By C.C. Gaylord
“It would have to rain,” sighed Helen. “I did so want to go out today. It seems it always rains on a Saturday just because school is out.”
“There are lots of games to play indoors,” said Sarah cheerfully from the alcove where she was knitting in red worsted.
“Oh, I don’t want to go out to play,” said Helen, a trifle pettishly; “I wanted to begin my Christmas shopping.”
“Why, there are still three weeks left until Christmas!” said Sarah.
“Yes, but if I don’t hurry all the new, nice things will be gone.”
“And if I don’t begin soon I won’t have time to get presents for everyone,” put in Frances who had been reading up to that point.
“But you haven’t very many people to get presents for,” said Sarah, slightly puzzled; “Just your mother and father and Albert and each other.” Sarah was Frances and Helen’s cousin and was staying for the holidays. She could not imagine that it could take much time to shop for only four people. She had ten brothers and sisters to find presents for!
“Oh, I always give presents to all my friends and the girls at school—the ones who gave me presents last year, anyway,” said Frances.
“Do you only give them presents because they gave you some last year?” asked Sarah with a mischievous grin.
“Well,” said Frances a little uncomfortably, “It’s too much trouble to get a present for everybody, but I feel as if I had to give something to those who gave me presents. It doesn’t seem very nice not to.”
“Yes,” said Helen, “That’s just the way it is with me.”
“But why give them anything if you don’t want to?” asked Sarah. “Presents shouldn’t be a trouble.”
“Well I don’t know, but I do,” said Frances, who was always honest.
“Don’t you give presents to your friends at Christmas?” asked Helen.
“We give cakes and Christmas cookies to the neighbours,” said Sarah. “That’s all.”
“Things must be very different in the country,” said Helen.
“But how do you get presents for all your brothers and sisters?” asked Frances. “I should think that would be a large task.”
“I make their presents,” said Sarah.
“Doesn’t it take a long time?”
“Oh yes, but I work on them all year long and keep them in the bureau drawer that locks. I have only John and Hannah and Katie left to make presents for,” and Sarah held up the red mitten she was knitting.
“It is so dull, I wish there were something to do,” said Helen, turning listlessly to the window.
“Why shouldn’t we go out?” asked Sarah, hopping up. “Never mind the rain; we can take an umbrella.”
“I hate going out in the rain,” Helen objected. “And I just got new shoes and the wet will ruin them.”
“Nonsense,” said Frances, “we’re supposed to be amusing Sarah because she’s company. You can wear your galoshes over your shoes, you know that Mother says you should anyway.”
After some argument Helen was at last persuaded to don the unfashionable articles and the girls set out. They walked down North George Street and across the bridge onto Boling Avenue where the good department stores were located. Sarah had lived in the country all her life and had never been in a shop larger than the local general store. She was astonished by the great size of the places and the brilliant electric lights. One of the stores even had an escalator which frightened Sarah at first, but after she got used to it she delighted in riding it up and down.
It surprised Sarah as well, how easily Helen and Frances spent their pocket money. There was never much money at the country cousins’ house and nearly every present they had ever had was handmade. The city cousins thought handmade articles cheap and not at all good presents for they measured an item’s worth by the price label.
“What do you think of this for Mama?” asked Frances, holding up a silk piano scarf.
“Doesn’t she already have a scarf on her piano?” asked Sarah.
“Oh, that one is a year old; she got it last Christmas. Anyway, I can’t think of anything else to get her.”
“Oh, how pretty!” exclaimed Sarah, picking up a lacy breakfast cap. She was wondering how she might crochet one like it.
“You’d look like an old grandmother in that,” said Helen; “this is much better,” throwing a peacock blue sateen wrapper embellished with yellow and fuchsia flowers over Sarah’s shoulders. “It’s just the thing! It suits you so well, Sarah, don’t you think so?”
“It’s rather bright,” said Sarah uncertainly.
“I think it’s pretty. I’m going to buy it for your Christmas present.”
Sarah was shocked. “Isn’t it supposed to be a surprise?” she asked, for Christmas presents were carefully guarded secrets at her house.
“Oh yes, but I always like to know what I’m getting ahead of time,” said Helen. “Don’t you?”
