On Christmas Day In The Evening Part 1

On Christmas Day In The Evening.

by Grace Louise Smith Richmond.

All the Fernald family go back to the old home for Christmas, now, every year. Last Christmas was the third on which Oliver and Edson, Ralph and Guy, Carolyn and Nan, were all at the familiar fireside, as they used to be in the days before they were married. The wives and husbands and children go too--when other family claims can be compromised with--and no one of them, down to Carolyn's youngest baby, who was not a year old last Christmas, has sustained a particle of harm from the snowy journey to North Estabrook, tucked away though it is among the hills, where the drifts are deep.

Taking them all together they are quite a company. And as Father and Mother Fernald are getting rather well along in years, and such a house-party means a good deal of preparation, last year their younger daughter Nan, and her husband, Sam Burnett: and their youngest son, Guy, and his wife of a year, Margaret: went up to North Estabrook two days ahead of the rest, to help with the finis.h.i.+ng labours. Sam Burnett and Guy Fernald, being busy young men all the year round, thought it great sport to get up into the country in the winter, and planned, for a fortnight beforehand, to be able to manage this brief vacation. As for Nan and Margaret--they are always the best of friends. As for Father and Mother Fernald----

"I don't know but this is the best part of the party," mused John Fernald, looking from one to another of them, and then at his wife, as they sat together before the fireplace, on the evening of the arrival.

"It was all over so quick, last year, and you were all piling back to town, to your offices, in such a hurry, you boys. Now we can have a spell of quiet talk, before the fun begins. That suits us to a T --eh, Mother?"

Mrs. Fernald nodded, smiling. Her hand, held fast in Guy's, rested on his knee; Nan's charming head, with its modish dressing, lay against her shoulder. What more could a mother ask? Across the fireplace, Sam Burnett, most satisfactory of sons-in-law, and Margaret, Guy's best beloved, who had made the year one long honeymoon to him--so he declared--completed the little circle.

There was much to talk about. To begin with, there was everybody in North Estabrook to inquire after; and though North Estabrook is but a very small village, it takes time to inquire after everybody. Quite suddenly, having asked solicitously concerning a very old woman, who had nursed most of the Fernald children in their infancy and was always remembered by them with affection, it occurred to Nan to put a question which had been on her mind ever since she had come into town on the afternoon stage.

"Speaking of Aunt Eliza, Mother, makes me think of the old church. She used to talk so much about liking to hear the bell ring, right up over her head, next door. _Does_ the bell ever ring, these days--or have cobwebs grown over the clapper?"

A shadow dropped upon Mrs. Fernald's bright face, but before she could speak her husband answered for her. He was more than a little deaf, but he was listening closely, and he caught the question.

"It's a miserable shame, Nancy, but that church hasn't had a door open since a year ago last July, when the trouble burst out. We haven't had a service there since. Mother and I drive over to Estabrook when we feel like getting out--but that's not often, come winter-time. Being the only church building in this end of the towns.h.i.+p, it's pretty bad having it closed up. But there's the fuss. Folks can't agree what to do, and n.o.body dares get a preacher here and try to start things up, on their own responsibility. But we feel it--we sure do. I don't like to look at the old meeting-house, going by, I declare I don't. It looks lonesome to me. And there's where every one of you children grew up, too, sitting there in the old family pew, with your legs dangling. It's too bad--it's too bad!"

"It's barbarous!" Guy exclaimed, in a tone of disgust.

"And all over nothing of any real consequence," sighed Mrs. Fernald, in her gentle way. "We would have given up our ideas gladly, for the sake of harmony. But--there were so many who felt it necessary to fight to have their own way."

"And feel that way still, I suppose?" suggested Sam Burnett, cheerfully.

"There's a whole lot of that feeling-it-necessary-to-fight, in the world. I've experienced it myself, at times."

