God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen

I

THE carrier’s cart was drawn by two very slow old white horses. Only now and again, where the road was not too slippery with ice, did the carrier urge them to a heavy trot. There was a stout canvas cover over the cart, in which, besides myself, were five old village women. Young women walked to and from town on market day, saving tuppence each way. The carrier, who’d been paid tuppence to bring me from the little market town three miles away, whither I’d come by train, set me down where Bowers lane leaves the highroad at the edge of Peterstow village. I ’d my clothes in a brown paper parcel. I’d been traveling since nine in the morning, and had come about a hundred miles.

It was very cold. There was snow on the ground. I had mittens on my hands, and a thick muffler round my neck. The tip of my nose felt frozen, and so did my feet. The old women each side of me helped keep me warm while I was in the carrier’s cart; but when I was put down I set my parcel on the snow, stamped my feet, and beat my hands on my sides before starting down Bowers lane.

It was maybe three quarters of a mile from the highroad to Bowers. The lane was steep, narrow, and full of curves. It had high banks on the top of which were tall leafless hawthorn hedges. The oaks and elms that stood here and there in the hedgerows were leafless too. Everything was bleak and bare and cold, except for the holly trees, which were covered with bright red berries.

Because I stopped to make snowballs, and to slide where there was smooth ice in the wheel ruts, it took a long time to reach Bowers farm. My paper parcel burst open, and I had to stop to tie it up. I did n’t tie it very well, and it kept bursting open. By the time I came to Bowers a pair of my stockings, my toothbrush, and some handkerchiefs were missing. Garge Gwilliam found them, and brought them to Bowers next day. But this has little to do with what I’m writing about. I’m grown-up now, and have a good deal of gray in my hair and a great many wrinkles. My socks, toothbrush, and handkerchiefs are in their right places. Yet it was on this same pair of feet that I first went to Bowers, and with this same heart pulsing. I’m still me.

It’s Christmas night, and Bowers farm is very far away in that quiet valley through which the little silvery river flows westward to the wide Atlantic. Very long ago it is; yet also it is very near, and only yesterday. Things do not change unless you let them — not the things that count, the lovely things. The stars are bright to-night, and all is still, save for the echo of an echo on the silent air.

My wife and our two daughters — Apple Dumpling, aged thirteen, and Honey Bee, aged six — are in bed and asleep. Ellison, our grown son, and Helen, his wife, are gone home an hour or more ago. It is late. The floor is strewn with toys. I have just turned out the lights upon the Christmas tree — electric lights of many colors which one turns on and off by one switch. Artificial icicles that are quite safe hang from the tree, which is covered with artificial snow that is quite safe. When the lights are turned on, ice and snow glimmer and gleam. The sole gleam now is from a big red candle that stands in the window, its light shining out into the darkness of the night. By the gleam of the big red candle I am writing this.

I had not thought of Bowers farm for many years till yesterday, when we were all trimming the Christmas tree and hanging our stockings in a row along the wide mantel above the sunken open fireplace.

II

It was getting dark when at last I came to the door of Bowers farmhouse. As I approached it, I heard shouting and laughter. When it opened at my rap, a wave of warm air streamed out, as though to cheer all the cold world outside. It was the night before Christmas Eve, and what happened that night from the time the door opened I have no memory of. But the two following nights I can see very plainly, and can hear very plainly their sounds.

Bowers farm was owned and managed by a widow with four young daughters and a son of my own age. An old Welsh servant named Mary Llewelyn lived in the house, and two nephews and a niece of the widow were visiting. On Christmas Eve, John Thomas the wagoner, who lived in a cottage across the lane from the farmhouse, came with his wife and their fourteen children. Bill Weevin the shepherd, and the girl he wans going to marry in the spring, came too, and Jack Evans the cowman, who was going with Thomas’s eldest girl Annie. Last came old Garge Gwilliam, the gardener, with his old deaf wife and their grown halfwatted daughter Jane. Everyone gathered in the stone-floored kitchen, from the whitewashed ceiling of which hung sides of bacon, and hams, and great bunches of herbs. There was a huge plum cake on the table, and there were loaves of fresh bread, with cheese, and ale, and cider. For Mrs. Thomas, because she was nursing a baby, there was stout. For the children there were pitchers of milk. Mistletoe hung from the oaken beams of the ceiling. There were red-berried holly wreaths on the whitewashed walls, and in the windows.