“Oh no, the surprise is half the fun.”
“I suppose I would like to be surprised if I got a good present,” said Helen, “but I’m always disappointed on Christmas. I never get anything I really want.”
“What do you want?” asked Sarah.
“A fur cape. Seal or otter skin would be nice, just so it’s pretty and expensive-looking. I’ve never had a real fur—only the kind that lines coats—and Nancy Howe gets a new fur every year.”
“I’d like a fur muff with a chain,” said Frances. “I don’t think it’s fair that we never get what we want and some girls get everything they ask for.”
“But those things are awfully expensive, you know,” said Sarah, whose coats were of wool, generally second hand, and never bore any kind of lining at all, otterskin or otherwise.
“Well, Albert got a camera last Christmas, and that was expensive,” Frances defended. “I think it should be our turn this year.”
“Just what I think,” said Helen, “But I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell Papa so. Anyway, we’d better pay and go home: it’s nearly supper time.”
When it came time to pay, however, it was discovered that Helen’s pocket money was exhausted after the first three items, so the sateen wrapper was laid aside to Sarah’s secret relief.
At home the girls spread their acquisitions out on Helen’s bed. There was quite an array.
“There; I’ve presents for Mama and Papa, anyway,” said Helen. “I haven’t the least idea what to buy for Albert, though. He never wears the necktie I gave him for his birthday, so I suppose he doesn’t like it.”
“Get him something ridiculous,” said Frances. “He’s always getting us silly things. Last year he gave me a rubber pencil. It fooled Father, for I saw him pick it up later and try to write with it!”
Sarah laughed until the other two had to join her.
“That reminds me of the Christmas we all got laughs for our presents,” she said.
“How did you get laughs?” asked Helen.
“Well, you see, it was when I was small and Mother and Father were very poor. When Christmas came they told us that we mustn’t expect any presents because there was no money. Of course, we were very disappointed and I cried after I’d gone to bed, for it is hard not to have any Christmas when you look forward to it all year. Well, the next morning we went downstairs and to our surprise we found several brown paper parcels tied up with Mother’s yarn, and what do you think was inside them?”
“What was?” asked Frances.
“Only pieces of paper,” said Sarah. “John’s said ‘a sled with steel runners’. How we laughed! That was just what he had wanted, you see. Katie’s said ‘red button boots’, because she’d wanted a pair ever since she saw them in the general store. Tom was the baby then and his paper said ‘candy stick’. He didn’t understand, of course, but he liked to tear up the paper and he even put it in his mouth as if it was a candy stick! My paper said ‘china doll with curls’ and I laughed and laughed because that was what I had wanted more than anything.”
“How could you laugh?” asked Helen. “I would have cried.”
“Well, I wanted to,” said Sarah, “but I knew I must either laugh or cry and laughing is much cheerfuller.
Besides, Mother and Father had done their best to make our Christmas happy and we wanted to make them happy as well.”
The cousins were quiet after Sarah had finished her tale. It sounded like such a different Christmas from the ones they had. They could not imagine laughing over such presents.
An invitation delivered a moment later brought them back to themselves.
“The Howes have invited us to their Christmas Eve party!” Helen exclaimed. “And they’ve included you, Sarah; how nice of them! Just wait until you see their Christmas tree; it’s the biggest you ever saw!”
Oh, I can’t go!” said Sarah. “—Not if it’s on Christmas Eve! I’m going home before then.”
“But I wanted you to spend Christmas with us,” said Frances. “We planned on it. It won’t be half as nice without you.”
“And you must stay for the Howes’s party,” put in Helen. “You’ve never even been to a real party and the Howes have one of the nicest in town.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sarah, “I really should like to spend Christmas with you, but I couldn’t be away from home on Christmas Day.” Frances and Helen pleaded, but Sarah would not be persuaded. Not even their glowing descriptions of the Howes’s beautiful parties could move her to change her mind. They were expecting her at home, she said, and the family was always together on Christmas Day, no matter what. Even grown-up Katie, who was married and lived in the next county, came home on Christmas Day.
