On Christmas Day In The Evening | Page 5

you
suppose the Tomlinsons and the Pollocks and the rest of them have
talked about anything else to-day?"
"Not much else." Nan smiled contentedly. Then suddenly: "O Sam--the
presents aren't all tied up! We must hurry back. This is the first
Christmas Eve I can remember when the rattling of tissue paper wasn't
the chief sound on the air."
"If this thing goes off all right," mused Burnett, as he examined the
stoves once more, before putting out the lights, "it'll be the biggest
Christmas present North Estabrook ever had. Peace and good
will--Jove, but they need it! And so do we all--so do we all."

III
"There go pretty near every one of the Fernalds, down to the station.
Land, but there's a lot of 'em, counting the children. I suppose they're
going to meet Guy's wife's brother, that they've got up here to lead

these Christmas doings to-night. Queer idea, it strikes me."
Miss Jane Pollock, ensconsed behind the thick "lace curtains" of her
"best parlour," addressed her sister, who lay on the couch in the
sitting-room behind, an invalid who could seldom get out, but to whom
Miss Jane was accustomed faithfully to report every particle of current
news.
"I suppose they think," Miss Jane went on, with asperity, "they're going
to fix up the fuss in that church, with their greens and their city minister
preaching brotherly love. I can tell him he'll have to preach a pretty
powerful sermon to reach old George Tomlinson and Asa Fraser, and
make 'em notice each other as they pass by. And when I see Maria Hill
coming toward me with a smile on her face and her hand out I'll know
something's happened."
"I don't suppose," said the invalid sister rather timidly, from her couch,
"you would feel, Sister, as if you could put out your hand to her first?"
"No, I don't," retorted Miss Jane, very positively. "And I don't see how
you can think it, Deborah. You know perfectly well it was Maria Hill
that started the whole thing--and then talked about me as if I was the
one. How that woman did talk--and talks yet! Don't get me thinking
about it. It's Christmas Day, and I want to keep my mind off such
disgraceful things as church quarrels--if the Fernald family'll let me. A
pretty bold thing to do, I call it--open up that church on their own
responsibility, and expect folks to come, and forget the past. --Debby, I
wish you could see Oliver's wife, in those furs of hers. She holds her
head as high as ever--but she's the only one of 'em that does it
disagreeably--I'll say that for 'em, if they are all city folks now. And of
course she isn't a Fernald. --Here comes Nancy and her husband. That
girl don't look a minute older'n when she was married, five years ago.
My, but she's got a lot of style! I must say her skirts don't hang like any
North Estabrook dressmaker can make 'em. They're walking--hurrying
up to catch the rest. Sam Burnett's a good-looking man, but he's getting
a little stout."
"Jane," said the invalid sister, wistfully, "I wish I could go to-night."

"Well, I wish you could. That is--if I go. I haven't just made up my
mind. I wonder if folks'll sit in their old pews. You know the Hills' is
just in front of ours. But as to your going, Deborah, of course that's out
of the question. I suppose I shall go. I shouldn't like to offend the
Fernalds, and they do say Guy's wife's brother is worth hearing. There's
to be music, too."
"I wish I could go," sighed poor Deborah, under her breath. "To be able
to go--and to wonder whether you will! --O Lord--" she closed her
patient eyes and whispered it-- "make them all choose to go--to Thy
house--this Christmas Day. And to thank Thee that the doors are
open--and that they have strength to go. And help me to bear it--to stay
home!"

IV
"The problem is--" said the Reverend William Sewall, standing at the
back of the church with his sister Margaret, and Guy Fernald, her
husband, and Nan and Sam Burnett--the four who had, as yet, no
children, and so could best take time, on Christmas afternoon, to make
the final arrangements for the evening-- "the problem is--to do the right
thing, to-night. It would be so mighty easy to do the wrong one. Am I
the only man to stand in that pulpit--and is it all up to me?"
He regarded the pulpit as he spoke, richly hung with Christmas greens
and seeming eagerly to invite an occupant.
"I should say," observed his brother-in-law, Guy, his face full of
affection and esteem for the very admirable