Thurlow had not opened all his mail on Christmas Eve. He hadn’t even glanced at it to see what it was, and it lay there on the table beside the piano when he got back on Christmas morning.
Pat had not let him come home alone. He had slipped out into the rose and gray of a new dawn, with the snow all fallen and the sun arising in great shape, and brought Thurlow back. He was bleary-eyed for want of sleep, but wore a radiant face and fairly beamed when he recognized Pat in his big car at the corner where he had been dropped the night before.
They came stealing into the house but were not ahead of the girls, who were waiting to surprise them with the first cry of Merry Christmas that morning.
It was after the breakfast of real old-fashioned buckwheat cakes and sausage and maple syrup that Thurlow discovered his letter and opened it, and out of it dropped a check for a hundred dollars.
In amazement he stooped, picked it up, and looked at it dully! What on earth could this be? Then he turned to the letter.
Mr. Thurlow Reed
No. 77 in the City Service
Care of Station No. 4
Harvey and Cook Streets, City
Dear Mr. Reed:
At this joyous Christmas time I feel that among other gifts for which I am duly grateful, I want to thank you for a very great service rendered to me a few weeks ago when you saved the life of my dear wife from being crushed out beneath the wheels of an oncoming car.
I know that no words are adequate to express my gratitude, nor is this trifling check, which I enclose, a fitting repayment for so great a service, but it will perhaps serve to show you that I recognize your bravery and my indebtedness to you for the dearest on earth to me.
Be assured I shall not forget what you have done for me, and may God grant you a joyful Christmas Day.
Yours very sincerely,
George Steele
Thurlow stood dumbfounded, gazing at the check, and then he handed the letter over to his mother.
“I shall not keep it, of course,” he said dazedly. “I was only doing my duty. But wasn’t it nice of him?”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t keep it!” said Rilla after the letter had been read aloud. “You earned it. You risked your life.”
“The city pays me for risking my life every day, little sister. I was only in my line of duty. You understand, don’t you, Pat?”
“Oh yes, I suppose I do, old man. Still, I wish you’d keep it. It’s a sort of prize, or a medal like the Croix de Guerre.”
“What do you think, Mother?”
“It’s just possible you might hurt him by returning it. Why don’t you go and see him, Thurl? Maybe you could tell. I’m sure whatever you decide will be the right thing.” She smiled her perfect confidence.
The look in her boy’s eyes was reward enough for her faith in his decision. He folded the check thoughtfully and put it in his pocket.
“I’ll see,” he said. “I’ll pray over it,” he added with a sudden illumination in his face. “I’ve just been discovering what a wonderful relief that is, putting the responsibility on God.”
His eyes sought Sandra’s. He seemed to be speaking to her.
“Isn’t it!” she said softly, with an answering illumination in her eyes.
Pat stood there silent, looking at the two thoughtfully, respectfully. These two had something he didn’t understand. Then his eyes sought Rilla’s, and he saw that she, too, understood this magic language.
“I guess you folks’ll have to let me in on this secret society you seem to have, sometime. If you can get all lit up like that over a few words, I’d like to know the secret.”
There was a wistfulness about his words that touched them all, but it was Rilla who answered. “Oh, we will! We will! It will be wonderful to have you in it, too!”
“Okay! Then let’s get to work opening these packages. I absotively can’t wait any longer. Here, Mother Reed, you begin.”
Such a beautiful time as they had opening the presents, which had begun in such a humble way several weeks before when Rilla drew the first thread in a handkerchief she was hemstitching for her brother. But somehow there had been ways to get other necessities, too, that they knew each other needed. And then Sandra had added her lovely, expensive trifles that yet were so dainty and so fraught with loving thought that they could not be refused. And then came Pat with several gorgeous presents, without regard to price.
“You know you told me, Mother Reed, that if I came I might do as I pleased,” he reminded her when she remonstrated with him for the beautiful pearl breast pin he had given her.
“Within limits, dear boy,” she said gently.
