IT was a large, roughly-finished room, lighted for the most part by the great heap of logs that blazed on the hearth, though a lantern fixed against the wall, at the opposite side, in front of a tin reflector, shone bravely, as if to say that it was doing its best despite the fact that no one heeded its efforts. For the occupants of the room, without an exception, were gathered about the camboose, or fireplace, where in the full glow of the leaping flames a number of stockings were hung; not because it was Christmas Eve, but for the more prosaic reason that they must be dried. Every working day showed the same display,—the men, on an average, hanging up two or three pairs apiece. Still they were keeping their Christmas Eve vigil after a fashion, though it was not in the orthodox way, and, notwithstanding its noise, it lacked the real flavor of the blessed season.

“What was that?” Shawe asked suddenly.

“Didn’t hear a blessed thing. Fire ahead, Sandy; ev’ry chap’s got a stunt to do this night, an’ the fust lot’s fell to you. Come, begin—Where’s that lazy raskill Terry? He’d oughter be’n here hours agone.”

“Back at Wistar’s,” a young fellow growled. “Told yer what to expect when yer singled him out to fetch the grub. A sorry Christmas we’ll have. Any meal left in the bar’l, Cooky?”

“’Nough to make pap fer you in the mornin’, kid,” Cooky responded with a grunt, “so don’t be sheddin’ tears—you an’ yer delikit appetite will pull t’rough. ’Tis plum-puddin’ the child was expectin’.”

The young fellow laughed almost good-naturedly.

“Gorry! what’d I give to smell a plum-puddin’ even. There was a Christmas oncet when I’d the taste o’ one. There was turkey before, an’ the bird was a tip-topper, but it don’t live in my mem’ry like the puddin’. That come in with a wreath o’ greens ’bout its brown head, an’ its sides crackin’ open with plums the size o’ Jake’s thumb there. An’ there was clouds o’ incinse risin’ from it, an’ the smell o’ the burnin’ sperits, an’ the blue flames lickin’ each other with joy at the taste they got—’Tis before my eyes this bloomin’ minnit, an’ my ears is deafened with the roars the fellers sent up; you could ha’ heard ’em a mile off—”

A chorus of protesting voices interrupted further reminiscences. “Shut up, will yer?” “T’row him out, some one.” “You’ve no call to make our mouths water so.”

“A pudden,” a thin-faced man said dreamily as the din subsided, “I never seed its like. An’ a-fire, you say. What was thet fer?”

“Why, fer the celebration, ijit.”

“Begorra,” another voice broke in, “I’d like to live in the counthry where they’ve the crayther to burn. Did it smell good?”

“Smell good?” again the young fellow laughed. “’Twas better than a gardin full o’ roses when the wind blows soft an’ warm over ’em; ’twas finer an’ more penatratin’ than the o-dick-alone the tenderfoots parfume themselves with. An’ there was the sarse besides, with a dash o’ rum in it to make it slip down easier.”

“Sarse!” The ejaculation was a groan. “My things come plain.”

“Thet’s about the size o’ it fer ev’ry mother’s son of us,” some one began philosophically, then in helpless rage at the turn affairs had taken he finished with a wail: “Hang thet Terry O’Connor. He’d oughter remembered tomorrer’s Christmas—”

“Christmas is like any other day to us,” an elderly chopper interposed grimly. “It’s only meant fer the kids.”

A man near the fire stirred restlessly.

“Back there,” he said, with a sweep of his thumb, “they hang up the stockin’s all in a row—six of ’em!—an’ my woman makes shift to fill ’em, too—”

“How they chitter in the mornin’,” another man chimed in, “before it’s reely light. Don’ know as there’s any sound quite so nice as that. Wisht I was home to hear it—Gord! I do.”

“Never hed no little stockin’ hangin’ afore my chimbly,”—the occupant of the big barrel chair looked into the blaze thoughtfully as he made the statement, “baby’s sock was too teeny that fust year, an’ after—”

“Faith, I niver had no chimbly av me own at all,” a reckless voice interrupted with a hard laugh. “Here to-day, an’ gone to-morrer, an’ divil a sowl to care where I was. It made little differ to me thin, but ’tis a wide wurrld an’ a lonely wan when a man’s gittin’ on in the years.”

“Only got so fur ez the patty-cakin’ age, ez you might say,”—it was the man in the barrel chair who was speaking again,—“but turr’ble over-masterin’—turr’ble! When ye come to think uv it, there ain’t anything like a baby fer over-masterin’ness; he jes’ makes a clean sweep o’ ev’ry blessed thing.”

The Frenchman in the corner leaned forward excitedly.

“I nevaire hang ze stockin’ up zat time I was what you call a keed,” he cried, “but zere was a leetle tree an’ a Christ chil’ up at ze ver’ top. Zey had eet een ze Église an’ every chil’ een ze pareesh was made ver’ happy. So for two-t’ree years did I get a—a—what you say?”

