Karl Krinken, His Christmas Stocking

THE STORY OF THE HYMN BOOK

“‘Clary! Clary!—wake up! you’ll be late. See how late it’s getting.’

“‘Well mother—but I’m so tired! What’s the good of living so, mother?’

“‘One must live somehow, child—till one’s time comes to die.’

“Clary did not say, but she thought, as she raised herself slowly from the hard little straw bed, that it did not matter how soon that time came for her. Work! work!—living to work and working to live. Working hard, too, and for what a pittance of life! Was it living to sleep half as much as she wanted, and then to get up in the cold grey dawn of a winter’s morning, get three or four dirty children out of bed and into such clothes as they had; and then after as much breakfast as she had had sleep, to take that long cold walk in her old straw bonnet and thin cotton shawl to the printing-office,—there to stand all day supplying the busy iron fingers of the press? How thin and blue her own were!

“Poor Clary!—In truth she did not know what it was to live, in the real sense of the word—her mind looked back to no happier time than the present; for though she could well remember being a dirty little child like her brothers and sisters, with nothing to do but play or quarrel as she felt inclined, yet she by no means wished the time back again. The death of her father, and the consequent absence of his bottle and his wild fits of intoxication, had left the family in a peaceful state compared with those days; and since Clary had been at the printing-office she had learned to love the sight of decently-dressed people—had begun to take more pains to look nice herself; and above all, had begun to feel that she would like to be happy and well-dressed and respectable, if she only knew how. But they were very, very poor, and there were a cluster of little mouths to fill,—as clamorous and wide open as a nest of young swallows,—and never saying ‘enough.’ So though she kept her face cleaner and her hair smoother, and, when she could get them sewed hooks and eyes on her dress,—the march of improvement rested there; and her face was as hopeless, her eye as dull, as ever. For nobody had ever taught Clary about that ‘one thing needful’ which can make up for the want of all others. She had never been to church, she had never read the Bible—and indeed had none to read. She thought that nothing but money could make them happy,—she thought nobody could want anything but money; and was really not much surprised that people were so loath to part with it. They must be that, she thought, or the poor press-tenders could not be so very far removed from the heads of the concern, in comfortable appearance.

“There were many of the women indeed that spent more upon their dress than she did. A tawdry silk jacket worked all day at her right hand, and a pair of earrings dangled all day before her; while her own dress was but the coarsest calico; but Clary had somehow begun to wish for neatness and comfort,—of course finery was forgotten.

“Never had she been much inclined to envy anybody, till one day the head printer brought his two little children to the office; and Clary’s heart beat quick time to her sorrowful thoughts all the hours after. O to see those children at home with clean faces, and smooth hair, and whole frocks and trousers! And now there were rags and dirt and tangled locks, and no time to mend matters; and small stock of soap and combs and needles to mend with. Clary went straight to bed when she got home that night; and it was on the next morning that she awoke with the question,

“‘Mother, what’s the use of living so?’

“But as her mother had said, she must live somehow; and getting wearily out of bed, hastily too, for it was indeed late, Clary easily found her way into such clothes as she had; and then, having with some difficulty fastened the children into theirs, she seated them at the table where her mother had by this time placed the breakfast; and herself stood by, drinking a cup of the miserable coffee and tying on her bonnet at the same time.

“‘Going to wash to-day, mother?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Then I’ll take some bread and not try to come home for dinner.’

“This was the ordinary course of things. Clary at the printing-press, and her mother doing days’ work for people well off in the world; while the younger children were locked in or locked out, as the case might be.

“It was a foggy December morning,—not very cold, but with a drizzling mist that was more chilling than snow; and by the time Clary reached the office she felt as moody and uncomfortable as the weather. It was warm enough in the office, but not very cheering she thought; though some of the men looked as if they enjoyed life sufficiently well, as with sleeves rolled up they whistled softly over their work, keeping time with their heads if the tune were a particularly lively one.

“Clary put her bonnet and shawl in their place, and went to the press she always tended. It was motionless now, and a man was just putting in a new set of plates. Clary hardly noticed what he was doing—it mattered so little to her what words were printed on those great sheets of paper that she handled every day; though she could read, and very well; but stood listlessly.

