FullReads

During the morning we had a little service in the car, in accordance with the custom of the Church, and I am sure no more heartfelt body of worshippers ever poured forth their thanks for the Incarnation than those men, that woman, and the little children. The woman sang “Jesus Lover of my Soul” from memory in her poor little voice and that small but reverent congregation–cow-boy, drummer, cattle-man, trainmen, and parson–solemnly joined in.

“It feels just like church,” said the cow-boy gravely to the cattle-man. “Say I’m all broke up; let’s go in the other car and try your flask ag’in.” It was his unfailing resource for “onsettled feelin’s.”

The train-hand who had gone on to division headquarters returned with the snow-plough early in the afternoon, but what was more to the purpose he brought a whole cooked turkey with him, so the children had turkey, a Christmas tree, and Santa Claus to their heart’s content! I did not get home until the day after Christmas.

But, after all, what a Christmas I had enjoyed!

During a season of great privation we were much assisted by barrels of clothing which were sent to us from the East. One day just before Christmas, I was distributing the contents of several barrels of wearing apparel and other necessities to the women and children at a little mission. The delight of the women, as the good warm articles of clothing for themselves and their children which they so sadly needed were handed out to them was touching; but the children themselves did not enter into the joy of the occasion with the same spontaneity. Finally just as I got to the bottom of one box and before I had opened the other one, a little boy sniffling to himself in the corner remarked, sotto voce:

“Ain’t there no real Chris’mus gif’s in there for us little fellers, too?”

I could quite enter into his feelings, for I could remember in my youthful days when careful relatives had provided me with a “cardigan” jacket, three handkerchiefs, and a half-dozen pairs of socks for Christmas, that the season seemed to me like a hollow mockery and the attempt to palm off necessities as Christmas gifts filled my childish heart with disapproval. I am older now and can face a Christmas remembrance of a cookbook, a silver cake-basket, or an ice-cream freezer (some of which I have actually received) with philosophical equanimity, if not gratitude.

I opened the second box, therefore, with a great longing, though but little hope. Heaven bless the woman who had packed that box, for, in addition to the usual necessary articles, there were dolls, knives, books, games galore, so the small fry had some “real Chris’mus gif’s” as well as the others.

After one of the blizzards a young ranchman who had gone into the nearest town some twenty miles away to get some Christmas things for his wife and little ones, was found frozen to death on Christmas morning, his poor little packages of petty Christmas gifts tightly clasped in his cold hands lying by his side. His horse was frozen too and when they found it, hanging to the horn of the saddle was a little piece of an evergreen tree–you would throw it away in contempt in the East, it was so puny. There it meant something. The love of Christmas? It was there in his dead hands. The spirit of Christmas? It showed itself in that bit of verdant pine over the lariat at the saddle-bow of the poor bronco.

Do they have Christmas out West? Well, they have it in their hearts if no place else, and, after all, that is the place above all others where it should be.

[Footnote 2: This bit of personal history is reprinted from my book Recollections of a Missionary in the Great West by the courtesy of Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons, the publishers thereof. Incidentally the reader will find much interesting matter in the way of reminiscence and anecdote in that little volume, should he chance upon it.

There are some amusing things connected with the publication in serial form of these episodes. The great magazine in which it appeared has very strong views on certain subjects. Following out a policy which has deservedly won them perhaps the largest circulation of any magazine in the world it seemed to the editors necessary and desirable to make some changes in the story as originally written and as it appears hereafter.

For instance the revised serial version made the cowboy lift the flask of whiskey to his lips and then it declared that after a long look at the sleeping children he put it down! I was quite agreeable to the change. I remember remarking that the cowboy certainly did “put it down.” It was a way cowboys had in those bygone days; so the editor and the author were both satisfied.

Another amusing thing I recall in connection with the serial publication was this: The art editor of the magazine wrote to the officials of the railroad, the name of which I gave in the first version but which I now withhold, saying that the magazine had a story of a snow-bound train on the railroad in question and asking for pictures of snow-bound trains to help the artist illustrate it. By return mail came an indignant remonstrance almost threatening a lawsuit because the railroad in question, one of the southerly transcontinental roads, made a point in its appeal to travellers that its trains were never snow-bound! The art editor who was not without a vein of humour wrote back and asked if they could furnish him with pictures of snow-bound trains on competing roads and they sent him a box full! C.T.B.]