“A present, Frenchy.”

“But yes, a—a prresent. Zen I must go to worrk, an’ Christmas eet is ovaire for me. ‘Adieu, beaux jours de mon enfance!’”

The leaping firelight fell upon grave faces; dear, lazy laughter had slipped very far away from the warmth and glow.

“What’s that?”

“You’re like an ould faymale widdy woman, Shawe, wid your fidgits an’ starts, an’ your inquisitiveness. That? ’Tis an ash fallin’ to the hearth; ’tis a burd askin’ to be let in; ’tis Christmas come to hunt us up far from home an’ the frien’s we love so dear. Man alive! if you’re so set to know what it is, go an’ find out fer yoursilf.”

“Yes, go an’ be hanged to you!” The chorus was unanimous.

Shawe did not wait for the permission, go he would; as for being hanged, that was quite another matter. He left his place in the warm corner, and, picking his way dexterously over the tangle of outstretched legs, he strode across the room to the door, flinging it wide. The cold air rushed in in a great gust that caused the men to shiver in their places, and made some of them swear angrily at him; but he did not heed their words. His ear had earlier caught a faint cry, yet as he stood facing the night his level eyes saw nothing in the darkness; then the sound came again, and this time quite far below him. His glance fell; the next moment he started back in amazement.

“My God!” he cried sharply.

There was a great creaking of stools and boxes in the room behind him as the men, startled out of their indifference by his exclamation, turned to see what had occasioned it, those who were farthest away rising to their feet and craning curiously over the shoulders of their companions in front. Shawe had moved a trifle to one side, and they had an unobstructed view through the open door, that framed the glimpse of the dark world without, of the strip of snow in the foreground gleaming ruddily with lamp and firelight; and just where the glow fell brightest stood a little child, her face raised in entreaty. For a long moment they looked with held breaths, incredulous, wondering, half fearful that the vision would disappear at the least movement on their part; several of their number made the quick sign of their creed, and one man covered his eyes with a shaking hand, but no one spoke. Then Shawe stooped to her.

“Who are you?” he asked very gently, touching the little flesh-and-blood shoulder with tender fingers; she was no spirit then.

“I’m Santa Claus’ sweetheart,—you know Santa Claus. He left some things for you out there, then he went away.”

“Mother o’ Moses! the child must mane Terry,” one of the men, quicker than the rest, exclaimed. “The ould riprobate! An’ but fer your ears, Shawe, she might ha’ be’n froze shtiff fer all we’d knowed—an’ Christmas Day to-morrer.”

Shawe drew his breath hard.

“Thank God, I did hear,” he said through his closed teeth; then he lifted the small stranger in his arms, and as the thronging men fell back on either side he carried her through the little lane thus formed up to the fire. He put her down gently and knelt before her, chafing her hands and face with rapid touches; after a few moments thus spent he set clumsily to work to unfasten her hood and coat. She kept very still while he knotted instead of unknotting the strings, only her eyes moving from face to face frankly curious, yet without an atom of fear in their glance. There were forty pairs of eyes to meet, and in each she left a little smile.

At last the outer wrappings were cast aside, and, as Betty stood before them, a small, slim figure, very different in appearance from the shapeless, roly-poly bundle of a short time previous, with her fair hair ruffled into little curls and tendrils that made a soft nimbus about her head, she seemed even more like some lovely spirit than they, awed by the strangeness of her coming, had thought her. Yet her first action was quite sufficient to remove all doubts that she belonged to another sphere. Those inquisitive eyes of hers, taking a survey of the room and its inmates, lighted suddenly upon the stockings dangling before the fire; they widened at the sight, then the smiles brimmed over and her whole face broke up into glee. How could she feel strange, or afraid, in a place where—big, grown-up men though they all were—such signs of expectancy were so openly displayed? She slipped from the protecting arm and ran close to the hearth, clapping her hands in delight.

“Oh! you’re all ready for Santa Claus,” she cried. “My! how he’ll have to work—there’s such a ’normous lot. But he’ll fill ’em all.” She threw out this balm in eager haste. “He’s truly coming; he said so. If I’d gone home with him his house would have cracked to—to smither-eens, so I stayed.”

A deafening roar of laughter greeted her words and sent her, unerringly as a homing bird, back to her first friend, who still knelt on the floor; but resting against him her fears vanished almost instantly, and, as she glanced around with renewed confidence, her pretty silvery laugh tinkled out to join their rougher merriment. The men pressed closer, one of them, the oldest, acting as spokesman. He was the man whose chimney had never seen any Christmas stockings hanging before it, the baby’s sock being too tiny in that far-away year; but he seemed to know better than any of them how to ask just the right questions that would set free the little tongue. Betty climbed gladly up on his knee, and from her new perch poured forth an account of her wonderful adventures.

