How It Happened by Kate Langley Bosher

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"You are just in time, my son." Mother McNeil beamed warmly at the
uninvited visitor. "When a man can be of service, it's let him serve,
I say, and if you will get that step-ladder over there and fix this
angel on the top of the tree it will save time. Jenkins has gone for
more tinsel and more bread. We didn't intend at first to have
sandwiches and chocolate--just candy and nuts and things like
that--but it's so cold and snowy Frances thought something good and
hot would taste well. You can slice the bread, Mr. Van Landing. Four
sandwiches apiece for the boys and three for the girls are what we
allow." She looked around. "Hand him that angel, Frances, and show him
where to put it. I've got to see about the cakes."

Never having fastened an angel to the top of a tree, for a half-moment
Van Landing was uncertain how to go about it, fearing exposure of
ignorance and awkwardness; then with a quick movement he was up the
ladder and looking down at the girl who was handing him a huge paper
doll dressed in the garments supposedly worn by the dwellers of
mansions in the sky, and as he took it he laughed.

"This is a very worldly-looking angel. She apparently enjoys the
blowing of her trumpet. Stand off, will you, and see if that's right?"
Van Landing fastened the doll firmly to the top of the tree. "Does she
show well down there?"

It was perfectly natural that he should be here and helping. True, he
had never heard of Mother McNeil and her home until two nights before,
never had dressed a Christmas tree before, or before gone where he was
not asked, but things of that sort no longer mattered. What mattered
was that he had found Frances, that it was the Christmas season, and
he was at last learning the secret of its hold on human hearts and
sympathies. There was no time to talk, but as he looked he watched,
with eyes that missed no movement that she made, the fine, fair face
that to him was like no other on earth, and, watching, he wondered if
she, too, wondered at the naturalness of it all.

The years that had passed since he had seen her had left their
imprint. She had known great sorrow, also she had traveled much, and,
though about her were the grace and courage of old, there was
something else, something of nameless and compelling appeal, and he
knew that she, too, knew the loneliness of life.

Quickly they worked, and greater and greater grew the confusion of
the continually appearing boxes and bundles, and, knee-deep, Mother
McNeil surveyed them, hands on her hips, and once or twice she brushed
her eyes.

"It's always the way, my son. If you trust people they will not fail
you. When we learn how to understand there will be less hate and more
help in the world. Jenkins, bring that barrel of apples and box of
oranges over here and get a knife for Mr. Van Landing to cut the bread
for the sandwiches. It's time to make them. Matilda, call Abraham in.
He can slice the ham and cheese. There must be plenty. Boys are
hollow. Frances, have you seen my scissors?"

Out of what seemed hopeless confusion and chaotic jumbling, out of
excited coming and going, and unanswered questions, and slamming of
doors, and hurried searchings, order at last evolved, and, feeling
very much as if he'd been in a football match, Van Landing surveyed
the rooms with a sense of personal pride in their completeness. Around
the tree, placed between the two front windows, were piled countless
packages, each marked, and from the mantelpiece hung a row of bulging
stockings, reinforced by huge mounds of the same on the floor,
guarded already by old Fetch-It. Holly and cedar gave color and
fragrance, and at the uncurtained windows wreaths, hung by crimson
ribbons, sent a welcome to the waiting crowd outside.

If he were not here he would be alone, with nothing to do. And
Christmas eve alone! He drew in his breath and looked at Frances. In
her face was warm, rich color, and her eyes were gay and bright, but
she was tired. She would deny it if asked. He did not have to ask. If
only he could take her away and let her rest!

She was going up-stairs to change her dress. Half-way up the steps he
called her, and, leaning against the rail of the banisters, he looked
up at her.

"When you come down I must see you, Frances--and alone. I shall wait
here for you."

"I cannot see you alone. There will be no time."

