CHAPTER XIII

“HOLLY AND JOLLY RHYME”

Christmas eve was a busy one. Other years the young Cortlandts’ tree had been trimmed for them, but this year the fact that the tree was intended to give poor children pleasure seemed to alter every one’s attitude toward it.

Beth took it for granted that she and her cousins were to trim the tree themselves, and it so fell out. Beth was given authority over it, as it was to be her party, and, after she got over being afraid to decide any question put to her lest she should decide wrong and spoil the tree, she enjoyed her dignity just as much as she enjoyed the glittering ornaments of many sizes, colors and clever designs which had been ordered in dozens for her tree.

She asked to have Tim from the stable “to do the ladder part,” as she put it. Tim was sent for and came willingly, glad to have a chance to do something for Beth that was not in his regular line of employment, and which therefore seemed particularly a personal service to her.

Tim was as full of quips and quiddities as his race usually is and, while the trimming of the tree progressed, got his young employers into gales of laughter with his nonsense, his wit and pranks. At last, when he danced a breakdown on the top rung of the ladder--or pretended to--whistling an Irish air, with his face a network of laughing wrinkles, the children laughed till they begged Tim to stop, in mercy to their aching sides and weakened knees.

“I never thought it could be so much fun, just getting a tree trimmed for a Christmas tree,” sighed Beth. “I don’t wonder holly and jolly rhyme!”

“So does melancholy,” suggested Natalie.

“Melancholy doesn’t rhyme with holly all the way through; it doesn’t rhyme in meaning, but jolly does. Melancholy rhymes only at the very end--when it stops being melancholy!” cried Beth, with an inspiration, much pleased with her own cleverness in making this discovery.

“Bright Beth!” applauded Alys. Beth felt as though she hardly knew Alys to-day, she was so gay and merry, with all her stiff little ways gone, frolicking like the big-little girl she really was.

“Oh, say, Tim, you mustn’t smoke up there among those branches, honest!” cried Dirk peering at Tim on his lofty perch near the ceiling of the high-vaulted music room.

“I’m not smokin’, Master Dirk,” said Tim, stooping to peer back again, his short pipe in his mouth.

“You’ve got your pipe in your mouth,” persisted Dirk.

“Faith an’ I’ve got me foot in me shoe, but by the same token I’m not walkin’!” said Tim with his chuckle. “It’s just suckin’ it I am, Master Dirk, for the comfort of its society! Do you want the string of bells, sort of like a wreat’, just below the highest angel at the top, Miss Beth, or do you want them glitterin’ things that look like white of eggs an’ mercury, mixed, to make dyin’ by mercury poison easy?”

“Oh, Tim, you are so funny!” sighed Beth, for Tim’s remark about his shoe had sent them all off again in shrieks of laughter. “I think the bells, please.”

So Tim festooned the strings of party-colored bells just below the top of the tree, singing the while in a high falsetto:

“’Tis the bells of Shandon, That sound so grand on The pleasant waters Of the river Lee.”

“Now the tree is done!” cried Alys, clapping her hands. “And there never could be a more splendid one! I’m going to see if mama is in and call her to look at it. Then we must get dressed. What time is your party coming, Beth? Six?”

“No, five. Don’t you remember Aunt Alida said we would have the children come early and dine at half-past eight?” replied Beth. “You may as well come down, Tim; there won’t be anything more to do with the ladder.”

Alys had hurried away and returned with her mother, sleepy and pretty, in a Japanese embroidered robe in which she had been taking a nap.

“Nobody around, is there?” cried Mrs. Cortlandt, peeping into the room. “Except Tim, and he’ll never tell that I came down-stairs in a wrapper! Alys wouldn’t let me delay. Children dear--and Tim and everybody that helped”--she glanced at one or two of the maids who had been working on the tree--“I never, never saw a tree that was more grand and glorious! It’s not only Christmasy and shining, but it’s actually beautiful! And truth compels me to say that not all Christmas trees are that! And doesn’t it look big, now that it’s trimmed? What fun it is! Beth, if your little forlornities aren’t overwhelmed with delight they won’t be mortal children! You must go to get dressed; do you know that it is nearly four o’clock? Dressing is going to take you longer and be different from your expectations! No, indeed; you needn’t ask a question for I won’t answer one! I’ve a Christmas mystery of my own and I’m going to defend my rights! Tim, did any one tell you that we expect you to bring your wife and children here to-night?”

