"Here!" he cried. "You tell her I ain't feelin' real well, and I've got to get home. Tell her – tell her my name's Santy Claus, and my address is the North Pole. And – look here! tell her Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and the same to you! Gitty up, hossy! gitty up!" and laying his whip over the astonished flanks of the brown horse, Calvin Parks fled down the road as if Blücher and the Prussians were after him.
CHAPTER XIII
MERRY CHRISTMAS
"But that ain't the end of the story, Miss Hands!" said Calvin Parks, after telling as much as he thought proper of the foregoing events. "That ain't the end. This mornin' I stopped down along a piece to wish Merry Christmas to Aaron Tarbox's folks, and I left hossy standin' while I ran into the house. I stayed longer than I intended – you know how 'tis when there's children hangin' round – and when I come out, you may call me mate to a mud-scow if there warn't a feller with his head and shoulders clear inside the back of my cart. I can't tell you how, but some way of it, it come over me in a flash who the feller was. I don't know as ever I moved quicker in my life. I had him by the scruff of his neck and the slack of his pants, and out of that and standin' on his head in a snow-drift before he could have winked more than once, certin.
"'Have you got three ones and a two,' I says, 'belongin' to a lady as sits in a cart, 'bout four mile from here? 'cause if you have, and was keepin' them for the owner, I'll save you the trouble,' I says. He couldn't answer real well, his head bein' in the drift, so I went through his pockets, and sure enough there they was, three ones and a two, just as she said."
"My goodness!" cried Mary Sands. "What did you do?"
"Well, I give him his Christmas present, a good solid one, that'll last him a sight longer than the money would have, and then I hove him back into the drift to cool off a spell, – he was some warm, and so was I, – and come along. So now I've got the money, and that lady can rest easy in her mind; only I've got to let her know. Now, Miss Hands, I'm no kind of a hand at writin' letters; I've been studyin' all the way along the ro'd how to tell that lady that she ain't owin' me a cent; and I don't know as I've hit it off real good."
He felt in his pockets, and produced a scrap of paper; with an anxious eye on Mary Sands, he read aloud as follows.
"Dear Ma'am; – I got that money and give the feller one instead, so no more and received payment from yours respy C. Parks."
"How's that, Miss Hands? Will it do, think?"
Mary's eyes twinkled. "It's short and sweet, Mr. Parks," she said; "it tells the story, certin, though I don't doubt but she'd be pleased to hear more from you."
"That's all I've got to say!" said Calvin simply; "I'm glad to get it off my mind. How's the boys this morning?"
"That's why I made an errand out here before you went into the house!" said Mary Sands.
They were sitting in the harness-room, she in the chair, he on the bucket. There was a fire in the stove, and the place was full of the pleasant smell of warm leather. Their speech was punctuated by the stamping and neighing of the brown horse, the young colt, the old horse of all, the mare, and Old John, in the stable adjoining.
Mary Sands' hazel eyes were full of a half-humorous anxiety.
"I wanted to talk to you a little about Cousins!" she said. "They've been actin' real strange the past week, ever since you was here last. Honest, I don't believe they've thought of one single thing besides each other. Werryin' and frettin' and watchin' – I'm 'most worn out with 'em. There! if it warn't so comical I should cry, and if it warn't so pitiful I should laugh. That's just the way I feel about it, Mr. Parks."
"Sho!" said Calvin sympathetically. "I don't wonder at it, Miss Hands, not a mite. They haven't got round to speakin' to each other yet, I s'pose?"
Mary shook her head. "No!" she said. "They want to, I'm sure of that, but yet neither one of 'em will speak first. Such foolishness I never did see. Now take yesterday! Cousin Sam went to town, and Cousin Sim werried every single minute he was gone. The mare was skittish, and the harness might break, and he might meet the cars, and I don't know what all. If he called me off my work once he did a dozen times, till I thought I should fly. By the time Cousin Sam got back he was all worn out, and soon as he heard him safe in the house he dropped off asleep in his chair. Well! then 'twas all to do over again with Cousin Sam. How had Simeon been, and what had he been doin' while he was gone, and didn't I think he had a bad color at breakfast? Then Cousin Sim begun to snore, and Cousin Sam would have it that 'twarn't natural snorin', and he must be in a catamouse condition."
