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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When the Yule Log Burns, by Leona Dalrymple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: When the Yule Log Burns
+       A Christmas Story
+
+Author: Leona Dalrymple
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2006 [EBook #17510]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE YULE LOG BURNS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "The Doctor's old-fashioned house loomed gray-white
+through the snow-fringed branches of the trees."]
+
+When the Yule Log Burns
+A Christmas Story
+
+By Leona Dalrymple
+Author of "Uncle Noah's Christmas Party," etc.
+
+
+
+
+New York Robert M. McBride & Company 1916
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co.
+
+Published November, 1916
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I
+
+IN WHICH WE LIGHT A YULE-LOG
+
+CHAPTER
+
+  I Kindlings
+
+ II Wishing Sparks
+
+III By the Fire
+
+ IV Embers
+
+
+PART II
+
+IN WHICH WE LIGHT THE NEW LOG WITH THE EMBERS OF THE OLD
+
+  I The Fire Again
+
+ II It Blazes Higher
+
+III The Log at Dawn
+
+ IV The Log at Twilight
+
+
+
+
+Part One
+
+In Which We Light a Yule Log
+
+
+
+
+When the Yule Log Burns
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Kindlings
+
+
+Polly, the Doctor's old white mare, plodded slowly along the snowy
+country road by the picket fence, and turned in at the snow-capped
+posts. Ahead, roofed with the ragged ermine of a newly-fallen snow, the
+Doctor's old-fashioned house loomed gray-white through the snow-fringed
+branches of the trees, a quaint iron lantern, which was picturesque by
+day and luminous and cheerful by night, hanging within the square,
+white-pillared portico at the side. That the many-paned, old-fashioned
+window on the right framed the snow-white head of Aunt Ellen Leslie, the
+Doctor's wife, the old Doctor himself was comfortably aware--for his
+kindly eyes missed nothing.
+
+He could have told you with a reflective stroke of his grizzled beard
+that the snow had stopped but an hour since, and that now through the
+white and heavy lacery of branches to the west glowed the flame-gold of
+a winter sunset, glinting ruddily over the box-bordered brick walk, the
+orchard and the comfortable barn which snugly housed his huddled cattle;
+that the grasslands to the south were thickly blanketed in white; that
+beyond in the evergreen forest the stately pines and cedars were
+marvelously draped and coiffed in snow. For the old Doctor loved these
+things of Nature as he loved the peace and quiet of his home.
+
+So, as he turned in at the driveway and briskly resigned the care of
+Polly to old Asher, his seamed and wrinkled helper, the Doctor's eyes
+were roving now to a corner, snug beneath a tattered rug of snow, where
+by summer Aunt Ellen's petunias and phlox and larkspur grew--and now to
+the rose-bushes ridged in down, and at last to his favorite winter nook,
+a thicket of black alders freighted with a wealth of berries. How
+crimson they were amid the white quiet of the garden! And the brightly
+colored fruit of the barberry flamed forth from a snowy bush like the
+cheerful elf-lamps of a wood-gnome.
+
+There was equal cheer and color in the old-fashioned sitting-room to
+which the Doctor presently made his way, for a wood fire roared with a
+winter gleam and crackle in the fireplace and Aunt Ellen Leslie rocked
+slowly back and forth by the window with a letter in her hand.
+
+"Another letter!" exclaimed the Doctor, warming his hands before the
+blazing log. "God bless my soul, Ellen, we're becoming a nuisance to
+Uncle Sam!" But for all the brisk cheeriness of his voice he was
+furtively aware that Aunt Ellen's brown eyes were a little tearful, and
+presently crossing the room to her side, he gently drew the crumpled
+letter from her hand and read it.
+
+"So John's not coming home for Christmas either, eh?" he said at last.
+"Well, now, that _is_ too bad! Now, now, _now_, mother," as Aunt Ellen
+surreptitiously wiped her glasses, "we should feel proud to have such
+busy children. There's Ellen and Margaret and Anne with a horde of
+youngsters to make a Christmas for, and John--bless your heart, Ellen,
+_there's_ a busy man! A broker now is one of the very busiest of men!
+And what with John's kiddies and his beautiful society wife and that
+grand Christmas eve ball he mentions--why--" the Doctor cleared his
+throat,--"why, dear me, it's not to be wondered at, say I! And Philip
+and Howard--busy as--as--as architects and lawyers usually are at
+Christmas," he finished lamely. "As for Ralph--" the Doctor looked
+away--"well, Ralph hasn't spent a Christmas home since college days."
+
+"It will be the first Christmas we ever spent without some of them
+home," ventured Aunt Ellen, biting her lip courageously, whereupon the
+old Doctor patted her shoulder gently with a cheery word of advice.
+
+Now, there was something in the touch of the old Doctor's broad and
+gentle hand that always soothed, wherefore Aunt Ellen presently wiped
+her troublesome glasses again and bravely tried to smile, and the Doctor
+making a vast and altogether cheerful to-do about turning the blazing
+log, began a brisk description of his day. It had ended, professionally,
+at a lonely little house in the heart of the forest, which Jarvis
+Hildreth, dying but a scant year since, had bequeathed to his orphaned
+children, Madge and Roger.
+
+"And, Ellen," finished the Doctor, soberly, "there he sits by the
+window, day by day, poor lame little lad!--staring away so wistfully at
+the forest, and Madge, bless her brave young heart!--she bastes and
+stitches and sews away, all the while weaving him wonderful yarns about
+the pines and cedars to amuse him--all out of her pretty head, mind you!
+A lame brother and a passion for books--" said the Doctor, shaking his
+head, "a poor inheritance for the lass. They worry me a lot, Ellen, for
+Madge looks thin and tired, and to-day--" the Doctor cleared his throat,
+"I think she had been crying."
+
+"Crying!" exclaimed Aunt Ellen, her kindly brown eyes warm with
+sympathy. "Dear, dear!--And Christmas only three days off! Why, John,
+dear, we must have them over here for Christmas. To be sure! And we'll
+have a tree for little Roger and a Christmas masquerade and such a
+wonderful Christmas altogether as he's never known before!" And Aunt
+Ellen, with the all-embracing motherhood of her gentle heart aroused,
+fell to planning a Christmas for Madge and Roger Hildreth that would
+have gladdened the heart of the Christmas saint himself.
+
+Face aglow, the old Doctor bent and patted his wife's wrinkled hand.
+
+"Why, Ellen," he confessed, warmly, "it's the thing I most desired! Dear
+me, it's a very strange thing indeed, my dear, how often we seem to
+agree. I'll hitch old Billy to the sleigh and go straight after them now
+while Annie's getting supper!" And at that instant one glance at Aunt
+Ellen Leslie's fine old face, framed in the winter firelight which grew
+brighter as the checkerboard window beside her slowly purpled, would
+have revealed to the veriest tyro why the Doctor's patients liked best
+to call her "Aunt" Ellen.
+
+So, with a violent jingle of sleigh-bells, the Doctor presently shot
+forth again into the white and quiet world, and as he went, gliding
+swiftly past the ghostly spruces by the roadside, oddly enough, despite
+his cheerful justification to Aunt Ellen, he was fiercely rebelling at
+the defection of his children. John and his lovely wife might well have
+foregone their fashionable ball. And Howard and Philip--their
+holiday-keeping Metropolitan clubs were shallow artificialities surely
+compared with a home-keeping reunion about the Yule log. As for the
+children of Anne and Ellen and Margaret--well, the Doctor could just
+tell those daughters of his that their precious youngsters liked a
+country Christmas best--he _knew_ they did!--not the complex,
+steam-heated hot-house off-shoot of that rugged flower of simpler times
+when homes were further apart, but a country Christmas of keen, crisp
+cold and merry sleigh-bells, of rosy cheeks and snow-balls, of skating
+on the Deacon's pond and a jubilant hour after around the blazing
+wood-fire: a Christmas, in short, such as the old Doctor himself knew
+and loved, of simplicity and sympathy and home-keeping heartiness!
