The Boy Who Brought Christmas

“‘We reckoned, Grover Cleveland and me did, that this yer sprigged pattern would be becomin’ to your build’”

The Boy Who Brought Christmas

by Alice Morgan Illustrated by John Jackson

Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1911

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY PERRY MASON & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY ALICE MORGAN THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank the Editors of The American Press Association for their kind permission to reprint Chapters I and II of this story; and the Editors of The Youth’s Companion for their courtesy in permitting the republication of Chapters III and IV.

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Boy Who Brought Christmas

The Boy Who Brought Christmas

I THE ITINERANT CHRISTMAS TREE

Old Man Ledbetter came jolting along the stony mountain road in an ox cart, the tin-tipped ends of the shoe-string that confined his plaited beard dancing upon his breast, his hazel whipstock lying at his feet, and a hard, stumpy hand spread out upon either knee to hold himself steady. Without any gee-hawing on his part his yoked steeds turned at the ford and staggered clumsily into[Pg 4] the Junaluska. In midstream a shallow swirl of water came circling about his feet, but, though he may have pressed his hands harder upon his knees, the only perceptible preparation he made for a possible submerging was the shifting of his tobacco into the other cheek.

But from the footlog below, a call, piping but authoritative, challenged his attention.

“Hi, gran’daddy! he didn’t cross the log; you reckon he waded the branch? Dixie and me’s done lost the trail!”

“Gee up,” the old man reached for his whip and was soon upon the sandy terra firma of the other side, submissively awaiting his grandson’s pleasure.

“Here, sir, here!” The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself [Pg 5]through the weedy border. “Now foller, old boy; foller I say!”

“The puzzled Dixie had his nose pressed down to an equivocal impression where the sand of the road had spread itself through the weedy border”

The gesture of the grimy little hand was imperative, and Dixie sniffed among the dried weeds; then, closely nosing the ground, circled among the cart wheels but, baffled, squatted whimpering upon his haunches.

“You-all trackin’ a rabbit, Grover Cleveland?” The old man facetiously scrutinized both dog and boy.

In the North Carolina mountains there were in the time of my story and still are many namesakes of the great democrat, but our little hero was recognized far and wide as the child of the party. A sturdy, clear-eyed, true-hearted little mountaineer, the party was proud of him and no one ever gave him anything less than his full Christian name.

He was an orphan and grandmotherless; he and his grandfather lived alone, with no woman to keep them comfortable. These facts alone[Pg 6] would have secured for him abundant sympathy from a simple-hearted, kindly people; but, in addition to these titles to favour, his grandfather was respected as an upright man and one of the oldest and richest residents of the county, owning many acres of land—not of richest quality to be sure—but as good as any for enumeration. So for miles around the child was welcomed into every mountain cabin, and no home so poor that he was permitted to leave it without some token of its owner’s kindly interest, a pair of home-spun, home-knit stockings or mittens or a needed patch upon jacket or trousers.

He was a very small boy to be out in the woods alone with his dog; for, though the sunny slopes were warm, deciduous foliage lay rustling or sodden upon the ground and snow whitened the shaded clefts and hollows of the higher peaks. His old soft hat covered only the back of[Pg 7] his head and in front of it a fringe of blond hair bristled aggressively above blue eyes that scintillated with excitement. He wore clumsy copper-toed shoes and warm stockings wrinkled about his ankles, the dangling ends of the parti-coloured strings that gartered them showing below the short patched trousers.

“No!” he cried disdainfully, as if he had years ago lost interest in small game, “it’s old Sandy Claus! Cap’n Wiley says he’s got a den somewheres up on the Bald. He’s been down to the Pistopals’ meetin’-house and left ’em a whole pack of things and they’re a-goin’ to hang every last one of ’em on to a tree; and a-Chrisamus all the Pistopal girls and boys is goin’ to pick ’em off for keeps. But he ain’t left nary thing for the Methdises, or the Presaterians or the Red-Baptises or the Yaller-Baptises. Don’t you reckon that’s a low-down trick, gran’daddy?[Pg 8] He was down yer last night agin with another pack o’ things for ’em and he come afoot this time for me and Dixie’s tracked him; we’ve done follered his tracks to the ford but we can’t strike his trail on t’other side. Git out, gran’daddy, and help us!”

“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, granddad’ll shore do what he kin for you,” the old man kept a serious face and began a clumsy descent, “but what you aim to do when you come on to him? You aim to clean him out?”