"What did he mean by that?" asked Calvin.
"That's what he said!" Mary replied. "It's a medical term, but I don't know as he got it just right. It means sleepin' kind of heavy and unhealthy, I understand. 'Well,' I says, 'Cousin Sam, just you step here and look at Cousin Sim!' So he did, and see him sound asleep with his mouth open, lookin' peaceful as a fish. He stood and looked at him a spell, and I see his mouth begin to work. 'There's nothin' catamouse about that sleep, Cousin!' I says. 'There couldn't a baby sleep easier than what he is.' He shakes his head mournful. 'Simeon's aged terrible since Ma went,' he says. He stood there lookin' at him a spell longer, and then he give a kind of groan and went back to his own chair.
"Now, Mr. Parks, it's time this foolishness was put a stop to."
"That's right!" said Calvin Parks. "That's so, Miss Hands. I believe you've got a plan to stop it, too."
"I have!" said Mary Sands. "I've been studyin' it out while I was settin' here waitin' for you. This is Christmas Day, Mr. Parks; and if you'll help me, I believe we can bring it about to-day. Will you?"
"Will I?" said Calvin Parks. "Will a dog bark?"
"Merry Christmas, Sam!" said Calvin Parks.
"Same to you, Calvin, same to you!" said Mr. Sam. "Come in! come in! Shet the door after you, will ye?"
Calvin shut the door into the entry. Mr. Sam glanced about him uneasily.
"You might shet the other too, if you don't mind!" he said. "Thank ye! Have you seen Simeon this mornin', Calvin?"
"Not yet," said Calvin. "I come straight in the front door and in here. What's the matter? Ain't he all right?"
"Simeon is failin'!" replied Mr. Sam. "He's failin' right along, Calvin. I expect this is the last Christmas he'll see on earth. I – I was down street yesterday," he added, after a solemn pause, "and it occurred to me he hadn't had a new pair of slippers for a dog's age. I thought I'd get a pair, and mebbe you'd give 'em to him."
"Mebbe I'd stand on my head!" retorted Calvin. "Give 'em to him yourself, you old catnip!"
"No! no, Calvin! no! no! I'd ruther you would!" said Mr. Sam anxiously. "I'd take it real friendly if you would, sir!"
"Well, we'll see!" said Calvin. "Hello! dressed up for Christmas, be ye?"
Mr. Sam looked down in some embarrassment. His red flannel waistcoat was replaced by a black one.
"We never made so much of Christmas as some," he said; "but yet Ma allers had us dress up for Christmas dinner, and I thought this seemed a mite more dress, you understand, Calvin. What say?"
"Looks first-rate!" said Calvin cheerfully. "You don't look a mite worse than you did before, as I see. Now I guess I'll step in and pass the time of day with Sim."
"Hold on jest a minute!" said Mr. Sam anxiously. "Hold on jest a half a minute, Cal! That ain't all I was wishful to say to you. Have you – I would say – have you approached that subject we was speakin' of a while back, to Cousin?"
"What subject?" said Calvin Parks doggedly.
"Don't be cantankerous, Calvin! now don't!" said Mr. Sam. "It's Christmas Day. The subject of matrimony, you know."
"I have!" said Calvin. "She won't look at him! She wouldn't look at him if the only other man in the world was Job Toothaker's scarecrow, that scared the seeds under ground so they never came up. There's your answer!"
"Dear me sirs!" cried Mr. Sam, wringing his hands. "Dear me sirs! I don't know what's goin' to become of us, Calvin, I reelly don't!"
"Well!" said Calvin; "I guess likely you'll werry through the day, Sam. I know what's goin' to become of me; I'm goin' in to see Sim."
