Charles Dickens

A memory which will always remain with me comes up as I approach the end of these chronicles. And although it did not arise from any one picture or song of the "Mother-Play-Book," it was caused by the Kindergarten study which had become part of our inmost life.

The long, dry season was over. Half a dozen rains had refreshed the land and caused it to blossom like a garden. It was hard to realize, midst the roses and lilies, tender green foliage and fragrant orange-blossoms, rippling streams and songs of mocking-birds, that Christmas was approaching; our northern minds had always associated the season with sleigh-bells and ice and snow, and yet it was amidst just such semitropical surroundings as these, that in the faraway Palestine was born the Babe, the celebration of whose returning birthday each year fills all Christendom with the spirit of self-sacrifice, love, and joy, and binds, as does no other festal day, a multitude of the human race into one common brotherhood.

Margaret and I decided that whatever else we did or did not do, during the remainder of our sojourn among the hills, the children should have a real Christmas. In order that we might make it an inner Christmas as well as an outer one, we began at the approach of Advent to show them how to make Christmas presents. It took no small amount of patience to pin down to definite work, which must be neatly and daintily done, the two little mortals who had lived almost as free from tasks as the lilies of the field. However, we both realized that the children must make a real effort to give genuinely to others something which they themselves had made, if they were to have the real joy which ought to come with the receiving of presents.

Far too often children accept Christmas presents as so many added, material possessions, not as expressions of love and service from others. We had both long ago learned that only he who gives can truly, spiritually receive, and that a gift without this comprehension of its inner meaning is no gift at all, but merely something gained which oftentimes awakens greed and selfishness.

Therefore, by dint of raising up visions of how surprised grossmutter would be when Christmas morning came and she received two presents made by four little hands she loved, by enacting in dramatic detail the astonishment which their father would show when he too should receive a present made by them, we succeeded in awakening in them sufficient ambition to attempt what was to both of them a disagreeable task. They had been willing enough to draw, cut, fold, mold, or paste anything which would serve as an illustration of a story in which they were interested, or which would revivify some pleasant personal experience; but to sit down and deliberately draw, or paint, or sew an object for somebody else, with the thought of making it pleasant to that person rather than to themselves, was a new idea.

First one and then the other of us would occasionally sew a flower upon a picture-frame when the little untrained fingers grew too tired; or we would adroitly exchange work, letting them bring in a pail of water from the spring while we put a strip or two in a gay gold-and-scarlet mat which was to be worked over into a Christmas present, thus bringing the end of the little task somewhat nearer. Occasionally, of course, a story would be told of some loving little child about whom even the fairies sang, because he or she worked hard to make Christmas gifts for loved ones. Sometimes Margaret would exclaim: "What do you suppose the knights would say if they should come riding up the road and see two dear children working away as hard as they could on their Christmas presents?"

The first two presents, for grossmutter and father, their two nearest relatives, were finished and daintily folded away in colored tissue paper, when Margaret had a whispered conversation with them and suggested that they should surprise me also with a Christmas present, and I, on a like occasion, proposed to them that they should surprise her with something at Christmas time. Then followed days of whispered talk; of sudden hiding of work, or of gleeful shouting: "Go away! You mustn't come here now!"

Often there would be delighted covering up of the hands and lap at my approach, or at that of Margaret—scenes so common in the homes of Kindergarten-trained children, but so delightfully new to these little Arabs of the desert who had never, in all their short lives before, felt the dignity of individual, personal possessions which they could give away.

Our presents finished and mysteriously laid away, the next step was to lead to the thought of making presents for our next neighbor and his good wife, whose ranch was about half a mile away. This, of course, soon led on to the idea of having a Christmas present ready for everybody. There were only about five families in all on the foothills, but they constituted everybody to the children, whose world, dear souls, was bounded by the horizon which had its center in their own home; saving of course, that boundless world into which Margaret and I had introduced them through pictures and stories, where lived the mighty kings and queens, giants and genii, fairies and princesses, prophets and priests, and above all, the knights. This latter world of the imagination was such a grand world that it did not need presents.

Soon the two happy little hearts were overflowing with the true Christmas love; and the presents made by their own hands "for everybody" were laid out upon my bed and examined and exclaimed over. Each of these was again folded up in a bright piece of tissue paper and tied with a bit of narrow, daintily colored ribbon and labeled with the name of the person to whom it was to be given. All these long, busy days were so full of Christmas talks and songs and stories that they even yet bring back to me the feeling of having lived them in the midst of a great musical festival.

