Chapter I

by Kate Douglas Wiggin

　　IIt was Christmas Eve and a Saturday night when Mrs. Larrabee, theBeulah minister's wife, opened the door of the study where her husbandwas deep in the revision of his next day's sermon, and thrust in hercomely head framed in a knitted rigolette.

　　"Luther, I'm going to run down to Letty's. We think the twins aregoing to have measles; it's the only thing they haven't had, andLetty's spirits are not up to concert pitch. You look like a blessedold prophet to-night, my dear! What's the text?"

　　The minister pushed back his spectacles and ruffled his gray hair.

　　"Isaiah VI, 8: 'And I heard the voice of the Lord, sayingwhom shall I send?... Then said I, Here am I, send me!'"

　　"It doesn't sound a bit like Christmas, somehow."

　　"It has the spirit, if it hasn't the sound," said the minister. "Thereis always so little spare money in the village that we get less andless accustomed to sharing what we have with others. I want to remindthe people that there are different ways of giving, and that thebestowing of one's self in service and good deeds can be the best ofall gifts. Letty Boynton won't need the sermon!—Don't be late, Reba."

　　"Of course not. When was I ever late? It has just struck seven andI'll be back by eight to choose the hymns. And oh! Luther, I have somefresh ideas for Christmas cards and I am going to try my luck withthem in the marts of trade. There are hundreds of thousands of suchthings sold nowadays; and if the 'Boston Banner' likes my verses wellenough to send me the paper regularly, why shouldn't the people whomake cards like them too, especially when I can draw and paint my ownpictures?"

　　"I've no doubt they'll like them; who wouldn't? If the parish knewwhat a ready pen you have, they'd suspect that you help me in mysermons! The question is, will the publishers send you a check, oronly a copy of your card?"

　　"I should relish a check, I confess; but oh! I should like almost aswell a beautifully colored card, Luther, with a picture of my owninventing on it, my own verse, and R. L. in tiny letters somewhere inthe corner! It would make such a lovely Christmas present! And Ishould be so proud; inside of course, not outside! I would cover myhalo with my hat so that nobody in the congregation would ever noticeit!"

　　The minister laughed.

　　"Consult Letty, my dear. David used to be in some sort of picturebusiness in Boston. She will know, perhaps, where to offer yourcard!"

　　At the introduction of a new theme into the conversation Mrs. Larrabeeslipped into a chair by the door, her lantern swinging in her hand.

　　"David can't be as near as Boston or we should hear of him sometimes.A pretty sort of brother to be meandering foot-loose over the earth,and Letty working her fingers to the bone to support hischildren—twins at that! It was just like David Gilman to have twins!Doesn't it seem incredible that he can let Christmas go by without amessage? I dare say he doesn't even remember that his babies were bornon Christmas eve. To be sure he is only Letty's half-brother, butafter all they grew up together and are nearly the same age."

　　"You always judged David a little severely, Reba. Don't despair ofreforming any man till you see the grass growing over his bare bones.I always have a soft spot in my heart for him when I remember hisfriendship for my Dick; but that was before your time.—Oh! theseboys, these boys!" The minister's voice quavered. "We give them ourvery life-blood. We love them, cherish them, pray over them, do ourbest to guide them, yet they take the path that leads from home. Insome way, God knows how, we fail to call out the return love, or eventhe filial duty and respect!—Well, we won't talk about it, Reba; mybusiness is to breathe the breath of life into my text: 'Here am I,Lord, send me!' Letty certainly continues to say it heroically,whatever her troubles."

　　"Yes, Letty is so ready for service that she will always be sent, tillthe end of time; but if David ever has an interview with his CreatorI can hear him say: "'Here am I, Lord; send Letty!'"

　　The minister laughed again. He laughed freely and easily nowadays. Hisfirst wife had been a sort of understudy for a saint, and after abrief but depressing connubial experience she had died, leaving himwith a boy of six; a boy who already, at that tender age, seemed tocherish a passionate aversion to virtue in any form—the result,perhaps, of daily doses of the catechism administered by an abnormallypious mother.

　　The minister had struggled valiantly with his paternal and parochialcares for twelve lonely years when he met, wooed, and won (very muchto his astonishment and exaltation) Reba Crosby. There never was abetter bargain driven! She was forty-five by the family Bible buttwenty-five in face, heart, and mind, while he would have been printedas sixty in "Who's Who in New Hampshire" although he was far older inpatience and experience and wisdom. The minister was spiritual, frail,and a trifle prone to self-depreciation; the minister's new wife wasspirited, vigorous, courageous, and clever. She was also Western-born,college-bred, good as gold, and invincibly, incurably gay. Theminister grew younger every year, for Reba doubled his joys and halvedhis burdens, tossing them from one of her fine shoulders to the otheras if they were feathers. She swept into the quiet village life ofBeulah like a salt sea breeze. She infused a new spirit into the bleakchurch "sociables" and made them positively agreeable functions. Thechoir ceased from wrangling, the Sunday School plucked up courage andflourished like a green bay tree. She managed the deacons, she bracedup the missionary societies, she captivated the parish, she cheeredthe depressed and depressing old ladies and cracked jokes with theinvalids.

