fir-trees. What’s a boy going to do when there aren’t any stores or things to buy, or Christmas fixings, or people, and nobody goes about with secrets or surprises?”

The fairy pushed back the top of his head and the gray ears fell off like a fur hood, showing the fairy’s own tow head beneath. He reached for his thinking-lock and pulled it vigorously.

“I should say,” he said at last, “that a boy could do comfortably without them. Sure, weren’t there Christmases long before there were toy-shops? No, no, laddy. Christmas lies in the hearts and memories of good folk, and ye’ll find it wherever ye can find them!”

David shook his head doubtfully.

“I don’t see how that can be; but even suppose it’s true, there aren’t even good folk here.”

The fairy grinned derisively and wagged his furry paw in the direction of the lights shining on the hillside:

“What’s the meaning of that, and that, and that? Now I should be calling them good folk, the same as ye here.”

“Hush!” David looked furtively toward the door that led into the kitchen. “It wouldn’t do to let Johanna hear you. Why, she thinks—”

The fairy raised a silencing paw to his lips.

“Whist, there, laddy! If ye are after wanting to find Christmas ye’d best begin by passing on naught but kind sayings. Maybe ye are not knowing it, but they are the very cairn that mark the way to Christmas. Now I’ll drive a bargain with ye. If ye’ll start out and look for Christmas I’ll agree to help ye find the road to it.”

“Yes,” agreed David, eagerly.

“But there’s one thing ye must promise me. To put out of your mind for all time these notions that ye are bound to find Christmas hanging with the tinsel balls to the Christmas tree or tied to the end of a stocking. Ye must make up your mind to find it with your heart and not with your fingers and your eyes.”

“But,” objected David, “how can you have Christmas without Christmas things?”

“Ye can’t. But ye’ve got the wrong idea entirely about the things. Ye say now that it’s turkey and plum-cake and the presents ye give and the presents ye get; and I say ’tis thinkings and feelings and sayings and rememberings. I’m not meaning, mind ye, that there is anything the matter with the first lot, and there’s many a fine Christmas that has them in, but they’ll never make a Christmas of themselves, not in a thousand years. And what’s more, ye can do grand without them.”

David rubbed his forehead in abject bewilderment. It was all very hard to understand; and as far as he could see the fairy was pointing out a day that sounded like any ordinary day of the year and not at all like Christmas. But, thanks to Johanna, David had an absolute faith in the infallibility of fairies. If he said so it must be true; at least it was worth trying. So he held out his hand and the fairy laid a furry paw over the ball of his forefinger in solemn compact.

“It’s a bargain,” David said.

“It is that,” agreed the fairy. “And there’s nothing now to hinder my going.”

He pulled the gray ears over his tow head again until there was only a small part of fairy left.

“Don’t ye be forgetting,” he reminded David as he slipped through the window. “I’ll be on the watch out for ye the morrow.”

David watched him scramble down the bush, stopping a moment at the bottom to gather up the remainder of the nuts, which he stuffed away miraculously somewhere between his cheek and the fur. Then he raised a furry paw to his ear in a silent salute.

“Good-by,” said David, softly, “good-by. I’m so glad you came.”

And it seemed to him that he heard from over the snow the fairy’s good-by in Gaelic, just as Barney or Johanna might have said it: “Beanacht leat!”

III
BARNEY’S TALE OF THE WEE RED CAP

David watched the locked-out fairy go forth into the dusk again. He had always supposed that fairies disappeared suddenly and mysteriously; but this was not so. The little gray furry figure hopped slowly across the patch of white in front of the window, bobbed and frisked, pricked up the alert little ears, and swung his bushy tail, after the fashion of any genuine squirrel, and then dove under the low-hanging boughs of the nearest evergreens. As he disappeared, David felt an arm on his shoulder and turned to blink wonderingly into the face of big Barney bending over him and grinning.

“Well, well, who’d have thought to catch the sandman making his rounds afore supper! What sent ye to sleep, laddy?”

“Asleep!” David scoffed hotly at the accusation. “I was no more asleep than you are, Barney. Why, do you know what I’ve seen, what’s been right here this very minute?”

Barney’s grin broadened. “Well, maybe now it was the locked-out fairy!” For this was the old joke between them.

Little did Barney dream that this time he had not only touched upon the real truth, but he had actually gripped it by the scruff of the neck, as he would have put it himself. David looked wise. He was trying to make up his mind just how best to tell the wonderful news when Barney’s next words held his tongue and sent the news scuttling back to his memory.