+
+And then--there was Ralph--but here the Doctor's face grew very stern.
+Wild tales came to him at times of this youngest and most gifted of his
+children--tales of intemperate living interlarded with occasional tales
+of brilliant surgical achievement on the staff of St. Michael's. For the
+old Doctor had guided the steps of his youngest son to the paths of
+medicine with a great hope, long abandoned.
+
+Ah--well! The Doctor sighed, abruptly turning his thoughts to Madge and
+Roger. They at least should know the heart-glow of a real Christmas! A
+masquerade party of his neighbors Christmas eve, perhaps, such as Aunt
+Ellen had suggested, and a Yule-log--but now it was, in the midst of his
+Christmas plans, that a daring notion flashed temptingly through the
+Doctor's head, was banished with a shrug and flashed again, whereupon
+with his splendid capacity for prompt decision, the Doctor suddenly
+wheeled old Billy about and went sleighing in considerable excitement
+into the village whence a host of night-telegrams went singing over the
+busy wires to startle eventually a slumbering conscience or so. And
+presently when the Doctor drew up with a flourish before the lonely
+little house among the forest pines, his earlier depression had
+vanished.
+
+So with a prodigious stamping of snow from his feet and a cheerful wave
+of his mittened hand to the boy by the window, the Doctor bustled
+cheerily indoors and with kindly eyes averted from the single tell-tale
+sauce-pan upon the fire, over which Madge Hildreth had bent with sudden
+color, fell to bustling about with a queer lump in his throat and
+talking ambiguously of Aunt Ellen's Christmas orders, painfully
+conscious that the girl's dark face had grown pitifully white and tense
+and that Roger's wan little face was glowing. And when the fire was
+damped by the Doctor himself, and his Christmas guests hustled into
+dazed, protesting readiness, the Doctor deftly muffled the thin little
+fellow in blankets and gently carried him out to the waiting sleigh with
+arms that were splendid and sturdy and wonderfully reassuring.
+
+"There, there, little man!" he said cheerfully, "we've not hurt the poor
+lame leg once, I reckon. And now we'll just help Sister Madge blow out
+the lamp and lock the door and be off to Aunt Ellen!"
+
+But, strangely enough, the Doctor halted abruptly in the doorway and
+turned his kindly eyes away to the shadowy pines. And Sister Madge, on
+her knees by Roger's bed, sobbing and praying in an agony of relief,
+presently blew out the lamp herself and wiped her eyes. For nights among
+the whispering pines are sleepless and long when work is scarce and
+Christmas hovers with cold, forbidding eyes over the restless couch of a
+dear and crippled brother.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Wishing Sparks
+
+
+Round the Doctor's house frolicked the brisk, cold wind of a Christmas
+eve, boisterously rattling the luminous checkerboard windows and the
+Christmas wreaths, tormenting the cheerful flame in the old iron lantern
+and whisking away the snow from the shivering elms, whistling eerily
+down the Doctor's chimney to startle a strange little cripple by the
+Doctor's fire, who, queerly enough, would not be startled.
+
+For to Roger there had never been a wind so Christmasy, or a fire so
+bright and warm, and his solemn black eyes glowed! Never a wealth of
+holly and barberry and alder-berries so crimson as that which rimmed the
+snug old house in Christmas flame! Never such evergreen wreaths, for,
+tucked up here in this very chair by Aunt Ellen, he had made them all
+himself of boughs from the evergreen forest! And never surely such
+enticing odors as had floated out for the last two days from old Annie's
+pots and pans as she baked and roasted and boiled and stewed in endless
+preparation for Christmas day and the Christmas eve party, scolding away
+betimes in indignant whispers at old Asher, who, by reason of a
+chuckling air of mystery, was in perpetual disgrace.
+
+Wonderful days indeed for Roger, with Sister Madge's smooth, pale cheeks
+catching the flaring scarlet of the holly, and Sister Madge's slim and
+willing fingers so busy hanging boughs that she had forgotten to sigh;
+with motherly Aunt Ellen so warmly intent upon Roger's comfort and plans
+for the masquerade that many a mysterious and significant occurrence
+slipped safely by her kindly eyes; and with the excited Doctor's busy
+sleigh jingling so hysterically about on secret errands and his kindly
+face so full of boyish mystery that Roger, with the key to all this
+Christmas intrigue locked safely in his heart, had whispered a shy
+little warning in the culprit's attentive ear.
+
+And presently--Roger caught his breath and furtively eyed the
+grandfather's clock, ticking boastfully through a welter of
+holly--presently it would be time for the Doctor's masquerade, and
+later, when the clock struck twelve and the guests unmasked, that great
+surprise which the doctor had planned so carefully by telegram!
+
+But now from the kitchen came the sound of the Doctor singing:
+
+                   "Come bring with a noise,
+                  My merry, merry boys,
+                    The Christmas log to the firing!"
+
+Roger clapped his thin little hands with a cry of delight, for old Asher
+and the Doctor were bringing in the Yule-log to light it presently with
+the charred remains of the Christmas log of a year ago. To-morrow
+another Yule-log would crackle and blaze and shower on the hearth, for
+the old Doctor molded a custom to suit his fancy. And here was Annie
+splendidly aproned in white, following them in, and Aunt Ellen in a
+wonderful old brown-gold brocade disinterred for the doctor's party from
+a lavender-sweet cedar chest in the garret. And _Sister Madge_!--Roger
+stared--radiant in old-fashioned crimson satin and holly, colorful foils
+indeed for her night-black hair and eyes! As for the doctor himself,
+Roger now began to realize that with his powdered wig, his satin
+breeches and gaily-flowered waistcoat--to say nothing of silken hose and
+silver buckles--he was by far the most gorgeous figure of them all!
+
+"I," said the doctor presently, striking the burning Yule-log until the
+golden sparks flew out, "I charge thee, log, to burn out old wrongs and
+heart-burnings!" and then, in accordance with a cherished custom of his
+father's he followed the words with a wish for the good of his
+household.
+
+"And I," said old Asher as he struck the log, "I wish for the good of
+the horses and cows and all the other live things and," with a terrific
+chuckle of mystery, "I wish for things aplenty _this_ night."
+
+"And I," said old Annie, with a terrible look at her imprudent spouse as
+she took the poker, "I wish for the harvest--and wit for them that lack
+it!"
+
+But Roger had the poker now, his black eyes starry.
+
+"I--I wish for more kind hearts like Aunt Ellen's and the Doctor's," he
+burst forth with a strangled sob as the sparks showered gold, "for
+more--more sisters like Sister Madge--" his voice quivered and
+broke--"and for--for all boys who cannot walk and run--" but Sister
+Madge's arm was already around his shoulders and the old Doctor was
+patting his arm--wherefore he smiled bravely up at them through
+glistening tears.
+
+"Now, now, now, little lad!" reminded the Doctor, "it's Christmas eve!"
+Whereupon he drew a chair to the fire and began a wonderful Christmas
+tale about St. Boniface and Thunder Oak and the first Christmas tree. A
+wonderful old Doctor this--reflected Roger wonderingly. He knew so many
+different things--how to scare away tears and all about mistletoe and
+Druids, and still another story about a fir tree which Roger opined
+respectfully was nothing like so good as Sister Madge's story of the
+Cedar King who stood outside his window.
+
+"Very likely not!" admitted the Doctor gravely.
+
+"I've nothing like the respect for Mr. Hans Andersen myself that I have
+for Sister Madge."
+
+"I thought," ventured Roger shyly, slipping his hand suddenly into the
+Doctor's, "that Doctors only knew how to cure folks!"
