"She's a strange child, left on their hands; and they're as poor as death. They were going to give her in charge to the authorities. The woman said she couldn't feed her another day. That's about the whole of it. If Tim don't bring her back, they'll know where she is, and be thankful."

"Do you want to go home with me, and hang up your stocking, and have a Christmas?"

"My golly!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tim, staring.

The little one smiled shyly, and was mute. She didn't know what Christmas was. She had been cold, and she was warm, and her mouth and hands were filled with sweet cake. And there were pleasant words in her ears. That was all she knew. As much as we shall comprehend at first, perhaps, when the angels take us up out of the earth cold, and give us the first morsel of heavenly good to stay our cravings.

This was how it ended. Tim had a paper bag of apples and cakes, with some sugar pigs and p.u.s.s.y cats put in at the top, and a pair of warm stockings out of Glory's bag, to carry home, for himself; and he was to say that the lady who came to see his mother had taken Jo away into the country. To Miss Henderson's, at Kinnicutt. Glory wrote these names upon a paper. Tim was to be a good boy, and some day they would come and see him again.

Then Nurse Sampson's plaid shawl was wrapped about little Jo, and pinned close over her rags to keep out the cold of Christmas Eve; and the bell rang presently; and she was taken out into the bright, warm car, and tucked up in a corner, where she slept all the hour that they were steaming over the road.

And so these three went out to Kinnicutt to keep Christmas at the Old House.

So Glory carried home the Christ gift that had come to her.

Tim went back, alone, to number ninety-three. He had his bag of good things, and his warm stockings, and his wonderful story to tell. And there was more supper and breakfast for five than there would have been for six. Nevertheless, somehow, he missed the "little brick."

Out at Cross Corners, Miss Henderson's Home was all aglow. The long kitchen, which, by the outgrowth of the house for generations, had come to be a central room, was flooded with the clear blaze of a great pine knot, that crackled in the chimney; and open doors showed neat adjoining rooms, in and out which the gleams and shadows played, making a suggestive pantomime of hide and seek. It was a grand old place for Christmas games! And three little bright-faced girls sat round the knee of a tidy, cheery old woman, who told them, in a quaint Irish brogue, the story of the "little rid hin," that was caught by the fox, and got away, again, safe, to her own little house in the woods, where she "lived happy iver afther, an' got a fine little brood of chickens to live wid her; an' pit 'em all intill warrum stockings and shoes, an'

round-o-caliker gowns."

And they carped at no discrepancies or improbabilities; but seized all eagerly, and fused it in their quick imaginations to one beautiful meaning; which, whether it were of chicken comfort, overbrooded with warm love, or of a clothed, contented childhood, in safe shelter, mattered not a bit.

Into this warm, blithe scene came Glory, just as the fable was ended for the fourth time, bringing the last little chick, flushed and rosy from a bath; born into beauty, like Venus from the sea; her fair hair, combed and glossy, hanging about her neck in curls; and wrapped, not in a "round-o-caliker," but in a scarlet-flannel nightgown, comfortable and gay. Then they had bowls of bread and milk, and gingerbread, and ate their suppers by the fire. And then Glory told them the old story of Santa Claus; and how, if they hung their stockings by the chimney, there was no knowing what they mightn't find in them to-morrow.

"Only," she said, "whatever it is, and whoever He sends it by, it all comes from the good Lord, first of all."

And then, the two white beds in the two bedrooms close by held four little happy bodies, whose souls were given into G.o.d's keeping till his Christmas dawn should come, in the old, holy rhyme, said after Glory.

By and by, Faith and Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came over from the Corner House, with parcels from. Kriss Kringle.

And now there was a gladsome time for all; but chiefly, for Glory.

What unpacking and refolding in separate papers! Every sugar pig, and dog, and p.u.s.s.y cat must be in a distinct wrapping, that so the children might be a long time finding out all that Santa Claus had brought them.

What stuffing, and tying, and pinning, inside, and outside, and over the little red woolen legs that hung, expectant, above the big, open chimney! How Glory laughed, and sorted, and tied and made errands for string and pins, and seized the opportunity for brushing away great tears of love, and joy, and thankfulness, that would keep coming into her eyes! And then, when all was done, and she and Faith came back from a little flitting into the bedrooms, and a hovering look over the wee, peaceful, sleeping faces there, and they all stood, for a minute, surveying the goodly fullness of small delights stored up and waiting for the morrow--how she turned suddenly, and stretched her hands out toward the kind friends who had helped and sympathized in all, and said, with a quick overflow of feeling, that could find only the old words wherein to utter herself:

"Such a time as this! Such a beautiful time! And to think that I should be in it!"

