Читать книгу Flower-Patch Neighbours - Flora Klickmann - Страница 6

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I hadn’t much time, however, to meditate on the trials that were in store for our guests; there was so much to do in the few days before their arrival.

First, I had to see about the prizes for the Sunday-school children, not only in our own village, but also for those in the next village. The books had come down in packing-cases, and were now piled up about the study floor, as well as on tables and chairs. They had to be sorted, and dispatched to the two responsible clergymen—one village being down in the valley below us, and the other up, upon the top of a three-miles-away hill.

Next we did up the presents for our friends and neighbours. Some were more useful than ornamental, perhaps, but none the worse for that. We knew old Mrs. Blossom would be delighted with her aluminium hot-water bottle; she had been bemoaning how her crockery bottles would persist in cracking.

Some presents had a history. Being one day in the garden belonging to a lady whose place adjoins one of our woods, I was surprised to see a mad-looking collection of empty tins, rusty trays, old hats, derelict umbrellas (open), streamers of white rag, and other objets d’art, all suspended from strings stretched over her vegetables.

“What in the world——?” I inquired.

“Yes! Isn’t it awful!” she said. “But the gardener says it will scare the pheasants. He’s cross because they’ve eaten the vegetable marrows, though, for my own part, I’d give them the lot, I do so love to see the beautiful creatures strutting about the garden.”

I felt guilty, because they were my pheasants. Wild ones, it’s true. But they live in that wood. I also love them; and never a shot is allowed to be fired at them. I hate all killing that goes by the name of sport. Still—that doesn’t justify other people’s vegetables being devoured, and their garden turned into an exhibition of old junk!

When Christmas Day arrived, the lady found on her doorstep a large pumpkin (from the row hanging in my kitchen) inscribed, “With the Pheasants’ Best Wishes.”

Abigail’s motto for Christmas presents is “the bulkier the better.” And when she pointed out to me that we never used the wringer which lived at the cottage, while Amelia Glummick had always longed for one, we tied a bow of blue ribbon to the handle, and ticketed it for Amelia.

I needn’t go over all the items. Every one knows what an intriguing matter the Christmas presents business is. By the time we had remembered everybody we wanted to remember, a large table in the study was heaped high, the parcels being grouped according to locality, so that any member of the household going in a particular direction could deliver those for that area.

Followed the pleasant occupation of getting out the “best things” for company. I do like a festival to be really festive; and it adds so much to the feeling of importance if one gets out special frills and furbelows for the house, and puts up fresh curtains—not that you could tell whether they were just put up, or had been hanging a couple of years, for nothing gets soiled in the clean air. And a house which stands in the midst of grass and flowers and trees, with no road and no trains near, and no traffic passing by, never has dust blown in at the windows. There is no dust to blow!

Then came the decorations. We had none of the electric lighting stunts so popular in towns; but we had unlimited holly and mistletoe and ivy trails. If one can be recklessly lavish with these, a place looks Christmassy at once. Great bunches of red-berried holly hung from all the antlers on the walls; festooned ivy linked them up. Tall vases were filled with yellow jasmine, low bowls with violets and primroses in moss and fern; and with sunshine streaming through the windows, not much else was needed in the way of Christmas decorations.

Finally, the tree was placed in the study. It was a noble one, and looked lovely when hung from its tip to the base with long tinsel streamers, through which could be seen a fascinating assortment of coloured balls, chocolate cats, pink sugar mice, small dolls, sugar watches, and many other small oddments, without which no Christmas-tree would be worthy the name.

The tree had a special mission that year, being for the delectation of two little orphans who had appeared unexpectedly in our midst. Their parents had died of some epidemic in a remote part of China, leaving a boy of nine and a girl of seven to be passed on drearily from one to another, across the continent, till they had reached Shanghai, where some one in authority had sent them home to England.

Here, the only relative forthcoming was an aunt, a semi-invalid with next to no income, staying for her health in our village. She was prepared to lavish unlimited love on them; but unfortunately that didn’t go far towards feeding and clothing them, though she gave them her own meals gladly. She thought she could manage the little girl’s clothes, but the boy’s were a problem. And they would need boots. And——

As we happened to arrive that same week, she called to ask me how I thought £75 per annum could best be laid out, so as to support the three of them. That was all she had, even if dividends came up to expectation, and they didn’t always!

Of course I immediately got into touch with orphanages.

Nothing was settled as yet, however; and we were concentrating on giving them a happy Christmas.

Straightway another difficulty arose. Mr. and Mrs. Author had no children, nor any nephews and nieces. Also, they were “looking forward to peace and quiet.” Obviously, they weren’t expecting to spend Christmas Day entertaining unknown youngsters.

More discussions!

