The Christmas Child | Page 3

Nathan, took to Joan from the
first. He was a white-headed, strong old man, nearly seventy years of
age, but still able to do a fair day's work, or to take the whole

management of affairs, if Miss Priscilla were laid up, which she never
had been in all her life. He had lived as a boy with her grandfather, and
as a man with her father, and the farm seemed to belong as much to
him as to her. Like most of the people about, he was no Churchman;
and being very ready of speech he was a favourite preacher to the little
congregations meeting in some of the farm-houses scattered about the
mountains.
Every Sunday evening there was a service held in Priscilla's kitchen,
when twenty or thirty of the neighbours would come in to listen to
Nathan's sermons. Of late years a number of young men, some of
whom came long distances, had been in the habit of attending these
Sunday evening meetings.
Old Nathan liked this very much; but Aunt Priscilla's heart was
devoured by anxiety. Some of the new hearers were neighbours' sons,
steady, dull young farmers, too awkward and shame-faced to push
themselves forward; but there were others, bold young sailors, used to
voyaging hither and thither and to making their own way in strange
places, who did not hesitate to put themselves in the very front, close
by the settle where she sat, and to sing bass to Rhoda's treble, and even
to find the text for her in the Bible. One of them, a notorious young
scamp, Evan Price, was Aunt Priscilla's greatest plague and aversion;
but she never caught a single word or glance from Rhoda which could
show that the girl encouraged him, or any one among the others; and as
long as that was the case she was willing enough for them to look at her
treasure, or long for it, but she could not bear the idea of losing it.
To little Joan everything was delightful. There had been the hay harvest,
and the corn harvest, and the cutting of fern on the mountains for
winter fodder, and the threshing of the corn on the barn-floor, and the
piling up of great heaps of straw in the wide bays on each side of the
barn.
And now Christmas was coming. Joan had never kept Christmas, and
knew nothing about it. But at Aunt Priscilla's farm it was a great day, as
it always had been since she could remember. Every relative who could
come to the farm was invited weeks beforehand; and nothing else was

talked of but Christmas Day. The Sunday evening before it came old
Nathan's sermon was all about the shepherds in the field, and how they
found the little babe lying in the manger; and he told the story so well
that Joan did not go to sleep at all, but sat listening to him with her dark
eyes wide open.
"Is it our manger, Rhoda?" she asked, when they went upstairs to their
own little room to bed. "Will the babe be lying in our manger
to-morrow morning?"
"Perhaps," answered Rhoda; "nobody knows whose manger He will
come to."
"Oh! I wish it could be ours!" cried Joan eagerly. "I wish Mary and
Joseph 'ud bring the little baby here, and the shepherds 'ud come to seek
for Him. Would n't you love it, Rhoda?"
"Shall we two get up early, very early in the morning, like the
shepherds did, and go and look in our manger if He 's there?" asked
Rhoda.
"Oh, yes, yes!" answered Joan, almost wild with delight. "Oh! Rhoda,
only suppose the baby should be there!"
Long before old Nathan was stirring, or anyone else in the house was
awake, Rhoda and Joan crept quietly down their own little staircase,
and after lighting the candle in Nathan's great horn lantern, they let
down the bar of the house-door and stepped out into the fold. It was
very dark, but the dim light from the lantern sparkled upon a fine
hoar-frost, which lay like silver on the causeway and glittered on every
straw scattered about the yard. Not a sound was to be heard, except a
very soft, low moan from the sea, and that they listened for as they
stood still on the doorstep. Joan's heart was beating fast, and her small
fingers clasped Rhoda's hand tightly as they stole along the causeway
to the cow-shed just beyond the barn.
The cow-shed was divided into two, and they passed through the outer
one, where the cows were lying in their stalls, and turned their large,

sleepy eyes upon the two girls, as if to inquire why they were disturbed
so early. In the little shed beyond the fodder and the hay