And Thus He Came: A Christmas Fantasy, Cyrus Townsend Brady [pdf e book reader .TXT] 📗

"NO, NO," SAID THE WOMAN, "I CAN'T GO WITH YOU NOW."
AFTER A TIME SHE FELL DOWN ON HER KNEES. SHE PRESSED THEM AGAINST HER FACE
SHE LAID HER HAND UPON THE KNOB OF THE CHURCH DOOR
"IT IS HE," WHISPERED THE PRIEST; "HIS SORROW WAS GREATER THAN MINE"
ABSOLVO TE
THE CRY FOR BREAD


I The Baby "A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM"

The heavy perfume of rare blossoms, the wild strains of mad music, the patter of flying feet, the murmur of speech, the ring of laughter, filled the great hall. Now and again a pair of dancers, peculiarly graceful and particularly daring, held the center of the floor for a moment while the room rang with applause.

Into alcoves, screened and flower-decked, couples wandered. In the dancing-space hands were clasped, bosoms rose and fell, hearts throbbed, pulses beat, and moving bodies kept time to rhythmic sound.

Suddenly the music stopped, the conversation ceased, the laughter died away. Almost, as it were, poised in the air, the dancers stood amazed. One looked to another in surprise. Something stole throughout the room which was neither music, nor lights, nor fragrance, but which was life—a presence!

"Do you see that child?" asked the wildest of the dancers of her escort. "There," she pointed. "He looks like a very little boy."

"I see nothing," said the man, who still held her in the clasp of his arm.

"He is strangely dressed, although I see him indistinctly, vaguely," whispered the woman. "He wears a long white robe and there is a kind of light about his face. See, he is looking at us."

"I see nothing," repeated the man in low tones. "The heat, the light, the music, have disturbed you; let me get you—"

"I want nothing," interposed the woman, waving the man aside and drawing away from his arm. "Don't you see him, there?"

She made a step toward the center of the room. She stopped, put her hand to her head.

"Why, he is gone," she exclaimed.

"Good," said the man, while at that instant the room suddenly rang with cries: "Go on with the music, the dance is not half over." He extended his arm to the woman again. "Our dance is not finished."

"Yes, it is," she said as the flying feet once more twinkled across the polished floor, as everybody took a long breath and a new start apparently unconscious of the pause.

"It is over for me. What I saw!"

"What did you see?"

"I don't know, but I'm going back home to my child. Good-night."

Yes, the music had stopped suddenly. The man in the farthest alcove turned to his companion. They were hidden by a group of palms.

"I wonder why?" queried the woman. She was deathly pale. Her eyes were dark with fear, yet alight with passionate determination.

"When it begins," said the man tenderly, "we will slip away. My car is outside. Everything is ready."

"That is my husband over there," said the woman.

"Yes," said the man, "he won't trouble you any more."

"That woman with him is leaving him," she said. "I wonder why." She turned suddenly with a great start. "There is somebody here," she whispered, staring into the back of the alcove.

"Nonsense," said the man, throwing a glance around the recess. "There's nobody here but you and I. We are alone together, as we shall be hereafter, when we have taken the step."

"But that child," whispered the woman, "with his strange vesture and his wonderful face. His eyes look at me so."

"There is no child there, my dear," urged the man; "you are overwrought, excited, nervous. The music starts. Let us go."

He stretched out his hand to the woman, but as he came nearer she shrank back with her own hand on her heart.

"Oh," she said faintly, "he's gone."

"Of course he's gone," he answered soothingly. "Now is our time to get away. Let me—"

"No, no," said the woman. "I can't go with you now. It wouldn't be right."

"But you knew that before," pleaded the man. "Besides—"

"Yes, but I can't do it. He was there! His eyes spoke—I—don't touch me," she said; "I'm going back to my husband. Don't follow."

II The Child "SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"

The employees had all gone home, carrying with them Christmas checks and hearty greetings from the great man whose beck and nod they followed. He sat in his private office absolutely alone. He had some serious matters to consider and did not want any interruptions. His balance-sheet for the year had been made up according to the custom of the firm before Christmas instead of on New Year's Day. He examined it again. It showed tremendous profit. The mills were turning out quantities of material, the demand for which was greater and the cost of production less than ever before.

"I tell you," said the man to himself, "it was a master-stroke to displace the men with children in the mills. They have reduced the cost by four fifths. War has made the prices go up. This is not wealth, it is riches beyond calculation."

He picked up a letter, read it over. It was a proposal from the superintendent to clear more land, to build more buildings, to install more machines, to employ more children and increase the profits greatly.

