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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23553-0.txt b/23553-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e2b2ff --- /dev/null +++ b/23553-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,956 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +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: The Christmas Miracle + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23553] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE + +By Charles Egbert Craddock + +1911 + + +He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be +vouchsafed him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy +was of the temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach +conclusions with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, +all unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some +stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the vast landscape +glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the foliage of the dense +primeval wilderness in the October richness of red and russet; the +“hunter's moon,” a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high in the blue +east while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above the massive +purple heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the growths of the +year had now failed; presently all would be shrouded in snow, but only +to rise again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to glow anew in +the fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection of fruition. +And still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and blind to +the immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to come. His +thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap, were with +a recent “experience meeting” at which he had sought to canvass his +spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of +the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of +divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality +is inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. +Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the +Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a +self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more properly +an eager questioning, a desire to possess the sacred mysteries of +religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a proud man, reticent, +reserved. Although the old parson, visibly surprised and startled, had +gently invited his full confidence, Kennedy had hastily swallowed his +words, as best he might, perceiving that the congregation had wholly +misinterpreted their true intent and that certain gossips had an unholy +relish of the sensation they had caused. + +Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the +veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with his +rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was nearer +an inspiration, a hope, a “leading,” than heretofore, but as he stood on +the crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn from +the solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis. + +The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the +landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the “hunter's +moon.” Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly through +the aisles of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was, swaying in +responsive ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head, with its +long, blowsy yellow hair, was bowed over the dark polished wood of +the instrument; the eyes were half closed; the right arm, despite the +eccentric patches on the sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat, moved with +free, elastic gestures in all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he +saw the hunter motionless on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave +no intimation. His every faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging +iteration of the sweet melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of +effect, an inspiration, it might almost have seemed, incongruous with +the infirmities of the crazy old fiddle. He was like a creature under +the sway of a spell, and apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the +enchantment of sound was the odd procession that trailed silently after +him through these deep mountain fastnesses. + +A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow blouse +open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld a face +of pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant, +ethereal of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid +complexion, and wide blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save +that now and then it turned feebly in its waxen hands a little striped +red-and-yellow pomegranate. A sturdy blond toddler trudged behind, in a +checked blue cotton frock, short enough to disclose cherubic pink feet +and legs bare to the knee; he carried that treasure of rural juveniles, +a cornstalk violin. An old hound, his tail suavely wagging, padded along +the narrow path; and last of all came, with frequent pause to crop the +wayside herbage, a large cow, brindled red and white. + +“The whole fambly!” muttered Kennedy. Then, aloud, “Why don't you uns +kerry the baby, Basil Bedell, an' give yer wife a rest?” + +At the prosaic suggestion the crystal realm of dreams was shattered. The +bow, with a quavering discordant scrape upon the strings, paused. Then +Bedell slowly mastered the meaning of the interruption. + +“Kerry the baby! Why, Aurely won't let none but herself tech that baby.” + He laughed as he tossed the tousled yellow hair from his face, and +looked over his shoulder to speak to the infant. “It air sech a plumb +special delightsome peach, it air,--it air!” + +The pale face of the child lighted up with a smile of recognition and a +faint gleam of mirth. + +“I jes' kem out ennyhows ter drive up the cow,” Basil added. + +“Big job,” sneered Kennedy. “'Pears-like it takes the whole fambly to do +it.” + +Such slothful mismanagement was calculated to affront an energetic +spirit. Obviously, at this hour the woman should be at home cooking the +supper. + +“I follered along ter listen ter the fiddle,--ef ye hev enny call ter +know.” Mrs. Bedell replied to his unspoken thought, as if by divination. + +But indeed such strictures were not heard for the first time. They were +in some sort the penalty of the disinterested friendship which Kennedy +had harbored for Basil since their childhood. He wished that his compeer +might prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to +be amply possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his +intention to marry, but the object of his affections had found him “too +mortal solemn,” and without a word of warning had married another man in +a distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to +reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, +but the habit of industry thus formed had continued of its own momentum. +It had resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable +holding,--cattle, house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance +of the ant for the cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every +wincing nerve was enlisted in arresting it in mid-air. + +“Mighty long tramp fur Bobbie, thar,--why n't ye kerry him!” y + +The imperturbable calm still held fast on the musician's face. “Bob,” he +addressed the toddler, “will you uns let daddy kerry ye like a baby!” + +He swooped down as if to lift the child, the violin and bow in his left +hand. The hardy youngster backed off precipitately. + +“Don't ye _dare_ ter do it!” he virulently admonished his parent, a +resentful light in his blue eyes. Then, as Bedell sang a stave in a full +rich voice, “Bye-oh, Baby!” Bob vociferated anew, “Don't you _begin_ ter +dare do it!” every inch a man though a little one. + +“That's the kind of a fambly I hev got,” Basil commented easily. “Wife +an' boy an' baby all walk over me,--plumb stomp on me! Jes' enough lef +of me ter play the fiddle a leetle once in a while.” + +“Mighty nigh all the while, I be afeared,” Kennedy corrected the phrase. +“How did yer corn crap turn out!” he asked, as he too fell into line and +the procession moved on once more along the narrow path. + +“Well enough,” said Basil; “we uns hev got a sufficiency.” Then, as if +afraid of seeming boastful he qualified, “Ye know I hain't got but +one muel ter feed, an' the cow thar. My sheep gits thar pastur' on +the volunteer grass 'mongst the rocks, an' I hev jes' got a few head +ennyhows.” + +“But _why_ hain't ye got more, Basil! Why n't ye work more and quit +wastin' yer time on that old fool fiddle!” + +The limits of patience were reached. The musician fired up. “'Kase,” + he retorted, “I make enough. I hev got grace enough ter be thankful fur +sech ez be vouchsafed ter me. _I_ ain't wantin' no meracle.” + +Kennedy flushed, following in silence while the musician annotated his +triumph by a series of gay little harmonics, and young Hopeful, trudging +in the rear, executed a soundless fantasia on the cornstalk fiddle with +great brilliancy of technique. + +“You uns air talkin' 'bout whut I said at the meetin' las' month,” + Kennedy observed at length. + +“An' so be all the mounting,” Aurelia interpolated with a sudden fierce +joy of reproof. + +Kennedy winced visibly. + +“The folks all 'low ez ye be no better than an onbeliever.” Aurelia was +bent on driving the blade home. “The idee of axin' fur a meracle at this +late day,--so ez _ye_ kin be satisfied in yer mind ez ye hev got grace! +Providence, though merciful, air _obleeged_, ter know ez sech air plumb +scandalous an' redic'lous.” + +“Why, Aurely, hesh up,” exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted +leniency. “I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,--yer voice sounds +plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout +a meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye +see,--'kase I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss----” + +“Ye know a lie, then,” his helpmate interrupted promptly. + +“Why, Aurely, hesh up,--ye--ye--_woman_, ye!” he concluded injuriously. +Then resuming his remarks to Kennedy, “I know I _do_ fool away a deal of +my time with the fiddle----” + +“The sound of it is like bread ter me,-- + +“I couldn't live without it,” interposed the unconquered Aurelia. +“Sometimes it minds me o' the singin' o' runnin' water in a lonesome +place. Then agin it minds me o' seein' sunshine in a dream. An' +sometimes it be sweet an' high an' fur off, like a voice from the sky, +tellin' what no mortial ever knowed before,--an' _then_ it minds me o' +the tune them angels sung ter the shepherds abidin' in the fields. I +_couldn't_ live without it.” + +“Woman, hold yer jaw!” Basil proclaimed comprehensively. Then, renewing +his explanation to Kennedy, “I kin see that I don't purvide fur my +fambly ez I ought ter do, through hatin' work and lovin' to play the +fiddle.” + +“I ain't goin' ter hear my home an' hearth reviled.” Aurelia laid an +imperative hand on her husband's arm. “Ye know ye couldn 't make more +out'n sech ground,--though I ain't faultin' our land, neither. We uns +hev enough an' ter spare, all we need an' more than we deserve. We don't +need ter ax a meracle from the skies ter stay our souls on faith, nor a +sign ter prove our grace.” + +“Now, _now, stop_, Aurely!--I declar', Jube I dunno what made me lay my +tongue ter sech a word ez that thar miser'ble benighted meracle! I be +powerful sorry I hurt yer feelin's, Jube; folks seekin' salvation git +mightily mis-put sometimes, an'----” + +“_I_ don't want ter hear none o' yer views on religion,” Kennedy +interrupted gruffly. An apology often augments the sense of injury. In +this instance it also annulled the provocation, for his own admission +put Bedell hopelessly in the wrong. “Ez a friend I war argufyin' with ye +agin' yer waste o' time with that old fool fiddle. Ye hev got wife an' +children, an' yit not so well off in this world's gear ez me, a single +man. I misdoubts ef ye hev hunted a day since the craps war laid by, or +hev got a pound o' jerked venison stored up fer winter. But this air +yer home,”--he pointed upward at a little clearing beginning, as they +approached, to be visible amidst the forest,--“an' ef ye air satisfied +with sech ez it be, that comes from laziness stiddier a contented +sperit.” + +With this caustic saying he suddenly left them, the procession standing +silently staring after him as he took his way through the woods in the +dusky red shadows of the autumnal gloaming. + +Aurelia's vaunted home was indeed a poor place,--not even the rude +though substantial log-cabin common to the region. It was a flimsy +shanty of boards, and except for its rickety porch was more like a box +than a house. It had its perch on a jutting eminence, where it seemed +the familiar of the skies, so did the clouds and winds circle about it. +Through the great gateway of Sunrise Gap it commanded a landscape of a +scope that might typify a world, in its multitude of mountain ranges, in +the intricacies of its intervening valleys, in the glittering coils +of its water-courses. Basil would sometimes sink into deep silences, +overpowered by the majesty of nature in this place. After a long hiatus +the bow would tremble and falter on the strings as if overawed for a +time; presently the theme would strengthen, expand, resound with large +meaning, and then he would send forth melodies that he had never before +played or heard, his own dream, the reflection of that mighty mood of +nature in the limpid pool of his receptive mind. + +Around were rocks, crags, chasms,--the fields which nourished the family +lay well from the verge, within the purlieus of the limited mountain +plateau. He had sought to persuade himself that it was to save all the +arable land for tillage that he had placed his house and door-yard here, +but both he and Aurelia were secretly aware of the subterfuge; he would +fain be always within the glamour of the prospect through Sunrise Gap! + +Their interlocutor had truly deemed that the woman should have been +earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long +before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to +whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves +to bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and +flare pervaded every nook of the bright little house. Strings of +red-pepper-pods flaunted in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered +under a gay quilt in his rude cradle, never far from his mother's hand, +but the bluff little boy was still up and about, although his aspect, +round and burly, in a scanty nightgown, gave token of recognition of the +fact that bed was his appropriate place. His shrill plaintive voice rose +ever and anon wakefully. + +“I wanter hear a bear tale,--I wanter hear a bear tale.” + +Thus Basil must needs knock the ashes from his pipe the better to devote +himself to the narration,--a prince of raconteurs, to judge by the +spell-bound interest of the youngster who stood at his knee and hung +on his words. Even Aurelia checked the whir of her wheel to listen +smilingly. She broke out laughing in appreciative pleasure when Basil +took up the violin to show how a jovial old bear, who intruded into this +very house one day when all the family were away at the church in the +cove, and who mistook the instrument for a banjo, addressed himself to +picking out this tune, singing the while a quaint and ursine lay. Basil +embellished the imitation with a masterly effect of realistic growls. + +“Ef ye keep goin' at that gait, Basil,” Aurelia admonished him, +“daylight will ketch us all wide awake around the fire,--no wonder the +child won't go to bed.” She seemed suddenly impressed with the pervasive +cheer. “What a fool that man, Jube Kennedy, must be! How _could_ +ennybody hev a sweeter, darlinger home than we uns hev got hyar in +Sunrise Gap!” + +On the languorous autumn a fierce winter ensued. The cold came early. +The deciduous growths of the forests were leafless ere November waned, +rifled by the riotous marauding winds. December set in with the gusty +snow flying fast. Drear were the gray skies; ghastly the sheeted ranges. +Drifts piled high in bleak ravines, and the grim gneissoid crags were +begirt with gigantic icicles. But about the little house in Sunrise +Gap that kept so warm a heart, the holly trees showed their glad green +leaves and the red berries glowed with a mystic significance. + +As the weeks wore on, the place was often in Kennedy's mind, although +he had not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred +himself to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic +provision. His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved +the retort, the flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he +still winced from the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted +the importunacy of Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had +persisted to the limit of her power in the embitterment of the +controversy, but even Aurelia he was disposed to forgive as time passed +on. When Christinas Day dawned, the vague sentiment began to assume the +definiteness of a purpose, and noontide found him on his way to Sunrise +Gap. + +There was now no path through the woods; the snow lay deep over all, +unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the +stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in +distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the +intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir, +there was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough +light to cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the +snow-covered ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew +near the mountain brink, all was distinct in the vast landscape, the +massive ranges and alternating valleys in infinite repetition. + +He wondered when near the house that he had not heard the familiar +barking of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his +horse's hoofs was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. +He would like to surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious +rancor for Basil's sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from +the thick growths of the holly, with the icy scintillations of its +clustering green leaves and red berries, he drew rein so suddenly that +the horse was thrown back on his haunches. The rider sat as if petrified +in the presence of an awful disaster. + +The house was gone! Even the site had vanished! Kennedy stared +bewildered. Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to +creep through his brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landslide. +The cliff-like projection was broken sheer off,--hurled into the depths +of the valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, +doubtless, had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust +of the earth had collapsed. He could see even now how the freeze had +fractured outcropping ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures. +A deep abyss that he remembered as being at a considerable distance +from the mountain's brink, once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed +the remnant of its jagged, shattered walls at the extreme verge of the +precipice. + +A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the +children,--where were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from +the warm securities of the hearth-stone, without a moment's warning, +and hurled into the midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to +the depths of the gap,--a thousand feet below! And at what time had this +dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads' +store, when he had paused on his way to warm himself that morning, some +gossip was detailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the +previous night, while others protested that it must have been only +the clamors of “Christmas guns” firing all along the country-side. “A +turrible clap, it was,” the raconteur had persisted. “Sounded ez ef all +creation hed split apart.” Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be +recent. Kennedy could scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and +made his way slowly and cautiously to the verge. + +Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving +effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or +doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so +abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely +conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from +the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap--inverted +roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven +asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown +streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from +the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes. +His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart +suddenly plunged with a wild hope,--he had discerned amongst the turmoil +a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it was in +the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an +incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been spared +such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had the +house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers +must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered +as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling +had thus far served to save it,--the interdependent “framing” of its +structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on, +rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in +one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another. +But should the earth cave anew, should the tough fibres of one of those +gigantic roots tear out from the loosened friable soil, should the +elastic supporting branches barely sway in some errant gust of wind, the +little box would fall hundreds of feet, cracked like a nut, shattering +against the rocks of the levels below. + +He wondered if the inmates yet lived,--he pitied them still more if +they only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of +fear their ultimate doom. Perhaps--he felt he was but trifling with +despair--some rescue might be devised. + +Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain!--full of +horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed +reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy +halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay +on its side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the pallid +simulacrum of a face. + +“This be Jube Kennedy,” he cried, reassuringly. “I be goin' ter fetch +help,--men, ropes, and a windlass.” + +“Make haste then,--we uns be nigh friz.” + +“Ye air in no danger of fire, then?” asked the practical man. + +“We hev hed none,--before we war flunged off'n the bluff we hed +squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would +scorch his feet comm' down the chimbley,--powerful lucky fur we uns; the +fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously.” + +Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at +frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light +of the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; +torn by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches +of great trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed +icy chasms, and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering, +struggling horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, +bleeding, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the +sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in +this matter of life or death! + +Death, indeed, only,--for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by +those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were +several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and +they demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of +the obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered cliffs; that +a human being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be +torn from it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful +death against the jagged rocks in the transit. + +“But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from--say--from +that thar old pine tree over thar,” Kennedy insisted, indicating the +long bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. “The +chair would swing cl'ar of the bluff then.” + +“But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that +tree,--more than a man's life is wuth ter try it.” + +A moment ensued of absolute silence,--space, however, for a hard-fought +battle. + +The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of creation +reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by the +excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of the +long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of the +senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir in +the brain,--all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were +duly realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and +dry lips,-- + +“Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,--I'll kerry a +guy-rope over thar.” + +At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to +reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here, +and might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be +fastened the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which +could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cliff. +Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of +the enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great +rope knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over +the brink at the point where the crag jutted forth,--lower and lower +still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the débris +of earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more swinging +back to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the +scope of the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly +lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the +guy-rope, on which he had come and on which he must needs return. + +It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long +time before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly +lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious +glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a +flaw of wind:--and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and +as the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every +eye was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this +aerial journey,--the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This +was well,--all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk +the added delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, along the +gradations of the rise, the guy-rope holding it well from the chances +of contact with the jagged projections of the face of the cliff, and the +first shout of triumph rang sonorously from the summit. + +When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of +anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch +on the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who +should go first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the +long wait in this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. Aurelia +was forced into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving' her hand to +her husband, shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, +as she fancied, and calling out dismally, “Far'well, Basil, far'-well.” + +Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men +working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts +of laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing +interval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent with himself, +the two objects which he next most treasured, his violin and his old +hound. The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with +welcoming acclamations. + +Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of +the group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. The +pines and firs showed no longer their sempervirent green, but were black +amid the white tufted lines on their branches, that still served to +accentuate their symmetry. The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss +of gloom, though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward, +always upward. Thus he saw, like some radiant and splendid star, the +first torch whitely aglow on the brink of the precipice. It opened long +avenues of light adown the snowy landscape,--soft blue shadows trailed +after it, like half-descried draperies of elusive hovering beings. Soon +the torch was duplicated; another and then another began to glow. Now +several drew together, and like a constellation glimmered crownlike +on the brow of the night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to +hoist. + +Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as +it shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its +mystic glamour,--disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the long +handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and +yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that +rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them, +all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence +that he was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being stuick +downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the +ropes, for he was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret +this as an emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was +disentangled, he felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than +one pair of the ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own +hands hard. They practically carried him to a fire that had been built +in a sheltered place in one of those grottoes of the region, locally +called “Rock-houses.” Its cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior, +and not until they had turned a corner in a tunnel-like passage was +revealed an arched space in a rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire +itself obscured by the figures about it. His eyes were caught first by +the aspect of a youthful mother with a golden-haired babe on her breast; +close by showed the head and horns of a cow; the mule was mercifully +sheltered too, and stood near, munching his fodder; a cluster of +sheep pressed after the steps of half a dozen men, that somehow in the +clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds of old summoned by good +tidings of great joy. + +A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal +beard. + +“Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?” the +old circuit-rider straitly demanded. “How could ye hev strengthened yer +heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily +within ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my +brethern, ye hev done it unto me.” + +“That ain't the _kind_ o' sign, parson,” Kennedy faltered. “I be lookin' +fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear.” + +“The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom,” said the parson +solemnly. “The kingdom o' Christ is a _spiritual_ kingdom, an' great are +the wonders that are wrought therein.” + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + +***** This file should be named 23553-0.txt or 23553-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23553/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/23553-0.zip b/23553-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b3f050 --- /dev/null +++ b/23553-0.zip diff --git a/23553-8.txt b/23553-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca35f8c --- /dev/null +++ b/23553-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,955 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +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: The Christmas Miracle + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE + +By Charles Egbert Craddock + +1911 + + +He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be +vouchsafed him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy +was of the temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach +conclusions with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, +all unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some +stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the vast landscape +glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the foliage of the dense +primeval wilderness in the October richness of red and russet; the +"hunter's moon," a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high in the blue +east while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above the massive +purple heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the growths of the +year had now failed; presently all would be shrouded in snow, but only +to rise again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to glow anew in +the fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection of fruition. +And still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and blind to +the immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to come. His +thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap, were with +a recent "experience meeting" at which he had sought to canvass his +spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of +the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of +divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality +is inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. +Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the +Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a +self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more properly +an eager questioning, a desire to possess the sacred mysteries of +religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a proud man, reticent, +reserved. Although the old parson, visibly surprised and startled, had +gently invited his full confidence, Kennedy had hastily swallowed his +words, as best he might, perceiving that the congregation had wholly +misinterpreted their true intent and that certain gossips had an unholy +relish of the sensation they had caused. + +Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the +veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with his +rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was nearer +an inspiration, a hope, a "leading," than heretofore, but as he stood on +the crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn from +the solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis. + +The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the +landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the "hunter's +moon." Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly through +the aisles of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was, swaying in +responsive ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head, with its +long, blowsy yellow hair, was bowed over the dark polished wood of +the instrument; the eyes were half closed; the right arm, despite the +eccentric patches on the sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat, moved with +free, elastic gestures in all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he +saw the hunter motionless on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave +no intimation. His every faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging +iteration of the sweet melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of +effect, an inspiration, it might almost have seemed, incongruous with +the infirmities of the crazy old fiddle. He was like a creature under +the sway of a spell, and apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the +enchantment of sound was the odd procession that trailed silently after +him through these deep mountain fastnesses. + +A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow blouse +open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld a face +of pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant, +ethereal of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid +complexion, and wide blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save +that now and then it turned feebly in its waxen hands a little striped +red-and-yellow pomegranate. A sturdy blond toddler trudged behind, in a +checked blue cotton frock, short enough to disclose cherubic pink feet +and legs bare to the knee; he carried that treasure of rural juveniles, +a cornstalk violin. An old hound, his tail suavely wagging, padded along +the narrow path; and last of all came, with frequent pause to crop the +wayside herbage, a large cow, brindled red and white. + +"The whole fambly!" muttered Kennedy. Then, aloud, "Why don't you uns +kerry the baby, Basil Bedell, an' give yer wife a rest?" + +At the prosaic suggestion the crystal realm of dreams was shattered. The +bow, with a quavering discordant scrape upon the strings, paused. Then +Bedell slowly mastered the meaning of the interruption. + +"Kerry the baby! Why, Aurely won't let none but herself tech that baby." +He laughed as he tossed the tousled yellow hair from his face, and +looked over his shoulder to speak to the infant. "It air sech a plumb +special delightsome peach, it air,--it air!" + +The pale face of the child lighted up with a smile of recognition and a +faint gleam of mirth. + +"I jes' kem out ennyhows ter drive up the cow," Basil added. + +"Big job," sneered Kennedy. "'Pears-like it takes the whole fambly to do +it." + +Such slothful mismanagement was calculated to affront an energetic +spirit. Obviously, at this hour the woman should be at home cooking the +supper. + +"I follered along ter listen ter the fiddle,--ef ye hev enny call ter +know." Mrs. Bedell replied to his unspoken thought, as if by divination. + +But indeed such strictures were not heard for the first time. They were +in some sort the penalty of the disinterested friendship which Kennedy +had harbored for Basil since their childhood. He wished that his compeer +might prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to +be amply possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his +intention to marry, but the object of his affections had found him "too +mortal solemn," and without a word of warning had married another man in +a distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to +reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, +but the habit of industry thus formed had continued of its own momentum. +It had resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable +holding,--cattle, house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance +of the ant for the cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every +wincing nerve was enlisted in arresting it in mid-air. + +"Mighty long tramp fur Bobbie, thar,--why n't ye kerry him!" y + +The imperturbable calm still held fast on the musician's face. "Bob," he +addressed the toddler, "will you uns let daddy kerry ye like a baby!" + +He swooped down as if to lift the child, the violin and bow in his left +hand. The hardy youngster backed off precipitately. + +"Don't ye _dare_ ter do it!" he virulently admonished his parent, a +resentful light in his blue eyes. Then, as Bedell sang a stave in a full +rich voice, "Bye-oh, Baby!" Bob vociferated anew, "Don't you _begin_ ter +dare do it!" every inch a man though a little one. + +"That's the kind of a fambly I hev got," Basil commented easily. "Wife +an' boy an' baby all walk over me,--plumb stomp on me! Jes' enough lef +of me ter play the fiddle a leetle once in a while." + +"Mighty nigh all the while, I be afeared," Kennedy corrected the phrase. +"How did yer corn crap turn out!" he asked, as he too fell into line and +the procession moved on once more along the narrow path. + +"Well enough," said Basil; "we uns hev got a sufficiency." Then, as if +afraid of seeming boastful he qualified, "Ye know I hain't got but +one muel ter feed, an' the cow thar. My sheep gits thar pastur' on +the volunteer grass 'mongst the rocks, an' I hev jes' got a few head +ennyhows." + +"But _why_ hain't ye got more, Basil! Why n't ye work more and quit +wastin' yer time on that old fool fiddle!" + +The limits of patience were reached. The musician fired up. "'Kase," +he retorted, "I make enough. I hev got grace enough ter be thankful fur +sech ez be vouchsafed ter me. _I_ ain't wantin' no meracle." + +Kennedy flushed, following in silence while the musician annotated his +triumph by a series of gay little harmonics, and young Hopeful, trudging +in the rear, executed a soundless fantasia on the cornstalk fiddle with +great brilliancy of technique. + +"You uns air talkin' 'bout whut I said at the meetin' las' month," +Kennedy observed at length. + +"An' so be all the mounting," Aurelia interpolated with a sudden fierce +joy of reproof. + +Kennedy winced visibly. + +"The folks all 'low ez ye be no better than an onbeliever." Aurelia was +bent on driving the blade home. "The idee of axin' fur a meracle at this +late day,--so ez _ye_ kin be satisfied in yer mind ez ye hev got grace! +Providence, though merciful, air _obleeged_, ter know ez sech air plumb +scandalous an' redic'lous." + +"Why, Aurely, hesh up," exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted +leniency. "I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,--yer voice sounds +plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout +a meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye +see,--'kase I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss----" + +"Ye know a lie, then," his helpmate interrupted promptly. + +"Why, Aurely, hesh up,--ye--ye--_woman_, ye!" he concluded injuriously. +Then resuming his remarks to Kennedy, "I know I _do_ fool away a deal of +my time with the fiddle----" + +"The sound of it is like bread ter me,-- + +"I couldn't live without it," interposed the unconquered Aurelia. +"Sometimes it minds me o' the singin' o' runnin' water in a lonesome +place. Then agin it minds me o' seein' sunshine in a dream. An' +sometimes it be sweet an' high an' fur off, like a voice from the sky, +tellin' what no mortial ever knowed before,--an' _then_ it minds me o' +the tune them angels sung ter the shepherds abidin' in the fields. I +_couldn't_ live without it." + +"Woman, hold yer jaw!" Basil proclaimed comprehensively. Then, renewing +his explanation to Kennedy, "I kin see that I don't purvide fur my +fambly ez I ought ter do, through hatin' work and lovin' to play the +fiddle." + +"I ain't goin' ter hear my home an' hearth reviled." Aurelia laid an +imperative hand on her husband's arm. "Ye know ye couldn 't make more +out'n sech ground,--though I ain't faultin' our land, neither. We uns +hev enough an' ter spare, all we need an' more than we deserve. We don't +need ter ax a meracle from the skies ter stay our souls on faith, nor a +sign ter prove our grace." + +"Now, _now, stop_, Aurely!