“And speaking o’ fairies, I was just asking Johanna—getting supper out yonder—did she mind the tale Old Con, the tinker, used to be telling back in the Old Country about his great-uncle Teig and the wee red cap. Did Johanna ever tell ye, now, about the fairies’ red cap?”

David shook his head.

“It serves as an easy way o’ travel for them; ye might almost call it their private Pullman car,” Barney chuckled. “Ye wait a minute and I’ll see is there time to tell the tale myself atween now and supper.”

He was away to the kitchen and back before David had much more than time enough to rub the gathering frost from the window-pane and look out for a possible return of his fairy. Nothing was to be seen, however, but the snow and the trees and the trail of tiny footprints; and big Barney was beside him in the window-nook again, with a mysterious “knowledgeable look” on his face.

“Aye, there’s time and light enough still in the west to see the tale through.” He paused for an instant.

“Ye know, laddy, over in Ireland they’re not keeping Christmas the same as ye do here—the poor, I mean. ’Tis generally the day after, St. Stephen’s Day, tho’ sometimes ’tis St. Stephen’s Eve that they manage a bit of a feast and merrymaking. Them that has little shares with them that has less; and afterward the neighbors gather about the turf fire for a story-telling. Aye, many’s the strange tale ye will hear over in Ireland on one of them nights. And here’s the tale Old Con, the tinker, used for to be telling about his great-uncle Teig—the most close-fisted man in all of Inneskillen.”

And here again is the tale as Barney retold it and David heard it, as he sat in the window-nook of the lodge at dusk-hour just seven days before Christmas.

It was the Eve of St. Stephen, and Teig sat alone by his fire with naught in his cupboard but a pinch of tea and a bare mixing of meal, and a heart inside of him as soft and warm as the ice on the water-bucket outside the door. The turf was near burnt on the hearth—a handful of golden cinders left, just; and Teig took to counting them greedily on his fingers.

“There’s one, two, three, an’ four an’ five,” he laughed. “Faith, there be more bits o’ real gold hid undther the loose clay in the corner.”

It was the truth; and it was the scraping and scrooching for the last piece that had left Teig’s cupboard bare of a Christmas dinner.

“Gold is betther nor eatin’ an’ dthrinkin’. An’ if ye have naught to give, there’ll be naught asked of ye.” And he laughed again.

He was thinking of the neighbors, and the doles of food and piggins of milk that would pass over their thresholds that night to the vagabonds and paupers who were sure to come begging. And on the heels of that thought followed another: who would be giving old Shawn his dinner? Shawn lived a stone’s-throw from Teig, alone, in a wee tumbled-in cabin; and for a score of years past Teig had stood on the door-step every Christmas Eve, and, making a hollow of his two hands, had called across the road:

“Hey, there, Shawn, will ye come over for a sup?”

And Shawn had reached for his crutches, there being but one leg to him, and had come.

“Faith,” said Teig, trying another laugh, “Shawn can fast for the once; ’twill be all the same in a month’s time.” And he fell to thinking of the gold again.

A knock came to the door. Teig pulled himself down in his chair where the shadow would cover him, and held his tongue.

“Teig, Teig!” It was the Widow O’Donnelly’s voice. “If ye are there, open your door. I have not got the pay for the spriggin’ this month, an’ the childther are needin’ food.”

But Teig put the leash on his tongue, and never stirred till he heard the tramp of her feet going on to the next cabin. Then he saw to it that the door was tight barred. Another knock came, and it was a stranger’s voice this time:

“The other cabins are filled; not one but has its hearth crowded. Will ye take us in, the two of us? The wind bites mortal sharp; not a morsel o’ food have we tasted this day. Masther, will ye take us in?”

But Teig sat on, a-holding his tongue; and the tramp of the strangers’ feet passed down the road. Others took their place—small feet, running. It was the miller’s wee Cassie, and she called out as she went by:

“Old Shawn’s watchin’ for ye. Ye’ll not be forgettin’ him, will ye, Teig?”

And then the child broke into a song, sweet and clear, as she passed down the road:

“Listen all ye, ’tis the Feast o’ St. Stephen,

Mind that ye keep it, this holy even.

Open your door and greet ye the stranger,

For ye mind that the wee Lord had naught but a manger.