“No, ma’am. But we’re not expectin’ it, ma’am,” said Tim. Beth saw that Tim was ready to worship this lovely young Aunt Alida, whose girlish happiness was not feigned; it bubbled up and overflowed out of a heart that wealth, the world and its pleasures, flattery and the power wealth gives had not tainted. Aunt Alida was, before all the things that she had to be to the outside world, a loving, home-loving woman; her merry way of enjoying little things, as well as big ones, sprang from simple goodness.

“Well, perhaps you aren’t expecting to be bidden to our tree, but we certainly expect and intend you to come, Tim, with Mrs. Tim and all the Tiny Tims!” Mrs. Cortlandt laughed at her own application of Tiny Tim’s name. “I don’t know in the least why you weren’t asked, except that we decided on Miss Beth’s party so late and have been in a mad rush ever since! Be off, Tim, and collect your family and come here with them at five. Hurry; there’s not a moment to lose! I’m so sorry no one told you you were coming! Wait! Call up your wife and tell her to begin to dress the children; it will save time. Mr. Cortlandt put a telephone into your house, didn’t he? So I thought. Call up your wife, then, and tell her I truly beg her pardon, but to forgive me and hurry the children here. Wait a moment! Léon is coming; I heard our horn and our engine. Tell Mr. Cortlandt I asked him to let Léon take you home and bring you all back in the car. Dirk, go with Tim and explain to your father how Tim’s invitation was forgotten and ask him if Léon can’t help us out. Be off, Tim; run, Dirk!”

Thus issuing her orders like a sort of breezy May morning, with the cherry blossoms of her rose-colored gown’s embroidery wrapped around her, Mrs. Cortlandt sent Tim and Dirk on their errand, and turned to her three girls.

“Scatter, lassies!” she cried. “You’ve lots to do to get ready, and lots to be ready to do!”

Natalie snatched Alys’s and Beth’s hand and rushed them out of the room. Mrs. Cortlandt lingered long enough to give directions to the maids for setting the room in order and making certain changes in its arrangement, then she, too, hurried after the girls, and called to them as they went to their rooms:

“I’ve selected your toilets, chickens. Please put them on as fast and as well as you can and be down-stairs promptly at five.”

Beth opened her door with confident expectation of finding some new delight awaiting her. Was there really no limit to Aunt Alida’s cleverness, prompted by her loving heart?

“I hope I’ll be able some day to do something for her!” she said aloud.

Frieda looked up. “I’ve just had word from home, Miss Beth,” she said, her cheeks crimson, her eyes shining. “Liebchen is coming here to-night! She has walked without crutches. She is cured! Oh, Miss Beth, Miss Beth!”

“Oh, Frieda, Frieda!” echoed Beth, hardly less moved. She threw her arms around Frieda, who kissed her hot cheek, neither remembering any difference in position between them, both overwhelmed with a common joy.

“What a beau-ti-ful Christmas gift!” cried Beth. “I was sure she wouldn’t get here because we didn’t hear a word. Aunt Alida told me I must hurry, Frieda, so I suppose we must put off being glad till to-morrow. It’s a comfort that we shall be just as glad next year!”

“Forever, Miss Beth!” said Frieda. “If you hadn’t spoken to your uncle Liebchen could not have been cured. I’d die for you and your good, good uncle and aunt!”

“So would I! I mean for them!” And Beth laughed. “Is that my frock? Won’t it frighten the children if I’m too fine?”

Across her bed lay a white lace gown, filmy and exquisite over its white silk slip.

“They won’t see the frock, Miss Beth; there’s a--a something to wear over it. The frock is for you to wear at dinner when they’re gone; there’ll be no time to change,” explained Frieda.

“I don’t understand,” sighed Beth, contentedly resigning herself to Frieda’s work on her hair. It was so delightful to be in the midst of mystery and to postpone its solution a little longer!

