The wind went shrieking through the bare attic above and singing among the boxes and barrels in the cellar below. The big show window in front groaned in a deep bass; the little window in the rear accompanied it in a high treble. The lamp, with its vague, flickering flame, cast a gloomy glare over the store, and lighted up the faces of the little group of men, seated on box, counter, keg and chair, huddled about the great center of heat.
The Chronic Loafer raised himself from his favorite pile of calicoes and turned up his coat collar.
“Shet that stove door an’ put on the draught,” he cried. “What’s the uset o’ freezin’!”
“Cold Chrisermas to morrer,” said the Storekeeper, as he banged the door shut and turned on the draught in obedience to the demand.
“Turn up the lamp,” growled the Miller. “It’s ez dark an’ gloomy ez a barn here.”
“They ain’t no uset o’ wastin’ ile,” the Storekeeper muttered as he complied with the second request.
The great egg stove roared right merrily as the flames darted up out of its heart, until its large body grew red-hot and sent forth genial rays of heat and light—the veritable sun of the narrow village universe.
“Listen to the wind! Ain’t it howlin’?” said the Loafer.
“Col’est Chrisermas Eve in years,” the Tinsmith responded.
The Loafer pushed himself off the counter onto an empty crate that stood below him. He leaned forward and almost embraced the stove in his effort to toast his hands.
“This, I’ve heard tell,” he said, “is the one night in all the year ’hen the cattle talks jest like men.”
“Some sais it’s Holly E’en,” ventured the Miller.
“No, it ain’t. It’s Chrisermas,” the Loafer replied emphatically. He leaned back, placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat and glared about the circle in defiance.
The brief silence that followed was broken by the School Teacher.
“Superstition! Mere superstition!”
“That’s what I sais,” cried the Storekeeper. He was leaning over the counter munching a candy lion. “What ’ud a mule talk about ’hen he only had a chancet oncet a year?”
A thin, meaning smile crept over the Loafer’s face and he bent forward, thrusting his long chin in the direction of the venturesome merchant.
“In my time,” he drawled, “I’ve met some mules pullin’ plows that hed they ben able to talk ’ud ’a’ sayd sensibler things then some ez is engaged in easier an’ more money-makin’ ockypations.”
The Store was usually loath to accord recognition to the Loafer, but this was the season of good-will to all, and it lifted up its voice in one mighty guffaw. Even the Teacher joined in, and the G. A. R. Man slapped his knee and cried, “Good shot!”
The victim hid his burning face in the recesses of the sugar barrel, and under pretense of hunting for the scoop finished the candy toy.
“My father-in-law was a superstitious man and always believed in them fool things,” said the pedagogue. “I never give them any credit myself, for they say that education is as great an enemy to superstition as light is to darkness. In other words, learnin’ illumines a man’s mind and drives out all them black, unholy beliefs that are bred in ignorance.”
He paused to give effect to his words, but the Loafer seized the opportunity, thus unintentionally offered, to remark, “Then it ’ud seem like most men’s brains is like cellars. They is allus some hole or corner in a cellar that ye can’t light lest ye put a special lantern in it, an’ ye hev trouble keepin’ that burnin’.”
“But the brain’s perfectly round,” interposed the Miller, shaking his head sagely.
The Teacher sighed. “It’s no use talking to you men in figures——”
“Go on. Let’s hev figgers,” cried the Storekeeper, eagerly.
The pedagogue leaned back on two legs of his chair and pillowed his head on a cheese box that stood on the counter. After having carefully extinguished the flame in his cigar, blown out the smoke and placed the stump in his pocket, he began:
“While I give no credit to the current superstitions, I cherish a peculiar affection for this old belief that the cattle talk on Christmas Eve. I feel that to it I owe part of my happiness in life, and I’ve had a good deal of it, too, in spite of the hardships I had to endure as a boy. You know my parents died when I was but seventeen year old and left me practically penniless and a charge on the township. So I was bound over to Abraham Buttenberger, who had a fine farm up near West Eden. But for one thing life with him would have gone hard with me, for he was a crotchety old fellow, a bit stingy, and inclined to get the greatest possible amount of work out of a husky lad that was gettin’ no pay but his keep. The one thing I mentioned was Abraham’s dotter Kate. I have seen many weemen in my day, and I can honestly say that I have looked on few such pictures as she was when I first knew her. She was sixteen then——”
“I don’t know ’bout that,” the Loafer interrupted. “Did you uns ever see my Missus ’hen she was sixteen an’——”
“She was sixteen then,” repeated the Teacher, ignoring the remark; “she was sixteen and extremely good lookin’. But most of you have seen her since and it’s no use for me to dwell on that point. As the years went by I got to set a heap of store by Kate and she set a heap of store by me. But we kept it to ourselves till we was twenty. Then we agreed to be married. Our agreement didn’t do any good, for Abraham set his foot down on the scheme. He wasn’t goin’ to have no hirelin’ of his a-merryin’ his dotter. I explained to him how his days was drawin’ to an end; how a time was a-comin’ when the place wouldn’t do him any more good and no more harm ’ud come to him whether his farm-hand was runnin’ it or not; how his dotter would need lookin’ after and all that. His answer was to drive me away with a horse-whip.
“That was in November. For seven weeks I never laid eyes on the girl, for the old man watched her like a hawk. But he tired of that, and one night let her go to literary society meetin’ at Kishikoquillas school. I saw her there and wanted her to elope right on the spot. She said no. It was too sudden. Besides, she wanted her things, for she knew her father would keep them just for spite if she run away without them. So we fixed it up that next night—that was Christmas Eve—she was to meet me at their barn, and we would take one of the horses and a sleigh and skip.
