Christmas Eve at Swamp's End - Norman Duncan (13 inch ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Fairmeadow ventured--the baby was still sleeping like a brick--"that you might first of all--ah--resuscitate it. Would a--a slight poke in the ribs--provoke animation?"

But the baby didn't need a poke in the ribs. It didn't need any other sort of resuscitation. Not _that_ baby! The self-dependent, courageous, perfectly competent and winning little rascal resuscitated itself. Instantly, too--and positively--and apparently without the least effort in the world. Moreover--and with remarkable directness--it demanded what it wanted--and got it. And having been nourished to its satisfaction from young Master Bartender's silver-mounted bottle (which John Fairmeadow then secretly slipped into his pocket)--and having yawned in a fashion so tremendous that Mrs. Bartender herself could never hope to equal that infinite expression of boredom--and having smiled, and having wriggled, and having giggled, and cooed, and attempted--actually attempted--to get its great toe in its mouth without extraneous assistance of any sort whatsoever--even without the slightest suggestion that such a thing would be an amazingly engaging trick in a baby of its age and degree--it burst into a gurgle of glee so wondrously genuine and infectious that poor, bored Mrs. Bartender herself was quite unable to resist it, and promptly, and publicly, and finally committed herself to the assertion that the baby was a dear, wherever it came from.

John Fairmeadow snatched it from the table, and was about to make off with it, when Mrs. Bartender interposed.

"My _dear_ Mr. Fairmeadow," said she, "that child will simply catch its _death_ of cold!"

There was something handy, however--something of silk and fawn-skin--and with this enveloping the baby John Fairmeadow swung in a roar with it to the bar--and held it aloft in all that seething wickedness--pure symbol of the blessed Christmas festival. And there was a sensation, of course--a sensation beginning in vociferous ejaculations, but presently failing to a buzz of conjecture. There were questions to follow: to which John Fairmeadow answered that he had found the baby--that the baby was nobody's baby--that the baby was his baby by right of finders keepers--that the baby was everybody's baby--and that the baby would presently be somebody's much-loved baby, _that_ he'd vouch for! The baby, now resting content in John Fairmeadow's arms, was diffidently approached and examined. Gingerbread Jenkins poked a finger at it, and said, in a voice of the most inimical description, "Get out!" without disturbing the baby's serene equanimity in the slightest. Young Billy Lush, charging his soft, boyish voice with all the horrifying intent he could muster, threatened to "catch" the baby, as though bent upon devouring it on the spot; but the baby only chuckled with delight. Billy the Beast incautiously approached a finger near the baby's stout abdomen; and the baby--with a perfectly fearless glance into the very depths of the Beast's frowzy beard--clutched the finger and smiled like an angel. Long Butcher Long attempted to tweak the baby's nose; but the effort was a ridiculous failure, practiced so clumsily on an object so small, and the only effect was to cause the baby to achieve a tremendous wriggle and a loud scream of laughter. These experiments were variously repeated, but all with the same cherubic result; the baby conducted itself with admirable self-possession and courage, as though, indeed, it had been used, every hour of its life, to the company of riotous lumber-jacks in town.

The inevitable happened, of course: Billy the Beast, whose pocket was smoking with his wages, proposed the baby's health, and there was an uproarious rush for the bar.

"Just a minute, boys!" John Fairmeadow drawled.

It was an awkward moment: but the jacks were by this time used to being bidden by this man who was a man, and the rush was forthwith halted.

"Just a minute, boys," John Fairmeadow repeated, "for your minister!"

The baby was then held aloft in John Fairmeadow's big, kind, sensitive hands, and from this safe perch softly smiled upon the crowd of flushed and bearded faces all roundabout.

"Boys," John Fairmeadow drawled, significantly, "this is the only sort of church we have in these woods."

There was a laughing stir and shuffling: but presently a tolerant silence fell, in obedience to the custom John Fairmeadow had established; and caps came off, and pipes were smothered.

"A little away from the bar, please," the big preacher suggested.

Pale Peter nodded to Charlie the Infidel; and the clink of glasses ceased--and the bottles were left in peace--and the hands of the bartender rested.

"Now, boys," said John Fairmeadow, letting the foundling fall softly into his arms, "I'm not going to preach to you to-night, though God knows you need it! I'm just going to pray for the baby. _Dear Father of us wilful Children of the Vale_," he began, at once, lifting a placid, believing face above the smiling child in his arms, "_we ask Thy guardianship of this child. In us is no perfect counsel for him nor any help whatsoever that he may surely apprehend. In Thine acceptable wisdom Thou settest Thy little ones in a world where presently only Thou canst teach them: teach Thou then this little one. Thou alone knowest the right path for a little boy's inquiring feet: lead then this little boy. Thou alone art saving helper to an adventuring lad: help then this lad. Thou alone art all-perceiving and persuasive, alone art Truth Teller to a bewildered youth and Good Example in his wondering sight: be then Good Example and Teller of Truth to this youth. Thou alone art in the fashioning ways of Thine own world a Maker of Men: make then of this little child a Man. We ask no easy path for him--no unmanly way--no indulgent tempering of the winds. We pray for no riches--for no great deeds of his doing--for no ease at all nor any satisfaction. We ask of Thee in his behalf good Manhood. Lead him where true men must go: lead him where they learn the all of life; lead him where they level down and build again; lead him where in righteous strength his hands may lift the fallen; lead him where in anger he may strike; lead him where his tears may fall; lead him where his heart may find a pure desire. O Almighty God, Lover of children, Father of us all alike, make of this child, in the measure of his service and in the stature of his soul, a Man. Amen._"

Amen, indeed!


