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Title: The Christmas Tree On Pigeon
Author: John Fox [
More Titles by Fox]
The sun of Christmas poured golden blessings on Happy Valley first; it leaped ten miles of intervening hills and shot winged shafts of yellow light into the mouth of Pigeon; it darted awakening arrows into the coves and hollows on the Head of Pigeon, between Brushy Ridge and Pine Mountain; and one searching ray flashed through the open door of the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon and played like a smile over the waiting cedar that stood within--alone.
Down at the mines below, the young doctor had not waited the coming of that sun. He had sprung from his bed at dawn, had built his own fire, dressed hurriedly, and gone hurriedly on his rounds, leaving a pill here, a powder there, and a word of good cheer everywhere. That was his Christmas tree, the cedar in the little schoolhouse--his and Hers. The Marquise of Queensberry, he called her--and she was coming up from the Gap that day to dress that tree and spread the joy of Christmas among mountain folks, to whom the joy of Christmas was quite unknown.
An hour later the passing mail-carrier, from over Black Mountain, stopped with switch uplifted at his office-door.
"Them fellers over the Ridge air comin' over to shoot up yo' Christmas tree," he drawled.
The switch fell and he was gone. The young doctor dropped by his fire--stunned; for just that thing had happened ten years before to the only Christmas tree that had ever been heard of in those immediate hills, except his own. Out of that very schoolhouse some vandals from over Pine Mountain had driven the Pigeon Creek people after a short fight, and while the surprised men, frightened women and children, and the terrified teacher scurried to safety behind rocks and trees had shot the tree to pieces. That was ten years before, but even now, though there were some old men and a few old women who knew the Bible from end to end, many grown people and most of the children had never heard of the Book, or of Christ, or knew that there was a day known as Christmas Day. That such things were so had hurt the doctor to the heart, and that was why, as Christmas drew near, he had gone through the out-of-the-way hollows at the Head of Pigeon and got the names and ages of all the mountain children; why now, long after that silly quarrel with the marquise, he had humbled his pride and written her please to come and help him; why she had left the Christmas of Happy Valley in St. Hilda's hands and was coming; and why now the cedar-tree stood in the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon. Moreover, there was yet enmity between the mountaineers of Pigeon and the mountaineers over Pine Mountain, who were jealous and scornful of any signs of the foreign influence but recently come into the hills. The meeting-house, courthouse, and the schoolhouse were yet favorite places for fights among the mountaineers. There was yet no reverence at all for Christmas, and the same vandals might yet regard a Christmas tree as an imported frivolity to be sternly rebuked. The news was not only not incredible, it probably was true; and with this conclusion some very unpleasant lines came into the young doctor's kindly face, and he sprang for his horse.
Two hours later he had a burly mountaineer with a Winchester posted on the road leading over Pine Mountain, another on the mountainside overlooking the little valley, several more similarly armed below, while he and two friends, with revolvers buckled on, waited for the marquise, with their horses hitched in front of his office-door. This Christmas tree was to be.
Meanwhile his mind was busy with memories of the previous summer. Once again he was bounding across a brook in a little ravine in Happy Valley to see two young mountaineers in a fierce fight--with his sweetheart and a one-legged man named Pleasant Trouble as referees, and once again that distracted sweetheart was rushing for refuge to his arms. She had got the two youths to fight with fists instead of pistols and according to such rules of the ring as she could remember, and that was why thereafter he had called her the marquise. Then had come that silly quarrel and, instead of to the altar, she had gone back to Happy Valley to teach again. Now he would see her once more and his hopes were high. Outside he heard the creaking of wheels. A big spring wagon loaded with Christmas things drew up in front of his door and amidst them sat the superintendent's daughter and two girl friends, who shouted cheery greetings to him. He raised his eyes and high above saw the muffled figure of the marquise coming through the snowy bushes down the trail. Behind her rode a man with a crutch across his saddle-bows--Pleasant Trouble, self-made bodyguard to the little teacher: nowhere could she go without him at her heels. Pleasant grinned, and the faces of the lovers, suddenly suffused, made their story quite plain. The doctor lifted her from her horse and helped her into the wagon, to meet three pairs of mischievous eyes, so that quite gruffly for him, he said:
"On your way now--and hustle!"
