Chapter I

"IT SEEMED TO LIE SOUND ASLEEP, WITH A SNOW BLANKET ALL OVER ITS ROOF."

There was not a larger house in all the valley than Grandfather Vrooman's. It was old and comfortable, and seemed to lie sound asleep, with a snow blanket all over its roof.

Nothing short of a real old-fashioned Christmas could wake up such a house as that.

Christmas was coming!

Unless Santa Claus and the Simpsons and the Hopkinses should forget the day of the month, they would all be there at waking-up time to-morrow morning.

"Jane," said Grandmother Vrooman, that afternoon, to her daughter, Mrs. Hardy, who lived with her—"Jane, I've got 'em all fixed now just where they're going to sleep, and I've made up a bed on the floor in the store-room."

"Why, mother, who's that for?"

"You wait and see, after they get here, and we've counted 'em."

"Anyhow there's cookies enough, and doughnuts."

"And the pies, Jane."

"And I'm glad Liph gathered such piles of butternuts."

"Oh, mother," exclaimed little Sue, "I gathered as many as he did, and beech-nuts, and hickory-nuts, and—"

"So you did, Sue; but I wonder if two turkeys'll go round, with only one pair of chickens?"

"Mother," said Mrs. Hardy, "the plum-pudding?"

"Yes, but all those children! I do hope they'll get here to-night in time for me to know where I'm going to put 'em."

At that very minute, away up the north road, two miles nearer town, there was a sort of dot on the white road. If you were far enough away from it, it looked like a black dot, and did not seem to move. The nearer you came to it the funnier it looked, and the more it seemed to be trudging along with an immense amount of small energy. Very small indeed, for anybody close up to it would have seen that it was a five-year-old boy in a queer little suit of gray trimmed with red. He had on a warm gray cap, and right in the middle of the front of it were worked a pair of letters—"O. A."—but there was nobody with the gray dot to explain that those two letters stood for "Orphan Asylum." No, nor to tell how easy it was for a boy of five years old, with all the head under his gray cap full of Christmas ideas, to turn the wrong corner where the roads crossed south of the great Orphan Asylum building. That was what he had done, and he had walked on and on, wondering why the big building did not come in sight, until his small legs were getting tired, and his brave, bright little black eyes were all but ready for a crying spell.

Just as he got thoroughly discouraged he came to the edge of the woods, where there stood a wood sleigh with two horses in front of it, drawn close to the road-side, and heaped with great green boughs and branches.

"The sleigh's pretty nigh full, grandfather," sang out a clear boyish voice beyond the fence, and a very much older one seemed to go right on talking.

"Your grandmother, Liph, she always did make the best mince-pies, and she can stuff a turkey better'n any one I know."

"Grandfather, do you s'pose they'll all come?"

"Guess they will. That there spruce'll do for the Christmas tree. Your grandmother said we must fetch a big one."

"That's a whopper. But will Joe Simpson and Bob Hopkins be bigger'n they were last summer?"

"Guess they've grown a little. They'll grow this time, if they eat all their grandmother'll want 'em to. Hullo, Liph, who's that out there in the road?"

"Guess it's a boy."

"I declare if it isn't one of them little gray mites from the 'sylum! 'Way out here! I say, bub."

"I'M BIJAH."

"I'm Bijah."

There was a scared look in the black eyes, for they had never seen anything quite like Grandfather Vrooman when he pushed his face out between the branches.

The trees all looked as if they had beards of snow, but none had a longer or whiter one than Liph's grandfather.

"Bijah," said he, "did you know Christmas was coming?"

"Be here to-morrow," piped the dot in gray, "and we're going to have turkey."

"You don't say! Just you wait until I cut a tree down, and I'll come out and hear all about it."

"Is your name Santa Claus?"

"Did you hear that, Liph? The little chap's miles from home, and I don't believe he knows it."

"Is that your sleigh?"

"Yes, Bijah, that's my sleigh."

"Those ain't reindeers, and you're bigger'n you used to be."

"Hear that, Liph?"

Bijah had not a doubt in the world but that he had discovered Santa Claus in the very act of getting ready for Christmas, and his black eyes were growing bigger every minute, until Liph began to climb over the fence. Then he set off on a run as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Hold on," shouted Liph. "We won't hurt you."