“No, I ain’t goin’ to tech nary thing ’thout he tells me; but I aim to let on to him that the Red-Baptises and the Yaller-Baptises and the Presaterians is jes’ as good as the Pistopals; and the Methdises is a heap better’n any of ’em (you and me is Methdises, ain’t we gran’daddy?) and I don’t guess he’ll think I’m a storyin’; do you gran’daddy?”

[Pg 9]

“Not if he’s as knowin’ as I take him to be, he won’t.”

Gran’daddy mounted the footlog and steadied himself by the hand rail as he crossed, while boy and dog scampered like squirrels ahead of him. On the other side he pretended to identify every print the boy discovered as track of deer, coon, bear, or catamount; there was nothing indefinite that might stand for a possible Santa Claus.

“He must have waded a right smart,” there was a disappointed quiver in the shrill treble, “so’s to throw us off the track; you reckon he kept to the branch as far up as the mill, gran’daddy?”

“It looks right much like he’s just criss-crossed first one side the branch and then t’other; anyway he’s got the sleight of coverin’ up his tracks. I reckon we’ll have to give it up, Grover Cleveland. Gran’daddy’s powerful rushed for time to-day.”

[Pg 10]

The old man recrossed the log, got into the wagon, and started on his jogging way, the boy a quiet, drooping little figure beside him.

“That’s a mighty low-down trick in Old Sandy Claus to take and leave you out, Grover Cleveland. Them Pistopals is the no-countest critters to be found in these yer mountings.”

“If I was the boss of all the meetin’-houses I wouldn’t have any but jes’ one, so’s Old Sandy Claus ’ud have to do ’em all alike,” the treble weakened and the boy gazed off into the woods with suspicious intensity.

“Now don’t you go to takin’-on, Grover Cleveland; maybe you and me can git up a Christmas tree all to ourselves; how’d that do? I reckon ole gran’dad’s about as rich right now as ary somebody round yer. I’ve just sold Copperhead Hill to the mining company and got the money down, two hundred and five dollars!” For a moment the old man gloated[Pg 11] in silence over his wealth, for among these North Carolina mountaineers commerce is mostly carried on by barter and cash in hand is a scarce commodity.

“The Pistopals’ Chrisamus tree is only jes’ a holly”—gradually as the new idea had possessed his mind the limp little head had faced front again—“I clum up into that thar fiddle-leaf poplar that grows front of the meetin’-house winder and looked in, and there ain’t many berries on it at all; there’s a heap prettier ones in our woods.”

“Certainly there is, Grover Cleveland. There’s a hundred in Whiteoak Gulley that’s jes’ the shape of a yaller-pine burr, and all shinin’ with berries. You and me’ll take Butterfly and Bonaparte up thar and we’ll haul one of them ar holly bushes down to the house right soon, we will.”

“Them Pistopals has got theirs[Pg 12] sot up in a box like it growed there.” The blue eyes, though encircled with a tale-telling sedimentary deposit, were now lifted brightly to the kind old face and for gran’daddy there was no retreat.

“By gum, we’ll set our tree up in a box in our t’other room like it growed there too.”

“And le’s don’t jes’ you and me have it all to ourselves, gran’daddy. Le’s have something for Vance Long and Harve Edney too; his pa’s a Red Baptis’ and his ma’s a Methdis’, but I reckon Harve’s the biggest part Methdis’ cause he never does me mean. And I’d be proud to put a hymn-book on for Suly Jordan; she sings so good and she tied up my toe in turpentine that day I stubbed it. And there’s Zeb’lon, old Aunt Dicey’s gran’son—looks like he’s growed bigger’n there’s any call for—but he has troubles yet jes’ like little fellers. Ole man Sumter, he shot[Pg 13] Zeb’s tame deer last Friday, and Zeb and me, we got to it ’fore it was plumb dead and it looked up at Zeb, and Zeb he cried sure-’nough tears, he did. So you see Zeb’s only a boy yet and I don’t want to forgit him a-Chrisamus.”

“Yaas, Grover Cleveland, we’ll have a present on that ar tree for Zeb and Suly and for every Methdis’ boy and girl in Junaluska. There can’t be more’n a dozen of ’em since old man Simpson and his children and his gran’children and all his kinfolks left and jined the Baptises. And you can count their mas and their pas in too. But I’ll have to depend on you a heap, Grover Cleveland, gran’daddy never did see a Christmas tree in all his life; it’s a new institution in these mountings. Now if your gran’ma or your ma was alive they could help us out o’ this scrape, but”——he leaned over, trailed his whiplash[Pg 14] in the sand and watched it reminiscently.

