On Christmas Day in the Morning | Page 6

the way I've neglected 'em these two
years while my head's been so full of--her. It isn't fair. After last year
I'd have come home to-day if it had meant I had to lose--well--Margaret
knows I'm here. I don't know what she thinks."

"I don't believe, Guy, boy, she thinks the less of you. Yes--I must go. It
will all come right in the end, dear--I'm sure of it. No, I don't know how
Margaret feels--Good night--good night!"
* * * * *
Christmas morning, breaking upon a wintry world--the Star in the East
long set. Outside the house a great silence of drift-wrapped hill and
plain;--inside, a crackling fire upon a wide hearth, and a pair of elderly
people waking to a lonely holiday.
[Illustration: "'THE CHILDREN!' SHE WAS SAYING.
'THEY--THEY--JOHN--THEY MUST BE HERE!'"]
Mrs. Fernald crept to the door of her room--the injured knee always
made walking difficult after a night's quiet. She meant to sit down by
the fire which she had lately heard Marietta stirring and feeding into
activity, and warm herself at its flame. She remembered with a sad little
smile that she and John had hung their stockings there, and looked to
see what miracle had been wrought in the night.
"Father!"--Her voice caught in her throat.... What was all this?... By
some mysterious influence her husband learned that she was calling
him, though he had not really heard. He came to the door and looked at
her, then at the chimneypiece where the stockings hung--a long row of
them, as they had not hung since the children grew up--stockings of
quality: one of brown silk, Nan's; a fine gray sock with scarlet clocks,
Ralph's,--all stuffed to the top, with bundles overflowing upon the
chimneypiece and even to the floor below.
"What's this--what's this?" John Fernald's voice was puzzled. "Whose
are these?" He limped closer. He put on his spectacles and stared hard
at a parcel protruding from the sock with the scarlet clocks.
"'Merry Christmas to Ralph from Nan,'" he read. "'To Ralph from
Nan,'" he repeated vaguely. His gaze turned to his wife. His eyes were
wide like a child's. But she was getting to her feet, from the chair into
which she had dropped.

"The children!" she was saying. "They--they--John--they must be
here!"
He followed her through the chilly hall to the front staircase, seldom
used now, and up--as rapidly as those slow, stiff joints would allow.
Trembling, Mrs. Fernald pushed open the first door at the top.
A rumpled brown head raised itself from among the pillows, a pair of
sleepy but affectionate brown eyes smiled back at the two faces peering
in, and a voice brimful of mirth cried softly: "Merry Christmas,
mammy and daddy!" They stared at her, their eyes growing misty. It
was their little daughter Nan, not yet grown up!
They could not believe it. Even when they had been to every
room;--had seen their big son Ralph, still sleeping, his yet youthful face,
full of healthy colour, pillowed on his brawny arm, and his mother had
gently kissed him awake to be half-strangled in his hug;--when they
had met Edson's hearty laugh as he fired a pillow at them--carefully, so
that his father could catch it;--when they had seen plump pretty Carol
pulling on her stockings as she sat on the floor smiling up at
them;--Oliver, advancing to meet them in his bath-robe and
slippers;--Guy, holding out both arms from above his blankets, and
shouting "Merry Christmas!--and how do you like your
children?"--even then it was difficult to realise that not one was
missing--and that no one else was there. Unconsciously Mrs. Fernald
found herself looking about for the sons' wives and daughters' husbands
and children. She loved them all;--yet--to have her own, and no others,
just for this one day--it was happiness indeed.
When they were all downstairs, about the fire, there was great rejoicing.
They had Marietta in; indeed, she had been hovering continuously in
the background, to the apparently frightful jeopardy of the breakfast in
preparation, upon which, nevertheless, she had managed to keep a
practised eye.
"And you were in it, Marietta?" Mr. Fernald said to her in astonishment,
when he first saw her. "How in the world did you get all these people
into the house and to bed without waking us?"

"It was pretty consid'able of a resk," Marietta replied, with modest
pride, "'seein' as how they was inclined to be middlin' lively. But I kep'
a-hushin' 'em up, and I filled 'em up so full of victuals they couldn't talk.
I didn't know's there'd be any eatables left for to-day," she
added--which last remark, since she had been slyly baking for a week,
Guy thought might be considered pure bluff.
At the breakfast table, while the eight heads were bent, this