　　"Ain't she a little mite too jolly for a minister's wife?" questionedMrs. Ossian Popham, who was a professional pessimist.

　　"If this world is a place of want, woe, wantonness, an' wickedness,same as you claim, Maria, I don't see how a minister's wife can betoo jolly!" was her husband's cheerful reply. "Look how she's meltedup the ice in both congregations, so't the other church is mostwillin' we should prosper, so long as Mis' Larrabee stays here an' wedon't get too fur ahead of 'em in attendance. Me for the smiles,Maria!"

　　And Osh Popham was right; for Reba Larrabee convinced the members ofthe rival church (the rivalry between the two being in rigidity ofcreed, not in persistency in good works) that there was room in heavenfor at least two denominations; and said that if they couldn't unitein this world, perhaps they'd get round to it in the next. Finally,she saved Letitia Boynton's soul alive by giving her a warm,understanding friendship, and she even contracted to win back theminister's absent son some time or other, and convince him of theerror of his ways.

　　"Let Dick alone a little longer, Luther," she would say; "don't hurryhim, for he won't come home so long as he's a failure; it would pleasethe village too much, and Dick hates the village. He doesn't acceptour point of view, that we must love our enemies and bless them thatdespitefully use us. The village did despitefully use Dick, and forthat matter, David Gilman too. They were criticized, gossiped about,judged without mercy. Nobody believed in them, nobody ever praisedthem;—and what is that about praise being the fructifying sun inwhich our virtues ripen, or something like that? I'm not quoting itright, but I wish I'd said it. They were called wild when most oftheir wildness was exuberant vitality; their mistakes were magnified,their mad pranks exaggerated. If I'd been married to you, my dear,while Dick was growing up, I wouldn't have let you keep him here inthis little backwater of life; he needed more room, more movement.They wouldn't have been so down on him in Racine, Wisconsin!"

　　Mrs. Larrabee lighted her lantern, closed the door behind her, andwalked briskly down the lonely road that led from the parsonage atBeulah Corner to Letitia Boynton's house. It was bright moonlight andthe ground was covered with light-fallen snow, but the lantern habitwas a fixed one among Beulah ladies, who, even when they were notwidows or spinsters, made their evening calls mostly without escort.The light of a lantern not only enabled one to pick the better side ofa bad road, but would illuminate the face of any male stranger whomight be of a burglarious or murderous disposition. Reba Larrabee wasnot a timid person; indeed, she was wont to say that men were soscarce in Beulah that unless they were out-and-out ruffians it wouldbe an inspiration to meet a few, even if it were only to pass them inthe middle of the road.

　　There was a light in the meeting-house as she passed, and then therewas a long stretch of shining white silence unmarked by any humanhabitation till she came to the tumble-down black cottage inhabited by"Door-Button" Davis, as the little old man was called in the village.In the distance she could see Osh Popham's two-story house brilliantlyilluminated by kerosene lamps, and as she drew nearer she evendescried Ossian himself, seated at the cabinet organ in hisshirt-sleeves, practicing the Christmas anthem, his daughter holding acandle to the page while she struggled to adjust a circuitous alto toher father's tenor. On the hither side of the Popham house, and quiteobscured by it, stood Letitia Boynton's one-story gray cottage. It hada clump of tall cedar trees for background and the bare branches ofthe elms in front were hung lightly with snow garlands. As Mrs.Larrabee came closer, she set down her lantern and looked fixedly atthe familiar house as if something new arrested her gaze.

　　"It looks like a little night-light!" she thought. "And how queer ofLetty to be sitting at the open window!"

　　Nearer still she crept, yet not so near as to startle her friend. Atall brass candlestick, with a lighted tallow candle in it, stood onthe table in the parlor window; but the room in which Letty sat wasunlighted save by the fire on the hearth, which gleamed brightlybehind the quaint andirons—Hessian soldiers of iron, painted in gaycolors. Over the mantel hung the portrait of Letty's mother, a benignfigure clad in black silk, the handsome head topped by a snowy muslincap with floating strings. Just round the corner of the fireplace wasa half-open door leading into a tiny bedroom, and the flickering flamelighted the heads of two sleeping children, arms interlocked, brighttangled curls flowing over one pillow.

　　Letty herself sat in a low chair by the open window wrapped in an oldcape of ruddy brown homespun, from the folds of which her delicatehead rose like a flower in a bouquet of autumn leaves. One elbowrested on the table; her chin in the cup of her hand. Her head wasturned away a little so that one could see only the knot of bronzehair, the curve of a cheek, and the sweep of an eyelash.

　　"What a picture!" thought Reba. "The very thing for my Christmas card!It would do almost without a change, if only she is willing to let meuse her."

　　"Wake up, Letty!" she called. "Come and let me in!—Why, your frontdoor isn't closed!"

　　"The fire smoked a little when I first lighted it," said Letty, risingwhen her friend entered, and then softly shutting the bedroom doorthat the children might not waken. "The night is so mild and the roomso warm, I couldn't help opening the window to look at the moon on thesnow. Sit down, Reba! How good of you to come when you've beenrehearsing for the Christmas Tree exercises all the afternoon."