Frieda shook out the little girl’s golden hair and brushed and brushed it till it shone and flew around her shoulders in masses of living gold, stirred by every breath. Then Frieda put white silk stockings and white slippers on Beth’s feet and slipped carefully over the fly-away hair, first the soft white china silk under-gown, then the gown of white lace, as filmy as a web.

“It makes me look like a dandelion field with a big cobweb over it, my hair all loose, and this webby lace,” said Beth, surveying her reflection with unspeakable delight. She recalled the plain gowns, shrouded in aprons which she had worn in her old home, with a wave of pity for Aunt Rebecca.

“Aunt Rebecca thinks it’s wicked to love to look nice, but it isn’t; it’s just being glad. Flowers and clouds and birds, everything is pretty! I’m only glad the way they are! Poor Aunt Rebecca; I hope she isn’t lonely without me now! She got a letter from me to-day and I tried to put things she’d like in my box for her! She does love molasses peppermints and sugared almonds, and I sent lots of them, and some nice books and fine towels and handkerchiefs, and--lots of things! I had to write her that it was my own money, or she’d be afraid Uncle Jim was buying things for her. Poor Aunt Rebecca! It’s hard to make people have a good time when they’re out of the habit of it. What’s that, Frieda? What in all the world is that?” she added hastily, for Frieda was bringing out a spangled garment and a long veil and pointed cap, also shining at every turn.

“You’re all to be Christmas fairies, in costume, Miss Beth,” announced Frieda in high glee. “Your aunt planned it as a surprise to you and your cousins, and to make the party more wonderful to the poor children. Yours is white and gold, as you see; Miss Natalie’s is red with bits of pink, the way some roses are shaded. And Miss Alys has the most splendid green, a shade that shows by electric light. Master Dirk is to wear blue velvet and white, half and half, with cap and bells, like the pictures you see of the men that made jokes for kings----”

“Jesters,” murmured Beth in a stunned way.

“And--but I mustn’t tell about your uncle and aunt!” Frieda stopped herself. “Please bend quite low, Miss Beth. I must try not to muss your hair and gown when I put on the costume.”

Beth bent her head, too overcome to say a word, and Frieda dropped into place the loose gown, all in one piece, that fell to her feet, completely covering her own gown. It was a golden silk, overshot with white; it shimmered at every motion, and it was girdled and trimmed across the breast with rhinestone chains that were almost as brilliant as diamonds. A pointed cap of gold, like a big extinguisher, crowned Beth’s golden head next, and from it floated a veil of the thinnest gauze, all spangled over with tiny beads that took the light and gave it back like dewdrops in the sun.

“I have to blink at myself!” cried Beth, swaying and prancing before the glass. “Did you ever, ever see anything so sweet! And so shiny? Frieda, how can Aunt Alida do such things, how _can_ she? I’m a fairy, myself, Beth! I’ve been in fairy-land all this time and now I’m one! I’ll never get over this, never! I don’t know who I am, but I’m splendider than Beth was and prettier, and----Oh, dear, oh, dear! Talk about Merry Christmas!”

There really seemed to be danger of Beth’s going off into a sort of swoon of joy; her shining marvels so overcame her. But at that instant Natalie and Alys came hurrying to Beth’s door, calling her excitedly, and Beth came to life with a shout that would have done credit to Dirk and a loud: “Come in, come in!”

Natalie and Alys opened the door and stood for an instant within it.

“My goodness me!” gasped Beth. “My goodness gracious!” she added as Dirk joined them.

Dirk was a jester, clad in a beautiful motley of white and blue velvet, fitting him like a sheath. His cap was hung with tiny bells, he carried the jester’s wand, his shoes were the slender pointed-toed affairs of the pictures, his round boyish face, red with excitement and fun, looked like a kewpie’s peering through the cap front that encircled his chin. But Alys and Natalie! Alys in a brilliant metallic green, a straight, smooth mediæval sort of gown, like Beth’s, with gold trimming, and a head-dress in the shape of a holly leaf, with gold imitation coins on the points! And Natalie, surpassing them all in beauty, in a similar gown of red velvet, slashed with pink, a cap covered with holly berries, and imitation rubies studding her waist and binding her throat, her dark beauty set off by the gorgeous color that would have extinguished a less handsome girl.