“Yes, well, that was my limit this time. I wanted to give you something real to show you how much I appreciate your having taken me in this way. I thought that would look nice on you, so I got it, but if you don’t like it, I can exchange if for something you’d prefer.”
“I love it!” said Mother Reed suddenly. “Of course I’ll accept it and wear it every time you come to visit when I dress up for dinner.”
“That’s the right answer!” Pat sighed with relief. “I was afraid you were going to spoil the day for me.”
For Rilla there was a set of books Pat had heard her say she longed to read, and for Thurlow a wonderful watch that would shine the hour in the dark. For Sandra there was a great box of candy, and both girls had Christmas roses, only in Rilla’s there was one gorgeous white rose in the middle.
Rilla had been saving up a little here and a little there ever since Pat had said he was coming for Christmas, and her gift to him was a small, clear type, beautifully bound Bible. At the last minute, she had weakened on giving him such a gift when he might not even believe in it and had selected a fountain pen as her gift to him. But after what he had said about letting him in on their secret understanding, she had slipped into her room and brought the package from where she had hidden it last night when she substituted the pen, and put it among Pat’s other things. And Pat, when he found it, opened to the flyleaf and read the inscription, then lifted his eyes to her face with a beautiful look. Afterward he followed her into the kitchen when she went to baste the turkey, and standing beside her as she rose from stooping over the oven, he slipped his arm around her gently and looked down into her sweet, flushed face.
“I’m glad you gave me just that, Rilla,” he said earnestly, and then he bent over her and reverently kissed her forehead.
Mother Reed was coming, so nothing more could be said then, but Rilla came back into the living room looking as if she had received a benediction, and all day long her eyes continued to shine in a lovely faraway glory that illumined her whole face.
They had a party that afternoon for the seven little boys who lived the second house down the street. They came slicked to the last hair, their faces washed as far as the ears at least, and with an assortment of raiment that would have broken the hearts of real mothers. Mrs. Butts came also, a trifle out of breath, hurrying in with the family handkerchief, which she said, “Jimmy would need.” Once there she stayed, entranced. Mrs. O’Hennessy just frankly came without any excuse but that she wanted to see “how the childer took the Christmas tree.”
Thurlow was asleep in his back bedroom for a while, but he had told them to go ahead and not mind him. He’d like to see the poor little devils get their fill for once, and he’d be out by the time they fed them.
So they sat for a time and just looked their longing little souls out at that wonderful tree, and little Jimmy wanted to know if that was the kind of trees they had in heaven. By this time he had called at the Reed home often enough and conversed on religious themes enough to be fairly sure there was a place called heaven, and a way to get there.
Then they played some games, and Pat and Rilla and Sandra played with them. Going to Jerusalem was a game utterly new and charming to the poor little hoodlums of Meachin Street. They played Drop the Handkerchief and Blind Man’s Bluff and Hide the Thimble, until one little urchin was discovered trying to secrete the thimble permanently in his ragged, bottomless pocket.
Then Rilla sat them down in a row and told them a Christmas story, making pictures with chalk on a sheet of brown paper, a picture for each of them, with a tiny Bible verse on each, which she made them say over until they seemed to understand.
When they grew restless, Sandra grouped them around the piano and taught them Luther’s cradle hymn, “Away in a Manger,” and the little piping voices caught it quickly and shouted it out with a vim. After that Thurlow appeared on the scene and helped dish out the ice cream, which Pat had insisted on getting. The girls passed the cakes and candies and gave out some little simple presents, having hastily improvised two gifts for the elderly uninvited guests—two colored pictures that Rilla found in the desk drawer.
Then for a grand finale, the guests grouped around the piano and sang their song again, and the four young people sang two or three more for the elders, Christmas messages with salvation made plain in them.
The little boys were allowed by Pat to go up to the tree and each select an ornament for their very own, and then, clutching their precious booty, they went outside in the white world where the gathering darkness was dropping down and stood in a row while Rilla connected the great star.
