CHRISTMAS WITH JIM'S FRIENDS

There was the calendar right before me on the wall, with figures big enough to mentally hit me and hit hard, and I should have remembered that the road of the year had turned toward Christmas. But before me was an unfinished news article that even a hungry and insistent stomach did not seem able to push to a conclusion. Beyond my desk out of the window I looked now and then down upon the hurrying throng who were making their way across City Hall Park to Brooklyn Bridge. It was the hour when you do not know whether to call it day or night. It was indescribable in another way,—it was either misting or raining. I suppose a Scotchman would have called it mist and an Irishman rain. I think that any one looking out that night would have found it hard to see in the gray view anything suggestive of Christmas. I turned from the wet view to my unfinished work only to be again interrupted.

A Western Union boy burst into my office with a telegram. It was from St. John's and I wondered as I tore it open if anything had happened to Harbor Jim. It was short and for once the operators had apparently followed the author's spelling.

come fur chrismuscant take no fur an answer no howbiggest an best you or yourn hev ever seedcomejim

A few days afterward a long letter came enforcing and elaborating the invitation. Jim wrote that he was already at work upon a Christmas that would eclipse anything New York had ever had. He had taken the idea out of a city paper that I had sent him a year before and had developed it and he wouldn't care to go forward with it, unless I could be there.

That is how it happened that a few days before Christmas, on the last steamer that would get me there in time, I was steaming into St. John's Harbor. Our boat was sheathed with ice and as in the morning we came thru the Narrows there were knobs of ice floating around us. The hills were white and the brown stone now and then stuck thru where the snow had lost its footing.

Landing I found the people in furs and the sleighs making merry music with their bells. A fellow agreed to drive me out to Jim's for two dollars and a half and I went in his sleigh, he called it, but in New England it would have more properly have been called a pung.

Jim almost literally wrapped me in his arms and outdid himself in the cordiality of his welcome.

"How's fishing, Jim?" I asked when the first greetings were over and I had my feet up in front of the stove.

"Fishin', why land o' Goshen, this ain't no time for fishin'. There ain't but one thing on my mind an' that is Christmas. Don't you see what we are a' doin'?"

A kettle of oil was on the stove and the dipping of half grown candles had been recently finished. On the floor were half a hundred full grown candles.

Jim could talk only of Christmas. "I've been thinkin'," he said, "that if there should ever be a second coming of the Lord or He should send another Son to His people He couldn't pick out a better place than this. Suppose it was to be another birth. I callate this land has just as good a chance as Palestine and hereabouts is as fittin' a place as Bethlehem. Look out there at the snow! Makes you think o' a baby's blankets, it's so white and clean and pretty. Our nights man't have stars as brilliant as that one greater star of the first Christmas mornin', but I don't believe they have flyin' lights[5] like 'ourn. I hev noticed that the Lord tries to be as impartial as He can and since He sent His Son to the East last time, if ever He should send again why I think He'd be likely to send Him somewhere hereabouts. You remember the Son liked fishin' an' He'd be delighted with Newfoundland."

The door opened and Bob McCartney walked in.

"What's the matter, Bob; what you got your good behavior[6] on fur?" asked Jim as his friend entered.

"Ain't the occasion worth it? You sed yourself that it was to be the biggest Christmas the Landers ever hed; and I'd like to know if we aren't in a way celebratin' now while we're gettin' ready."

"Who's coming to this Christmas, Jim?" I asked, taking my turn at a question.

"Well, everybody in this town, quite a mess o' folk from St. John's and Quidi Vidi. Some from Brigus, Kelligrews and Heart's Ease. Aunt Saray Bailey is a' comin' from Nancy Jobble.[7] It's such a general invitation that they ain't no definite countin' no how, but their comin'. Everybody that meets anybody hereabouts and nowadays jes' says are you a' comin' to Jim's fur Christmas."

