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Page 78
But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my office did not do its
duty!
CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON.
FROM THE INGHAM PAPERS.
[When my friends of the Boston Daily Advertiser asked me last year to
contribute to their Christmas number, I was very glad to recall this
scrap of Mr. Ingham's memoirs.
For in most modern Christmas stories I have observed that the rich wake
up of a sudden to befriend the poor, and that the moral is educed from
such compassion. The incidents in this story show, what all life shows,
that the poor befriend the rich as truly as the rich the poor: that, in
the Christian life, each needs all.
I have been asked a dozen times how far the story is true. Of course no
such series of incidents has ever taken place in this order in four or
five hours. But there is nothing told here which has not parallels
perfectly fair in my experience or in that of any working minister.]
* * * * *
I always give myself a Christmas present.
And on this particular year the present was a carol party, which is
about as good fun, all things consenting kindly, as a man can have.
Many things must consent, as will appear. First of all, there must be
good sleighing; and second, a fine night for Christmas eve. Ours are not
the carollings of your poor shivering little East Angles or South
Mercians, where they have to plod round afoot in countries which do not
know what a sleigh-ride is.
I had asked Harry to have sixteen of the best voices in the chapel
school to be trained to five or six good carols, without knowing why. We
did not care to disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the
24th of December should break up the spree before it began. Then I had
told Howland that he must reserve for me a span of good horses, and a
sleigh that I could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed.
Howland is always good about such things, knew what the sleigh was for,
having done the same in other years, and made the span four horses of
his own accord, because the children would like it better, and "it would
be no difference to him." Sunday night, as the weather nymphs ordered,
the wind hauled round to the northwest and everything froze hard. Monday
night, things moderated and the snow began to fall steadily,--so
steadily; and so Tuesday night the Metropolitan people gave up their
unequal contest, all good men and angels rejoicing at their
discomfiture, and only a few of the people in the very lowest _Bolgie_
being ill-natured enough to grieve. And thus it was, that by Thursday
evening was one hard compact roadway from Copp's Hill to the
Bone-burner's Gehenna, fit for good men and angels to ride over, without
jar, without noise, and without fatigue to horse or man. So it was that
when I came down with Lycidas to the chapel at seven o'clock, I found
Harry had gathered there his eight pretty girls and his eight jolly
boys, and had them practising for the last time,
"Carol, carol, Christians,
Carol joyfully;
Carol for the coming
Of Christ's nativity."
I think the children had got inkling of what was coming, or perhaps
Harry had hinted it to their mothers. Certainly they were warmly
dressed, and when, fifteen minutes afterwards, Howland came round
himself with the sleigh, he had put in as many rugs and bear-skins as if
he thought the children were to be taken new-born from their respective
cradles. Great was the rejoicing as the bells of the horses rang beneath
the chapel windows, and Harry did not get his last _da capo_ for his
last carol. Not much matter indeed, for they were perfect enough in it
before midnight.
Lycidas and I tumbled in on the back seat, each with a child in his lap
to keep us warm; I flanked by Sam Perry, and he by John Rich, both of
the mercurial age, and therefore good to do errands. Harry was in front
somewhere flanked in like wise, and the other children lay in
miscellaneously between, like sardines when you have first opened the
box I had invited Lycidas, because, besides being my best friend, he is
the best fellow in the world, and so deserves the best Christmas eve can
give him. Under the full moon, on the still white snow, with sixteen
children at the happiest, and with the blessed memories of the best the
world has ever had, there can be nothing better than two or three such
hours.
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