Read Ebook: Naomi eli Jerusalemin viimeiset päivät by Webb J B Mrs Annie

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Ebook has 852 lines and 59381 words, and 18 pages

No Santa Claus! If you had asked that car full of people I would have liked to hear the answers they would have given you. No Santa Claus! Why, there was scarce a man in the lot who didn't carry a bundle that looked as if it had just tumbled out of his sleigh. I felt of one slyly, and it was a boy's sled--a "flexible flyer," I know, because he left one at our house the Christmas before; and I distinctly heard the rattling of a pair of skates in that box in the next seat. They were all good-natured, every one, though the train was behind time--that is a sure sign of Christmas. The brakeman wore a piece of mistletoe in his cap and a broad grin on his face, and he said "Merry Christmas" in a way to make a man feel good all the rest of the day. No Santa Claus, is there? You just ask him!

And then the train rolled into the city under the big gray dome to which George Washington gave his name, and by-and-by I went through a doorway which all American boys would rather see than go to school a whole week, though they love their teacher dearly. It is true that last winter my own little lad told the kind man whose house it is that he would rather ride up and down in the elevator at the hotel, but that was because he was so very little at the time and didn't know things rightly, and, besides, it was his first experience with an elevator.

As I was saying, I went through the door into a beautiful white hall with lofty pillars, between which there were regular banks of holly with the red berries shining through, just as if it were out in the woods! And from behind one of them there came the merriest laugh you could ever think of. Do you think, now, it was that letter in my pocket that gave that guilty little throb against my heart when I heard it, or what could it have been? I hadn't even time to ask myself the question, for there stood my host all framed in holly, and with the heartiest handclasp.

And so we sat and talked, and I told my kind friends that my own dear old mother, whom I have not seen for years, was very, very sick in far-away Denmark and longing for her boy, and a mist came into my hostess's gentle eyes and she said, "Let us cable over and tell her how much we think of her," though she had never seen her. And it was no sooner said than done. In came a man with a writing-pad, and while we drank our coffee this message sped under the great stormy sea to the far-away country where the day was shading into evening already, though the sun was scarce two hours high in Washington:

THE WHITE HOUSE.

Your son is breakfasting with us. We send you our love and sympathy.

THEODORE AND EDITH ROOSEVELT.

For, you see, the house with the holly in the hall was the White House, and my host was the President of the United States. I have to tell it to you, or you might easily fall into the same error I came near falling into. I had to pinch myself to make sure the President was not Santa Claus himself. I felt that he had in that moment given me the very greatest Christmas gift any man ever received: my little mother's life. For really what ailed her was that she was very old, and I know that when she got the President's dispatch she must have become immediately ten years younger and got right out of bed. Don't you know mothers are that way when any one makes much of their boys? I think Santa Claus must have brought them all in the beginning--the mothers, I mean.

I would just give anything to see what happened in that old town that is full of blessed memories to me, when the telegraph ticked off that message. I will warrant the town hurried out, burgomaster, bishop, beadle and all, to do honor to my gentle old mother. No Santa Claus, eh? What was that, then, that spanned two oceans with a breath of love and cheer, I should like to know. Tell me that!

After the coffee we sat together in the President's office for a little while while he signed commissions, each and every one of which was just Santa Claus's gift to a grown-up boy who had been good in the year that was going; and before we parted the President had lifted with so many strokes of his pen clouds of sorrow and want that weighed heavily on homes I knew of to which Santa Claus had had hard work finding his way that Christmas.

It seemed to me as I went out of the door, where the big policeman touched his hat and wished me a Merry Christmas, that the sun never shone so brightly in May as it did then. I quite expected to see the crocuses and the jonquils, that make the White House garden so pretty, out in full bloom. They were not, I suppose, only because they are official flowers and have a proper respect for the calendar that runs Congress and the Executive Departments, too.

