Holiday Tales Part 8

In his right hand he carried a rifle, and in his left a bundle, snugly packed and protected from the storm in wrappings of oiled cloth. The strong light, into the circle of which he had so suddenly stepped, blinded him for a moment, while to those who sat staring at him it brought out with vivid distinctiveness every feature of his strong and, save for a certain hardness of expression, handsome face. It was evident that the man, whoever he was and whatever he might be, was under the pressure of some impulse or conviction which had urged him on to the Trapper's cabin and the Trapper's presence. For, no sooner had he closed the door and shaken the snow, with which he was covered, from his garments, than, regardless of those who sat staring in startled interrogation at him, he strode to the head of the table where the Old Trapper sat, and, looking him straight in the face, said:--

"Do you know who I am, John Norton?"

"Sartinly," answered the Trapper, "ye be Shanty Jim, and ye have camped these three year and more at the outlet of Bog Lake."

"Do you know that I am a thief, and a sneak thief at that?" continued the newcomer, speaking with a fierce directness that was startling.

"I've conceited ye was," answered the Trapper, calmly.

"Do you know it, know it to a certainty?" and the words came out of his mouth like the thrust of a knife.

"Yis, I know that ye be a thief, Shanty Jim," replied the Trapper, "know it to a sartinty."

"Do you know that I have stolen skins from you, old man, skins and traps both?" continued the other.

"I laid in ambush for ye once at the falls of Bog River, and I seed ye take an otter from a trap that I sot," replied the Trapper.

"Why didn't you shoot me when I stood skin in hand?" queried the self-confessed thief.

"I can't tell ye," answered the Trapper, "fer my eye was at the sights and my finger on the trigger, and the feelin' of natur' was strong within me to crop one of yer ears then and there, Shanty Jim, but somethin', mayhap the sperit of the Lord, staid my finger, and ye went with yer thievin' in yer hand to yer camp ontetched and onhindered."

"Do you know what brought me to this cabin and to your presence--the presence of the man whose skins and whose traps I have stolen--and made me confess to his face and before these men here that I am a thief and a scoundrel; do you know what brought me here, a miserable cuss that I am and have been for years, John Norton?" And the man's speech was the speech of one who had been educated to use words rightly and was marked with intense, even dramatic, earnestness.

"I can't conceit, onless the sperit of the Lord."

"The spirit of the Lord had nothing to do with it," interrupted the other fiercely. "If there is any such influence at work in this world as the preachers tell of, why has it not prevented me from being a thief? Why did it not prevent me from doing what I did and being what I was in my youth,--me, whose mother was an angel and whose father was a patriarch? No, it was nothing under G.o.d's heavens, old man, but your invitation scrawled with a coal on a bit of birch bark inviting anyone in these woods who needed victuals and clothes and a right spirit to come to your cabin on Christmas day; and had you written nothing else I would not have cared a cuss for it or for you, but you did write something else, and it was this: 'Vagabonds included in this invite.'

"When I read that, old man, my breath left me and I stood and stared at the letters on that bark as a devil might gaze at a pardon signed with the seal manual of the Almighty, for in my hand was a trap that bore the stamp 'J. N.' and the skin of an otter I had taken from the trap. And there I stood, a thief and a scoundrel, with your property in my hands and read your invitation to all the needy in the woods to come to your cabin on Christmas day and that vagabonds were included."

"That meant you, by thunder!" exclaimed Wild Bill.

"Yes, it did mean me," returned Shanty Jim, "and I knew it. Standing there in the snow with the stolen skin and trap in my hand, I realized what I was and what John Norton was and the difference between him and myself and most of the world. I went to the tree to which the bark that bore the blessed letters was nailed; I took it down from the tree; I placed it next my bosom and b.u.t.toned my coat above it and, thus resting upon my heart, I bore it to my shanty."

"It was as good as a Bible to you," said Wild Bill.

"A Bible!" rejoined the man with emphasis. "Better than all Bibles.

Better than churches and preachers, better than formal texts and utterances, for that bit of bark told me of a man here in the woods good enough and big enough to forgive and forget. All that night I sat and gazed at that piece of bark and the writing on it, and as I gazed my heart melted within me. For there it was ever before my eyes--'Vagabonds included in this invite.' 'Vagabonds included in this invite.' And finally the words pa.s.sed into the air, and wherever I looked I saw, 'Vagabonds included in this invite.'"