“‘What’s the matter, Clary?’ said the man. ‘You look dumpish this morning. I’ve fixed you a new piece of work here that’ll be good for that—they say poetry’s firstrate for the spirits.’

“Something good for her! She knew the man spoke jestingly, and yet as he walked off Clary thought she would look and see what it was that he was talking about. She had seen type enough to be able to spell it out backwards, and bending over the plates she read at the corner next her,—

“And then the machine was suddenly put in motion; and not faster could she supply the sheets than the press drew them in, printed them, and tossed them out in a nice pile at one end.

“Clary could not stop for one instant. But she had something to think about. Again and again she repeated those three words to herself, and wondered of whom they spoke, and what could be the rest of the sentence. She could guess,—it must mean the people who were rich, and had plenty of clothes, and plenty to eat, and time to sleep and to walk about in the sunshine. The people who bought the meats that she saw hanging up in the butchers’ shops, which she hardly knew by name and much less by taste,—the beautiful ladies that she sometimes saw in Broadway when she happened to get through work a little earlier than usual—wrapped up in furs and velvets and looking as if they wouldn’t know calico when they saw it,—the children that she had seen looking out of carriage windows with little white lap-dogs; the curling ears on the head of the dog and the curling feathers on the head of the child seeming to Clary almost equally beautiful. Yes, those must be the happy people; but then she would very much like to know more about them—to read all those stories which the press was no doubt printing off, of these same happy people—who never were poor and who had no little ragged brothers and sisters. For the first time in her life Clary wished the press would get out of order, for some other reason than because she was tired. Her mind worked and worked upon those three words till she was almost wild with the desire to read more. Perhaps it told the way to be rich and happy,—and that cruel press kept moving just as fast as it could. Not till twelve o’clock did it make a pause. But at twelve o’clock there was a sudden hush; and hardly had the rollers stopped their rolling, before Clary had left her place and gone to that corner of the pile of printed sheets where she knew the words must be. Yes, they were there—she found them easy enough; but what were they?

“Poor Clary! she could almost have cried over her disappointment; for if the words had been Greek she could hardly have been more puzzled as to their meaning. As I have said, she had never been to church—she had never read the Bible;—and if ever she had heard the Saviour’s name, it was from those who spoke it with neither love nor reverence. Her father had been a drunkard,—her mother was a hard-working, well-meaning woman, but as ignorant as Clary herself. No preacher of the gospel had ever set foot in their house,—and ‘how should they believe on him of whom they had not heard?’

“So Clary puzzled over the lines and could make nothing of them. The word treasure she did indeed understand; but where it was to be laid up, and how, were as far from her as ever. And constantly her mind went back to that second line—‘Who the Saviour obey.’

“‘I wonder if I couldn’t do that?’ she thought to herself,—‘if I only knew how. Mother always said I was good about minding. It must be so pleasant to be happy.—It doesn’t say that nobody can do it but rich people, either,’—and again she read the words. They were at the bottom of the sheet, and the next might not come to her press at all, or not for some days. She looked over the rest of the sheet. A great many of the hymns she could make nothing of at all,—the very words—‘missionary,’ and ‘convert,’ and ‘ransom,’ were strange to her. Then this hymn caught her eye, and she read,—

“Clary read no further. That did not suit her, she thought—there was nothing bright about her way of life or herself. It seemed the old thing again—the happy rich people. She went back and read the first one over,—that did not seem so, and she sought further; wearily glancing from hymn to hymn, but with a longing that not even the hard words could check. At last she saw one verse, the first word of which she knew well enough,—

“The words went right to the sore spot in Clary’s heart—the spot which had ached for many a long day. Somebody to love her,—a rich friend;—if she had written down her own wishes, they could hardly have been more perfectly expressed; and the tears came so fast, that she had to move away lest they should blot the paper. Bitter tears they were, yet not such as she had often shed; for, she knew not how, those words seemed to carry a possible hope of fulfilment—a half-promise—which her own imaginations had never done. And the first line suited her so exactly,—

“‘I am all that,’ thought Clary, ‘but if this rich friend loves one poor person he might another. ‘Jesus, the Saviour’—that must be the same that the other verse speaks of. ‘How happy are they who the Saviour obey—’ O I wish I knew how—I would do anything in the world to be happy! And I suppose all these rich people know all about him, and obey him, and that makes them so happy; for if he loves poor people he must love the rich a great deal more.’

