The Washington herald., 1913-12-21
By JULIA CHANDLER MANI.


From the very youngest up to-fathe
and mother every single member of tn
family think of Grandma Hume as
back number.
That is when they think of her at all
which is neither much nor often.
For isn't she eighty and one, with thu
most Of her life behind her?
And isn't she crippled and helpless with
rheumatism and quite dependent thes'
days upon the strength Of two younger
generations?
OF course, were you to ask any member
of the family. from the youngest up tC
father and mother, IL these things have
anything to do with a weakened old lady's
interest in keeping Christmas they would
give you a stare which would tell you
quite plainly that they think you hao
taken leave OF your senses, and " they
answered you at all they would produce
their Christmas shopping list and point
out tie name of Grandma Hume as
among those to be remembered by gifts,
and thus close the matter with q very
superior air.
From the youngest to father and mother
the Humes always make much ado about
keeping Christmas" They save their
money for months ahead SO that their
gifts will be just as handsome as any
they receive; so that the Little-Next-
Door-Neighhors will not be able to boast
OF more expensive presents from the good
old Santa Claus than those left in the
stockings or hung upon the tree for the
little Humes. You see father Hume
makes a salary sufficiently large to make
him mighty particular about appearances,
and so the family has been as busy as a
hive Of bees for weeks past getting ready
for Christmas.
Alone and Forgotten.
All, of course except Grandma Hume,
who has been left alone in the big house
sc very much during these pre-holihay
days, that she has had a deal Of timc
to ponder many things.
She is always in her room because II
has become too painful and difficult a
matter for her to get about alone. and
no one has thought to hold their confer
enceS there, so the weazened old lady
has heard only excited rumors and has
guessed at the rest.
Packages have come home from the
shops. The children have given each
other peeps into boxes intended for IA
ther or mother, and have consulted with
mother concerning each other. Gifts
going distance were tied up last week
with holiday ribbons and either mailed
or expressed. Feet have hurried to and
fro, expressing the eagerness and ex-
element of their owners as feet have a
way of doing around Christmas time,
but none of them have turned into
Grandma Hume's room Lovely things
have gone their way carrying the Christ
mas cheer to those less near and dear,
but none have come before the eyes
ri the weazened old lady because, yoG
see, Grandma Hume is a back number
with the most Of her life behind her,
so what possible interest could she have
in Christmas activities?
And all these weeks she has been liv-
ing over the eighty and one years since
she herself came, a Christmas baby,
into the world. Her own glad childhood
has marshaled itself through her
thought; her lonely girlhood spent after
her fifteenth year without a mothers
loving guidance; her glorious wedding
day, which she had purposely set on
the same day which We celebrate in
honor OF the Christ Child's birth, being
her own birthday as well. She had mar
ried a poor man, but the years thereafter
when she had worked for him, and the
babies that came, were wonderful years
because love glorifed them
One by one she went over the Yule-
tides since the coming of her first little
son, conJured them up into living pic
lures as she sat in her lonely room in
that sons big house all these weeks
when his family have been getting ready
tc keep Christmas
Just Clogs the Machine.
She remembered the sacrifices she had
made through many a year that Christ
mas might be radiantly kept in her own
simple home, and in the remembrance
she smiled. yes, it was all quite true
the most of her years were behind her,
years full of useful work; years of heart
aches as well as gladness, for two Of
fRh NnH ha
brought, through her. into being, taken
them out into His own garden, and soon
she too would go the journey from
whence no man returns
She looked forward to the transition
which We call dying with a sort Of
ecstacy, for the years of her usefulness
are spent and she is only a weazened old
lady cluttering up the house of her first
born soma perfectly helpless, useless
clog in its machinery. She has been
made to feel that more than once, but
most of all does she feel it when the
crisp December days help to make the
Christmas Spirit.
When Charles Scribner's Sons published
Henry Van Dykes 'The Spirit Of Christ |
mas" in 1906 a copy found its way into
Grandma Hume's hands on Christmas
by a lifelong friend. but never until this
year have the words in which it is ex-
pressed loomed so large in her thought. |
One day last week when the Hume |
father came in at bedtime to say good |
night to the weazened old lady whose |
years are mostly in the past, he asked
her II there was anything she wanted, |
and to his amazement she presented a |
little list which called for as many white |
cards as there are members Of the |
Hume household; a very fine brush, and
q few tubes of paint, and she asked him |
to bring the things home to her when he
came the next day. The man tucked |
the list into his wallet smilingly. and
when he was alone with his wife he re-
marked that he believed Grandma Hume
was getting the Christmas spirit
why, what nonsense" answered the
Hume mother. "She hasn't shown the
slightest interest in Christmas"
Keeping Christmas.
Anyway, he did not forget the cards and
the paints, and strange to say he felt
intuitiTely that the trust was a conf
dence, and so II is that none of the fam
lily, from the youngest up to the mother,
know that Grandma Hume has been very
busy in her room for a week transcribing
in the circle Of a finely executed holly
wreath. two paragraphs from Van Dykes
The Spirit Of Christmas" nor that next
Thursday morning, through the help of
household win find one of these Chris
open their eyes on Christmas morning,
they will read the following excerpt,
Transcribed in letters of gold:
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