We played ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May,’ and ‘London bridge is falling down,’ and ‘Oranges and lemons said the bells of St. Clemens.’ Everyone but Garge Gwilliam’s old deaf wife, and their grown half-witted daughter Jane, danced the quadrille, the lancers, and the Sir Roger de Coverley, to the tune of old Garge’s fiddle. The kitchen was lighted by one big bright oil lamp and several cow-horn lanterns. In the large window was a big thick candle burning to show the Christ child the way to Bowers farm.

While we wore dancing the Sir Roger de Coverley there was a rap on the door. Mary Llewelyn opened to the bell ringers. They came in, sat just within the door, and rang their bells. Then they ate bread and cheese and drank ale, and went on to the next farm: Weir End, a mile away through the snow.

The bell ringers were but a little while gone when we heard voices without. Mary opened the door and there, in the snow, one of them carrying a cow-horn lantern, were six village children, necks muffled up, woolly caps drawn down on their foreheads, snow thick upon their ragged clothes. They sang ‘O come, all ye faithful,’ and ‘Hark! the herald angels,’ and about ‘peace on earth and mercy mild,’ And when they had sung

they were brought into the warm kitchen, and ate plum cake and drank milk and were given pennies by the widow. Then they went on their way to Weir End farm, and were gone but a little while when more carol singers came. Lads and lasses of round eighteen and twenty, they too sang, ‘O come, all ye faithful’ and ‘Hark! the herald angels,’ and about ‘peace on earth and mercy mild,’ singing with strong voices in which was lightheartedness, and a note as of challenge. With flushed faces and sparkling eyes, they came jesting into the warm kitchen and ate bread and cheese and plum cake. Lifting mugs of ale and of cider, they drank to the health and the happiness of the widow and all our company, and went merrily off into the snow on their way to Weir End.

And not long had they been gone when again we heard voices and, opening the great oaken door, looked out upon a company of men and women of and beyond middle age. First they sang ‘O come, all ye faithful,’ and then one carol after another, singing as though for the joy and delight of it, all unconscious of the snow and the cold. Not till they had been bidden several times did they enter the snug kitchen, and cat and drink. In their wrinkled faces and steady eyes was a strong and a merry contentment. Yet also they resembled in a manner children, because of the frankness of their countenances. When, lifting their mugs, they wished us happiness — why, then it seemed that happiness must of a certainty be, so honest, so stolidly determined, were the tones of their friendly voices.

These, when they went, left behind them a great sense of peace in Bowers kitchen; yet also a something of regret, a sort of rue, because they had not stayed longer. But that sense of regret swiftly ceased; for of a sudden we heard their upraised voices again, and opened the great oak door and looked out after them. They had stopped at the end of the driveway, and stood in a ring in the snow singing ‘God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay,’ singing for their own joy, with the light of the cow-horn lantern shining in their smiling faces.

A little after the last carol singers were gone the widow took down a lantern from its hook, wrapped a shawl about her head and shoulders, and went forth from the snug kitchen into the thickly falling snow. John Thomas, Bill Weevin, Jack Evans, and old Garge Gwilliam each took a horn lantern and followed. Her son and her daughters, her niece and her nephews; John Thomas’s wife, carrying at her breast her last infant; the girl Bill Weevin was going to marry in the spring; old Garge Gwilliam’sold deaf wife and their grown half-witted daughter Jane, and all the children, went out from the snug kitchen into the thickly falling snow, with Bill Weevin’s two sheep dogs following after them. Last from the kitchen, old Mary Llewelyn shut the great oak door, then, holding tight to my hand, followed after Bill Weevin’s dogs.

Down the long drive we walked, the light of the lanterns shining on the snowlaurels, lilacs, and red-berried holly trees that bordered it. Through the old iron gate we went, and across the lane, and through the high five-barred gate opposite, into the great fold upon which opened the stables and cow houses and sheep pens.

There was a jingle of halter chains, and a shifting of hooves, as we entered the stable. Boxer and Dobbin, Prince and old Tom, Taffy and Merlin, looked round at us from questioning eyes.

‘There be good ’ay in h’every manger, missis,’ said John Thomas.

‘That’s right, John,’ replied the widow, and, having handed to him her lantern, went to one after another of her horses and laid her hand upon it gently, speaking a few soft words.

From the stable we passed to the cow house, where Molly and Creamcup, Hilda and Bess, lying soft in deep straw, looked up at us with big round eyes. Beyond the milch cows the long row of great red oxen with white faces gazed at us from warm straw-strewn stalls.