+
+"Bless your heart, laddie," exclaimed the Doctor, considerably
+staggered; "they know too little of that, I fear. My conscience!" as the
+grandfather's clock came into the conversation with a throaty boom,
+"it's half-past seven!" and from then on Roger noticed the Doctor was
+uneasy, presently opining, with a prodigious "Hum!" that Aunt Ellen
+looked mighty pale and tired and that he for one calculated a little
+sleigh ride would brace her up for the party. This Aunt Ellen
+immediately flouted and the Doctor was eventually forced to pathetic and
+frequent reference to his own great need of air.
+
+"Very well, my dear," said Aunt Ellen mildly, striving politely to
+conceal her opinion of his mental health, "I'll go, since you feel so
+strongly about it, but a sleigh ride in such a wind and such clothes
+when one is expecting party guests--" but the relieved Doctor was
+already bundling the brown-gold brocade into a fur-lined coat and
+furtively winking at Roger! Thus it was that even as the Doctor's sleigh
+flew merrily by the Deacon's pond, far across the snowy fields to the
+north gleamed the lights of the 7:52 rushing noisily into the village.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+By the Fire
+
+
+How it was that the old Doctor somehow lost his way on roads he had
+traveled since boyhood was a matter of exceeding mystery and annoyance
+to Aunt Ellen, but lose it he did. By the time he found it and jogged
+frantically back home, the old house was already aswarm with masked,
+mysterious guests and old Asher with a lantern was peering excitedly up
+the road. Holly-trimmed sleighs full of merry neighbors in disguise were
+dashing gaily up--and in the midst of all the excitement the Doctor
+miraculously discovered his own mask and Aunt Ellen's in the pocket of
+his great-coat. So hospitable Aunt Ellen, considerably perturbed that so
+many of her guests had arrived in her absence--an absence carefully
+planned by the Doctor--betook herself to the masquerade, and the
+Christmas party began with bandits and minstrels and jesters and all
+sorts of queer folk flitting gaily about the house. They paid gallant
+court to Roger in his great chair by the fire and presently began to
+present for his approval an impromptu Mummer's play.
+
+And now the lights were all out and a masked and courtly old gentleman
+in satin breeches was standing in the bright firelight pouring brandy
+into a giant bowl of raisins; and now he was gallantly bowing to Roger
+himself who was plainly expected to assist with a lighted match. He did
+this with trembling fingers and eyes so big and black and eloquent that
+the Doctor cleared his throat; and as the leaping flames from the
+snapdragon bowl flashed weirdly over the bizarre company in the shadows.
+Roger, eagerly watching them snatch the raisins from the fire, fell to
+trembling in an ecstasy of delight. Presently a slender arm in a crimson
+sleeve, whose wearer was never very far from Roger's chair, slipped
+quietly about his shoulders and held him very tight. So, an endless
+round of merry Christmas games until, deep and mellow came at last the
+majestic boom of the grandfather's clock striking twelve and with it a
+hearty babel of Christmas greetings as the Doctor, smiling significantly
+down into Roger's excited eyes, gave the signal to unmask.
+
+By the fire a mysterious little knot of guests had been silently
+gathering, and now as Aunt Ellen Leslie removed her mask, hand and mask
+halted in mid-air as if fixed by the stare of Medusa, and the face above
+the brown-gold brocade flamed crimson. For here in Puritan garb was John
+Leslie, Jr., and his radiant wife--and Philip and Howard, smiling
+Quakers, and Anne and Margaret and Ellen with a trio of husbands, and
+beyond a laughing jester in cap and bells, whose dark, handsome face was
+a little too reckless and tired about the eyes, Roger thought, for a
+really happy Christmas guest--young Doctor Ralph.
+
+As Aunt Ellen's startled eyes swept slowly from the smiling faces of her
+children to the proud and chuckling Doctor who had spent Heaven knows
+how many dollars in telegraphed commands--she laughed a little and cried
+a little and then mingled the two so queerly that she needs must wipe
+her eyes and catch at Roger's chair for support, whereupon a kindly
+little hand slipped suddenly into hers and Roger looked up and smiled
+serenely.
+
+"Don't cry, Aunt Ellen!" he begged shyly. "I knew all about it too and
+the Doctor--_he_ did it all!"
+
+"And merry fits he gave us all by telegram, too, mother!" exclaimed
+Philip with a grin.
+
+"Moreover," broke in John, patting his mother's shoulder, "there are
+eleven kids packed away upstairs like sardines--we hid 'em away while
+dad and you were lost, and--" but here with a deafening racket the
+stairs door burst wide open and with a swoop and a scream eleven
+pajama-ed young bandits with starry eyes bore down upon Aunt Ellen and
+the Doctor.
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed John, thoroughly scandalized, "you disgraceful
+kids! Which one of you stirred this up?" But the guilty face at the tail
+of the romping procession was the face of old Asher.
+
+Radiantly triumphant the old Doctor swung little John Leslie 3rd to his
+shoulder and faced his laughing family and as old Annie appeared with a
+steaming tray--he seized a mug of cider and held it high aloft.
+
+"To the ruddy warmth of the Christmas log and the Christmas home
+spirit--" he cried--"to the home-keeping hearts of the country-side!
+Gentlemen--I give you--A Country home and a Country Christmas! May more
+good folk come to know them!" And little John Leslie cried hoarsely--
+
+"Hooray, grandpop, hooray for a Country Christmas!"
+
+Carelessly alive to the merry spirit of the night, the jester presently
+adjusted a flute which hung from his shoulder by a scarlet cord and
+lazily piping a Christmas air, wandered to another room--to come
+suddenly upon a forgotten playmate of his boyhood days.
+
+"It--it can't be!" he reflected in startled interest. "It surely can't
+be Madge Hildreth!"
+
+But Madge Hildreth it surely was, spreading the satin folds of his
+grandmother's crimson gown in mocking courtesy. Moreover it was not the
+awkward, ragged elfish little gipsy who had tormented his debonair
+boyhood with her shy ardent worship of himself and his daring exploits,
+but instead a winsome vision of Christmas color and Christmas cheer,
+holly-red of cheek, with flashes of scarlet holly in her night black
+hair and eyes whose unfathomable dusk reflected no single hint of that
+old, wild worship slumbering still in the girl's rebellious heart.
+
+"And the symbolism of this stunning make-up?" queried Ralph after a
+while, lazily admiring.
+
+The girl's eyes flashed.
+
+"To-night, if you please," she said, "I am the spirit of the
+old-fashioned Christmas who dwells in the holly heart of the evergreen
+wood. A _country_ Christmas, ruddy-cheeked and cheerful and rugged like
+the winter holly--simple and old-fashioned and hallowed with memories
+like this bright soft crimson gown!"
+
+Well, she had been a queer, fanciful youngster too, Doctor Ralph
+remembered, always passionately aquiver with a wild sylvan poetry and
+over-fond of book-lore like her father. Mischievously glancing at a
+spray of mistletoe above the girl's dark head, he stepped forward with
+the careless gallantry that had won him many a kindly glance from pretty
+eyes and was strangely to fail him now. For at the look in Madge's calm
+eyes, he drew back, stammering.
+
+"I--I beg your pardon!" said Doctor Ralph.
+
+Later as he stood thoughtfully by his bedroom window, staring queerly at
+the wind-beaten elms, he found himself repeating Madge Hildreth's words.