"I'll do it," said the man. "We can crush opposition absolutely. I'll control the markets of the world. I'll build a fortune upon this foundation so great that no one can comprehend it."

He stopped, leaned back in his chair, lifted his eyes up toward the ceiling of the room and saw beyond it the kingdoms of this world and the means unlimited to make him lord and master. He gave no thought to the foundations, only to the structure erected by his fancy. How long he indulged in dreams he scarcely realized, but presently he put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to rise, saying,

"I'll telegraph the superintendent to go ahead."

He had scarcely formulated the words when right in front of him, seated on his desk, he saw a young lad regarding him intently. He stopped, petrified, in the position he had assumed.

"How did you get in? What are you doing here?" he asked. There was no answer. "Come," said the man, shrinking back. "I can't imagine how you got in here. If my people had not all gone I should hold them to strict account. As it is, you—"

The room was suddenly filled with people. They came crowding through the walls from every side and pressed close to him. Such people he had never seen: wan, worn, stunted, pinched, starved, joyless. They were all children, meagerly clothed, badly nourished, ill developed. They were quite silent. They did not cry. They did not protest. They did not argue. They did not plead. They did not laugh. They just looked at him. They made no sound of any sort. He had children of his own and he had known many children. He had never known so many gathered together without a smile or a laugh.

His eye wandered around the room. They were very close to him and yet they did not touch him. He turned to the desk where the lad had sat, but he was no longer there and yet he well remembered his face. He knew exactly how he looked. He turned to the nearest child and in some strange way, although the poor, wretched face had not changed, his look suggested the lad who had been his first visitor. He turned to another and another. They all looked back at him in the same way with the same eyes.

He threw his head up again and saw the castle of success of which he had dreamed. He looked down again. This was the foundation. Slowly his hand went to the desk. The little crowding figures drew back to give him freedom of movement as he stretched his hand out for a telegraph-blank. He drew it to him. He seized a pen and wrote rapidly:

"Build no more mills, take the children out of those already in operation, put men in their places. We will be content with less profit in the future."

He read over the telegram. The telephone was close at hand. He called up the telegraph-office, dictated it and directed it to be sent immediately. He had been so engrossed in this task that he had noticed nothing else. Now he looked up. The room was still filled with children, but they were all laughing. It was a soundless laugh, and yet he heard it. And then the room was empty save for the child he had seen first and vaguely. He had just time to catch a smile from his lips and then he, too, was gone as silently and as strangely as he had appeared.

Was it a dream? No, there was the telegram in his hand! Had he sent it? Again he called up the office on the telephone.

"Did you get a message from me just a minute ago?"

"Yes, do you want to recall it?"

The man thought a second.

"No," he said quietly—was it to himself or to his vanished visitors?—"let it go. Merry Christmas."

III The Friend "INASMUCH AS YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE, MY BRETHREN"

"Is the story of the Christ Child true, Mommy?" quivered one little, thin voice.

"Yes, they told us it was over at the mission Sunday-school," said the littlest child.

"I don't believe it," answered the mother. "God ain't never done much for me."

"It's Christmas eve, ain't it?" asked the boy, climbing up on the thin knees of the threadbare woman and nestling his thin face against a thinner breast which the rags scarcely covered decently.

"Yes, it's Christmas eve."

"And that's the day He came, ain't it?" urged the oldest girl.

"They say so."

"Don't you believe it, Mommy?"

"I used to believe it when I was a girl. I believed it before your father died, but now—"

"Don't you believe it now?" repeated the first child.

"How can I believe it? You're old enough to understand. That's the last scuttle of coal we got. We ate the last bit of bread for supper to-night."

"They say," put in the little boy, "that if you hang up your stockings, Santa Claus'll fill 'em, 'cause of the Christ Child."

"Don't you believe it, Sonny," said the mother desperately.

"I'm going to hang up mine and see," said the littlest girl.

"He's got too many other children to look after," said the woman, "to care for the likes of us, I'm afraid, and—"

"But my Sunday-school teacher said He came to poor people special. He was awful poor Himself. Why, He was born in a stable. That's awful poor, ain't it?" asked the boy.

"When I was a girl," answered the mother, "I lived on a farm and we had a stable there that was a palace to this hole we live in now. No, you'd better not hang up your stockings, none of you."

"And you don't believe in Him, Mommy?"

"No. What would be the use if you hung 'em up and didn't find anything in 'em in the morning?"

"It'd be awful, but I believe in Him," said the littlest girl. "I don't think God has forgot us, really. I'm going to try."

"I tell you 'tain't no use."

"Oh, yes, it is."

"I'm sure it ain't. But have it your own