We had frequent occasion to cross the ranches belonging to our different neighbors, in our daily tramps over the foothills, and often met the men at their work or stopped to chat for a moment with the women in their doorways. At such times, Georgie would look up with a laughing face and sparkling eyes and say: "We've got somefin' for you for Christmas, but you mustn't know what it is."

And then, if the inquisitive neighbor would question, he would dance about and clap his hands, and shake his little head, saying: "No, no, no! Wait until Christmas comes, and then you shall see it; but we made it all ourselves."

"'Cept what they did to help us," the more conscientious Lena would add, as she pointed to Margaret or me.

We had found, as is not uncommon in sparsely settled districts, where there must necessarily be a struggle for a livelihood, that life among our neighbors had somewhat narrowed itself down to the material standpoint, and consequently, as always happens when this is the case, various frictions had occurred among them, leaving them not always in quite the neighborly attitude toward each other. But no one was able to resist the children's joyful over-flowing Christmas love.

In a short time it was settled among us all that the Christmas celebration should take place at Georgie's and Lena's home, and that all the neighbors should be present on Christmas Eve to see the lighting of the Christmas tree, which Margaret and I had decided was to be as gorgeous as our limited resources could make it.

In a little while first one and then another neighbor volunteered to help decorate the house; one offering to saw off and bring to us branches from an unusually beautiful pepper-tree; another volunteered his services in going to town for anything we might need; and a good housewife recalled the days when she was young and asked if we would like to have her make some ginger-bread boys and girls and animals to hang on the tree, and so on. Before long the children's spirit of enthusiasm and love for others had spread throughout our small foothill world, and everywhere we went we were greeted with smiles, significant nods, and occasional whispered conversations.

A few days before Christmas came, one of our foothill neighbors stopped us on the road to suggest that he should go down, on Christmas Eve, to the mesa below and bring up two little English children whose home had been saddened by the death of their father a few weeks before, and whose mother, being a stranger in California, had no friends to whom to go. Thus was the Christmas spirit overflowing the foothills and spreading on to the farther districts. Then some one else thought of a man and his wife and young baby who lived about six miles up the caÑon, and they, too, were invited. All small grudges were forgotten and seemingly swallowed up in the coming festivities.

The contagion of love is as great as the contagion of disease or crime. Each time we finished a bit of trimming for the tree, which was yet to be selected, it had now to be taken down to be shown to Mrs. Middlin. As we passed the old wood-chopper he would make some light, laughing remark, and we occasionally stopped at his side to sing to him a new Christmas song which the children had just learned. He would at such times lay down his axe, and his wrinkled old face would become bright with the light of his far-away youth, as he looked down into the children's happy, eager eyes; and he usually sent us on our way with some such remark as, "Well, them children air great ones," or else it would be, "Children will be children. I used to be that way myself." The half-invalid woman, whom pain had made fretful and nervous, and who had been in the habit of declaring that all children were a nuisance and ought to be kept in their homes, could not resist Georgie's roguish shout, "I got somefin' for you Christmas! You must be sure to come up to see the Christmas tree." On the eventful day she actually did come with all the rest and brought with her some home-made candy, such as she used to make when she was a girl some forty odd years before.

This drawing together round the Christmas thought, each and every one making an effort to add something to the joy of the occasion, proved what every true lover of humanity believes, that deep down in each human heart is love and a desire to be loved, is joy in seeing others happy, and the greater joy of serving others.

In return for this unexpected volunteer addition to our plans for the children, Margaret and I contrived some trifle or joke for each man member of the community. To one it was a bundle of toothpicks done up in fancy tissue paper. To another it was a Mexican tamale. To a young fellow who worked on one of the ranches it was a candy sweetheart. For each of the women we made some trifle in the way of needle-book, iron-holder, or the like, as we wanted the children to have the pleasure of seeing their elders go up to the tree and receive gifts as well as themselves.

Three days before the Christmas Eve party the two children and their father, Margaret and I, went up the caÑon to let the children select a small fir-tree for the Christmas tree. As we came triumphantly driving through a neighbor's ranch on our way home with the little tree in the back of the wagon, the children shouted out with great glee: "Come out! Come out! and see the tree! See the tree! Here it is! Here it is! The really, really Christmas tree!" And out came both gray-haired old neighbors, almost as much pleased as the children.