It was the fault of her companions, surely, and not her own that the things that were so real and true to her were like myths out of Fairyland to them, because they had travelled farther down the stream of time. Much of what she said was unintelligible to their dull, grown-up minds; but if each word had been of gold they could not have waited for it more eagerly; and when she stopped in her recital of that marvellous journey to laugh at some remembrance of Santa Claus’ fooling, they looked at one another, smiling in perfectest sympathy. Perhaps, after all, they understood—who shall say? There was no interruption, except when old Jerome hazarded some remark that helped on the tale; and the only person to move was a tall, gaunt man, who bent mysteriously over the fire and made something that smelled like—like the most delicious thing in all the world. You have to ride for hours through the snow, and feel the keen air in your face, and be as hungry as a bear into the bargain, to know just what that is.

By some remarkable law of coincidence the story and the cooking came to an end at one and the same moment; nothing could have been more timely. Betty’s whole attention was quickly transferred to the tin plate which was placed before her; and her evident appreciation of the good things of life was so keen that the lookers-on, who even in that short time had learned that their rougher ways frightened her, laughed gently among themselves. Well, they understood that too! While she was busy over her supper, to the utter forgetting of her surroundings, several of the men went outside to see if they could find any traces of the recreant Santa Claus; they returned after a hasty search, bringing in the barrel and bags—sufficient proof that Terry, despite all convictions, wise head-shakings, and gloomy forebodings, had not failed them. He had kept his word. But the mystery deepened—Who was the little maid? Aside from her name, which was an unfamiliar one to them, they had not been able to learn anything definite about her. The excited little brain only seemed to live over the immediate past, in which Santa Claus had figured so importantly; the fact that she was his sweetheart apparently outweighing every other consideration.

“Terry O’Connor hain’t a chick, nor child, an’ never hed,” old Jerome declared stoutly, as somebody ventured this solution of the difficulty, “nor there ain’t any kin b’longin’ to him—guess I orter know—I’ve knowed him ’nintimut these thirty years—”

“Losh, man!” interrupted Sandy, “then he just inveegled the bairn awa’, makin’ oot he was Santa Claus. The e-normity of it!”

“Oh, Terry must olluz be jokin’; it’s his way,” Jerome returned tolerantly. With his arm around the small form, and the little golden head resting on his breast, he was knowing one of the rare, happy moments of his life; there could be scant condemnation from him under the circumstances.

Betty, who had been alternately blinking at the fire, and smiling contentedly to herself for some time, now interrupted any dispute that might have arisen concerning her absent friend by giving utterance to a series of baby yawns. The discussion came to a speedy close, such signs needing no interpretation to her hearers.

“Don’t ye want to go to sleep, deary?” the old man asked.

She signified her willingness without delay, though first her stocking must be hung up among the others. He proceeded to draw it off; but before that could be accomplished, he was let into the secrets the buttons on your shoe always tell,—what you are to be, what you will wear, and in what manner you will travel through life,—in carriage, cart, wheelbarrow, or wagon. When this “sure-as-sure” knowledge had been mastered he stripped off the stocking, and Shawe, imperiously summoned, came close and put the wee packet, as she directed, way down in its very toe; then he hung it up in the centre, where even the blindest deputy, supposing Santa Claus unable to get round, would never have passed it by. A rollicking little cheer went up at sight of the small red stocking swinging slightly to and fro in the breath of the fire; but it died away on the instant, for the child had slipped to the floor and knelt there by the old man’s knee, her face hidden in her chubby hands. Perhaps in the intense stillness she missed the voice that generally guided hers, for there was a moment of hesitation on her part; then she began to pray aloud, halting over the words:

She paused, a moment: “And please, God, take care of muvver, and uncle, and far-away daddy, and make Betty a good girl f’rever and ever. Amen.”

It was very still all around; and usually when she finished her prayers a soft cheek was laid against her own, while a soft voice echoed, “Amen,” and that meant “my heart wants it to be exactly so!” Now, however, no one spoke. Betty glanced wonderingly about as she rose to her feet, a trifle dazed and even frightened; but such grave, quiet, kind faces looked back at her that swiftly she dropped to her knees again with another petition: “God bless ev’rybody, an’ most speshilly Santa Claus.”

“Amen,” said old Jerome, in the pause that followed.

A bed had been hastily constructed in the warmest corner, out of the best materials the camp afforded, and thither Jerome carried the child. She nestled down drowsily while he tucked the covering about her; but his was an alien touch, and through the room there suddenly sounded a low, wailing cry:

“Muvver—oh! muvver—”

“There, Honey; there, Blossom—” the man’s voice broke, the hand that soothed was clumsy and old, and it trembled—“there, Honey—”

The men sat breathless—waiting, dreading to hear the cry again; but moment after moment passed, and it did not come. There was one little sob, then the dream-fairy stooped with her comfort.

