Chapter 9 THE CANDLE IN THE WINDOW

"What's all this about singing carols?" asked Migwan. "Everywhere I go the talk is all of carols, carols, carols. And the air is full of 'God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen,' and similar melodies."

"It's the Music Club League," explained Gladys. "They have revived the old custom of going through the streets on Christmas Eve with lanterns and singing carols, and are training the boys and girls all over the city to sing them. People who are interested in the work of the Music Club League and wish to give a gift of money for its support will put a candle in their windows and we will stop outside and sing carols for them. Isn't it a pretty idea?"

"Beautiful," said Migwan. "I wish I might have attended the rehearsals so I could go around with you."

"We'll teach you the carols," said Gladys eagerly, "and I'll explain to Miss Jones and I know she'll let you be in our group. We've been given one of the best districts in the city-Garfield Avenue, from the Cathedral to the Park, where all the rich people live-and we expect to bring in more money than any other group. There was great rivalry among the groups for that district, and Miss Jones tested and tested us to see which sang the best. I nearly passed away from surprise when she decided in favor of our group. Oh, won't it be glorious, though, stopping before all those fine houses?" and Gladys and Hinpoha, unable to keep still any longer, got up and began to dance.

"That isn't the best part of it, though," said Sahwah. "All the carolers are invited to the Music League's clubhouse after the singing is over for an oyster supper and a frolic. And the troupe of midgets that are playing in the Mansfield Theater this week are coming and will give a real Punch and Judy show. Hurrah for the Music Club League! Hurrah for carols! Hurrah for Christmas!"

"I smell something burning," said Gladys, sniffing the air suspiciously.

"It's probably something that has been spilled on the stove," said Katherine serenely. They were all up at Katherine's house.

"Here are the carols we are going to sing," said Gladys, pulling Migwan toward the piano. "We might as well begin at once."

"Do you really think Miss Jones will let me do it?" asked Migwan rather doubtfully.

"I'm sure she will," said Gladys, "if we all--Katherine, there is something burning; it smells like cloth." And she rushed off unceremoniously to investigate. The kitchen was full of smoke when she reached it, proceeding from the ironing board, where Katherine had left the electric iron standing without being turned off.

"You ought to have a leather medal, Katherine," scolded Hinpoha, switching off the current and setting the smoking board outside the back door, while Katherine stood idly by with such a look of pained surprise on her face that the others went into gales of laughter.

"I can't get used to these self-starting, big city flat-irons, nohow," she drawled mildly in self-defense. "Back where I come from the irons cool off when you leave them by themselves; here they start heatin' up." Katherine always left off her g's when she spoke earnestly.

"Katherine, you're hopeless," said Hinpoha with a sigh, and then she added affectionately, "that's why we love you so."

"There's Slim outside with his big bob-sled," said Sahwah, looking out of the window. "He promised to take us all coasting down College Hill this afternoon. Come on." And they trooped out.

Nyoda took a few round trips on the bob with the girls, and then, having other things to do, walked home by herself through the early winter twilight. A few blocks from her home she saw Veronica walking along just ahead of her. By her side walked a young man whom Nyoda recognized as Alex Tobin, one of the violins in the Temple Theater Orchestra. He was talking animatedly and earnestly to her, his white teeth showing often in a smile beneath his small black moustache. Veronica was listening eagerly with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. As Nyoda drew near she heard Veronica say: "Oh, a chance to study with him would be the greatest happiness of my life, but uncle would never allow it. Never!"

And Alex Tobin answered: "Does it have to depend upon your uncle's permission? You have money in your own right, have you not?"

And then Veronica noticed that Nyoda was behind her and turned and spoke and Alex Tobin took his departure down the cross street. Nyoda looked after him thoughtfully. She was not fond of Alex Tobin, although she knew him only very slightly. He was a young Pole, and quite handsome, but there was something about his eyes that made a keen observer dislike him.

"I was at the rehearsal of the Symphony Orchestra this afternoon," said Veronica, with more animation than Nyoda had ever seen her display. "You know uncle plays this year and he lets me go along and listen, that I may benefit from the director's criticisms."

"Does Mr. Tobin play in the Symphony Orchestra, too?" asked Nyoda idly.