Mhuire as truagh!

“Feed ye the hungry and rest ye the weary,

This ye must do for the sake of Our Mary.

’Tis well that ye mind—ye who sit by the fire—

That the Lord He was born in a dark and cold byre.

Mhuire as truagh!”

Teig put his fingers deep in his ears. “A million murdthering curses on them that won’t let me be! Can’t a man try to keep what is his without bein’ pesthered by them that has only idled and wasted their days?”

And then the strange thing happened: hundreds and hundreds of wee lights began dancing outside the window, making the room bright; the hands of the clock began chasing each other round the dial, and the bolt of the door drew itself out. Slowly, without a creak or a cringe, the door opened, and in there trooped a crowd of the Good People. Their wee green cloaks were folded close about them, and each carried a rush-candle.

Teig was filled with a great wonderment, entirely, when he saw the fairies, but when they saw him they laughed.

“We are takin’ the loan o’ your cabin this night, Teig,” said they. “Ye are the only man hereabouts with an empty hearth, an’ we’re needin’ one.”

Without saying more, they bustled about the room making ready. They lengthened out the table and spread and set it; more of the Good People trooped in, bringing stools and food and drink. The pipers came last, and they sat themselves around the chimneypiece a-blowing their chanters and trying the drones. The feasting began and the pipers played, and never had Teig seen such a sight in his life. Suddenly a wee man sang out:

“Clip, clap, clip, clap, I wish I had my wee red cap!”

And out of the air there tumbled the neatest cap Teig had ever laid his two eyes on. The wee man clapped it on his head, crying:

“I wish I was in Spain!” And—whist!—up the chimney he went, and away out of sight!

It happened just as I am telling it. Another wee man called for his cap, and away he went after the first. And then another and another until the room was empty and Teig sat alone again.

“By my soul,” said Teig, “I’d like to thravel like that myself! It’s a grand savin’ of tickets an’ baggage; an’ ye get to a place before ye’ve had time to change your mind. Faith, there is no harm done if I thry it.”

So he sang the fairies’ rhyme and out of the air dropped a wee cap for him. For a moment the wonder had him, but the next he was clapping the cap on his head, crying:

“Spain!”

Then—whist!—up the chimney he went after the fairies, and before he had time to let out his breath he was standing in the middle of Spain, and strangeness all about him.

He was in a great city. The doorways of the houses were hung with flowers and the air was warm and sweet with the smell of them. Torches burned along the streets, sweetmeat-sellers went about crying their wares, and on the steps of a cathedral crouched a crowd of beggars.

“What’s the meanin’ o’ that?” asked Teig of one of the fairies.

“They are waiting for those that are hearing Mass. When they come out they give half of what they have to those that have nothing, so that on this night of all the year there shall be no hunger and no cold.”

And then far down the street came the sound of a child’s voice, singing:

“Listen all ye, ’tis the Feast o’ St. Stephen,

Mind that ye keep it, this holy even.”

“Curse it!” said Teig. “Can a song fly afther ye?” And then he heard the fairies cry, “Holland!” and he cried, “Holland!” too.

In one leap he was over France, and another over Belgium, and with the third he was standing by long ditches of water frozen fast, and over them glided hundreds upon hundreds of lads and maids. Outside each door stood a wee wooden shoe, empty. Teig saw scores of them as he looked down the ditch of a street.

“What is the meanin’ o’ those shoes?” he asked the fairies.

“Ye poor lad!” answered the wee man next to him. “Are ye not knowing anything? This is the Gift Night of the year, when every man gives to his neighbor.”

A child came to the window of one of the houses, and in her hand was a lighted candle. She was singing as she put the light down close to the glass, and Teig caught the words:

“Open your door and greet ye the stranger,

For ye mind that the wee Lord had naught but a manger.

Mhuire as truagh!”

“’Tis the de’il’s work!” cried Teig, and he set the red cap more firmly on his head. “I’m for another country.”

I cannot be telling you half of the adventures Teig had that night, nor half the sights that he saw. But he passed by fields that held sheaves of grain for the birds, and door-steps that held bowls of porridge for the wee creatures. He saw lighted trees, sparkling and heavy with gifts; and he stood outside the churches and watched the crowds pass in, bearing gifts to the Holy Mother and Child.

At last the fairies straightened their caps and cried, “Now for the great hall in the King of England’s palace!”

