Christmas Day in the
Morning
Pearl S. Buck
He woke suddenly and completely. It
was four o’clock, the hour at which his father had always called him to get up
and help with the milking. Strange how the habits of his youth clung to him
still! Fifty years ago, and his father had been dead for thirty ears, and yet
he woke at four o’clock in the morning. He had trained himself to turn over and
go to sleep, but this morning, because it was Christmas, he did not try to
sleep.
Yet what was the magic of Christmas
now? His childhood and youth were long past, and his own children had grown up
and gone. Some of them lived only a few miles away, but they had their own
families, and they would come as usual toward the end of the day. They had
explained with infinite gentleness that they wanted their children to build
Christmas memories about their houses, not his. He was left alone with his
wife.
Yesterday she had said, “It isn’t
worthwhile, perhaps—“
And he had said, “Oh, yes,
Then she had said, “Let’s not trim
the tree until tomorrow, Robert. Just so it’s ready when the children come. I’m
tired.”
He had agreed, and the tree was
still out in the back entry.
Why did he feel so awake tonight? For it was still night, a clear and starry night. No moon, of course, but the stars were extraordinary! Now that
he thought of it, the stars seemed always large and clear before the dawn of
Christmas Day. There was one star now that was certainly larger and brighter
than any of the others. He could even imagine it moving, as it had seemed to
him to move one night long ago.
He slipped back into time, as he did
so easily nowadays. He was fifteen years old and still on his father’s farm. He
loved his father. He had not known it until one time a few days before
Christmas, when he had overheard what his father was saying to his mother.
“Mary, I hate to call Rob in the
mornings. He’s growing so fast and he needs his sleep. If you could see how he
sleeps when I go in to wake him up! I wish I could manage alone.”
“Well, you can’t, Adam.” His
mother’s voice was brisk. “Besides, he isn’t a child anymore. It’s time he took
his turn.”
“Yes,” his father said slowly. “But
I sure do hate to wake him.”
When he heard these words, something
in him woke. His father loved him. He had never thought about it before, taking
for granted the tie of their blood. Neither his father nor his mother talked
about their children; they had no time for such things. There was always so
much to do on a farm.
Now he knew his father loved him,
there would be no more loitering in the mornings and having to be called again.
He got up after that, stumbling blind with sleep, and pulled on his clothes,
his eyes tight shut, but he got up.
And then on the night before
Christmas, that year when he was fifteen, he lay for a few minutes thinking
about the next day. They were poor, and most of the excitement was in the
turkey they had raised themselves and in the mince pies his mother made. His sisters
sewed presents, and his mother and father always bought something he needed,
not only a warm jacket, maybe, but something more, such as a book. And he saved
and bought them each something too.
He wished, that Christmas he was fifteen, he had a better present for his father. As usual he
had gone to the ten-cent store and bought a tie. It had seemed nice enough
until he lay thinking the night before Christmas, and then he wished that he
had heard his father and mother talking in time for him to save for something
better.
He lay on his side,
his head supported by his elbow, and looked out his attic window. The stars
were bright, much brighter than he ever remembered seeing them, and one star in
particular was so bright that he wondered if it were really the Star of
Bethlehem.
“Dad,” he had once said, when he was
a little boy, “what is a stable?”
“It’s just a barn,” his father had
replied, “like ours.”
Then Jesus had been born in a barn,
and to a barn the shepherds and the Wise Men had come, bringing their Christmas
gifts!
The thought had struck him like a
silver dagger. Why should he not give his father a special gift too out there
in the barn? He could get up early, earlier than four o’clock, and he could
creep into the barn and get all the milking done. He’d do it alone, milk and
clean up, and then when his father went in to start the milking he’d see it all
done. And he would know who had done it.
He laughed to himself as he gazed at
the stars. It was what he would do, and he mustn’t sleep too sound.
He must have waked twenty times,
scratching a match each time to look at his old watch---midnight, and half past
one, and then two o’clock.
At a quarter to three he got up and
put on his clothes. He crept downstairs, careful of the creaky boards, and he
let himself out. The big star hung lower over the barn roof, a reddish gold.
The cows looked at him, sleepy and surprised. It was early for them too.
“So, boss,” he whispered. They
accepted him placidly, and he fetched some hay for each cow, and then got the
milking pail and the big milk cans.