I stopped on the way down the avenue at Uncle Sam's paymaster's to see what he thought of it. And there he was, busy as could be, making ready for the coming of Santa Claus. No need of my asking any questions here. Men stood in line with bank-notes in their hands asking for gold, new gold-pieces, they said, most every one. The paymaster, who had a sprig of Christmas green fixed in his desk just like any other man, laughed and shook his head and said "Santa Claus?" and the men in the line laughed too and nodded and went away with their gold.

One man who went out just ahead of me I saw stoop over a poor woman on the corner and thrust something into her hand, then walk hastily away. It was I who caught the light in the woman's eye and the blessing upon her poor wan lips, and the grass seemed greener in the Treasury dooryard, and the sky bluer than it had been before, even on that bright day. Perhaps--well, never mind! if any one says anything to you about principles and giving alms, you tell him that Santa Claus takes care of the principles at Christmas, and not to be afraid. As for him, if you want to know, just ask the old woman on the Treasury corner.

And so, walking down that Avenue of Good-will, I came to my train again and went home. And when I had time to think it all over I remembered the letters in my pocket which I had not opened. I took them out and read them, and among them were two sent to me in trust for Santa Claus himself which I had to lay away with the editor's message until I got the dew rubbed off my spectacles. One was from a great banker, and it contained a check for a thousand dollars to help buy a home for some poor children of the East Side tenements in New York, where the chimneys are so small and mean that scarce even a letter will go up through them, so that ever so many little ones over there never get on Santa Claus's books at all.

The other letter was from a lonely old widow, almost as old as my dear mother in Denmark, and it contained a two-dollar bill. For years, she wrote, she had saved and saved, hoping some time to have five dollars, and then she would go with me to the homes of the very poor and be Santa Claus herself. "And wherever you decided it was right to leave a trifle, that should be the place where it would be left," read the letter. But now she was so old that she could no longer think of such a trip and so she sent the money she had saved. And I thought of a family in one of those tenements where father and mother are both lying ill, with a boy, who ought to be in school, fighting all alone to keep the wolf from the door, and winning the fight. I guess he has been too busy to send any message up the chimney, if indeed there is one in his house; but you ask him, right now, whether he thinks there is a Santa Claus or not.

No Santa Claus? Yes, my little man, there is a Santa Claus, thank God! Your father had just forgotten. The world would indeed be poor without one. It is true that he does not always wear a white beard and drive a reindeer team--not always, you know--but what does it matter? He is Santa Claus with the big, loving, Christmas heart, for all that; Santa Claus with the kind thoughts for every one that make children and grown-up people beam with happiness all day long. And shall I tell you a secret which I did not learn at the post-office, but it is true all the same--of how you can always be sure your letters go to him straight by the chimney route? It is this: send along with them a friendly thought for the boy you don't like: for Jack who punched you, or Jim who was mean to you. The meaner he was the harder do you resolve to make it up: not to bear him a grudge. That is the stamp for the letter to Santa. Nobody can stop it, not even a cross-draught in the chimney, when it has that on.

Because--don't you know, Santa Claus is the spirit of Christmas: and ever and ever so many years ago when the dear little Baby was born after whom we call Christmas, and was cradled in a manger out in the stable because there was not room in the inn, that Spirit came into the world to soften the hearts of men and make them love one another. Therefore, that is the mark of the Spirit to this day. Don't let anybody or anything rub it out. Then the rest doesn't matter. Let them tear Santa's white beard off at the Sunday-school festival and growl in his bearskin coat. These are only his disguises. The steps of the real Santa Claus you can trace all through the world as you have done here with me, and when you stand in the last of his tracks you will find the Blessed Babe of Bethlehem smiling a welcome to you. For then you will be home.

THE CROGANS' CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOWSHED

A storm was brewing in the mountains. The white glare of the earlier day had been supplanted by a dull gray, and the peaks that shut the winter landscape in were "smoking," sure harbinger of a blizzard already raging in the high Sierras. The pines above the Crogans' cabin stood like spectral sentinels in the failing light, their drooping branches heavy with the snow of many storms. Mrs. Tom Crogan sat at the window looking listlessly into the darkening day.

