Chapter I: The First Journey

IT began, like most Christmas days, a long while beforehand. That is, the getting ready for it began. The truth is, it was one very warm day in August that the plans for Christie's Christmas were formed. They were all out under the great elm tree in the back yard, at work trying to keep cool; so Karl said, who had his torn straw hat for a fan, and was lying at full length under the tree. Christie was sewing, taking quick little business-like stitches on a long seam, the baby was pulling first at her work, and then at Karl's hat; Nettie was under the tree too, but fast asleep, one chubby hand supporting her red cheek. The mother of all these little Tuckers was there too, sewing another long seam. There was ever so much to do in the Tucker family, and when any of them sat down to rest, there were sure to be long seams to sew, patches to set, or holes to darn.

"Karl," the mother said, "keep the flies off of Nettie, can't you? They are eating her up."

"I must go," said Karl, but he arose on one elbow and began lazily to fan away the flies; "I guess my half-hour is up; father said I was to rest for half an hour, because my cheeks got so red, he was afraid I would be sun-struck. It is awful hot out in the field. I'll tell you where I wish I was this minute; I'd like to be in Uncle Daniel's ice house. What a thing it must be to have ice houses and everything you want."

"We can have an ice house just as well as not, by Christmas time," said Christie, biting off her thread. "If I had a chance to be at Uncle Daniel's a little while, I'd take care to see something different, from ice houses—something that we can't 'ever' have."

As she spoke, she drew a long breath, like one whose heart was full of things that she might say, if she would.

Karl watched her curiously from behind his hat.

"What things are there at Uncle Daniel's that you never expect to have?" he asked at last.

"Lots of them: carpets, and nice furniture, and pictures, and books, and a piano, oh my!" She caught her breath again, and seemed to think it best to stop, lest she should say too much.

"I wouldn't care a fig for the carpets and furniture, but I'd like well enough to have some of the books. A history or two, maybe, and like enough a physical geography, but those things I mean to have some day, without going to Uncle Daniel's. What good would it do to look at things, if you didn't own them?"

"I think it would be nice to have one good look at them all; you could think out how other folks live a great deal easier after that."

"Well," said Karl, after a thoughtful pause, "maybe you will have a chance some day; it isn't so awful far to Uncle Daniel's, now that the railroad is done. How do you know but you will go and make them a visit?"

Over this wild suggestion, Christie laughed, and broke her thread in her nervousness.

But the mother looked up with a significant nod of her head. "I mean you shall, child," she said decidedly; "I meant it for a surprise, but maybe you will like thinking it over, and planning for it, better than the surprise. Your father and I made up our minds that we would have you go and spend a whole day at your Uncle Daniel's, and see all the things that you want to see so much. They've invited us often enough, and we mean to do it."

Karl sat upright, and his cheeks were nearly as red as Christie's, and both the children said "When?" in such loud, eager tones, that the baby immediately said it after them, and then sat down on the grass and laughed immoderately at his own smartness. As he had never said this word before, Christie, even in her excitement, had to bend down and kiss the baby's mouth.

"Well," said Mrs. Tucker, speaking slowly and impressively, "if nothing more than we know of now happens, we have decided that you shall spend the whole of Christmas day at your uncle's. You are to go up in the train that passes at seven in the morning, and come back in the six o'clock, and that will give you nine whole hours at your Uncle Daniel's. I'm sure that will give you time to see a good many things. I don't know what your father will say to my telling you of it, but you do like to dream out things so well, I thought you might like to dream over that."

"Oh my!" said Christie. Her work fell at her feet in a heap, and baby seized it and rolled over on it, and chuckled. Then Christie said, "Oh my!" again, this time at baby, and added, "You will scratch yourself on that needle," and stooped and gathered up her work.

The mother went on with her wonderful story.

"We've been thinking about it for a good while, your father and I, but it was only last night that we made our minds up squarely that you should go, if we could bring it about, and I guess we can. I wish it was so that you and Karl could go together, but we don't know how to manage that now, that's a fact. And Christmas Day is Christie's birthday, you know Karl, and besides, she is two years older than you. Her turn ought to come first."

"Course," said Karl sturdily, but he shaded his face entirely with his hat, and let the flies bite Nettie in peace for about a minute. What a thing it would be to take a ride in the steam cars! No, he had never been in them in his life. Neither had Christie, but then she was a girl. He wondered if it could be so hard for girls as for boys.

"But mother," said Christie timidly, "it costs an awful lot of money to ride in the cars."

"I know it does. Eighty-five cents there, and eighty-five cents back; that's a dollar and seventy cents! It seems a good deal to spend, but it is your birthday, and it is Christmas Day, and you've worked hard, and father and Karl and I think you ought to go; don't we Karl?"

"Yes'm," said Karl, and if his voice trembled a little, his mother pretended not to notice it.