“One o’clock!

“The great clock struck, and the people came tramping back to their work, or rose up from the corners where they had been eating such dinner as they had brought. Clary had forgotten all about hers—certainly it was an easy dinner to forget—but all the afternoon as the press kept on its busy way, she lived upon those two verses which she had learned by heart.

“She had no chance to read more when they left off work at night; but all the way home she scarce saw either rich or poor for the intentness with which her mind studied those words, and the hope and determination with which she resolved to find out of whom they spoke. She almost felt as if she had found him already—it seemed as if she was less friendless than she had been in the morning; and though once and again the remembered words filled her eyes with tears, any one who knew Clary would have wondered at the step with which she went home.”

“Where did she read those words?” said Carl, who had listened with deep attention.

“On my 272d page,” replied the hymn book. “For it so happened that I was printing that very day.”

Carl turned to the 272d page and read the words, and then shutting the hymn book desired him to go on with his story.

“‘What made you so early, Clary?’ said her mother, who had got home first.

“‘Early is it?’ said Clary, when she could get breath to speak—for she had run up all the three pair of stairs to their little room. ‘It’s the same time as always, mother—only maybe I walked fast. O mother! I’ve had such a happy day!’

“‘A happy day!’ said her mother, looking up in amazement at the life of her voice and face that were wont to be so dull and listless. ‘Well child—I’m glad on’t,—you never had many.’

“‘Such a happy day!’ repeated Clary. ‘O mother—I read such beautiful words at the printing-office!’

“‘Did you fetch the soap I wanted?’ inquired her mother.

“No—Clary had forgotten it.

“‘Well don’t be so happy to-morrow that you’ll forget it,’ said her mother. ‘Every living child here’s as dirty as a pig, and no way of making ’em cleaner. Tidy up the room a little, can’t you, Clary?—I’ve stood up on my two feet all day.’

“So had Clary, and some nights she would have said as much; but now that new half hope of being happy—that new desire of doing all that anybody could want her to do (she didn’t know why), gave her two feet new strength; and she not only ‘tidied up’ the room, but even found a little end of soap to tidy up the children withal; and then gave them their supper and put them to bed with far less noise and confusion than usual.

“Her mother was already seated by the one tallow candle, making coarse shirts and overalls for a wholesale dealer; and Clary having at last found her thimble in the pocket of the smallest pair of trousers, sat down to work too. Never had her fingers moved so fast.

“‘Mother,’ she said, after a while, ‘did you ever hear anybody talk about the Saviour?’

“Her mother stared.

“‘What on earth, child!’ she said. ‘Where have you been, and who’s been putting notions in your head?’

“‘Nobody,’ said Clary—‘and I’ve been nowhere,—only to the office, the same as usual. But I read some beautiful verses there, mother—at dinner-time—that they were printing off on my press; and they made me feel so—I can’t tell you how. But oh mother, they told about some great rich friend of poor people—poor people like us, mother—worth nothing at all, they said; and that everybody who obeyed him was happy.’

“‘You’d better not plague your head with such stuff,’ said her mother. ‘Nobody cares about poor folks like us. Why child, rich people wouldn’t touch us with a pair of tongs! Haven’t I seen ’em draw up their frocks as I went by—because mine was calico, and maybe not over clean because I couldn’t buy soap and bread both? I tell you Clary, rich folks thinks the poor has no right to breathe in the same world with ’em. I don’t want to long, for one.’

“‘I didn’t say rich people,’ said Clary thoughtfully, but only this one:—

O mother! I wish I had!’

“‘Come child, shut up!’ said her mother, but not unkindly, for something in Clary’s look and tone had stirred the long deadened feeling within her. ‘I tell you child we must eat, and how is your work to get done if you sit there crying in that fashion? The candle’s ’most burnt out, too, and not another scrap in the house.’

“Clary dried her tears and went on with the overalls until the candle had flickered its last; and then groped her way in the dark to the little bed she and her mother occupied by that of the five children. For sleeping all together thus, the coverings went further. Dark and miserable it was; and yet when Clary laid herself down, overtaken at last by the sleep which had pursued her all the evening; the last thought in the poor child’s mind was of those hymns,—the word on which her heart went to sleep was that ‘name which is above every name.’