"Then we must make time. I tell you I must see you." Something in her
eyes made him hesitate. He must try another way. "Listen, Frances. I
want you to do me a favor. There's a young girl in my office, my
stenographer, who is to be married to-morrow to my head clerk. She is
from a little town very far from here and has no relatives, no
intimate friends near enough to go to. She lives in a boarding-house,
and she can't afford to go home to be married. I have asked Herrick to
bring her to my apartment to-morrow and marry her there. I would like
her to have--Carmencita and her father are coming, and I want you to
come, too. It would make things nicer for her. Will you come--you and
Mother McNeil?"

Over the banisters the beautiful eyes looked down into Van Landing's.
Out of them had gone guarding. In them was that which sent the blood
in hot surge through his heart. "I would love to come, but I am going
out of town to-morrow--going--"

"Home?" In Van Landing's voice was unconcealed dismay. The glow of
Christmas, new and warm and sweet, died sharply, leaving him cold and
full of fear. "Are you going home?"

She shook her head. "I have no home. That is why I am going away
to-morrow. Mother McNeil will have her family here, and I'd be--I'd be
an outsider. It's everybody's home day--and when you haven't a home--"

She turned and went a few steps farther on to where the stairs
curved, then suddenly she sat down and crumpled up and turned her face
to the wall. With leaps that took the steps two at a time Van Landing
was beside her.

"Frances!" he said, "Frances!" and in his arms he held her close.
"You've found out, too! Thank God, you've found out, too!"

Below, a door opened and some one was in the hall. Quickly Frances was
on her feet. "You must not, must not, Stephen--not here!"

"Goodness gracious! they've done made up."

At the foot of the steps Carmencita, as if paralyzed with delight,
stood for a moment, then, shutting tight her eyes, ran back whence she
came; at the door she stopped.

"Carmencita! Carmencita!" It was Van Landing's voice. She turned her
head. "Come here, Carmencita. I have something to tell you."

Eyes awed and shining, Carmencita came slowly up the steps. Reaching
them, with a spring she threw her arms around her dear friend's neck
and kissed her lips again and again and again, then held out her hands
to the man beside her. "Is--is it to be to-morrow, Mr. Van?"

"It is to be to-morrow, Carmencita."

For a half-moment there was quivering silence; then Van Landing spoke
again. "There are some things I must attend to to-night. Early
to-morrow I will come for you, Frances, and in Dr. Pierson's church we
will be married. Herrick and Miss Davis are coming at one o'clock, and
my--wife must be there to receive them. And you, too, Carmencita--you
and your father. We are going to have--" Van Landing's voice was
unsteady. "We are going to have Christmas at home, Frances. Christmas
at home!"

CHAPTER XVI

Lifting herself on her elbow, Carmencita listened. There was no sound
save the ticking of the little clock on the mantel. For a moment she
waited, then with a swift movement of her hand threw back the covering
on the cot, slipped from it, and stood, barefooted, in her nightgown,
in the middle of the floor. Head on the side, one hand to her mouth,
the other outstretched as if for silence from some one unseen, she
raised herself on tiptoe and softly, lightly, crossed the room to the
door opening into the smaller room wherein her father slept. Hand on
the knob, she listened, and, the soft breathing assuring her he was
asleep, she closed the door, gave a deep sigh of satisfaction, and
hurried back to the cot, close to which she sat down, put on her
stockings, and tied on her feet a pair of worn woolen slippers, once
the property of her prudent and practical friend, Miss Cattie Burns.
Slipping on her big coat over her gown, she tiptoed to the mantel,
lighted the candle upon it, and looked at the clock.

"Half past twelve," she said, "and Father's stocking not filled yet!"

As she got down from the chair on which she had stood to see the hour
her foot caught in the ripped hem of her coat. She tripped, and would
have fallen had she not steadied herself against the table close to
the stove, and as she did so she laughed under her breath.