"Let him go," said Grandfather Vrooman. "He's on the road to our house. We'll pick him up."

"Where could we put him?"

"Took me for Santa Claus, I declare! Liph, this here tree'll just suit your grandmother."

It was a splendid young spruce-tree, with wide-reaching boughs at less than two feet from the snow level. Grandfather Vrooman worked his way carefully in until he could reach the trunk with saw and axe, and then there was a sharp bit of work for him and Liph to get that "Christmas tree" stowed safely on the top of the sleigh load.

"Now for home, Liph. Your grandmother'll cut into one of them new pies for you when you get there."

"Look!" shouted Liph, "that little fellow's waiting for us at the top of the hill."

The hill was not a high one, and the road led right over it, and there on the summit stood Bijah.

"I'm so tired and hungry," he said to himself, "and there comes old Santa Claus, sleigh and all."

He was getting colder, too, now he was standing still, and when Grandfather Vrooman came along the road, walking in front of the sleigh, while Liph perched among the evergreens and drove, there seemed to be something warm about him.

It was not so much his high fur hat, or his tremendous overcoat, or his long white beard, or the way he smiled, but something in the sound of his voice almost drove the frost out of Bijah's nose.

"Well, my little man, don't you want to come to my house and get some pie?"

"Yes, sir."

Bijah could not think of one other word he wanted to say, and he mustered all the courage he had not to cry when Grandfather Vrooman picked him up, as if he had been a kitten, and perched him by the side of Liph among the evergreens.

"DO YOU LIVE WITH SANTA CLAUS IN HIS OWN HOUSE?"

On he went, and Bijah did not answer a single one of Liph's questions for five long minutes. Then he turned his black eyes full on his driver, and asked, "Do you live with Santa Claus in his own house?"

"Yes, sir-ee," responded Liph, with a great chuckle of fun; but all he had to do the rest of the way home was to spin yarns for Bijah about the way they lived at the house where all the Christmas came from.

When they got there, Liph's father and the hired man and Grandfather Vrooman were ready to lift off that Christmas tree, and carry it through the front door and hall, and set it up in the "dark room" at the end of the hall. That ought to have been the nicest room in the house, for it was right in the middle, but there were no windows in it. There were doors in every direction, however, and in the centre of the ceiling was a "scuttle hole" more than two feet square, with a wooden lid on it.

"John," said Grandfather Vrooman to Mr. Hardy, "we'll hoist the top of the tree through the hole. You go up and open the scuttle. Hitch the top good and strong. There'll be lots of things to hang on them branches."

Liph's father hurried up stairs to open the scuttle, and that gave Grandfather Vrooman a chance to think of Bijah. "Where is he, Liph?"

"Oh, he's all right. Grandmother's got him. She and mother caught him before he got into the house. He tried to run away, too."

Bijah's short legs had been too tired to carry him very fast, and Grandmother Vrooman and Mrs. Hardy had caught him before he got back to the gate.

The way they laughed about it gave him a great deal of courage, and he never cried when they took him by his red little hands; one on each side, and walked him into the house.

"Jane," said grandmother, "what will we do with him? The house'll be choke, jam, packed full, and there isn't an extra bed."

"Father found him in the snow somewhere. Just like him. But what a rosy little dot he is!"

"Are you Santa Claus's wives?" asked Bijah, with a quiver of his lip in spite of himself.

"WITH A PLATE OF MINCE-PIE IN HIS LAP, AND BUSH, THE BIG HOUSE-DOG, SITTING BESIDE HIM."

How they did chuckle while they tried to answer that question! All they made clear to Bijah was that the place for him was in a big chair before the sitting-room fire-place, with a plate of mince-pie in his lap, and Bush, the big house-dog, sitting beside him.

"It's Santa Claus's dog," said Bijah to himself; "but his house isn't as big as the 'sylum."

Chapter II.

There were fire-places in every room on the ground-floor of Grandfather Vrooman's house, and some kind of a stove in more than half the rooms up stairs.

There were blazing fires on every hearth down stairs, and Liph got hold of Bijah after a while, and made him and Bush go around with him to help poke them up. Bijah had never seen a fire-place before, and it was a great wonder to him, but Bush sat down in front of each fire and barked at it.

It was getting dark when they reached the great front parlor, and the fire-place there was wonderful.

"Woof, woof, woof," barked Bush.