A black-snake whip cracked and up Pigeon the wagon bumped with the doctor, his two friends, and Pleasant Trouble on horseback alongside; past the long batteries of coke-ovens with grinning darkies, coke-pullers, and loaders idling about them; up the rough road through lanes of snow-covered rhododendrons winding among tall oaks, chestnuts, and hemlocks; through circles and arrows of gold with which the sun splashed the white earth--every cabin that they passed tenantless, for the inmates had gone ahead long ago--and on to the little schoolhouse that sat on a tiny plateau in a small clearing, with snow-tufted bushes of laurel on every side and snowy mountains rising on either hand.
The door was wide open and smoke was curling from the chimney. A few horses and mules were hitched to the bushes near by. Men, boys, and dogs were gathered around a big fire in front of the building; and in a minute women, children, and more dogs poured out of the schoolhouse to watch the coming cavalcade. Since sunrise the motley group had been waiting there, and the tender heart of the little marquise began to ache: the women thinly clad in dresses of worsted or dark calico, and a shawl or short jacket or man's coat, with a sunbonnet or "fascinator" on their heads, and men's shoes on their feet--the older ones stooped and thin, the younger ones carrying babies, and all with weather-beaten faces and bared hands; the men and boys without overcoats, their coarse shirts unbuttoned, their necks and upper chests bared to the biting cold, their hands thrust in their pockets as they stood about the fire, and below their short coat-sleeves their wrists showing chapped and red; while to the little boys and girls had fallen only such odds and ends of clothing as the older ones could spare. Quickly the doctor got his party indoors and to work on the Christmas tree. Not one did he tell of the impending danger, and the Colt's .45 bulging under this man's shoulder or on that man's hip, and the Winchester in the hollow of an arm here and there were sights too common in those hills to arouse suspicion in anybody's mind. The cedar-tree, shorn of its branches at the base and banked with mosses, towered to the angle of the roof. There were no desks in the room except the one table once used by the teacher. Long, crude wooden benches with low backs faced the tree, with an aisle leading from the door between them. Lap-robes were hung over the windows, and soon a gorgeous figure of Santa Claus was smiling down from the very tiptop of the tree. With her flushed face, eager eyes, and golden hair the busy marquise looked like its patron saint. Ropes of gold and silver tinsel were swiftly draped around and up and down; enmeshed in these were little red Santas, gayly colored paper horns filled with candy, colored balls, white and yellow birds, little colored candles with holders to match, and other glittering things; while over the whole tree a glistening powder was sprinkled like a mist of shining snow. Many presents were tied to the tree, and under it were the rest of the labelled ones in a big pile. In a semicircle about the base sat the dolls in pink, yellow, and blue, and looking down the aisle to the door. Packages of candy in colored Japanese napkins and tied with a narrow red ribbon were in another pile, with a pyramid of oranges at its foot. And yet there was still another pile for unexpected children, that the heart of none should be sore. Then the candles were lighted and the door flung open to the eager waiting crowd outside. In a moment every seat was silently filled by the women and children, and the men, stolid but expectant, lined the wall. The like of that tree no soul of them had ever seen before. Only a few of the older ones had ever seen a Christmas tree of any kind, and they but one; and they had lost that in a free-for-all fight. And yet only the eyes of them showed surprise or pleasure. There was no word--no smile, only unwavering eyes mesmerically fixed on that wonderful tree.