"Really this kimono is much too long." She looked down on the loosened
hem. "And I oughtn't to wear my best accordion-pleated pale-blue crepe
de Chine and shadow lace when I am so busy. But dark-gray things are
so unbecoming, and, besides, I may have a good deal of company
to-night. The King of Love and the Queen of Hearts may drop in, and I
wouldn't have time to change. Miss Lucrecia Beck says I'm going to
write a book when I'm big, I'm so fond of making up and of
love-things. She don't know I've written one already. If he hadn't
happened to be standing on that corner looking so--so--I don't know
what, exactly, but so something I couldn't help running down and
asking him to come up--I never would have had the day I've had to-day
and am going to have to-morrow."

Stooping, she pinned the hem of her coat carefully, then, stretching
out her arms, stood on her tiptoes and spun noiselessly round and
round. "Can't help it!" she said, as if to some one who objected. "I'm
so glad I'm living, so glad I spoke to him, and know him, that I'm
bound to let it out. Father says I mustn't speak to strangers; but I'd
have to be dead not to talk, and I didn't think about his being a man.
He looked so lonely."

With quick movements a big gingham apron was tied over the bulky coat,
and, putting the candle on the table in the middle of the room,
Carmencita began to move swiftly from cot to cupboard, from chairs to
book-shelves, and from behind and under each bundles and boxes of
varying sizes were brought forth and arrayed in rows on the little
table near the stove. As the pile grew bigger so did her eyes, and in
her cheeks, usually without color, two spots burned deep and red.
Presently she stood off and surveyed her work and, hands clasped
behind, began to count, her head nodding with each number.

"Thirteen big ones and nineteen little ones," she said, "and I don't
know a thing that's in one of them. Gracious! this is a nice world to
live in! I wonder what makes people so good to me? Mrs. Robinsky
brought up those six biggest ones to-night." Lightly her finger was
laid on each. "She said they were left with her to be sent up
to-morrow morning, but there wouldn't be a thing to send if she
waited, as the children kept pinching and poking so to see what was in
them. I'd like to punch myself. Noodles gave me that." Her head nodded
at a queer-shaped package wrapped in brown paper and tied with green
cord. "He paid nineteen cents for it. He told me so. I didn't pay but
five for what I gave him. He won't brush his teeth or clean his
finger-nails, and I told him I wasn't going to give him a thing if he
didn't, but I haven't a bit of hold-out-ness at Christmas. I wonder
what's in that?"

Cautiously her hand was laid on a box wrapped in white tissue-paper
and tied with red ribbons. "I'll hate to open it and see, it looks so
lovely and Christmasy, but if I don't see soon I'll die from wanting
to know. It rattled a little when I put it on the table. It's Miss
Frances's present, and I know it isn't practical. She's like I am. She
don't think Christmas is for plain and useful things. She thinks it's
for pleasure and pretty ones. I wonder--" Her hands were pressed to
her breast, and on tiptoes she leaned quiveringly toward the table. "I
wonder if it could be a new tambourine with silver bells on it! If it
is I'll die for joy, I'll be so glad! I broke mine to-night. I shook
it so hard when I was dancing after I got home from the tree
that--Good gracious! I've caught my foot again! These diamond buckles
on my satin slippers are always catching the chiffon ruffles on my
petticoats. I oughtn't to wear my best things when I'm busy, but I
can't stand ugly ones, even to work in. Mercy! it's one o'clock, and
the things for Father's stocking aren't out yet."

Out of the bottom drawer of the old-fashioned chest at the end of the
room a box was taken and laid on the floor near the stove, into which
a small stick of wood was put noiselessly, and carefully Carmencita
sat down beside it. Taking off the top of the box, she lifted first a
large-size stocking and held it up.

"I wish I was one hundred children's mother at Christmas and had a
hundred stockings to fill! I mean, if I had things to fill them with.
But as I'm not a mother, just a daughter, I'm thankful glad I've got
a father to fill a stocking for. He's the only child I've got. If he
could just see how beautiful and red this apple is, and how yellow
this orange, and what a darling little candy harp _this_ is, I'd be
thankfuler still. But he won't ever see. The doctor said so--said I
must be his eyes."