Bijah stood still in the door while Liph went near enough to give that fire a poke, and he could hear Grandfather Vrooman away back in the sitting-room:

"Now, my dear, we'll stick him away somewhere. Put him in one of the stockings, and hang him up."

"That's me," groaned Bijah. "He's going to make a present of me to somebody. Oh dear! I wish I could run away."

But he could not, for there was Liph and there was Bush, and it was getting dark.

"Now, my dear," went on grandfather, "I'll just light up, and then I'll go and meet that train. I'll bring Prue and her folks, and Pat'll meet the other, and bring Ellen and hers. Won't the old house be full this time!"

"He's caught some more somewhere," whispered Bijah to himself. "I wonder who'll get 'em? Who'll get me?"

That was an awful question, but Liph and Bush all but ran against him just then, and he heard grandmother say:

"You'll have to stick candles on the window-sills. I can't spare any lamps for up stairs."

"But, my dear, it's got to be lit up—every room of it. I want 'em to know Christmas is coming."

"That's what they were all saying at the 'sylum this morning," thought Bijah, "and here I am, right where it's coming to."

So he was, and he and Liph and Bush watched them finish setting the supper table, till suddenly Bush gave a great bark and sprang away toward the front door. Grandfather Vrooman had hardly been gone from the house an hour, but here he was, back again.

"WHAT A RACKET THEY MADE AT THE GATE."

Jingle, jingle, jingle. How the sleigh-bells did dance as that great load of young folk came down the road, and what a racket they made at the gate, and how Bush, and Liph, and grandmother, and the rest did help them!

"He's caught 'em all," said Bijah; "but they ain't scared a bit."

No one would have thought so if they had seen Mrs. Prue Hopkins and her husband and her six children follow Grandfather Vrooman into the house.

They were hardly there, and some of them had their things on yet, when there came another great jingle, and ever so much talking and laughter down the other road.

"He's caught some more. Some are little and some are big. I wonder who'll get the baby?"

Bush was making himself hoarse, and had to be spoken to by Mr. Hardy, while Mrs. Simpson tried to unmix her children from the Hopkinses long enough to be sure none of them had dropped out of the sleigh on the road.

Then Liph set to work to introduce his cousins to Bijah, and Bush came and stood by his new friend in gray, to see that it was properly done.

"Where'd you come from?" asked Joe Simpson.

"'Sylum," said Bijah. "Where'd he catch you?"

"Catch what?" said Joe, but Liph managed to choke off the chuckle he was going into, and to shout out:

"Why, Joe, we found him in the road to-day. He thinks grandfather's old Santa Claus, and this house is Christmas."

"So I am—so it is," said Grandfather Vrooman.

"We'll make him hang up his stocking with all the rest to-night."

Bijah could not feel scared at all with so many children around him, and he was used to being among a crowd of them. Still, it was hard to feel at home after supper, and he might have had a blue time of it if it hadn't been for Liph and Bush. It had somehow got into Bush's mind that the dot in gray was under his protection, and he followed Bijah from one corner to another.

All the doors into the "dark room" were open, and it was the lightest room in the house, with its big fire on the hearth and all the lamps that were taken in after supper; but there was not one thing hanging on the Christmas tree until Grandfather Vrooman exclaimed:

"Now for stockings! It's getting late, children. I must have you all in bed before long."

"Stockings?"

They all knew what that meant, and so did Bijah, but it was wonderful how many that tree had to carry. Bob Hopkins insisted on hanging two pairs for himself, and Thad Simpson was begging his mother for a second pair, when Liph Hardy came in from the kitchen with a great, long, empty grain bag.

"What in the world is that for?" asked grandmother, perfectly astonished. "Why, child, what do you mean by bringing that thing in here?"

"One big stocking for grandfather. Let's hang it up, boys. Maybe Santa Claus'll come and fill it."

There was no end of fun over Grandfather Vrooman's grain-bag stocking, that was all leg and no foot, but Uncle Hiram Simpson took it and fastened it strongly to a branch in the middle of the tree. It was close to the trunk, and was almost hidden; but Liph saw Uncle Hiram wink at Aunt Ellen, and he knew there was fun of some kind that he had not thought of.

Grandmother Vrooman had been so busy with all those children from the moment they came into the house that she had almost lost her anxiety; but it came back to her now all of a sudden.