Whist!—and away they went, and Teig after them; and the first thing he knew he was in London, not an arm’s-length from the King’s throne. It was a grander sight than he had seen in any other country. The hall was filled entirely with lords and ladies; and the great doors were open for the poor and the homeless to come in and warm themselves by the King’s fire and feast from the King’s table. And many a hungry soul did the King serve with his own hands.

Those that had anything to give gave it in return. It might be a bit of music played on a harp or a pipe, or it might be a dance or a song; but more often it was a wish, just, for good luck and safe-keeping.

Teig was so taken up with the watching that he never heard the fairies when they wished themselves off; moreover, he never saw the wee girl that was fed and went laughing away. But he heard a bit of her song as she passed through the door:

“Feed ye the hungry and rest ye the weary,

This ye must do for the sake of Our Mary.”

Then the anger had Teig. “I’ll stop your pestherin’ tongue once an’ for all time!” And, catching the cap from his head, he threw it after her.

No sooner was the cap gone than every soul in the hall saw him. The next moment they were about him, catching at his coat and crying:

“Where is he from? What does he here? Bring him before the King!”

And Teig was dragged along by a hundred hands to the throne where the King sat.

“He was stealing food,” cried one.

“He was stealing the King’s jewels,” cried another.

“He looks evil,” cried a third. “Kill him!”

And in a moment all the voices took it up and the hall rang with, “Aye, kill him, kill him!”

Teig’s legs took to trembling, and fear put the leash on his tongue; but after a long silence he managed to whisper:

“I have done evil to no one, no one!”

“Maybe,” said the King. “But have ye done good? Come, tell us, have ye given aught to any one this night? If ye have, we will pardon ye.”

Not a word could Teig say; fear tightened the leash, for he was knowing full well there was no good to him that night.

“Then ye must die,” said the King. “Will ye try hanging or beheading?”

“Hanging, please, your Majesty,” said Teig.

The guards came rushing up and carried him off. But as he was crossing the threshold of the hall a thought sprang at him and held him.

“Your Majesty,” he called after him, “will ye grant me a last request?”

“I will,” said the King.

“Thank ye. There’s a wee red cap that I’m mortal fond of, and I lost it awhile ago; if I could be hung with it on I would hang a deal more comfortable.”

The cap was found and brought to Teig.

“Clip, clap, clip, clap, for my wee red cap. I wish I was home!” he sang.

Up and over the heads of the dumfounded guard he flew, and—whist!—and away out of sight. When he opened his eyes again he was sitting close by his own hearth, with the fire burnt low. The hands of the clock were still, the bolt was fixed firm in the door. The fairies’ lights were gone, and the only bright thing was the candle burning in old Shawn’s cabin across the road.

A running of feet sounded outside, and then the snatch of a song:

“’Tis well that ye mind, ye who sit by the fire,

That the Lord He was born in a dark and cold byre.

Mhuire as truagh!”

“Wait ye, whoever ye are!” And Teig was away to the corner, digging fast at the loose clay, as the terrier digs at a bone. He filled his hands full of the shining gold, then hurried to the door, unbarring it.

The miller’s wee Cassie stood there, peering at him out of the darkness.

“Take those to the Widow O’Donnelly, do ye hear? And take the rest to the store. Ye tell Jamie to bring up all that he has that is eatable an’ dhrinkable; an’ to the neighbors ye say, ‘Teig’s keepin’ the feast this night.’ Hurry now!”

Teig stopped a moment on the threshold until the tramp of her feet had died away; then he made a hollow of his two hands and called across the road:

“Hey, there, Shawn, will ye come over for a sup?”

“And hey, there, the two o’ ye, will ye come out for a sup?”

It was Johanna’s cheery voice bringing David back from a strange country and stranger happenings. She stood in the open doorway, a lighted candle in her hand.

“Ye’d hurry faster if ye knew what I had outside for supper. What would a wee lad say, now, to a bit o’ real Irish currant-bread, baked in the griddle, and a bowl of chicken broth with dumplings!”

IV
DAVID GOES SEEKING THE WAY TO CHRISTMAS AND FINDS THE FLAGMAN

All night long the snow fell, and when David wakened the hilltop was whiter than ever, if such a thing could be. The tiny prints in the snow that had marked the trail of the locked-out fairy were gone.