"Take the slippers, won't ye, Calvin?" cried Mr. Sam. "Tell him to wear 'em and save his boots. He's allers ben terrible hard on shoe-leather, Simeon has."
Calvin took the slippers with a grunt, and went into the next room, closing the door after him.
"Merry Christmas!" he cried. "How are you, Sim?"
"I'm obliged to you, Calvin; I am slim!" replied Mr. Sim. "I am unusual slim, sir. Take a seat, won't you?"
"I said Merry Christmas!" Calvin remarked gruffly. "Can't you speak up in the way of the season? Come, buck up, old timothy-grass! Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas!" echoed Mr. Sim meekly; "though if your laigs was as bad as mine, Calvin, you might think different. If I get through this winter – what you got there?"
"Slippers!" said Calvin. "Christmas present from Sam. Wants you to wear 'em and save shoe-leather."
"The failin's of Sam'l's mind," said Mr. Sim gravely, "are growin' on him ekal to those of his body. Shoe-leather! when I ain't stepped foot outside the door since Ma died. But they are handsome, certin; you may thank him for me, Calvin."
"May!" said Calvin. "That's a sweet privilege, no two ways about that. Hello! what in Tunkett – " he stopped, abruptly, staring. "Splice my halyards if you haven't got a red one!" Mr. Sim glanced down with shy pride at his waistcoat.
"Christmas Day, you know, Calvin!" he said. "We allers made some little change in our dress, sir, for Christmas dinner. I thought 'twould please Ma, and Cousin, and – and the other one, too!" he added, with a furtive glance toward the door.
"Well, I am blowed!" said Calvin Parks plaintively. "I certinly am this time. You boys is too much for me."
Mr. Sim coughed modestly, and cast another coy glance at the red waistcoat. "How is poor Sam'l this mornin', Calvin?" he asked mournfully. "Do you find him changed much of any?"
"I do not!" said Calvin. "He's just about as handsome, and just about as takin' as he was last time, fur as I see."
"Ah!" sighed Mr. Sim. "You don't see below the surface, Cal."
"Nor don't wish to!" retorted Calvin. "That's quite sufficient for me."
"I've got the feelin' in my bones," Mr. Sim went on, "that somethin' is goin' to happen to Sam'l, Calvin. He's that reckless, sir, I look 'most any day to see him brought home a mangled remain. Call it a warnin', or what you will, I believe it's comin'. I hear him cuttin' round them corners, and reshin' in and out the yard with them wild hosses, – "
"Wild hosses!" repeated Calvin Parks. "Sim Sill, you feel in your pants pocket, won't you, and see if you can't scare up some wits, just a mite. Old John is thirty if he's a day, and the old hoss of all – well, nobody knows how old he is, beyond that he'll never see forty again. The mare has been here ever since I can remember, or pretty nigh, and your Ma bought the young colt before ever I went to sea. Now talk about wild hosses!"
"It ain't their age, Cal, it's their natur'!" responded Mr. Sim with dignity. "That mare, sir, has never ben stiddy, nor yet will she ever so be, in my opinion."
"Well!" said Calvin Parks. "I'll tell him next time he goes to market, tie her to the well-sweep and walk; you don't cal'late his legs would up and run away with him, do ye? Now I'm goin' to help Miss Hands dish up dinner."
"Hold on, Calvin! hold on jest a minute!" cried Mr. Sim anxiously. "I've got a little present I'd like for you to give Sam'l from me, sir. It's – " he got up, shuffled across the room, and opened a cupboard door. "It's something he's allers coveted."
Fumbling in a box, he took out an ancient seal of red carnelian, and rubbed it lovingly on his coat-sleeve.
"Belonged to Uncle Sim Penny," he said. "Ma give it to me, on accounts of me bein' his name-son; I don't know as ever I've used it, or likely to, and Sam'l has always coveted it. You give that to Sam'l, Calvin, will you?"
"Oh molasses!" said Calvin impatiently. "Give it to him yourself, you ridic'lous old object!"