"Sakes alive! Jane," she said to Mrs. Hardy, "every last one of 'em's got to be in bed before we can do a thing with the stockings."

Bijah heard her, for he was just beyond the dining-room door, with a cruller in each hand, and it made him shiver all over.

"I wish I was in the 'sylum. No, I don't either; but I kind o' wish I was."

Bijah was a very small boy, and he had not seen much of the world, but his ideas were almost as clear as those of the other children and Grandmother Vrooman for the next fifteen minutes. The way the Simpson and Hopkins families got mixed up, with Liph and Sue Hardy to help them, was something wonderful. Old Bush wandered from room to room after them, wagging his tail and whining.

"Mother," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy at last, "the bed you made on the floor in the store-room!"

"Just the thing for him. All the rest go in pairs, I'll put that poor little dear right in there."

So she did, and not one of her own grandchildren was tucked in warmer than was Bijah. He did not kick the bedclothes off next minute, either, and he was the only child in the house of whom that could be said. Grandfather Vrooman paid a visit of inspection all around from room to room, and Bush went with him. It took him a good while. When he came to the store-room and looked in, Bijah's tired eyes were already closed as tight as were the fingers of the little hand on the coverlet, which was still grasping a cruller.

He was fast asleep, but Grandfather Vrooman was not; and yet, when Bush looked up at him, the old man's eyes were shut too, and there was a stir in his thick white beard as if his lips were moving.

Things got pretty still after a while, and then there began a steady procession in and out of the "dark room" which was not dark.

Boxes went in, and bundles, and these were opened and untied, and their contents spread out and looked at and distributed. It was no wonder Grandfather Vrooman's big sleigh had been so full, and the one Pat had driven, when they brought the Hopkins and Simpson families from the north and south railway stations.

"GRANDFATHER CAME IN WITH A BACK-LOAD OF SLEDS."

Grandfather himself went away out to the barn once for something he said he had hidden there, and while he was gone Aunt Ellen Simpson and Uncle Hiram slipped a package into the grain bag, and grandmother handed Uncle Hiram another to slip in on top of it, and Uncle John Hardy and Uncle Martin Hopkins each handed him another, and the bag was almost half full, but you could not see it from outside; and then they all winked at each other when grandfather came in with a back-load of sleds. Grandmother may have thought she knew what they were winking about, but she didn't, for Uncle Hiram whispered to Aunt Ellen:

"I'm glad it's a big stocking. One'll do for both of 'em."

It was late when they all went to bed, and there was so much fire in the fire-place they were half afraid to leave it, but Grandfather Vrooman said it was of no use to try and cover it up, and the room would be warm in the morning.

When they got up stairs, the children must all have been asleep, for there was not a sound from any room, and the older people went to bed on tiptoe, and they had tried hard to not so much as whisper on the stairs.

Chapter III.

Oh, how beautiful the country was when the gray dawn came next morning!—white and still in the dim and slowly growing light.

So still! But the stillest place was the one Bijah woke up in. He could not guess where he was at first, but he lay awhile and remembered.

"Santa Claus's house, and they're all real good. He's going to give me to somebody as soon as it's Christmas."

He got up very quickly and looked around him. It was not dark in the store-room, for there was a great square hole in the middle of the floor, and a glow of dull red light came up through it which almost made Bijah feel afraid.

There was his little gray suit of clothes, cap and all, close by his bed on the floor, and he put them on faster than he ever had done it before.

"Where's my other stocking?"

He searched and searched, but it was of no use, and he said, "I can't run away in the snow with a bare foot."

"HE CRAWLED FORWARD, AND LOOKED DOWN THROUGH THE SCUTTLE HOLE."

He had been getting braver and braver, now he was wide awake, and he crawled forward and looked down through the scuttle hole. He knew that room in a minute, but he had to look twice before he knew the tree.

"Ever so many stockings! And they're all full. Look at those sleds! Oh my!"

Whichever way he looked, he saw something wonderful, and he began to get excited.

"I can climb down. It's just like going down stairs."

It was just about as safe and easy, with all those branches under him, and all he had to do was to sit on one, and get ready to sit on the next one below him. He got about half way down, and there was the grain bag, with its mouth wide open. Just beyond it on the same bough, but further out, there hung a very small stocking indeed.

