“That’s what they call our hotel out here,” announced Harold excitedly. “It’s right over there on the next street. It has big piazzas and flower beds all around in summer. Sometimes we go there to get ice cream.”
“Yes!” said Astra. “Well now, we’ll put this inn over here on the left. Perhaps it didn’t have piazzas, but it had a flat roof, and people could go up there and sit and walk. We’ll build it with these big stone arches, because down under these arches was their stable. Or at least we’ll play it was. The real Bethlehem might have had a separate building, but it must have been near the inn. They kept their cows there. The sheep were off on the hills with their shepherds, but the cows would stay around the stable probably. Here are two or three little cows I brought with me. We’ll stand them here by the stable, and here are some guards for the hotel. We’ll stand them up here on the housetop.”
Deftly Astra placed the tiny figures she had brought, an Arab in a long white robe, with a sword lifted over his turbaned head, two or three other figures in oriental garments.
The children watched her breathlessly, and old Becky edged nearer and peered with her nearsighted eyes.
“And now off here in the valley at the foot of these hills,” went on Astra, “the sheep were out in green pastures, eating grass, and drinking water out of this little silver stream. We’ll put this little mirror down here to show where the drinking water is, and we’ll put the sheep and the little lambs around it.”
The children’s eyes were round with surprise as one by one the sheep and the little lambs appeared and took their places in the setting. And the shepherds came and guarded their sheep.
Then Astra began to tell the story.
“Once, a long time ago, God felt very bad about the people He had made to live on this earth, because they were very naughty. They had all sinned, and God had told them that they would have to be terribly punished if they sinned. Their punishment was to die forever. And God had to keep His promise because He was God, you know. Do you know what sin is?”
“Yes,” said Brenda, “it’s doing what Daddy says not!”
“No, it’s what Mothah says not,” insisted Mary Lou.
Suddenly there came an interruption. The hall doorbell rang.
The cook gave a wild look toward the door and scuttled away to the kitchen.
“Wasn’t that the doorbell?” asked Astra, just as the cook got to the kitchen door.
“It ain’t my business to go to the door,” mumbled the cook.
“I’ll go!” said Harold.
“No, I’ll go!” shouted Brenda.
“I go!” said little Mary Lou, and they all three scrambled up and rushed to the door. The boy reached the door first and swung it open on a lady.
Astra called out to the children. “Oh, but that’s not a nice way to meet a caller. Quiet down. It doesn’t take but one to open a door, you know.”
And then she looked up at the caller, and the lady wore a mink coat!
Chapter 16
The pleasant, welcoming smile she wore as she came forward to quiet the children was still on Astra’s face as she looked up and recognized Camilla Blair, but her heart suddenly felt like a little frozen thing, out of its right place.
But there was the lady regarding her with belligerence and assurance. Astra’s trained mind immediately brought her smile into a dignified about-face and gave the lady questioning attention.
“Isn’t this Mrs. Harrison’s apartment?” asked Camilla.
“Yes,” said Astra, as a lady would say it.
“Well, is Mr. Cameron here?”
Astra opened astonished eyes.
“Oh, did you expect to meet Mr. Cameron here?”
Camilla’s chin went up in affront.
“Why, yes. I supposed he would be here. How soon is he coming?”
“Why, I really wouldn’t know,” said Astra, with the detached air of a servant.
Camilla surveyed her with eyebrows slightly lifted.
“Aren’t you one of the regular servants here?” she asked, almost insolently.
Astra gave a merry, wicked little grin.
“Oh, no,” she said, “I just came in to help with the children while their mother is away.”
“Oh!” Camilla looked Astra over again.
“Are you a professional nurse?”
Astra’s face dimpled amusedly.
“Not exactly,” she said. “Won’t you come in and sit down?”
The children gave little suppressed gasps and looked at Astra with frowns. They didn’t want their playtime interrupted.
“Well, I’d like to know first what time you think Mr. Cameron might get here.”
“I wouldn’t be able to tell you that,” said Astra, clear-eyed, looking at the visitor steadily. “If you would like to come in and wait awhile, I should think it would be all right. And now, I’m sure you will forgive me if I go on with the story I was telling the children. You see, that’s what I’m supposed to be here for.”
