Leona Dalrymple - When the Yule Log Burns
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Leona Dalrymple >> When the Yule Log Burns
[Illustration: "The Doctor's old-fashioned house loomed gray-white
through the snow-fringed branches of the trees."]
When the Yule Log Burns
A Christmas Story
By Leona Dalrymple
Author of "Uncle Noah's Christmas Party," etc.
New York Robert M. McBride & Company 1916
Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co.
Published November, 1916
CONTENTS
PART I
IN WHICH WE LIGHT A YULE-LOG
CHAPTER
I Kindlings
II Wishing Sparks
III By the Fire
IV Embers
PART II
IN WHICH WE LIGHT THE NEW LOG WITH THE EMBERS OF THE OLD
I The Fire Again
II It Blazes Higher
III The Log at Dawn
IV The Log at Twilight
Part One
In Which We Light a Yule Log
When the Yule Log Burns
I
Kindlings
Polly, the Doctor's old white mare, plodded slowly along the snowy
country road by the picket fence, and turned in at the snow-capped
posts. Ahead, roofed with the ragged ermine of a newly-fallen snow, the
Doctor's old-fashioned house loomed gray-white through the snow-fringed
branches of the trees, a quaint iron lantern, which was picturesque by
day and luminous and cheerful by night, hanging within the square,
white-pillared portico at the side. That the many-paned, old-fashioned
window on the right framed the snow-white head of Aunt Ellen Leslie, the
Doctor's wife, the old Doctor himself was comfortably aware--for his
kindly eyes missed nothing.
He could have told you with a reflective stroke of his grizzled beard
that the snow had stopped but an hour since, and that now through the
white and heavy lacery of branches to the west glowed the flame-gold of
a winter sunset, glinting ruddily over the box-bordered brick walk, the
orchard and the comfortable barn which snugly housed his huddled cattle;
that the grasslands to the south were thickly blanketed in white; that
beyond in the evergreen forest the stately pines and cedars were
marvelously draped and coiffed in snow. For the old Doctor loved these
things of Nature as he loved the peace and quiet of his home.
So, as he turned in at the driveway and briskly resigned the care of
Polly to old Asher, his seamed and wrinkled helper, the Doctor's eyes
were roving now to a corner, snug beneath a tattered rug of snow, where
by summer Aunt Ellen's petunias and phlox and larkspur grew--and now to
the rose-bushes ridged in down, and at last to his favorite winter nook,
a thicket of black alders freighted with a wealth of berries. How
crimson they were amid the white quiet of the garden! And the brightly
colored fruit of the barberry flamed forth from a snowy bush like the
cheerful elf-lamps of a wood-gnome.
There was equal cheer and color in the old-fashioned sitting-room to
which the Doctor presently made his way, for a wood fire roared with a
winter gleam and crackle in the fireplace and Aunt Ellen Leslie rocked
slowly back and forth by the window with a letter in her hand.
"Another letter!" exclaimed the Doctor, warming his hands before the
blazing log. "God bless my soul, Ellen, we're becoming a nuisance to
Uncle Sam!" But for all the brisk cheeriness of his voice he was
furtively aware that Aunt Ellen's brown eyes were a little tearful, and
presently crossing the room to her side, he gently drew the crumpled
letter from her hand and read it.
"So John's not coming home for Christmas either, eh?" he said at last.
"Well, now, that _is_ too bad! Now, now, _now_, mother," as Aunt Ellen
surreptitiously wiped her glasses, "we should feel proud to have such
busy children. There's Ellen and Margaret and Anne with a horde of
youngsters to make a Christmas for, and John--bless your heart, Ellen,
_there's_ a busy man! A broker now is one of the very busiest of men!
And what with John's kiddies and his beautiful society wife and that
grand Christmas eve ball he mentions--why--" the Doctor cleared his
throat,--"why, dear me, it's not to be wondered at, say I! And Philip
and Howard--busy as--as--as architects and lawyers usually are at
Christmas," he finished lamely. "As for Ralph--" the Doctor looked
away--"well, Ralph hasn't spent a Christmas home since college days."