“It’s really awful, it’s so splendid!” gasped Beth, while her cousins went into raptures over her white and gold which turned her into a fairylike creature, contrasting beautifully with their higher coloring.

“We’re going to have something by and by where we can wear these things with some one to see them besides the poor kiddies,” said Alys decidedly. “You’re beyond words, Beth; we all are. If mama can’t do things right, then no one can! Hurry down; it’s time. I imagine there are a lot of youngsters here already; they probably will come early. It will be a mercy if we don’t have to send them home in ambulances; these costumes ought to finish them!”

“Oh, my dears!” cried Aunt Alida meeting her young folk in the hall. “How more than satisfactory you are! Are you pleased with my surprise for you? Do you like the costumes?”

“I guess _like_ isn’t the word for it,” said Dirk. “But what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, I hope,” laughed Mrs. Cortlandt. “I’m Frau Santa Claus.”

Aunt Alida wore a white gown with a white cloak swinging from her shoulders, and a white cap, wreathed with mistletoe and holly, with a single great poinsettia on its left side. Holly and mistletoe encircled her waist and fell like the ends of a girdle on her white skirt. The cloak and cap were made of material as thin as would submit to a bath of alum in which they had been dipped. The alum had crystallized on the cloth and the cap and cloak looked as if they were made of snow crust, glittering under the electric lights.

“Aunt Alida, you are--I couldn’t say what you were!” Beth managed to say.

“Prettiest thing in old New York all the time, but the greatest ever to-night,” said Natalie, pretending to catch one of her mother’s lustrous dark strands of hair under her cap, though it had not gone astray.

“Well, if you aren’t the greatest mother on earth to get up all this, and keep it to yourself!” cried Alys, also finding her voice. “Is there a programme, mama?”

“I am Frau Santa Claus, you are Christmas spirits; we shall see Herr Santa Claus a little later,” said Mrs. Cortlandt. “As to the programme--I don’t know, precisely. You must each do all that you can to be jolly and to entertain, and we’ll trust to inspiration for the way as we go along. I think Christmas hymns first, however. I am having the children ushered into the music room now. Mr. Leonard is here to help us. He will announce the programme and lead the singing. Hark!”

From below came the sound of feet scuffling and trying to march to the strains of an orchestra. The children were all assembled and were going in to behold the tree.

“Orchestra, mama?” asked Natalie, for this was a further surprise.

“A small one. I thought at the last moment how much it would add to the pleasure of those poor little souls,” whispered her mother. “Now we must go down.”

She led the way in her snowy raiment to the music room and her attendant Christmas spirits followed her, in single file, to spread out the little procession as long as possible. The music came up to meet them, the old Christmas hymns played perfectly by a famous little orchestra. Beth was deeply impressed and much moved; it seemed to her like all her dreams of Christmas, all the romance of olden time with which her little brain was well stored, made visible and audible.

“Mrs. Santa Claus and her four Christmas fairies are coming, children!” Mr. Leonard called, making himself heard above the music. And Mrs. Cortlandt and the children came in.

The music room was nearly filled. The servants of the Cortlandt household were gathered there; Tim and his family had come in good time, thanks to Léon Charette and the car. There were a few of Mrs. Cortlandt’s intimate friends, who had begged to be allowed to see the fun, and Natalie, Alys and Dirk had invited a few of their favorite friends. For the rest the room held only the poor whom Beth and Anna Mary had searched out, except Liebchen, who stood--_stood_, if you please!--having the best time of any one, no longer a cripple, but a sound, healthy, joyous child, forever cured!

The faces of the children of the tenements were a study. Wide-eyed, half-frightened, wholly bewildered, they clutched one another, listening, looking, not understanding, but entirely sure that nothing half as blissful as this night had ever crossed the bare fields of their brief experiences.

Slowly Aunt Alida led her four beautiful followers into the room, herself a vision of beauty. Awe fell upon the poor children and there was a sound as if they all drew in a long breath together. The tree blazed with a hundred electric lights, in small bulbs safely nestling amid its green needles and its shining ornaments. Beth had not realized when she was helping trim it how glorious it would be. Its slender top reached high up into the vaulted ceiling. An angel, poised above it, seemed to have called it up into being with his outstretched hands.