“Oh, I see,” said Camilla haughtily, looking at the girl in astonishment. Was this sort-of-a-servant girl attempting to dismiss her, reprove her?
She settled down in the easiest chair in the room and observed what was going on somewhat scornfully. But Astra went on with her story.
“Now, let me see, just where did we leave off, Harold?” she said, trying to think back and greatly annoyed by the presence of the mink coat in the room. Its luxurious folds fell over Camilla’s chair with an oppressive air of affluence which did not fit with the simple town of Bethlehem and the grazing sheep beside their tiny wooden shepherds.
“I know what you were saying!” said the boy. “It was about sin. You said everybody had been naughty, and God said if they were naughty they had to be punished. He had to keep His word because He was God, so everybody was going to die forever ’n’ ever.”
“Yes,” said Astra, “but you see, God so loved people that He made a way for them to be saved from eternal death, if they wanted to be saved. He promised to send a Savior who would die in their place. He had to be a sinless One who had no sin of His own to die for, so He could take the sin of the whole world upon Himself. There wasn’t any ordinary person who hadn’t sinned, so God sent His own Son.”
“Did He die for our sin, too?” questioned Brenda, who had plenty of such to her own small account.
“Mine, too?” asked Mary Lou. “Wouldn’t my mamma hafta spank me anymore?”
“Oh, you don’t understand, baby. It wasn’t our mother’s spanking. It was God making us die if we didn’t be good!” said Harold in a superior tone. “Did you say it was for everybody? That lady’s sins, too?” He pointed with a speculative finger at Camilla.
“Yes, God says everybody. They all have a chance to be saved. All they need to do is believe it.”
But the lady in question rose in annoyance and came over toward the table with its mountains and its little town.
“What ridiculous stuff are you teaching these children?” she said, bending over and fingering several sheep and upsetting a little tan cow.
“You stop that!” said little Mary Lou in a disturbed tone of voice. “You spoil our picture and our town. You mustn’t touch our fings.”
But the guest paid no attention to the baby and continued to pick up one and another shepherd and lamb and look them over.
“I beg your pardon,” said Astra in a cool voice. “I’m telling the Christmas story. Would you like to take my place and tell it?”
“No, indeed!” said the guest coldly. Withdrawing to her chair, she said, “I have no desire to descend to storytelling. But I was just wondering what kind of foolishness was being stuffed down the children’s throats. I shall take pains that my friend Mrs. Harrison knows what has been going on during her absence. You seem to have a certain amount of cleverness with children. It’s a pity you couldn’t have gone to college and found out that the sort of thing you are teaching is nothing but folklore and tradition, mixed up with a lot of dog
mas. It’s not the sort of thing to tell children. However, I don’t suppose they understand enough to hurt them, and what they do understand, they’ll soon forget.”
Astra twinkled her eyes at the children and smiled quietly, wondering what the lady would say if she mentioned the two noted colleges that she had attended at different times when she and her father were abroad, and if she could see the diploma carefully packed away, of the still more noted college where she had graduated. However, she closed her pleasant lips and said nothing. Then suddenly she saw that Harold had stalked over to the guest and was standing indignantly before her, his feet wide apart, his chin up in the air, his eyes flashing.
“I won’t-not forget what she says! I will so remember every word! And I do so understand what she says. I guess I’m old enough to know all peoples are naughty. You are yourself, you know you are! And maybe you’ve got to die, too, because you don’t sound to me as if you would believe! But I wish you’d go home and not bother us. We were having a nice time until you came. And you’ve no business to talk that way to Astra. We all like her! Now, get out. I don’t care if you are my mummie’s friend, you’re not nice, and I don’t like you!”
Astra looked at the boy, aghast.
“Harold! Stop talking! You’re being very rude indeed! You’re being naughty now, and you certainly must know it. What do you think God thinks of such conduct?”
Harold dropped his eyelids and looked ashamed.
“You’ll have to apologize to the lady before we can go on,” said Astra, with a grieved note in her voice.