+"Ruddy-cheeked and rugged and cheerful!"--indeed--this unforgettable
+Christmas eve. Yes--she was right. Had he not often heard his father say
+that the Christmas season epitomized all the rugged sympathy and
+heartiness and health of the country year! To-night the blazing
+Yule-log, his mother's face--how white her hair was growing, thought
+Doctor Ralph with a sudden tightening of his throat--all of these
+memories had strummed forgotten and finer chords. And darkly foiling the
+homely brightness came the picture of rushing, overstrung, bundle-laden
+city crowds, of shop-girls white and weary, of store-heaps of cedar and
+holly sapped by electric glare. Rush and strain and worry--yes--and a
+spirit of grudging! How unlike the Christmas peace of this white,
+wind-world outside his window! So Doctor Ralph went to bed with a sigh
+and a shrug--to listen while the sleety boughs tapping at his windows
+roused ghostly phantoms of his boyhood. Falling asleep, he dreamt that
+pretty Madge Hildreth had lightly waved a Christmas wand of crimson
+above his head and dispelled his weariness and discontent.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Embers
+
+
+And in the morning--there was the royal glitter of a Christmas ice-storm
+to bring boyhood memories crowding again, boughs sheathed in crystal
+armor and the old barn roof aglaze with ice. Yes--Ralph thrilled--and
+there were the Christmas bunches of oats on the fences and trees and the
+roof of the barn--how well he remembered! For the old Doctor loved this
+Christmas custom too and never forgot the Christmas birds. And
+to-day--why of course--there would be double allowances of food for the
+cattle and horses, for old Toby the cat and Rover the dog. Hadn't Ralph
+once performed this cherished Christmas task himself!
+
+But now, clamoring madly at his door was a romping swarm of youngsters
+eager to show Uncle Ralph the Christmas tree which, though he had helped
+to trim it the night before, he inspected in great surprise. And here in
+his chair by another Yule-log he found Roger, staring wide-eyed at the
+glittering tree with his thin little arms full of Christmas gifts. Near
+him was Sister Madge whose black eyes, Ralph saw with approval, were
+very soft and gentle, and beyond in the coffee-fragrant dining-room Aunt
+Ellen and old Annie conspired together over a mammoth breakfast table
+decked with holly.
+
+"Oh, John, dear," Ralph heard his mother say as the Doctor came in,
+"I've always said that Christmas is a mother's day. Wasn't the first
+Christmas a mother's Christmas and the very first tree--a mother's
+tree?" and then the Doctor's scandalized retort--"Now--now, now, see
+here, Mother Ellen, it's a father's day, too, don't you forget that!"
+
+And so on to the Christmas twilight through a day of romping youngsters
+and blazing Yule-logs, of Christmas gifts and Christmas greetings--of a
+haunting shame for Doctor Ralph at the memory of the wild Christmas he
+had planned to spend with Griffin and Edwards.
+
+With the coming of the broad shadows which lay among the stiff,
+ice-fringed spruces like iris velvet, Doctor Ralph's nieces and nephews
+went flying out to help old Asher feed the stock. By the quiet fire the
+Doctor beckoned Ralph.
+
+"Suppose, my boy," he said, "suppose you take a look at the little lad's
+leg here. I've sometimes wondered what you would think of it."
+
+Coloring a little at his father's deferential tone Ralph turned the
+stocking back from the pitiful shrunken limb and bent over it, his dark
+face keen and grave. And now with the surgeon uppermost, Roger fancied
+Doctor Ralph's handsome eyes were nothing like so tired. Save for the
+crackle of the fire and the tick of the great clock, there was silence
+in the firelit room and presently Roger caught something in Doctor
+Ralph's thoughtful face that made his heart leap wildly.
+
+"An operation," said the young Doctor suddenly--and halted, meeting his
+father's eyes significantly.
+
+"You are sure!" insisted the old Doctor slowly. "In my day, it was
+impossible--quite impossible."
+
+"Times change," said the younger man. "I have performed such an
+operation successfully myself. I feel confident, sir--" but Roger had
+caught his hand now with a sob that echoed wildly through the quiet
+room.
+
+"Oh, Doctor Ralph," he blurted with blazing, agonized eyes, "you
+don't--you can't mean, sir, that I'll walk and run like other
+boys--and--and climb the Cedar King--" his voice broke in a passionate
+fit of weeping.
+
+"Yes," said Doctor Ralph, huskily, "I mean just that. Dad and I, little
+man, we're going to do what we can."
+
+By the window Sister Madge buried her face in her hands.
+
+"Come, come, now Sister Madge," came the Doctor's kindly voice a little
+later, "you've cried enough, lass. Roger is fretting about you and
+Doctor Ralph here, he says he's going to take you for a little
+sleigh-ride if you'll honor him by going."
+
+Outside a Christmas moon rode high above a sparkling ice-bright world
+and as the sleigh shot away into its quiet glory, Ralph, meeting the
+dark, tear-bright eyes of Sister Madge, tucked the robes closer about
+her with a hand that shook a little.
+
+"'Gipsy' Hildreth!" he said suddenly, smiling, but the hated nickname
+to-night was almost a caress. "Tell me," Ralph's voice was very
+grave--"You've been sewing? Mother spoke of it."
+
+"There was nothing else," said Sister Madge. "I could not leave Roger."
+
+"And now Mother wants you to stay on with her. You--you'll do that?"
+
+"She is very lonely," said Madge uncertainly and Ralph bit his lip.
+
+"Mother lonely!" he said. "She didn't tell me that."
+
+"Roger is wild to stay," went on Madge, looking away--"but I--oh--I fear
+it is only their wonderful kindness. Still there's the Doctor's
+rheumatism--and he does need some one to keep his books."
+
+"Rheumatism!" said Ralph sharply.
+
+"Yes," nodded Madge in surprise--"didn't you know. It's been pretty bad
+this winter. He's been thinking some of breaking in young Doctor Price
+to take part of his practise now and perhaps all of it later."
+
+"Price!" broke out Ralph indignantly. "Oh--that's absurd! Price couldn't
+possibly swing Dad's work. He's not clever enough."
+
+"He's the only one there is," said Madge and Ralph fell silent.
+
+All about them lay a glittering moonlit country of peaceful, firelit
+homes and snowy hills--of long quiet roads and shadowy trees and
+presently Ralph spoke again.
+
+"You like all this," he said abruptly, "the quiet--the country--and all
+of it?"
+
+Sister Madge's black eyes glowed.
+
+"After all," she said, "is it not the only way to live? This scent of
+the pine, the long white road, the wild-fire of the winter sunset and
+the wind and the hills--are they not God-made messages of mystery to
+man? Life among man-made things--like your cities--seems somehow to
+exaggerate the importance of man the maker. Life among the God-made
+hills dwarfs that artificial sense of egotism. It teaches you to marvel
+at the mystery of Creation. Yesterday when the Doctor and I were
+gathering the Christmas boughs, the holly glade in the forest seemed
+like some ancient mystic Christmas temple of the Druids where one might
+tell his rosary in crimson holly beads and forget the world!"
+
+Well--perhaps there was something fine and sweet and holy in the country
+something--a tranquil simplicity--a hearty ruggedness--that city
+dwellers forfeited in their head-long rush for man-made pleasure. After
+all, perhaps the most enduring happiness lay in the heart of these quiet
+hills.
+
+"My chief is very keen on country life," said Ralph suddenly. "He
+preaches a lot. Development of home-spirit and old-fashioned household
+gods--that sort of thing! He's a queerish sort of chap--my chief--and
+a bit too--er--candid at times. He was dad's old classmate, you know."
+And Ralph fell silent again, frowning.
+
+So Price was to take his father's practise! How it must gall the old
+Doctor! And mother was lonely, eh?--and Dad's rheumatism getting the
+best of him--Why Great Guns! mother and dad were growing _old_! And some
+of those snow-white hairs of theirs had come from worrying over
+him--John had said so. Ralph's dark face burned in the chill night wind.
+Well, for all old John's cutting sarcasm, his father still had faith in
+him and the trust in young Roger's eloquent eyes had fairly hurt him.