"Yis, them be the very words I writ," said the Trapper, gravely.

"And I saw more than the words written on the bark, John Norton,"

resumed the man. "For looking at it I saw all my past life and the evil of it and what a scoundrel I had become; my eyes saw with a new sight, and I said, when the sun comes I will rise and go to the man who wrote those words and tell him what they did for me. And here I am, a vagabond who has accepted your invitation to spend Christmas with you, and here in this pack are the skins and the traps I have stolen from you, and I ask your forgiveness and that you will take my hand in proof of it, that I may come to your table feeling that I am a man, and a vagabond no longer."

"Heart and hand be yours now and forever, Shanty Jim," cried the Trapper, joyfully; and, rising from his chair, he met the outstretched hand of the repentant vagabond with his own hearty grasp. "And may the Lord be with ye ever more."

"Amen!" It was Wild Bill, the once drunkard, who said the sweet word of prayer and a.s.sent, and he said it softly. And that murmur of amen and amen went round the great table like the murmur of prayer and of praise. And then it pa.s.sed out and rose up from the cabin, and the air in its joy pa.s.sed it on, and the stars took it up and thrilled it around their vast courses of glorified light, and through the high heavens it sang itself onward from order to order of angels until it reached Him whom no man hath seen or may ever see, in all and over all, G.o.d! blessed forever!

Has Nature knowledge? Is she conscious of the evil and the good among men, and has she a heart that saddens at their sorrow and rejoices in their joy? Perhaps. For, suddenly, even as the two men joined their hands, the fury of the storm checked itself, and a stillness--the stillness of a great calm--fell on the woods, and through the sudden, the unexpected, the blessed stillness, to the ears of one of the two men--yea, to him who had forgiven--there came the melody of bells swinging slowly and softly to and fro.

Oh, bells, invisible bells! Bells of the soul, bells high in heaven, swing softly, swing low, swing sweet, and swing ever for us, one and all, when we at our tables sit feasting. Swing for us living, swing for us dying, and may the cause of your swinging be our forgiving and forgetting.

"John Norton," said the man, "you have called me Shanty Jim, and that is well, for in the woods here that is my name, but in the city where I lived and whence I fled, fled because of my misdeeds, years ago, I have another name, a name of power and wealth and honor for more than two centuries. There I have a home, and in that home to-night sits my aged father and white-haired mother. I am going back to them clothed and in my right mind. Think of it, Old Trapper, going back to my home, my boyhood's home, to my father and my mother. All day as I tramped on the trail toward your cabin, my mind has been filled with memories of the past, and the words of a sweet old song I used to sing when too young to feel the tenderness of it, have been ringing in my ears."

"Sing us the song, sing us the song!" cried Wild Bill, and every man at the table cried with him, "Sing us the song!"

"Aye, aye," a.s.sented the Trapper, "sing us the song, Shanty Jim; we be men of the woods at this table, and some of us have had losses and sorrers, and all of us have memories of happy days that be gone. Stand here by my side and sing us the song that has been ringin' in yer ears all day. This is a table of feastin', and feastin' means more than eatin'. Sing us the song that tells ye of the past, of yer boyhood's days and father and mother."

Oh, the secrets of the woods! How many have fled to them for concealment and refuge! In them piety has built its retreat, learning has sought retirement, broken pride a mask, and misfortune a haven.

And in response to the Trapper's invitation there had come to his cabin and were now grouped about his table more of ability, more of knowledge, more of struggle and failure, and more of reminiscence than might be found, perhaps, in the same number of guests at any other table on that Christmas day in the world.

Never did singer sing sweeter or more touching song, or to more receptive company.

"Backward, turn backward, oh, Time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for to-night.

Mother, come back from the echoless sh.o.r.e, Take me again to your heart, as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair, Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;-- Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

CHORUS:--"Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, With your light lashes just sweeping my face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep;-- Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

"Over my heart, in the days that are flown, No love like mother-love ever has shone; No other worship abides and endures, Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours; None like a mother can charm away pain From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep;-- Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

CHORUS.--

"Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, Fall on your shoulders again, as of old; Let it drop over my forehead to-night, Shading my faint eyes away from the light; For with its sunny-edged shadows once more, Haply, will throng the sweet visions of yore; Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;-- Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep."

CHORUS.--

Never was the sweet and touching song sung under more suggestive circ.u.mstances, and never was it received into more receptive hearts.