"It will be the first Christmas we ever spent without some of them
home," ventured Aunt Ellen, biting her lip courageously, whereupon the
old Doctor patted her shoulder gently with a cheery word of advice.
Now, there was something in the touch of the old Doctor's broad and
gentle hand that always soothed, wherefore Aunt Ellen presently wiped
her troublesome glasses again and bravely tried to smile, and the Doctor
making a vast and altogether cheerful to-do about turning the blazing
log, began a brisk description of his day. It had ended, professionally,
at a lonely little house in the heart of the forest, which Jarvis
Hildreth, dying but a scant year since, had bequeathed to his orphaned
children, Madge and Roger.
"And, Ellen," finished the Doctor, soberly, "there he sits by the
window, day by day, poor lame little lad!--staring away so wistfully at
the forest, and Madge, bless her brave young heart!--she bastes and
stitches and sews away, all the while weaving him wonderful yarns about
the pines and cedars to amuse him--all out of her pretty head, mind you!
A lame brother and a passion for books--" said the Doctor, shaking his
head, "a poor inheritance for the lass. They worry me a lot, Ellen, for
Madge looks thin and tired, and to-day--" the Doctor cleared his throat,
"I think she had been crying."
"Crying!" exclaimed Aunt Ellen, her kindly brown eyes warm with
sympathy. "Dear, dear!--And Christmas only three days off! Why, John,
dear, we must have them over here for Christmas. To be sure! And we'll
have a tree for little Roger and a Christmas masquerade and such a
wonderful Christmas altogether as he's never known before!" And Aunt
Ellen, with the all-embracing motherhood of her gentle heart aroused,
fell to planning a Christmas for Madge and Roger Hildreth that would
have gladdened the heart of the Christmas saint himself.
Face aglow, the old Doctor bent and patted his wife's wrinkled hand.
"Why, Ellen," he confessed, warmly, "it's the thing I most desired! Dear
me, it's a very strange thing indeed, my dear, how often we seem to
agree. I'll hitch old Billy to the sleigh and go straight after them now
while Annie's getting supper!" And at that instant one glance at Aunt
Ellen Leslie's fine old face, framed in the winter firelight which grew
brighter as the checkerboard window beside her slowly purpled, would
have revealed to the veriest tyro why the Doctor's patients liked best
to call her "Aunt" Ellen.
So, with a violent jingle of sleigh-bells, the Doctor presently shot
forth again into the white and quiet world, and as he went, gliding
swiftly past the ghostly spruces by the roadside, oddly enough, despite
his cheerful justification to Aunt Ellen, he was fiercely rebelling at
the defection of his children. John and his lovely wife might well have
foregone their fashionable ball. And Howard and Philip--their
holiday-keeping Metropolitan clubs were shallow artificialities surely
compared with a home-keeping reunion about the Yule log. As for the
children of Anne and Ellen and Margaret--well, the Doctor could just
tell those daughters of his that their precious youngsters liked a
country Christmas best--he _knew_ they did!--not the complex,
steam-heated hot-house off-shoot of that rugged flower of simpler times
when homes were further apart, but a country Christmas of keen, crisp
cold and merry sleigh-bells, of rosy cheeks and snow-balls, of skating
on the Deacon's pond and a jubilant hour after around the blazing
wood-fire: a Christmas, in short, such as the old Doctor himself knew
and loved, of simplicity and sympathy and home-keeping heartiness!
And then--there was Ralph--but here the Doctor's face grew very stern.
Wild tales came to him at times of this youngest and most gifted of his
children--tales of intemperate living interlarded with occasional tales
of brilliant surgical achievement on the staff of St. Michael's. For the
old Doctor had guided the steps of his youngest son to the paths of
medicine with a great hope, long abandoned.
