CHAPTER X.
HOMINIBUS BONÆ VOLUNTATIS.
All the world was getting ready for Christmas; there was no doubt about that. As for South Micklegard, as the German quarter was usually called, it was absolutely upon its head with delight. For there is no season of the year that a German loves better than the winter solstice, the ancient yule feast of his far-away forbears, the birthday of the “Golden Child,” as the Veda hath it. Is it indeed the true birthday of the child Christ Jesus? Who knows!
Nay, oh my brothers! who, with your factions, and the smoke of your unbrotherly strife rising to heaven, have marred every scene, every step of that sinless life,—let us be thankful for that which remains unknown. Birthday and death-day, His cradle, Golgotha, and the sepulchre whence rose His living body, the Father keeps hidden in the holy silence of His own recollection. Therefore, since with Him is neither past nor future, but an eternal now, those days are ever present with us. Each morn, each evening, He is born again, dies again, for us, in us; and finds in our hearts His Bethlehem, His Calvary, His tomb.
It was Louis’ first Christmas, so far as his own consciousness was concerned. His mother had indeed set out his little socks for the Christ-child to fill, when he was but six months old, and had not yet put on shoes; but Louis certainly remembered nothing of that. And since Dora’s death Christmas had been a sad day to Karl Metzerott; a day which he spent as quietly as possible, avoiding merrymaking, and keeping Louis to himself, quite out of hearing of any mention of the feast or its occasion. But, however feasible this plan of operations might have hitherto proved, at five and a half, Louis was not to be so disposed of.
“Papa,” he said, fetching his little stool with an air that meant business, and seating himself so as to gaze into his father’s face, with large, serious eyes, “papa, what is Christmas?”
“Who told you anything about it?” asked the man, a little uneasily, seeing before him the dilemma of Christmas gayeties on the one hand, or disappointment to Louis on the other; both of which he felt equally unwilling to accept.
“It was Herr Martin,” said Louis. “He said you were a free-thinker, who would let your boy have no Christmas.”
“Your mother was buried on Christmas Day, Louis, and I do not care, therefore, to laugh and be merry on that day. But Jeweller Martin may mind his own business,” he added angrily.
“Then do people laugh and be merry on Christmas? What is Christmas, papa?”
“A bit of nonsense, Louis, that you and I are too wise for. Come, I’ll tell you all about it. It’s only an old fairy tale, anyway, and you like fairy tales.”
“Ja, wohl!” said the child, with brightening eyes. “I like them so much.”
“Well, they say that once upon a time the world was very wicked, and the Christ-child came to save it. He was born on Christmas, and, when he grew up, preached to the people, and told them to repent and be good; but, instead of that, the rich men of those days took him and killed him. That part of the story is true, Louis; but the foolish part is this. Herr Martin’s little boy, and George, and all the children about here, believe that the Christ-child is still alive in some place they call heaven; and that he comes every Christmas Eve, and fills their shoes with candy and toys, and such stuff.”
“Oh!” Louis gave a long sigh. “And he don’t, really?” he asked wistfully.
“Really? No. How could he? The fathers and mothers fill the shoes, and then lie about it to the children.” He paused for a moment, as the vision rose in his heart of those two little white socks, and his wife’s eyes, as she looked up at him, smiling, on her knees beside them, to complain that they were so small that nothing would go in. “I don’t say but it’s a pretty story,” he added hastily, “but I’ve never told you a lie yet, Louis.”
“I—I—wish,” said the boy, “I wish it wasn’t a lie, papa.”
“Ah! so do I, Louis. But, such as the Herr Christ, if he had come at all on that Christmas Eve, it would have been to cure your poor mother. He would never have let her die, if he had been what they say he is.”
Louis made no answer. This reasoning was entirely beyond him; but he sat very still on his little stool, with his hands folded, and a lonely, lost look on his sweet face, that went to Metzerott’s heart.
“Come,” he said, with rough tenderness, “I’ll tell you something far better than to have your shoes filled by anybody. Be a little Christ-kind yourself, and carry gifts to other people.”
He had struck the right chord. Louis’ face beamed at once.
“I’ve got a quarter,” he said eagerly.
They were soon deep in the discussion of ways and means; for there were many to receive, and little to give with; but as the main object was to give Louis pleasure, and as he knew little of intrinsic values, he would be satisfied to give, however small the gift.
