XII
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just
coming in from their morning chores-- the horses and pigs always had their
breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted `Merry Christmas!' to me,
and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove.
Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning
prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from Saint Matthew
about the birth of Christ, and as we listened, it all seemed like something
that had happened lately, and near at hand. In his prayer he thanked the
Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world
ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the
poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder
than it was here with us. Grandfather's prayers were often very
interesting. He had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he
talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull
from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the
time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and
his views about things.
After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the
Shimerdas had been with their presents; even Ambrosch was friendly and went
to the creek with him to cut the Christmas tree. It was a soft grey day
outside, with heavy clouds working across the sky, and occasional squalls
of snow. There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on holidays,
and the men were busy until afternoon. Then Jake and I played dominoes,
while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother. He always wrote to her
on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no matter how long
it had been since his last letter. All afternoon he sat in the
dining-room. He would write for a while, then sit idle, his clenched fist
lying on the table, his eyes following the pattern of the oilcloth. He
spoke and wrote his own language so seldom that it came to him awkwardly.
His effort to remember entirely absorbed him.
At about four o'clock a visitor appeared: Mr. Shimerda, wearing his
rabbit-skin cap and collar, and new mittens his wife had knitted. He had
come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother's kindness to
his family. Jake and Otto joined us from the basement and we sat about the
stove, enjoying the deepening grey of the winter afternoon and the
atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather's house. This feeling
seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shimerda. I suppose, in the
crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace
and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he
had left so far behind. He sat still and passive, his head resting against
the back of the wooden rocking-chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms. His
face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick people when
they feel relief from pain. Grandmother insisted on his drinking a glass
of Virginia apple-brandy after his long walk in the cold, and when a faint
flush came up in his cheeks, his features might have been cut out of a
shell, they were so transparent. He said almost nothing, and smiled
rarely; but as he rested there we all had a sense of his utter content.
As it grew dark, I asked whether I might light the Christmas tree before
the lamp was brought. When the candle-ends sent up their conical yellow
flames, all the coloured figures from Austria stood out clear and full of
meaning against the green boughs. Mr. Shimerda rose, crossed himself, and
quietly knelt down before the tree, his head sunk forward. His long body
formed a letter `S.' I saw grandmother look apprehensively at grandfather.
He was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and hurt
people's feelings. There had been nothing strange about the tree before,
but now, with some one kneeling before it--images, candles ... Grandfather
merely put his finger-tips to his brow and bowed his venerable head, thus
Protestantizing the atmosphere.
We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us. He needed little
urging. As we sat down to the table, it occurred to me that he liked to
look at us, and that our faces were open books to him. When his
deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into
the future for me, down the road I would have to travel.
At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his
overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern
and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took
grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly,
`Good woman!' He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and
went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather
looked at me searchingly. `The prayers of all good people are good,' he
said quietly.