+God! they did not know! And then this queer Christmas heart-glow. How
+Griffin and Edwards and the rest of his gay friends would mock him for
+it? _Friends!_ After all--had he any friends in the finer sense of that
+finest of words? Such warm-hearted loyal friends for instance as these
+neighbors of his father's who had been dropping in all day with a hearty
+smile and a Christmas hand-shake. And black-eyed Sister Madge--this
+brave, little fighting gipsy-poet here--where--But here Ralph frowned
+again and looked away and even when the cheerful lights of home
+glimmered through the trees he was still thinking--after an impetuous
+burst of confidence to Sister Madge.
+
+So, later, when Doctor Ralph entered his father's study--his chin was
+very determined.
+
+"I was ashamed to tell you this morning, sir," he said steadily, "but
+I--I'm no longer on the staff of St. Michael's. My hand was shaking
+and--and the chief knew why. And, dad," he faced the old Doctor
+squarely, "I'm coming back home to keep your practise out of Price's
+fool hands. You've always wanted that and my chief has preached it too,
+though I couldn't see it somehow until to-day. And presently, sir,
+when--when my hand is steadier, I'm going to make the little chap walk
+and run. I've--promised Sister Madge." And the old Doctor cleared his
+throat and gulped--and finally he wiped his glasses and walked away to
+the window. For of all things God could give him--this surely was the
+best!
+
+"Oh, grandpop," cried little John Leslie 3rd, bolting into the study in
+great excitement--"Come see Roger! We kids have made him the Christmas
+king and he's got a crown o' holly on and--and a wand and he's a-tappin'
+us this way with it to make us Knights. And I'm the Fir-tree Knight--and
+Bob--he's a Cedar Knight and Ned's a spruce and Roger--he says his
+pretty sister tells him stories like that smarter'n any in the books.
+Oh--do hurry!"
+
+The old Doctor held out his hand to his son.
+
+"Well, Doctor Ralph," he said huskily, "suppose we go tell mother."
+
+So while the Doctor told Aunt Ellen, Ralph bent his knee to this excited
+Christmas King enthroned in the heart of the fire-shadows.
+
+"Rise--" said Roger radiantly, tapping him with a cedar wand, "I--I dub
+thee first of all my knights--the good, kind Christmas Knight!"
+
+"And here," said Ralph, smiling, "here's Sister Madge. What grand title
+now shall we give to her?" But as Sister Madge knelt before him with
+firelit shadows dancing in her sweet, dark eyes, Roger dropped the wand
+and buried his face on her shoulder with a little sob.
+
+"Nothing good enough for Sister Madge, eh?" broke in the old Doctor,
+looking up. "Well, sir, I think you're right."
+
+Now in the silence Aunt Ellen spoke and her words were like a gentle
+Christmas benediction.
+
+"'Unto us,'" said Aunt Ellen Leslie as she turned the Christmas log,
+"'this night a son is given!'"
+
+But Ralph, by the window, had not heard. For wakening again in his heart
+as he stared at the peaceful, moonlit, "God-made" hills--was the old
+forgotten boyish love for this rugged, simple life of his father's
+dwarfing the lure of the city and the mockery of his fashionable
+friends. And down the lane of years ahead, bright with homely happiness
+and service to the needs of others--was the dark and winsome face of
+Sister Madge, stirring him to ardent resolution.
+
+
+
+
+Part Two
+
+In Which We Light the New Log with the Embers of the Old
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+The Fire Again
+
+
+"Doctor!" said little Roger slyly, "you got your chin stuck out!"
+
+The Doctor stroked his grizzled beard in hasty apology.
+
+"God bless my soul," he admitted guiltily. "I do believe I have. You've
+been so quiet," he added accusingly, "curled up there by the fire that I
+must certainly have gotten lonesome. And I most always stick out my chin
+that way when I'm lonesome."
+
+Roger, by way of reparation, betook himself to the arm of the Doctor's
+chair.
+
+The Doctor's arm closed tight around him. A year ago this little adopted
+son of his had been very lame. It was the first Christmas in his life,
+indeed, that he had walked.
+
+"Out there," said the Doctor, "the winter twilight's been fighting the
+alder berries with purple spears. It's conquered everything in the
+garden and covered it up with misty velvet save the snow and the
+berries. But the twilight's using heavier spears now and likely it'll
+win. _I_ want the alder berries to win out, drat it! Their blaze is so
+bright and cheerful."
+
+Roger accepted the challenge to argument with enthusiasm.
+
+"_I_ want the twilight to win," he said.
+
+The Doctor looked slightly scandalized.
+
+"Oh, my, my, my, my!" he said. "I can't for the life of me understand
+any such gloomy preference as that. Bless me, if I can."
+
+"Why," crowed Roger jubilantly, "_I_ can, 'cause the more twilighty it
+gets, the more it's Christmas eve!"
+
+The Doctor regarded his small friend with admiration.
+
+"By George," he admitted, "I do believe you have me there--" but the
+Doctor's kindly eyes did not fire to the name of Christmas as Roger
+thought they ought.
+
+"Almost," he said, "I thought you were going to stick out your chin
+again. And you're not lonesome now 'cause I'm here an' pretty noisy."
+
+"Hum!" said the Doctor.
+
+"Man to man, now!" urged Roger suddenly.
+
+This was the accepted key to a confessional ceremony which required much
+politeness and ruthless honesty.
+
+"Well, Mr. Hildreth," began the Doctor formally.
+
+Roger's face fell.
+
+"I'm your adopted son," he hinted, "and you said that made my name same
+as yours."
+
+"Mr. Leslie!" corrected the Doctor, and Roger glowed.
+
+"Well, Mr. Leslie," went on the Doctor thoughtfully, "I'm chuck full of
+grievances. There's the rheumatism in my leg, for instance. That's no
+sort of thing to have at Christmas."
+
+"But that's better," said Roger. "You said so this morning. I 'spect you
+been thinkin' too much about it like you said I did when my leg was
+stiff."
+
+"Ahem! And I did hope somebody would come home for Christmas. I like a
+house full of romping youngsters--"
+
+Roger pointed an accusing finger.
+
+"Aunt Ellen says every blessed one of your children, an' your
+grand-children too, begged and begged you to come to the city for
+Christmas an'--an' you wouldn't go 'cause you're old-fashioned and like
+a country Christmas so much better--an'--an' because you'd promised to
+teach me to skate on the Deacon's pond an' take me sleighin'."
+
+"Dear me," said the Doctor helplessly, "for such a mite of a kiddy, you
+do seem remarkably well informed."
+
+"Man to man," reminded Roger inexorably and the Doctor aired his final
+grievance.
+
+"And then there's that youngest son of mine--"
+
+"Doctor Ralph?"
+
+"Doctor Ralph! What right had he, I'd like to know, to marry that pretty
+sister of yours and go off honeymooning holiday time. Didn't he know
+that we needed him and Sister Madge here for Christmas? I miss 'em both.
+Young pirate!"
+
+Roger's heart swelled with loyalty. It was Doctor Ralph's skilful hand
+that had helped him walk.
+
+"Most likely," he said fairly, "I'm a little to blame there. After I
+came home from the hospital, I did tell Sister Madge to marry him--"
+
+"Most likely," acknowledged the Doctor, "I said something similar to
+Doctor Ralph. I can't have you shouldering all the responsibility. Well,
+your Honor, there's the Christmas evidence. What's the verdict?"
+
+Roger considered. This man to man game had certain phraseological
+conclusions.
+
+"No case!" he said suddenly, nor would he alter his decision when the
+Doctor protested against its severity.
+
+"You had so awful many peoply sort of places to go," pointed out Roger,
+and the Doctor laughed.
+
+"And let you spend this first Christmas on your two legs in a _city_?"
+he demanded. "Well, I guess not! No-sir-ee-bob! There!--the alder
+berries have faded out and the garden's thick with twilight."
+
+"And it's Christmas eve!" cried Roger, his black eyes shining with
+delight.
