FullReads

“Whatever be her troubles, Clara has been a good sister to you. You were the youngest; and a puny little fellow you were then, with all your greatness. Many and many a time, in your quarrels with other boys, have I seen her get into no end of disgrace for defending you. Do you remember that old log school-house, John? and our dinners under the trees? What baskets of berries and bags of nuts we gathered in those woods! Do you remember the little run we used to cross, and the fish you caught in the pool?

“And oh, John! do you remember that day we started home when it rained? You had been sick, and commenced to cry. We got under a big tree; but it was November; the leaves had all blown down, and the rain beat through the branches. What disconsolate little people we were! And when you sat down on a flat stone, and declared you’d stay there and die, don’t you remember how Clara went out in the bushes, and, taking off her little flannel petticoat, put it around your shoulders for a cloak?”

The strong man quivered; his face convulsed, and the hot tears started into his eyes.

“YES! I’ll be hanged if I don’t!“

He clutched up his hat, and was gone in an instant, and the two women, woman-like, stood sobbing in each other’s arms.

The Air.

The thousand-and-one young gentlemen in blue neck-ties, who for a twelvemonth, in frantic strains, varying from basso profundo to piping tenor, had proclaimed their entire willingness to “mourir pour la patrie,” were engrossed at their shops; innumerable fascinating trimmers of bonnets, who, like poor little “Dora,” religiously believed the chief end of man consisted in “dancing continually ta la ra, ta la ra,” sat busily plying the needle, elbow-deep in ribbons; the consumptive-looking flute-player before the foot-lights trilled out his spasmodic trickle of melody, and contemplated with melancholy pleasure the excited audience; the lank danseuse ogled and smirked at it behind them, and, with passionate gestures of her thin legs, implored its applause; men, women, and children, of all grades and degrees, crowded into the murky night; for a day was coming when the youths of the neck-ties would not agree to mourir on any account; when the flute-player would cease to be contemplative; when the danseuse would forget her attenuated extremities; when the whole world, where the grace of the Redeemer is known, would believe that the chief end of the hour, at least, consisted in “dancing continually ta la ra, ta la ra.”

Shall “The Air” ring with the joyous notes of the carols, or breathe low and soft with the sighs of the suffering?

Shall it burst into mad hilarity at the revelry, or wail with the sharp cries of the poor?

It was a painted house, but the paint had worn off; it had a garden, but the garden was choked with weeds; its two rooms were once handsomely furnished, but the furniture was now common and old. It was once a fashionable street; but fashion had fled before the victorious eagles of trade. The tenants of that house were once happy and prosperous. What are they now?

The occupant of the back room was a man, and the occupants of the front room a woman and her children.

He was sitting at a rude deal table; before him were scattered some dirty sheets of music, and around him the place was dreary and bare. By the light of a tallow dip he was playing, in screeching tones, the commonest of ditties and polkas by note. His coat was once of the richest; but now it was old and threadbare. His hands were once white and elegantly shaped; now they were dirty, and blue with cold. His face once beamed with contentment; now it was worn with care and marked by the hard lines of penury.

The other room was darker, and, if possible, more dreary. There were two trundle-beds in a corner, and four bright beings, oblivious to the discomfort, in the happy sleep of childhood. There was a mattress in another corner, with a pile of bedquilts and a sheet.

The fire had burned down to a coal. It shone on the mantle with a sickly glare; and this was the only light there was.

To the mantle-piece were pinned four little stockings, each waiting open-mouthed for a gift from Santa Claus.

Below them crouched a woman, weeping bitterly.

The woman was Clara Hague; and she was weeping because the Christmas dawn would find those little mouths unsatisfied.

Our “Air” is getting mournful,–too mournful for this hour of great joy. The Te Deum Laudamus, not the Miserere, is for outbursts of gladness like these.

Let it sing of the carriage that surprised the man from his fiddle and the woman from her tears by its thunder in the quiet street.

Let it sing of the warm-hearted brother, forgetting the bitterness of the past, his pockets replenished from a well-saved hoard, who rushed in, startling the little sleepers with his joyous greeting. Let it chant the praises of the hampers of wine, and fowls, and dainties, and the bundles of toys, that same lumbering carriage contained. And last, but not least, let it thrill with the glad shout of a little newsboy, who, frantic with delight, hurried on a new gray suit and a pair of bran-new boots, a present received that very day from his then unknown uncle, John Redfield.