For a moment David wondered if he could have dreamed it all, and then he knew it could not be just a dream. It must be something more, to bring such good Christmas news—news that lasted all through the night and wakened him with a song in his heart and a gladness that a new day had come. And what a day it was! An orange sun was breaking the gray of the dawn; he could hear the soft push and pound of Barney’s shovel clearing a pathway from the door to the road, and he knew he could be off early on his skees, down the hill to—where he did not know. But the fairy had promised that if he should start out seeking the way to Christmas he would help him.

He dressed quickly to the swinging rhythm of the reel Johanna was lilting in the kitchen below; for in a little lodge bedroom on a hilltop, with the thermometer outside many degrees below zero, one does not dally in putting on one’s clothes. He came down to breakfast for the first time since he had left the old home without having to pretend anything in the way of feelings; and he found beside his plate a letter from father.

“Barney, the rascal, brought it back with him yesterday and carried it about in his pocket all evening, never thinking of it once,” Johanna explained, shaking her fist at that guilty person just coming in.

“Sure, the two of us were that busy entertaining fairies last night we hadn’t mind enough for anything else.” And Barney winked at David knowingly.

David responded absent-mindedly. His thoughts and fingers were too busy with the letter to pay much attention to anything else. Father had little time for boys, as we have already said, but when he did take time the results were unquestionably satisfactory; the letter proved this. It was a wonderful letter, full of all the most interesting seeings and doings—just the things a boy loves to hear about—and yet it was written as any grown-up would write to another. That was one fine thing about father. When he did have time for boys he never looked down upon them as small people with little wisdom and less understanding; he always treated them as equals. But it was what came at the very last of the letter that brought the joyful smile to David’s lips.

Johanna and Barney saw it and smiled to each other.

“Good news, laddy?” Johanna asked.

“There’s nothing about coming home, but there’s something about Christmas.” David consulted the letter again. “Father says he’s been looking around for some time for just the right present to send for Christmas, and he’s just found it. He thinks I’ll like it about the best of anything, and it ought to get here—unless the steamers are awfully delayed—on Christmas day.”

“That’s grand!” Barney beamed his own delight over the news. “What do ye think it might be, now?”

David shook his head.

“I don’t know—don’t believe I could even guess. You see, father never bought me a Christmas present before—he always left mother to choose. He said she knew more about such things than he did.”

“Then ye can take my word for it, if it’s the first one he’s ever got ye ’twill be the best ye ever had.” Barney spoke with conviction, while Johanna leaned over David’s chair and put a loving arm about his shoulder.

“There’s some virtue in losing them ye love for a bit, after all, if it makes one o’ them think about ye and Christmas. Sure, there’s nothing better in life to put by in your memory than rare thoughts and fine letters. And, I’m mortial glad, myself, there’s something good coming to ye, laddy, from over yonder, for many’s the time Barney and I have been afeared ’twas a lonesome Christmas ye’d be finding up here.”

And to the great surprise of every one, David included, David answered cheerfully:

“I don’t believe it’s half bad. Maybe there’s more Christmas round than we know.”

The orange sun had paled to yellow and climbed half the length of the tallest pine from the crest of the hill when David, bundled and furred, adjusted his skees outside the lodge door. Carefully he pushed his way over the level stretch of new snow, for one never knew with new snow just how far one might go down before striking the crust of the old. A few yards beyond the nearest clump of evergreen he stopped. From this point the mountain sloped down on three sides; the fourth carried over the ridge to the neighboring hill. Here David could look down on the encircling valley; and though the snow lay unbroken everywhere save on the road leading straight down to the “crossing” and the village beyond, he could almost vision paths branching out from where he stood and leading down to the three inhabited dwellings on the mountain’s side.

Which way should he go? Where would he first strike his trail for Christmas? Would he follow the road or one of the invisible paths? He asked this silently at first, and then aloud, as if there might be some one near by to hear; and the answer came in the form of a little gray furry coat, a pair of alert ears and a long, bushy tail. Yes, David knew in a twinkling it was the locked-out fairy, come to keep his promise. He did not come close enough for David to see the round, roguish face under the squirrel cap; but he sat up and twitched his head in the direction of the road as if he were saying:

“Come along, David, ye couldn’t be wishing for a braver day to go Christmas-hunting. Have ye fetched along your holiday fowling-piece and your ammunition? For ’tis rare sport, I promise ye, a hundred times better than hunting your furred or feathered brothers. Come along!” And away he hopped down the road toward the crossing.