How quiet the room was! And this was Christmas Eve—the time when each man was to do a stunt for the amusement of his fellows and the glory of himself. Generally on this occasion the Lord of Misrule held high carnival,—the flowing bowl was like a perpetual fountain, and laughter, shouting, and horse-play abounded on every side. There was rum in plenty since Terry had not failed them, but no effort was made to secure it; desire of that kind was dead, it seemed. They were content to sit there listening to the soft rise and fall of the child’s breath; the land of dreams, into which she had slipped, open to them also. And though it was so different from those other Christmas Eves, it was far from being dull. Into each heart there had crept a soft glow, which did not come from the blazing logs, and which no grog, no matter how skilfully blended, could have given, for once again the presence of one of God’s little ones made holy a humble place.

Shawe was the first to bring the stillness to an end. They had been sitting quiet, nobody could tell how long, when he got to his feet. Noiselessly as he moved he broke the spell, and eyes that had grown misty looked at him, some with resentment, others with curiosity, and others again with reproach. Old Jerome’s gaze held the latter quality. Nobody knew much about Shawe, anyway. He was not one of them. He had come to the camp some weeks before, and would be gone in a day or so—up to Merle this time, and then—He was a wanderer—some outcast, perhaps, from a better life gone by. Nobody knew him. They had no quarrel with him; he was a good enough fellow, only not of them. They watched him, therefore, almost coldly, yet noting with jealous satisfaction that he stepped warily as he passed from the room; then they fell to thinking again—with a difference.

He came back after a short absence with a soft, dark mink’s skin in his hand,—a bit of fur that a woman’s fingers could fashion into a cap to cover a child’s golden hair,—and went to the small stocking, cramming the gift far down to keep that other company. A breath of approval fairly twinkled around the room. The grave faces melted into smiling delight; and just as the circles widen in a pool of water when a stone is thrown in, spreading farther and farther till the whole surface is disturbed, so every one present came within the influence of Shawe’s action. As if by one accord the men hurriedly left their places, making scarcely any noise, yet jostling against one another in their eagerness to play at being Santa Claus; each man seeking out his kit, and returning with what would be the likeliest thing to please a little child.

A bright red handkerchief, an orange one, a third as many colored as Joseph’s coat, an old habitant sash worth its weight in gold to a connoisseur, a scarf-pin set with a cairngorm the size of a man’s thumb-nail—this from Sandy!—a—you mustn’t laugh—a pair of brand-new suspenders, and big and little coins that spelled liquor or tobacco to the givers, and now bought what pleased them infinitely more. Of course one stocking couldn’t begin to hold the gifts, though they were massed into a dizzy pyramid at the top, so its mate was pressed into service and crowded likewise. There was a distressing similarity in the presents when you came to think of it, especially where handkerchiefs were concerned; still, no man withheld his giving because another’s choice was necessarily the same; he added his contribution proudly, as if it were the only one of its kind. Frenchy, who had a pretty trick of carving, gave a really beautiful little frame which his deft fingers had made in the long evenings; and the cook, when no one was looking, slipped in his prayer-book, though I don’t believe any one that night would have laughed at his having it with him. The young fellow they called Kid—he was something of a dandy—added a ring of massive proportions. It wasn’t gold, but he pretended it was, and liked to wear it when he went to dances to make the girls think he was a fine, up-and-coming man. And Jerome—poor old Jerome—

It was a very meagre kit that he rummaged through again and again,—one that he himself had packed; and when a man has to take care of himself he doesn’t put in any useless traps, any—what you’d call gewgaws; not when he’s old, that is. So he could find nothing there; and a search through his pockets revealed the same depressing poverty. He had nothing—nothing but a certain battered snuff-box that had been his companion for so many years that it would be easier to imagine him without his head than without the box. He was evidently of that opinion, for he stowed it down in his pocket with an air of great finality. But nevertheless, polished to an almost glittering show of youth and filled with coins, it very fitly crowned the motley collection.

It had taken some time to play Santa Claus, for each man had to wait his turn to stow away his gift; there were no deputies allowed on this occasion, and the bungling fingers couldn’t work very quickly,—didn’t try to, if the truth were known. But all too soon the joyful task came to an end, and the men stood back radiant-eyed, looking at those bulging little red stockings as if they were the most beautiful things in all the world.

How the glow spread and spread in their hearts, though the fire, banked for the night, was shining quite dimly now! That mighty threefold cable of the Christmas-tide—with its strand of inheritance, its strand of opportunity, its strand of affection—bound them very closely to one another; in that moment old wrongs and heart-burnings, bitternesses and rivalries slipped away, and they knew the blessedness of peace and good-will. Happy? There was just one thing to make them happier,—the merry voice of a little child greeting the misty light of the Christmas dawn.