--I declar', Jube I dunno what made me lay my +tongue ter sech a word ez that thar miser'ble benighted meracle! I be +powerful sorry I hurt yer feelin's, Jube; folks seekin' salvation git +mightily mis-put sometimes, an'----" + +"_I_ don't want ter hear none o' yer views on religion," Kennedy +interrupted gruffly. An apology often augments the sense of injury. In +this instance it also annulled the provocation, for his own admission +put Bedell hopelessly in the wrong. "Ez a friend I war argufyin' with ye +agin' yer waste o' time with that old fool fiddle. Ye hev got wife an' +children, an' yit not so well off in this world's gear ez me, a single +man. I misdoubts ef ye hev hunted a day since the craps war laid by, or +hev got a pound o' jerked venison stored up fer winter. But this air +yer home,"--he pointed upward at a little clearing beginning, as they +approached, to be visible amidst the forest,--"an' ef ye air satisfied +with sech ez it be, that comes from laziness stiddier a contented +sperit." + +With this caustic saying he suddenly left them, the procession standing +silently staring after him as he took his way through the woods in the +dusky red shadows of the autumnal gloaming. + +Aurelia's vaunted home was indeed a poor place,--not even the rude +though substantial log-cabin common to the region. It was a flimsy +shanty of boards, and except for its rickety porch was more like a box +than a house. It had its perch on a jutting eminence, where it seemed +the familiar of the skies, so did the clouds and winds circle about it. +Through the great gateway of Sunrise Gap it commanded a landscape of a +scope that might typify a world, in its multitude of mountain ranges, in +the intricacies of its intervening valleys, in the glittering coils +of its water-courses. Basil would sometimes sink into deep silences, +overpowered by the majesty of nature in this place. After a long hiatus +the bow would tremble and falter on the strings as if overawed for a +time; presently the theme would strengthen, expand, resound with large +meaning, and then he would send forth melodies that he had never before +played or heard, his own dream, the reflection of that mighty mood of +nature in the limpid pool of his receptive mind. + +Around were rocks, crags, chasms,--the fields which nourished the family +lay well from the verge, within the purlieus of the limited mountain +plateau. He had sought to persuade himself that it was to save all the +arable land for tillage that he had placed his house and door-yard here, +but both he and Aurelia were secretly aware of the subterfuge; he would +fain be always within the glamour of the prospect through Sunrise Gap! + +Their interlocutor had truly deemed that the woman should have been +earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long +before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to +whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves +to bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and +flare pervaded every nook of the bright little house. Strings of +red-pepper-pods flaunted in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered +under a gay quilt in his rude cradle, never far from his mother's hand, +but the bluff little boy was still up and about, although his aspect, +round and burly, in a scanty nightgown, gave token of recognition of the +fact that bed was his appropriate place. His shrill plaintive voice rose +ever and anon wakefully. + +"I wanter hear a bear tale,--I wanter hear a bear tale." + +Thus Basil must needs knock the ashes from his pipe the better to devote +himself to the narration,--a prince of raconteurs, to judge by the +spell-bound interest of the youngster who stood at his knee and hung +on his words. Even Aurelia checked the whir of her wheel to listen +smilingly. She broke out laughing in appreciative pleasure when Basil +took up the violin to show how a jovial old bear, who intruded into this +very house one day when all the family were away at the church in the +cove, and who mistook the instrument for a banjo, addressed himself to +picking out this tune, singing the while a quaint and ursine lay. Basil +embellished the imitation with a masterly effect of realistic growls. + +"Ef ye keep goin' at that gait, Basil," Aurelia admonished him, +"daylight will ketch us all wide awake around the fire,--no wonder the +child won't go to bed." She seemed suddenly impressed with the pervasive +cheer. "What a fool that man, Jube Kennedy, must be! How _could_ +ennybody hev a sweeter, darlinger home than we uns hev got hyar in +Sunrise Gap!" + +On the languorous autumn a fierce winter ensued. The cold came early. +The deciduous growths of the forests were leafless ere November waned, +rifled by the riotous marauding winds. December set in with the gusty +snow flying fast. Drear were the gray skies; ghastly the sheeted ranges. +Drifts piled high in bleak ravines, and the grim gneissoid crags were +begirt with gigantic icicles. But about the little house in Sunrise +Gap that kept so warm a heart, the holly trees showed their glad green +leaves and the red berries glowed with a mystic significance. + +As the weeks wore on, the place was often in Kennedy's mind, although +he had not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred +himself to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic +provision. His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved +the retort, the flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he +still winced from the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted +the importunacy of Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had +persisted to the limit of her power in the embitterment of the +controversy, but even Aurelia he was disposed to forgive as time passed +on. When Christinas Day dawned, the vague sentiment began to assume the +definiteness of a purpose, and noontide found him on his way to Sunrise +Gap. + +There was now no path through the woods; the snow lay deep over all, +unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the +stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in +distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the +intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir, +there was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough +light to cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the +snow-covered ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew +near the mountain brink, all was distinct in the vast landscape, the +massive ranges and alternating valleys in infinite repetition. + +He wondered when near the house that he had not heard the familiar +barking of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his +horse's hoofs was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. +He would like to surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious +rancor for Basil's sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from +the thick growths of the holly, with the icy scintillations of its +clustering green leaves and red berries, he drew rein so suddenly that +the horse was thrown back on his haunches. The rider sat as if petrified +in the presence of an awful disaster. + +The house was gone! Even the site had vanished! Kennedy stared +bewildered. Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to +creep through his brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landslide. +The cliff-like projection was broken sheer off,--hurled into the depths +of the valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, +doubtless, had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust +of the earth had collapsed. He could see even now how the freeze had +fractured outcropping ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures. +A deep abyss that he remembered as being at a considerable distance +from the mountain's brink, once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed +the remnant of its jagged, shattered walls at the extreme verge of the +precipice. + +A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the +children,--where were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from +the warm securities of the hearth-stone, without a moment's warning, +and hurled into the midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to +the depths of the gap,--a thousand feet below! And at what time had this +dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads' +store, when he had paused on his way to warm himself that morning, some +gossip was detailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the +previous night, while others protested that it must have been only +the clamors of "Christmas guns" firing all along the country-side. "A +turrible clap, it was," the raconteur had persisted. "Sounded ez ef all +creation hed split apart." Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be +recent. Kennedy could scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and +made his way slowly and cautiously to the verge. + +Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving +effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or +doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so +abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely +conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from +the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap--inverted +roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven +asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown +streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from +the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes. +His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart +suddenly plunged with a wild hope,--he had discerned amongst the turmoil +a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it was in +the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an +incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been spared +such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had the +house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers +must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered +as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling +had thus far served to save it,--the interdependent "framing" of its +structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on, +rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in +one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another. +But should the earth cave anew, should the tough fibres of one of those +gigantic roots tear out from the loosened friable soil, should the +elastic supporting branches barely sway in some errant gust of wind, the +little box would fall hundreds of feet, cracked like a nut, shattering +against the rocks of the levels below. + +He wondered if the inmates yet lived,--he pitied them still more if +they only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of +fear their ultimate doom. Perhaps--he felt he was but trifling with +despair--some rescue might be devised. + +Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain!--full of +horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed +reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy +halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay +on its side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the pallid +simulacrum of a face. + +"This be Jube Kennedy," he cried, reassuringly. "I be goin' ter fetch +help,--men, ropes, and a windlass." + +"Make haste then,--we uns be nigh friz." + +"Ye air in no danger of fire, then?" asked the practical man. + +"We hev hed none,--before we war flunged off'n the bluff we hed +squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would +scorch his feet comm' down the chimbley,--powerful lucky fur we uns; the +fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously." + +Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at +frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light +of the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; +torn by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches +of great trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed +icy chasms, and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering, +struggling horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, +bleeding, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the +sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in +this matter of life or death! + +Death, indeed, only,--for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by +those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were +several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and +they demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of +the obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered cliffs; that +a human being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be +torn from it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful +death against the jagged rocks in the transit. + +"But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from--say--from +that thar old pine tree over thar," Kennedy insisted, indicating the +long bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. "The +chair would swing cl'ar of the bluff then." + +"But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that +tree,--more than a man's life is wuth ter try it." + +A moment ensued of absolute silence,--space, however, for a hard-fought +battle. + +The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of creation +reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by the +excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of the +long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of the +senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir in +the brain,--all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were +duly realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and +dry lips,-- + +"Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,--I'll kerry a +guy-rope over thar." + +At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to +reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here, +and might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be +fastened the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which +could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cliff. +Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of +the enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great +rope knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over +the brink at the point where the crag jutted forth,--lower and lower +still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the dbris +of earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more swinging +back to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the +scope of the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly +lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the +guy-rope, on which he had come and on which he must needs return. + +It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long +time before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly +lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious +glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a +flaw of wind:--and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and +as the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every +eye was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this +aerial journey,--the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This +was well,--all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk +the added delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, along the +gradations of the rise, the guy-rope holding it well from the chances +of contact with the jagged projections of the face of the cliff, and the +first shout of triumph rang sonorously from the summit. + +When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of +anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch +on the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who +should go first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the +long wait in this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. Aurelia +was forced into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving' her hand to +her husband, shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, +as she fancied, and calling out dismally, "Far'well, Basil, far'-well." + +Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men +working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts +of laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing +interval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent with himself, +the two objects which he next most treasured, his violin and his old +hound. The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with +welcoming acclamations. + +Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of +the group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. The +pines and firs showed no longer their sempervirent green, but were black +amid the white tufted lines on their branches, that still served to +accentuate their symmetry. The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss +of gloom, though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward, +always upward. Thus he saw, like some radiant and splendid star, the +first torch whitely aglow on the brink of the precipice. It opened long +avenues of light adown the snowy landscape,--soft blue shadows trailed +after it, like half-descried draperies of elusive hovering beings. Soon +the torch was duplicated; another and then another began to glow. Now +several drew together, and like a constellation glimmered crownlike +on the brow of the night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to +hoist. + +Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as +it shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its +mystic glamour,--disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the long +handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and +yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that +rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them, +all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence +that he was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being stuick +downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the +ropes, for he was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret +this as an emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was +disentangled, he felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than +one pair of the ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own +hands hard. They practically carried him to a fire that had been built +in a sheltered place in one of those grottoes of the region, locally +called "Rock-houses." Its cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior, +and not until they had turned a corner in a tunnel-like passage was +revealed an arched space in a rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire +itself obscured by the figures about it. His eyes were caught first by +the aspect of a youthful mother with a golden-haired babe on her breast; +close by showed the head and horns of a cow; the mule was mercifully +sheltered too, and stood near, munching his fodder; a cluster of +sheep pressed after the steps of half a dozen men, that somehow in the +clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds of old summoned by good +tidings of great joy. + +A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal +beard. + +"Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?" the +old circuit-rider straitly demanded. "How could ye hev strengthened yer +heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily +within ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my +brethern, ye hev done it unto me." + +"That ain't the _kind_ o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. "I be lookin' +fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear." + +"The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said the parson +solemnly. "The kingdom o' Christ is a _spiritual_ kingdom, an' great are +the wonders that are wrought therein." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + +***** This file should be named 23553-8.txt or 23553-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23553/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Christmas Miracle + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23553] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE + </h1> + <h2> + By Charles Egbert Craddock <br /> <br /> 1911 + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be vouchsafed + him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy was of the + temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach conclusions + with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, all + unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some + stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the vast landscape + glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the foliage of the dense + primeval wilderness in the October richness of red and russet; the + “hunter's moon,” a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high in the blue east + while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above the massive purple + heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the growths of the year had + now failed; presently all would be shrouded in snow, but only to rise + again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to glow anew in the + fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection of fruition. And + still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and blind to the + immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to come. His + thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap, were with a + recent “experience meeting” at which he had sought to canvass his + spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of the + existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of + divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality is + inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. + Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the + Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a + self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more properly + an eager questioning, a desire to possess the sacred mysteries of + religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a proud man, reticent, reserved. + Although the old parson, visibly surprised and startled, had gently + invited his full confidence, Kennedy had hastily swallowed his words, as + best he might, perceiving that the congregation had wholly misinterpreted + their true intent and that certain gossips had an unholy relish of the + sensation they had caused. + </p> + <p> + Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the + veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with his + rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was nearer an + inspiration, a hope, a “leading,” than heretofore, but as he stood on the + crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn from the + solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis. + </p> + <p> + The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the + landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the “hunter's moon.” + Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly through the aisles + of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was, swaying in responsive + ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head, with its long, blowsy yellow + hair, was bowed over the dark polished wood of the instrument; the eyes + were half closed; the right arm, despite the eccentric patches on the + sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat, moved with free, elastic gestures in + all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he saw the hunter motionless + on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave no intimation. His every + faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging iteration of the sweet + melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of effect, an inspiration, it + might almost have seemed, incongruous with the infirmities of the crazy + old fiddle. He was like a creature under the sway of a spell, and + apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the enchantment of sound was the + odd procession that trailed silently after him through these deep mountain + fastnesses. + </p> + <p> + A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow blouse + open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld a face of + pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant, ethereal + of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid complexion, and wide + blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save that now and then it turned + feebly in its waxen hands a little striped red-and-yellow pomegranate. A + sturdy blond toddler trudged behind, in a checked blue cotton frock, short + enough to disclose cherubic pink feet and legs bare to the knee; he + carried that treasure of rural juveniles, a cornstalk violin. An old + hound, his tail suavely wagging, padded along the narrow path; and last of + all came, with frequent pause to crop the wayside herbage, a large cow, + brindled red and white. + </p> + <p> + “The whole fambly!” muttered Kennedy. Then, aloud, “Why don't you uns + kerry the baby, Basil Bedell, an' give yer wife a rest?” + </p> + <p> + At the prosaic suggestion the crystal realm of dreams was shattered. The + bow, with a quavering discordant scrape upon the strings, paused. Then + Bedell slowly mastered the meaning of the interruption. + </p> + <p> + “Kerry the baby! Why, Aurely won't let none but herself tech that baby.” + He laughed as he tossed the tousled yellow hair from his face, and looked + over his shoulder to speak to the infant. “It air sech a plumb special + delightsome peach, it air,—it air!” + </p> + <p> + The pale face of the child lighted up with a smile of recognition and a + faint gleam of mirth. + </p> + <p> + “I jes' kem out ennyhows ter drive up the cow,” Basil added. + </p> + <p> + “Big job,” sneered Kennedy. “'Pears-like it takes the whole fambly to do + it.” + </p> + <p> + Such slothful mismanagement was calculated to affront an energetic spirit. + Obviously, at this hour the woman should be at home cooking the supper. + </p> + <p> + “I follered along ter listen ter the fiddle,—ef ye hev enny call ter + know.” Mrs. Bedell replied to his unspoken thought, as if by divination. + </p> + <p> + But indeed such strictures were not heard for the first time. They were in + some sort the penalty of the disinterested friendship which Kennedy had + harbored for Basil since their childhood. He wished that his compeer might + prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to be amply + possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his intention + to marry, but the object of his affections had found him “too mortal + solemn,” and without a word of warning had married another man in a + distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to + reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, but + the habit of industry thus formed had continued of its own momentum. It + had resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable holding,—cattle, + house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance of the ant for the + cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every wincing nerve was + enlisted in arresting it in mid-air. + </p> + <p> + “Mighty long tramp fur Bobbie, thar,—why n't ye kerry him!” y + </p> + <p> + The imperturbable calm still held fast on the musician's face. “Bob,” he + addressed the toddler, “will you uns let daddy kerry ye like a baby!” + </p> + <p> + He swooped down as if to lift the child, the violin and bow in his left + hand. The hardy youngster backed off precipitately. + </p> + <p> + “Don't ye <i>dare</i> ter do it!” he virulently admonished his parent, a + resentful light in his blue eyes. Then, as Bedell sang a stave in a full + rich voice, “Bye-oh, Baby!” Bob vociferated anew, “Don't you <i>begin</i> + ter dare do it!” every inch a man though a little one. + </p> + <p> + “That's the kind of a fambly I hev got,” Basil commented easily. “Wife an' + boy an' baby all walk over me,—plumb stomp on me! Jes' enough lef of + me ter play the fiddle a leetle once in a while.” + </p> + <p> + “Mighty nigh all the while, I be afeared,” Kennedy corrected the phrase. + “How did yer corn crap turn out!” he asked, as he too fell into line and + the procession moved on once more along the narrow path. + </p> + <p> + “Well enough,” said Basil; “we uns hev got a sufficiency.” Then, as if + afraid of seeming boastful he qualified, “Ye know I hain't got but one + muel ter feed, an' the cow thar. My sheep gits thar pastur' on the + volunteer grass 'mongst the rocks, an' I hev jes' got a few head + ennyhows.” + </p> + <p> + “But <i>why</i> hain't ye got more, Basil! Why n't ye work more and quit + wastin' yer time on that old fool fiddle!” + </p> + <p> + The limits of patience were reached. The musician fired up. “'Kase,” he + retorted, “I make enough. I hev got grace enough ter be thankful fur sech + ez be vouchsafed ter me. <i>I</i> ain't wantin' no meracle.” + </p> + <p> + Kennedy flushed, following in silence while the musician annotated his + triumph by a series of gay little harmonics, and young Hopeful, trudging + in the rear, executed a soundless fantasia on the cornstalk fiddle with + great brilliancy of technique. + </p> + <p> + “You uns air talkin' 'bout whut I said at the meetin' las' month,” Kennedy + observed at length. + </p> + <p> + “An' so be all the mounting,” Aurelia interpolated with a sudden fierce + joy of reproof. + </p> + <p> + Kennedy winced visibly. + </p> + <p> + “The folks all 'low ez ye be no better than an onbeliever.” Aurelia was + bent on driving the blade home. “The idee of axin' fur a meracle at this + late day,—so ez <i>ye</i> kin be satisfied in yer mind ez ye hev got + grace! Providence, though merciful, air <i>obleeged</i>, ter know ez sech + air plumb scandalous an' redic'lous.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Aurely, hesh up,” exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted + leniency. “I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,—yer voice sounds + plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout a + meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye see,—'kase + I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss——” + </p> + <p> + “Ye know a lie, then,” his helpmate interrupted promptly. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Aurely, hesh up,—ye—ye—<i>woman</i>, ye!” he + concluded injuriously. Then resuming his remarks to Kennedy, “I know I <i>do</i> + fool away a deal of my time with the fiddle——” + </p> + <p> + “The sound of it is like bread ter me,— + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't live without it,” interposed the unconquered Aurelia. + “Sometimes it minds me o' the singin' o' runnin' water in a lonesome + place. Then agin it minds me o' seein' sunshine in a dream. An' sometimes + it be sweet an' high an' fur off, like a voice from the sky, tellin' what + no mortial ever knowed before,—an' <i>then</i> it minds me o' the + tune them angels sung ter the shepherds abidin' in the fields. I <i>couldn't</i> + live without it.” + </p> + <p> + “Woman, hold yer jaw!” Basil proclaimed comprehensively. Then, renewing + his explanation to Kennedy, “I kin see that I don't purvide fur my fambly + ez I ought ter do, through hatin' work and lovin' to play the fiddle.” + </p> + <p> + “I ain't goin' ter hear my home an' hearth reviled.” Aurelia laid an + imperative hand on her husband's arm. “Ye know ye couldn 't make more + out'n sech ground,—though I ain't faultin' our land, neither. We uns + hev enough an' ter spare, all we need an' more than we deserve. We don't + need ter ax a meracle from the skies ter stay our souls on faith, nor a + sign ter prove our grace.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, <i>now, stop</i>, Aurely!—I declar', Jube I dunno what made me + lay my tongue ter sech a word ez that thar miser'ble benighted meracle! I + be powerful sorry I hurt yer feelin's, Jube; folks seekin' salvation git + mightily mis-put sometimes, an'——” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> don't want ter hear none o' yer views on religion,” Kennedy + interrupted gruffly. An apology often augments the sense of injury. In + this instance it also annulled the provocation, for his own admission put + Bedell hopelessly in the wrong. “Ez a friend I war argufyin' with ye agin' + yer waste o' time with that old fool fiddle. Ye hev got wife an' children, + an' yit not so well off in this world's gear ez me, a single man. I + misdoubts ef ye hev hunted a day since the craps war laid by, or hev got a + pound o' jerked venison stored up fer winter. But this air yer home,”—he + pointed upward at a little clearing beginning, as they approached, to be + visible amidst the forest,—“an' ef ye air satisfied with sech ez it + be, that comes from laziness stiddier a contented sperit.” + </p> + <p> + With this caustic saying he suddenly left them, the procession standing + silently staring after him as he took his way through the woods in the + dusky red shadows of the autumnal gloaming. + </p> + <p> + Aurelia's vaunted home was indeed a poor place,—not even the rude + though substantial log-cabin common to the region. It was a flimsy shanty + of boards, and except for its rickety porch was more like a box than a + house. It had its perch on a jutting eminence, where it seemed the + familiar of the skies, so did the clouds and winds circle about it. + Through the great gateway of Sunrise Gap it commanded a landscape of a + scope that might typify a world, in its multitude of mountain ranges, in + the intricacies of its intervening valleys, in the glittering coils of its + water-courses. Basil would sometimes sink into deep silences, overpowered + by the majesty of nature in this place. After a long hiatus the bow would + tremble and falter on the strings as if overawed for a time; presently the + theme would strengthen, expand, resound with large meaning, and then he + would send forth melodies that he had never before played or heard, his + own dream, the reflection of that mighty mood of nature in the limpid pool + of his receptive mind. + </p> + <p> + Around were rocks, crags, chasms,—the fields which nourished the + family lay well from the verge, within the purlieus of the limited + mountain plateau. He had sought to persuade himself that it was to save + all the arable land for tillage that he had placed his house and door-yard + here, but both he and Aurelia were secretly aware of the subterfuge; he + would fain be always within the glamour of the prospect through Sunrise + Gap! + </p> + <p> + Their interlocutor had truly deemed that the woman should have been + earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long + before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to + whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves to + bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and flare pervaded + every nook of the bright little house. Strings of red-pepper-pods flaunted + in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered under a gay quilt in his + rude cradle, never far from his mother's hand, but the bluff little boy + was still up and about, although his aspect, round and burly, in a scanty + nightgown, gave token of recognition of the fact that bed was his + appropriate place. His shrill plaintive voice rose ever and anon + wakefully. + </p> + <p> + “I wanter hear a bear tale,—I wanter hear a bear tale.” + </p> + <p> + Thus Basil must needs knock the ashes from his pipe the better to devote + himself to the narration,—a prince of raconteurs, to judge by the + spell-bound interest of the youngster who stood at his knee and hung on + his words. Even Aurelia checked the whir of her wheel to listen smilingly. + She broke out laughing in appreciative pleasure when Basil took up the + violin to show how a jovial old bear, who intruded into this very house + one day when all the family were away at the church in the cove, and who + mistook the instrument for a banjo, addressed himself to picking out this + tune, singing the while a quaint and ursine lay. Basil embellished the + imitation with a masterly effect of realistic growls. + </p> + <p> + “Ef ye keep goin' at that gait, Basil,” Aurelia admonished him, “daylight + will ketch us all wide awake around the fire,—no wonder the child + won't go to bed.” She seemed suddenly impressed with the pervasive cheer. + “What a fool that man, Jube Kennedy, must be! How <i>could</i> ennybody + hev a sweeter, darlinger home than we uns hev got hyar in Sunrise Gap!” + </p> + <p> + On the languorous autumn a fierce winter ensued. The cold came early. The + deciduous growths of the forests were leafless ere November waned, rifled + by the riotous marauding winds. December set in with the gusty snow flying + fast. Drear were the gray skies; ghastly the sheeted ranges. Drifts piled + high in bleak ravines, and the grim gneissoid crags were begirt with + gigantic icicles. But about the little house