“Mrs. Santa Claus” and her train went back toward the organ. At a word from her the organist began to play “Come hither, ye faithful.” Then the orchestra and organ repeated it, and Mrs. Santa Claus called: “Sing, children, sing for Christmas!”

At first few sang besides her own children and the servants, but soon those of the poor children who could sing and who knew the hymn--and they were many--joined, till at the last stanza there was a fine volume of song, though words were largely lacking. One after another Mrs. Santa Claus called for the best, the dearest of the Christmas hymns and the children sang them, getting intoxicated with the sound of their own voices blending with the orchestra.

“Hark!” cried Mrs. Santa Claus as the last note of “Silent Night, Holy Night” died away. Stillness fell upon the room. “I hear bells!” cried Mrs. Santa Claus. “It must be that my husband, Santa Claus, is coming!”

Sure enough. Faint, but clear, came the sound of sleigh-bells, then it grew louder, was near! With a bound and a boisterous “Hurrah!” into the room burst Santa Claus himself!

“Three cheers for Santa Claus!” cried Mr. Leonard, and led the cheers which nearly took the roof off, for this part of the programme suited the guests.

“Hallo, kids!” cried Santa Claus. He was a noble personage, all in red velvet, whitened with snow, icicles hanging from his fur-trimmed cap, toys bulging from his boots and many pockets. “Any boy here got a horn?”

Not a boy had, but Santa Claus had foreseen the lack and had come provided.

“How can you make a lot of noise without horns?” he asked.

Turning to a great hamper that had been brought in behind him, he pulled out no end of horns and summoned half a dozen boys to distribute them.

“Oh, may as well give ’em to the girls, too,” Santa Claus chuckled. “They aren’t always so fond of being quiet, either!

“Now,” announced Santa Claus, “I’m going to give out a present or two I’ve brought for some of you. Each one of you has to stand up and take what I send you. And after each present is given, blow your horns, every one of you, and make a Merry Christmas of it!”

“Oh, Jim, it will deafen us!” murmured Mrs. Santa Claus, who in real life, also, was this gentleman’s wife.

“Nonsense, Alida; the kids won’t have a good time unless they turn loose some sort of a hullabaloo!” Santa Claus whispered back. “We’ve got to stand it. Come, Snow White, it is your party. You go with me giving out presents.”

Beth looked frightened. “Not unless the others go too,” she said.

So Natalie, Alys, Dirk and Beth began the little pilgrimage around the room, distributing presents. There was a carefully prepared list of names and a package for each one which held the useful, warm things that each particular child most needed--Anna Mary had found out what these were--and with them were toys, candies, nuts, fruit in abundance. As each name was called and “Snow White” put into each pair of red, roughened hands the gift that they were to carry away, a fearful blast of tin horns arose, quite ear-splitting and unbearable, but which, after a few repetitions, wrought the children into a frenzy of joy and effectually broke up the last remnant of awkwardness.

It took a long time to give out the presents; Santa Claus beckoned one or two of his friends, who stood laughing, covering their ears, yet enjoying the scene immensely, to help Mr. Leonard and himself with the task.

At last it was done and in the lull that followed Dirk and his boy friends trundled into the room four great freezers of ice-cream, set on flat wagons and decorated with Christmas greens. Then several of the Cortlandt servants, who had left the room, returned, carrying baskets of dishes and spoons, and trays heaped with cakes, iced in many colors.

“Well, what d’ye know about dat!” cried a small person, newsboy by profession, with such deep emotion in his voice that the entire roomful, great and small, shouted and the speaker tried to crawl out of sight on the floor, to which he immediately dove, but was fished up and set back on his chair by a relentless sister, a year his elder.

There was enough ice-cream for every one to have two big helpings and cake for each one to eat his fill. If the children did not recognize their treat as furnished by a famous caterer, they did know that “it wa’n’t no slouch ice-cream,” as one child said, but decidedly superior to that sold from the tail of pushcarts in their own neighborhood.

“Now, children dear, our Christmas tree has dropped all its fruits for you. There isn’t anything more for us to do but to say good-night, because you have far to go, many of you. Did you have a good time?” asked Mrs. Santa Claus of the entire roomful.

“Yes, ma’am!” “You bet!” “Sure thing!” came back her answer in various forms, but with one clear meaning.