In the spring she had come with her husband from the little Minnesota town that was their home, full of hope and the joy of life. The mountains were beautiful then with wild flowers and the sweet smell of fragrant firs, and as she rocked her baby to sleep in their deep shadows she sang to him the songs her mother had crooned over her cradle in her tuneful Swedish tongue. Life then had seemed very fair, and the snowshed hardly a shadow across it. For to her life there were two sides: one that looked out upon the mountains and the trees and the wild things that stirred in God's beautiful world; the other the blind side that turned toward the darkness man had made in his fight to conquer that world. Tom Crogan was a dispatcher at a signal station in the great snowsheds that stretched forty miles or more up the slopes of the Sierras, plunging the road to the Land of Sunshine into hour-long gloom just when the jagged "saw-tooth" peaks, that give the range its name, came into sight. Travelers knew them to their grief: a huge crawling thing of timber and stout planks--so it seemed as one caught fleeting glimpses of it in the brief escapes from its murky embrace--that followed the mountain up, hugging its side close as it rose farther and farther toward the summit. Hideous always, in winter buried often out of sight by the smashing avalanches Old Boreas hurled at the pigmy folk who dared challenge him in his own realm; but within the shelter of the snowsheds they laughed at his bluster, secure from harm, for then it served its appointed purpose.

The Crogans' house fronted or backed--whichever way one chose to look at it--upon the shed. Tom's office, where the telegraph ticker was always talking of men and things in the desert sands to the east, or in the orange groves over the Divide, never saw the sunshine it told of. It burrowed in perpetual gloom. Nine times a day trains full of travelers, who peered curiously at the signalmen with their lanterns and at Tom as so many human moles burrowing in the mountain, came and went, and took the world of men with them, yawning as they departed at the prospect of more miles of night. At odd intervals long freight trains lingered, awaiting orders, and lent a more human touch. For the engineer had time to swap yarns with Tom, and the brakemen looked in to chuck the baby under the chin and to predict, when their smudge faces frightened him, that he would grow up to be as fine a railroader as his father: his yell was as good as a whistle to "down brakes." Even a wandering hobo once in a while showed his face from behind the truck on which he was stealing a ride 'cross country, and grimaced at Mrs. Tom, safe in the belief that she would not give him away. And she didn't.

But now the winter had come with the heavy snows that seemed never to end. She could not venture out upon the mountain where the pines stood buried many feet deep. In truth there was no getting out. Her life side was banked up, as it were, to stay so till spring came again. As she sat watching the great white waste that sloped upward toward the lowering sky she counted the months: two, three, four--five, probably, or six, to wait. For this was Christmas, and the winter was but fairly under way. Five months! The winters were hard enough on the plains, but the loneliness of these mountains! What glad visiting and holiday-making were going on now in her old home among kindred and friends! There it was truly a season of kindliness and good cheer; they had brought their old Norse Yule with them across the seas. She choked back a sob as she stirred the cradle with her foot. For Tom's sake she would be brave. But no letter nor word had come from the East, and this their first Christmas away from home!

There was a man's step on the stairs from the office, and Tom Crogan put his head through the doorway.

"Got a bite for a hungry man?" he asked, blinking a bit at the white light from without.

The baby woke up and gurgled. Tom waved the towel at him, drying his face at the sink, and hugged his wife as she passed.

"Storm coming," he said, glancing out at the weather and listening to the soughing of the wind in the pines.

"Nothing else here," she replied, setting the table; "nothing this long while, and, oh, Tom!"--she set down the plate and went over to him--"no word from home, and this is Christmas Eve. Nothing even for the baby."

He patted her back affectionately, and cheered her after the manner of a man.

"Trains all late, the snow is that deep, more particular in the East, they say. Mail might not come through for a week. Baby don't know the difference so long as he is warm. And coal we've got a-plenty."

"Then it will be New Year's," she pursued her own thoughts drearily. Tom was not a good comforter just then.

