Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — JONAS’ XMAS PRESENT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JONAS’ XMAS PRESENT.

BY ISABEL HOLMES MASON.

•HE lights of the little .church on the hillside •shining invitingly in the gloom, made the semicircular grove behind it look dark shadowy on

that Christmas Eve. The pines whispered, and the spruce and fir trees nodded confidentially toward the lighted ■windows, for a chosen member of their family stood inside the church, tho “observed of all observers.” ready to shower its Christmas fruitage presently upon the expectant hearts and,hands of the gathering. All Millville was out. even to blind Joe, who could feel the Christmas gladness even 1f he could not see it, and who was sure also of a goodly number of pressents. There were the youth and “small fry” of both sexes, the blacksmith, miller, grocer and doctor, and, not least, the minister and his bride of three months, a pretty little brown-eyed ■creature sitting in a front pew beside her husband, her radiant countenance crossed now and then by a shade of anxiety as she glanced down the aisle at the stern face of Jonas Hideaway. There he sat in the midst of the buzz and hum of half a dozen beehives, silent and unsmiling, with his fur epat folded, across his knees, caring for nobody, and nobody caring for him seemingly. “He’s like a death’s head at a feist,” the doctor remarked to his wife. “Yes. I wonder what brought him out? “Ho wants to.save himself from petrifaction, I suppose,” returned the Doctor ■dryly. “It's a shame he is so hard toward Prissy.” said tho lady warmly. “He might afford to forgive her before doomsday, I think. Of course she was foolish to go off and marry the son of her father’s worst enemy, but the poor thing was starving for affection, I suppose. She’s in actual want now since her husband has been sick, and there’s her father alone In that big comfortable house, and with money in the bank.

Bat she’d starve before she’d ask him for scything. -Ain't Jonas Hideaway cross?” queried Mat. the miller’s boy, of Tom Wilcox. “Jyp is scared to death wlien she- meets him. You ought to have heard her wbt'ne when she went with me up there on an errand. ’ •He don t do nothin’ but read books,” returned Tim. “He’s got a room full of them. Books must be lioor company all the time. ” -He needs to be shook up a spell in a grist mil:.” •Mill? He don't care for grists. Ho Jeads ou books. n

“Yes; he’s a bookworm. The minister said so," assented Nat, solemnly. “The minister’s wife is lookin' at him. Hain’t she a daisy? I'm goin’ to her class in Sunday school," said Tim. “Mother says she won’t teach no class. She’s too much of a baby." “Baby? I guess she ain’t no baby!" Other comments were being mad? upon the lady in question. “There’s no denying she has a pretty face,” Mrs. Tallboy, the blacksmith’s sister, assented, “but she’ll never make a minister’s helpmate. He might as well have married Josie’s doll there ” “I’m not so sure of that.” returned the blacksmith. “See her face. She’ll smile folks straight to heaven while the parson is hamrtiering away on the gospel anvil in his slow way.” “Her voice is sweet as a bobolink's.” blind Joe whispered on the other side of Mrs. Tallboy. “Yes, she’s trained herself to speak soft,” assented tlie lady, who was of the masculine order of women. “Men always see such women cross-eyed, Seth. here, was always an idiot about a pretty face." A long wicker basket which hung low on the tall Christmas tree was the subject of much comment and conjecture. Very few were aware of the treasure with which it was freighted, or that it was watched stealthily through the half open door near the desk by a pair of soft, dark, anxious eyes. A jolly-faced Santa Claus commenced to unload the tree. The din waxed louder as name after name was called. Blind Joe was heaped with presents. The minister’s wife had a lap full, but a good share of her attention was bestowed upon that wicker basket, she being opposite to it. “Mr. Jonas Hideaway!” Everybody stared and wondered as Santa Claus drew the mysterious basket from the bough gingerly. “Why, it’s for Jonas!” was breathed in concert all over the church. “It looks heavy. I’ll bet it’s full of bricks.” Nat hazarded. “Bricks is all he deserves.” assented Tim, oracularly. “Mr. Jonas Hideaway!” Santa Claus called again with special emphasis. The owner of the name Bid not budge, whereupon Santa Claus marched down the aisle with the basket and set it upon the coat folded across Jonas’ knees. With something between a growl and an exclamation he lifted the wicker cover. Was it the face of a lovely doll half hidden in lace and lawn and pink ribbons that he looked down upon? The light was not the brightest in that corner, and there was a strange iilm over his eyes, but surely it seemed to breathe, and its weight upon his knees was like flesh and blood! Jonas sat helpless under the burden, dimly conscious that the hubbub around him was stii ed suddenly. In the midst of his bewilderment, a pair of largo dark eyes opened slowly. Jonas felt an unusual stir in the region of his heart. The eyes wore regarding him steadily with a curious little pucker of the brows. After a few moment’s inspection, two little hands were reached up to him, and three fingers closed tightly around the thumb of the hand that steadied the basket. “If she don’t look sweet enough to eat!” said Susie Baker, leaning over his left arm. “She’s the dead image of Prissy when she was a baoy,” declared motherly Mrs. Nesbit above his shoulder. “She’s got your nose, Squire, sure as

the world!” supplemented Mr. Hobbs, the grocer. Jones’ face took on a multitude of uncertain expressions that might mean the verge of either tears or laughter. His stolidity was all broken up. The baby was a center of attraction. She smiled and crowed and bubbled over with goodnature. There was so much Christmas gladness in the atmosphere, bless you, that no one, large or small, could escape its influence. - The baby face brought a rush of memories from the past to Jonas, of thechild he had held in his arms long aszo, when the tenderness of fatherhood had first dawaed upon his heart, and of the sweet young wife and mother whom, a month later, he had laid away forever. He recalled'his bitterness ancLrebellion against his lot, his hardness toward the child for whose sake he had been bereaved, and the increasing coldness of the years, with no wifely touch to soften the strong, stern, uncompromising qualities which predominated in his nature. The fountains of the great deep were broken up now. Tears forced themselves slowly from his eyes and fell upon the baby’s cheek. Its smile died, and it looked up into his face with the mysterious, searching eyes of babyhood. He lifted it from its warm nest and held its soft cheek against his. “He has a heart, after all,” said the Doctor’s wife, with a movement of her handkerchief across her eyes. “Heart!” echoed the Doctor. “He buried it with fiis young wife long ago, but it looks now like a resurrection.” Jonas looked up, to meet the moist shining eyes of the minister's wife. Some instinct taught, him her share in this matter. “Where is the child’s mother?” he asked, brokenly. The little lady turned and drew Prissy, pale and trembling, from her covert behind the brawny, big-hearted blacksmith, where she had stood watching her darling crowd ws way into her father's heart and arms; ‘Prissy, my child!”

“Oh. father? father!" “Don’t yon want to take charge of my Christmas pres-nt?" ho asked, with a mighty effort at self-control. “The whole house up there is at your disposal —and hers. I wiH send*for —your husband.” The baby's face had a baptism of happy tears this time, as its mother carried it into the ante-room where she bad

watched the experiment. She was followed by the minister's wife and others. “I owe this all to vou,” she said, gratefully, to the doll wife. “I knew he was good as gold, away down,” returned the little lady, softy. How the glad Christmas bells rang in the air around Jonas' old homestead that night! How peacefully the angels of good-will brooded over the slumber of the inmates!

"THERE HE SAT, SILENT AND UNSMILING."

“I OWE THIS ALL TO YOU."

“TWO LITTLE HANDS WERE REACHED UP TO HIM.”