"No! no, Calvin! no, no, sir!" cried Mr. Sim piteously. "We don't speak, you know; we – we've lost the habit of it, and we're too old to ketch holt of it again. You give it to him, Cal, like a good feller! And – and there's another thing, Calvin. Did you have any dealin's with Cousin about what we was speakin' of some time along back, in regards to Sam'l?"
"I did!" said Calvin Parks.
"Well – well, Cal, what did she say?" Mr. Sim leaned forward anxiously. "Was she anyways favorable, sir?"
"She was not!" replied Calvin. "She give me to understand – not in so many words, but that was the sense of it, – that she'd full as soon marry a cucumber-wood pump as him, or you either. So there you have it!"
"Dear me!" cried Mr. Sim; and he wrung his hands with the identical gesture that Mr. Sam had made. "Dear me sirs! what is to become of us, Calvin?"
"Dinner is ready, Cousin Sim!" said Mary Sands, putting her head in at the door. "Cousin Sam, dinner's ready! Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Parks, and pleased to see you!"
CHAPTER XIV
AT LAST!
Mr. Sim shuffled in from one door, Mr. Sam from the other. As each raised his eyes to look at the table, he saw the figure opposite; both stopped short, and the two pairs of little gray eyes glared, one at a black waistcoat, the other at a red.
"Take your seats, Cousins, please!" said Mary Sands, quickly. "Mr. Parks, if you'll set opposite me – that's it! The Lord make us thankful, Cousins and Mr. Parks, this Christmas Day, and mindful of the wants of others, amen! You said you didn't mind carvin', Mr. Parks, so I've give you the turkey."
The four gray eyes, releasing the waistcoat buttons opposite, glanced furtively over the table, and opened wide. Never had the Sill farm seen a Christmas dinner like this. "Ma" had liked a good set-out, but she aimed to be saving, holidays and all days. They always had a turkey, but it was apt to be the smallest hen in the flock, and the rest was to match. But here, – here was the Big Young Gobbler, the pride and glory of the poultry yard, no longer ruffling it in black and red, but shining in rich golden brown, with strings of nut-brown sausages about his portly breast. Here was cranberry sauce, not in a bowl, but moulded in the wheat-sheaf mould, and glowing like the Great Carbuncle. Here was an Alp of potato, a golden mountain of squash, onions glimmering translucent like moonstones, the jewels of the winter feast, celery tossing pale-green plumes – good gracious! celery enough for a hotel, Mr. Sam thought; here beside each plate was a roll – was this bread, Mr. Sim wondered, twisted into a knot and shining "like artificial?" and on each roll a spray of scarlet geranium with its round green leaf. And what —what was that in the middle of the table? The twins forgot the waistcoats; forgot the waste too, forgot even each other, and stared with all their eyes. A castle! a real castle, towers and battlements, moat and drawbridge, all complete, all sparkling in crystal sugar. From the topmost turret a tiny pennon floating; in the gateway a knight on horseback, nearly as large as the pennon, with fairy lance couched. It was the triumph of Mr. Ivory Cheeseman's life.
"You take that to your lady friend," he said, "and say the man as made it wishes her well, and you too, friend Parks, you too!"
Mary Sands was gazing at it with delighted eyes.
"Did you ever, Cousins?" she said. "Now did you ever see anything so handsome as that? It's a Christmas present from Mr. Parks, and it beats any present ever I had in my life. I declare, this is a Christmas, isn't it, Cousins? and look at you both dressed up to the nines, and lookin' real – " she caught Calvin's eye over the turkey, and faltered, – "real nice, I'm sure! And each one of you changin' his vest for Christmas! I'm sure it's real smart of you. Cousin Sim's got on his new slippers, Cousin Sam! Cousin Sim, you see Cousin Sam's got the seal on, and don't it look elegant? Why, I'm just as proud of you both! Now you want to make a good dinner, Mr. Parks and Cousins, or I shall think it isn't good, and I own I've done my best."
