Chapter VI: Part 6

The burgomaster's face was turned from her. She could not see that he held in his hand the very letter with the Christmas stamp that had stirred unwonted thoughts within him; but she knew the furrow that had grown in the years of lonely longing. She had watched it deepen, and he had not deceived her, but she had vainly sought a way out. All at once she knew the way. They would keep Christmas again as of old, the two--nay, the three of them together. With a quick smile that had yet in it a shadow of fright, she went about carrying out her purpose.

So it befell that when Jens, the forester, was making off for the woods where the Christmas trees grew, shaking his head at the burgomaster's queer commission, the voice of the burgomasterinde called him back to the kitchen door, and he received the second and the greater shock of the day.

"Get two wee ones," she wound up her directions, "and bring them here to the back door. Don't tell my husband, and be sure he does not see."

Jens stared. "But the burgomaster--" he began. She stopped him.

"No matter about the burgomaster," she said briskly. "Only don't let him know. Bring them here as soon as it is dark."

And Jens departed, shaking his head in hopeless bewilderment.

The early winter twilight had fallen when he returned with two green bundles, one of which by dint of much strategy he smuggled into the front office without the burgomasterinde seeing him, while he delivered the other at the back door without the burgomaster being the wiser, this being made easier by the fact that the latter had not yet returned from his visit to the shops. When, a little while later he came home, tiptoeing in like a guilty Santa Claus on his early evening rounds, he shut himself in alone.

Profound quiet reigned in the official residence for a full hour after dark. In both wings of the house the shutters were closed tight. In one the burgomasterinde was presumably busy with her household duties; in the other the burgomaster was occupied with a task that would have made the old clerk doubt the evidence of his eyes had he himself not been at that moment engaged in the same identical business at his own home. Two small Christmas trees stood upon the table, from which law books and legal papers had been cleared with an unceremonious haste that had left them in an undignified heap on the floor. The burgomaster between them was fixing colored wax candles, cornucopias, and paper dolls in their branches. He eyed a bag of oranges ruefully. They were too heavy for the little trees, but then they would do to bank about the roots. To be sure, they had left these behind in the woods, but the fact was not apparent: each little tree was planted in a huge flower-pot, as Jens had received his orders, just as if it had grown there.

One brief moment the burgomaster paused in his absurd task. It was when he had put the last candle in place that something occurred to him which made him stand awhile in deep thought, gazing fixedly at the trees. Then he went to his desk, and from a back drawer, seldom used, took out something that shone like silver in the light. Perhaps it was that which made him screen his eyes with his hand when he saw it. It was a little silver star, such as many a Christmas tree bore at its top that night to tell the children of the Star of Bethlehem. The burgomaster sat and looked at it while the furrow grew deeper in his forehead; then he put it back gently into its envelop and closed the desk.

It was nearly time for dinner when he straightened up and heaved a sigh of contentment. The candles on one of the little trees were lighted, and all was ready.

"If only," he said uncertainly--"if only she is not in now." Could some good fairy have given him second sight to pierce the walls between his office and his wife's room, what he saw there would certainly have made him believe he had taken leave of his senses. Jens had just gone out with one Christmas tree, all hung with children's toys. On the table stood the other in its pot, a vision of beauty. The mistress of the house sat before it with a little box in her lap from which she took one cherished trinket after another, last of all a silvery angel with folded wings. A tear fell upon it as she set it in the tree, but she wiped this away and stood back, surveying her work with happy eyes. It _was_ beautiful.

"I wonder where Jonas is. I haven't heard his step for an hour." She listened at the door. All was quiet. "I will just carry it over and surprise him when he comes in." And she went out into the hall with her shining burden.

At that precise moment the door of the office was opened, and the burgomaster came out, carrying his Christmas tree. They met upon the landing. For a full minute they stood looking at each other in stunned silence. It was the burgomaster who broke it.

"You were so lonely," he said huskily, "and I thought of our Gertrude."

She put down her tree, and went to him.

"Look, Jonas," she said, with her head on his shoulder, and pointed where it stood. He saw through blurring tears the child's precious belongings from her last Christmas,--their last Christmas,--and he bent down and kissed her.

"I know," he said simply; "it was Black Hans' little Annie. See!" He drew her into his office, "I made one for her. Jens shall take it over."

She hid her face on his breast. "He just went with one from me," she sobbed, struggling between laughter and tears; and as he started, she hugged him close. "But we need this one. I tell you, Jonas, what we will do: we will send it to Black Hans in the jail."

And even so it came to pass. To Jens's final and utter stupefaction, he was bidden to carry the fourth and last of the trees to the lock-up, where it cheered Black Hans that Christmas eve. It was noticed both by the turnkey and by the poacher that it bore a bright silver star at the top, but neither could know that it was to be a star of hope indeed for little Annie and her dark home. For so it had been settled between the burgomaster and his wife, as they pinned it on together and wished each other a right Merry Christmas, with many, many more to come, that happy night.