“And there’s two or three old women I want to remember; there’s old Aunt Dicey, she and your gran’ma was always close friends. I believe I’ll put a new frock on the Christmas tree for her. And ’way off up in Cutter’s Cove there’s Dan Cutter’s widow; she and your gran’ma was girls together, a pretty pair, too. I won’t pass her by. And just ’cross the branch from her is where Sam Long’s got his family stowed away. His mother—she’s a queer ole stick as ever was—but they do say that Sam’s wife does the old woman mean, so I’ll give her a frock just to show ’em all that she’s some thought of. If them old critters don’t see a Christmas tree this year, the chances is they’ll die ’thout ever seein’ one. Haw, Bonaparte! By gum, if we’d a’ been a steam car we’d have run plumb over old Mis’ Jimson’s[Pg 15] cow; ’pears like she ain’t got heart in her to get out of the way; I reckon that pore old somebody ain’t got enough for herself to eat, let alone the cow. Gran’son, you jes’ get over in behind thar and heave her

out that thar corn that’s under the bag of meal.”

“Ain’t she a Pistopal cow, gran’daddy?”

“I ’low she is, gran’son, but she’s got a whole rotation of stomachs and when they’re all hungry at once it must give her a powerful gone feelin’. I’ll put on a new frock for old Mis’ Jimson. I don’t reckon she ever had a store frock in her life and she ain’t so old yet but what she can turn out of her loom a frock that’ll outwear three of the store kind, but it’ll be a change for her.”

“O but, gran’daddy! gran’daddy! them Pistopals is right mean, they are, and ole Mis’ Jimson’s a Pistopal!”

[Pg 16]

“So she is, Grover Cleveland, so she is. I never thought of that”—for a minute they jogged along in silence—“I can’t somehow ’count for that, gran’son; thar’s a mistake somewhar—Mis’ Jimson’s a good woman. Anyway she can’t git down to the Pistopal meetin’-house a-Christmas; she’s got a risin’ on her leg.”

“Why, gran’daddy, old Mis’ Jimson can’t go anywhere! She couldn’t even git into this yer wagon so as we-all could carry her!”

“I’m ’feared you’re right, Grover Cleveland; now that’s another difficulty——”

“And all them other old women, gran’daddy—how’re they going to git down to our Chrisamus tree, and how’re they goin’ to git back again?”

“That certainly is a puzzler, gran’son. I reckon we-all will have to sleep on to that. If your mother was[Pg 17] alive now, she’d know just how to take hold”——the old man dropped his elbows upon his knees, doubling himself in sad retrospection, and the little boy slipped off the seat in an effort to imitate the position. On his knees, holding to the front of the wagon box, he solved the problem.

“Hi, gran’daddy!” he shouted, clutching the old man’s trouserlegs to help himself to his feet, “me and you’ll stand that ar Chrisamus tree up in the wagon and we’ll hitch Bonaparte and Butterfly to it and we’ll carry it round an’ pick it as we go!”

“That’s the talk, Grover Cleveland!” the old man brought down upon his knee a big emphatic hand covering there two little wincing ones; “your ma’d have thought of that, too.”

“And I don’t want to pass any boy’s or girl’s house without stoppin’, gran’daddy, even if they’s Pistopals;[Pg 18] I ain’t mad at ary one of ’em but Williebelle Greenlee, and now I done forgot what I’m mad at her for.”

“I don’t aim to ’lowance you, Grover Cleveland. I aim to let you get a stick of peppermint or horehoun’ for every boy and girl in Junaluska. I aim to let you show Old Sandy how the thing ought to be did. And I don’t reckon I’ll pass by any old woman, either, jes’ ’cause she’s been misled and jined the wrong church; it’s bad enough to lose your way without bein’ hounded for it besides.”

“What makes Baptises and Methdises an’ Presaterians an’ all them, gran’daddy? Was they borned that way?”

“You an’ me was, Grover Cleveland; our kinfolks was Methdises from way back before the flood I reckon; but the rest of ’em they’re mostly jes’ mixin’s.”

“When I come acrost the cattle[Pg 19] on the mountings, I can tell by the slits in their ears who owns ’em; but I can’t tell what church owns the people round yer ’thout it’s meetin’-Sunday and I can see what meetin’-house they’re headin’ for. Have they got any ear-marks that you know ’em by, gran’daddy?”

“No they ain’t Grover Cleveland; they ain’t none of ’em branded that-a-way.”