David followed, as you or I would, and never stopped till the fairy led him straight to the flagman’s hut and disappeared himself behind the drifts beyond the track. Without a moment’s hesitation David turned the knob of the door and walked in.

The hut was a small one-room affair, bare, but clean. The walls were whitewashed and held an array of flags and lanterns, maps and time-tables. An air-tight stove glowed red at one end of the room, and beside it, with his feet on the hob, tilted back in his chair, sat the flagman puffing away at an old meerschaum pipe. He was plainly surprised to see his visitor. His feet came back to the floor with a bang, his pipe came out of his mouth, and he stared at David incredulously for a full minute. Then the ends of his grizzled mustache bristled upward, his mouth opened and twisted the same way, while his eyes seemed to drop downward to meet it, all the time growing bluer and more friendly. David took the whole effect to be a smile of welcome and he responded with outstretched mittened hand.

“Good morning, sir. It’s a—it’s a grand day!”

The knotted fist of the flagman accepted the mitten and shook it warmly.

“Vell—vell—it ees the knabelein from the hilltop come to see old Fritz Grossman. A child again—it ees goot!”

He reached for a little stool, the only other piece of furniture in the room, and pushed it toward David.

“Come—take off the greatcoat and seet down. It ees long since old Fritz has had a child to see him. In summer they come sometime from the big hotel, and from the veelage they used to many come. But now—ach! Now, since the war, eet ees deefferent. Now I am the enemy—the German—and here every one hate the German!”

David felt about for something to say and repeated something he had once heard: “War makes enemies.”

“Ach, ja. But here there ees no war. Here we should all be Americans, and not hate peebles for the country where they were born. Gott in Himmel, can there not be one country kept clean of the hate!”

The blue eyes suddenly grew wet, and he blinked them hard and fast to keep the wetness from spilling over into disgraceful tears.

“Tsa! Old Fritz grow more old woman every day! I not mind but for the children not coming; and this time here and no little tongues to beg tales of the Krist Kindlein and the Weihnachtsman from old Fritz.”

David drew closer and laid a friendly hand on the flagman’s knee.

“I’d like to hear one—I’d like bully well to hear one!”

The flagman croaked gleefully deep down in his throat.

“Zo—but first—I know—the knabelein has a stomach got. All have.”

He rose stiffly and reached back of the stove to where hung his own great bear-coat. From the pocket he brought out a large red apple and handed it to David.

“There, eat. And you shall hear the tale of anodder apple, a Chreestmas apple.”

The flagman tilted back in his chair again and replaced his feet upon the hob. David sat with elbows on knees and ate slowly. There was no sound but the occasional dropping of coals in the stove and the soft, deep guttural of the flagman’s voice. And here is the story as he told it to David—only the broken German accent and the dropping coals are missing.

Once on a time there lived in Germany a little clock-maker by the name of Hermann Joseph. He lived in one little room with a bench for his work, and a chest for his wood, and his tools, and a cupboard for dishes, and a trundle-bed under the bench. Besides these there was a stool, and that was all—excepting the clocks. There were hundreds of clocks: little and big, carved and plain, some with wooden faces and some with porcelain ones—shelf clocks, cuckoo clocks, clocks with chimes and clocks without; and they all hung on the walls, covering them quite up. In front of his one little window there was a little shelf, and on this Hermann put all his best clocks to show the passers-by. Often they would stop and look and some one would cry:

“See, Hermann Joseph has made a new clock. It is finer than any of the rest!”

Then if it happened that anybody was wanting a clock he would come in and buy it.

I said Hermann was a little clock-maker. That was because his back was bent and his legs were crooked, which made him very short and funny to look at. But there was no kinder face than his in all the city, and the children loved him. Whenever a toy was broken or a doll had lost an arm or a leg or an eye its careless mütterchen would carry it straight to Hermann’s little shop.

“The kindlein needs mending,” she would say. “Canst thou do it now for me?”

And whatever work Hermann was doing he would always put it aside to mend the broken toy or doll, and never a pfennig would he take for the mending.

“Go spend it for sweetmeats, or, better still, put it by till Christmas-time. ’Twill get thee some happiness then, maybe,” he would always say.

