"No I ain't. I've had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an'

years--give a Chris'mas--an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an'

we may never have another chance. Bart is a good boy an' we made up our minds he'd enjoy it better now than he ever would ag'in."

That Christmas brought me nothing better than those words, the memory of which is one of the tallest towers in that long avenue of my past down which I have been looking these many days. About all you can do for a boy, worth while, is to give him something good to remember.

The day had turned dark. The temperature had risen and the air was dank and chilly. The men began to hitch up their horses.

"Kind o' thawin' a little," said Uncle Hiram as he got into his sleigh and drove up to the door. "Come on, there. Stop yer cacklin' an' git into this sleigh," he shouted in great good humor to the women and children who stood on the porch. "It'll be snowin' like sixty 'fore we git home."

So, one by one, the sleighloads left us with cheery good-bys and a grinding of runners and a jingling of bells. When the last had gone Uncle Peabody and I went into the house. Aunt Deel sat by the stove, old Kate by the window looking out at the falling dusk. How still the house seemed!

"There's one thing I forgot," I said as I proudly took out of my wallet the six one-dollar bills which I had earned by working Sat.u.r.days and handed three of them to my aunt and three to my uncle, saying:

"That is my Christmas present to you. I earned it myself."

I remember so well their astonishment and the trembling of their hands and the look of their faces.

"It's grand--ayes!" Aunt Deel said in a low tone.

She rose in a moment and beckoned to me and my uncle. We followed her through the open door to the other room.

"I'll tell ye what I'd do," she whispered. "I'd give 'em to ol'

Kate--ayes! She's goin' to stay with us till to-morrow."

"Good idee!" said Uncle Peabody.

So I took the money out of their hands and went in and gave it to the Silent Woman.

"That's your present from me," I said.

How can I forget how she held my arm against her with that loving, familiar, rocking motion of a woman who is soothing a baby at her breast and kissed my coat sleeve? She released my arm and, turning to the window, leaned her head upon its sill and shook with sobs. The dusk had thickened. As I returned to my seat by the stove I could dimly see her form against the light of the window. We sat in silence for a little while.

Aunt Deel broke it by singing in a low tone as she rocked:

"My days are pa.s.sing swiftly by And I--a pilgrim stranger-- Would not detain them as they fly, These days of toil and danger."

Uncle Peabody rose and got a candle and lighted it at the hearth.

"Wal, Bart, we'll do the ch.o.r.es, an' then I warn ye that we're goin' to have some fun," he said as he got his lantern. "There's goin' to be some Ol' Sledge played here this evenin' an' I wouldn't wonder if Kate could beat us all."

I held the lantern while Uncle Peabody fed the sheep and the two cows and milked--a slight ch.o.r.e these winter days.

"There's nothing so cold on earth as a fork stale on a winter night," he remarked as he was pitching the hay. "Wish I'd brought my mittens."

"You and I are to go off to bed purty early," he said as we were going back to the house. "Yer Aunt Deel wants to see Kate alone and git her to talk if she can."

Kate played with us, smiling now and then at my uncle's merry ways and words, but never speaking. It was poor fun, for the cards seemed to take her away from us into other scenes so that she had to be reminded of her turn to play.

"I dunno but she'll swing back into this world ag'in," said Uncle Peabody when we had gone up to our little room. "I guess all she needs is to be treated like a human bein'. Yer Aunt Deel an' I couldn't git over thinkin' o' what she done for you that night in the ol' barn. So I took some o' yer aunt's good clothes to her an' a pair o' boots an'

asked her to come to Chris'mas. She lives in a little room over the blacksmith shop down to b.u.t.terfield's mill. I told her I'd come after her with the cutter but she shook her head. I knew she'd rather walk."

He was yawning as he spoke and soon we were both asleep under the shingles.

CHAPTER XIII

THE THING AND OTHER THINGS

I returned to Mr. Hacket's house late in the afternoon of New Year's day. The schoolmaster was lying on a big lounge in a corner of their front room with the children about him. The dusk was falling.

"Welcome, my laddie buck!" he exclaimed as I entered. "We're telling stories o' the old year an' you're just in time for the last o' them.

Sit down, lad, and G.o.d give ye patience! It'll soon be over."

Little John led me into the group and the schoolmaster began:--Let us call this bit of a story: _The Guide to Paradise_.

"One day in early June I was lyin' under the big apple tree in the garden--sure I was. It was all white and sweet with the blossoms like a bride in her veil--an' I heard the hum o' the bee's wing an' odors o'

the upper world come down to me. I was lookin' at the little bird house that we had hung in the tree-top. Of a sudden I saw a tiny bit o' a 'warf--no longer than the thumb o' Mary--G.o.d love her!--on its wee porch an' lookin' down at me.

"'Good luck to ye!' says I. 'Who are you?'

"'Who do ye think I am?' says he.

"'n.o.body,' says I.

"'That's just who I am,' says he, 'I'm n.o.body from Nowhere--G.o.d save you from the like.'

"'Glad to see ye,' says I.

"'Glad to be seen,' says he. 'There's a mighty few people can see me.'

"'Looks to me as if ye were tellin' the truth,' says I.

"'n.o.body is the only one that always tells the truth--G.o.d help ye,' says he. 'And here's a big chunk o' it. Not one in a thousand ever gets the feet o' his mind in the land o' Nowhere--better luck to them!'

"'Where is it?' says I.

"'Up above the earth where the great G.o.d keeps His fiddle,' says he.

"'What fiddle?' says I.

"'The fiddle o' silence,' says he. 'Sure, I'm playin' it now. It has long strings o' gold that reach 'way out across the land o' Nowhere--ye call 'em stars. The winds and the birds play on it. Sure, the birds are my hens.'

"He clapped his little hands and down came a robin and sat beside him.

n.o.body rumpled up the feathers on her back and she queed like she was goin' to peck me--the hussy!

"'She's my watch hen,' says n.o.body. 'Guards the house and lays eggs for me--the darlin'! Sure, I've a wonderful farm up here in the air--millions o' acres, and the flowers and the tops o' the trees and the gold mines o' the sky are in it. The flowers are my cattle and the bees are my hired men. Do ye see 'em milkin' this big herd o'