The young doctor rose, and only the marquise saw and wondered that he was nervous, restless and pale. As best he could he told them what Christmas was and what it meant to the world; and he had scarcely finished when a hand beckoned to him from the door. Leaving one of his friends to distribute the presents, he went outside to discover that one vandal had come on ahead, drunk and boisterous. Promptly the doctor tied him to a tree and, leaving Pleasant Trouble to guard him, shouldered a Winchester and himself took up a lonely vigil on the mountainside. Within, Christmas went on. When a name was called a child came forward silently, usually shoved to the front by some relative, took what was handed to it, and, dumb with delight, but too shy even to murmur a word of thanks, silently returned to its seat with the presents hugged to its breast--presents that were simple, but not to those mountain mites: colored pictures and illustrated books they were, red plush albums, simple games, fascinators, and mittens for the girls; pocket-knives, balls, firecrackers, horns, mittens, caps, and mufflers for the boys; a doll dressed in everything a doll should wear for each little girl, no one of whom had ever seen a doll before, except what was home-made from an old dress or apron tied in several knots to make the head and body. Twice only was the silence broken. One boy quite forgot himself when given a pocket-knife. He looked at it suspiciously and incredulously, turned it over in his hand, opened it and felt the edge of the blade, and, panting with excitement, cried:
"Hit's a shore 'nough knife!"
And again when, to make sure that nobody had been left out, though all the presents were gone, the master of ceremonies asked if there was any other little boy or girl who had received nothing, there arose a bent, toothless old woman in a calico dress and baggy black coat, her gray hair straggling from under her black sunbonnet and her hands gnarled and knotted from work and rheumatism. Simply as a child she spoke:
"I ain't got nothin'."
Gravely the giver of the gifts asked her to come forward, and while, nonplussed, he searched the tree for the most glittering thing he could find, a tiny gold safety-pin was thrust into his hand, the whiter hollow of the marquise's white throat became visible, and that old woman was made till death the proudest in the hills. Then all the women pressed forward and then the men, until all the ornaments were gone, even the half-burned candles with their colored holders, which the men took eagerly and fastened in their coats, clasping the holders to their lapels or fastening the bent wire in their buttonholes, and pieces of tinsel rope, which they threw over their shoulders--so that the tree stood at last just as it was when brought from the wild woods outside.
Straightway then the young doctor hurried the departure of the merrymakers. Already the horses stood hitched, and, while the lap-robes were being carried out, a mountaineer who had brought along a sack of apples lined up the men and boys, and at a given word started running down the road, pouring out the apples as he ran while the men and boys scrambled for them, rolling and tussling in the snow.
Just then a fusillade of shots rang from the top of the mountain, but nobody paid any heed. As the party moved away, the mountaineers waved their hands and shouted good-by to the doctor, too shy still to pay much heed to the other "furriners" in the wagon. The doctor looked back once with a grateful sigh of relief, but no one in the wagon knew that there had been any danger that day. How great the danger had been not even the doctor knew till Pleasant Trouble galloped up and whispered behind his hand: the coming vandals had got as far as the top of the dividing ridge, had there quarrelled and fought among themselves, so that, as the party drove away, one invader was at the minute cursing his captors, who were setting him free, and high upon the ridge another lay dead in the snow.
That night the doctor and the marquise, well muffled against the cold, sat on the porch of the superintendent's bungalow while the daughter sat discreetly inside. The flame-light of the ovens licked the snowy ravine above and below; it was their first chance for a talk, and they had it out to the happy end.
"You see," said the doctor, "there is even more to do over here than in Happy Valley."
"There is much to do everywhere in these hills," said the marquise.
"And I need you--oh, how I do need you!" Most untimely, the daughter appeared at the door.
"Then you shall have me," whispered the marquise.
"Bedtime!" called the girl, and only with his eyes--just then--could the doctor kiss the little marquise. But the next morning, when he went with her as far as the top of the mountain and Pleasant Trouble rode whistling ahead, he had better luck.
"When?" he asked.
"Not till June," she said firmly. And again he asked:
"When?"
"Oh, about two o'clock," smiled the marquise.
"The first two o'clock?"
"Too early!"
"The second," he said decidedly. For answer the marquise leaned from her saddle toward him and he kissed her again.
Later, by just five months and one week, the doctor mounted his horse for Happy Valley. He had to go up Pigeon, and riding by the little schoolhouse, he stopped at the door and from his horse pushed it open. The Christmas tree stood just as he had left it on Christmas Day, only, like the evergreens on the wall and over the windows, it too was brown, withered, and dry. Gently he closed the door and rode on. And on the clock-stroke of two in Happy Valley there was a wedding that blessed first June afternoon.
[The end]
John Fox's short story: Christmas Tree On Pigeon
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