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Ebook has 2148 lines and 109526 words, and 43 pages

Illustrator: Charles M. Relyea

On Christmas Day In The Evening

by Grace S. Richmond

Illustrated by Charles M. Relyea

All Rights Reserved, Including that of Translation into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian

Copyright 1910 Doubleday Page & Company

Facing Page

"Cut it out--cut out the steam calliope!" 22

"Billy!" His sister Margaret's voice was anxious. "Are you sure you'd better?" 32

There was flesh and blood in the message he gave them, and it was the message they needed 52

ON CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE EVENING

On Christmas Day In The Evening

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

"I don't know but this is the best part of the party," mused John Fernald, looking from one to another of them, and then at his wife, as they sat together before the fireplace, on the evening of the arrival. "It was all over so quick, last year, and you were all piling back to town, to your offices, in such a hurry, you boys. Now we can have a spell of quiet talk, before the fun begins. That suits us to a T --eh, Mother?"

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

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

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

"It's a miserable shame, Nancy, but that church hasn't had a door open since a year ago last July, when the trouble burst out. We haven't had a service there since. Mother and I drive over to Estabrook when we feel like getting out--but that's not often, come winter-time. Being the only church building in this end of the township, it's pretty bad having it closed up. But there's the fuss. Folks can't agree what to do, and nobody dares get a preacher here and try to start things up, on their own responsibility. But we feel it--we sure do. I don't like to look at the old meeting-house, going by, I declare I don't. It looks lonesome to me. And there's where every one of you children grew up, too, sitting there in the old family pew, with your legs dangling. It's too bad--it's too bad!"

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

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

"And feel that way still, I suppose?" suggested Sam Burnett, cheerfully. "There's a whole lot of that feeling-it-necessary-to-fight, in the world. I've experienced it myself, at times."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Billy!"

Margaret flushed brightly. The Reverend William Sewall was her brother. He might be the very manly and dignified young rector of a fashionable city church, but no man who answers to the name of Billy in his own family can be a really formidable personage, and he and his sister Margaret were undeniably great chums.

"Of course Billy would," cried Margaret. "You know perfectly well he would, Guy, dear. He doesn't care a straw about millionaires' dinners--he'd rather have an evening with his newsboys' club, any time. He has his own service Christmas morning, of course, but in the evening--He could come up on the afternoon train--he'd love to. Why, Billy's a bachelor--he's nothing in the world to keep him. I'll telephone him, first thing in the morning."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Your motive is undoubtedly a good one," Mrs. Oliver conceded. She spoke to Nan, busy near her, and she gazed critically about the shabby old walls, now rapidly assuming a quite different aspect as the great ropes of laurel leaves swung into place under the direction of Sam Burnett. That young man now had Edson Fernald and Charles Wetmore--Carolyn's husband--to assist him, and he was making the most of his opportunity to order about two gentlemen who had shown considerable reluctance to remove their coats, but who were now--to his satisfaction--perspiring so freely that they had some time since reached the point of casting aside still other articles of apparel. "But I shall be much surprised," Mrs. Oliver continued, "if you attain your object. Nobody can be more obstinate in their prejudice than the people of such a little place as this. You may get them out--though I doubt even that--but you are quite as likely as not to set them by the ears and simply make matters worse."

"It's Christmas," replied Nan. Her cheeks were the colour of the holly berries in the great wreaths she was arranging to place on either side of the wall behind the pulpit. "They can't quarrel at Christmas--not with Billy Sewall preaching peace on earth, good will to men, to them. --Jessica, please hand me that wire--and come and hold this wreath a minute, will you?"

"Nobody expects Marian to be on any side but the other one," consolingly whispered merry-faced Jessica, Edson's wife--lucky fellow!--as she held the wreath for Nan to affix the wire.

"What's that about Sewall?" Oliver inquired. "I hadn't heard of that. You don't mean to say Sewell's coming up for this service?"

"Of course he is. Margaret telephoned him this morning, and he said he'd never had a Christmas present equal to this one. He said it interested him a lot more than his morning service in town, and he'd be up, loaded. Isn't that fine of Billy?" Nan beamed triumphantly at her oldest brother, over her holly wreath.

"That puts a different light on it." And Mr. Oliver Fernald, president of the great city bank of which Sam Burnett was cashier, got promptly down on the knees of his freshly pressed trousers, and proceeded to tack the frazzled edge of the pulpit stair-carpet with interest and skill. That stair-carpet had been tacked by a good many people before him, but doubtless it had never been stretched into place by a man whose eye-glasses sat astride of a nose of the impressive, presidential mould of this one.

"Do I understand that you mean to attempt music?" Mrs. Oliver seemed grieved at the thought. "There are several good voices in the family, of course, but you haven't had time to practise any Christmas music together. You will have merely to sing hymns."

"Fortunately, some of the old hymns are Christmas music, of the most exquisite sort," began Nan, trying hard to keep her temper--a feat which was apt to give her trouble when Marian was about. But, at the moment, as if to help her, up in the old organ-loft, at the back of the church, Margaret began to sing. Everybody looked up in delight, for Margaret's voice was the pride of the family, and with reason. Somebody was at the organ--the little reed organ. It proved to be Carolyn--Mrs. Charles Wetmore. For a moment the notes rose harmoniously. Then came an interval--and the organ wailed. There was a shout of protest, from the top of Guy's step-ladder:

"Cut it out--cut out the steam calliope!--unless you want a burlesque. That organ hasn't been tuned since the deluge--and they didn't get all the water out then."

"I won't hit that key again," called Carolyn. "Listen, you people."

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