“To Clary’s great sorrow and disappointment, when she went next day to the printing-office, the pile of printed paper had been removed; and not only so, but a new set of plates given her instead of those of the hymn book. Clary’s only comfort was to repeat over and over to herself the words she had already learned, and to try to get at their meaning. Sometimes she thought she would ask the foreman, who was very pleasant and good-natured—but that was only while he was at some other press,—whenever he came near hers, Clary was frightened and held her head down lest he should guess what she was thinking of. And as week after week passed on, she grew very weary and discouraged; yet still clinging to those words as the last hope she had. If she could possibly have forgotten them, she would have been almost desperate.

“The winter passed, and the spring came; and it was pleasanter now to go down to the printing-office in the early morning, and to walk home at night; and she could hear other people’s canaries sing, and see the green grass and flowers in other people’s courtyards; and on Sunday as she had no work she could sit out on the doorstep—if there weren’t too many children about—or walk away from that miserable street into some pleasanter one.

“She had walked about for a long time one Sunday, watching the people that were coming from afternoon church; and now the sun was leaving the street and she turned to leave it too,—taking a little cross street which she had never been in before.

“It hardly deserved the name of street, for a single block was all its length. The houses were not of the largest, but they looked neat and comfortable, with their green blinds and gay curtains; and Spring was there in her earliest dress—a green ground, well spotted with hyacinths, snowdrops, and crocuses. It was very quiet, too, cut short as it was at both ends; and the Sabbath of the great city seemed to have quitted Broadway and established itself here.

“Upon one of the low flights of steps, Clary saw as she approached it, sat a little girl having a book in her hand. With a dress after the very pattern of Spring’s, a little warm shawl over her shoulders, and a little chair that was just big enough, she sat there in the warm sunshine which streamed down through a gap in the houses, turning over the leaves of her book. If you had guessed the child’s name from her looks, you would have called her ‘Sweet Content.’

“Clary stopped a little way off to look at her; thinking bitterly of the five children she had left playing in the dirt at home; and as she stopped, the little girl began to sing,—

“The little voice had no more than brought these words to Clary’s ear, when a carriage came rolling by and the rest of the verse was lost; but in an instant Clary was at the house, and feeling as if this were the only chance she ever should have, she opened the little gate and went in.

“The child ceased singing and looked up at her in some surprise.

“‘I want to know–,’ said Clary,—and then suddenly recollecting her own poor dress, and comparing it with the little picture before her, she stopped short. But the words must come—they were spoken almost before Clary herself was aware.

“‘Will you please to tell me who the Saviour is?’

“And then blushing and frightened she could almost have run away, but something held her fast.

“The child’s eyes grew more and more wondering.

“‘Come in,’ she said gravely, getting up from her chair, and with some difficulty keeping the book and the little shawl in their places.

“But Clary drew back.

“‘O yes—come in,’ said the child, tucking the little book under her arm, and holding out her hand to Clary. ‘Please come in—mother will tell you.’

“And following her little conductor, Clary found herself the next minute in a pleasant, plain, and very neat room.

“‘Mother,’ said the child opening a door into the next room, but still keeping her eye upon Clary lest she should run away.—‘Mother—here’s a girl who never heard about Jesus.’

“‘I don’t understand thee, Eunice,’ said a pleasant voice, ‘but I will come.’ And a most pleasant face and figure followed the voice.

“‘What did thee say, child?’ she inquired, with only a glance towards Clary.

“‘Tell mother what you want,’ said the child encouragingly. ‘Mother, she never heard about Jesus.’

“‘Tell mother what you want,’ said the child, encouragingly. ‘Mother, she never heard about Jesus!’”—P. 224.

“‘Thee never heard about him, poor child,’ said the lady approaching Clary. ‘And how dost thou live in this world of troubles without such a Friend?’

“‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ said Clary, weeping. ‘We are very poor, and we never had any friends; and a long time ago in the winter I read a verse at the printing-office about some one who loved poor people,—and I thought maybe he would help us if he knew about us.’

“‘He knows all about thee now,’ said the good Mrs. Allen, with a look of strange wonder and pity on her pleasant face. ‘Sit down here child, and I will tell thee. Didst thou never hear about God?’