The voice of the repentant vagabond was of the finest quality, a pure, resonant tenor, and, through the splendid avenue of expression which the words and music of the song made for his emotions, he poured his soul forth without restraint. The effect of his effort was what would be expected when the character of the audience and the occasion is considered. Many an eye was wet with tears, and the voices that took up the refrain here and there trembled with emotion. The Old Trapper, himself, was not unmoved, for, as the song closed, after a few moments of silence, he said:--

"Ye sang the song well, Shanty Jim, and many be the memories it has stirred in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of us all. May yer home-comin' be as happy as was the boy's we read of in the Scriptur', although I never could conceit why the mother was not there to go forth to meet him, and fall on his neck with the father, and ef I'd had the writin' of it I'd had the mother git to him a leetle fust, and hers the fust arms that was thrown round his neck, for that would be more nateral, as I conceit.

And I sartinly trust, as do all of us here, that ye will find mother and father both waitin' and watchin' for ye when the curve of the trail brings ye in the sight of the cabin. And ye sartinly will take with ye the good wishes of us all. Come, take the chair here by my side, and we will all talk as we eat; aye, and sing, too, for this be Christmas, and Christmas be the time for eatin' and singin', but, above all else, for forgivin' and forgittin'." At the word the happy feasters went on with the feasting.

Long and merry was the meal. As the hours pa.s.sed the eating ceased, and the feast of reason and the flow of soul began. Memories of other days were recalled, confessions made, sorrow for misdoings felt and spoken, and, gradually growing, as grows the light of dawn, a fine atmosphere of hope, charity, and courage spread from heart to heart, until at last it filled with its genial and illuminating presence every bosom. In such a mood on the part of the host and guests alike the feast came to its close. His Christmas dinner had been all that the Old Trapper had hoped, and his heart was filled with happiness. He rose from his chair, and, standing erect in his place, said:--

"Ye tell me that the time has come for ye to go, and I dare say ye be right, but I be sorry we must part, for in partin' we be never sure of a meetin', and, therefore, as I conceit, all the partin's on the 'arth be more or less sad, but all parted trails, it may be, will come together in the eend. But afore ye go I want to thank ye for comin', and I hope ye will all come agin, and whenever yer needs or yer feelin's incline ye this way. One thing I want to say to ye in goin', and I want ye to take it away with ye, for it may help some of ye to aid some onfortunit man and to feel as happy as I feel to-night. It is this"--and here the old man paused a moment and looked with the face of an angel at his guests as they stood gazing at him; then he impressively said:--

"I've lived nigh on to eighty year, and my head be whitenin' with the comin' and goin' of the years I have lived, and the Book has long been in my cabin. I have kept many a Christmas alone and in company, both, but never afore have I knowed the raal meanin' of the day nor read the lesson of it aright. And this be the lesson that I have larned and the one I want ye all to take away with ye as ye go--that Christmas is a day of feastin' and givin' and laughin', but, above everythin' else, it is the day for forgivin' and forgittin'. Some of ye be young and may yer days be long on the 'arth, and some of yer heads be as white as mine and yer years be not many, but be that as it may, whether our Christmas days be many or few, when the great day comes round let us remember in good or ill fortun', alone or with many, that Christmas, above all else, is the day for forgivin' and forgittin'."

The guests were gone and the Trapper seated himself in front of the fireplace, and called the two dogs to his side. It was a signal that they had heard many times and they responded with happy hearts. Each rested his muzzle on the Trapper's knee, and fixed his large hazel, love-lighted eyes wistfully on his master's face. The old man placed a large and age-wrinkled hand on either head, and murmured: "Whether ye be in sorrer or joy, friends come and go, but, ontil death enters kennel or cabin, the hunter and his hounds bide together. The lad camps beyend sight and beyend hearin'. Henry be on the other side of the world, to-night, and guests be gone. Rover, yer muzzle be as gray as my head, and few be livin' of the many we have met on the trail."

And the Trapper lifted his eyes and looked around the large and empty room, and then added:--

"It took me a good many years, yis, it sartinly took me a good many years, but, if I've larned the lesson of Christmas a leetle late, I've larned it at last. But the cabin does look a leetle empty now that the guests be gone. No, the lad can never come back, and Henry is on the other side of the world, and there is no good in longin'. But I do wish I could jest tech the boy's hand."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD TRAPPER AND HIS DOGS.