They talked about it for a few minutes, the younger men rather enjoying the details of the quarrel, as those may who are outside of an affair sufficiently far to see its inconsistencies and humours. But it was clearly a subject which gave pain to the older people, and Guy, perceiving this, was about to divert the talk into pleasanter channels when Nan gave a little cry. Her eyes were fixed upon the fire, as if she saw there something startling.

"People! --Let's open the church--ourselves--and have a Christmas Day service there!"

They stared at her for a moment, thinking her half dreaming. But her face was radiant with the light of an idea which was not an idle dream.

Guy began to laugh. "And expect the rival factions to come flocking peaceably in, like lambs to the fold? I think I see them!"

"Ignore the rival factions. Have a service for everybody. A real Christmas service, with holly, and ropes of greens, and a star, and music--and--a sermon," she ended, a little more doubtfully.

"The sermon, by all means," quoth Sam Burnett. "Preach at 'em, when once you've caught 'em. They'll enjoy that. We all do."

"But it's really a beautiful idea," said Margaret, her young face catching the glow from Nan's. "I don't see why it couldn't be carried out."

"Of course you don't." Guy spoke decidedly. "If people were all like you there wouldn't be any quarrels. But unfortunately they are not. And when I think of the Tomlinsons and the Frasers and the Hills and the Pollocks, all going in at the same door for a Christmas Day service under that roof--well----" he gave a soft, long whistle-- "it rather strains my imagination. Not that they aren't all good people, you know.

Oh, yes! If they weren't, they'd knock each other down in the street and have it over with--and a splendid thing it would be, too. But, I tell you, it strains my imagination to----"

"Let it strain it. It's a good thing to exercise the imagination, now and then. That's the way changes come. I don't think the idea's such a bad one, myself." Sam Burnett spoke seriously, and Nan gave him a grateful glance. She was pretty sure of Sam's backing, in most reasonable things--and a substantial backing it was to have, too.

"Who would conduct such a service?" Mrs. Fernald asked thoughtfully.

"You couldn't get anybody out to church on Christmas morning," broke in Mr. Fernald, chuckling. "Every mother's daughter of 'em will be basting her Christmas turkey."

"Then have it Christmas evening. Why not? The day isn't over. n.o.body knows what to do Christmas evening--except go to dances--and there's never a dance in North Estabrook. Whom can we get to lead it? Well----"

Nan paused, thinking it out. Her eyes roamed from Sam's to her fathers, and from there on around the circle, while they all waited for her to have an inspiration. n.o.body else had one. Presently, as they expected--for Nan was a resourceful young person--her face lighted up again. She gazed at Margaret, smiling, and her idea seemed to communicate itself to Guy's wife. Together they cried, in one breath:

"Billy!"

"Billy! Whoop-ee!" Guy threw back his head and roared with delight at the notion. "The Reverend Billy, of St. Johns, coming up to North Estabrook to take charge of a Christmas-evening service! Why, Billy'll be dining in purple and fine linen at the home of one of his millionaire paris.h.i.+oners--the Edgecombs', most likely. I think they adore him most.

_Billy!_ --Why don't you ask the Bishop himself?"

Margaret flushed brightly. The Reverend William Sewall was her brother.

He might be the very manly and dignified young rector of a fas.h.i.+onable city church, but no man who answers to the name of Billy in his own family can be a really formidable personage, and he and his sister Margaret were undeniably great chums.

"Of course Billy would," cried Margaret. "You know perfectly well he would, Guy, dear. He doesn't care a straw about millionaires'

dinners--he'd rather have an evening with his newsboys' club, any time. He has his own service Christmas morning, of course, but in the evening--He could come up on the afternoon train--he'd love to.

Why, Billy's a bachelor--he's nothing in the world to keep him. I'll telephone him, first thing in the morning."

From this point on there was no lack of enthusiasm. If Billy Sewall was coming to North Estabrook, as Sam Burnett remarked, it was time to get interested--and busy. They discussed everything, excitement mounting--the music, the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the church--then, more prosaically, the cleaning and warming and lighting of it. Finally, the making known to North Estabrook the news of the coming event--for nothing less than an event it was sure to be to North Estabrook.