Frances and Helen were quite disappointed. They often stayed at friends’ houses for the Christmas holidays and did not understand why it was so important to Sarah that she spend Christmas with her family. As hard as they entreated, they could get no more from her than a promise that she would stay as long as she could.
The two weeks after this were full of busy preparation on the part of Helen and Frances. The rushing they did between shops would have made you dizzy. Sarah was generally taken along that her advice might be asked in the event of a disagreement and because (and this was the main reason) she was company and must be amused and it was far better to amuse her by making her do what they wanted to do anyway. Sarah still found time somehow to work on her handmade Christmas presents and one afternoon slipped out to buy her two cousins’ presents while they were out at a friend’s party to which, by some oversight, she had not been invited.
Helen and Frances came into their room later that afternoon so tired that they did not notice Sarah slipping sundry parcels into her travelling trunk.
“Albert just got in, and I wish he would stay at college another week,” said Frances disagreeably.
“Why?” asked Sarah in surprise, for she liked her grown-up cousin.
“You will know why in a few days. He is such a tease! He laughs at everything you do or say—especially if you are trying to be serious.” Frances was the youngest and so was teased the most.
“John used to tease me,” said Sarah. “I suppose all boys do it.”
“I wish they wouldn’t. I hate boys.”
“Oh, I don’t. They are lots of fun when they behave themselves.”
“But they never do,” said Helen. “At least Albert never does. He leaves his coat and hat about all the time. I should think he would be old enough to know better.”
“Oh, all men are like that,” said Sarah wisely. “You just have to get used to it. Someday you will marry one, you know, and then you’ll have to learn to get along with them.”
“I won’t marry one who doesn’t pick up after himself,” said Frances.
“That’s what women are for—to pick up after men. What would they do without us to look after them? There are ways to manage them, though. I make John something good to eat to put him in a good humour.”
“I don’t know how to cook,” said Frances.
“Don’t you?” asked Sarah in surprise. “Why, everybody ought to know how to cook.”
Just then a servant appeared and announced Miss Howe.
“Nancy Howe!” exclaimed Helen, “why weren’t you at the party today?”
“Mother and I went out shopping,” said Nancy, sitting down on the bed. “You ought to see the things we bought to decorate the house for the party.”
“You lucky thing,” said Helen enviously. “Won’t you have fun!”
“That’s why I ran over. Mother said I might invite some friends to help decorate on the day of the party and I want you and Frances and Sarah to come.”
Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but Helen stopped her.
“You mustn’t say no, Sarah. It’s too good a chance to miss.”
“Oh yes, you simply must come,” said Nancy. “I am only inviting a few girls, so it’s very select, and we will have a tea in the afternoon so it will be almost like another party.”
“You can leave on the six o’clock train and still get home by eight,” said Frances.
Sarah was at first inclined to say no, but her friends’ entreaties eventually persuaded her.
“I will if Mother and Father don’t mind,” she said.
They being applied to by letter and replying in the affirmative (although declaring that everybody at home missed Sarah dreadfully), it was all settled and Sarah, who also missed those at home, resigned herself to another week at the city cousins’.
That week passed quickly and it was Christmas Eve. The Howe’s immense house seemed to the girls to be enchanted that afternoon, for Mrs. Howe had thoughtfully arranged for the bulk of the decorating to fall to them and Nancy consulted their taste on nearly everything. What a time they had! Sarah had never seen such riches or luxury. There seemed to be no end to the boxes of bright glass baubles, paste fruits, wooden figures, paper cornucopias full of candy and yards and yards of evergreen garlands for decorating the mansion and the enormous Christmas tree.
At half-past five Sarah tore herself away and returned home through the darkening streets. She had meant to wrap up her cousins’ presents earlier in the day but had not had time, so, going up to her room, she took them one by one out of the trunk and spread them out on the bed.
But something was not right. Somehow, grand as they had seemed in the shop, the articles had lost much of their splendour when compared to the Howe’s riches.
“The others at home would think them perfectly elegant, but I don’t think Helen and Frances would think much of them at all,” Sarah said to herself. “I wish I could give them something they really want.”
As she thought of her cousins’ extravagant wishes, suddenly an idea came to her. For several minutes she snipped and pasted in silence, and then quietly took up three parcels and put them beneath the cousins’ Christmas tree.