The tree was fastened between two boards, and then with great ceremony we marched in a procession into the little best room which their grandmother usually kept shut and unused, and placed it upon the table in the center of the room. Then began the exciting, and to the children most charming, work of decorating it with strings of popcorn and cranberries; and fancy chains made with the scarlet and blue, gilt and silver paper which loving hearts in the far-away Chicago had sent, helped make gorgeous our little tree. Some fancy pink and pale blue papers which had come from the drug store had been carefully saved for the occasion. Onto these we pasted narrow strips of the gold and silver paper, and "Chinese lanterns" were made, much to the delight of the children. Each afternoon we decorated the tree with the work which had been done in the morning, and then danced around it and sang songs to it, and told it stories about other little Christmas trees which had made other little children happy.

One day Georgie improvised a song, and like the poet of old, danced in rhythm to the melody which he himself created to the tune of "Heigh-ho, the way we go." The words were as follows:

"Miss Margaret and I

We wish we could fly,

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, under the Christmas tree.

We sing now for joy,

The girl and the boy,

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, under the Christmas tree."

He had undoubtedly caught the rhythm, and perhaps the refrain, from some verses which Margaret had written about our mountain home, and whose refrain was "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, under the greenwood-tree." But I was much pleased to see his original application of the idea, and his feeling of the fitness of the festival occasion for improvised verse. It seemed to bubble out of the fullness of his joy just as many a refrain and love song of old was born on festival occasions; so close is the child akin to the child race.

Some time before this Margaret had brought from her mysterious trunk a small and very beautiful copy of the Mother and Child which forms the center of Correggio's great picture, "The Holy Night," and Lena had sewed a round picture frame, designed by Margaret, with a gold star on the upper corner and a modest little violet on the lower, symbolic, it seemed to me, of the exaltation and humility which that picture so marvelously portrays. It was to be a joint gift from Margaret and Lena to the dear old grossmutter. The children had both sat and studied the two beautiful faces, so luminous with light; and Margaret had explained to them that the light came from the dear baby's face and shone into that of the mother because this dear little Christ Child had just come from God and the mother knew it.

"That is what makes her so happy," said Georgie, and Margaret answered, "Yes, that is what makes every good mother happy when she looks into her baby's face," and Georgie had accepted this somewhat broad interpretation of the picture with one of his significant nods. So far as we could ascertain, the children had as yet no training whatever in biblical lore, and our plan had been that we would speak only in general terms of the Bible story of Christmas until after they had experienced the love and joy of service and giving. Then we would tell them why not only their little world, but the whole great big world of Christendom celebrated the day with such joy. But suddenly one evening, as we were returning from our hilltop scramble, Lena said, "Grossmutter knows all about the dear little Christ Child, and she says the angels knew that He was coming."

"Let's sit down here by this rock," said Georgie, "and then you can tell us all about it." He had implicit faith that Margaret could tell him all about anything he wished to know, so he never hesitated to make the demand.

We sat down on the ground, with sky above us radiant and glowing in sunset's splendor, and Margaret told, as I had never heard it told before, of the watching of the shepherds and of the coming of the angels, and when she came to the part, "and as the shepherds raised their bodies up from the ground and listened and listened, the far-away music came nearer and nearer, and then they saw that the music was the singing of countless numbers of beautiful angels, and that the bright light which had slowly spread over the whole heavens came from the beauty of their faces; the whole sky seemed full of them, and they were all singing joyfully the first Christmas song that was ever heard on earth," Georgie rose from his half-reclining position and coming close to Margaret placed his hands upon her shoulder and said, eagerly: "Sing it! Sing it! Sing it just as the angels sang it!"

She afterwards told me that she would have given five years of her life to have had Patti's voice for just that one hour. She quietly replied: "I cannot sing it, Georgie, as the angels sang it. No one on earth can sing it as the angels sang it on the first glad Christmas night, but we can know what they meant to tell the shepherds."

He turned his face away from her with a look of disappointment, and his eyes wandered far over the hills to the glowing sky, then quickly turning toward us, he said, "Maybe the Christmas angels will come now. Let us listen and see if we can hear them."

Then we listened silently until the light began to fade out of the evening sky, and Margaret said: "I can tell you what the words were which the angels sang, and perhaps we can feel their song down in our hearts."

And then slowly and reverently she repeated the old, yet ever new, message to mankind: "Glory to God in the highest. Peace on earth, good will to men!" And gently added, by way of explanation, that good will to men meant that we were all brothers and sisters in God's sight, and that this was one of the great things which the dear Christ Child came to teach us. "And this," she added, "is why we celebrate His birthday by making gifts for 'everybody.'" Both children nodded assent in a matter-of-course way. They, dear little hearts, did not yet know the schisms and discords that sometimes separate brothers and sisters, and to them it was a matter of course, that men should accept the angelic message.