Suddenly a big boy got on his feet, pushed up decidedly by many hands. He looked red and miserable, but he stuck to his guns.

“Dey want I should give you t’anks, all of yous. It was great, biggest ever. An’ we hopes yous all will git de best what’s comin’ any place. An’ we wishes yous de biggest luck nex’ year. Much obliged.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Santa Claus. “It is we who are much obliged to you for coming!”

Whereupon the orchestra played the gayest airs it could and the guests reluctantly filed out of the beautiful room, turning back again and again to look at the tree, shining in its Christmas green, pointing upward. It told the children, if they had been wise enough to understand it, that the spirit of Christmas is from above and that it makes unfading spring time in a frozen world.

“Take off your costumes, children. Dinner will soon be served, though I don’t see how we can any of us eat it! I’m deafened and worn out with that riotous celebration--but it was beautiful! Your party was a success, Bethie!” said Mrs. Cortlandt.

“_My_ party!” echoed Beth significantly.

The children laid aside their costumes, not without regret, and appeared in their proper persons at dinner. Half a dozen of Mr. and Mrs. Cortlandt’s friends remained to dine and Natalie and Alys were allowed to ask a girl apiece.

After dinner they went back to the music room. Once more the great tree was illumined; the servants were called in. The Cortlandts distributed presents to their household, while the orchestra, which had been retained, played softly and a sense of peace, of profound peaceful joy, seemed to descend upon them, after the late hubbub. But it was the peace of the memory of that earlier good time and that they had given more than half a hundred children the Merry Christmas that otherwise they could not have known.

Beth found herself snowed under with white parcels, tied with the Christmas colors. As gift after gift came into her overflowing little hands, she grew pale with excitement and sat down on the floor with them all in her lap, too burdened with emotion and too many gifts to stand up. Here she opened boxes and saw in a dazed way a little watch, such a ring as she had coveted hopelessly, books, pins, trinkets of all sorts, and at last even the perfect doll which she had said that she would like if she were not too big to play with it. And she knew the moment she saw it that it was so lovely that in some way she should shrink to the proper size to play with it.

All the rest were getting presents, the servants, too. Beth felt that no one could describe this sort of Christmas so that a person who had not seen it could realize it. She foresaw herself trying to describe it to Aunt Rebecca and Janie, and failing.

When the other packages were opened and examined Beth slyly opened one that had come to her from Aunt Rebecca. It was with doubt she opened it, fearing it might be something that her cousins would find droll. But it was a miniature, a beautiful painted miniature that she had never seen before. Aunt Rebecca had put a card in its case and on the card was written in her fine, old-fashioned hand: “This is your mother’s picture. I hope you will have a pleasant Christmas and be a good girl.”

Beth quickly closed the miniature case and hid it in her frock. She did not want to show it to her mother’s family then; another time, when there was less excitement, she would show it to Uncle Jim and ask him if it were like his sister.

“Each one must do something to entertain us,” announced Aunt Alida, when the gifts had received full attention.

The Cortlandts were accustomed to this. Uncle Jim sang a song and did some clever imitations. Aunt Alida also sang--she sang beautifully--and she and Natalie danced a curious folk dance that Beth thought was wonderful.

Alys recited; she had a dramatic gift. Dirk “did stunts,” as he put it, fenced with Mr. Leonard, and showed his own athletic powers in solo.

“Bethie, we can’t let you off,” said Aunt Alida. “Please, dear! What can you do? Sing? Recite? You aren’t too tired?” For Beth was looking pale from her many emotions of the evening.

“No, Aunt Alida, but I don’t do anything nice,” said Beth mournfully.

“Recite something you have learned in school, honey,” suggested Aunt Alida.

“I don’t know anything for Christmas, except the second chapter of St. Matthew. I learned that by heart,” said Beth timidly.

“There could be nothing better, darling,” said Aunt Alida. “Please tell us that story, Bethie.”

So Beth arose, pale and frightened, and began that simple gospel. Her voice gained strength as she went on, forgetting herself, remembering it was Christmas eve and carried away by what she was saying.

“That was best of all. It was like a benediction on our Christmas festival,” said Aunt Alida kissing her as she ended.