The child looked up with fury in his eyes.
“What? ’Pologize ta her! Not on yer life! She hadn’t any business ta come here and spoil our Christmas Day when our mother and father are away! And she’s saying bad things. I know, because we learn those same things in our Sunday school where we go, and I know they’re good things. Don’t we, Brennie?”
“We cert’nly do!” affirmed Brenda, as if she were a referee in an international contest.
“There! I told ya!” said Harold. “An’ you’re a bad lady. She’s our Astra, an’ we won’t let you talk bad to her.”
Brenda was standing a little back of the angry boy, shaking her head, flashing her eyes, stamping her little foot, and saying “No! No! NO!”
And little Mary Lou was sitting in her small chair with her mouth all puckered up into a quiver, her eyes wide with anguish and great tears rolling down her pink cheeks.
Camilla arose with haste.
“Mercy!” she said. “What a household! Deliver me from ever having any children! I don’t wonder their mother wanted to get away for a day!”
Then she turned on Astra, as if she were to blame for it all.
“I hope you see the effect your teaching has had! And now I want to know whose servant you are! I certainly shall report you. It isn’t fair to other customers to have a nurse like you around, posing as a child specialist.”
But Astra just then had hold of Harold’s arm with a firm, masterful grip, her eyes were sorry and troubled, and her lips shut firmly together. She was not hearing Camilla.
“Harold, you have been a very naughty boy to speak that way to your mother’s friend, and I want you to go over there and sit on that chair by the door and think about what you have said and how wrong it was. Your mother and father would have been ashamed of you; I am ashamed of you; and I am sure God must be ashamed of you. Just go and think about it and see what you think God feels about it. And when this lady goes out, I want you to apologize to her. You said very naughty things to her.”
“Well, they were all true!” said Harold, lifting honest eyes, still angry.
“Look here, little boy,” said Astra, putting her arm around the angry young shoulder, “don’t you know that you are not that lady’s judge? God is the only One who has a right to say what she is, not you. Even if she were very wrong, it would not be your business to judge her.”
The boy hung his head and would not lift his eyes to the contemptuous eyes of the lady in the mink coat. But he finally lifted them to Astra.
“Okay,” he faltered dejectedly. “I’m willing to let God judge her, but I’ll bet if He does, He’ll be harder on her than I was! On Christmas Day, too, and we are only children without our mother!”
With a motion like a tender caress Astra led the little boy over to the appointed chair and sat him down gently.
“Try to think how you made God feel about this, Harold,” said Astra in a low tone. And then she turned toward the angry woman who had made all this disturbance.
“I beg your pardon,” she said quietly, “you asked me a question, I think, and I wasn’t quite sure what you said.”
Camilla flashed back importantly to her question.
“Yes,” she snapped. “I asked you whose servant you are! I shall certainly report you to whomever you work for!”
Astra stood utterly still and looked at the woman for an instant and then she said with a sweet humility, and yet with a proud note in her voice, “I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you report me to Him, I am sure He will help you to understand.”
“You are blasphemous!” said Camilla. “If you didn’t need reporting before, you certainly do now. And those children deserve a thorough spanking! I would be glad to administer it to them right now!”
She made a notion as if to take off the mink coat for a time, and suddenly Mary Lou gave forth a great sob like a shout of terror, “Not me!” and rushed over to Astra, flinging herself in her arms to be taken up. And Brenda slid over to Astra’s side and hid herself in Astra’s skirt.
Astra took little Mary Lou up in her arms, cuddled her close, and put one hand on Brenda’s dark curls comfortingly, facing the interloper with a steady gaze. She was very white, otherwise she was entirely calm, and she stood her ground almost as if she were protected by an unseen army.
And then the little boy got up from his chair and walked over to stand before Camilla, his proud little head raised defiantly, his young lips atremble, his fine eyes flashing.
“I’m sorry I made God feel bad,” he said, every syllable clear and distinct. “I thought maybe He wanted me to tell you what you were, but I guess I oughtta let Him do it! I hope you’ll excuse what I said, but God is going to be your judge after this, and I’m just sure you’ll get yours! And it won’t be just a little old spanking, either. I’ll tell the word! It’ll be real! I’m just tellin’ ya for your own good.”