As we walked home, Georgie skipping and dancing along in front, sang, "I love everybody! I love everybody! I am so happy! I am so happy! I love everybody!"

"So do I, Georgie," said Margaret, earnestly; and I think for the time being, at least, all of us felt the true Christmas spirit. That motto from Froebel's "Mother-Play-Songs" came into my mind with a new meaning:

"Would'st thou unite the child for aye with thee, Then let him with the Highest One thy union see By every noble thought thy heart is fired, The young child's soul will surely be inspired. And thou can'st no better gift bestow, Than union with the Eternal One to know."

We quickened our steps as we neared home, and all four of us sang softly—

The morning of Christmas Eve brought to us our friend, Mrs. Brown, who had a Kindergarten in a neighboring town. Her contribution to the festive occasion was a box of fifty small wax candles, and we proceeded at once to add the final touches for the evening entertainment. A frieze had already been made around the walls of the room with branches of the pepper-tree, whose feathery green leaves and coral-colored branches of berries made a beautiful decoration. Large bunches of the dark green eucalyptus had been sawed off and so arranged that they made frames of the green around the two windows whose white curtains the good grossmutter had washed and ironed the day before. In the center of the room was the Christmas tree on which hung the treasures worked by little hands. The red, green, and yellow candles were fastened in the safer parts of the horizontal branches; others were placed around the table on candlesticks made of ripe oranges; and a row of these golden candlesticks was also placed upon the edge of a wooden shelf which had held the grossmutter's German Bible. The ugly woolen cover of the shelf was entirely concealed by soft green ferns. A pound or two of candy had been purchased by the father, and this the dear old grandmother, with trembling but eager hands, showed us how to tie up with strings of worsted and fasten to the tree, "just as they used to do in the faterland," she explained to the children. Her joy over the whole affair was, if anything, greater than that of the little ones. She insisted that Mrs. Brown, Margaret, and I should be her guests at the noonday dinner; and her appreciation of our work was shown by the killing of the fatted goose, and by boiling and baking and stewing, in true German fashion, about three times the quantity of food which we could possibly consume. During the getting ready of this dinner she bustled in and out of the little parlor, sometimes throwing her arms around the children and exclaiming, "Oh, Chorgie! Chorgie! Dis is just like a Christmas in the old country! Just tink of it! Just tink of it! Mine kinder are to have a German Christmas! A real German Christmas!" Then, as if fearing that her emotions should be taken for weakness, she buffeted them severely with her hand and pushed them to one side with the words, "Keep out of de way! Don't talk so much! You are little nuisances anyhow!" but with so much love in the tone that the rebuking words were unheeded. Again, she would come into the room and stand with her hands resting upon her hips and gaze silently, with unspeakable satisfaction, at the busy scene before her.

In making our plans for the evening, Margaret turned and said in a tone of quiet respect: "Frau Zorn, we will, of course, expect you to stand with the children and us, and receive the guests. It is your party, you know, as well as the children's. We are merely helping to get it ready."

"Oh, mein dear! Mein dear!" exclaimed the old lady, evidently much pleased with the unexpected prominence which was to be given to her. Without further words she bustled out of the room, and in about a half-hour called to Margaret and me to come up into the little attic above. There we found her on her knees before an old horsehair trunk out of which she had taken a black and gray striped silk gown of the fashion of about twenty years before; also a soft white silk neck handkerchief. In an embarrassed tone, looking half-ashamed, half-proud, she said: "I had laid dem away for my burying clothes, but I can wear dem to-night, if you tink it best."

"Certainly," exclaimed Margaret; "that dress is just the thing, and the pretty white handkerchief will make you look young again. I am so glad you have them. I will come in time to arrange your hair and I have a wee bit of a lace handkerchief which I know how to fix into a cap, just such as my own grandmother used to wear, and you will be the handsomest part of the whole Christmas entertainment." Then she added in great glee: "Don't let the children see the dress until after you put it on. It will be such a lovely surprise for them."

The old woman's face showed how keen this simple pleasure was to her as she softly patted the dress, straightening here and there a bit of its old-fashioned trimming, and then laid it gently into the trunk until the appointed hour should come.

The morning work was at last ended, including our most conscientious endeavors to do justice to the elaborate dinner. We locked the door of the little parlor fearing that the temptation to meddle with the wax candles might be too great to be resisted. Handing the key to Frau Zorn and giving our "Christmas kiss" to each of the children, somewhat tired we went back to our little cabin to rest until the evening. We had promised to come early so as to be there before the first guests should arrive, and just before starting out on our return Margaret quietly gathered a basketful of beautiful La France roses which were blossoming in bewildering profusion near our doorstep.