"Yes," answered Veronica. "He's a wonderful player; and so kind to me. He takes such an interest in my playing. He says I will play at concerts in time."

"I don't doubt it in the least," said Nyoda heartily. "But you mustn't study music to the exclusion of everything else. You are growing quite thin. You must stay out of doors more and romp with the girls. You are missing all the coasting and skating. 'Hold on to Health,' you know."

"Yes, of course," murmured Veronica absently, and fell silent, as if she were day-dreaming.

"The Midgets are going to give Punch and Judy dolls to the carol singers as souvenirs of the occasion," announced Sahwah, as the Winnebagos assembled before starting out for the singing on Christmas Eve. "Won't they be jolly to put up in our rooms?"

"And did you know that Jeffry, the famous bird imitator, was going to be there and give some of his wonderful bird calls?" asked Gladys. "Migwan, you're in luck, being home this week to take in all the good things."

"The frolic afterwards is going to be as much fun as the carol singing," said Hinpoha. "I wouldn't miss it for anything. And the group that brings in the most money is going to get a prize," she added, "and have its picture in the Sunday paper. Oh, I do hope we'll get the most! We must sing our very best."

"Oh, what a glorious night!" they all cried, as they passed out into the sparkling snow.

"Oh, but I'm glad I'm a carol singer," said Katherine, and slipped and sat down on her lantern in her enthusiasm.

"Have you time to walk over to Division Street with me before we go to Mrs. Salisbury's?" asked Gladys, as they went down the street. Mrs. Salisbury was the lady who had gathered together the band of carolers to which the Winnebagos belonged, and they were all to meet at her house.

"It's early yet," said Hinpoha, "we ought to have time. Come on."

So they all went with Gladys to deliver a Christmas parcel to a poor family whom Gladys' mother had taken under her wing. Along the big avenues through which they walked candles were already glimmering in windows in friendly invitation to the coming singers. But there were no candles in the windows on Division Street. The houses were all poor little one-story ones, with never a wreath or a bit of decoration anywhere to show that it was Christmas. The very lamp-posts burned dimly with a discouraged air. The girls delivered their bundle and hastened back up the dark street.

"Let's stop a minute and sing the songs through once more so Migwan will be sure of them," suggested Hinpoha. "We wanted to before we left the house, you know, and then we forgot it."

So they stood still before a bleak, empty looking house, and sang through all the songs they were to sing with the group that night on Garfield Avenue.

* * * * * *

In a bare little room in the shabbiest house on Division Street a young girl lay in bed day after day, staring wistfully through the flawed window pane at the dingy row of houses opposite. She suffered from hip disease and could not walk, and a frail little mother cleaned offices to support them both. Living was cruelly high and there was no thought of spending anything for Christmas. Martha dreaded its coming, for she could remember other days when Christmas had been very different. Besides, Martha was very lonely. She and her mother were strangers in town, having come only six months before, and in all that time not a soul had come to see them. And because Martha felt so lonely and so left out of the busy, happy world, the treatment for which she had come to the city was doing her no good, and she was not improving at all. And her mother saw the trouble and sorrowed, but did not know how to mend the matter. Martha read in books about the good times girls had together and longed with all her soul to be part of such frolics, until it seemed that she could not bear her loneliness any longer.

Her mother often brought home newspapers from the offices and in them Martha read about the groups of boys and girls who were going through the streets on Christmas Eve singing carols before the houses where the candles shone in the windows.

"How I wish I could hear those carols sung!" she sighed enviously. "How wonderful it must be to be rich and live in a fine house and put a candle in the window to make the singers stop outside! And I must always stay in the darkness, and miss all the fun! Oh, Mother, it isn't fair!"

The sad-eyed little mother cast about in her mind for some way to amuse her lonely daughter this dreary Christmas Eve. "Let us pretend that we are rich and great," she said soothingly, "and play that we are putting a lighted candle in our window and listening to the fine songs of the singers below and giving them large sums of money for their good cause."

"What good would it do to play it?" asked Martha. "We would have to imagine it all. We haven't even a candle!"

"Let's play it, anyway," coaxed her mother. "What color candle shall we use tonight?"

"A red one, with gold designs on it, and a cut glass candlestick," said Martha, playing the game to please her mother.

So they pretended to set a shining glass candlestick holding a red and gold candle on the window sill. "Now we must wait awhile in our elegant parlor for the singers to come," said her mother, playing the game with spirit.