+
+"Speaking of Christmas," said the Doctor, sniffing luxuriously, "I feel
+that I ought to slip out to the kitchen for a minute or so. I do smell
+something tremendously Christmasy and spicy--"
+
+Roger caught his breath. With a Christmas intrigue as surely in the air
+as the smell of spice, here was dangerous ground.
+
+"Aunt Ellen," he faltered, "Aunt Ellen said she couldn't pos'bly be
+bothered with--with any men folks in the kitchen--not even me."
+
+"Pooh!" rebelled the Doctor largely, "that's merely a ruse of hers to
+protect the cookies. And what I'd like to know is just this--what's Aunt
+Ellen doing in the kitchen anyway? Certainly old Annie's able to do the
+Christmas fussing for three people. Aunt Ellen ought to be in here with
+us. That was part of my lonesome grievance but I forgot to mention it."
+
+Roger, shivering apprehensively, visioned suspicious stores of Christmas
+delicacies--holly and evergreen--and a supper table set for _ten_! And
+off somewhere among those purple spears of twilight old Asher, the hired
+man, was waiting at the station with the big farm sleigh.
+
+He must keep his eye upon the Doctor until six o'clock, and lure him
+away from the window.
+
+"Tell me a story," begged Roger--"over here by the fire." And his voice
+was so very tremulous and urgent that the hungry Doctor abandoned his
+notion of a Christmas cookie, and complied.
+
+To Roger, in a nervous ecstasy of anticipation, the story was a blurred
+hodge-podge of phrases and crackling fire, distant noises of clinking
+china and hurrying feet, and wild flights of imagination.... Old Asher
+must be coming past the red barn now ... and now down the hill ... and
+now past the Deacon's pond ... and now--
+
+Sleigh-bells fairly leaped out of the quiet, and Roger jumped and
+gulped, aquiver with excitement. The Doctor regarded him with mild
+disfavor.
+
+"Bless my soul," he said in surprise, "that was the quietest part of my
+story. You're restless."
+
+"Go on!" said Roger hoarsely, and the obliging Doctor, mistaking his
+agitation for interest, went on with his tale.
+
+But Roger had heard old Asher driving along by the picket fence and
+turning in at the gate-posts, and the story was no more to him than the
+noisy crackle of the log. Off somewhere in the region of the kitchen
+door he detected a subdued scuffle of many feet.
+
+The grandfather's clock struck six.... Roger's cheeks were blazing--the
+fire and the Doctor still duetting.... Why, oh, why didn't somebody
+come and call them to supper?... There had been plenty of time now for
+everything. Why--
+
+The door swung back and Roger jumped. Old Annie, Asher's wife, stood in
+the doorway, her wrinkled face inscrutable.
+
+"Supper, sir!" she said and vanished. Hand in hand, the Doctor and Roger
+went out to supper.
+
+The dining-room door was closed. That in itself was unusual. But the
+unsuspecting Doctor pushed through with Roger at his heels, only to halt
+and stare dumfounded over his spectacles while Roger screamed and danced
+and clapped his hands. For to the startled eyes of Doctor John Leslie,
+the snug, old-fashioned room was alive with boys and holly--boys and
+boys and boys upon boys, he would have told you in that first instant of
+delighted consternation, in different stages of embarrassment and rags.
+And one had but to glance at the faces of old Asher and Annie in the
+kitchen doorway, at Aunt Ellen, hovering near her Christmas brood with
+the look of all mothers in her kind, brown eyes, and then at Roger,
+scarlet with enthusiasm, to know that the Doctor had been the victim of
+benevolent conspiracy.
+
+"It's a s'prise!" shrieked Roger, "a Christmasy s'prise! Aunt Ellen she
+says you're so awful keen on s'prisin' other folks that we'd show
+you--an'--an' you'll have a bang-up Christmas with kids like you love
+an' so will I, an' so will they an' the minister he went to the city
+and found seven boys crazy for Christmas in the country an'--"
+
+"Roger! Roger!" came Aunt Ellen's gentle voice--"do please take a
+breath, child. You're turning purple."
+
+The Doctor adjusted his glasses.
+
+"Seven boys!" he said. "Bless my soul, when I opened that door I saw
+seventy boys!" He counted them aloud--then for no reason at all save
+that he had glanced into seven eager faces, thinner and sharper than he
+liked, for all they glowed with excitement and furtive interest in the
+long supper table asparkle with lights and holly, he wiped his glasses
+and patted Roger on the back.
+
+"Is your leg botherin' so much now, daddy Doctor?" demanded Roger.
+
+"Nothing like so much," admitted the Doctor.
+
+"Are you lonesome 'nuff now to stick out your chin?"
+
+"Bless your heart, Roger," admitted the Doctor huskily, "I'm so full of
+Christmas I can hardly breathe!"
+
+"Hooray!" said Roger. "Me, too."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+It Blazes Higher
+
+
+It was well that the Doctor had a way with boys, for there was a problem
+to be solved here with infinite tact--a problem of protuberant eyes and
+paralyzing self-consciousness, of unnatural silences and then unexpected
+attempts at speech that died in painful rasps and gurgles, of stubbing
+toes and nudging elbows, of a centipedal supply of arms and legs that
+interfered with abortive and conscience-stricken attempts at courtesy,
+and above all an interest in the weave of the carpet that was at once a
+mania and an epidemic--but by the time supper was well under way,
+things, in the language of Roger, had begun to hum, and by the time the
+Doctor had mastered the identities of his guests, from Jim, the shy,
+sullen boy who would not meet his eyes, to Mike's little brother, Muggs,
+who consumed prodigious quantities of everything in staring silence, and
+looked something like a girl save for a tardily-cast-off suit of Mike's,
+somewhat oceanic in flow and fit, the hum had become celebrative and
+distinctly a thing of Christmas.
+
+Constraint in the mellowing halo of a Christmas eve supper where holly
+and a Yule-log blazed and the winter wind frostily rattled the
+checker-paned windows of the sitting-room in jealous spleen, fled to
+join the Doctor's rheumatism.
+
+By the time the grandfather's clock struck seven through a haze of
+holly, the Doctor had pokered the Yule-log into a frenzied shower of
+gold; apples and nuts were steadily disappearing from a basket by the
+Doctor's chair and the Doctor himself was relating an original Christmas
+tale of adventure, born of uncommon inspiration and excitement, to a
+huddled group with circular eyes and contented stomachs. But
+Muggs--inimitable workman--his small face partially obscured by the
+biggest apple in the basket, had not yet spoken, and Jim, the shy,
+sullen little boy to whom Roger had taken a fancy because he was lame,
+had met the Doctor's eyes but once, and then with a rush of color.
+
+Now, whether it was the scheming excitement of a busy day or the warmth
+of a busy log or the rambling yarn of a busy Doctor, who may say?
+Certainly Roger fell asleep at a fictional crisis and remained asleep
+for all that Jim furtively nudged him.
+
+"There!" said the Doctor as the clock struck eight, "that's all. To bath
+and beds, every one of you! Annie's had a lamp on the kitchen table this
+half hour ready to light you up the stairs. My! My! My!--but there's a
+busy day ahead. Roger! Well, of all ungrateful listeners! Roger!"
+
+But in the end, the Doctor carried Roger up to bed, preceded by Annie
+with the lamp. And while Annie was turning back quilts and smoothing
+pillows and fumbling at windows, with the freedom of long service she
+soundly berated the Doctor for postponing the bed-time hour with his
+Christmas twaddle.
+
+"And Mister Muggs there," she said severely, "has had one apple too
+many, I'm thinkin', and the last one as big as his head. He'll need a
+pill before morning. The child's packed himself that hard and round ye
+fear to touch him." And then because Muggs was such a very little boy
+Annie was minded to assist with his bath, and laid kindly hands upon an
+indefinite outer garment which began immediately beneath his arm-pits
+and ended at his shoe-tops in singular fringe.