"Yes," she said cheerily, "that's what we do, and we are going to work for it. There is a great deal to be done between now and then; there's some yeast cakes I will want to send your Aunt Louisa, and some mittens for the baby, and if I can bring it about, I'm going to tie a comfort for his little bed. Your Aunt Louisa said they were nice things, the last time she was here, and your father thinks there will be a bag of choice apples that we can put in for them. And I thought maybe Karl and you would want to gather a few nuts for your cousins. Then they ought to have mittens, too, or something, but I don't know as we can manage about so much yarn. Dear me! There is a great deal to do, and only a little time to do it in, not quite four months, I declare! How time does go, to be sure."

Then did Christie and Karl look at each other, glances full of curious astonishment. Nothing seemed to them to move so slowly as time.

It seemed to Christie that Christmas Day would "never" come, never in the world!

But it did. And it found the Tucker family up very early in the morning. A kerosene lamp was burning in every room in the lower part of the house, by four o'clock. For wasn't the station a mile away, and wasn't Christie to take her first ride in the cars that morning?

How pretty she looked in her trim new suit! New? Well, yes, new to her. Who was going to know, unless she told them, that the brown travelling dress, sack and all, was made from an old waterproof cloak that Aunt Louisa had left there one day because it really was not worth bothering to get it into the trunk? Aunt Louisa herself would not have recognized it now. It had been turned, and sponged and pressed, and cut and fitted and trimmed, with rows upon rows of machine stitching of the very neatest sort.

How many fingers had helped to get Christie ready for her first going out into the great world! There was Susan Briggs the tailoress, home on a few days' visit to her mother, their next neighbour, and one evening when she ran in to see the Tuckers, she had said:

"Why, you would have enough of that for one of those cunning little cut-away jackets that they wear so much! Let me look at it: I do believe I could get one out. Why, dear me! It has a large cape too; yes, I know I could. Shall I cut it out for you, Mrs. Tucker? Oh, nonsense! I would just as soon do it as to sit here with my hands folded. Hand me the shears, Christie! I've got my pattern in my pocket; I lent it to Jane Ann Wheeler, and I met her coming to bring it home, just as I turned the corner to-night. Wasn't that fortunate? I'll tell you what it is, Christie Tucker, we'll have a nice little cut-away jacket for you before you know it. What are you going to trim the dress with?"

"Oh dear me!" said Mrs. Tucker. "Don't talk to us about trimming; it has been just as much as we could do to pucker the necessary things together to make the dress. You see, Susan, a journey makes so many expenses; she had to have a pair of gloves, and a new pair of shoes, and altogether it counts up. She will have to go without trimming."

Then did Susan sit in quiet, her busy shears snipping the cloth most skilfully, her busy brain considering the while. At last, she spoke her thoughts.

"I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Tucker, this goods would look beautifully stitched on the machine; suppose we change works! If you will do some buttonholes for me, I'll take this home and give it three rows on mother's machine. You do make buttonholes elegantly, and I'd rather stitch, any day, than to make them."

And the gratified mother, who would not have accepted charity to get trimming for her daughter, was nevertheless willing to get it by changing work. So the three rows of stitching were added, and very pretty they looked.

Then one evening came Mrs. Briggs, Susan's mother, to sit a while with her knitting, and tucked away in her pocket was a pretty little ruffle of finest cambric, hemmed with the smallest of stitches, gathered in infinitesimal puckers, and carefully fluted by Mrs. Briggs' own skilful hands.

"There!" she said, bringing it out. "I was making ruffles for my girls, and there was a little speck over—I promised them three apiece, you know, and this was left over—and thinks I to myself, that will just make Christie a ruffle to wear when she goes her first journey. So I made it for a little Christmas present for you, child. And you must pay me by telling me about all the wonderful things you saw on the way."

How pretty the little white ruffle was! And how pleased was Christie, and how more than pleased was her mother. It was so nice for people to take an interest in her Christie.

At last everything was ready. The basket of choice apples was packed, the bag of yeast cakes was stowed away in the old-fashioned, flowered carpet satchel that used to go on journeys by water, and journeys by stage, a long time ago, but had never in its life taken a ride by steam. There were other choice things in the satchel—mittens and wrist warmers, and the gay patchwork comfort for the baby's bed; and there was another basket for the nuts that had been gathered at just the right time to be at their best.

"I don't know how you will ever get out of the cars, loaded down so," Father Tucker said, looking a little anxious, "but I guess the conductor will help you; I'll speak to him about it."

"And do be careful, Christie," said Mother Tucker; "it seems to me as though the cars must be dangerous things, going so fast. I'm most sorry I gave my consent to having you go off alone; it is a pretty risky thing for a young girl like you."

"Oh, mother," said Karl, "nothing will hurt her. I wouldn't be afraid to go to New York all alone."

"Yes, I know," said the wise little mother, regarding him with kind motherly eyes, "but then, you are a boy, and boys are expected to take care of themselves, and look after the girls besides."

