Mary thought an instant and then flew to the tray of her trunk to s.n.a.t.c.h out a woolly toy lamb, that had fallen to her lot from the mock Christmas tree at Warwick Hall.

"I brought it down to Texas with me because Dorene said that 'everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.' I expected to keep it always as a reminder of that lovely evening, but--" with a half stifled sigh, "it will do them more good than me."

When that was in place she gave one last glance around the room to see what else she could appropriate. Her eyes fell on the holly wreaths.

"Those red bows will make lovely hair-ribbons," she cried. "We can spare two of them. Hurry, mamma, and help me untie them! The needle-book may as well go too. Pin it on, Norman, and stick a date in the thimble bag and swing it up, Jack."

In the meantime Norman had been lighting the candles in order that they might see how it looked when it was all ashine, and it stood now, a very creditable and a very bright little tree. There were none of the spun-gla.s.s birds and crystal icicles and artificial fruits that had made little Patricia's tree such a gorgeous affair the year before, and were probably making it beautiful to-night, but there was sparkle and color and glow and charm of beribboned packages, enough to make little eyes who saw such a sight for the first time believe that it was the work of magic hands.

"Done!" cried Mary triumphantly, "and in only fifty-eight minutes!"

"Well, I didn't believe it would be possible," acknowledged Norman.

"I'll bet it's the only tree in Texas trimmed in such short order."

When he and Mary reached the camp-yard again, they found the family sitting around the smouldering fire, listening to the phonograph which was still playing in the cottage down the road. The quilts were spread out in the wagon, ready for the night, but the children, who had slept most of the afternoon on their tiresome journey, could not be induced to climb in while the music lasted.

The two bearers of Yule-tide cheer set the tree down and reconnoitered through cracks in the fence. "The man looks awfully down in the mouth,"

whispered Norman. "So does she. Shall we tell them 'Sandy Claws' sent it?"

"No," Mary whispered back. "They look so forlorn and friendless, and the woman seemed to feel so left out of everything, that it might do them good to tell them we brought it because the angels sang peace on earth, good-will to men, and that it's a sort of sign that they're _not_ left out. They're to have a part in it too."

Norman turned his eye from the knot-hole to gape at her. "Well!" was his whispered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "If you want all _that_ said you'll have to say it yourself. I'm no preacher."

"Come on then," said Mary boldly. She knew what she wanted to convey to them but the words stuck in her throat, and she never could remember afterwards exactly what she blurted out as they put the tree down in front of the astonished family and then turned and ran. However, her words must have carried some of the good cheer she intended, for when she and Norman paused again outside, she at the knot-hole this time and he at the crack, it gave them each a queer little flutter inside to see the expression on the pleased faces and hear their exclamations of wonder.

"They couldn't be more surprised if it had dropped right down out of the sky," whispered Norman. "Now the kids are getting over their daze a bit.

They're hopping around just like they saw the Kramer boys do."

"See, they've found Lady Agatha," answered Mary. "Just _look_ at Goldilocks now! Did you ever see such an ecstatic little face. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Now they've got the lamb. I'm so glad I thought of it, for the Kramers had a whole bunch of little white sheep around the base of their tree."

They were both very quiet when they finally turned away from the fence and started home. They did not speak till they reached the white moonlighted road, stretching past the cotton field. Then Mary looked up at the stars saying reverently, "Somehow I feel as if we'd been taking part in the _first_ Christmas. It was a sort of camp-yard that the Star of Bethlehem led to. Don't you remember, 'there was no room in the inn'

for the Child and His mother? It was a manger the gold and frankincense and myrrh were carried to. I feel as if we'd been following along--a little way at least--on the trail of the Wise Men."

"Me too," confessed Norman. Then nothing more was said for a long time.

Mary could find no words for the next thoughts which puzzled her. She was picturing all the Christmas trees of the world brought together in one place, and trying to imagine the enormous forest they would make.

Then she fell to wondering what it was about them that should make "the eye laugh and the heart laugh, and bring a blessing to the silver hair as well as brown" as the old couple had sung in the garden. All over the world it was so.

Since looking into the windows at other peoples' trees, and then causing one to bloom and bear fruit herself for the homeless campers, she felt that she had joined hands with that circle which reaches around the world. She was no longer an alien and stranger among the people of Bauer. The "Weinachtsbaum" had given her a happy bond of understanding and kinship. It had taken the hard, hopeless look out of the older faces around the camp-fire, for awhile at least, and made the little ones radiant. And at home--she remembered gratefully how Jack had burst out whistling several times while he helped to trim it. And the tune that came in such l.u.s.ty, rollicking outbursts was one which he never whistled except when he was in high good humor with himself and all the universe.

She was sure that he wasn't acting then--he couldn't have been just pretending that he was glad, for it sounded as it always used to do back at the Wigwam. She wondered why the tree had had that effect.

And then, like an answer, a verse popped into her thoughts; one that she had spelled out long ago for Grandmother Ware, letter by letter, one little finger pointing to each in turn. It was a verse from Revelation, about the tree that stands on either side of the river, clear as crystal, "_which bare twelve manner of fruit, and the leaves were for the healing of the nations_."

Then all of a sudden she understood why those shining boughs with their strange fruitage of gifts have power to bring hope and good cheer to lonely hearts the world over. They are the symbols, which the Spirit of Christmas sets ashine, of that Tree of Life. And the Spirit of Christmas is only another name for Love, and it is Love alone, the human and divine together, which can bring about the healing needed by hearts in every nation.