He ate like a tired man, in silence. "Special on the line," he said, as he stirred the sugar in his coffee. "When the road opens up she'll follow right on the Overland."

"Some o' your rich folks, most like, going for a holiday on the Coast," she commented without interest. Tom nodded. She gave the stove lid an impatient twist.

Tom looked up good-humoredly and pushed back his plate.

"Why, Mary! what's come over you? I only done what I was there to do--and they took notice all right. Don't you remember the Company wrote and thanked me for bein' spry?"

The invitation was extended, ungraciously enough, to a knot of men clustered about the steps. They trooped in, a gang of snow-shovelers fresh from their fight with the big drifts, and stood about the stove, the cold breath of outdoors in their looks and voices. Their talk was of their work just finished. The road was clear, but for how long? And they flapped their frozen mittens toward the window through which the snow could be seen already beginning to fall in large, ominous flakes. The Special was discussed with eager interest. No one knew who it was--an unusual thing. Generally words came along the line giving the news, but there had been no warning of this one.

"Mebbe it's the President inspectin'," ventured one of the crew.

"I tank it bane some o' dem Wall Street fellers on one big bust," threw in a husky Swede.

In the laugh that followed this sally the ticker was heard faintly clicking out a message in the office below.

Tom listened. "Overland three hours late," he said, and added with a glance outside as he made ready to go: "like as not they'll be later'n that; they won't keep Christmas on the Coast this while."

The snow-shovelers trailed out after Tom with many a fog-horn salute of Merry Christmas to his wife and to the baby. The words, well meant, jarred harshly upon Mrs. Crogan.

Merry Christmas! It sounded in her ear almost like a taunt. When they were gone she stood at the window, struggling with a sense of such bitter desolation as she had never known till then. The snow fell thick now, and was whirled across the hillside in fitful gusts. In the gathering darkness trees and rocks were losing shape and color; nothing was left but the white cold, the thought of which chilled her to the marrow. Through the blast the howl of a lone wolf came over the ridge, and she remembered the story of Donner Lake, just beyond, and the party of immigrants who starved to death in the forties, shut in by such a winter as this. There were ugly tales on the mountain of things done there, which men told under their breath when the great storms thundered through the ca?ons and all were safe within. She had heard the crew of the rotary say that there uneet romalaisille ja Vespasiano oli sinne asettanut suuren sotavoiman, jonka p??llikk?n? oli Placido. Josepho oli turhaan koettanut takasin valloittaa p??kaupunkia, mutta kun my?s Tito oli yhdistynyt is?ns? kanssa, jonka sotav?ki nyt nousi 60,000 mieheen, n?ki h?n mahdottomaksi tehd? vastarintaa avonaisella kent?ll? niin peloittavalle viholliselle ja antoi senvuoksi kaikille maalaisille k?skyn muuttaa asumaan varustettuihin kaupunkeihin. Itse meni h?n Jotapataan, vahvin ja t?rkein kaupunki kaikista Galilean kaupunkeista. Sinne riensi Placido joukkonensa toivossa voida ?kkin?isell? p??llekarkauksella valloittaa t?m?n linnan, mutta Josepho oli varoillansa ja rynnisti niin ankarasti romalaisia vastaan, ett? niitten t?ytyi per?yty?. T?m? oli ensim?inen etevin voitto, mit? juutalaisilla oli viel? ollut ja se lis?si suuressa m??r?ss? heid?n rohkeuttansa ja luottamustansa.

T?h?n asti oli p??voima Vespasianon joukosta ollut toimetoinna, mutta nyt p??tti h?n antaa sen rynn?t? lopettaaksensa kapinan kerrassaan. Sanoma t?st? h?mm?stytti Josephon joukkoa, joka oli leirins? Gorin luona; odottamatta hajosivat sotamiehet joka haaralle, j?tt?en p??llikk?ns? ep?ilykseen. Sen pienen joukon kanssa, mik? oli h?nelle uskollinen, t?ytyi h?nen hakea suojaa Tiberian muurien sis?ll?.