“What makes ’em diff’rent, gran’daddy?”

“It’s the way they b’lieve, gran’son. The Methdises they b’lieve in free grace and sprinklin’, and the Baptises they b’lieve in sousin’, and the Presaterians—they’re right mean, they are—they b’lieve in ’lection.”

“Mighty nigh every somebody round yer went to ’lection and voted that Tuesday, gran’daddy.”

“So we did gran’son, so we did; but this yer Presaterian ’lection[Pg 20] is somehow diff’rent. It’s a powerful low-down kind of ’lection—I reckon it’s favourin’ niggers votin’.”

After waiting a few seconds for this theological seed to sink deep the old man went on.

“An’ them Pistopals—I’m feared I’m a little in the dark as to their belief—but they must be mighty good scholars, for they kin read like lightnin’. They kin read a psa’m so fast that common folks can’t take in the sense of what they’re sayin’. And there’s another good thing about ’em: they do rev’rence the name of the Lord in the Sunday sarvice; they bow considdable low when they come to it. Only it does look like they don’t all of ’em carry their rev’rence ’round with ’em a-week-days; there’s Cap’n Campbell, he can cuss considdable and he don’t do no bowin’ when he calls on the name of the Lord a-week-days.”

“Hi, gran’daddy! the storekeeper’s[Pg 21] wife she’s a Pistopal—and Monday, when she was scoopin’ up a pound of crackers for me, some mice run out of the cracker box and she jes’ hollered out, ‘For the Lord’s sake!’ and she didn’t bow and she didn’t look solemn, ary one.”

“Gran’son, I’ve read that there third commandment a heap of times and I can’t see as it provides for any week-day privileges or indulgences. When a man’s cussin’ mad, tain’t so powerful ill for him to bat the old devil’s name about some but, Grover Cleveland, don’t you never go to triflin’ with the name of the Lord; that’s uncommon low down, that is.

“There used to formerly be only one kind of Baptises here and they warshipped in the old red church. But ole man Jordan he got his back up and he took all his kin-people away and he built another church and he painted it yaller. You see[Pg 22] he had a whole mountain of timber land that he was glad to get cleared off, and his sons run a sawmill, and there’s a big bed of yaller ochre right back of his house. He was smart enough to set ’em all to work, while they was red-hot mad. If he’d a give ’em time to cool off, that ar yaller meetin’-house never would been built. They did cool off before they got the chimbly up and to this day they’re a tryin’ to praise the Lord with their stovepipe a-stickin’ out the winder.”

“There’s too many kinds of ’em for old Sandy to git round to ’em all,” said the small boy persistently, returning to his first sorrow.

“Sometimes it looks to me like there’s too many kinds for the Lord to get round to ’em all, gran’son. There’s some big cities where there’s more kinds than we’ve got here. There’s two or three kinds of Meth’-dises and there’s Free-will Baptises[Pg 23] and Holinesses, and they all seem to be workin’ for the same end, only they can’t agree to work together. But, of course, people’s got a right to all the religious differences they can pay for; but here in Junaluska we’re too poor to have so many churches.”

“How did there git to be so many kinds, gran’daddy?”

“’Twas zeal, Grover Cleveland. And there’s another point where gran’daddy ain’t exactly clear in his mind. Zeal must be a good thing; St. Paul he owned up that he had it, and yet—I reckon zeal’s like ’lectric’ty, it’s a powerful power for good so long as it’s kept in leaders; but you let ’lectric’ty go rarin’ round promiscuous and it’ll rip things all to flinderations. Eight years ago we had jes’ one church in Junaluska and we had a preacher all to ourselves; we didn’t let him starve to death or freeze to death, ary one. He lived[Pg 24] down thar in my log cabin and he had his own roastin’-ear patch and a garden and a orchard. He had a horse of his own and there wasn’t a cabin in any of these mountain gullies that he didn’t know his way to, and there wasn’t a cabin where he wasn’t looked up to and respected. But by and by folks of diff’rent b’liefs came settlin’ round here. They was all powerful pious and they was all bustin’ with zeal, each one for his own ’religious denomination’ as they called it. And—well—I

never could contrive just how they done it—but tollable soon there was five diff’rent churches in Junaluska and no more religion than there was before; unless pullin’ and haulin’ and each one tryin’ to git ahead of the other constitutes religion, which I’m doubtful if it do. And more’n that there ain’t work enough nor ham and hominy enough in Junaluska for more than one preacher. Them[Pg 25] questions of yours has set me to studyin’, Grover Cleveland.”