in Sunrise Gap that kept so + warm a heart, the holly trees showed their glad green leaves and the red + berries glowed with a mystic significance. + </p> + <p> + As the weeks wore on, the place was often in Kennedy's mind, although he + had not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred himself + to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic provision. + His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved the retort, the + flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he still winced from + the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted the importunacy of + Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had persisted to the limit of + her power in the embitterment of the controversy, but even Aurelia he was + disposed to forgive as time passed on. When Christinas Day dawned, the + vague sentiment began to assume the definiteness of a purpose, and + noontide found him on his way to Sunrise Gap. + </p> + <p> + There was now no path through the woods; the snow lay deep over all, + unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the + stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in + distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the + intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir, there + was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough light to + cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the snow-covered + ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew near the + mountain brink, all was distinct in the vast landscape, the massive ranges + and alternating valleys in infinite repetition. + </p> + <p> + He wondered when near the house that he had not heard the familiar barking + of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his horse's hoofs + was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. He would like to + surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious rancor for Basil's + sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from the thick growths of the + holly, with the icy scintillations of its clustering green leaves and red + berries, he drew rein so suddenly that the horse was thrown back on his + haunches. The rider sat as if petrified in the presence of an awful + disaster. + </p> + <p> + The house was gone! Even the site had vanished! Kennedy stared bewildered. + Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to creep through his + brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landslide. The cliff-like + projection was broken sheer off,—hurled into the depths of the + valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, doubtless, + had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust of the earth had + collapsed. He could see even now how the freeze had fractured outcropping + ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures. A deep abyss that he + remembered as being at a considerable distance from the mountain's brink, + once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed the remnant of its jagged, + shattered walls at the extreme verge of the precipice. + </p> + <p> + A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the children,—where + were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from the warm securities + of the hearth-stone, without a moment's warning, and hurled into the midst + of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to the depths of the gap,—a + thousand feet below! And at what time had this dread fate befallen his + friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads' store, when he had paused + on his way to warm himself that morning, some gossip was detailing the + phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the previous night, while others + protested that it must have been only the clamors of “Christmas guns” + firing all along the country-side. “A turrible clap, it was,” the + raconteur had persisted. “Sounded ez ef all creation hed split apart.” + Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be recent. Kennedy could + scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and made his way slowly and + cautiously to the verge. + </p> + <p> + Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving + effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or + doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so + abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely + conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from + the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap—inverted + roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven + asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown + streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from + the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes. + His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart + suddenly plunged with a wild hope,—he had discerned amongst the + turmoil a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it + was in the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out + at an incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been + spared such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had + the house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers + must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered + as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling had + thus far served to save it,—the interdependent “framing” of its + structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on, + rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in + one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another. But + should the earth cave anew, should the tough fibres of one of those + gigantic roots tear out from the loosened friable soil, should the elastic + supporting branches barely sway in some errant gust of wind, the little + box would fall hundreds of feet, cracked like a nut, shattering against + the rocks of the levels below. + </p> + <p> + He wondered if the inmates yet lived,—he pitied them still more if + they only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of fear + their ultimate doom. Perhaps—he felt he was but trifling with + despair—some rescue might be devised. + </p> + <p> + Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain!—full of + horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed + reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy + halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay on its + side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the pallid simulacrum of a + face. + </p> + <p> + “This be Jube Kennedy,” he cried, reassuringly. “I be goin' ter fetch + help,—men, ropes, and a windlass.” + </p> + <p> + “Make haste then,—we uns be nigh friz.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye air in no danger of fire, then?” asked the practical man. + </p> + <p> + “We hev hed none,—before we war flunged off'n the bluff we hed + squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would + scorch his feet comm' down the chimbley,—powerful lucky fur we uns; + the fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously.” + </p> + <p> + Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at + frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light of + the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; torn + by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches of great + trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed icy chasms, + and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering, struggling + horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, bleeding, + exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the sparsely settled + country-side with imperative insistence for help in this matter of life or + death! + </p> + <p> + Death, indeed, only,—for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by + those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were + several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and they + demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of the + obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered cliffs; that a human + being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be torn from + it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful death against + the jagged rocks in the transit. + </p> + <p> + “But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from—say—from + that thar old pine tree over thar,” Kennedy insisted, indicating the long + bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. “The chair + would swing cl'ar of the bluff then.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that tree,—more + than a man's life is wuth ter try it.” + </p> + <p> + A moment ensued of absolute silence,—space, however, for a + hard-fought battle. + </p> + <p> + The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of creation + reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by the + excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of the + long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of the + senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir in the + brain,—all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were duly + realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and dry + lips,— + </p> + <p> + “Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,—I'll kerry a + guy-rope over thar.” + </p> + <p> + At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to + reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here, and + might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be fastened + the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which could be + lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cliff. Kennedy + harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of the + enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great rope + knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over the + brink at the point where the crag jutted forth,—lower and lower + still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the débris of + earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more swinging back + to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the scope of + the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly lodged on the + icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the guy-rope, on which + he had come and on which he must needs return. + </p> + <p> + It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long time + before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly lowered, and + landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance was cast + at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw of wind:—and + even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and as the rope began to + coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every eye was strained to + discern the identity of the first voyagers in this aerial journey,—the + two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was well,—all felt + that both parents might best wait, might risk the added delay. The chair + came swinging easily, swiftly, along the gradations of the rise, the + guy-rope holding it well from the chances of contact with the jagged + projections of the face of the cliff, and the first shout of triumph rang + sonorously from the summit. + </p> + <p> + When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of + anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch on + the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who should go + first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the long wait in + this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. Aurelia was forced + into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving' her hand to her husband, + shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, as she + fancied, and calling out dismally, “Far'well, Basil, far'-well.” + </p> + <p> + Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men + working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts of + laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing + interval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent with himself, the + two objects which he next most treasured, his violin and his old hound. + The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with welcoming + acclamations. + </p> + <p> + Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of the + group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. The pines + and firs showed no longer their sempervirent green, but were black amid + the white tufted lines on their branches, that still served to accentuate + their symmetry. The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss of gloom, + though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward, always + upward. Thus he saw, like some radiant and splendid star, the first torch + whitely aglow on the brink of the precipice. It opened long avenues of + light adown the snowy landscape,—soft blue shadows trailed after it, + like half-descried draperies of elusive hovering beings. Soon the torch + was duplicated; another and then another began to glow. Now several drew + together, and like a constellation glimmered crownlike on the brow of the + night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to hoist. + </p> + <p> + Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as it + shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its + mystic glamour,—disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the + long handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and + yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that + rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them, + all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence that he + was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being stuick downward + into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the ropes, for he + was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret this as an + emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was disentangled, he + felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than one pair of the + ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own hands hard. They + practically carried him to a fire that had been built in a sheltered place + in one of those grottoes of the region, locally called “Rock-houses.” Its + cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior, and not until they had turned + a corner in a tunnel-like passage was revealed an arched space in a + rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire itself obscured by the figures + about it. His eyes were caught first by the aspect of a youthful mother + with a golden-haired babe on her breast; close by showed the head and + horns of a cow; the mule was mercifully sheltered too, and stood near, + munching his fodder; a cluster of sheep pressed after the steps of half a + dozen men, that somehow in the clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds + of old summoned by good tidings of great joy. + </p> + <p> + A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal + beard. + </p> + <p> + “Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?” the + old circuit-rider straitly demanded. “How could ye hev strengthened yer + heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily within + ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my brethern, + ye hev done it unto me.” + </p> + <p> + “That ain't the <i>kind</i> o' sign, parson,” Kennedy faltered. “I be + lookin' fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or + hear.” + </p> + <p> + “The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom,” said the parson solemnly. + “The kingdom o' Christ is a <i>spiritual</i> kingdom, an' great are the + wonders that are wrought therein.” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + +***** This file should be named 23553-h.htm or 23553-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23553/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Christmas Miracle + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE + +By Charles Egbert Craddock + +1911 + + +He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be +vouchsafed him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy +was of the temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach +conclusions with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, +all unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some +stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the vast landscape +glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the foliage of the dense +primeval wilderness in the October richness of red and russet; the +"hunter's moon," a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high in the blue +east while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above the massive +purple heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the growths of the +year had now failed; presently all would be shrouded in snow, but only +to rise again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to glow anew in +the fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection of fruition. +And still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and blind to +the immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to come. His +thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap, were with +a recent "experience meeting" at which he had sought to canvass his +spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of +the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of +divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality +is inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. +Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the +Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a +self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more properly +an eager questioning, a desire to possess the sacred mysteries of +religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a proud man, reticent, +reserved. Although the old parson, visibly surprised and startled, had +gently invited his full confidence, Kennedy had hastily swallowed his +words, as best he might, perceiving that the congregation had wholly +misinterpreted their true intent and that certain gossips had an unholy +relish of the sensation they had caused. + +Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the +veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with his +rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was nearer +an inspiration, a hope, a "leading," than heretofore, but as he stood on +the crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn from +the solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis. + +The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the +landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the "hunter's +moon." Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly through +the aisles of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was, swaying in +responsive ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head, with its +long, blowsy yellow hair, was bowed over the dark polished wood of +the instrument; the eyes were half closed; the right arm, despite the +eccentric patches on the sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat, moved with +free, elastic gestures in all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he +saw the hunter motionless on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave +no intimation. His every faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging +iteration of the sweet melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of +effect, an inspiration, it might almost have seemed, incongruous with +the infirmities of the crazy old fiddle. He was like a creature under +the sway of a spell, and apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the +enchantment of sound was the odd procession that trailed silently after +him through these deep mountain fastnesses. + +A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow blouse +open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld a face +of pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant, +ethereal of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid +complexion, and wide blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save +that now and then it turned feebly in its waxen hands a little striped +red-and-yellow pomegranate. A sturdy blond toddler trudged behind, in a +checked blue cotton frock, short enough to disclose cherubic pink feet +and legs bare to the knee; he carried that treasure of rural juveniles, +a cornstalk violin. An old hound, his tail suavely wagging, padded along +the narrow path; and last of all came, with frequent pause to crop the +wayside herbage, a large cow, brindled red and white. + +"The whole fambly!" muttered Kennedy. Then, aloud, "Why don't you uns +kerry the baby, Basil Bedell, an' give yer wife a rest?" + +At the prosaic suggestion the crystal realm of dreams was shattered. The +bow, with a quavering discordant scrape upon the strings, paused. Then +Bedell slowly mastered the meaning of the interruption. + +"Kerry the baby! Why, Aurely won't let none but herself tech that baby." +He laughed as he tossed the tousled yellow hair from his face, and +looked over his shoulder to speak to the infant. "It air sech a plumb +special delightsome peach, it air,--it air!" + +The pale face of the child lighted up with a smile of recognition and a +faint gleam of mirth. + +"I jes' kem out ennyhows ter drive up the cow," Basil added. + +"Big job," sneered Kennedy. "'Pears-like it takes the whole fambly to do +it." + +Such slothful mismanagement was calculated to affront an energetic +spirit. Obviously, at this hour the woman should be at home cooking the +supper. + +"I follered along ter listen ter the fiddle,--ef ye hev enny call ter +know." Mrs. Bedell replied to his unspoken thought, as if by divination. + +But indeed such strictures were not heard for the first time. They were +in some sort the penalty of the disinterested friendship which Kennedy +had harbored for Basil since their childhood. He wished that his compeer +might prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to +be amply possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his +intention to marry, but the object of his affections had found him "too +mortal solemn," and without a word of warning had married another man in +a distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to +reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, +but the habit of industry thus formed had continued of its own momentum. +It had resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable +holding,--cattle, house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance +of the ant for the cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every +wincing nerve was enlisted in arresting it in mid-air. + +"Mighty long tramp fur Bobbie, thar,--why n't ye kerry him!" y + +The imperturbable calm still held fast on the musician's face. "Bob," he +addressed the toddler, "will you uns let daddy kerry ye like a baby!" + +He swooped down as if to lift the child, the violin and bow in his left +hand. The hardy youngster backed off precipitately. + +"Don't ye _dare_ ter do it!" he virulently admonished his parent, a +resentful light in his blue eyes. Then, as Bedell sang a stave in a full +rich voice, "Bye-oh, Baby!" Bob vociferated anew, "Don't you _begin_ ter +dare do it!" every inch a man though a little one. + +"That's the kind of a fambly I hev got," Basil commented easily. "Wife +an' boy an' baby all walk over me,--plumb stomp on me! Jes' enough lef +of me ter play the fiddle a leetle once in a while." + +"Mighty nigh all the while, I be afeared," Kennedy corrected the phrase. +"How did yer corn crap turn out!" he asked, as he too fell into line and +the procession moved on once more along the narrow path. + +"Well enough," said Basil; "we uns hev got a sufficiency." Then, as if +afraid of seeming boastful he qualified, "Ye know I hain't got but +one muel ter feed, an' the cow thar. My sheep gits thar pastur' on +the volunteer grass 'mongst the rocks, an' I hev jes' got a few head +ennyhows." + +"But _why_ hain't ye got more, Basil! Why n't ye work more and quit +wastin' yer time on that old fool fiddle!" + +The limits of patience were reached. The musician fired up. "'Kase," +he retorted, "I make enough. I hev got grace enough ter be thankful fur +sech ez be vouchsafed ter me. _I_ ain't wantin' no meracle." + +Kennedy flushed, following in silence while the musician annotated his +triumph by a series of gay little harmonics, and young Hopeful, trudging +in the rear, executed a soundless fantasia on the cornstalk fiddle with +great brilliancy of technique. + +"You uns air talkin' 'bout whut I said at the meetin' las' month," +Kennedy observed at length. + +"An' so be all the mounting," Aurelia interpolated with a sudden fierce +joy of reproof. + +Kennedy winced visibly. + +"The folks all 'low ez ye be no better than an onbeliever." Aurelia was +bent on driving the blade home. "The idee of axin' fur a meracle at this +late day,--so ez _ye_ kin be satisfied in yer mind ez ye hev got grace! +Providence, though merciful, air _obleeged_, ter know ez sech air plumb +scandalous an' redic'lous." + +"Why, Aurely, hesh up," exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted +leniency. "I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,--yer voice sounds +plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout +a meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye +see,--'kase I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss----" + +"Ye know a lie, then," his helpmate interrupted promptly. + +"Why, Aurely, hesh up,--ye--ye--_woman_, ye!" he concluded injuriously. +Then resuming his remarks to Kennedy, "I know I _do_ fool away a deal of +my time with the fiddle----" + +"The sound of it is like bread ter me,-- + +"I couldn't live without it," interposed the unconquered Aurelia. +"Sometimes it minds me o' the singin' o' runnin' water in a lonesome +place. Then agin it minds me o' seein' sunshine in a dream. An' +sometimes it be sweet an' high an' fur off, like a voice from the sky, +tellin' what no mortial ever knowed before,--an' _then_ it minds me o' +the tune them angels sung ter the shepherds abidin' in the fields. I +_couldn't_ live without it." + +"Woman, hold yer jaw!" Basil proclaimed comprehensively. Then, renewing +his explanation to Kennedy, "I kin see that I don't purvide fur my +fambly ez I ought ter do, through hatin' work and lovin' to play the +fiddle." + +"I ain't goin' ter hear my home an' hearth reviled." Aurelia laid an +imperative hand on her husband's arm. "Ye know ye couldn 't make more +out'n sech ground,--though I ain't faultin' our land, neither. We uns +hev enough an' ter spare, all we need an' more than we deserve. We don't +need ter ax a meracle from the skies ter stay our souls on faith, nor a +sign ter prove our grace." + +"Now, _now, stop_, Aurely!--I declar', Jube I dunno what made me lay my +tongue ter sech a word ez that thar miser'ble benighted meracle! I be +powerful sorry I hurt yer feelin's, Jube; folks seekin' salvation git +mightily mis-put sometimes, an'----" + +"_I_ don't want ter hear none o' yer views on religion," Kennedy +interrupted gruffly. An apology often augments the sense of injury. In +this instance it also annulled the provocation, for his own admission +put Bedell hopelessly in the wrong. "Ez a friend I war argufyin' with ye +agin' yer waste o' time with that old fool fiddle. Ye hev got wife an' +children, an' yit not so well off in this world's gear ez me, a single +man. I misdoubts ef ye hev hunted a day since the craps war laid by, or +hev got a pound o' jerked venison stored up fer winter. But this air +yer home,"--he pointed upward at a little clearing beginning, as they +approached, to be visible amidst the forest,--"an' ef ye air satisfied +with sech ez it be, that comes from laziness stiddier a contented +sperit." + +With this caustic saying he suddenly left them, the procession standing +silently staring after him as he took his way through the woods in the +dusky red shadows of the autumnal gloaming. + +Aurelia's vaunted home was indeed a poor place,--not even the rude +though substantial log-cabin common to the region. It was a flimsy +shanty of boards, and except for its rickety porch was more like a box +than a house. It had its perch on a jutting eminence, where it seemed +the familiar of the skies, so did the clouds and winds circle about it. +Through the great gateway of Sunrise Gap it commanded a landscape of a +scope that might typify a world, in its multitude of mountain ranges, in +the intricacies of its intervening valleys, in the glittering coils +of its water-courses. Basil would sometimes sink into deep silences, +overpowered by the majesty of nature in this place. After a long hiatus +the bow would tremble and falter on the strings as if overawed for a +time; presently the theme would strengthen, expand, resound with large +meaning, and then he would send forth melodies that he had never before +played or heard, his own dream, the reflection of that mighty mood of +nature in the limpid pool of his receptive mind. + +Around were rocks, crags, chasms,--the fields which nourished the family +lay well from the verge, within the purlieus of the limited mountain +plateau. He had sought to persuade himself that it was to save all the +arable land for tillage that he had placed his house and door-yard here, +but both he and Aurelia were secretly aware of the subterfuge; he would +fain be always within the glamour of the prospect through Sunrise Gap! + +Their interlocutor had truly deemed that the woman should have been +earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long +before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to +whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves +to bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and +flare pervaded every nook of the bright little house. Strings of +red-pepper-pods flaunted in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered +under a gay quilt in his rude cradle, never far from his mother's hand, +but the bluff little boy was still up and about, although his aspect, +round and burly, in a scanty nightgown, gave token of recognition of the +fact that bed was his appropriate place. His shrill plaintive voice rose +ever and anon wakefully. + +"I wanter hear a bear tale,--I wanter hear a bear tale." + +Thus Basil must needs knock the ashes from his pipe the better to devote +himself to the narration,--a prince of raconteurs, to judge by the +spell-bound interest of the youngster who stood at his knee and hung +on his words. Even Aurelia checked the whir of her wheel to listen +smilingly. She broke out laughing in appreciative pleasure when Basil +took up the violin to show how a jovial old bear, who intruded into this +very house one day when all the family were away at the church in the +cove, and who mistook the instrument for a banjo, addressed himself to +picking out this tune, singing the while a quaint and ursine lay. Basil +embellished the imitation with a masterly effect of realistic growls. + +"Ef ye keep goin' at that gait, Basil," Aurelia admonished him, +"daylight will ketch us all wide awake around the fire,--no wonder the +child won't go to bed." She seemed suddenly impressed with the pervasive +cheer. "What a fool that man, Jube Kennedy, must be! How _could_ +ennybody hev a sweeter, darlinger home than we uns hev got hyar in +Sunrise Gap!" + +On the languorous autumn a fierce winter ensued. The cold came early. +The deciduous growths of the forests were leafless ere November waned, +rifled by the riotous marauding winds. December set in with the gusty +snow flying fast. Drear were the gray skies; ghastly the sheeted ranges. +Drifts piled high in bleak ravines, and the grim gneissoid crags were +begirt with gigantic icicles. But about the little house in Sunrise +Gap that kept so warm a heart, the holly trees showed their glad green +leaves and the red berries glowed with a mystic significance. + +As the weeks wore on, the place was often in Kennedy's mind, although +he had not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred +himself to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic +provision. His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved +the retort, the flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he +still winced from the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted +the importunacy of Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had +persisted to the limit of her power in the embitterment of the +controversy, but even Aurelia he was disposed to forgive as time passed +on. When Christinas Day dawned, the vague sentiment began to assume the +definiteness of a purpose, and noontide found him on his way to Sunrise +Gap. + +There was now no path through the woods; the snow lay deep over all, +unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the +stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in +distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the +intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir, +there was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough +light to cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the +snow-covered ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew +near the mountain brink, all was distinct in the vast landscape, the +massive ranges and alternating valleys in infinite repetition. + +He wondered when near the house that he had not heard the familiar +barking of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his +horse's hoofs was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. +He would like to surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious +rancor for Basil's sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from +the thick growths of the holly, with the icy scintillations of its +clustering green leaves and red berries, he drew rein so suddenly that +the horse was thrown back on his haunches. The rider sat as if petrified +in the presence of an awful disaster. + +The house was gone! Even the site had vanished! Kennedy stared +bewildered. Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to +creep through his brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landslide. +The cliff-like projection was broken sheer off,--hurled into the depths +of the valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, +doubtless, had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust +of the earth had collapsed. He could see even now how the freeze had +fractured outcropping ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures. +A deep abyss that he remembered as being at a considerable distance +from the mountain's brink, once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed +the remnant of its jagged, shattered walls at the extreme verge of the +precipice. + +A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the +children,--where were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from +the warm securities of the hearth-stone, without a moment's warning, +and hurled into the midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to +the depths of the gap,--a thousand feet below! And at what time had this +dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads' +store, when he had paused on his way to warm himself that morning, some +gossip was detailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the +previous night, while others protested that it must have been only +the clamors of "Christmas guns" firing all along the country-side. "A +turrible clap, it was," the raconteur had persisted. "Sounded ez ef all +creation hed split apart." Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be +recent. Kennedy could scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and +made his way slowly and cautiously to the verge. + +Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving +effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or +doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so +abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely +conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from +the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap--inverted +roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven +asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown +streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from +the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes. +His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart +suddenly plunged with a wild hope,--he had discerned amongst the turmoil +a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it was in +the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an +incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been spared +such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had the +house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers +must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered +as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling +had thus far served to save it,--the interdependent "framing" of its +structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on, +rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in +one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another. +But should the earth cave anew, should the tough fibres of one of those +gigantic roots tear out from the loosened friable soil, should the +elastic supporting branches barely sway in some errant gust of wind, the +little box would fall hundreds of feet, cracked like a nut, shattering +against the rocks of the levels below. + +He wondered if the inmates yet lived,--he pitied them still more if +they only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of +fear their ultimate doom. Perhaps--he felt he was but trifling with +despair--some rescue might be devised. + +Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain!--full of +horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed +reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy +halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay +on its side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the pallid +simulacrum of a face. + +"This be Jube Kennedy," he cried, reassuringly. "I be goin' ter fetch +help,--men, ropes, and a windlass." + +"Make haste then,--we uns be nigh friz." + +"Ye air in no danger of fire, then?" asked the practical man. + +"We hev hed none,--before we war flunged off'n the bluff we hed +squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would +scorch his feet comm' down the chimbley,--powerful lucky fur we uns; the +fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously." + +Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at +frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light +of the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; +torn by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches +of great trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed +icy chasms, and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering, +struggling horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, +bleeding, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the +sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in +this matter of life or death! + +Death, indeed, only,--for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by +those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were +several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and +they demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of +the obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered cliffs; that +a human being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be +torn from it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful +death against the jagged rocks in the transit. + +"But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from--say--from +that thar old pine tree over thar," Kennedy insisted, indicating the +long bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. "The +chair would swing cl'ar of the bluff then." + +"But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that +tree,--more than a man's life is wuth ter try it." + +A moment ensued of absolute silence,--space, however, for a hard-fought +battle. + +The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of creation +reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by the +excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of the +long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of the +senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir in +the brain,--all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were +duly realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and +dry lips,-- + +"Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,--I'll kerry a +guy-rope over thar." + +At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to +reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here, +and might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be +fastened the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which +could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cliff. +Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of +the enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great +rope knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over +the brink at the point where the crag jutted forth,--lower and lower +still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the debris +of earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more swinging +back to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the +scope of the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly +lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the +guy-rope, on which he had come and on which he must needs return. + +It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long +time before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly +lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious +glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a +flaw of wind:--and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and +as the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every +eye was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this +aerial journey,--the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This +was well,--all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk +the added delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, along the +gradations of the rise, the guy-rope holding it well from the chances +of contact with the jagged projections of the face of the cliff, and the +first shout of triumph rang sonorously from the summit. + +When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of +anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch +on the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who +should go first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the +long wait in this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. Aurelia +was forced into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving' her hand to +her husband, shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, +as she fancied, and calling out dismally, "Far'well, Basil, far'-well." + +Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men +working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts +of laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing +interval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent with himself, +the two objects which he next most treasured, his violin and his old +hound. The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with +welcoming acclamations. + +Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of +the group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. The +pines and firs showed no longer their sempervirent green, but were black +amid the white tufted lines on their branches, that still served to +accentuate their symmetry. The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss +of gloom, though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward, +always upward. Thus he saw, like some radiant and splendid star, the +first torch whitely aglow on the brink of the precipice. It opened long +avenues of light adown the snowy landscape,--soft blue shadows trailed +after it, like half-descried draperies of elusive hovering beings. Soon +the torch was duplicated; another and then another began to glow. Now +several drew together, and like a constellation glimmered crownlike +on the brow of the night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to +hoist. + +Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as +it shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its +mystic glamour,--disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the long +handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and +yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that +rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them, +all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence +that he was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being stuick +downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the +ropes, for he was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret +this as an emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was +disentangled, he felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than +one pair of the ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own +hands hard. They practically carried him to a fire that had been built +in a sheltered place in one of those grottoes of the region, locally +called "Rock-houses." Its cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior, +and not until they had turned a corner in a tunnel-like passage was +revealed an arched space in a rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire +itself obscured by the figures about it. His eyes were caught first by +the aspect of a youthful mother with a golden-haired babe on her breast; +close by showed the head and horns of a cow; the mule was mercifully +sheltered too, and stood near, munching his fodder; a cluster of +sheep pressed after the steps of half a dozen men, that somehow in the +clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds of old summoned by good +tidings of great joy. + +A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal +beard. + +"Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?" the +old circuit-rider straitly demanded. "How could ye hev strengthened yer +heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily +within ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my +brethern, ye hev done it unto me." + +"That ain't the _kind_ o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. "I be lookin' +fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear." + +"The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said the parson +solemnly. "The kingdom o' Christ is a _spiritual_ kingdom, an' great are +the wonders that are wrought therein." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + +***** This file should be named 23553.txt or 23553.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23553/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Christmas Miracle + 1911 + +Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23553] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE + </h1> + <h2> + By Charles Egbert Craddock <br /> <br /> 1911 + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be vouchsafed + him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy was of the + temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach conclusions + with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, all + unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some + stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the vast landscape + glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the foliage of the dense + primeval wilderness in the October richness of red and russet; the + “hunter's moon,” a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high in the blue east + while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above the massive purple + heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the growths of the year had + now failed; presently all would be shrouded in snow, but only to rise + again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to glow anew in the + fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection of fruition. And + still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and blind to the + immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to come. His + thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap, were with a + recent “experience meeting” at which he had sought to canvass his + spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of the + existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of + divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality is + inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. + Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the + Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a + self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more properly + an eager questioning, a desire to possess the sacred mysteries of + religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a proud man, reticent, reserved. + Although the old parson, visibly surprised and startled, had gently + invited his full confidence, Kennedy had hastily swallowed his words, as + best he might, perceiving that the congregation had wholly misinterpreted + their true intent and that certain gossips had an unholy relish of the + sensation they had caused. + </p> + <p> + Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the + veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with his + rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was nearer an + inspiration, a hope, a “leading,” than heretofore, but as he stood on the + crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn from the + solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis. + </p> + <p> + The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the + landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the “hunter's moon.” + Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly through the aisles + of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was, swaying in responsive + ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head, with its long, blowsy yellow + hair, was bowed over the dark polished wood of the instrument; the eyes + were half closed; the right arm, despite the eccentric patches on the + sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat, moved with free, elastic gestures in + all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he saw the hunter motionless + on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave no intimation. His every + faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging iteration of the sweet + melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of effect, an inspiration, it + might almost have seemed, incongruous with the infirmities of the crazy + old fiddle. He was like a creature under the sway of a spell, and + apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the enchantment of sound was the + odd procession that trailed silently after him through these deep mountain + fastnesses. + </p> + <p> + A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow blouse + open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld a face of + pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant, ethereal + of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid complexion, and wide + blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save that now and then it turned + feebly in its waxen hands a little striped red-and-yellow pomegranate. A + sturdy blond toddler trudged behind, in a checked blue cotton frock, short + enough to disclose cherubic pink feet and legs bare to the knee; he + carried that treasure of rural juveniles, a cornstalk violin. An old + hound, his tail suavely wagging, padded along the narrow path; and last of + all came, with frequent pause to crop the wayside herbage, a large cow, + brindled red and white. + </p> + <p> + “The whole fambly!” muttered Kennedy. Then, aloud, “Why don't you uns + kerry the baby, Basil Bedell, an' give yer wife a rest?” + </p> + <p> + At the prosaic suggestion the crystal realm of dreams was shattered. The + bow, with a quavering discordant scrape upon the strings, paused. Then + Bedell slowly mastered the meaning of the interruption. + </p> + <p> + “Kerry the baby! Why, Aurely won't let none but herself tech that baby.” + He laughed as he tossed the tousled yellow hair from his face, and looked + over his shoulder to speak to the infant. “It air sech a plumb special + delightsome peach, it air,—it air!” + </p> + <p> + The pale face of the child lighted up with a smile of recognition and a + faint gleam of mirth. + </p> + <p> + “I jes' kem out ennyhows ter drive up the cow,” Basil added. + </p> + <p> + “Big job,” sneered Kennedy. “'Pears-like it takes the whole fambly to do + it.” + </p> + <p> + Such slothful mismanagement was calculated to affront an energetic spirit. + Obviously, at this hour the woman should be at home cooking the supper. + </p> + <p> + “I follered along ter listen ter the fiddle,—ef ye hev enny call ter + know.” Mrs. Bedell replied to his unspoken thought, as if by divination. + </p> + <p> + But indeed such strictures were not heard for the first time. They were in + some sort the penalty of the disinterested friendship which Kennedy had + harbored for Basil since their childhood. He wished that his compeer might + prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to be amply + possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his intention + to marry, but the object of his affections had found him “too mortal + solemn,” and without a word of warning had married another man in a + distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to + reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, but + the habit of industry thus formed had continued of its own momentum. It + had resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable holding,—cattle, + house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance of the ant for the + cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every wincing nerve was + enlisted in arresting it in mid-air. + </p> + <p> + “Mighty long tramp fur Bobbie, thar,—why n't ye kerry him!” y + </p> + <p> + The imperturbable calm still held fast on the musician's face. “Bob,” he + addressed the toddler, “will you uns let daddy kerry ye like a baby!” + </p> + <p> + He swooped down as if to lift the child, the violin and bow in his left + hand. The hardy youngster backed off precipitately. + </p> + <p> + “Don't ye <i>dare</i> ter do it!” he virulently admonished his parent, a + resentful light in his blue eyes. Then, as Bedell sang a stave in a full + rich voice, “Bye-oh, Baby!” Bob vociferated anew, “Don't you <i>begin</i> + ter dare do it!” every inch a man though a little one. + </p> + <p> + “That's the kind of a fambly I hev got,” Basil commented easily. “Wife an' + boy an' baby all walk over me,—plumb stomp on me! Jes' enough lef of + me ter play the fiddle a leetle once in a while.” + </p> + <p> + “Mighty nigh all the while, I be afeared,” Kennedy corrected the phrase. + “How did yer corn crap turn out!” he asked, as he too fell into line and + the procession moved on once more along the narrow path. + </p> + <p> + “Well enough,” said Basil; “we uns hev got a sufficiency.” Then, as if + afraid of seeming boastful he qualified, “Ye know I hain't got but one + muel ter feed, an' the cow thar. My sheep gits thar pastur' on the + volunteer grass 'mongst the rocks, an' I hev jes' got a few head + ennyhows.” + </p> + <p> + “But <i>why</i> hain't ye got more, Basil! Why n't ye work more and quit + wastin' yer time on that old fool fiddle!” + </p> + <p> + The limits of patience were reached. The musician fired up. “'Kase,” he + retorted, “I make enough. I hev got grace enough ter be thankful fur sech + ez be vouchsafed ter me. <i>I</i> ain't wantin' no meracle.” + </p> + <p> + Kennedy flushed, following in silence while the musician annotated his + triumph by a series of gay little harmonics, and young Hopeful, trudging + in the rear, executed a soundless fantasia on the cornstalk fiddle with + great brilliancy of technique. + </p> + <p> + “You uns air talkin' 'bout whut I said at the meetin' las' month,” Kennedy + observed at length. + </p> + <p> + “An' so be all the mounting,” Aurelia interpolated with a sudden fierce + joy of reproof. + </p> + <p> + Kennedy winced visibly. + </p> + <p> + “The folks all 'low ez ye be no better than an onbeliever.” Aurelia was + bent on driving the blade home. “The idee of axin' fur a meracle at this + late day,—so ez <i>ye</i> kin be satisfied in yer mind ez ye hev got + grace! Providence, though merciful, air <i>obleeged</i>, ter know ez sech + air plumb scandalous an' redic'lous.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Aurely, hesh up,” exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted + leniency. “I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,—yer voice sounds + plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout a + meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye see,—'kase + I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss——” + </p> + <p> + “Ye know a lie, then,” his helpmate interrupted promptly. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Aurely, hesh up,—ye—ye—<i>woman</i>, ye!” he + concluded injuriously. Then resuming his remarks to Kennedy, “I know I <i>do</i> + fool away a deal of my time with the fiddle——” + </p> + <p> + “The sound of it is like bread ter me,— + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't live without it,” interposed the unconquered Aurelia. + “Sometimes it minds me o' the singin' o' runnin' water in a lonesome + place. Then agin it minds me o' seein' sunshine in a dream. An' sometimes + it be sweet an' high an' fur off, like a voice from the sky, tellin' what + no mortial ever knowed before,—an' <i>then</i> it minds me o' the + tune them angels sung ter the shepherds abidin' in the fields. I <i>couldn't</i> + live without it.” + </p> + <p> + “Woman, hold yer jaw!” Basil proclaimed comprehensively. Then, renewing + his explanation to Kennedy, “I kin see that I don't purvide fur my fambly + ez I ought ter do, through hatin' work and lovin' to play the fiddle.” + </p> + <p> + “I ain't goin' ter hear my home an' hearth reviled.” Aurelia laid an + imperative hand on her husband's arm. “Ye know ye couldn 't make more + out'n sech ground,—though I ain't faultin' our land, neither. We uns + hev enough an' ter spare, all we need an' more than we deserve. We don't + need ter ax a meracle from the skies ter stay our souls on faith, nor a + sign ter prove our grace.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, <i>now, stop</i>, Aurely!