07.02.09. Christmas

9. CHRISTMAS

It was Christmas evening; the snow lay some twelve or fourteen inches deep when the freight train on which Todd was riding rolled into a western town where he got off, tired, cold and hungry. He had lost his coat, his shoes were almost gone, and he had not eaten anything for more than a day. He had no money and no one seemed kind or thoughtful enough to give him any. He had stopped at the bakery and stood with his cold, pinched face against the window looking at the good things on the inside, but they were not for him. He had watched other young men enter the restaurants and as the door would open the fragrance of wholesome food would be wafted to him, making him hungrier than ever. As he walked shivering down the street he passed home after home and could see the families gathered around the tables which were bountifully spread, partaking of their Christmas supper. He stopped at three of these homes and knocked upon the back door, only to be greeted by stony stares and when he asked for food the doors were shut in his face. When he was turned down the third time, he said, "I’ll have something to eat if I have to go to every house in town." By this time he was near the end of the street where stood a small, three room house. He knocked at what he thought was the kitchen door, but when the door was opened by an old man, he saw that it was the dining room. Todd told his story and the old man, took him by the hand, saying, "Come in; supper will be ready in a few minutes." He stepped into the room and saw the table all set for the Christmas meal; the turkey, the cranberry sauce, the pumpkin pie and all that goes with a Christmas supper. He glanced into the front room and saw a number of young people talking and having a good time. The old man said, "Sit down son, we’ll have supper right away." "No," said Todd, "I’m not fit to eat at your table; just give me a sandwich and I’ll be thankful." "Then, if you won’t eat at the table with us," said the old man, "you shall eat at the first table." And he placed a chair for him, filled his plate with good things, then said, "Mother, bring this young man a cup of coffee." When he said that, the boy looked in the kitchen and saw an old woman bending over a wood stove with an old fashioned coffee pot in her hand. A blur came before his eyes and a lump in his throat; his appetite was gone, for he saw in his imagination hundreds of miles away another home, another table set with the Christmas supper, and another old fashioned woman, his mother, going about serving the meal; and he saw a chair he might have been occupying had not sin ruled his life. His very soul cried out with the prodigal son, "My father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare and I perish with hunger." He hastily ate a few bites of the food and arose to leave. As he passed out the door, the old man shook hands with him and with a "God bless you, son," left a coin in his hand. Todd hastened down to the depot; a passenger train had just pulled in and he climbed on the "blind baggage" and rode out of town, anxious to put as much distance between him and a place that made him think of home and mother as he possibly could.

"She’s a little old fashioned, that sweet mother of mine.
There are many whose beauty will my mother’s outshine;
She’s a little old fashioned, as I plainly can see,
But she is the dearest, sweetest mother to me.

"She’s a little old fashioned, that sweet mother of mine,"
Though even her plainness now my heart strings entwine;
Other hands may be whiter, but none other so dear,
For they smoothed my pillow for many a year.

"She has gone home to glory, that sweet mother of mine,
To the land of the angels, where the sun always shines;
Add some day I shall join her, in that home of the free,
And she’ll be in heaven, sweetest mother to me."