Ah--well! The Doctor sighed, abruptly turning his thoughts to Madge and
Roger. They at least should know the heart-glow of a real Christmas! A
masquerade party of his neighbors Christmas eve, perhaps, such as Aunt
Ellen had suggested, and a Yule-log--but now it was, in the midst of his
Christmas plans, that a daring notion flashed temptingly through the
Doctor's head, was banished with a shrug and flashed again, whereupon
with his splendid capacity for prompt decision, the Doctor suddenly
wheeled old Billy about and went sleighing in considerable excitement
into the village whence a host of night-telegrams went singing over the
busy wires to startle eventually a slumbering conscience or so. And
presently when the Doctor drew up with a flourish before the lonely
little house among the forest pines, his earlier depression had
vanished.
So with a prodigious stamping of snow from his feet and a cheerful wave
of his mittened hand to the boy by the window, the Doctor bustled
cheerily indoors and with kindly eyes averted from the single tell-tale
sauce-pan upon the fire, over which Madge Hildreth had bent with sudden
color, fell to bustling about with a queer lump in his throat and
talking ambiguously of Aunt Ellen's Christmas orders, painfully
conscious that the girl's dark face had grown pitifully white and tense
and that Roger's wan little face was glowing. And when the fire was
damped by the Doctor himself, and his Christmas guests hustled into
dazed, protesting readiness, the Doctor deftly muffled the thin little
fellow in blankets and gently carried him out to the waiting sleigh with
arms that were splendid and sturdy and wonderfully reassuring.
"There, there, little man!" he said cheerfully, "we've not hurt the poor
lame leg once, I reckon. And now we'll just help Sister Madge blow out
the lamp and lock the door and be off to Aunt Ellen!"
But, strangely enough, the Doctor halted abruptly in the doorway and
turned his kindly eyes away to the shadowy pines. And Sister Madge, on
her knees by Roger's bed, sobbing and praying in an agony of relief,
presently blew out the lamp herself and wiped her eyes. For nights among
the whispering pines are sleepless and long when work is scarce and
Christmas hovers with cold, forbidding eyes over the restless couch of a
dear and crippled brother.
II
Wishing Sparks
Round the Doctor's house frolicked the brisk, cold wind of a Christmas
eve, boisterously rattling the luminous checkerboard windows and the
Christmas wreaths, tormenting the cheerful flame in the old iron lantern
and whisking away the snow from the shivering elms, whistling eerily
down the Doctor's chimney to startle a strange little cripple by the
Doctor's fire, who, queerly enough, would not be startled.
For to Roger there had never been a wind so Christmasy, or a fire so
bright and warm, and his solemn black eyes glowed! Never a wealth of
holly and barberry and alder-berries so crimson as that which rimmed the
snug old house in Christmas flame! Never such evergreen wreaths, for,
tucked up here in this very chair by Aunt Ellen, he had made them all
himself of boughs from the evergreen forest! And never surely such
enticing odors as had floated out for the last two days from old Annie's
pots and pans as she baked and roasted and boiled and stewed in endless
preparation for Christmas day and the Christmas eve party, scolding away
betimes in indignant whispers at old Asher, who, by reason of a
chuckling air of mystery, was in perpetual disgrace.
Wonderful days indeed for Roger, with Sister Madge's smooth, pale cheeks
catching the flaring scarlet of the holly, and Sister Madge's slim and
willing fingers so busy hanging boughs that she had forgotten to sigh;
with motherly Aunt Ellen so warmly intent upon Roger's comfort and plans
for the masquerade that many a mysterious and significant occurrence
slipped safely by her kindly eyes; and with the excited Doctor's busy
sleigh jingling so hysterically about on secret errands and his kindly
face so full of boyish mystery that Roger, with the key to all this
Christmas intrigue locked safely in his heart, had whispered a shy
little warning in the culprit's attentive ear.
And presently--Roger caught his breath and furtively eyed the
grandfather's clock, ticking boastfully through a welter of
holly--presently it would be time for the Doctor's masquerade, and
later, when the clock struck twelve and the guests unmasked, that great
surprise which the doctor had planned so carefully by telegram!