They all stood breathless, huddled there in the snow, till at a signal from Pat, who had been whispering to them as they came out, they all shouted, “Merry Christmas!”
With many a look backward so that they frequently fell over in the snow because they wanted to watch the star, they went back to their desolate shacks, and the party was over. Mrs. Butts seemed thoughtful and a bit effusive as she said good-bye, and Mrs. O’Hennessy wiped away a weak tear and said she wished Rosie could have had a party like that.
At last the Reeds and their guests were alone, and they sat themselves down and laughed long and loud, and then almost wept as they recalled certain pitiful remarks of their young guests and the quaint appreciation of them all.
“Great cats!” said Pat. “That was hard work. But I like it! I’d like to do it again, many times, and I mean to. That’s a use I can put my big house to sometime. Just wait till I get out of college, and I’ll be tellin’ ya!” And just then the turkey cried out from the oven that it was done and wanted to get out right away this minute, and they all scurried around and put the wonderful dinner on the table, the dinner that had fairly got itself ready all day.
Thurlow mashed the potatoes that his mother had put on to boil as soon as the guests departed, mashed the turnips, and skinned the beets. Rilla made the coffee and got the bread and butter and cheese and olives and nuts, while Sandra whisked the table into shape in no time, and Mrs. Reed made the gravy and took out the turkey.
Such a dinner as they had! It took almost two hours to eat it because they took things in a leisurely way. They had sat down at five and didn’t get up till seven. And then suddenly it was time to go to the chapel to the Christmas service. Pat didn’t know about the chapel, but he went along, taking them all down in his car, and heard a Christmas testimony and prayer service and then a ringing Christmas message. He sat beside Rilla, holding the hymnbook when they sang, and then stood up with Thurlow and Sandra and Rilla to sing a quartet that the minister requested. Pat enjoyed it all. But then perhaps Pat was in a state of mind to enjoy almost anything just then. Nevertheless, on the way home, sitting beside Rilla in the front seat of the car, he told her that he liked it and he wanted to go again. He said he never knew there were churches like that nor ministers like that, and he wanted to get in on it. Rilla was very happy about it. It seemed an answer to a very earnest prayer of hers that had been in her heart all day for Pat.
Then they turned the grim corner into Meachin Street, and there was the star, shining away into the night, and there across the way in the shadow of the great brick factory wall there seemed a whole populace, who shrank and faded into nowhere as the car came sweeping up to the gate of the Reed cottage.
They gathered around the piano again and sang hymns and carols and sweet old songs till Thurlow had to go again to his job and night came down, Christmas night in a greatly stirred Meachin Street.
“You’ll come and see us again?” asked Thurlow anxiously as he stood in his uniform by the door, ready to go, and talked to Sandra alone for a minute.
“I’d like to. It’s been wonderful!” she said, meeting the look in his eyes with another like it. “It’s the first time I’ve felt at home since Father went away. I’ll write him all about it tomorrow, and he’ll be so glad I’ve found some Christian friends.”
“Oh, that’s great!” said Thurlow, holding her hand in a close clasp. “But won’t he mind that one of them is a policeman?”
“Not my father!” said Sandra proudly. “He’ll say it is great that there is a Christian policeman. He’ll say he wishes there were more of them!”
The clasp of their hands grew stronger for an instant, and then Thurlow turned and tramped down to the car where Pat waited for him, and Sandra stood in the door and watched him drive away, the big, good-looking policeman with the gun and the steel bracelets hidden away on him and a night full of adventure and possible peril before him. Her heart contracted with a sudden fear till she remembered what he had said to his mother last night about God’s angels taking care.
And Rilla stood at the window and watched Pat guide his beautiful car away into the night, thinking how wonderful he was and how her heart had thrilled when he kissed her so gently. Then she looked at Sandra’s face, gentle and sweet in the light of the great star. The mother watched both girls and prayed in her heart that God would give them His best.
So Christmas was a new beginning of many things.