+
+"An', ma'am," she explained to Aunt Ellen a little later, "I had to let
+him go in to his bath by himself. No more had I touched his
+bushel-basket of rags--an' they were hitched over his shoulders with
+school straps and somebody's shirtwaist underneath--than he let out a
+terrific shriek (ye must have heard him) an' all the boys come runnin'
+and crowdin' round him and starin' so frightened at me, an' his brother
+yelled at him to keep quiet or something or somebody'd get him, and he
+kept quiet that sudden I could fairly see the child swell. He's
+unnatural still and unnatural full, ma'am, an' the Doctor better leave
+his pills handy."
+
+Bathed and freshly night-gowned, the Doctor's guests tumbled, a little
+noisily into bed. Only Jim lay silent and wakeful. Once he nudged his
+bed-fellow.
+
+"Luke," he whispered, "d'ye think I'd orta tell 'em?"
+
+"Aw," said Luke sleepily, "dry up, Jim! Gosh, ain't the bed soft!"
+
+Jim sighed.
+
+Christmas came to the old farmhouse with the distant echo of village
+bells at midnight but, long before that, Christmas, in a fur cap and
+great-coat had swept up the driveway with a jingle of sleigh-bells,
+behind old Polly, the Doctor's mare, his sleigh packed high with
+bundles. By the light of a late moon, flinging festal silver on the
+snow, it might be seen that Christmas resembled a somewhat guilty
+looking old gentleman with a grizzled beard.
+
+"I'll catch old Scratch!" he admitted, suddenly overcome by the bulbous
+appearance of the sleigh, "but Ellen may say what she will. She
+_couldn't_ have thought of everything!"
+
+No call for pills came that night from Muggs, asleep in a crib that had
+seen much service. He was awake however long before daylight, trembling
+with excitement.
+
+"Mike, oh Mike!" he called hoarsely. "Wake up. It's Christmas mornin'."
+
+Mike, in a big bed with Marty Fay, sat up.
+
+"Don't you _dare_ open your mouth to-day!" he cried in blood-thirsty
+accents, "or Mom Murphy'll git ye surer'n scat. Ain't I schemed enuff to
+git ye here? Huh? Wanta be sent home--huh?" Muggs ducked beneath the
+blankets with a shivering wail.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The Log at Dawn
+
+
+In the still, cold corridors of a farmhouse, with frost-jungles clouding
+every window pane and a zero-dark outside, the cry of "Merry Christmas!"
+is most at home. Let noses be ever so cold and blanketed bodies ever so
+warm, the cry fills the dawn with electric energy. The Doctor began it.
+He knew by the instant response that he had started something that he
+could not stop. Almost in no time, it seemed, Roger was leading a wild,
+bare-footed scamper down the stairs--for Roger _knew_--and the Doctor,
+hastily bath-robed and slippered, was on behind with a lamp. But here
+was no cyclonic invasion of a dark, cold sitting-room. Old Annie and
+Asher knew boys! A log blazed brightly in the fireplace and the lamp was
+lit. If the room was over-warm, it proved simply that Annie had seen
+boys of another generation rushing down of a Christmas morning, scantily
+clad.
+
+And the King of Christmas trees blazed in candle-glory from wall to
+wall, tinselled boughs sagging with the weight of its Christmas
+freight. It could not have been bigger--it could not have glittered
+more. It had as many arms as an Octopus and its shaggy evergreen head,
+starred gorgeously with iridescence, brushed the old-fashioned paper on
+the ceiling. A great, lovable Christmas giant guarding a cargo of
+Christmas gifts!
+
+Muggs emitted one blood-curdling shriek of delight, clapped his hand
+over his mouth and began to swell about the cheeks. Then he stepped on
+the hem of his night-gown and fell sprawling at Annie's feet.
+
+"Dear me," said Annie vexedly, though she righted him with kindly hands,
+"I can't for the life of me make out what ails that child. He acts so
+mortal queer at times, an' he's ready to swell up over nothing at all."
+
+With the advent of Aunt Ellen, Christmas packages began to lose twine
+and paper, and what the packages lost the sitting-room speedily gained
+in disorder. For here were warm suits and overcoats, shoes and stockings
+and sweaters and caps, skates and horns and whistles and drums,
+home-made pop-corn and candy, oranges--ah! well, sensible gifts in
+plenty, and foolish gifts that were wiser than Solomon for they included
+a boy's heart as well as his body.
+
+In a lull all eyes turned to Muggs. His pockets were crammed with
+pop-corn and candy. One arm was quite as full of toys as he could pack
+it--the other had begun the day's conveyance of food from hand to mouth,
+but he was regarding a very small, warm suit of clothes and substantial
+boots with dangerously quivering lips. Nor could one misinterpret his
+disapproval. For a moment the startled Doctor fancied he heard Mike hiss
+the astonishing words "Mom Murphy!" but by the time he had wheeled
+about, Muggs, with circular eyes of terror, had begun to swell.
+
+"That child," said Annie, "has something on his mind. Don't tell me! I
+know it."
+
+The inevitable blare of racket came all too soon. Horns and whistles and
+drums united in a deafening blast, and if thanks did not come easily to
+the lips of boys, noise did. Nor could Muggs at any time thereafter be
+separated from a shoulder drum upon which he had beaten with insane and
+single-minded concentration even after the din was past and a hungry
+hint of breakfast in the air. Lacking one outlet of expression he had
+seized upon another. He drummed his way fiercely upstairs, to dress, and
+he drummed his way down to breakfast, a ridiculous self-consciousness in
+his small face whenever he glanced at his new suit of clothes. Small as
+it was it engulfed him utterly.
+
+"Jim!" said the Doctor suddenly. "You're not limping!"
+
+Jim hung his head and glanced at his shining new shoes.
+
+"No, sir!" he said and gulped.
+
+"Bless me," said the Doctor, adjusting his spectacles, "I thought you
+were lame and if I hadn't forgotten it last night you'd have had no
+skates this morning."
+
+"I didn't have no heel on one shoe," blurted Jim in confusion, and
+Roger, in relief, hoorayed himself into hoarseness.
+
+But Jim, like Muggs, was something of a mystery, and after a time the
+Doctor, with a sigh, abandoned his effort to break through the boy's
+sullen shyness. Still Jim was the first at the chopping block when Annie
+wanted wood, and when the task took on something of the charm of Tom
+Sawyer's fence by reason of a winter wren, so tame from overfeeding that
+he perched himself now and then upon the handle of the ax, Jim fell back
+with resentment and resigned the ax to Marty Fay who spat upon his
+hands, doubled up his fists, sparred, in an excess of good spirits, with
+an invisible antagonist, and thereafter made the chips fly so fast that
+the little wren departed.
+
+Already there were great Christmas bunches of oats upon glistening trees
+and fences, but, while Asher was carrying double portions of food to
+cattle and horses, to Toby, the cat, and Rover, the dog, the Doctor went
+about, with an eager pack of boys at his heels, distributing further
+Christmas largess for his feathered friends--suet and crumbs and seed.
+For there were chickadees in the clump of red cedars by the barn, and
+juncos and nuthatches, white-throated sparrows and winter wrens, all so
+frank in their overtures to the Doctor that the boys with one accord
+closed threateningly around Muggs to keep him from drumming the birds
+into flight. Jim fastened a great chunk of suet to a tree-trunk and very
+soon a red-breasted nuthatch was busy with his Christmas breakfast.
+Altogether Roger's bang-up Christmas began with terrific bustle, with
+Annie, from whose kitchen already floated odors that set the insatiable
+Muggs to sniffing, by far the busiest of them all.
+
+The grandfather's clock struck ten. It found the old farmhouse deserted
+save for Annie in the kitchen and Aunt Ellen in her rocking chair by the
+sitting-room window. The Doctor was guiding his guests to the Deacon's
+pond.