All this did not come to Mary in words. She could not have expressed it to any one else, but it sent her on her way, deeply, quietly glad.

Next morning while she was stooping before the oven, basting the turkey which the Barnabys had sent with their greetings, Jack called her to the front window where he was sitting.

A covered wagon was creaking slowly by, drawn by a big horse and a little burro. The cover was looped up, and in the back end, carefully tied to the tail-gate, stood the tree which had taken them fifty-eight minutes to prepare, but whose memory would not be effaced in that many years from the minds of the two children, seated on the quilts beside it.

"I'm so glad you got to see them," said Mary. "Aren't they dear? And oh, look! Goldilocks is still holding Lady Agatha, and the other one's hugging the woolly lamb!"

When the wagon was entirely out of sight Mary started back to her turkey basting, but stopped a moment to take another look at the gifts spread out on the side table. Several things had been added to them that morning; a dissected puzzle picture which Norman had made for her, a spool case that Jack had whittled out, and a strip of exquisitely embroidered rosebuds that Mrs. Ware had wrought to be put into a white dress. There was also a pot of white hyacinths from the rectory, and Mary held her face down against the cool snow of their blossoms, taking in their sweetness in long breaths.

"It's been a pretty full Christmas, hasn't it!" exclaimed Jack as he watched her.

"It's really been one of the nicest I ever had," she answered, "for one reason because it's lasted so long. Norman's plan is a success."

That night after supper Norman insisted on taking his mother down into the village to look at the lighted windows. After they had gone Mary took out her Good Times book to record the happenings of the day. She had a few more notes of acknowledgment to write also, and was glad that Jack was busy with his own writing. She noticed that he was using India ink and a crow-quill pen, but thought nothing of that as he was always experimenting with them.

Joyce was not the only one of the children who had inherited artistic ability. Jack never attempted pictures, but he did beautiful lettering; odd initials and old English script, and had copied verses for calendars and fly-leaf inscriptions. Joyce said some of his pen-and-ink work was as beautifully done as the letters she had seen in old missals, made by the monks.

Nearly an hour went by. Mary addressed her last envelope. He laid down his pen and pushed a narrow strip of cardboard towards her.

"I've made you one more present to end the day with, Mary," he said jokingly. "It's a bookmark."

Inside a narrow border of conventional scrollwork was one line, and the line was from the verse which she had quoted so disastrously that day at the creek-bank:

"Close all the roads of all the world, _Love's_ road is open still!"

As she looked up to speak he interrupted her hurriedly:

"Yes, I know how miserable I made you that day with my outburst against fate, and I've felt that you've never believed me since when I laughed and joked and said that I enjoyed things. But that was only one time that I gave way, just once that I got down in the dumps and I don't want you to think that is my usual state of feelings. Really I'm getting more out of life than you imagine. I'm putting up the best fight I can. I just wanted you to know that although every other road in the world is closed against me I can still sc.r.a.pe along pretty comfortably because that last line is true. Love's road is open still. You all have made it a good wide one for me, and made it worth while for me to travel it with you cheerfully to the end. I'm perfectly willing to, _now_."

"Oh, Jack!" cried Mary in a voice that trembled with both joy and tears.

"I've had a happy Christmas, but knowing you feel that way is the very best part of all!"

CHAPTER VIII

"DIE KLEINEN TEUFEL"

CHRISTMAS was followed by a week of small calamities. Some of them would have been laughable, counted singly, but taken all together they a.s.sumed a seriousness not to be considered lightly.

In the first place, Mary, attempting to tie the boat at the usual landing, slipped on the muddy bank and dropped the chain. In her effort to recover it she stepped into the water. Her shoes were soaking wet when she reached home, and as they were her only good ones she stuffed them carefully with paper and hung them over the little drum stove in the living room to dry. That evening Jack read aloud while they washed the dishes, so they were all in the kitchen when the smouldering log in the drum stove, having reached the blazing point, suddenly burst into flame.

Presently a smell of burning leather made them all begin to sniff inquiringly, and Mary rushed in to find that one of her shoes had dropped from the string to which she had tied it by the laces, and was scorching to a crisp on the red-hot stove. Her old shoes were so shabby that the immediate need of new ones, left her figuring over the family accounts until bed-time. It was hard to cut down a list of expenses already reduced to low water mark.

The next day a wet "Norther" blew up, bringing the first cold weather of the winter. After weeks of almost summer-like heat, the mercury dropped to freezing point in just a few hours, and roaring fires in both the kitchen and drum stoves failed to warm the little cottage. Like most houses in that section it had not been built with a view to excluding the cold. The wind blew in under the north door, lifting the rugs until they shifted with a wave-like motion across the floor. Jack had to have a blanket hung behind his chair, and when Mrs. Ware sat down to write her weekly letter to Joyce the draughts that rattled the windows set her to sneezing as if she never could stop.

Mary, full of resources, brought her pink sunbonnet and perched it on her mother's head, pulling its ruffled cape well down on her shoulders.

"There!" she exclaimed, laughing at the jaunty effect. "That will keep 'the cauld blasts' from giving you a stiff neck. Do look in the mirror and then draw a picture of yourself for Joyce. Tell her that the Sunny South is a delusion. The mercury is only down to freezing, but I am sure that there isn't an Esquimau in all the Arctic Circle as cold as we are this blessed minute. That wind goes through a body like a fine-pointed needle."

"These little stoves fairly eat up the wood," she grumbled a few minutes later, glancing into the empty wood-box which Norman had piled to the top before he left that morning.