He had never milked all alone
before, but it seemed almost easy. He kept thinking about his father’s
surprise. His father would come in and call him, saying he would get things
started while Rob was getting dressed. He’d go to the barn, open the door, and
then he’d go to get the two empty milk cans. But they wouldn’t be waiting or
empty; they’d be standing in the millhouse, filled.
“What the---“ he
could hear his father exclaiming.
He smiled and milked steadily, two strong
streams rushing into the pail, frothing and fragrant. The cows were still
surprised but acquiescent.
For
once they were behaving well, as though they knew it was Christmas.
The task went more easily than he
had ever known it to before. Milking for once was not a core. It was something
else, a gift to his father, who loved him. He finished, the two milk cans were
full, and he covered them and closed the millhouse door carefully, making sure
of the latch. He put the stool in its place by the door and hung up the clean
milk pail. Then he went out of the barn and barred the door behind him.
Back in his room he had only a
minute to pull off his clothes in the darkness and jump into bed, for he heard
his father up. He put the covers over his head to silence his quick breathing.
The door opened.
“Rob!” his father called. “We have
to get up, son, even if it is Christmas.”
“Aw, right,” he said, sleepily.
“I’ll go on out,” his father said.
“I’ll get things started.” The door closed and he lay still, laughing to
himself. In just a few minutes his father would know. His dancing heart was
ready to jump from his body.
The minutes were endless---ten,
fifteen, he did not know how many---before he heard his father’s footsteps
again. The door opened and he lay still.
“Rob!”
“Yes, Dad---“
“Son---“ His
father was laughing, a queer, sobbing sort of laugh. “Thought you’d fool me,
did you?” His father was standing beside his bed, feeling for him, pulling away
the cover.
He found his father and clutched him
in a great hug. He felt his father’s arms go around him. It was dark and they
could not see each other’s faces.
“Son, I thank you. Nobody ever did a
nicer thing---“
“Oh, Dad, I want you to know---I do
want to be good!” The words broke from him of their own will. He did not know
what to say. His heart was bursting with love.
“Well, I reckon I can go back to bed
and sleep,” his father said after a moment. “No, hark,
the little ones are waked up. Come to think of it, son, I’ve never seen you
children when you fist saw the Christmas tree. I was always in the barn. Come
on!”
He got up and pulled on his clothes
again, and they went down to the Christmas tree, and soon the sun was creeping
up to where the star had been. Oh, what a Christmas, and how his heart had
nearly burst again with shyness and pride as his father told his mother and
made the younger children listen about how he, Rob, had got up all by himself.
“The best Christmas gift I ever had,
and I’ll remember it, son, every year on Christmas morning, as long as I live.”
They had both remembered it, and now
that his father was dead he remembered it alone, that blessed Christmas dawn
when, alone with the cows in the barn, he had made his
first gift of true love.
Outside the window now the great
star slowly sank. He got up out of bed and put on his slippers and bathrobe and
went softly upstairs to the attic and found the box of Christmas tree
decorations. He took them downstairs into the living room. Then he brought in
the tree. It was a little one----they had not had a big tree since the children
went away----but he set it in the holder and put it in the middle of the long
table under the window. Then carefully he began to trim it.
It was done very soon, the time
passing as quickly as it had that morning long ago in the barn. He went to his
library and fetched the little box that contained his special gift to his wife,
a star of diamonds, not large but dainty in design. He had written the card for
it the day before. He tied the gift on the tree and then stood back. It was
pretty, very pretty, and she would be surprised.
But he was not satisfied. He wanted
to tell her, to tell her how much he loved her. It had been a long time since
he had really told her, although he loved her in a very special way, much more
than he ever had when they were young.
He had been fortunate that she had
loved him, and how fortunate that he had been able to love! Ah, that was the
true joy of life, the ability to love! For he was quite sure
that some people were genuinely unable to love anyone. But love was alive in him; it still was.
It occurred to him suddenly that it
was alive because long ago it had been born in him when he knew his father
loved him. That was it; love alone could awaken love.
And he could give the gift again and
again. The morning, this blessed Christmas morning, he would give it to his beloved
wife. He would write it down in a letter for her to read and keep forever. He
went to his desk and began his love letter to his wife: “My dearest love…”
When it was finished he sealed it
and tied it on the tree where she would see it the first thing when she came
into the room. She would read it, surprised and then moved, and realize how
very much he loved her.
He put on the light and went
tiptoeing up the stairs. The star in the sky was gone, and the first rays of
the sun were gleaming the sky. Such a happy, happy
Christmas!