The Christmas Awakening

Christmas Awakening By Elizabeth Cannon Porter

I —Over Here Lila opened her cedar chest to put her Christmas presents in. Then suddenly burying her face in the pile of snowy linens a dry sob escaped her. The box held some of the fittings for the "little house" which she and Drake Osborne were to furnish when he returned from "over there.*' But the "hope chest" had turned to a coffin, for it was six weeks since her young husband had been reported "missing in action." She read his name in the casualty list of the paper one morning at the break- fast table. So she had gone into the valley of the shadow alone, and it was only the tiny, rose-bud fingers of her baby girl that pulled her back to life. She was glad, now, infinitely glad, that she had married Drake before he left. She had Baby Mildred to rear and take care of. Without that, what had she to live for?

It had been a brave Christmas for all of them, each one assuming a cheerfulness he did not feel. There were holly wreaths and Chinese lilies in the windows. The round dinner table shimmered with its usual fine linen and crystal. Only, as a tribute to Mr. Hoover, the usual turkey had been replaced by a modest chicken, and the plum pudding was not quite so rich as usual. Afterward in the gathering dusk Mr. Burke had re- paired to the library fire. As he sat there reading, the light fell on his gray hair, carefully brushed to hide the bare spot. Lila had never before thought of her father, a vigorous man of sixty-five, as old, but now he seemed to sag. No one ever spoke of Mr. Burke "doing his bit." His was a business that did not benefit from the war. With increased taxes, high wages, de- pleted help, inferior materials, Mr. Burke shouldered an ever- increasing burden. Her mother, Lila suspected, had crept up to her room to pray a little, weep a little, and write a little to the absent son at one of the Nation's training camps.

Lila straightened her shoulders. In line with her new de- termination to be of service, she went rapidly through her dower box. The pine pillow, redolent of the mountains, should go to Grandma Pettingil, shut in with rheumatism. The yards of lace

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THE CHRISTMAS AWAKENING. 129

into which she had crocheted many hours at the seashore, should trim Mildred's new petticoats. Some of her dainty lingerie, much too fine for a widow, she thought with a wry smile, should go to help out Cousin Maud's trouseau. The piles of sheets and tablecloths would bolster up her mother's depleted stores, for with war-time prices, such things had become almost prohibitive. Also, as soon as she was a little stronger she would take charge of the household, so her mother could visit her married daugh- ter in another city. The row of new and best loved books David Graham Phillips, Mary Roberts Rinehart, John Gals- — worthy she would send to the library for soldiers and sailors. The picture of "Morning in Holland" should hang in her own room. Perhaps the figure of the old Dutch woman with her baskets of flowers would take away the memory of that dread- — ful poem, "In Flanders fields the poppies grow" then some- thing about the "dead, row on row." It was a poem she had read at the beginning of the war, and it had rung in her ears ever since Drake was reported "missing." It brought to her mind a grave, surmounted by a cross. After all, missing did not surely mean dead. There was just a chance: he might come home. A weak cry issued from the basinet. Lila jumped up and clasped her baby to her breast.

// Over There

When Drake Osborn awoke he did not know whether he was in this world or the next. There were flickering lights which threw grotesque shadows on the figures of groaning men. Like Mark Twain, when he "came to" in the catacombs of Rome, he was inclined to think that it was the day of judgment, and he was the first one to awake. Gradually Drake discerned that he was in a church. He lay on a stone floor and looked up into a gilded dome. Around him were mutilated men. Some were pain-wracked, while others were dead. There were tall wax candles burning on the altar which was being used as an operating table. The men bending over it were surgeons. He tried to get up, but a spasm of pain passed through him. He lifted his right hand, and felt gingerly of his left shoulder. It was caked with congealed blood.

"So that's where I got mine," he murmured. His hand trav- eled to his helmet. It was dented. "Must have been shrapnel that knocked me out of commission."

Two stretcher bearers brought in a boy who cried with pain like a child.

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One of them who stopped to beat his hands together, glanc- ing about, exclaimed, "I call this a of a Christmas!"

So it was Christmas day! Set in the gold leaf above the altar was a life-size picture of Christ. Not a pain-wracked Jesus, but a figure poised as if in flight, with a light on his face, and his feet on the clouds. The injured man did not think of that ancient birth and crucifixion. Somehow the recent battle of the Marne had made that fade into the past. In that one battle, six hundred thousand stalwart men had gone down to death. Nor did he think of the present Christmas, surrounded as he was by the holocaust of horror, but of the Christmas of the future, when men should cease to kill each other. A doctor came down the aisle with an electric torch. Kneel- ing he cut away the clothing from Drake's shoulder. Some of it stuck, and as he yanked it away, young Osborne thought that he was going to faint again. The Doctor whistled, got out a small instrument and shot a needle into the patient's arm. Grad- ually the throbbing in Drake's shoulder began to ease. A calm settled on him. Not only at that distant day would men abide in peace but even the animals would cease to prey on each other, he thought. He drowsily remembered a text from his Sunday school days. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the failing together; and a little child shall lead them. * * "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

The new Christmas would be when the white Christ, on the wings of the morning should come to usher in the Millennium and bring peace for a thousand years. As Drake looked, it seemed as if the figure above the altar poised, as if in flight. Then he drowsed off into slumber.

An Armistice Oh, babe, I didn't mean to scold. 'Twas all a joke; come, let us hold An armistice. Put up your dirty, chubby face, While papa cleans a little place To kiss. Theodore E. Curtis.