‘Good dry beddin’ an’ a manger full for each on ’em, missis,’ said Jack Evans.

‘That’s as it should be, Jack,’ replied the widow, and, having spoken a few low words to her milch cows, passed slowly down the long narrow passage in front of the white faces of the great red oxen that gazed at her placidly.

We looked into the pen folds where lay the quiet sheep, and into the small pen where by himself the horned ram dwelt. Silent, they gazed at us, expectant-eyed.

The night was far advanced when we went from the fold through the big fivebarred gate back to the lane. Sleepily holding to old Mary’s hand, I heard Jack Evans say, ‘Midnight be a-comin’, John!’

‘Aye, Jack, lad! Soon they’uns’ll be a-talkin’ same as you an’ me,’ replied John Thomas.

‘Mary, who’ll be talking?’ I asked.

‘The be-asts,’ replied old Mary Llewelyn.

‘But, Mary, animals can’t talk!’ I argued.

‘It be Christmas Eve, little lad,’ she answered me.

And then John Thomas and Jack Evans and Bill Weevin, old Garge and the women and sleepy children, were calling ‘Good night’ and ‘Merry Christmas,’ and disappearing toward their cottages through the thickly falling snow.

We came back to the warm kitchen. The widow put out her lantern. Mary lit tallow candles and handed them round for us to go to bed by. With the bright oil lamp extinguished, and our candles in our hands, we went from the kitchen into the hallway. Only the tortoise-shell cat was left in the kitchen, curled in her box by the stove. On the window sill the big candle still burned clear and steady, gleaming out into the snow, to show the Christ child the way to Bowers farm.

On our way to bed we were allowed to peep into the drawing-room, in which, all along the wide mantel, hung a row of empty stockings high above the bright fire.

‘Mary, how can Santa Claus come with a fire burning?’ I fearfully asked.

‘Doant ’ee be a-frettin’, little lad! Just ’ee wait!’ replied old Mary.

III

All I know of the rest of that night is that Santa Claus came. I did n’t see him, but my stocking was full next morning — as were those of all the other children. There was no question about his having been, for in those days there was no cynical child. In those days when you heard the carol singers’ ‘O come, all ye faithful,’that‘ye’ meant yourself. Without question you accepted the invitation. If ever a child wondered why the Christ child did not sec the candle in the window and come to Bowers farm, the explanation was simple. We did n’t fret about His coming. We waited. There were so many other farms for Him to go to. In time He’d come!

We opened our stockings in the drawing-room, where was also the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree was covered with tiny wax candles of many colors, and every candle had to be lighted with a match. On the branches of the tree, to represent snow, was cotton wool. In those days a Christmas tree was not alone a tiling of beauty and of joy. It was a thing of danger, too — a thing for small children not to come too close to.

Though we scattered paper and string everywhere, the widow did n’t mind at all. The drawing-room was a very special room, used only on very special occasions, such as weddings and funerals, and when the rector came to call, and at Christmas. On one wall was a photograph of the widow as a bride, with her husband. They had been married in the drawing-room, and he had been buried from it. On the opposite wall hung the widow’s ‘marriage lines’ in a gilt frame. On another wall was a picture of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort; and opposite them, on the remaining wall, one of a champion cow and bull together. The chairs and sofas were covered with antimacassars.

The widow always swept and dusted the drawing-room herself, and no one else was permitted to enter it on ordinary days. But to-day we were allowed to play in it as though it were just like any other room. The widow, busy helping old Mary in the kitchen, came to look in on us now and then. Once when I chanced to look up I saw old Mary in the door watching us. There were tears in her eyes. I jumped up, ran to her, pulled her under the mistletoe that hung from the chandelier in the centre of the ceiling, drew her head down, and kissed her withered cheek. ‘Oh, Goad bless ’ee, little lad!’ she cried.

Old Mary was alone in the world. She had been engaged for twenty-two years before she married David Llewelyn, who was killed by a white-faced bull one evening eight months later while he was taking a short cut through a meadow, being in a hurry to get home because Mary was n’t very well. Her son, who was born a month later, grew up to take the Queen’s shilling on market day, and was killed a little while afterwards at Tel el Kebir, in the Sudan.

