THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
By Charles Egbert Craddock 1911
He yearned for a sign from the heavens. Could one intimation be vouchsafed him, how it would confirm his faltering faith! Jubal Kennedy was of the temperament impervious to spiritual subtleties, fain to reach conclusions with the line and rule of mathematical demonstration. Thus, all unreceptive, he looked through the mountain gap, as through some stupendous gateway, on the splendors of autumn; the vast landscape glamorous in a transparent amethystine haze; the foliage of the dense primeval wilderness in the October richness of red and russet; the “hunter's moon,” a full sphere of illuminated pearl, high in the blue east while yet the dull vermilion sun swung westering above the massive purple heights. He knew how the sap was sinking; that the growths of the year had now failed; presently all would be shrouded in snow, but only to rise again in the reassurance of vernal quickening, to glow anew in the fullness of bloom, to attain eventually the perfection of fruition. And still he was deaf to the reiterated analogy of death, and blind to the immanent obvious prophecy of resurrection and the life to come. His thoughts, as he stood on this jutting crag in Sunrise Gap, were with a recent “experience meeting” at which he had sought to canvass his spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality is inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more properly an eager questioning, a desire to possess the sacred mysteries of religion, was unprecedented. Kennedy was a proud man, reticent, reserved. Although the old parson, visibly surprised and startled, had gently invited his full confidence, Kennedy had hastily swallowed his words, as best he might, perceiving that the congregation had wholly misinterpreted their true intent and that certain gossips had an unholy relish of the sensation they had caused.
Thereafter he indulged his poignant longings for the elucidation of the veiled truths only when, as now, he wandered deep in the woods with his rifle on his shoulder. He could not have said to-day that he was nearer an inspiration, a hope, a “leading,” than heretofore, but as he stood on the crag it was with the effect of a dislocation that he was torn from the solemn theme by an interruption at a vital crisis.
The faint vibrations of a violin stirred the reverent hush of the landscape in the blended light of the setting sun and the “hunter's moon.” Presently the musician came into view, advancing slowly through the aisles of the red autumn forest. A rapt figure it was, swaying in responsive ecstasy with the rhythmic cadence. The head, with its long, blowsy yellow hair, was bowed over the dark polished wood of the instrument; the eyes were half closed; the right arm, despite the eccentric patches on the sleeve of the old brown-jeans coat, moved with free, elastic gestures in all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he saw the hunter motionless on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave no intimation. His every faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging iteration of the sweet melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of effect, an inspiration, it might almost have seemed, incongruous with the infirmities of the crazy old fiddle. He was like a creature under the sway of a spell, and apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the enchantment of sound was the odd procession that trailed silently after him through these deep mountain fastnesses.
A woman came first, arrayed in a ragged purple skirt and a yellow blouse open at the throat, displaying a slender white neck which upheld a face of pensive, inert beauty. She clasped in her arms a delicate infant, ethereal of aspect with its flaxen hair, transparently pallid complexion, and wide blue eyes. It was absolutely quiescent, save that now and then it turned feebly in its waxen hands a little striped red-and-yellow pomegranate. A sturdy blond toddler trudged behind, in a checked blue cotton frock, short enough to disclose cherubic pink feet and legs bare to the knee; he carried that treasure of rural juveniles, a cornstalk violin. An old hound, his tail suavely wagging, padded along the narrow path; and last of all came, with frequent pause to crop the wayside herbage, a large cow, brindled red and white.
“The whole fambly!” muttered Kennedy. Then, aloud, “Why don't you uns kerry the baby, Basil Bedell, an' give yer wife a rest?”
At the prosaic suggestion the crystal realm of dreams was shattered. The bow, with a quavering discordant scrape upon the strings, paused. Then Bedell slowly mastered the meaning of the interruption.
“Kerry the baby! Why, Aurely won't let none but herself tech that baby.” He laughed as he tossed the tousled yellow hair from his face, and looked over his shoulder to speak to the infant. “It air sech a plumb special delightsome peach, it air,—it air!”
The pale face of the child lighted up with a smile of recognition and a faint gleam of mirth.
“I jes' kem out ennyhows ter drive up the cow,” Basil added.
“Big job,” sneered Kennedy. “'Pears-like it takes the whole fambly to do it.”
Such slothful mismanagement was calculated to affront an energetic spirit. Obviously, at this hour the woman should be at home cooking the supper.
“I follered along ter listen ter the fiddle,—ef ye hev enny call ter know.” Mrs. Bedell replied to his unspoken thought, as if by divination.
But indeed such strictures were not heard for the first time. They were in some sort the penalty of the disinterested friendship which Kennedy had harbored for Basil since their childhood. He wished that his compeer might prosper in such simple wise as his own experience had proved to be amply possible. Kennedy's earlier incentive to industry had been his intention to marry, but the object of his affections had found him “too mortal solemn,” and without a word of warning had married another man in a distant cove. The element of treachery in this event had gone far to reconcile the jilted lover to his future, bereft of her companionship, but the habit of industry thus formed had continued of its own momentum. It had resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable holding,—cattle, house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance of the ant for the cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every wincing nerve was enlisted in arresting it in mid-air.
“Mighty long tramp fur Bobbie, thar,—why n't ye kerry him!” y
The imperturbable calm still held fast on the musician's face. “Bob,” he addressed the toddler, “will you uns let daddy kerry ye like a baby!”
He swooped down as if to lift the child, the violin and bow in his left hand. The hardy youngster backed off precipitately.
“Don't ye dare ter do it!” he virulently admonished his parent, a resentful light in his blue eyes. Then, as Bedell sang a stave in a full rich voice, “Bye-oh, Baby!” Bob vociferated anew, “Don't you begin ter dare do it!” every inch a man though a little one.
“That's the kind of a fambly I hev got,” Basil commented easily. “Wife an' boy an' baby all walk over me,—plumb stomp on me! Jes' enough lef of me ter play the fiddle a leetle once in a while.”
“Mighty nigh all the while, I be afeared,” Kennedy corrected the phrase. “How did yer corn crap turn out!” he asked, as he too fell into line and the procession moved on once more along the narrow path.
“Well enough,” said Basil; “we uns hev got a sufficiency.” Then, as if afraid of seeming boastful he qualified, “Ye know I hain't got but one muel ter feed, an' the cow thar. My sheep gits thar pastur' on the volunteer grass 'mongst the rocks, an' I hev jes' got a few head ennyhows.”
“But why hain't ye got more, Basil! Why n't ye work more and quit wastin' yer time on that old fool fiddle!”
The limits of patience were reached. The musician fired up. “'Kase,” he retorted, “I make enough. I hev got grace enough ter be thankful fur sech ez be vouchsafed ter me. I ain't wantin' no meracle.”
Kennedy flushed, following in silence while the musician annotated his triumph by a series of gay little harmonics, and young Hopeful, trudging in the rear, executed a soundless fantasia on the cornstalk fiddle with great brilliancy of technique.
“You uns air talkin' 'bout whut I said at the meetin' las' month,” Kennedy observed at length.
“An' so be all the mounting,” Aurelia interpolated with a sudden fierce joy of reproof.
Kennedy winced visibly.
“The folks all 'low ez ye be no better than an onbeliever.” Aurelia was bent on driving the blade home. “The idee of axin' fur a meracle at this late day,—so ez ye kin be satisfied in yer mind ez ye hev got grace! Providence, though merciful, air obleeged, ter know ez sech air plumb scandalous an' redic'lous.”
“Why, Aurely, hesh up,” exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted leniency. “I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,—yer voice sounds plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout a meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye see,—'kase I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss——”