“As for the Miss Prices,” said Metzerott, “I’ve got a Christmas gift planned out for them, Louis; and to-morrow afternoon” (which was Sunday), “you ask Miss Polly to dress you in your best, and we’ll go and see about it.”
It proved to be worth seeing about.
The janitor of the Männerchor Club House, who was a saving man, and had, besides, good work and excellent pay in a factory in Micklegard, had resolved to try his luck on a sheep ranch in Texas, the owner of which had lately died, leaving a widow, who was willing to sell out land, stock, and fixtures on easy terms. The janitor had enough money to pay the first instalment, and his and his family’s expenses to Texas; but the widow wanted him to come on at once and take charge, as was, indeed, highly necessary for the welfare of the sheep, and he was bound to the Männerchor until June, their bargain being for a year at a time.
Now, the janitor’s salary was a small affair in itself; but the perquisites included the use of the ground floor of the club-house as a dwelling. This ground floor had originally been a store, of tolerable proportions, and had been simply partitioned off, when the building was bought by the Männerchor, to suit the new use to which it was to be put. There was a kitchen in the rear, small but alterable, and Metzerott had visions of alterations before his mind’s eye.
It will be remembered that at the Kaffee Klatsch, already described, supper was furnished to the convives at the modest price of fifteen cents a head. It had been experimentally proven that this rather more than covered expenses, even though the viands were ordered ready prepared from a baker, who of course made his own profit upon them. At the numerous concerts and balls which took place in the Hall, the supper cost usually a quarter, this sum, it was to be inferred, also leaving a margin for profit.
Now the duties of the janitor might be divided into two classes; he had to take care of the club-house, and keep it in order, and also attend to the fires and lights whenever it was used by the society, or other parties to whom it, or any part of it, might be rented for an evening. The first of these functions was usually performed by the janitor’s wife, while the second, being better suited to a masculine capacity, the janitor reserved for himself. It seemed, therefore, to Karl Metzerott’s logical mind, that, as these duties were already divided, it was not an absolute necessity that they who performed them should be man and wife; and his plan was to establish the Prices in the janitor’s quarters with the care of the house, and also as caterers to the club, by which, in addition to the business they had already got together, he thought they could make a very comfortable living.
As for the janitor’s other duties, Karl had a candidate for them in the person of Franz Schaefer, the pastor’s eldest son, now nearly seventeen. Franz, it appeared, was a musical genius, and was working hard at his violin, under the care of the Herr Direktor of the Männerchor. The pastor, however, had no spare dollars wherewith to further his son’s musical education; and, though the Direktor’s lessons might be given for the pure love of art, and perhaps of humanity, at least of such human beings as could detect the difference between E sharp and F natural, dollars were required to convey him to the land of his dreams, the summit of his aspirations,—the Royal Conservatory at Stuttgart.
Meanwhile, the denied wish was bearing good fruits in the economy and self-denial which were becoming a part of his nature. He was a clerk in a small drug store at a smaller salary, and the additional income that Karl’s plan would secure would set him considerably forward on the way to his promised land. Yet the plan was certainly an innovation; and perhaps Karl would not have been so successful in introducing it, but that the managers had a difficulty of their own, which the proposed arrangement met and satisfied. For houses in Micklegard were rented by the year; and it was hard, on the spur of the moment, to find a man, with a family, ready to give up his own domicile, and take the janitor’s place. And, on the other hand, they were large-minded men, who, having carved out their own fortunes, were reluctant to stand in the light of any one who was trying to rise in the world; so that Karl’s insistence, combined with the janitor’s eagerness to be off, finally carried the day, and, on the Sunday afternoon already referred to, he and Louis returned with a promise from the managers to give the new plan a trial, at all events.
“Let them have it until the end of the year, that is, till ‘moving day,’” the secretary had said; “then we can see how it works.”
“Work!” said Sally Price, “of course it’ll work! It shall work.”
Fortunately, the furniture of their new abode belonged to the house, having been put in for the departing janitor, who had taken the position as a fresh and furnitureless arrival from Germany; so there was nothing requiring an immediate outlay of capital.
Dr. Richards came in while they were discussing ways and means, and, after signifying his hearty approval of the plan in its main features, asked, “But about the balls, Miss Sally? Of course we know the society itself is composed of men who are as steady as old Time,” with a roguish glance at Metzerott, “but at the public balls, you know! for they do have beer!”