One by one the articles were taken out of the box and laid on the
floor; and carefully, critically, each was examined.

"This cravat is an awful color." Carmencita's voice made an effort to
be polite and failed. "Mr. Robinsky bought it for father himself and
asked me to put it in his stocking, but I hate to put. I'll have to do
it, of course, and father won't know the colors, but what on earth
made him get a green-and-red plaid? Now listen at me! I'm doing just
what Miss Lucrecia does to everything that's sent her. The only
pleasure she gets out of her presents is making fun of them and
snapping at the people who send them. She's an awful snapper. The
Damanarkist sent these cigars. They smell good. He don't believe in
Christmas, but he sent Father and me both a present. I hope he'll like
the picture-frame I made for his mother's picture. His mother's dead,
but he believed in her. She was the only thing he did believe in. A
man who don't believe in his mother--Oh, _my_ precious mother!"

With a trembling movement the little locket was taken from the box and
opened and the picture in it kissed passionately; then, without
warning, the child crumpled up and hot tears fell fast over the
quivering face. "I do want you, my mother! Everybody wants a mother at
Christmas, and I haven't had one since I was seven. Father tries to
fill my stocking, but it isn't a mother-stocking, and I just ache and
ache to--to have one like you'd fix. I want--" The words came
tremblingly, and presently she sat up.

"Carmencita Bell, you are a baby. Behave--your--self!" With the end of
the gingham apron the big blue eyes were wiped. "You can't do much in
this world, but you can keep from crying. Suppose Father was to know."
Her back straightened and her head went up. "Father isn't ever going
to know, and if I don't fill this stocking it won't be hanging on the
end of the mantelpiece when he wakes up. The locket must go in the
toe."

CHAPTER XVII

In half an hour the stocking, big and bulging, was hung in its
accustomed place, the packages for her father put on a chair by
themselves, and those for her left on the table, and as she rearranged
the latter something about the largest one arrested her attention,
and, stopping, she gazed at it with eyes puzzled and uncertain.

It looked--Cautiously her fingers were laid upon it. Undoubtedly it
looked like the box in which had been put the beautiful dark-blue coat
she had bought for the little friend of her friend. And that other box
was the size of the one the two dresses had been put in; and that was
a hat-box, and that a shoe-box, and the sash and beads and gloves and
ribbons, all the little things, had been put in a box that size. Every
drop of blood surged hotly, tremblingly, and with eyes staring and
lips half parted her breath came unsteadily.

In the confusion of their coming she had not noticed when Mrs.
Robinsky had brought them up and put them under the cot, with the
injunction that they were not to be opened until the morning, and for
the first time their familiarity was dawning on her. Could it
be--could _she_ be the little friend he had said was rich? She wasn't
rich. He didn't mean money-rich, but she wasn't any kind of rich; and
she had been so piggy.

Hot color swept over her face, and her hands twitched. She had told
him again and again she was getting too much, but he had insisted on
her buying more, and made her tell him what little girls liked, until
she would tell nothing more. And they had all been for her. For her,
Carmencita Bell, who had never heard of him three days before.

In the shock of revelation, the amazement of discovery, the little
figure at the table stood rigid and upright, then it relaxed and with
a stifled sob Carmencita crossed the room and, by the side of her cot,
twisted herself into a little knot and buried her face in her arms and
her arms in the covering.

"I didn't believe! I didn't believe!"

Over and over the words came tremblingly. "I prayed and prayed, but I
didn't believe! He let it happen, and I didn't believe!"

For some moments there were queer movements of twitching hands and
twisting feet by the side of the cot, but after a while a
tear-stained, awed, and shy-illumined face looked up from the arms in
which it had been hidden and ten slender fingers intertwined around
the knees of a hunched-up little body, which on the floor drew itself
closer to the fire.