Now it was the custom in that long ago for those who lived in the city to bring gifts to the great cathedral on Christmas and lay them before the Holy Mother and Child. People saved all through the year that they might have something wonderful to bring on that day; and there was a saying among them that when a gift was brought that pleased the Christ-child more than any other He would reach down from Mary’s arms and take it. This was but a saying, of course. The old Herr Graff, the oldest man in the city, could not remember that it had ever really happened; and many there were who laughed at the very idea. But children often talked about it, and the poets made beautiful verses about it; and often when a rich gift was placed beside the altar the watchers would whisper among themselves, “Perhaps now we shall see the miracle.”

Those who had no gifts to bring went to the cathedral just the same on Christmas Eve to see the gifts of the others and hear the carols and watch the burning of the waxen tapers. The little clock-maker was one of these. Often he was stopped and some one would ask, “How happens it that you never bring a gift?” Once the bishop himself questioned him: “Poorer than thou have brought offerings to the Child. Where is thy gift?”

Then it was that Hermann had answered: “Wait; some day you shall see. I, too, shall bring a gift some day.”

The truth of it was that the little clock-maker was so busy giving away all the year that there was never anything left at Christmas-time. But he had a wonderful idea on which he was working every minute that he could spare time from his clocks. It had taken him years and years; no one knew anything about it but Trude, his neighbor’s child, and Trude had grown from a baby into a little housemother, and still the gift was not finished.

It was to be a clock, the most wonderful and beautiful clock ever made; and every part of it had been fashioned with loving care. The case, the works, the weights, the hands, and the face, all had taken years of labor. He had spent years carving the case and hands, years perfecting the works; and now Hermann saw that with a little more haste and time he could finish it for the coming Christmas. He mended the children’s toys as before, but he gave up making his regular clocks, so there were fewer to sell, and often his cupboard was empty and he went supperless to bed. But that only made him a little thinner and his face a little kinder; and meantime the gift clock became more and more beautiful. It was fashioned after a rude stable with rafters, stall, and crib. The Holy Mother knelt beside the manger in which a tiny Christ-child lay, while through the open door the hours came. Three were kings and three were shepherds and three were soldiers and three were angels; and when the hours struck, the figure knelt in adoration before the sleeping Child, while the silver chimes played the “Magnificat.”

“Thou seest,” said the clock-maker to Trude, “it is not just on Sundays and holidays that we should remember to worship the Krist Kindlein and bring Him gifts—but every day, every hour.”

The days went by like clouds scudding before a winter wind and the clock was finished at last. So happy was Hermann with his work that he put the gift clock on the shelf before the little window to show the passers-by. There were crowds looking at it all day long, and many would whisper, “Do you think this can be the gift Hermann has spoken of—his offering on Christmas Eve to the Church?”

The day before Christmas came. Hermann cleaned up his little shop, wound all his clocks, brushed his clothes, and then went over the gift clock again to be sure everything was perfect.

“It will not look meanly beside the other gifts,” he thought, happily. In fact he was so happy that he gave away all but one pfennig to the blind beggar who passed his door; and then, remembering that he had eaten nothing since breakfast, he spent that last pfennig for a Christmas apple to eat with a crust of bread he had. These he was putting by in the cupboard to eat after he was dressed, when the door opened and Trude was standing there crying softly.

“Kindlein—kindlein, what ails thee?” And he gathered her into his arms.

“’Tis the father. He is hurt, and all the money that was put by for the tree and sweets and toys has gone to the Herr Doctor. And now, how can I tell the children? Already they have lighted the candle at the window and are waiting for Kriss Kringle to come.”

The clock-maker laughed merrily.

“Come, come, little one, all will be well. Hermann will sell a clock for thee. Some house in the city must need a clock; and in a wink we shall have money enough for the tree and the toys. Go home and sing.”

He buttoned on his greatcoat and, picking out the best of the old clocks, he went out. He went first to the rich merchants, but their houses were full of clocks; then to the journeymen, but they said his clock was old-fashioned. He even stood on the corners of the streets and in the square, crying, “A clock—a good clock for sale,” but no one paid any attention to him. At last he gathered up his courage and went to the Herr Graff himself.

“Will your Excellency buy a clock?” he said, trembling at his own boldness. “I would not ask, but it is Christmas and I am needing to buy happiness for some children.”

The Herr Graff smiled.

“Yes, I will buy a clock, but not that one. I will pay a thousand gulden for the clock thou hast had in thy window these four days past.”

“But, your Excellency, that is impossible!” And poor Hermann trembled harder than ever.