There was nobody to go with her to the station save Cousin Albert, but he cheerfully took the task upon himself, remembering certain baking excursions of Sarah’s carried out in the last week in which, besides teaching his sisters to cook, she had made delicious cookies and candies almost expressly for his consumption.
“Merry Christmas, Sal!” he called out as the train pulled away from the station.
It was nice, Sarah thought, to have one cheerful face nodding to her from the platform, for no one else had come to see her off.
In a few hours she was at her own familiar station and there was Pa with the wagon—no more cabs, thank goodness! He caught her right up off her feet and set her up on the seat. Then there was the long ride home while Sarah told him all about her visit, and when they reached the house, late though it was, everyone was still up to welcome her. The kitchen was full of wonderful smells, and the little ones caught hold of her and took her to see the Christmas tree. Then each one hung his stocking at the foot of his bed and fell asleep waiting for Saint Nicholas to come.
Frances and Helen got home at nearly midnight and went directly to bed without hanging their stockings, for Frances had outgrown Saint Nicholas three years ago when she was ten. They missed Sarah then, for they liked to tell stories under the covers and Sarah always told the best ones. But they were too tired to think much about it or to wonder if Sarah had got home all right.
The next morning was an exciting one for the country cousins. They were all out of bed by six o’clock and hurried through breakfast and chores so that they might begin the festivities.
Things were much more leisurely at the city cousin’s house. The girls were up at eight and Albert and Mother at half-past, but Father stayed in bed until they made him get up at nine. Then they had a very large breakfast which, since it was only once a year, made them all sick, and afterwards came the present opening. This was always rather a tedious affair as each Christmas there seemed to be too many presents for only five people.
In the middle of it all came a surprised whistle from Albert.
“What is it?” asked Frances, crawling through a sea of paper to look.
Albert tossed her a box. Inside was a grey knitted cap and pinned to it was a paper that read, “felt bowler”.
“Sarah!” cried Frances, as Helen read the tag over her shoulder. “She made it! But I thought she was going to give you that blotter. I saw her paying for it.”
“I wonder what she’s given us,” said Helen and she and Frances dove among the parcels for the ones marked in Sarah’s neat writing.
“Look here,” cried Helen after a minute. “It’s a muffler and it says ‘sealskin cape’!”
“And I’ve got my muff with a gold chain,” said Frances, holding up a pair of red mittens. “Isn’t she funny? And I was only joking about the muff too. I didn’t really want one so very much. I wonder what she’s given Katie and Hannah and John if she’s given us their presents.”
“I suppose she gave them ours,” said Helen. “Oh look!”
For Albert was trying on his new “bowler” in front of the mirror and examining himself from an angle.
“How do you do, madam?” he asked his mother, airily doffing his cap, while Helen and Frances rolled over in giggles.
“You ridiculous boy!” said his mother, “wherever did you get that?”
“Yes, I really do think my hatter the finest in the city; it’s so ‘posh’, don’t you think?”
“Oh dear!” laughed Helen; “I shall never be able to keep a straight face when I see that hat!”
“Wasn’t it clever of her?” asked Frances. “What jolly times the cousins must have at Christmas!”
“We could have jolly times too, I should think, if we only tried to make each other happy and didn’t think about ourselves so much,” said Helen, sobering. “We ought to have made it nicer for Sarah when she was here. How much fun she’s given us with just a few simple things. I’m not sure why, but they seem to mean more than our nice, expensive ones.”
“It’s because she meant them, that’s why,” said Frances. “She didn’t just give them because she felt as if she had to. Next year let’s coax Mother and Father to let us go to the country for Christmas.”
“Yes, and I’m going to ask Sarah to teach me how to knit. I’m so useless. Half my time seems to be spent doing nothing.”
“I’d like to learn too. I think I spend too much time reading and I would like to make pretty things instead of always buying them.”
So Sarah’s simple little gifts brought an even greater effect that Christmas than she had imagined: two idle girls were inspired to be more useful and selfless beings, shedding comfort and happiness around them, by the industrious, womanly example of their cousin.
THE END