Miss Henderson's will was fulfilled.

A happy, young life had gathered again about the ancient hearthstone that had seen two hundred years of human change.

The Old House, wherefrom the last of a long line had pa.s.sed on into the Everlasting Mansions, had become G.o.d's heritage.

Nurse Sampson spent her Christmas with the Gartneys.

They must have her again, they told her, at parting, for the wedding; which would be in May.

"I may be a thousand miles off, by that time. But I shall think of you, all the same, wherever I am. My work is coming. I feel it. There's a smell of blood and death in the air; and all the strong hearts and hands'll be wanted. You'll see it."

And with that, she was gone.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE WEDDING JOURNEY.

"The tree Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched By its own fallen leaves; and man is made, In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes And things that seem to perish."

"A stream always among woods or in the sunshine is pleasant to all and happy in itself. Another, forced through rocks, and choked with sand, under ground, cold, dark, comes up able to heal the world."--FROM "SEED GRAIN."

"Shall we plan a wedding journey, Faith?"

It was one evening in April that Mr. Armstrong said this. The day for the marriage had been fixed for the first week in May.

Faith had something of the bird nature about her. Always, at this moment of the year, a restlessness, akin to that which prompts the flitting of winged things that track the sunshine and the creeping greenness that goes up the lat.i.tudes, had used to seize her, inwardly. Something that came with the swelling of tender buds, and the springing of bright blades, and the first music born from winter silence, had prompted her with the whisper: "Abroad! abroad! Out into the beautiful earth!"

It had been one of her unsatisfied longings. She had thought, what a joy it would be if she could have said, frankly, "Father, mother! let us have a pleasant journey in the lovely weather!"

And now, that one stood at her side, who would have taken her in his tender guardianship whithersoever she might choose--now that there was no need for hesitancy in her wish--this child, who had never been beyond the Hudson, who had thought longingly of Catskill, and Trenton, and Niagara, and had seen them only in her dreams--felt, inexplicably, a contrary impulse, that said within her, "Not yet!" Somehow, she did not care, at this great and beautiful hour of her life, to wander away into strange places. Its holy happiness belonged to home.

"Not now. Unless you wish it. Not on purpose. Take me with you, some time, when, perhaps, you would have gone alone. Let it _happen_."

"We will just begin our quiet life, then, darling, shall we? The life that is to be our real blessedness, and that has no need to give itself a holiday, as yet. And let the workdays and the holidays be portioned as G.o.d pleases?"

"It will be better--happier," Faith answered, timidly. "Besides, with all this fearful tramping to war through the whole land, how can one feel like pleasure journeying? And then"--there was another little reason that peeped out last--"they would have been so sure to make a fuss about us in New York!"

The adjuncts of life had been much to her in those restless days when a dark doubt lay over its deep reality. She had found a pa.s.sing cheer and relief in them, then. Now, she was so sure, so quietly content! It was a joy too sacred to be intermeddled with.

So a family group, only, gathered in the hillside parlor, on the fair May morning wherein good, venerable Mr. Holland said the words that made Faith Gartney and Roger Armstrong one.

It was all still, and bright, and simple. Glory, standing modestly by the door, said within herself, "it was like a little piece of heaven."

And afterwards--not the bride and groom--but father, mother, and little brother, said good-by, and went away upon their journey, and left them there. In the quaint, pleasant home, that was theirs now, under the budding elms, with the smile of the May promise pouring in.

And Glory made a May Day at the Old House, by and by. And the little children climbed in the apple branches, and perched there, singing, like the birds.

And was there not a white-robed presence with them, somehow, watching all?

Nearly three months had gone. The hay was down. The distillation of sweet clover was in all the air. The little ones at the Old House were out, in the lengthening shadows of the July afternoon, rolling and reveling in the perfumed, elastic heaps.

Faith Armstrong stood with Glory, in the porch angle, looking on.

Calm and beautiful. Only the joy of birds and children making sound and stir across the summer stillness.