I don’t recall anything else very definitely of that day till evening. I see wrapping paper and string, toys and books and sweets, all over the house. I see turkey and goose, turnips and carrots, parsnips and baked potatoes, onions and cabbage and pickles; shiny apples, red, yellow, and green; big juicy deepgreen winter pears; walnuts, hazelnuts, cobnuts, and filberts; and, from lands beyond the sea, oranges, figs, dates, raisins, prunes, coconuts, tangerines wrapped in tinfoil, and almonds and Brazil nuts. There was a sprig of redberried holly stuck in the top of the Christmas pudding. The widow poured brandy over the pudding, set fire to it, cut it up, and passed it round while it was blazing. There was a dish of blazing snapdragon, too. I see it all in a sort of happy haze, and hear a continuous murmur of talk, with laughter rising and falling, young feet running to and fro, and young and old faces shining.

And I see old Alary come to the drawing-room from the kitchen, where she has just finished washing the dishes She says something in a low voice to the widow, who replies, ‘You stay here now, Mary. I’ll go see to him.’

The widow went to the kitchen. I followed, curious.

He stood with his back to the great oak door, his battered hat in his thin fingers. Bare knees showed through holes in his ragged trousers. A jacket with frayed sleeves and holes at the elbows, its collar missing, hung loosely from his sharp shoulders. His face was pale. He was shivering, at his feet a little pool of water from the snow that had melted and run from him.

The widow set a plate heaped with food on the table, and bade him sit down to it. About it she set other plates, with fruits and pudding and nuts, and a tankard of ale. Then, without having noticed me, she went back to the drawling-room.

He did n’t seem able to eat. He nibbled a bite of this and of that. The tortoise-shell cat leaped to a chair beside him and regarded him solemnly. He reached out a hand and stroked her soft warm fur. Having eaten scarce anything, he leaned wearily back in his chair. The oil lamp went out. Mary must have forgotten to fill it that morning. The only light in the kitchen was that of the big candle burning in the window to show the Christ child the way to Bowers farm. He gazed at it, his eyes full of longing. There was n’t a sound. By the light of the candle I could see beyond the windowpane the big flakes falling. He rose, picked his hat up from the floor, and looked uncertainly about the dimly lit kitchen. Something told me that he wanted to say ‘Thank you’ before he went away.

I was just starting to the drawingroom to call the widow when he became aware of my presence. Without a word, reading my mind, he shook his head. Had he said aloud, ‘Don’t disturb anyone any more on my account,’ his meaning could have been no plainer. Next moment he was gone through the great oak door out to the cold snowy night. Left alone in the dim kitchen, I was suddenly very frightened. Of just what I was afraid I could not have said. Old Mary Llewelyn appeared, closing the kitchen door behind her, shutting away the sounds of merriment in the drawingroom. Unaware of me, she sat down in the just-vacated chair, longing eyes fixed upon the big red candle that burned on the window sill, her aspect one of utter loneliness. I ran to her and buried my face upon her flat breast.

‘Doant ’ee be a-frettin’, little lad! Yonder’s the candle burnin’. Just ’ee wait!’ said old Mary, stroking my head.

IV

Now, as I say, Bowers farm had been forgotten till yesterday, when my wife, Apple Dumpling, Honey Bee, Helen and Ellison, and I were trimming the Christmas tree and hanging our stockings along the wide mantel above the sunken fireplace, in which a bright fire burned.

I paused and looked from a window out to the starry dark. Faintly I could hear the murmur of the creek that, a short distance away, flows westward to the wide Pacific. Dim in the starshine I could see the trees that border our drive, the branches of the great oak that spread over our roof. On a hill a little to the north of the drive’s end an air-mail beacon flashed alternate red and white rays across the sky. From high above our roof came the drone of a passenger plane. Round a curve in the paved highway that passes between the drive’s end and the beacon hill came the lights of a transcontinental auto stage. It was at that instant that Honey Bee spoke.

‘Daddy, how can Santa Claus come down the chimney with a fire burning?’ asked Honey Bee. And spark touched spark. Memory’s embers were fanned to flame, and I heard old Mary Llewelyn answering that same question asked by me so long ago when I was Honey Bee’s age. And I wondered if in stage or plane was some small boy on his way to spend Christmas many hundreds of miles, perhaps a thousand miles, away. ‘How different it all is to when I was a child,’ I thought.

On our little farm, so little that it scarce can be called a farm, is neither wagoner, cowman, shepherd, gardener, nor serving woman. It is but a few months since we moved here from the city, twenty miles away, where live many friends. Distance precludes neighborliness. Now, on Christmas Eve, no one would be dropping in upon us to wish us good cheer and to share for a space the warmth of our hearth. A sort of sadness came over me, a longing. There was too much haste, too much noise, in this modern world where all was so changed.