Then with a low bow, which Harold had probably learned at dancing school, he backed away and sat down in his chair of punishment, with a satisfied look, as if he had done his best to set himself right with God.
Astra, standing there with the warm arms of the little girl about her neck, the hot baby tears splashing on her face, and the small girl Brenda cowering against her, felt a sudden desire to sit down and laugh. The whole situation was so ridiculously tragic, and on Christmas Day! What was wrong? Was it her fault? And what ought she to do now? Of course, she wasn’t the lady of the house, and perhaps her responsibility was ended. And yet it seemed outlandish to let the occurrence end like this.
But suddenly Camilla settled the matter for her. She turned to the children collectively, as much of them as she could see, and addressed them.
“You have been very naughty children! Every one of you! And I shall take care to see that your mother and your father hear all about it. I’m quite sure they know how to give you all the right kind of spanking, or even something worse. And now I’m going home before any more insults are heaped upon me. And you”—here she turned to Astra with her imperious chin in the air—“when Mr. Cameron comes, you will tell him that I couldn’t possibly wait for him any longer. I have duties at home, and I am utterly exhausted with the reception I have had here. Tell Mr. Cameron I wish he would call me at once as soon as he comes in. And as for you, I shall certainly see that you get your just due. I consider this all your fault, and I shall not lose any time in telling a lot of other people so.”
But Astra’s head was bent down to the baby in her arms, and her lips were touching Mary Lou’s cheeks with soft kisses, patting the little heaving back that was still quivering with sobs. With the other hand she smoothed the tumbled black curls of Brenda, who was still sobbing.
And staunch and true in front of them stood the little boy, his fists clenched, his chest heaving, and big boy tears rolling down his furious young face.
And then he suddenly gasped out in a high, sweet voice, “My Uncle Charlie told me ta take care of you, and I’m gonta do it, no matter how many bad old women come around!”
Camilla went out quickly with slammed door, and a minute later they heard the elevator go down.
Then suddenly the door from the kitchen swung open, letting in the sound of loud guttural snoring from the back of the kitchen, and there in the doorway stood Uncle Charlie!
He had a great bunch of white chrysanthemums in a tall glass vase in his hands, and his face was stern with astonishment and anxiety.
“What in the world is the meaning of all this?” he demanded of nobody in particular. “Has something happened?”
Chapter 17
What Charles Cameron saw at first as he stood there in the doorway with his great sheaf of gorgeous chrysanthemums, was Astra with the baby in her arms, nestling so comfortably in her neck as if she might be the child’s own mother, and her other arm around little Brenda. It was a sweet, tender picture, and it stirred his heart deeply. Astra! How lovely she was! Her cheeks were scarlet now, like the ribbon on her hair, and it was plain to be seen that she and the children were in entire accord and had all been through a hard experience. There was something basically masculine and protective about Harold. And it was he who answered his uncle, as if he, being the man, must account for all that had happened while he was the head of the house. “There certainly has, Uncle Charlie,” he gasped, with almost a manly sob at the end of his phrase. “We’ve had a bad lady here, and she got us all haywire! We were having a swell time, building Bethlehem, and she just barged in and tried to run us all. She called our Astra a servant! Imagine that! An’ asked who she worked for! And told her she was stuffing lies ur something down our froats, and she oughta gone ta college, an’ a lotta of rotten stuff. An then she squared off an’ offered to spank us! Imagine that! An’ I hadta tell her where ta get off! Only Astra said I wasn’t her judge, an’ I hadta ’polagize. But I guess God’ll have His time with her ’fore He gets her ta do anything. But anyhow, I ’polagized, an’ that’s the first time I ever did, too! But I’m glad I said what I did, anyhow, and I guess God is, too! She needed it, she really did, Uncle Charlie, an’ I don’t mean maybe!” Cameron’s eyes met Astra’s, and in spite of themselves they grinned covertly, ducking down their faces to hide their mirth.