Karl's dark cheeks flushed over this, and he answered cheerily, "Well, I'll take good care of her; I'll go on the cars and pick her out a seat, and settle all her baskets and bundles."

If the whole truth were told, Karl Tucker looked forward to this performance almost as eagerly as Christie did to the journey. Every morning he drove to the depot and sent a can of milk into the city by the early train. And every morning Wells Burton, a boy only three or four years older than himself, was there with his sleigh and pony to see his sister off to school.

Karl, after his milk-can was disposed of, on the hand freight car, had leisure to watch Wells Burton. How he took his sister's satchel of books, and her shawl strap, and walked beside her to the steps of the car and helped her up, and sprang gaily in after her. Then Karl could see him through the windows, walking down the aisle of the car, sometimes turning a seat, then settling the books and the shawl strap on some shelf or hook that seemed to be overhead. Karl had never been near enough to investigate how it was fixed, for his strict orders were on no account to step on the cars.

But he had watched Wells Burton all through the fall; he knew just how to do it, and he was burning with an eager desire to do it for Christie. Great, then, was his disappointment when his father appeared in his best boots, and with his great coat and heavy mittens.

"You will have two passengers, my boy, this morning," he said cheerily; "oh yes, I'm going. I couldn't let my girl start out into the world alone."

"Now do be careful," said mother, following her treasure out of the door, and down the snowy path to the great wood sleigh, where the can of milk was already tucked in among bags and blankets; "don't open the window to look at anything, and mind and don't put your head out; I've heard that it is dangerous. And remember all I told you to tell Louisa and the rest; and mind and wrap the big shawl around you well when you ride to the station. And don't you let them coax you to stay all night for anything in the world. I shouldn't sleep a wink if you did, and I guess maybe I'd start on foot to see what was the matter."

Between these sentences, Christie was being kissed and hugged, until what with the bundling up, and the frosty air, and a feeling as though she was going away off into a great cold world, and might never see any of the dear people in the little old farmhouse any more, she felt as though she should choke or maybe cry; and that would be almost worse!

At last they were off! The mother came in and held the baby up at the window to watch the sleigh as it turned the corner and slipped out of sight, and then she said:

"How Mrs. Burton stands it to let her girl go to the city every day to school, I 'don't' see! Seems to me I should fly away with anxiety, but there is nothing like getting used to things. Dear me! It doesn't seem right to have the child go off on Christmas Day, but then it was her birthday, and all. And she'll be back to supper, and be hungry enough, I'll warrant; there'll be so many dishes, and silver, and things at Daniel's that she can't do much eating. I'll have stewed chicken, and biscuits smothered in cream gravy, and hot apple sauce, to surprise her, see if I don't! Come, Nettie dear, you're the only little girl mother has to help her to-day, and we must fly around. What I should do if I hadn't Christie to help every day, is more than I can think. And, thank the Lord, I haven't got to think."

But she wiped away the tears as she hurried to work, for Christie had never been away from home before a whole day in her life. What, not even to school? No, not even to school. It is time I told you a little more about the Tucker family. They lived away "out West." That is, if you live in New York, or Brooklyn, or Maine, or Boston, or New Haven, or even in Cleveland or Cincinnati, you might call it away "out West," for it was in Kansas.

The Tuckers went there from New England, when Karl was a baby, and had been working away on their bit of a farm ever since. A city had grown up about twenty miles from them, but it had not grown where Mr. Tucker thought it would, when he bought his little farm, and not even a school had come within five miles of them until lately. I am not so very sure that it would have done the Tucker children much good if there had. The truth was, there was such hard work, and so much of it, to feed all the mouths, and clothe the stout little bodies, that both Christie and Karl had had to work hard all day long. You need not suppose that on this account they did not know anything. I fancy they were almost as good scholars as some who go to school year after year.

Mr. Tucker had taught them, in the long winter evenings, to cipher, and had studied geography with them on a big old map of the United States, that he had brought with him from New England. And Mrs. Tucker, who in her New England home had been the best reader and speller in the whole school, had taught them in both these branches very carefully. And so, though they had not many books to read, what they had were very carefully read, and very well understood.

Uncle Daniel lived in the handsome city that had sprung up twenty miles farther east, and he lived an entirely different life from the Tuckers. He was Mrs. Tucker's youngest brother, was a merchant, and had one of the finest stores in the fine little city, and was what the western people called a rich man. The Tuckers saw very little of them, for the reason that twenty miles in a country where there are no railroads are not easily gotten over, especially by busy people; and it was not yet quite a year since the branch railroad came within a mile of the Tucker's farm. Since then, the country around had begun to hold up its head. A good school had been started, a neat little church had been built, and to the church the Tucker's tramped every Sabbath day. But the school they had not succeeded in getting time to attend.

"By next year," Mr. Tucker had said, "we must try hard for it."

He said it again that very morning on the road to the station.