The trimming of our tree was finished. The stockings were hung in a row on the mantel. The many-colored lights on the tree twinkled and gleamed, the fire blazed bright, and in a window, on the window sill, a big red candle burned, as long ago a big red candle had burned at Bowers farm.

I took a powerful flashlight, opened the French door, and stepped out to the starry dark, my wife at my side, the children old and young following, and the two little terriers that keep the rats from our outbuildings and the gophers from our two acres following them. Under the branches of the great oak we went, past the pomegranate, oleander, deodar, and redwood trees; beneath the sky in which, now far away, the lights of the passenger plane still winked, along which the beacon sent its constant ray, under which, along the paved highway, countless hurrying cars sped.

There was the jingle of a halter chain, and a shifting of hooves, as we looked into the little barn where Moby the saddle horse, and Molly the cow, and Honey Bee’s pet lamb, lay bedded in deep dry straw. They looked at us expectant-eyed. Honey Bee wanted to stay, to hear them talk. ‘They’d not talk with people about,’ I assured her. We looked in at my wife’s turkeys, geese, chickens, ducks, and pigeons. There was a rustle of feathers, and a low cooing from the gloom. When we went back to the porch Dumpling suggested that, since the night was not cold, we might leave the door open, and so overhear the beasts talking. When I negatived that, she said that she did n’t believe animals talked on Christmas Eve, and asked if I had ever heard them.

‘If I’d been near enough to overhear, they’d not have talked,’ I told her.

When the others went in, she lingered on the porch. I stayed with her. The ridges of the near hills were distinct in the starshine. The canyons were black gashes. In them, when spring came, the buckeye would flower, the madrone, and the wild mountain lilac. On hill and in canyon, in place of the red-berried holly of Bowers lane, were the no less bright red berries of the toyon. To match the memories of my boyhood, there was beauty for beauty. Home was very sweet. And yet upon me there was still that longing.

‘Ah, if only the carol singers would come! If I could just hear carol singers again!’ thought I, and thought also, ‘There was neighborliness in the lanes in the old days.’

Dumpling went in. I followed. We all sat on the step of the sunken fireplace, with the firelight in our faces; behind us the lights of the tree, on each wall wreaths of red-berried toyon and of evergreen, and in the window, burning with a clear unwavering flame, the big red candle to show the Christ child the way to Oakcroft farm.

We had but sat down when there was a step on our porch. Our little lane is a blind lane. Sometimes someone from the paved highway near by mistakenly takes it and comes to ask directions. This would be someone from the hurrying mob. I rose and opened the door.

‘’Appee Kreesmas!’ cried Tony Giammona. ‘’Appee Kreesmas!’ cried Mrs. Giammona. ‘Happy Christmas!’ came a chorus from the eight Giammona children.

Tony and his wife are from Sicily; the children were born in America. Mrs. Giammona has done our washing a few times. Dumpling takes it, the eldest Giammona child brings it back. My wife and I had scarce set eyes on Mr. or Mrs. Giammona.

Tony was dressed in his best suit, from a mail-order house. He can’t write English, but his eldest girl goes to high school and writes his orders for him. Mrs. Giammona was dressed in an old silk dress worn long ago in Palermo and used on only the most special occasions. The girls were all in brightly colored new silk dresses from the mail-order house. Very lovely they were, with their black shoebutton eyes and olive faces. The boys were in gay green new sweaters, and new trousers.

’Dees not hurt you, my vren! You dreenk whole bottle, eet not hurt you!’ cried Tony Giammona, handing me a bottle of his homemade wine. ‘ I breeng eet you for ’appee Kreesmas!’

‘I make two doz’ loafs to-day. Dey not last long, I tell you! I vants you try my bread, for ’appee Kreesmas!’ cried Mrs. Giammona, handing my wife two big loaves fresh from her oven.

While the little Giammonas laughed and talked with Dumpling and Honey Bee, Tony and his wife sat down and gazed round the big room. ‘Dees verra nice ’ome,’ said Tony. Mrs. Giammona said, ‘You sure got nice ’omc, you folks!’ Their dwelling has some windows missing, and is devoid of carpets; in places wallpaper hangs in shreds. Tony prunes fruit trees for a living, but for a long time has not been well enough to work. Mrs. Giammona takes in washing. They ‘make out.’

‘We ’ave to go. We got forty peoples come to-morrow,’said Tony presently. He has five brothers, each married and with a family. ‘We wants you folks to come. We goin’ to dance old countree dances!’ he added.

