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Page 1
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS OUTSIDE OF EDEN
I
This is the story the robins tell as they huddle beneath the holly on
the Eve of Christmas. They have told it every Christmas Eve since the
world started. They commenced telling it long before Christ was born,
for their memory goes further back than men's. The Christmas which they
celebrate began just outside of Eden, within sight of its gold-locked
doors.
The robins have only two stories: one for Christmas and one for Easter.
Their Easter story is quite different. It has to do with how they got
the splash of red upon their breasts. It was when God's son was hanging
on the cross. They wanted to do something to spare him. They were too
weak to pull out the nails from his feet and hands; so they tore their
little breasts in plucking the thorns one by one from the crown that had
been set upon his forehead. Since then God has allowed their breasts to
remain red as a remembrance of His gratitude.
But their Christmas story happened long before, when they weren't robin
red-breasts but only robins. It is a merry, tender sort of story.
They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their children. If you prefer
to hear it first-hand, creep out to the nearest holly-bush on almost
any Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all pale and shadowy.
If the robins have chosen your holly-bush as their rendezvous and you
understand their language, you won't need to read what I have written.
Like all true stories, it is much better told than read. It's the story
of the first laugh that was ever heard in earth or heaven. To be enjoyed
properly it needs the chuckling twitter of the grown-up robins and the
squeaky interruptions of the baby birds asking questions. When they get
terrifically excited, they jig up and down on the holly-branches and the
frozen snow falls with a brittle clatter. Then the mother and father
birds say, "Hush!" quite suddenly. No one speaks for a full five
seconds. They huddle closer, listening and holding their breath. That's
how the story ought to be heard, after night-fall on Christmas Eve, when
behind darkened windows little boys and girls have gone to bed early,
having hung up their very biggest stockings. Of course I can't tell it
that way on paper, but I'll do my best to repeat the precise words in
which the robins tell it.
II
It was very long ago at the beginning of all wonders. Sun, moon and
stars were new; they wandered about in the clouds uncertainly, calling
to one another like ships in a fog. It was the same on earth; neither
trees, nor rivers, nor animals were quite sure why they had been created
or what was expected of them. They were terribly afraid of doing wrong
and they had good reason, for the Man and Woman had done wrong and had
been locked out of Eden.
That had happened in April, when the world was three months old. Up to
that time everything had gone very well. No one had known what fear was.
No one had guessed that anything existed outside the walls of Eden or
that there was such a thing as wrong-doing. Animals, trees and rivers
had lived together with the Man and the Woman in the high-walled garden
as a happy family. If they had wanted to know anything, they had asked
the Man; he had always given them answers, even though he had to invent
them. They had never dreamt of doubting him--not even the Woman. The
reason for this had been God.
Every afternoon God had come stepping down from the sky to walk with the
Man through the sun-spangled shadows of the grassy paths. They had heard
the kindly rumble of His voice like distant thunder and the little tones
of the Man as he asked his questions. At six o'clock regularly God had
shaken hands with the Man and climbed leisurely back up the sky-blue
stairs that led to Heaven. Because of this the Man had gained a
reputation among the animals for being wise. They had thought of him as
God's friend. He had given orders to everybody--even to the Woman; and
everyone had been proud to obey him.
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