“Now, as I said, Abraham was a superstitious man and continual readin’ the almanac and perusin’ charms. He believed in that old sayin’ about the cattle talkin’ on Christmas Eve. Many a night he’d argued the point with me. I always said if he thot it was true, why didn’t he go listen to it. He declared he would, but he never did—leastways he put it off to a most onexpected time. If there was any place the cattle was likely to talk, I used to tell him, it was right in that big, spooky barn of his; and if there was any place where one could hear them perfect, it was right there. The stables was in the basement and the mows was overhead. The hay was stored above the horses and mules. A hole about ten feet across and twenty feet deep run from the top of the mow into that particular stable. I explained to him how he could lay at the top of the hay, put his head down into the hole and hear everything that passed. But that Christmas Eve I’d forgot all about our argument. I’d other things to think of.
“I reached the barn at midnight. Kate was there, standin’ by the gate waitin’. Everything was clear. The old man, she said, had gone to bed and didn’t have any suspicions. So we got the sleigh ready and went into the horse stable to harness up. It was clear moonlight outside but inside it was dark as pitch and fearful ghostly. There were all kinds of noises—hay rattlin’, rats skippin’ around, chains clinkin’; and every now and then a hen roostin’ up in the racks would begin to cluck and scare Kate awful. Grave-yards is bad at night but they ain’t a circumstance to a big barn.
“I picked out the white John mule, for I knew he was a good traveler, and gettin’ the harness, I went into his stall and began to fix it on him. Then I couldn’t find any bridles. I whispered to Kate. She said they was over in the cow stable, and went to get one. It seemed to me she was gone an awful long time. I could hear her trampin’ around, but as she didn’t appear to be havin’ much success I called, not very loud, ‘What’s wrong?’
“‘Nothin’,’ she answered, ‘I’ll have them in a minute.’
“It seemed like I heard a suspicious noise come down the hayhole from the mow above. I listened, but I didn’t hear any more sounds, so guessed it was a rat.
“Then I called louder to Kate, for I was mad at Abraham for all the trouble he’d given us, ‘The old man is a mean customer if there ever was one!’
“She tramped around in the straw for a spell. Then her answer came from the cow stable, ‘That’s what I say.’
“‘A nice way he treats his own dotter,’ I went on, just talkin’ for company. ‘He thinks he’ll take his farm with him when he dies. What a shame in a man of his age!’
“Again I heard a rattle of hay up above and whispered, ‘Ssh!’ But the girl didn’t catch it and said particularly loud and spiteful, ‘He has treated me powerful mean.’
“I put my hand to my ear and listened, but all was quiet, so I thinks to myself, ‘It’s a chicken.’
“‘Don’t you think kickin’ is too good for a man like that, John?’ Kate asks.
“‘Well, I’d like to have it to do,’ I answers. ‘Oh! just you wait till I get a chance, and if I don’t——’
“There was an awful scream in the mow—an unearthly scream. A great, black thing came tumblin’ out of the hayhole into the stable, lettin’ out fearful groans all the time. I couldn’t see it very plain and didn’t stop to investigate. I bumped into Kate as she was pilin’ into the kitchen. We set down a minute to get our breath. Then I put my head out of the door. For a piece all was quiet. Then a faint call come from the barn. She thot maybe it was a tramp had fallen down the hayhole. I wanted to go alone and see, but Kate wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted on goin’ with me and takin’ a gun and a lantern.
“I opened the stable door, peeped in and said, ‘Who’s there?’
“The answer was a moan and, ‘Is that you, John? Help!’
“There Abraham Buttenberger lay on a little pile of hay at the back of the stable, writhin’ and moanin’.
“‘I always knew it,’ he groaned. ‘I always told you they talked on Christmas Eve. But why did you ever get me to try and hear them? See what you’ve led me to. Look at me layin’ here with a broken leg and see what you’ve done. It was the white John mule—I know his voice. T’other was the brindle cow.’
“‘Look out for the mule! Look out!’ he cried, as we carried him out of the stable and put him on a wheelbarrow.
“That’s the way he took on. When we’d got him into the house I went up to town for a doctor. I attended him that night. The next day after he’d had breakfast, he set up in bed and says to me: ‘John, I’ve heard people laugh about the sayin’ that the cattle talk on Christmas Eve. I’ve heard you make fun of the idee. But you’d never laugh at it again if you heard what I did last night; if you’d had a mule heapin’ coals of fire on your head. And that cow! Oh, it’s awful to have the very animals on the farm down on you like that.’
“‘What did they say?’ says I.
“‘Say!’ he answers. ‘What didn’t they say? I’ll never have no peace behind that John mule again.’
“The old man was quiet a spell. Then he says, ‘John, you can have my dotter, my only dotter.’
“And he begin to moan.
“Missus and I were married at home that Christmas just fifteen years ago. We never explained it to Abraham. There was no particular use in it. We couldn’t ’a’ convinced him anyway. Why, do you know he was so set on makin’ up all around that he insisted that the brindle cow and the white mule know all about it. The ceremony was performed in the kitchen and them two knowin’ beasts was hitched to the window so they could look in. He was bound to appease ’em.”
The Teacher chuckled softly as he finished his narration.
The Storekeeper bit the legs off a candy ostrich. “It do beat all!” he exclaimed.
“I knowd it,” the Loafer cried triumphantly. “I allus knowd it. I thank you, Teacher, fer backin’ me up with this petickler instance of it. The cattle do talk on Chrisermas Eve.”