Gradually by prying questions I found out what Jim was planning to do. He had been extremely interested in the account I had sent him of the illuminated tree in Madison Square, and had resolved to have the trees on a neighboring hill-top all illuminated where they stood. In place of electric lights he was engaged in making tallow candles by hand.

The day before Christmas, Mrs. Jim was up very early and when I came down to breakfast she greeted me with this:

"Got to make a biler full o' tea this morning fur the Decoratin' Committee will be here shortly."

"Yes," added Jim, "they'll be here shortly and then we'll be a carryin' out Christmas. Up your way they fetch it in, but we're a goin' to carry it out, good and proper, this year."

The first arrival was Bob, who had caught the full contagion of Jim's spirit, and the second was Parson Curtis.

"Hello, Pa'son Curtis," said Jim as he ushered in his guest. "Did you come to look on or to work?"

"Put me in among the workers, Jim," replied the parson.

"That's right, Pa'son," Jim spoke with heartiness. "I like a pa'son that ain't a mite afraid o' work. I callate that our Lord was one o' the greatest workers this world ever seed, and it's a good thing fur those who are a takin' His place to be up in the front row o' workers. Here's a bag o' candles and here's a coil o' wire. You can take 'em up the hill and begin hitchin' 'em to the tallest tree. You can begin on the low branches an' when the younger fellows get here we'll let 'em shinney up to the taller branches."

By eight o'clock, fifty men and boys were at work, many of them bringing their own donation of candles, and each time that Jim saw more candles coming he beamed, for it meant more trees could be included in the scheme.

With banter, jest and story the work of attaching the candles went on thru the morning and at noon we went back to Jim's for dinner. We all knew what to expect and we were not disappointed, when with keen appetites, we crowded the little house and waited our turn for a hot plate of brewse. It's Newfoundland's distinctive dish and salt fish and pork never tasted better than that noon after our climbing up in the trees.

Walking back to finish our work in the afternoon I said to Jim:

"It strikes me it is a little unfortunate that the hill we are decorating has no tall spruce on top. The trees are well arranged on the slopes but the top of the hill itself hasn't a tree on it!"

"That's what pleases me about it. That's why I selected it, because it leaves room for the Candles of the Lord," answered Jim. "There on the top is where the Light o' the World will shine out tonight. When we get the rest of the work done we'll place it."

An hour later Jim came dragging a sled with a huge candle, four feet high, at least, and it was carefully erected in the centre of the open place on the hill. At three o'clock the work was finished and Jim addressed the workers:

"Thank you all. We'll knock off for a spell. Those that lives near can go home. Those that lives too far will find plenty at my house. Be back every one of you an hour before sunset. The sun won't wait for any o' ye and if you don't get here the lightin' will go on jes' the same, but I wants you all to be here, sure."

They began to arrive before the appointed time, but I waited within until it began to grow dark, then I stepped to the door and watched the multitude coming up from the valley. I remember once I went out with the crowds and climbed Mt. Rubidoux in California on an Easter morning. A little in advance of the larger contingent I stood and watched them coming up out of the darkness of the roads below into the growing light of the mountain top and the new day. I thought of that experience again as I watched them coming along the road to climb the hill and keep Christmas Eve with Jim. Only in this instance the picture was reversed and I saw them coming out of the light into the gathering darkness of the night.

There were many from St. John's who had come out for the lark of it. Men that worked along Water St. and Dock St. Girls from the stores came in little groups full of tickles and nudging one another as things happened to meet their fancy. Women in black were in the crowd who had been before along a sorrowful way and turned to make this journey that they might find light. Some of them plainly showed by their demeanor that they were conscious of the fact that Christ was the best part of Christmas.

Boys were in the throng, many of them swaggering along with sticks, copying the manner of English soldiers who feel their importance when on furlough. Little girls tripped along, some of them singing a little Christmas song that begins

The chatter of the many voices did not altogether drown their childish voices and they rose like bird notes above the rushing winds of a forest.

