The Gold of Chickaree Part 42

'I might divide my subject categorically in two parts; how Christmas is to be kept in the Hollow, and how we shall keep it here. I want your best attention on both heads.'

'I have not thought?I tried not to think. I wished Christmas a hundred miles away!'

'I am quite unable to fathom the mystery of that statement.'

'Yes, of course,' said Hazel; 'how should you know? But if you had been shut off here?' and she gave her plate a little push, sitting back in her chair, as she might have done,?and had done?in many of the weary days gone by.

'Meanwhile Christmas is not a hundred miles off,' said Dane watching her. 'How shall we keep it?'

'I don't know. I never did keep it much.'

'First, there is the Hollow.'

'O in the Hollow!?yes, certainly. They must all have a Christmas dinner, for one thing.'

'Well, go on. I want your help. I suppose they never kept Christmas much, either. What shall I do for them?'

'How many Christmas trees would reach through the Hollow?'

Dane shook his head. 'I am afraid we are hardly ready for that. And there is scant time. I must be content to do without the poetry, this year, and make everybody happy prosaically.'

'With roast beef and plum pudding,' said Hazel. 'But then I would rather find out real wants, and supply them. Could that be done?'

'Hardly. Not in detail. The time is too short. In general, there is always the want of good cheer and of joy-taking; or of anything to give cause for joy. How would it do, for Christmas, to send in supplies for a good dinner to every house? Then we can take breath and think about New Year's Day.'

'I suppose that could not fail. But then, to make them feel really like Christmas, they ought to have something they do _not_ need.'

'I am open to suggestions,' said Dane smiling. 'As much as they are to the fruits of them. What shall I give them that they do not need?

I think you are quite right, by the by; though it is not the precise light in which the subject is commonly viewed by the benefactors of their species.'

'Yes,' said Hazel. 'As if sleighing on the bare ground was good enough for people who generally walk. But you want them to forget the ground for a while, and go softly, and hear the bells.'

'What shall be the bells in this case?' said Rollo with his lips curling. 'Red apples? Or would pound papers of tea ring better? Or both make a chime?'

'With a small tinkle of sugarplums.?And oh,' said Hazel eagerly, 'do give them some little niceties to put on! Or let me. I have great faith in the power of fresh collars and ribbands.'

'Cannot manage anything of that sort up here,' said Dane demurely.

'That will have to wait for New Year's Day. Three hundred and fifty pieces of roasting beef?three hundred and fifty pounds green tea?ditto bushels of red apples?three hundred and fifty pounds sugar candy? Will that meet your notions of a chime of bells for Christmas?'

Hazel mused over it.

'Perhaps'?she said slowly. 'It is very difficult to know what will meet one's notions. If I could, I should like to give a little?just a little?bit of a touch to every spot that wants touching. A touch of light to the shadow, a touch of healing to the pain; a flower for every barren place. And so I should not like to give them a Christmas which they could eat quite all up.'

Dane's lips had been giving way, and now he laughed out.

'You are as impracticable as if you were a fairy. All that takes _time_, Wych; and as I am not by nature knowing of all things, it takes study. One day you will accomplish it. But in the mean time, I should think they could not quite eat up their whole Christmas in a moment; and as I said, we will see what can be done for New Year. If you approve. At the same time, the subject is open for discussion.'

'But you need not think me more visionary than I am,' said Hazel with a shy glance and laugh. 'I did not mean anything quite silly.

Of course?_all_ the barren places,?only G.o.d could fill them. But a touch to the sorrow, and a touch to the need, and a touch to the forlornness,?_that_ is what I meant.'

'I did not think you meant anything silly. Tell me more in particular. I thought I was giving a touch to the need, with the beef; and a touch to the pleasure, with the apples and candy; and a touch to the comfort, with the tea. What shall I add to the list?'

'Perhaps nothing,' said Hazel. 'But I meant? You know, all those things are down on the same level,?and I wanted to get in strength and exhilaration of some other sort. Though I suppose,'

she added gravely, 'I cannot guess how much even of _that_ may be in roast beef when one has never had it before. Strength and hope and purpose may come that way too.'

'They do,' said Dane gravely.

'Well then, you have only to go straight on. Maybe they could not understand some tunes yet, if the bells rang them out.'

'Straight on,' said Dane smiling. 'And that will furnish me with full occupation between this and Christmas. Now another thing. I feel for the people in the other mills,?don't you?'

'O the other mills!' said Hazel. 'I feel for anybody who has any connection with John Charteris.'

'What can I do?'

'One would like to buy them all up! But failing that? What did you think to do?'

'May I have your thoughts first?'

'I was only thinking,' said Hazel, 'that it would not be good taste to go in among the Charteris men at all as among your own.

Anything there, I should think, must be more general and less personal. Or done by somebody else.'

'Whom, for instance?'

'If Josephine had married anything but diamonds'?said Hazel, 'I might get hold of her. Or I might do it. But I suppose you would not like that. How could one manage?' The question put to the depths of her tea-cup.

'Why should I not like it?'

Wych Hazel laughed a little. 'Really,' she said, 'I do not know.

Only you generally do dislike what I do?and I am seldom so happy as to know why.'

'That is a statement which one may call unanswerable,' said Rollo with a significant line of lip. 'And how you dare say it, is more than I can understand. How could one manage? Nothing easier. I draw you a cheque, and you write me an order. Unless you prefer to employ another agent.'

'O I was not thinking of money,' said Hazel. 'But it would not be quite courteous to enact Christmas in the mills without a word to the owner?bad as he is. I wonder if I could get hold of Josephine and hide behind her?'

'No. But you can try it.?What have you been doing, these two months?'

'Studying,?in brief. I do not mean that I have done nothing else.'

'Learning what?' They had left the supper-table and stood together before the fire.

'Learning??that is another matter. When you study between fights, and fight between studies.'

'Hard learning?well learnt!' said he softly. 'Tell me more. Tell me results, Hazel.'

Hazel leaned her chin upon her hand, looking thoughtfully into the fire. 'Results?' she said. 'The result was unconditional surrender. At least I thought so?until?'

'Until??'