Christmas Day in the Morning
By 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 years, and yet he
waked at
four o’clock in the morning. He had trained himself to turn over and go
to
sleep, but this morning it was Christmas, he did not try to sleep.
Why
did he feel so awake tonight? He slipped
back in 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 day 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 tok his turn.”
“Yes,”
his father said slowly. “But I sure do
hate to wake him.”
When
he heard these words, something in him
spoke: his father loved him! He had never thought of that before,
taking for
granted the tie of their blood. Neither his father nor his mother
talked about
loving their children–they had no time for such things. There was
always so
much to do on the farm.
Now
that he knew his father loved him, there
would be no loitering in the mornings and having to be called again. He
got up
after that, stumbling blindly in his sleep, and pulled on his clothes,
his eyes
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 mince pies his mother made. His sisters sewed presents
and his
mother and father always bought him 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 when 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 semed nice enough until he lay thinking
the
night before Christmas. He looked out of his attic window, the stars
were
bright.
“Dad,”
he had once asked 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 had come…
The
thought 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 musn’t sleep too sound.
He
must have waked twenty times, scratching a
match to look 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 let
himself
out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and surprised. It was early for
them, too.
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 get him, saying that he would get things started
while Rob
was getting dressed. He’d go to the barn, open the door, and then he’d
go get
the two big empty milk cans. But they wouldn’t be waiting or empty,
they’d be
standing in the milk-house, 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
task went more easily than he had ever
known it to go before. Milking for once was not a chore. 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 milk-house door carefully, making
sure of
the latch.
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.
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 — and he heard his father’s footsteps again. The door
opened
and he lay still.
“Rob!”
“Yes,
Dad–”
His
father was laughing, a queer sobbing sort
of laugh.
“Thought
you’d fool me, did you?” His father
was standing by his bed, feeling for him, pulling away the cover.
“It’s
for Christmas, Dad!”
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
god!” The words broke from him of their own will. He did not know what
to say.
His heart was bursting with love.
He
got up and pulled on his clothes again and
they went down to the Christmas tree. 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, so 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.
This
Christmas he wanted to write a card to his
wife and 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.
Ah, that was the true joy of life, the ability to love. Love was still
alive in
him, it still was.
It
occured 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 ccould give the gift
again
and again.This morning, this blessed Christmas morning, he would give
it to his
beloved wife. He could 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…
Such
a happy, happy Christmas!
THE
END
From
allthingschristmas.com
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