‘Sure, we wants you folks to come! We goin’ to barbecue a goat. Maybe two, t’ree goats!’ cried Mrs. Giammona. We might have been her own kin.

Having allowed Dumpling to accept the invitation, being unable to do so ourselves because of other plans, we promised to come next time the Giammonas had a party. We loaded the children with oranges and candy and saw them away. As they disappeared in the darkness, Tony’s voice came back to us. ‘Dose ees nice peoples. I ’opes zey ’ave ’appee Kreesmas!’

So here again was beauty for beauty. In place of John Thomas’s honest friendship, that of Tony Giammona.

V

‘Ah, if only the carol singers would come!’ thought I, Rut that would not be. A memory of the tramp came to me. There was something very pleasant in the memory. The tramp had, in a sort of way, helped to make Christmas. There had been no need for him to go off as he did. Ho could have stayed the night, and have gone forth in the morning warm and dry. I remembered how the widow had made up for him a big bundle of her dead husband’s clothes. But he had gone away out of pride, and an unwillingness to intrude his poverty. I wondered if, perhaps, some poor wanderer would come to our door to-night. But no one would come, of course. No longer were there any tramps. A thing called ‘relief,’ coming in many forms and under many subtitles, had destroyed pride and made willing beggars out of people. The tramp had not been a beggar. Had there been work for him, he’d have worked eagerly. To-day no one who can avoid it works; save for such old-world people as the Giammonas, who, despite poverty, manage to ‘make out’ and would utterly scorn ‘relief.'

I sat down on the step of the sunken fireplace, where all the others save Dumpling were seated. Dumpling sat on the couch in the far corner. Close by her burned the big red candle. From above our roof came the noise of another plane. Flying low, it passed with a roar of motors. From the paved highway came the insistent honk of another transcontinental auto stage demanding the right of way.

I glanced toward Dumpling, and I shuddered. A thoroughgoing radio fan, she knows all the programmes, and the special time for each. Her finger was on the button. In a moment she would turn it, and flood the room with something about ‘gang busters,’or ‘phantom pilots,’or with jazz or buffoonery.

‘Dumpling, it’s time for bed!’ I called.

‘Let me stay a little while. There’s something I like coming on,’ pleaded Dumpling. And what could I say? Could a man with gray hair have his child think him an old crab, upon Christmas Eve? What could my child know or understand of the longing that was in me? If all was changed since I was a child, that was none of her doing.

There was silence now, no sound from sky or highway. In silence I sat thinking, waiting with dread the noise that Dumpling all too soon would turn loose.

‘The lights of a plane, seen amongst stars, are beautiful,’I thought. And I thought too, ‘So is a plane beautiful when the sun shines on it.’ And the beacon on the hill, its constant ray was beautiful, I admitted. Even the modern carrier’s cart, speeding along concrete roads and honking for the right of way, had its own peculiar beauty. I was willing to admit all that. It was admitted not without some effort, true; and not without a distinct feeling of magnanimity. And besides, one could always forget these things by going into one’s house. In one’s home, in the sanctity of one’s rooftree, one could shut modernity away and be at rest. But as for this thing upon which Dumpling had her finger, this thing I loathed. There was no escape from it. It was the very essence of all that was banal in modernity. And now, beneath the roof of home, on Christmas Eve, with my heart hungry for rest and for beauty, I must submit to its blatant banality.

I bowed my head. With my eyes on those same feet on which, so long ago, I walked down Bowers lane, I thought of Bowers farm. I said to myself, ‘I’ll just, keep thinking of when I was a child at Bowers, and of the carol singers. If I just keep thinking, it will drown out the horror of modernity.’

There was a faint click as Dumpling turned the button.

And then, in a moment, my wife and our grown son and his wife, and our two small daughters, were singing, their voices joining with the air-borne chorus of many singers singing far away — singing, all of them, as though for the joy and the delight of it.

‘O come, all ye faithful,’ they sang, and ‘Hark! the herald angels,’ and of peace on earth. And last they sang, —

While they were singing that last carol there came again from above our rooftree the drone of a plane, and a transcontinental auto stage upon the paved highway honked for the right of way. With my eyes uplifted, I saw the beacon’s ray across the sky. Upon our window sill the big red candle burned, with faithful flame unwavering. And of a sudden it was as though nothing were changed — as though all were as it had been so long ago at Bowers farm. Bowers farm and Oakcroft were become one. And I said to myself, ‘Things do not change unless you let them change — not the things that count, the lovely things.’