"That's mine!" exclaimed Bijah. "It's cram full, too. They've borrowed it, after all theirs were full. I want it to put on now, but I can't reach it out there."

Just then he began to hear noises up stairs, and other noises in the rooms below—shouts and stamping, and people calling to one another—and he could not make out what they were saying.

"Oh dear! they're coming. Santa Claus is coming. Christmas is coming. What'll I do?"

Bijah was scared; but there was the wide mouth of Grandfather Vrooman's grain-bag "stocking," and almost before Bijah knew what he was doing he had slipped in.

Poor Bijah! The moment he was in he discovered that he could not climb out. He tried hard, but there was nothing on the sides of the bag for his feet to climb on. Next moment, too, he wanted to crouch down as low as he could, for all the noise seemed to be coming nearer.

So it was, indeed, and at the head of it were grandfather and grandmother and the other grown-up people, trying to keep back the boys and girls until they should all be gathered.

"Where's Bijah?" asked grandfather, after he had counted twice around, and was sure about the rest.

"Bijah!" exclaimed Liph. "Why, I looked in the store-room; he isn't there."

"Hope the little chap didn't get scared and run away."

"Dear me—through the snow!" exclaimed grandmother.

"Of course not," said Aunt Jane. "He's around somewhere. Let's let the children in. They're all here."

"Steady, now!" said grandfather, as he swung open the door into the "dark room." "Don't touch anything till we all get in. Stand around the tree."

He himself stepped right in front of it, and he looked more like a great, tall old Santa Claus than ever as he stood there. The children's eyes were opening wider and wider as they slipped around in a sort of very impatient circle; but grandfather's own eyes shut for a moment, as they had a habit of doing sometimes, and his white beard was all of a tremble. It was only for a moment, but when he looked around again, he said:

"Now, children, wait. Which of you can tell me what Child it was that came into the world on the first Christmas morning?"

They had not been quite ready to answer a question that came so suddenly, and before any of them could speak, a clear, sweet little voice came right out of the middle of the tree:

"I know. And the shepherds found Him in a manger, and His mother was with Him. He sent down after my mother last summer."

"Bijah!" exclaimed grandfather, but grandmother was already pushing aside the boughs, and now they all could see him. Only his curly head and his little shoulders showed above the grain bag, and Uncle Hiram shouted:

"Father Vrooman, he is in your stocking! Who could have put him there!"

"I think I know," said grandfather, in a very low, husky kind of voice; but all the Simpsons and Hopkinses and Hardys broke loose at that very moment, and it took them till breakfast-time to compare with each other the things they found in their stockings, and all the other wonderful fruits of that splendid Christmas tree.

Bijah was lifted out of the bag, and he got his stocking on after it was empty. For some reason he couldn't guess why all the grown-up people kissed him, and grandfather made him sit next to him at breakfast.

That was a great breakfast, and it took ever so long to eat it, but it was hardly over before grandmother followed grandfather into the hall, and they heard her say,

"Now, husband, what are you wrapping up so for, just to go to the barn?"

"Barn? Why, my dear, I'm going to town. I told Pat to have the team ready."

"To town? Why, husband—"

"Mother, there'll be stores open to-day. I can buy cords of toys and candy and things. When I get to the Orphan Asylum, to tell 'em what has become of Bijah, and why he won't ever come back there again, I'm going to have enough to go around among the rest of 'em—I am, if it takes the price of a cow."

"Give 'em something for me."

Uncle Hiram heard it, and he shouted, "And for me," and Uncle John followed, and all the rest, till the children caught it up, and there was a contribution made by every stocking which had hung on that Christmas tree. They all gave just as fast as they understood what it was for, and the last one to fully understand was Bijah.

"You ain't going to take me?"

His lip quivered a little.

"No, Bijah, not unless you want to go. Wouldn't you rather stay here?"

"Course I would."

That was not all, for both his hands were out, holding up the store of things which had come to him that morning, and he added, "Take 'em."

Something was the matter again with Grandfather Vrooman's beard, but he told Bijah he would get plenty of other things in town.

"Keep 'em, Bijah. Good-by, all of you. I'll be back in time for dinner. Children, you and Bush must be kind to Bijah. He came to us on Christmas morning, and he has come to stay."

Bush and the children did their part, and so did all the rest, and so did Bijah, and so it was a perfect Christmas.