Christmas in My Heart, a Fourth Treasury by Joe Wheeler

Author:Joe Wheeler [Wheeler, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82265-9
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

He felt very daring as he opened the door and went out into the night. The sky was powdered with stars; it seemed very high and different from the sky in the city, which was always blurred by the electric lights.

Young Brutus, the watchdog, came out of his kennel and trotted over the frozen snow ahead of Peter. He made no sound, and in the clear dark he looked long and lean, like a wolf. But Little Peter was not afraid of him. He was, indeed, glad of his company.

The barn was lighted by a single lantern. Back among the shadows were the cows, comfortable on beds of straw. The old butter-sheep and a blind mare had open stalls to themselves. Beyond them were the strong workhorses and the lighter span which the doctor drove now and then. Tessie, the barn cat, came down to investigate the invasion. Peter sat on a feed box and took her in his lap and waited. It seemed wonderful to sit there in the company of all these living creatures—and to know that there were pigeons up among the rafters, and Tessie’s kittens in the loft. There was a round barn clock, and it showed a quarter of twelve. Peter felt a tingling sense of excitement. Something must, he felt, in a moment, happen.

And now young Brutus was on his feet—stiff and suspicious—his eyes on the side door by which Peter had entered. The door opened. And Peter saw a woman coming in. She wore a long blue cloak and carried a lantern. There was a scarf over her head which hid her face.

Peter knew at once why she had come. She was tired … and there was no room for her at the inn.…

He rose to his feet and stood for a moment, uncertain, then sent a breathless little cry across the intervening space. “Mary!”

Lucia had waked to find Peter gone. She had slipped into the pussycat robe and had sought him downstairs. She had found the note propped up against the lamp. She had dressed hurriedly. The blue cloak and scarf she had borrowed from the hall rack. They belonged to Jean, and fell about her own slender figure in voluminous folds.

She had lighted a lantern and made her way to the barn. And now she was saying, her own breath quick, “It is Mother, darling,” and Peter with dreams still in his eyes was stammering, “Why, I didn’t know you!”

“Why did you come, Peter?”

“Well, I thought they might kneel—the animals, you know.”

“Oh, at midnight?”

“Yes.”

She glanced up at the clock. “Five minutes.”

He was anxious. “May I stay?”

“Yes. Shall we sit here?” The feed box was wide enough for both of them. She put her arm around Peter and he leaned against her. The blue cloak enfolded them; the lantern held them close in its circle of light.

In the moments that followed, the silence seemed to Lucia to flow up and around them in warm and shining waves. She was aware of all the living things so near them in the dark.

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