Se oli kertomus n?ist? tapauksista kuin my?skin Gadaran valloitus ja h?vitys perustukseen asti, joka tuli Jerusalemiin lehtimajan juhlana.

Josepho kirjoitti, ett? oli joko l?hetett?v? vahva joukko Galileaan tahi kerrassaan pantava kaikki aseet pois ja pyydett?v? rauhaa. Mutta niin erimieliset olivat jo eripuolueet kesken?ns?, ett? kokous hajosi pitk?llisen ja kiivaan keskustelun per?st?, tulematta mihink??n p??t?kseen. Javani tuskastui, kun h?n kuuli ettei v?ke? ollenkaan l?hetetty Josepholle ja sanoi kohta aikovansa menn? vapaaehtoisena sotaan. T?t? h?nen p??t?st?ns? seurasi moni muukin. He l?htiv?t heti ensim?isen? Josephon l?hettil??n seurassa; ja kerkisiv?t ilman seikkailuja Tiberiaan niin hyv?ss? ajassa, ett? ehtiv?t yhty? Josephon joukkoon, joka oli p??tt?nyt j??d? Vespasianon uhkaamaan kaupunkiin Jotapataan. Muuan vakooja kertoi t?m?n romalaisille, joka heti, voittaaksensa vaarallisen vihollisensa, l?hetti Ebution ja Placidon hevosv?en kanssa piiritt?m??n kaupunkia. Itse tuli h?n seuraavana p?iv?n?, toukokuun 15 p. 67 koko voimansa kanssa ja asettui ymp?ri kaupungin muuria. Erityisseikat nyt seuraavasta, pitk?llisest? piirityksest? t?ytyy meid?n toistaiseksi j?tt?? palataksemme Naomiin ja h?nen yst?v?tt?reens? Jerusalemissa.

KOLMAS LUKU.

H?lin? kaupungissa ja uhkaavat vaarat ulkopuolella sit?, eiv?t viel? olleet vaikuttaneet mit??n asukasten tavalliseen el?m??n ja askaroimisiin. Puu- ja viinitarhojen viljeleminen k?vi kuin ennenkin, ja Sadok'in puutarhassa Kidronin varrella h??r?ili Salome ja h?nen apurinsa Naomi. Klaudia ja palvelijattaret, aivan kuin ennen, vaikka kuitenkin syd?mess?ns? oli synkki? aavistuksia.

Kaikissa huoneellisissa askareissa oli Salomella parain apu Deborah'ista, vanha uskottu palvelijatar, joka oli koko elinaikansa ollut Sadok'in huoneessa. H?n oli imett?nyt ja hoitanut molemmat sek? Javanin ett? Naomin ja oli heihin niin mieltynyt ett? olisi mielell??n uhrannut henkens? heid?n edest?, jos siit? olisi heille ollut hy?ty?. Samaten olivat n?m?t molemmat lapset syd?mest?ns? rakastuneet vanhaan hoitajaansa, ja silloin oli Javani paraimmalla tuulella kun sai pitk?n ajan kuluttua vastaan ottaa ja palkita Deborahn hyv?ilyj?. Naomi oli kuitenkin Deborahn koko el?m?n ilo. T?m?n nuoren naikkosen hyvyys ja Jumalan pelko oli h?nell? ainasena puheen-aineena ja ylistett?v?n?; ja puhuipa h?n siit? Naomin kuullenkin aina siksi, ett? t?m? nuori nainen piti itse?ns? parempana muita naisia. ?idin neuvot ja rangaistukset eiv?t voineet Deborahn ylistyksien synnytt?m?? ylpeytt? masentaa; sen oli masentava ja taivuttava Herran oma k?si, v?likappaleilla, joita ei kukaan viel? osannut edes uneksiakaan.

