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Page 80
"Nor war nor battle sound,"
and
"The waiting world was still;"
so that even the leading editor relaxed from his gravity, and the
"In-General" man from his more serious views, and the Daily the next
morning wished everybody a merry Christmas with even more unction, and
resolved that in coming years it would have a supplement, large enough
to contain all the good wishes. So away again to the houses of
confectioners who had given the children candy,--to Miss Simonds's
house, because she had been so good to them in school,--to the palaces
of millionnaires who had prayed for these children with tears if the
children only knew it,--to Dr. Frothingham's in Summer Street, I
remember, where we stopped because the Boston Association of Ministers
met here,--and out on Dover Street Bridge, that the poor chair-mender
might hear our carols sung once more before he heard them better sung in
an other world where nothing needs mending.
"King of glory, king of peace!"
"Hear the song, and see the Star!"
"Welcome be thou, heavenly King!"
"Was not Christ our Saviour?"
and all the others, rung out with order or without order, breaking the
hush directly as the horses' bells were stilled, thrown into the air
with all the gladness of childhood, selected sometimes as Harry happened
to think best for the hearers, but more often as the jubilant and
uncontrolled enthusiasm of the children bade them break out in the most
joyous, least studied, and purely lyrical of all. O, we went to twenty
places that night, I suppose! We went to the grandest places in Boston,
and we went to the meanest. Everywhere they wished us a merry Christmas,
and we them. Everywhere a little crowd gathered round us, and then we
dashed away far enough to gather quite another crowd; and then back,
perhaps, not sorry to double on our steps if need were, and leaving
every crowd with a happy thought of
"The star, the manger, and the Child!"
At nine we brought up at my house, D Street, three doors from the
corner, and the children picked their very best for Polly and my six
little girls to hear, and then for the first time we let them jump out
and run in. Polly had some hot oysters for them, so that the frolic was
crowned with a treat. There was a Christmas cake cut into sixteen
pieces, which they took home to dream upon; and then hoods and muffs on
again, and by ten o'clock, or a little after, we had all the girls and
all the little ones at their homes. Four of the big boys, our two
flankers and Harry's right and left hand men, begged that they might
stay till the last moment. They could walk back from the stable, and
"rather walk than not, indeed." To which we assented, having gained
parental permission, as we left younger sisters in their respective
homes.
II.
Lycidas and I both thought, as we went into these modest houses, to
leave the children, to say they had been good and to wish a "Merry
Christmas" ourselves to fathers, mothers, and to guardian aunts, that
the welcome of those homes was perhaps the best part of it all. Here was
the great stout sailor-boy whom we had not seen since he came back from
sea. He was a mere child when he left our school years on years ago, for
the East, on board Perry's vessel, and had been round the world. Here
was brave Mrs. Masury. I had not seen her since her mother died.
"Indeed, Mr. Ingham, I got so used to watching then, that I cannot sleep
well yet o' nights; I wish you knew some poor creature that wanted me
to-night, if it were only in memory of Bethlehem." "You take a deal of
trouble for the children," said Campbell, as he crushed my hand in his;
"but you know they love you, and you know I would do as much for you and
yours,"--which I knew was true. "What can I send to your children?" said
Dalton, who was finishing sword-blades. (Ill wind was Fort Sumter, but
it blew good to poor Dalton, whom it set up in the world with his
sword-factory.) "Here's an old-fashioned tape-measure for the girl, and
a Sheffield wimble for the boy. What, there is no boy? Let one of the
girls have it then; it will count one more present for her." And so he
pressed his brown-paper parcel into my hand. From every house, though
it were the humblest, a word of love, as sweet, in truth, as if we could
have heard the voice of angels singing in the sky.
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