But now from the kitchen came the sound of the Doctor singing:
"Come bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing!"
Roger clapped his thin little hands with a cry of delight, for old Asher
and the Doctor were bringing in the Yule-log to light it presently with
the charred remains of the Christmas log of a year ago. To-morrow
another Yule-log would crackle and blaze and shower on the hearth, for
the old Doctor molded a custom to suit his fancy. And here was Annie
splendidly aproned in white, following them in, and Aunt Ellen in a
wonderful old brown-gold brocade disinterred for the doctor's party from
a lavender-sweet cedar chest in the garret. And _Sister Madge_!--Roger
stared--radiant in old-fashioned crimson satin and holly, colorful foils
indeed for her night-black hair and eyes! As for the doctor himself,
Roger now began to realize that with his powdered wig, his satin
breeches and gaily-flowered waistcoat--to say nothing of silken hose and
silver buckles--he was by far the most gorgeous figure of them all!
"I," said the doctor presently, striking the burning Yule-log until the
golden sparks flew out, "I charge thee, log, to burn out old wrongs and
heart-burnings!" and then, in accordance with a cherished custom of his
father's he followed the words with a wish for the good of his
household.
"And I," said old Asher as he struck the log, "I wish for the good of
the horses and cows and all the other live things and," with a terrific
chuckle of mystery, "I wish for things aplenty _this_ night."
"And I," said old Annie, with a terrible look at her imprudent spouse as
she took the poker, "I wish for the harvest--and wit for them that lack
it!"
But Roger had the poker now, his black eyes starry.
"I--I wish for more kind hearts like Aunt Ellen's and the Doctor's," he
burst forth with a strangled sob as the sparks showered gold, "for
more--more sisters like Sister Madge--" his voice quivered and
broke--"and for--for all boys who cannot walk and run--" but Sister
Madge's arm was already around his shoulders and the old Doctor was
patting his arm--wherefore he smiled bravely up at them through
glistening tears.
"Now, now, now, little lad!" reminded the Doctor, "it's Christmas eve!"
Whereupon he drew a chair to the fire and began a wonderful Christmas
tale about St. Boniface and Thunder Oak and the first Christmas tree. A
wonderful old Doctor this--reflected Roger wonderingly. He knew so many
different things--how to scare away tears and all about mistletoe and
Druids, and still another story about a fir tree which Roger opined
respectfully was nothing like so good as Sister Madge's story of the
Cedar King who stood outside his window.
"Very likely not!" admitted the Doctor gravely.
"I've nothing like the respect for Mr. Hans Andersen myself that I have
for Sister Madge."
"I thought," ventured Roger shyly, slipping his hand suddenly into the
Doctor's, "that Doctors only knew how to cure folks!"
"Bless your heart, laddie," exclaimed the Doctor, considerably
staggered; "they know too little of that, I fear. My conscience!" as the
grandfather's clock came into the conversation with a throaty boom,
"it's half-past seven!" and from then on Roger noticed the Doctor was
uneasy, presently opining, with a prodigious "Hum!" that Aunt Ellen
looked mighty pale and tired and that he for one calculated a little
sleigh ride would brace her up for the party. This Aunt Ellen
immediately flouted and the Doctor was eventually forced to pathetic and
frequent reference to his own great need of air.
"Very well, my dear," said Aunt Ellen mildly, striving politely to
conceal her opinion of his mental health, "I'll go, since you feel so
strongly about it, but a sleigh ride in such a wind and such clothes
when one is expecting party guests--" but the relieved Doctor was
already bundling the brown-gold brocade into a fur-lined coat and
furtively winking at Roger! Thus it was that even as the Doctor's sleigh
flew merrily by the Deacon's pond, far across the snowy fields to the
north gleamed the lights of the 7:52 rushing noisily into the village.