Er??n? p?iv?n? l?hetti Salome Deborahn asialle Bethaniaan, noin nelj?nnes penikulmaa Jerusalemista. Naomi l?hti h?nelle seuraajaksi, ja kun olivat kulkeneet Kidronin ylitse ja viinitarhojen l?vitse sen rannalla, alkoivat nousta ?ljym?elle. T??lt? oli kaunis n?k?ala alas kaupunkiin ja t??ll? seisoi Vapahtajammekin kun h?n itki Jerusalemin yli ja ennusti sen h?vityst? . T?t? ennustusta ei Naomi tuntenut ja sit? olisi h?n halveksien kuunnellutkin kun oli pilkatun ja ristiin naulitun Jesuksen natsaretista ennustama, jonka nime? ei h?n koskaan ollut kuullut mainittavan muuna kuin petturina ja pahantekij?n?, vihatun Natsaretilaislahkokunnan ensim?isen? miehen?. Mutta h?n oli kuitenkin el?v? silloin kun ennustus kaikessa hirmuisuudessaan t?ytettiin.

Naomi ja Deborah olivat jo melkein m?en-huipulle p??sneet, kun huomasivat vanhan vaimon istuvan tien vieress?. Kyyneleet valuivat h?nen silmist?ns? katsellessaan m?en alla olevaan kaupunkiin, ja koko h?nen olentonsa osoitti niin syv?? ja kalvavaa surua, ett? Naomi tunsi itsess??n syv?llist? s??liv?isyytt?. Kun t?m? vanha vaimo, joka oli halvassa mutta siistiss? pukimessa, huomasi nuoren naisen uteliaat silm?ykset, koetti h?n ?kisti nousta yl?s ik??nkuin v?ltt??ksens? huomioa, mutta sauva, johonka h?n nojautui, luisti h?nen k?dest?ns?, ja h?n olisi langennut, joll'ei Naomi olisi kiiruhtanut ja ehtinyt sit? est?m??n. Vanha vaimo kiitti yst?v?llisesti, otti sauvansa ja tahtoi poikistua, mutta kun Naomi n?ki ett? h?n oli matkalla Bethaniaan, tarjosi h?n k?tens? selitt?en ett? heill? oli sama tie k?yt?v?n?. Deborah koetti tehd? esteit? ja huomautti Salomen k?skeneen kiiruhtamaan kotio, mutta Naomi ei kuulunut niihin ihmisiin, jotka k?rsiv?t vastaan sanomisia. H?n k?ski Deborahn menem??n yksin Bethaniaan ja toimittamaan asian sill? aikaa kun h?n pys?htyi uuden yst?v?tt?rens? luona. Deborah my?ntyi, kun h?nest? ei ollut vaarallista j?tt?? lemmitty?ns? yksin vanhan vaimon kanssa; mutta jos h?n olisi v?h?nk??n aavistanut seurauksia siit? puheesta, joka h?nen poissa ollessaan tapahtui n?iden molempain naisien kesken, ei h?n mill??n ehdolla olisi my?ntynyt l?htem??n.

"Tahdotteko sanoa minulle", sanoi Naomi ujosti, kun h?n melkein pelk?si tuppauttua arvoa ansaitsevan vanhan tunteisin, "tahdotteko sanoa minulle, miksi, hyv? ?iti, olette niin murheellinen? Minusta on niin ik?v?? n?hd? teid?n itkev?n ja tulisin varsin iloiseksi, jos voisin kuivata kyyneleenne."

"Jumala siunatkoon sinua, lapseni", vastasi vanha vaimo liikutettuna; "n?m? olivat yst?v?llisimm?t sanat, mit? moneen vuoteen on minulle sanottu. Min? olen nyt vanha yksinel?j?. Kaikki, jotka olivat minulle rakkaimmat, ovat jo monta vuotta sitte kuolleet. Mutt'en sent?hden itke -- min? itken niiden t?hden, jotka el?v?t tuolla alhalla luulotellussa turvallisuudessa, eiv?tk? kavahda h?vityst?, joka on heid?n p??llens? tuleva."

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