_CHRISTMAS EVE AT SWAMP'S END_

As for poor little Pattie Batch, all this while, she sat alone, a doleful heart, in the shack at the edge of the big, black woods, quite unaware of the momentous advent of a Christmas baby at Swamp's End. The Christmas wind was still high, still shaking the cabin, still rattling the door, still howling like a wild beast in the night, still roaring in the red stove; and snow was falling again--a dry dust of snow which veiled the wondering stars. It was no longer a jolly, rollicking Christmas wind. The gale, now, it seemed, was become inimical to the lonely child: wild, vaunting, merciless, terrible with cold. Pattie Batch, disconsolate, sighed more often than a tender heart could bear to sanction in a child, and found swift visions in the glowing coals, though no enlivening tableaux; but--dear brave and human little one!--she presently ejaculated "Shoot it, anyhow!" and began at once to cheer up. And she was comfortably toasting her shins, in a placid delusion of stormy, mile-wide privacy, her mother's old-fashioned long black skirt drawn up from her dainty toes (of which, of course, the imminent John Fairmeadow was never permitted to be aware), when, all at once, and clamouring above the old wind's howling, there was a tremendous knocking at the door--a knocking so loud, and commanding, and prolonged, that Pattie Batch jumped like a fawn in alarm, and stood for a moment with palpitating heart and a mighty inclination to fly to the bedroom and lock herself in. Presently, however, she mustered courage to call "Come in!" in a sufficient tone: whereupon, the door was immediately flung wide, and big John Fairmeadow, with a wild, dusty blast of the gale, strode in with a gigantic basket, and slammed the door behind him, leaving the shivering, tenacious Shadow, which had secretly followed from Swamp's End, to keep cold vigil outside.

"Hello, there, Pattie Batch!" John Fairmeadow roared. "Merry Christmas!"

Pattie Batch stared.

"Hello, I say!" John Fairmeadow cried, again. "Merry Christmas, ye rascal!"

Pattie Batch, gulping her delight, and quite incapable of uttering a word, because of it, flew to the kitchen, instead of to the bedroom, and returned with a broom, with which, while the Shadow peeked in at the window, she brushed, and scraped, and slapped John Fairmeadow so vigorously that John Fairmeadow scampered into a corner and stood at bay.

"Look out, there, Polly Pry!" he shouted, in a rage; "don't you _dare_ look at my basket."

Pattie Batch had been doing nothing of the sort.

"Don't you so much as _squint_ at my basket," John Fairmeadow growled.

Pattie Batch instantly _did_, of course--and with her eyes wide and sparkling, too. It was really something more than a squint.

"Keep your eyes off that basket, Miss Pry!" John Fairmeadow commanded, again. "Huh!" he complained, emerging from his refuge and throwing his mackinaw and cap on the floor; "anybody'd think there was something in that basket for _you_."

"There ith," Pattie Batch gasped, in ecstasy.

"Is!" John Fairmeadow scornfully mocked. "Huh!"

Pattie Batch caught John Fairmeadow by the two lapels of his coat--and she stood on tiptoe--and she wouldn't let John Fairmeadow turn his head away--(as if John Fairmeadow cared to evade those round, glowing eyes!)--and she looked into his gray eyes with a bewitching conglomeration of hope, amusement, curiosity and adoring childish affection. "There ith, too," she chuckled, her lisp getting the better of her. "Yeth, there ith. I know _you_, Mithter Fairmeadow."

John Fairmeadow ridiculously failed to smother a chuckle in a growl.

"Doth it bite?" Pattie Batch inquired, maliciously feigning a terrific fright.

"Nonsense!" John Fairmeadow declared; "it hasn't a tooth in its head." He added, with one eye closed, and palms lifted: "But--aha!--just you wait and _see_."

"Well," Pattie Batch drawled, "I th'pose it'th a turkey. It'th thertainly _thome_thin' t' eat," she declared.

"Good _enough_ to eat, I bet you!" John Fairmeadow agreed, with the air of having concealed in that veritable big basket the sweetest morsel in all the world.

"Ith it a chicken?"

"Nonsense!" said John Fairmeadow; "it's fa-a-a-ar more delicious than chicken. Hi, there, Poll Pry!" he roared, and just in time; "keep your hands off."

"Is it anything for the house?"

"No, indeed; the house is for _it_."

Pattie Batch scowled in perplexity.

"The back yard, too," John Fairmeadow added; "and don't you forget that this whole place--and all the world--belongs to just what's in that basket."

"I'm sure," poor Pattie Batch mused, scratching her curls in bewilderment, "I can't guess what it _could_ be."

Both were now staring at the basket; and at that very moment the blanket covering--_stirred_!

"Ith a dog!" Pattie Batch exclaimed.

"Dog!" the outraged John Fairmeadow roared. "Nothing of the sort! No _ma'am_!"

Pattie Batch clasped her hands. "It ith, too!" she cried. "I thaw it move."

"It is _not_!"

"Ith a kitten, then."

"It is _not_ a kitten!"

Thereupon--while the Shadow, by whom John Fairmeadow had been dogged that night, now peered with acute attention through a break in the frost on the window-pane--thereupon, without any warning save a second slight movement of the blanket, a sound--and not by any means a growl--the thing was certainly not a dog--a sound proceeded from the depths of