"I remember,I remember How my childhood fleeted by,--The mirth of its December,And the warmth of its July."When dusk closed in it would be Christmas eve.All day I had three points--a chair beside the kitchen table,a lookout melted through the frost on the front window,and the big sitting-room fireplace.
All the perfumes of Araby floated from our kitchen that day.
There was that delicious smell of baking flour from big snowy loaves of bread,light biscuit,golden coffee cake,and cinnamon rolls dripping a waxy mixture of sugar,butter,and spice,much better than the finest butterscotch ever brought from the city.
There was the tempting odour of boiling ham and baking pies.The air was filled with the smell of more herbs and spices than I knew the names of,that went into mincemeat,fruit cake,plum pudding,and pies.There was a teasing fragrance in the spiced vinegar heating for pickles,a reminder of winesap and rambo in the boiling cider,while the newly opened bottles of grape juice filled the house with the tang of Concord and muscadine.It seemed to me I never got nicely fixed where I could take a sly dip in the cake dough or snipe a fat raisin from the mincemeat but Candace would say:"Don't you suppose the backlog is halfway down the lane?"Then I hurried to the front window,where I could see through my melted outlook on the frosted pane,across the west eighty to the woods,where father and Laddie were getting out the Christmas backlog.It was too bitterly cold to keep me there while they worked,but Laddie said that if I would watch,and come to meet them,he would take me up,and I might ride home among the Christmas greens on the log.
So I flattened my nose against the pane and danced and fidgeted until those odours teased me back to the kitchen;and no more did I get nicely located beside a jar of pudding sauce than Candace would object to the place I had hung her stocking.It was my task,my delightful all-day task,to hang the stockings.Father had made me a peg for each one,and I had ten feet of mantel front along which to arrange them.But it was no small job to do this to every one's satisfaction.No matter what happened to any one else,Candace had to be pleased:for did not she so manage that most fowls served on mother's table went gizzardless to the carving?She knew and acknowledged the great importance of trying cookies,pies,and cake while they were hot.She was forever overworked and tired,yet she always found time to make gingerbread women with currant buttons on their frocks,and pudgy doughnut men with clove eyes and cigars of cinnamon.If my own stocking lay on the hearth,Candace's had to go in a place that satisfied her--that was one sure thing.Besides,I had to make up to her for what Leon did,because she was crying into the corner of her apron about that.
He slipped in and stole her stocking,hung it over the broomstick,and marched around the breakfast table singing to the tune of--"Ha,ha,ha,who wouldn't go--
Up on the housetop click,click,click?
Down through the chimney,With good Saint Nick----"words he made up himself.He walked just fast enough that she couldn't catch him,and sang as he went:
"Ha,ha,ha,good Saint Nick,Come and look at this stocking,quick!
If you undertake its length to fill,You'll have to bust a ten-dollar bill.
Who does it belong to?Candace Swartz.
Bring extra candy,--seven quarts----"
She got so angry she just roared,so father made Leon stop it,but I couldn't help laughing myself.Then we had to pet her all day,so she'd cheer up,and not salt the Christmas dinner with her tears.I never saw such a monkey as Leon!I trotted out to comfort her,and snipped bites,until I wore a triangle on the carpet between the kitchen and the mantel,the mantel and the window,and the window and the kitchen,while every hour things grew more exciting.
There never had been such a flurry at our house since I could remember;for to-morrow would be Christmas and bring home all the children,and a house full of guests.My big brother,Jerry,who was a lawyer in the city,was coming with his family,and so were Frank,Elizabeth,and Lucy with theirs,and of course Sally and Peter--I wondered if she would still be fixing his tie--and Shelley came yesterday,blushing like a rose,and she laughed if you pointed your finger at her.
Something had happened to her in Chicago.I wasn't so sure as I had been about a city being such a dreadful place of noise,bad air,and wicked people.Nothing had hurt Shelley.She had grown so much that you could see she was larger.Her hair and face--all of Shelley just shone.Her eyes danced,she talked and laughed all the time,and she hugged every one who passed her.
She never loved us so before.Leon said she must have been homesick and coming back had given her a spell.I did hope it would be a bad one,and last forever.I would have liked for all our family to have had a spell if it would have made them act and look like Shelley.The Princess was not a speck lovelier,and she didn't act any nicer.
If I could have painted,I'd have made a picture of Shelley with a circle of light above her head like the one of the boy Jesus where He talked with the wise men in the temple.I asked father if he noticed how much prettier and nicer she was,and he said he did.Then I asked him if he thought now,that a city was such a bad place to live in,and he said where she was had nothing to do with it,the same thing would happen here,or anywhere,when life's greatest experience came to a girl.That was all he would say,but figuring it out was easy.The greatest experience that happened to our girls was when they married,like Sally,so it meant that Shelley had gone and fallen in love with that lawyer man,and she liked sitting on the sofa with him,and no doubt she fixed his ties.But if any one thought I would tell anything I saw when he came they were badly mistaken.
