On the Eleventh Day of Christmas...
Christmas Day
In The Morning
H
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e
woke suddenly, and completely. It was
four o’clock, the hour at which his father had always called to 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 at 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 took his turn.” “Yes,” his father said slowly. “But I sure do hate to wake him.”
When he
heard these words, something in him awoke; his father loved him! He had never thought of it 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 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 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, but maybe
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. 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 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 sliver 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, 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 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 let himself out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and
surprised. It was too 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 and get him, saying he would get things started
while Rob was getting dressed. Dad would
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 milk house, filled. Rob 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 them and
closed the milk house door carefully.
Back in
his room he had only a minute to pull of 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 beside him feeling for him, pulling away the covers. “It’s for Christmas, Dad!”
He found
his father and clutched him a great hug.
He felt his father’s arms go around him
It was dark and they could not
see each other’s faces. “Rob, 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 on 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 three younger children listen
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.
Pearl
S. Buck, Collier’s, December 23, 1955
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