"Put a notice in the post office," advised Guy, comfortably crossing his legs and grinning at his father, "and tell Aunt Eliza and Miss Jane Pollock, and the thing is done. Sam, I think I see you spending the next two days at the top of ladders, hanging greens. I have a dim and hazy vision of you on your knees before that stove that always used to smoke when the wind was east--the one in the left corner--praying to it to quit fussing and draw. A nice, restful Christmas vacation you'll have!"

Sam Burnett looked at his wife. "She's captain," said he. "If she wants to play with the old meeting-house, play she shall--so long as she doesn't ask me to preach the sermon."

"You old dear!" murmured Nan, jumping up to stand behind his chair, her two pretty arms encircling his stout neck from the rear. "You _could_ preach a better sermon than lots of ministers, if you are only an upright old bank cas.h.i.+er."

"Doubtless, Nancy, doubtless," murmured Sam, pleasantly. "But as it will take the wisdom of a Solomon, the tact of a Paul, and the eloquence of the Almighty Himself to preach a sermon on the present occasion that will divert the Tomlinsons and the Frasers, the Hills and the Pollocks from glaring at each other across the pews, I don't think I'll apply for the job. Let Billy Sewall tackle it. There's one thing about it--if they get to fighting in the aisles Billy'll leap down from the pulpit, roll up his sleeves, and pull the combatants apart. A virile religion is Billy's, and I rather think he's the man for the hour."

II

"Hi, there, Ol--why not get something doing with that hammer? Don't you see the edge of that pulpit stair-carpeting is all frazzled? The preacher'll catch his toes in it, and then where'll his ecclesiastical dignity be?"

The slave-driver was Guy, shouting down from the top of a tall step-ladder, where he was busy s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g into place the freshly cleaned oil-lamps whose radiance was to be depended upon to illumine the ancient interior of the North Estabrook church. He addressed his eldest brother, Oliver, who, in his newness to the situation and his consequent lack of sympathy with the occasion, was proving but an indifferent worker. This may have been partly due to the influence of Oliver's wife, Marian, who, sitting--in Russian sables--in one of the middle pews, was doing what she could to depress the labourers. The number of these, by the way, had been reinforced by the arrival of the entire Fernald clan, to spend Christmas.

"Your motive is undoubtedly a good one," Mrs. Oliver conceded. She spoke to Nan, busy near her, and she gazed critically about the shabby old walls, now rapidly a.s.suming a quite different aspect as the great ropes of laurel leaves swung into place under the direction of Sam Burnett.

That young man now had Edson Fernald and Charles Wetmore--Carolyn's husband--to a.s.sist him, and he was making the most of his opportunity to order about two gentlemen who had shown considerable reluctance to remove their coats, but who were now--to his satisfaction--perspiring so freely that they had some time since reached the point of casting aside still other articles of apparel. "But I shall be much surprised,"

Mrs. Oliver continued, "if you attain your object. n.o.body can be more obstinate in their prejudice than the people of such a little place as this. You may get them out--though I doubt even that--but you are quite as likely as not to set them by the ears and simply make matters worse."

"It's Christmas," replied Nan. Her cheeks were the colour of the holly berries in the great wreaths she was arranging to place on either side of the wall behind the pulpit. "They can't quarrel at Christmas--not with Billy Sewall preaching peace on earth, good will to men, to them.

--Jessica, please hand me that wire--and come and hold this wreath a minute, will you?"

"n.o.body expects Marian to be on any side but the other one," consolingly whispered merry-faced Jessica, Edson's wife--lucky fellow!--as she held the wreath for Nan to affix the wire.

"What's that about Sewall?" Oliver inquired. "I hadn't heard of that.

You don't mean to say Sewell's coming up for this service?"