III
By the Fire
How it was that the old Doctor somehow lost his way on roads he had
traveled since boyhood was a matter of exceeding mystery and annoyance
to Aunt Ellen, but lose it he did. By the time he found it and jogged
frantically back home, the old house was already aswarm with masked,
mysterious guests and old Asher with a lantern was peering excitedly up
the road. Holly-trimmed sleighs full of merry neighbors in disguise were
dashing gaily up--and in the midst of all the excitement the Doctor
miraculously discovered his own mask and Aunt Ellen's in the pocket of
his great-coat. So hospitable Aunt Ellen, considerably perturbed that so
many of her guests had arrived in her absence--an absence carefully
planned by the Doctor--betook herself to the masquerade, and the
Christmas party began with bandits and minstrels and jesters and all
sorts of queer folk flitting gaily about the house. They paid gallant
court to Roger in his great chair by the fire and presently began to
present for his approval an impromptu Mummer's play.
And now the lights were all out and a masked and courtly old gentleman
in satin breeches was standing in the bright firelight pouring brandy
into a giant bowl of raisins; and now he was gallantly bowing to Roger
himself who was plainly expected to assist with a lighted match. He did
this with trembling fingers and eyes so big and black and eloquent that
the Doctor cleared his throat; and as the leaping flames from the
snapdragon bowl flashed weirdly over the bizarre company in the shadows.
Roger, eagerly watching them snatch the raisins from the fire, fell to
trembling in an ecstasy of delight. Presently a slender arm in a crimson
sleeve, whose wearer was never very far from Roger's chair, slipped
quietly about his shoulders and held him very tight. So, an endless
round of merry Christmas games until, deep and mellow came at last the
majestic boom of the grandfather's clock striking twelve and with it a
hearty babel of Christmas greetings as the Doctor, smiling significantly
down into Roger's excited eyes, gave the signal to unmask.
By the fire a mysterious little knot of guests had been silently
gathering, and now as Aunt Ellen Leslie removed her mask, hand and mask
halted in mid-air as if fixed by the stare of Medusa, and the face above
the brown-gold brocade flamed crimson. For here in Puritan garb was John
Leslie, Jr., and his radiant wife--and Philip and Howard, smiling
Quakers, and Anne and Margaret and Ellen with a trio of husbands, and
beyond a laughing jester in cap and bells, whose dark, handsome face was
a little too reckless and tired about the eyes, Roger thought, for a
really happy Christmas guest--young Doctor Ralph.
As Aunt Ellen's startled eyes swept slowly from the smiling faces of her
children to the proud and chuckling Doctor who had spent Heaven knows
how many dollars in telegraphed commands--she laughed a little and cried
a little and then mingled the two so queerly that she needs must wipe
her eyes and catch at Roger's chair for support, whereupon a kindly
little hand slipped suddenly into hers and Roger looked up and smiled
serenely.
"Don't cry, Aunt Ellen!" he begged shyly. "I knew all about it too and
the Doctor--_he_ did it all!"
"And merry fits he gave us all by telegram, too, mother!" exclaimed
Philip with a grin.
"Moreover," broke in John, patting his mother's shoulder, "there are
eleven kids packed away upstairs like sardines--we hid 'em away while
dad and you were lost, and--" but here with a deafening racket the
stairs door burst wide open and with a swoop and a scream eleven
pajama-ed young bandits with starry eyes bore down upon Aunt Ellen and
the Doctor.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed John, thoroughly scandalized, "you disgraceful
kids! Which one of you stirred this up?" But the guilty face at the tail
of the romping procession was the face of old Asher.
Radiantly triumphant the old Doctor swung little John Leslie 3rd to his
shoulder and faced his laughing family and as old Annie appeared with a
steaming tray--he seized a mug of cider and held it high aloft.
"To the ruddy warmth of the Christmas log and the Christmas home
spirit--" he cried--"to the home-keeping hearts of the country-side!
Gentlemen--I give you--A Country home and a Country Christmas! May more
good folk come to know them!" And little John Leslie cried hoarsely--
"Hooray, grandpop, hooray for a Country Christmas!"