"Good!" said Calvin Parks, as he handed a solid ivory slab to Mr. Sim; "if there's a better dinner than this in the State of Maine, the folks wouldn't get over it, I expect. I've seen dinners served from the Roostick down to New Orleans, and I never see the ekal of this for style nor quality."
"I'm sure you are more than kind to say so!" said Mary Sands. "Dear me! times like this, any one thinks of days past and gone, don't they? You must have had real good times Christmas, when you was boys together, Mr. Parks, Cousins and you together."
"Well, I guess!" said Calvin Parks. "Sam, do you rec'lect one time I come over to spend Christmas Day with you when we was little shavers about ten year old, and we left the pig-pen gate open, and the pigs got all over the place? Gorry! do you rec'lect the back door stood open, and nothin' to it but old Marm Sow must projick right into the kitchen where your Ma was gettin' dinner? Haw! haw! do you rec'lect that?"
"He! he!" piped Mr. Sam; "I guess I do! and Ma up and basted her hide with hot gravy! My Juniper, how she hollered!"
Mr. Sim fixed Mary Sands with a glittering eye. "You tell him 'twarn't gravy, 'twas puddin' sauce!" he said.
"Cousin Sam, Cousin Sim says 'twas puddin' sauce!" said Mary Sands cheerfully.
"Think likely 'twas!" said Mr. Sam. "Tell him he's right for once, and put that down on his little slate."
"Then another time," Calvin went on; "another morsel, Miss Hands? just a scrap? can't? now ain't that a sight! I can, just as easy – watch me now! I rec'lect well, that Methody parson was here with his boy. What was his name? Lihu, was it, or 'Liphalet?"
"'Liphalet!" said Mr. Sim, a faint twinkle coming into his dim eyes. "'Liphalet Pinky!"
"'Liphalet Pinky! that's it!" Calvin laid down his knife and fork to slap his thigh. "Jerusalem crickets! how we did play it on that unfort'nate youngster! Miss Hands, you see Sim settin' there, sober as a judge; you'd think he'd been like that all his life now, wouldn't you? You'd never think he'd get an unfort'nate boy into the bucket and h'ist him up and down the well till he was e'enamost scairt to death, would you now?"
"I certin should not!" cried Mary Sands gleefully. "Why, Cousin Sim!"
"And he hollerin' all the time, 'Lemme out! I'll tell Pa on you, and he'll call down the wrath to come! You lemme out!' and then we'd slack on the old sweep and down he'd go again – haw! haw!"
"He! he!" cackled Mr. Sim, rubbing his little withered hands. "I can see the tossel on his cap now, bobbin' up and down, and his little pickéd nose under it – he! he!"
"Ho! ho!" chimed in Mr. Sam suddenly. "And I can see you – I mean, tell him I can see him bobbin' up and down on Ma's knee when she spanked him for it."
"That's too long to say," said Mary Sands placidly; "think likely he heard it, didn't you, Cousin Sim?"
"Tell him he got jest as good!" retorted Mr. Sim.
"Cousin Sam, Cousin Sim says you got it just as good!" said Mary. "Now, Mr. Parks, if you're a mind to carry the turkey out while I bring in the pies – if nobody'll have any more, that is to say!"
"Well!" said Calvin Parks, rising and lifting the huge platter; "if all had eat what I have, there'd be nothin' to carry out, that's all I have to say. After you, Miss Hands!"
He closed the pantry door cautiously after him.
"How do you think it's goin'?" he asked eagerly.
"Splendid!" cried Mary Sands under her breath. "It's goin' splendid! They've looked at each other much as four or five times, and twice they only just stopped in time or they'd have spoke to each other. I saw Cousin Sam catch his breath and fairly choke the words back. Keep right on as you are, Mr. Parks, and we'll have 'em talkin' in another hour, see if we don't!"
The pies – such pies! – had come and gone. With furtive blinks, Mr. Sam had unbuttoned the lower buttons of a black, Mr. Sim of a red waistcoat; they leaned back in their chairs, their sharp little features relaxed, and they stirred their coffee with the air of men at peace with the world.