“I know that, and I don’t say I like it,” replied Sally; “but firstly, I ain’t going to sell it, I can’t control it, and therefore I ain’t responsible for it; secondly, they’ll be in the top of the house and us at the bottom most of the time; thirdly, if they go beyond the bounds of reason, we can call on the police; fourthly, ’tain’t no worse for us than it was for the janitor’s wife, a nice, modest woman as ever I see; and fifthly, folks that have been through what we have can put up with ’most anything!”
“After that array of argument I have no more to say,” said the doctor, laughing. “Well, Miss Sally, I must say that I think you will fill a long-felt want. You know the new pottery is to open the first of January, and quite a number of women would and could get work there if it were not for their duties at home. Now, if you could give them home fare at home prices, you see you would benefit yourselves and them too.”
“How about their children?” asked Polly.
“The big ones would be at school most of the time, and if you had a crèche for the babies”—
“There’s a vacant house next door to the hall,” said Metzerott.
“Ah! now we have plans indeed,” laughed the doctor, “and I wish I had time to talk them over with you; but I must perform my own special errand. Mr. Metzerott, my wife wants to borrow your little boy for our Christmas tree.” Karl’s eyes beamed with pride, yet he hesitated; but Louis’ cheeks were flushed, his eyes large and bright.
“Oh!” he said, “what is a Christmas tree?”
“Now ain’t that a shame! beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Metzerott,” said Miss Sally. “To think of the true Christian his mother was, and there’s her boy don’t know nothin’ of Christmas or Christmas trees.”
“Only, unfortunately for your argument, Miss Sally, both Christmas and its Tree are pagan originally. The first was the feast of Yule, kept by our Teutonic ancestors; the second is the representative of the great ash-tree Ygdrasil, symbolizing the heaven and earth. The eagle that soared above it, watching with sleepless eye all that passed below,”—
“Well, so He does,” said Miss Sally.
“Pagan or not,” said Metzerott, “I don’t want my boy to be a Christian.”
“I think you are wrong,” said the doctor thoughtfully; “not that I believe in Christianity any more than you, begging pardon of our friends here.”
“Christianity!” said Sally; “well, I ain’t sure I believe in that myself; but I do believe in Christ.”
“I congratulate you,” said the doctor. “It’s an innocent superstition, Metzerott; and, in a world of misery like this, why not let a child believe it, if it add to his happiness?”
“Because it ain’t true,” said the shoemaker sturdily.
“My good friend,” said Dr. Richards, “what is truth? Things are true relatively, never absolutely. I defy you to mention a single absolute truth.”
“The sun shines,” said Metzerott, whose Teutonic mind caught fire at the barest hint of metaphysics.
“How do you know it does?”
“Because I see it.”
“Prove that to a man born blind.”
“A man born blind is like a lunatic, or an idiot, as far as the sunlight is concerned,” said Karl, after some thought; “it can’t be proved to him. He can feel it though,” he added.
“Ah! concurrent testimony! But that is only an aggregation of single testimony, that is of relative truths, and merely amounts to a high probability, not to an absolute truth.”
“Well,” said Metzerott, “until you bring me a man with all his senses complete, and stand him in the sunshine before me, and have him say it ain’t bright and ain’t warm, I think it’s as near to an absolute truth as you are likely to come.”
“As near, yes, I grant that. But come, suppose I tell you—having all my senses complete—that to me the sunshine is dark and cold; what would you say then?”
“I know what I’d like to do,” said Karl Metzerott.
Now, to let the reader into a secret, the doctor had been all along amusedly aware of the similarity between this argument and certain others he had, in his student days, carried on. The reference to personal experience was therefore intentionally made, and he was much elated to find the shoemaker take his stand upon doing, instead of quibbling as to the exact meaning of shining and heat, or the state of mind a man must be in to experience these.
“Well, what would you do?” he asked.
“I’d wait for the Fourth of July,” said the shoemaker grimly; “and then I’d stand you out there, before my door, till you dropped with a sunstroke.”
“Without my hat?” asked the doctor.
Karl nodded, and the two men broke into a roar of laughter, which effectually settled the question of Louis and the Christmas Tree; for Karl was too pleased with his victory to be unrelenting.
“Now there is a man,” said the doctor to himself as he drove home, “who believes with all his heart that the sun shines. He proved it, too. If I could meet a man who believed like that in the Bible! But there is nothing corresponding to that sunstroke test of his in theology; and Christians know it. I—yes, really—I almost wish there were. Pooh! what a fool I am! Get up!” Which energetic reminder, addressed to his horse, so quickened that quadruped’s movements as to land the doctor speedily at his own door.