Carelessly alive to the merry spirit of the night, the jester presently
adjusted a flute which hung from his shoulder by a scarlet cord and
lazily piping a Christmas air, wandered to another room--to come
suddenly upon a forgotten playmate of his boyhood days.
"It--it can't be!" he reflected in startled interest. "It surely can't
be Madge Hildreth!"
But Madge Hildreth it surely was, spreading the satin folds of his
grandmother's crimson gown in mocking courtesy. Moreover it was not the
awkward, ragged elfish little gipsy who had tormented his debonair
boyhood with her shy ardent worship of himself and his daring exploits,
but instead a winsome vision of Christmas color and Christmas cheer,
holly-red of cheek, with flashes of scarlet holly in her night black
hair and eyes whose unfathomable dusk reflected no single hint of that
old, wild worship slumbering still in the girl's rebellious heart.
"And the symbolism of this stunning make-up?" queried Ralph after a
while, lazily admiring.
The girl's eyes flashed.
"To-night, if you please," she said, "I am the spirit of the
old-fashioned Christmas who dwells in the holly heart of the evergreen
wood. A _country_ Christmas, ruddy-cheeked and cheerful and rugged like
the winter holly--simple and old-fashioned and hallowed with memories
like this bright soft crimson gown!"
Well, she had been a queer, fanciful youngster too, Doctor Ralph
remembered, always passionately aquiver with a wild sylvan poetry and
over-fond of book-lore like her father. Mischievously glancing at a
spray of mistletoe above the girl's dark head, he stepped forward with
the careless gallantry that had won him many a kindly glance from pretty
eyes and was strangely to fail him now. For at the look in Madge's calm
eyes, he drew back, stammering.
"I--I beg your pardon!" said Doctor Ralph.
Later as he stood thoughtfully by his bedroom window, staring queerly at
the wind-beaten elms, he found himself repeating Madge Hildreth's words.
"Ruddy-cheeked and rugged and cheerful!"--indeed--this unforgettable
Christmas eve. Yes--she was right. Had he not often heard his father say
that the Christmas season epitomized all the rugged sympathy and
heartiness and health of the country year! To-night the blazing
Yule-log, his mother's face--how white her hair was growing, thought
Doctor Ralph with a sudden tightening of his throat--all of these
memories had strummed forgotten and finer chords. And darkly foiling the
homely brightness came the picture of rushing, overstrung, bundle-laden
city crowds, of shop-girls white and weary, of store-heaps of cedar and
holly sapped by electric glare. Rush and strain and worry--yes--and a
spirit of grudging! How unlike the Christmas peace of this white,
wind-world outside his window! So Doctor Ralph went to bed with a sigh
and a shrug--to listen while the sleety boughs tapping at his windows
roused ghostly phantoms of his boyhood. Falling asleep, he dreamt that
pretty Madge Hildreth had lightly waved a Christmas wand of crimson
above his head and dispelled his weariness and discontent.
IV
Embers
And in the morning--there was the royal glitter of a Christmas ice-storm
to bring boyhood memories crowding again, boughs sheathed in crystal
armor and the old barn roof aglaze with ice. Yes--Ralph thrilled--and
there were the Christmas bunches of oats on the fences and trees and the
roof of the barn--how well he remembered! For the old Doctor loved this
Christmas custom too and never forgot the Christmas birds. And
to-day--why of course--there would be double allowances of food for the
cattle and horses, for old Toby the cat and Rover the dog. Hadn't Ralph
once performed this cherished Christmas task himself!
But now, clamoring madly at his door was a romping swarm of youngsters
eager to show Uncle Ralph the Christmas tree which, though he had helped
to trim it the night before, he inspected in great surprise. And here in
his chair by another Yule-log he found Roger, staring wide-eyed at the
glittering tree with his thin little arms full of Christmas gifts. Near
him was Sister Madge whose black eyes, Ralph saw with approval, were
very soft and gentle, and beyond in the coffee-fragrant dining-room Aunt
Ellen and old Annie conspired together over a mammoth breakfast table
decked with holly.