Then a wonderful thing happened. There was a sound of footsteps in the creaking snow outside, footsteps that came to a halt beneath the window, and then the air was filled with joyous, ringing melody:

"God rest you, merry gentlemen,

Let nothing you may dismay,

For Jesus Christ our Savior

Was born this happy day!"

Martha and her mother looked at each other with faces suddenly grown pale, and listened with unbelieving ears. The song changed as the singers swung into the measures of a new carol. Surely these were human voices and not a band of fairies! The mother crept silently to the window and looked out.

* * * * * *

When the last note of the songs had died away the door of the dark house opened and a woman came out on the steps. "Thank you a thousand times for the singing," she said. "Won't you come in where my daughter can see you? She won't believe you are real. She is so sick and lonesome. Please do."

The Winnebagos started in surprise and looked at each other somewhat doubtfully. They had not been aware that they were singing to an audience. It was getting near the time when they should be meeting the rest of the group. But this was Christmas Eve and here was a girl sick and lonesome--

"Let's go in for a minute," said Gladys and Hinpoha together. They went in, singing as they went, and swinging their little lighted lanterns.

Martha's mother lit the one pale little gas flame, for they had been sitting in the dark before, and by its light the girls saw the shabby room and the wan girl lying on the bed. So amazed was Martha at the sudden appearance of the carolers out of the night that she forgot to be shy, and before she knew it she had told them all about the Christmas Eve game she and her mother had been playing and how they had set the imaginary candle in the window. And all of the six months' loneliness was in that little tale, and the girls as they listened became afflicted with a queer weakness of the eyes that made them turn their faces away from the light. Over on the lighted avenue the twinkling candles beckoned in the gleaming windows of the most beautiful homes in the city; still farther on the revellers at the singers' party stretched out gay hands to them; but over it all each one seemed to see the words of the Fire Law written in letters made of Christmas stars:

--"Whose house is bare and dark and cold--"

Mysterious communications and hand signs flew back and forth between the Winnebagos. Like magic Gladys and Hinpoha slid out of the door and like magic they returned a few minutes later, loaded down with bundles. As the enchanted forests rise in the fairy tales, so the room was swiftly transformed and began to blossom in green and red. Garlands and wreaths hung from the head and the foot of the bed, and from the gas-jet. Riotous little bells swung from the doorways; sprigs of holly and gorgeous poinsettias framed the cheap pictures; bright candles in cheerful red shades burned on the table.

Other bundles when opened revealed the "makings" of the grandest spread the Winnebagos had ever had. The Lonesome House was turned into the Home of Joyous Spirits. Gladys poked up the fire and made her most tempting Shrimp Wiggle; Sahwah made the best pan of fudge she had ever made; Katherine made cocoa, and the rest spread sandwiches with delicious "Wohelo Special" chicken salad, and cut up cake and dished ice cream. Then there followed such a joyous feast as Martha had never conceived in her rosiest dreams. Healths were drunk in cocoa, side-splitting toasts proposed by the witty toastmistress, Migwan, and songs sung that made the roof ring. Gladys did her prettiest dances; Sahwah and Hinpoha did their famous stunt of the goat that ate the two red shirts right off the line, and Katherine gave her very funniest speech-the one about Wimmen's Rights-three times; once voluntarily and twice more by special request. Martha laughed until she could laugh no more, and applauded every number enthusiastically, her usually pale cheeks glowing red with excitement and her eyes shining like stars. It was late when they left her, promising to come again soon, and slipping into her hands various packages containing gifts of things every girl loves, which Gladys had hastily bought when she had slipped out to get the supplies. Among them was a beautifully intricate puzzle which would keep her interested for months to come.

Thus it was that the candle which was never lit guided the feet of the Song Friends to the Dark House, and gave into their tending yet another fire. Reports of the gay party at the Music League Club House came to the Winnebagos from all sides, and loud expressions of regret that they had missed it. And the group they were to have sung with brought in by far the most money, carrying off the prize and getting its picture in the Sunday paper-and the Winnebagos were not in it.

But over on Division Street a wonderful new look had come into the face of a sad-eyed girl-a look of happiness and ambition, and the Winnebagos, having seen that look, were content.