At last we compromised. We wouldn’t ask the children to Christmas dinner. The grown-ups should have that in undisturbed tranquillity. Then, if the afternoon were spent basking in our adult intelligence, possibly it wouldn’t be too much of a strain for them to endure a children’s tea-party, and we would wind up with the tree.

Having settled it thus, I hoped for the best—though I knew, alas! from a chequered past, that few things seem more thoroughly determined to go wrong than do one’s good intentions! And the more blameless they are, the greater the likelihood that they will finally succeed in upsetting somebody’s apple-cart!

I remember an old party in the village who, after long and verbose details of her objections to various other women who attended the sewing meeting, finished up (apropos of nothing at all!)—

“Ah, well, it’s just like the minister read last Sunday, ‘Woe unto him who does his best to please everybody.’ ”

By this time the preparations had reduced me to that exhausted condition which seems essential if one is really to enjoy one’s visitors on any festive occasion! Even the dog had been running under our feet most of the day, picking up every bit of evergreen he could get hold of, and trotting with it to any one who would give it attention—it being part of his official duties to retrieve pencils or other oddments I may drop under my writing-table, and to assist estimable persons who bring in sticks.

But after he had managed to get in everybody’s way, and was nearly annihilated beneath a step-ladder which collapsed, Abigail exclaimed—

“My dear Patch, if you can’t find a suitable job, do, for pity’s sake, go and get the dole, and be done with it!”

I think I must have become slightly less poised, and unruffled, and serene, than is my aim in life (i.e. when I chance to have a leisure moment in which to “aim”). For when I apologised to Abigail for having been perhaps a trifle too—we will say, exigent, she replied—

“I reckon saints and sinners all get equally ratty when they’ve a cold in the head coming on; the only difference is the words they use.”

I sincerely hoped I hadn’t a cold in the head coming on. And I wished I knew under which heading I was classified.

At last the moment arrived when we surveyed our happy home with conscious pride, and said, “Don’t we look nice!”

“It isn’t bad,” said the Head of Affairs, when he was appealed to, in our craving for further approbation. “Not that I can see much difference myself” (he is nothing if not truthful!) “excepting the broken pair of steps. But it’s as well that you gathered some green stuff and flowers, for it’s turning very cold. The wind has gone round to north-east, and the thermometer has dropped considerably; I shouldn’t be surprised if there were several degrees of frost to-night.”

Next morning, when Abigail brought my cup of tea, she said—

“Have you seen outside?”

“No? Don’t say it’s raining!”

She drew back a curtain, and, behold, a world so whitely radiant that surely Heaven itself can hardly show greater purity. All silently and unexpectedly the snow had piled up an average of six inches deep. The branches of firs and cedars bowed under the weight of it; small bushes had become large round-topped mounds. All paths were lost, and the many flights of stone steps about the garden were so merged in snow as to be most treacherous, unless one knew exactly where they were.

As I looked out, snow began to tumble off the branches of the belt of conifers known as the Squirrels’ Highway. I soon saw the reason, as streaks of reddy-brown fur flashed from bough to bough, and Bushy-Tail with his wife skipped along to the big Scotch fir and ran down the trunk to where the nut-boxes hung. They were very disgruntled when, after digging the snow out of the boxes they found their breakfast was not in its usual place, and only a few empty shells in the bottom of the boxes—these they flung to the ground in a most indignant manner.

And they were not the only breakfastless little people. Dozens of birds sat, a hungry crew, in the surrounding trees, keeping watch on the windows, till the Dispenser of Provisions should put the daily ration of rolled oats on the birdboard and window-ledges. As soon as I appeared at the window, a robin darted on to the ledge outside, and, half-buried in the snow, cocked his little head on one side, and looked inquiringly at me.

The Christmas-card landscape was complete in every detail.

And the visitors were due to arrive at four o’clock that afternoon!

Only one thing now remained to be done—fresh apples had to be arranged on the various hearths.

I wonder if you know what the scent is like, when apples stuck with cloves are placed near the fire, and left to roast as they please—not for home consumption, but merely for their perfume? Crab apples are far and away the best for this purpose, their scent is so strong and spicy. Failing these, cider apples are the next best; whereas the large, handsome cookers, so popular when baked, are the least “scenty” for hearth-fire purposes.

As there are always any number of crab apples, and cider apples, lying about the lanes, and in the fields, during October and November, it is an easy matter to keep the home supplied. They last three days, and then the scent begins to fade, and we put down fresh ones. The cloves, which are a mild extravagance, are not really needed with the “crabs,” as the perfume of these little apples is extremely aromatic, and quickly fills the house.

Even people who don’t like the odour of raw apples, invariably like the apples roasting on the hearth, as their scent is quite different from that of the raw fruit; and it fills the house with a sweet, almost appetising scent, suggestive of all sorts of pleasant things; and it is especially delicious on cold frosty winter nights.

So I renewed apples, before going to meet our guests—a little row on each hearth, fairly close up to the blazing fire.