+
+New skates, new sweaters, and a pond as smooth as glass! What wonder
+then that Roger's trembling fingers bungled his straps, and Jim,
+kneeling, fastened them on with nimble fingers.
+
+"Ain't ye never skated?"
+
+"No--I--I been lame. Oh, hurry, Jim! See, Mike's flyin' down the pond
+like wind!"
+
+Jim's eyes softened.
+
+"I'll teach ye," he said.
+
+As for the Doctor he had disinterred an ancient pair of skates from the
+attic, and presently he began to perform pedal convolutions of such
+startling design and eccentricity that the boys gathered about him and
+cheered until, seating himself unexpectedly in the center of a
+particularly wide and airy flourish, he flatly told the boys to run
+about their business.
+
+Now Muggs, though he carried upon his shoulder a ridiculous pair of
+elfin skates, was much too small a boy, his brother thought, to embark
+upon the ice, wherefore he stood like a sentinel upon the shore and
+drummed and ate incessantly, until an orange catapulted from an
+overcrowded pocket, when he pursued it with a roar.
+
+The peal of the village town-clock striking twelve came all too soon,
+but homing was no task with a turkey at the end. Muggs, still wrapped in
+mysterious silence, knew the very spot where Christmas odors began to
+permeate the frosty air and redoubled the speed in his drumming arm, but
+when after a vigorous scrubbing his glistening eye fell upon the
+holly-bright table and an enormous turkey by the Doctor's plate, only a
+frosty menace in Mike's eye, it seemed, restrained another
+blood-curdling shriek of delight. There was paralyzing apology in his
+eyes as Mike's lips formed the soundless threat--"Mom Murphy!"
+
+"He's holdin' himself in," said Annie, "Mister Muggs, give me the drum!
+Ye'll not crowd into the chair with that upon your shoulder!"
+
+It seemed that Mister Muggs would. He began to swell. He began to drum.
+He carried his point and crammed himself and his drum into his chair at
+the table. He did not speak. Neither, from that time on, did he permit
+any lapse in his industry. What Muggs did, from drum to drum-sticks, he
+did well.
+
+Muggs ate turkey and mashed turnips. Muggs ate potatoes, cranberry
+sauce, boiled onions, and quite a little celery. He glinted ahead at a
+pie on the sideboard, seemed to make hurried structural calculations,
+and pushed his plate again toward the turkey. Aunt Ellen looked at the
+Doctor and the Doctor looked at Muggs.
+
+"If the child eats any more," said Annie bluntly from the kitchen door,
+"he must have a pill. 'Tis enough for him to drum away the peace of the
+Christmas day without stuffin' himself that hard and round ye fear for
+his buttons. An' to my mind, if he'd talk more and eat less, he'd not be
+in such danger o' burstin'."
+
+Mike looked slightly agitated.
+
+"Muggs," said the Doctor firmly, "it comes to this. More turkey--one
+pill. No turkey--no pill."
+
+Muggs exhibited a capacity for instant decision. With stubby forefinger
+rigid, he shoved his plate a little closer to the turkey.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+The Log at Twilight
+
+
+There was a straw-ride in the farm sleigh after dinner, a story or two
+by the Yule log when the twilight closed in and Annie had lit the
+Christmas candles on the tree, and then as the boys were romping in a
+game of Roger's the Doctor slipped away to his study for a quiet hour
+with a book. His lamp was barely lighted and the book upon his knee when
+the door opened and Jim stood before him, his face so white and strained
+that the Doctor laid aside his book, thinking instantly, of course, that
+here again was too much turkey.
+
+Jim hung his head, one toe burrowing in the carpet.
+
+"Doctor John!" he burst forth hoarsely.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Jim gulped.
+
+"I--I been in _jail_!"
+
+The Doctor looked once at Jim's face, quivering in an agony of shame,
+and hastily wiped his glasses. In the quiet came the laughter of romping
+boys.
+
+"Why," said the Doctor very gently, "did you tell me?"
+
+Something in the kindly voice opened the flood-gates of a boy's sore
+heart. Jim's mouth quivered piteously, then he broke down and hid his
+face behind his elbow, sobbing wildly.
+
+"I wanta be square," he cried passionately, "I wanta be square like
+you've been to us, an'--an Luke said ye might not want a jail-bird here
+for Christmas. I--stole--coal--for mom--"
+
+It was the old tale, one boy caught, paying for the petty thievery of
+the score who ran away. The Doctor heard the mumbled tale to the end and
+cleared his throat.
+
+"And so," he said slowly, "you wanted to be square. That's the finest
+thing I've heard this Christmas day. Wanted to be square. Well, well!"
+His hand was on Jim's shoulder now. "Jim, I wonder if you could come
+back to me next Christmas and tell me you'd been absolutely straight--"
+
+"Here!" said Jim in a choking whisper, his eyes blazing through his
+tears, "again--for _Christmas_!"
+
+Somewhere on a snowy page a Christmas angel wrote: "One boy saved by the
+spirit of a country Christmas!"
+
+"Here," repeated the Doctor, "again--for Christmas." He opened the
+door. "Run along, now, Jim," he said kindly, "or the boys will miss
+you."
+
+Jim's final words were very queer.
+
+"Doctor John," he blurted, "I--I'm a goin' to send poor little Muggs."
+
+The Doctor was devoutly hoping that Muggs had never been in jail for
+stealing food or drums, when Muggs himself appeared clinging desperately
+to the hand of Mike. He seemed on the verge of a lachrymose explosion.
+
+Mike's face was very red but it was also very hopeful.
+
+"Jim said to tell ye," he mumbled. "She ain't never had no Christmas an'
+the minister he said the order was all boys an'--an' she cried, so Mom
+said bring her anyway in my ol' suit--you'd never know,
+an'--an'--an'--Oh, my gosh!" finished Mike tragically, "Muggs is a girl.
+Her--her name's C-c-c-c-clara!"
+
+The Doctor jumped. So did Muggs. The lachrymose explosion came and the
+drum slipped down from the shoulder of Muggs with a clatter.
+
+"Don't wanta go home!" came the heartbroken wail, "don't wanta go home.
+Mom Murphy'll git me."
+
+"I--I tol' her," explained Mike uncomfortably, "that she mustn't open
+her mouth once--jus' act deaf an' dumb or you'd guess maybe an' send
+her home an' Mom Murphy'd git her. An'--an'--she must take a drum like a
+boy--"
+
+Literal Muggs! Heaven alone knew by what other blood-thirsty threats
+than Mom Murphy Mike had encompassed the stony silence and frenzied
+drumming of the little sister who had never had a Christmas.
+
+"But why," burst forth the despairing Doctor. "In heaven's
+name--why--Muggs?"
+
+"She makes such awful faces," said Mike apologetically. "Mom don't know
+what makes her that way." And then as Muggs was at the climax of one of
+the spasms that had won her her name, the Doctor suddenly lifted her in
+gentle arms and tossed her to the ceiling.
+
+"Poor, poor little kiddy!" he said huskily. "What a price she's paid for
+her Christmas."
+
+But Muggs had forgotten the price. Though it had been a hard day the
+Doctor's eyes were kind and twinkly. Muggs buried her flushed and
+tearful little face on his shoulder with a sigh of content. He saw now
+that one knot of ribbon on the tousled, sunny curls would have told the
+story, then he glanced at the bagging suit and opened the door. Muggs
+went forth upon the Doctor's shoulder.
+
+"Asher," cried the Doctor, "hitch old Polly to the sleigh and telephone
+Sam Remsen that he can oblige me for once and open his store."
+
+"Ye--ye ain't goin' to send her home, are ye?" faltered Mike.
+
+"I'm going," cried the Doctor, "to buy Clara Muggs a dress and a doll.
+It's her night."
+
+The boys cheered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's When the Yule Log Burns, by Leona Dalrymple
+
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