"What are you going to do with those?" I asked. "Make every man and woman who comes to-night feel that he or she is in true festival attire," she answered, smiling. And sure enough as each guest came in, Lena, by Margaret's instructions, asked the privilege of pinning a Christmas rose upon the man's coat and the woman's dress. The smile with which the unaccustomed decoration was accepted showed the wisdom of Margaret's plan. An added festivity came over the scene, and each individual felt himself or herself duly decorated for the occasion.

When the man from the caÑon beyond arrived with his wife and the little three-months-old baby, Georgie's face was a study worthy of Raphael's brush; confusion, surprise, pleasure, joy were all commingled, as looking up to Margaret, he exclaimed, "Why, Miss Marg't! We are going to have a real, truly baby at our Christmas time!" Then, lowering his voice, "Perhaps it will be like the Christ baby and we can see the light shining from it just as the shepherds saw it."

The guests had been invited into the little dining-room which was the usual sitting-room of the family, and the parlor was kept closed. At a signal from Margaret, the father of the two children walked forward, and throwing the door open, invited the guests to walk in. It was lighted entirely by the wax candles, which gave that peculiar mellow light suggestive of silent and reverent feeling that the Roman Catholic Church has been wise enough to seize upon and make use of.

The hilarious laughter and somewhat awkward jokes which had been going on ceased for the time being. When all were seated on the benches and the improvised seats which had been brought in, Margaret and the children sang two or three Christmas songs. Then, as a surprise to the rest of us, they clustered around the dear old grossmutter and the four, bowing, joined in a German hymn of praise and thanksgiving. This was intended as a surprise to the father and to me, and was indeed a surprise to all of us, as none of the neighbors had ever heard the dear old woman sing.

Then came the distribution of presents, and the laughter and jokes and fun such as happy hearts improvise and enjoy. One neighbor had brought an old-fashioned hat-box labeled "For Lena and Georgie." When opened, out sprang two frisky little kittens that, in a frightened fashion, scampered away under the protecting skirts of some of the women, but were soon captured and caressed with delight by the little owners. The same thoughtful neighbor had brought two little chickens for the little English children from the mesa below. They were less lively, but were tenderly cared for by the children.

Finally, when all the presents had been distributed, including part of the fruit and candy, two of the men laughingly disappeared from the room, and on their return, brought between them a huge California pumpkin, which measured five and one-half feet around its circumference. This had previously been prepared into what they called a "Christmas box," the top had been cut smoothly off, and into it had been fastened the handle of a bucket. The lower part had been hollowed out, washed, and dried; the pumpkin seemed almost large enough to have served as a carriage for Cinderella. It was placed at Margaret's feet, and the top lifted off amidst shouts of laughter and the clapping of hands. Each guest present had stored away in it some loving little gift, of no value whatever so far as the world considers value, but rich indeed to one who prizes a gift according to the loving thought which it shows. One woman had pasted upon several sheets of writing paper some rare ferns and mosses which she had brought from the mountains of New Mexico years before, and had sewed them together in the form of a book. Another had embroidered Margaret's initials upon a Chinese silk scarf, which had been one of her treasures in the days of greater prosperity. Another had rounded off and polished a pin-cushion of Yoca wood, sawed from a stalk in the higher mountain districts. The fourth had made her a shell-box, of shells gathered on some past trip to the Cataline Islands. A fifth had heard her express a desire to make a collection of the different kinds of wood which grew in the neighborhood and had brought carefully sawed and neatly polished specimens of a half-dozen varieties, and so on; each showing that her taste had been remembered, some wish expressed at an odd moment had been recalled, or some pleasant surprise anticipated.

Margaret's eyes filled with tears as one by one she unfolded these gifts of love; then, realizing that such a time as the present needed more joy than anything else, she laughingly brushed away the unshed tears and proposed that they should all enter into some games together. This was heartily agreed to by the others, and the evening ended in almost a romp. Hands were shaken, good bys were said, the last joke uttered, and wagon and gig and buggy drove away.

Margaret, Mrs. Brown, and I remained to help put the children to bed and somewhat straighten up the little house. Then bidding the happy-faced old woman "Good by," we started out, alone, for a quiet walk across the hill, under the Christmas stars. As we prepared for bed Margaret exclaimed, "What a happy, happy day we have had!" I looked into her radiant face, and said, softly, to myself: "Blessed be motherhood, even if it must be the mothering of other women's children!"