—I declar', Jube I dunno what made me + lay my tongue ter sech a word ez that thar miser'ble benighted meracle! I + be powerful sorry I hurt yer feelin's, Jube; folks seekin' salvation git + mightily mis-put sometimes, an'——” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> don't want ter hear none o' yer views on religion,” Kennedy + interrupted gruffly. An apology often augments the sense of injury. In + this instance it also annulled the provocation, for his own admission put + Bedell hopelessly in the wrong. “Ez a friend I war argufyin' with ye agin' + yer waste o' time with that old fool fiddle. Ye hev got wife an' children, + an' yit not so well off in this world's gear ez me, a single man. I + misdoubts ef ye hev hunted a day since the craps war laid by, or hev got a + pound o' jerked venison stored up fer winter. But this air yer home,”—he + pointed upward at a little clearing beginning, as they approached, to be + visible amidst the forest,—“an' ef ye air satisfied with sech ez it + be, that comes from laziness stiddier a contented sperit.” + </p> + <p> + With this caustic saying he suddenly left them, the procession standing + silently staring after him as he took his way through the woods in the + dusky red shadows of the autumnal gloaming. + </p> + <p> + Aurelia's vaunted home was indeed a poor place,—not even the rude + though substantial log-cabin common to the region. It was a flimsy shanty + of boards, and except for its rickety porch was more like a box than a + house. It had its perch on a jutting eminence, where it seemed the + familiar of the skies, so did the clouds and winds circle about it. + Through the great gateway of Sunrise Gap it commanded a landscape of a + scope that might typify a world, in its multitude of mountain ranges, in + the intricacies of its intervening valleys, in the glittering coils of its + water-courses. Basil would sometimes sink into deep silences, overpowered + by the majesty of nature in this place. After a long hiatus the bow would + tremble and falter on the strings as if overawed for a time; presently the + theme would strengthen, expand, resound with large meaning, and then he + would send forth melodies that he had never before played or heard, his + own dream, the reflection of that mighty mood of nature in the limpid pool + of his receptive mind. + </p> + <p> + Around were rocks, crags, chasms,—the fields which nourished the + family lay well from the verge, within the purlieus of the limited + mountain plateau. He had sought to persuade himself that it was to save + all the arable land for tillage that he had placed his house and door-yard + here, but both he and Aurelia were secretly aware of the subterfuge; he + would fain be always within the glamour of the prospect through Sunrise + Gap! + </p> + <p> + Their interlocutor had truly deemed that the woman should have been + earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long + before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to + whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves to + bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and flare pervaded + every nook of the bright little house. Strings of red-pepper-pods flaunted + in festoons from the beams; the baby slumbered under a gay quilt in his + rude cradle, never far from his mother's hand, but the bluff little boy + was still up and about, although his aspect, round and burly, in a scanty + nightgown, gave token of recognition of the fact that bed was his + appropriate place. His shrill plaintive voice rose ever and anon + wakefully. + </p> + <p> + “I wanter hear a bear tale,—I wanter hear a bear tale.” + </p> + <p> + Thus Basil must needs knock the ashes from his pipe the better to devote + himself to the narration,—a prince of raconteurs, to judge by the + spell-bound interest of the youngster who stood at his knee and hung on + his words. Even Aurelia checked the whir of her wheel to listen smilingly. + She broke out laughing in appreciative pleasure when Basil took up the + violin to show how a jovial old bear, who intruded into this very house + one day when all the family were away at the church in the cove, and who + mistook the instrument for a banjo, addressed himself to picking out this + tune, singing the while a quaint and ursine lay. Basil embellished the + imitation with a masterly effect of realistic growls. + </p> + <p> + “Ef ye keep goin' at that gait, Basil,” Aurelia admonished him, “daylight + will ketch us all wide awake around the fire,—no wonder the child + won't go to bed.” She seemed suddenly impressed with the pervasive cheer. + “What a fool that man, Jube Kennedy, must be! How <i>could</i> ennybody + hev a sweeter, darlinger home than we uns hev got hyar in Sunrise Gap!” + </p> + <p> + On the languorous autumn a fierce winter ensued. The cold came early. The + deciduous growths of the forests were leafless ere November waned, rifled + by the riotous marauding winds. December set in with the gusty snow flying + fast. Drear were the gray skies; ghastly the sheeted ranges. Drifts piled + high in bleak ravines, and the grim gneissoid crags were begirt with + gigantic icicles. But about the little house in Sunrise Gap that kept so + warm a heart, the holly trees showed their glad green leaves and the red + berries glowed with a mystic significance. + </p> + <p> + As the weeks wore on, the place was often in Kennedy's mind, although he + had not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred himself + to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic provision. + His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved the retort, the + flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he still winced from + the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted the importunacy of + Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had persisted to the limit of + her power in the embitterment of the controversy, but even Aurelia he was + disposed to forgive as time passed on. When Christinas Day dawned, the + vague sentiment began to assume the definiteness of a purpose, and + noontide found him on his way to Sunrise Gap. + </p> + <p> + There was now no path through the woods; the snow lay deep over all, + unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the + stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in + distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the + intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir, there + was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough light to + cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the snow-covered + ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew near the + mountain brink, all was distinct in the vast landscape, the massive ranges + and alternating valleys in infinite repetition. + </p> + <p> + He wondered when near the house that he had not heard the familiar barking + of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his horse's hoofs + was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. He would like to + surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious rancor for Basil's + sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from the thick growths of the + holly, with the icy scintillations of its clustering green leaves and red + berries, he drew rein so suddenly that the horse was thrown back on his + haunches. The rider sat as if petrified in the presence of an awful + disaster. + </p> + <p> + The house was gone! Even the site had vanished! Kennedy stared bewildered. + Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to creep through his + brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landslide. The cliff-like + projection was broken sheer off,—hurled into the depths of the + valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages, doubtless, + had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust of the earth had + collapsed. He could see even now how the freeze had fractured outcropping + ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures. A deep abyss that he + remembered as being at a considerable distance from the mountain's brink, + once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed the remnant of its jagged, + shattered walls at the extreme verge of the precipice. + </p> + <p> + A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the children,—where + were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from the warm securities + of the hearth-stone, without a moment's warning, and hurled into the midst + of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to the depths of the gap,—a + thousand feet below! And at what time had this dread fate befallen his + friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads' store, when he had paused + on his way to warm himself that morning, some gossip was detailing the + phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the previous night, while others + protested that it must have been only the clamors of “Christmas guns” + firing all along the country-side. “A turrible clap, it was,” the + raconteur had persisted. “Sounded ez ef all creation hed split apart.” + Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be recent. Kennedy could + scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and made his way slowly and + cautiously to the verge. + </p> + <p> + Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving + effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or + doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so + abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely + conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from + the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap—inverted + roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven + asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown + streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from + the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes. + His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart + suddenly plunged with a wild hope,—he had discerned amongst the + turmoil a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it + was in the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out + at an incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been + spared such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had + the house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers + must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered + as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling had + thus far served to save it,—the interdependent “framing” of its + structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on, + rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in + one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another. But + should the earth cave anew, should the tough fibres of one of those + gigantic roots tear out from the loosened friable soil, should the elastic + supporting branches barely sway in some errant gust of wind, the little + box would fall hundreds of feet, cracked like a nut, shattering against + the rocks of the levels below. + </p> + <p> + He wondered if the inmates yet lived,—he pitied them still more if + they only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of fear + their ultimate doom. Perhaps—he felt he was but trifling with + despair—some rescue might be devised. + </p> + <p> + Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain!—full of + horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed + reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy + halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay on its + side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the pallid simulacrum of a + face. + </p> + <p> + “This be Jube Kennedy,” he cried, reassuringly. “I be goin' ter fetch + help,—men, ropes, and a windlass.” + </p> + <p> + “Make haste then,—we uns be nigh friz.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye air in no danger of fire, then?” asked the practical man. + </p> + <p> + “We hev hed none,—before we war flunged off'n the bluff we hed + squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would + scorch his feet comm' down the chimbley,—powerful lucky fur we uns; + the fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously.” + </p> + <p> + Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at + frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light of + the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; torn + by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches of great + trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed icy chasms, + and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering, struggling + horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, bleeding, + exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the sparsely settled + country-side with imperative insistence for help in this matter of life or + death! + </p> + <p> + Death, indeed, only,—for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by + those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were + several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and they + demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of the + obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered cliffs; that a human + being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be torn from + it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful death against + the jagged rocks in the transit. + </p> + <p> + “But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from—say—from + that thar old pine tree over thar,” Kennedy insisted, indicating the long + bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. “The chair + would swing cl'ar of the bluff then.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that tree,—more + than a man's life is wuth ter try it.” + </p> + <p> + A moment ensued of absolute silence,—space, however, for a + hard-fought battle. + </p> + <p> + The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of creation + reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by the + excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of the + long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of the + senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir in the + brain,—all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were duly + realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and dry + lips,— + </p> + <p> + “Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,—I'll kerry a + guy-rope over thar.” + </p> + <p> + At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to + reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here, and + might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be fastened + the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which could be + lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cliff. Kennedy + harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of the + enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great rope + knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over the + brink at the point where the crag jutted forth,—lower and lower + still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the débris of + earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more swinging back + to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the scope of + the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly lodged on the + icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the guy-rope, on which + he had come and on which he must needs return. + </p> + <p> + It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long time + before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly lowered, and + landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance was cast + at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw of wind:—and + even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and as the rope began to + coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every eye was strained to + discern the identity of the first voyagers in this aerial journey,—the + two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was well,—all felt + that both parents might best wait, might risk the added delay. The chair + came swinging easily, swiftly, along the gradations of the rise, the + guy-rope holding it well from the chances of contact with the jagged + projections of the face of the cliff, and the first shout of triumph rang + sonorously from the summit. + </p> + <p> + When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of + anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch on + the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who should go + first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the long wait in + this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. Aurelia was forced + into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving' her hand to her husband, + shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, as she + fancied, and calling out dismally, “Far'well, Basil, far'-well.” + </p> + <p> + Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men + working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts of + laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing + interval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent with himself, the + two objects which he next most treasured, his violin and his old hound. + The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with welcoming + acclamations. + </p> + <p> + Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of the + group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. The pines + and firs showed no longer their sempervirent green, but were black amid + the white tufted lines on their branches, that still served to accentuate + their symmetry. The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss of gloom, + though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward, always + upward. Thus he saw, like some radiant and splendid star, the first torch + whitely aglow on the brink of the precipice. It opened long avenues of + light adown the snowy landscape,—soft blue shadows trailed after it, + like half-descried draperies of elusive hovering beings. Soon the torch + was duplicated; another and then another began to glow. Now several drew + together, and like a constellation glimmered crownlike on the brow of the + night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to hoist. + </p> + <p> + Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as it + shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its + mystic glamour,—disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the + long handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and + yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that + rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them, + all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence that he + was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being stuick downward + into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the ropes, for he + was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret this as an + emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was disentangled, he + felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than one pair of the + ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own hands hard. They + practically carried him to a fire that had been built in a sheltered place + in one of those grottoes of the region, locally called “Rock-houses.” Its + cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior, and not until they had turned + a corner in a tunnel-like passage was revealed an arched space in a + rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire itself obscured by the figures + about it. His eyes were caught first by the aspect of a youthful mother + with a golden-haired babe on her breast; close by showed the head and + horns of a cow; the mule was mercifully sheltered too, and stood near, + munching his fodder; a cluster of sheep pressed after the steps of half a + dozen men, that somehow in the clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds + of old summoned by good tidings of great joy. + </p> + <p> + A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal + beard. + </p> + <p> + “Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?” the + old circuit-rider straitly demanded. “How could ye hev strengthened yer + heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily within + ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my brethern, + ye hev done it unto me.” + </p> + <p> + “That ain't the <i>kind</i> o' sign, parson,” Kennedy faltered. “I be + lookin' fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or + hear.” + </p> + <p> + “The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom,” said the parson solemnly. + “The kingdom o' Christ is a <i>spiritual</i> kingdom, an' great are the + wonders that are wrought therein.” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Miracle, by +Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE *** + +***** This file should be named 23553-h.htm or 23553-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/5/23553/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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