Silas Weir Mitchell - Mr. Kris Kringle: A Christmas Tale

A Silent Group About the Hearth.

SEVENTH THOUSAND.

Copyright, 1893,
BY S. WEIR MITCHELL.

The following little Christmas story was written, and is published for the benefit of the Home of the Merciful Saviour for Crippled Children, Philadelphia.

S. Weir Mitchell.

It was Christmas Eve. The snow had clad the rolling hills in white, as if in preparation for the sacred morrow. The winds, boisterous all day long, at fall of night ceased to roar amidst the naked forest, and now, the silent industry of the falling flakes made of pine and spruce tall white tents. At last, as the darkness grew, a deepening stillness came on hill and valley, and all nature seemed to wait expectant of the coming of the Christmas time.

Above the broad river a long, gray stone house lay quiet; its vine and roof heavy with the softly-falling snow, and showing no sign of light or life except in a feeble, red glow through the Venetian blinds of the many windows of one large room. Within, a huge fire of mighty logs lit up with distinctness only the middle space, and fell with variable illumination on a silent group about the hearth.

On one side a mother sat with her cheek upon her hand, her elbow on the table, gazing steadily into the fire; on the other side were two children, a girl and a boy; he on a cushion, she in a low chair. Some half-felt sadness repressed for these little ones the usual gay Christmas humor of the hopeful hour, commonly so full for them of that anticipative joy to which life brings shadowy sadness as the years run on.

Now and then the boy looked across the room, pleased when the leaping flames sent flaring over floor and wall long shadows from the tall brass andirons or claw-footed chair and table. Sometimes he glanced shyly at the mother, but getting no answering smile kept silence. Once or twice the girl whispered a word to him, as the logs fell and a sheet of flame from the hickory and the quick-burning birch set free the stored-up sunshine of many a summer day. A moment later, the girl caught the boy's arm.

"Oh! hear the ice, Hugh," she cried, for mysterious noises came up from the river and died away.

"Yes, it is the ice, dear," said the mother. "I like to hear it." As she spoke she struck a match and lit two candles which stood on the table beside her.

For a few minutes as she stood her gaze wandered along the walls over the portraits of men and women once famous in Colonial days. The great china bowls, set high for safety on top of the book-cases, tankards, and tall candelabra troubled her with memories of more prosperous times. Whatever emotions these relics of departed pride and joy excited, they left neither on brow nor on cheek the unrelenting signals of life's disasters. A glance distinctly tender and distinctly proud made sweet her face for a moment as she turned to look upon the children.

The little fellow on the cushion at her feet looked up.

"Mamma, we do want to know why Christmas comes only once a year?"

"Hush, dear, I cannot talk to you now; not to-night; not at all, to-night."

"But was not Christ always born?" he persisted.

"Yes, yes," she replied. "But I cannot talk to you now. Be quiet a little while. I have something to do," and so saying, she drew to her side a basket of old letters.

The children remained silent, or made little signs to one another as they watched the fire. Meanwhile the mother considered the papers, now with a gleam of anger in her eyes, as she read, and now with a momentary blur of tear-dimmed vision. Most of the letters she threw at once on the fire. They writhed a moment like living creatures, and of a sudden blazed out as if tormented into sudden confession of the passions of years gone by; then they fell away to black unmemoried things, curling crumpled in the heat.

The children saw them burn with simple interest in each new conflagration. Something in the mother's ways quieted them, and they became intuitively conscious of sadness in the hour and the task. At last the boy grew uneasy at the long repose of tongue.

"O Alice! see the red sparks going about," he said, looking at the wandering points of light in the blackening scrolls of shrivelled paper.

"Nurse says those are people going to church," said his sister, authoritatively.

Her mother looked up, smiling. "Ah, that is what they used to tell me when I was little."

"They're fire-flies," said the boy, "like in a vewy dark night." Now and then his r's troubled him a little, and conscious of his difficulty, he spoke at times with oddly serious deliberation.

"You really must be quiet," said the mother. "Now, do keep still, or you will have to go to bed," and so saying she turned anew to the basket.

Presently the girl exclaimed, "Why do you burn the letters?" She had some of her mother's persistency, and was not readily controlled. This time the mother made no reply. A sharp spasm of pain went over her features. Looking into the fire, as if altogether unconscious of the quick spies at her side, she said aloud, "Oh! I can no more! Let them wait. What a fool I was. What a fool!" and abruptly pushed the basket aside.

The little fellow leaped up and cast his arms about her while his long, yellow hair fell on her neck and shoulder. "O Mamma!" he cried, "don't read any more. Let me burn them. I hate them to hurt you."

She smiled on him through tearsrare things for her. "Every one must bear his own troubles, Hugh. You couldn't help me. You couldn't know, dear, what to burn."

"But I know," said the girl, decisively. "I know. I had a letter once; but Hugh never had a letter. I wish Kris Kringle would take them away this very, very night; and lessons, too, I do. What will he bring us for Christmas, mamma? I know what. I want"

"A Kris Kringle to take away troubles would suit me well, Alice; I could hang up a big stocking."

"And I know what I want," said the boy. "Nurse says Kris has no money this Christmas. I don't care." But the great blue eyes filled as he spoke.

The mother rose. "There will be no presents this year, Hugh. Onlyonly more love from me, from one another; and you must be brave and help me, because you know this is not the worst of it. We are to go away next week, and must live in the town. You see, dears, it can't be helped."