It was slippery walking and now and then some one would fall, but a hand would be reached out to them and they would again go on with a laugh. Everywhere was the glitter. That is what the Newfoundlanders call the spectacle of a snow and icegirt earth. During the day many of our hands had been nearly frozen because of the ice on the trees and they were festooned and sheathed with ice where their branches were a little out of the wind and it had not stripped them of snow during the recent storm. It was a white, shining world, softened by a waning light.

Now the fellows who had been appointed had been at work some time with torches and as we looked up tree after tree put on a garland of jewels and stood forth resplendent for the feast. Parson Curtis had lit the first torch from the Candle of the Lord, as Jim called the big candle on the hill-top, and each torch had been lit from his.

Murmurs ran thru the crowd as the scene grew more beautiful with the lighting of more trees and the deepening of the night shadows. It was now quite dusky, but the snow kept the light so that we could see the workers finishing the lighting.

When all was ready, standing beside the Candle of the Lord, Jim spoke:

"Brothers in Christ, we all are that tonight. I am glad you have come to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pa'son Curtis will lead us in prayer."

Jim knelt in the snow and the great company followed his example. The prayer was short and Jim was ready to announce the singing of the first of the Christmas hymns, when some one I didn't know made his way thru the crowd, and waiving all formalities, touched Jim on the arm and spoke hurriedly:

"Rascal Moore's took sick. He's got a ketch in his glutch[8] and the Missus wants you to come over right now to sit up with him. She can't manage him no how and she's sent for you."

I was standing beside Jim, watching now his face and now the lights. I looked squarely at him now and thought of the weeks of preparation that he had gone thru and how like some rare flower that blossoms only in the night it had unfolded petal by petal before his delighted eyes. I thought, too, of Rascal Moore, who had so long been living up to his name. It seemed unfair indeed to ask him to go now on this Christmas Eve that he had planned for and was making so successful. Let any one else go if they would, but surely not Jim.

"Tell 'em I'm on my way," was all he said to the messenger, and he moved along as he spoke.

Turning to me he said, what made me feel that he was still human, and without these words I think I must have doubted it. "It would have been a little easier if it had a' been Bob instead of Rascal."

The program began, though Jim was leaving and had turned his back on it all. Will Cunningham, whose tenor voice often led in the little church, started the Christmas hymn "Holy Night, Peaceful Night," and the crowd sang. The female voices seemed in preponderance and I fancied the men all thru the crowd were doing what the few around me were doing, heaping choice epithets upon Rascal Moore.

Jim was yet to see more of his Christmas trees. He may have forgotten it, but his friends remembered that Rascal Moore's place was just about at the foot of the hill and some one started taking off the candles from the trees that were a little beyond and decorating those that were in the direct line toward the Moore house. There were so many hundreds the work was speedily performed. The candles were re-lit and by seven o'clock there was a row of lighted trees extending straight down the hill to the Moore house and at the top of the hill the big candle could now be distinctly seen against the black back-ground of the night.

It may be the angels are a little nearer on Christmas Eve and they decided to add to the wonderful beauty of that night for which Jim had worked and prayed. For now the northern lights came, adding great plumes of light, flashing across the sky in a glory burst of light.

"It's the dead men playing. Come to earth, they have, for Christmas Eve," explained Bob.

When all was ready some one knocked at the Moore door and brought Jim to the porch and he stood bare-headed looking up the wonderful avenue of light to the top of the hill. Then he lifted his eyes from the earth lights and the black crowd to the sky.

"The heavens declare the glory of God," Jim spoke quietly, but many could hear his words. "Mebbe little Peter is here tonight playing in the heavens and joinin' us in our songs. The Lord of Joy has come again!"

"What did you leave us for, Jim?" some one in the crowd shouted.

The hundreds stood waiting for Jim's answer. It was a hush of expectancy, such as fitted that holy night.

Jim answered slowly, measuring his words:

"I heard my Father calling and I went to answer Him!"