Calvin Parks bent over his cup with an attentive look.
"Boys," he said pensively, "warn't this your Ma's cup?"
The twins started, and looked at the dark blue cup with gold on the handle.
"It was so!" said Mr. Sam.
"Certin!" said Mr. Sim.
"I thought so!" said Calvin. "Miss Hands, you ought to have this cup by rights; and yet I'm pleased to have it, for I thought a sight of the boys' Ma, and she knowed it. She was always good to me, if she did call me a rover; always good to me she was, from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper. The boys was bigger than me in those days, Miss Hands; I dono as you'd think it now, but so it was. They stopped growin' at the same time; didn't you, boys? Along about fourteen year old, warn't it? You've been just the same height since then, haven't ye?"
"I'm a mite the tallest!" said Mr. Sam, raising his head.
"Tell him it ain't so!" piped Mr. Sim. "Tell him I am!"
"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "I don't believe either one of you has the least idee, reelly. If there was any difference, I should say Sim was just a shade the tallest; how does it look it to you, Miss Hands?"
"I think Cousin Sam is!" replied Mary Sands promptly.
"You don't say!" said Calvin. "Now that's queer! Looks to me – well! I say, let's find out! 'Tis easy done. Come on into the front room, boys, and stand back to back, and I'll measure ye!"
The front room was open in honor of Christmas Day; "Ma's" best parlor, with its cross-stitch embroideries, its mourning pictures, its rigid black horse-hair chairs and sofas. Above the mantelpiece, with its tall vases of waving pampas grass, "Ma" herself gazed down from a portentous gold frame with a quelling glance; "Pa" hung beside her, a meek young man with a feeble smile of apology; one could understand that he had backed out of existence as soon as might be. In one corner stood a tall dim mirror, and before it a little double chair of quaint shape, evidently made for two children.
"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "How did that chair come here? Why, I haven't seen that for forty year. Jerusalem! that takes me back – why, Sim and Sam, it seems only yesterday, the first time ever I set foot in this room, and there sat you two in that little chair gogglin' at me, and your Ma standin' beside you. Say, boys, that kind of takes holt of me! your Ma was a good woman, if she did know her own mind. Well, we're all poor creatur's. Here! you stand back to back in front of the glass, and then I can see – hold your chins up – shoulders back; shoulders back, Sim! don't scrooch down that way; you ain't really a crab, you know – head up, Sam! there! now shut your eyes; any one can stand straighter with their eyes shut; now, – "
A voice spoke from the doorway; a woman's voice, full and clear, with a sharp ring of decision.
"Now you love each other pretty, right away, or I'll take the back of the hairbrush to you both!"
"Ma!" cried the twins; and they fell on their knees beside the little chair.
"I told 'em shut their eyes, and then slipped out!" said Calvin Parks. "They never missed me. Jerusalem! Miss Hands, if you'll excuse the expression, how did you manage it? you got her tone to the life, I tell you."
"I always had the trick of followin' a voice," said Mary Sands modestly. "And I remembered Cousin Lucindy's to Conference, for she used to speak an amazin' deal. Oh! Mr. Parks, listen! do listen to them two poor old creatur's!"
They listened. From the front room came a babble of talk, two voices flowing together in a stream, pauseless, inseparable; so fast the stream flowed, there seemed no time for breathing. But now, as the conspirators listened, dish-cloth in hand and joy in their hearts, the voices ceased for a moment, and then, with one consent, broke out into quavering, squeaking, piping song.
"Old John Twyseed;
Old John Twyseed;
Biled his corn,
As sure's you're born,
And come to borrow my seed.
"Old John Twyseed,
Bought a pound o' rye seed;
Paid a cent,
And warn't content,
But thought 'twas awful high seed.
"Old John Twyseed,
Sold his neighbor dry seed;
Didn't sprout;
Says he 'Git out!
I thought 'twas extry spry seed!'"