It was a wonderful world, this world in which she lived. Carmencita's
eyes were looking toward the window, through which she could see the
shining stars. Wonderful things happened in it, and quite beyond
explaining were these things, and there was no use trying to
understand. Two days ago she was just a little girl who lived in a
place she hated and was too young to go to work, and who had a blind
father and no rich friends or relations, and there was nothing nice
that could happen just so.

"But things don't happen just so. They happen--don't anybody know how,
I guess." Carmencita nodded at the stars. "I've prayed a good many
times before and nothing happened, and I don't know why all this
beautifulness should have come to me, and Mrs. Beckwith, who is good
as gold, though a poor manager with babies, shouldn't ever have any
luck. I don't understand, but I'm awful thankful. I wish I could let
God know, and the Christ-child know, how thankful I am. Maybe the way
they'd like me to tell is by doing something nice for somebody else. I
know. I'll ask Miss Parker to supper Christmas night. She's an awful
poky person and needs new teeth, but she says she's so sick of mending
pants, she wishes some days she was dead. And I'll ask the
Damanarkist. He hasn't anywhere to go, and he hates rich people so
it's ruined his stomach. Hate is an awful ruiner."

For some moments longer Carmencita sat in huddled silence, then
presently she spoke again.

"I didn't intend to give Miss Cattie Burns anything. I've tried to
like Miss Cattie and I can't. But it was very good in her to send us a
quarter of a cord of wood for a Christmas present. She can't help
being practical. I'll take her that red geranium to-morrow. I raised
it from a slip, and I hate to see it go, but it's all I've got to
give. It will have to go.

"And to-morrow. I mean to-day--this is Christmas day! Oh, a happy
Christmas, everybody!" Carmencita's arms swung out, then circled
swiftly back to her heart. "For everybody in all the world I'd make it
happy if I could! And I'm going to a wedding to-day--a wedding! I
don't wonder you're thrilly, Carmencita Bell!"

For a half-moment breath came quiveringly from the parted lips, then
again at the window and the stars beyond the little head nodded.

"But I'll never wonder at things happening any more. I'll just wonder
at there being so many nice people on this earth. All are not nice.
The Damanarkist says there is a lot of rot in them, a lot of meanness
and cheatingness, and nasty people who don't want other people to do
well or to get in their way; but there's bound to be more niceness
than nastiness, or the world couldn't go on. It couldn't without a lot
of love. It takes a lot of love to stand life. I read that in a book.
Maybe that's why we have Christmas--why the Christ-child came."

Shyly the curly head was bent on the upraised knees, and the palms of
two little hands were uplifted. "O God, all I've got to give is love.
Help me never to forget, and put a lot in my heart so I'll always
have it ready. And I thank You and thank You for letting such grand
things happen. I didn't dream there'd really be a marriage when I
asked You please to let it be if you could manage it; but there's
going to be two, and I'm going to both. I've got a new dress to wear,
and slippers with buckles, and amber beads, and lots of other things.
And most of all I thank You for Mr. Van and Miss Frances finding each
other. And please don't let them ever lose each other again. They
might, even if they are married, if they don't take care. Please help
them to take care, for Christ's sake. Amen."

* * * * *

On her feet, Carmencita patted the stocking hanging from the mantel,
took off the big coat, kicked the large, loose slippers across the
room, blew out the candle, and stood for a moment poised on the tip of
her toes.

"If I could"--the words came breathlessly--"if I could I'd dance like
the lady I was named for, but it might wake Father. I mustn't wake
Father. Good night, everybody--and a merry Christmas to all this nice,
big world!"

With a spring that carried her across the room Carmencita was on her
cot and beneath its covering, which she drew up to her face. Under
her breath she laughed joyously, and her arms were hugged to her
heart.

"To-morrow--I mean to-day--I am going to tell them. They don't
understand yet. They think it was just an accident." She shook her
head. "It wasn't an accident. After they're married I'm going to tell
them. Tell them how it happened."

THE END

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