New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1914-12-09
CHAPTER VII.
A Christmas Carol.


to relate every experience to him.
self, measure it. value it by it's own
value to him. the effect Of his reflec-
ton was at first single-the tai,d gen
Grafton Of Rules! Was he as old as
that?
1t seemed only yesterday that Bruce
had been boy in blue necktie to
match his eyes and shoes which for
some reason he always put on wrong.
so that the buttons were on the inside.
Bruce's baby! Good heavens: 1t had
been shock when Bruce graduated
from the high school. shock when he
had married, but his baby: 1t was in
credible that he himself should be so
I'D as that.
This meant. then. that if Malcolm
had lived Malcolm might have had
child now.
Ebenezer had not meant to think
that. It was as if the thought came
and spoke to him. He never allowed
himself to think Of that otl1e: life of
his. when his wife. Lefty. and his son.
Malcolm. had been living. Nobody in
Old Trail Town ever heard him speak
of them or had ever been answered
when Ebenezer had been spoken to
concerning them. A high white shaft
in the cemetery marked the two graves.
All about them doors had been closed
But with the thought of this third gem
Grafton the doors all opened. He look
o6 oil ho E> had
AS he went he was unconscious, as
he was always unconscious, of the lit
tie street. He saw the market square,
not as the heart of the town, but as a
place for buying and selling. and the
little shops were to him not ways of
providing the town with life, but ways
of providing their keepers with live
lihoOd. Beyond these was a familiar
setting. arranged that day with white
background and heaped roofs and laden
boughs, the houses standing side by
side like human beings. There they
were. like the chorus to the thing he
was thinking about. They were all
thinking about it too. Every one Of
them knew what he knew. Yet he
never saw the bond, but he thought
they were only the places where men
lived who had been his factory hands
and would be so yet If he had not cut
them away. Ben Torrey. shoveling off
his front walk with his boy sweeping
behind him: August Muir. giving his
little girl ride on the snow shovel;
Nettie Hatch. clearing the ice out of
her mail box. while her sister-the
lame one-watched from her chair by
the window interested as in q real
event Ebenezer spoke to them from
some OutpOsts Of consciousness which
his thought did not pass. The little
street was not there. as It was never
there for him as an entity. 1t was
merely street. And the little town
was not an entity. 1t was merely
where he lived He went behind Ell
Miles and the snowplow- as he always
went-as if space had been created for
folk to live in one at time and as
if this were his own turn.
When he reached the bend from the
Old Trail to the road where the fac
tory was he understood at last that he
had been hearing a song sung over
great many times:
One for the way 1t all begun.
Two for the way it all has run.
What three'u be for do forget,
But what's to be has not been yet
So holly and mistletoe.
So holly and mistletoe.
So holly and mistletoe
Over and over and over OH
Buff. who was singing it, looked over
his shoulder, and nodded.
'They said you can't have no Christ
mas on Christmas day" he observed.
grinning. 'but l amt heard nothing
to prevent singing Christmas carols
right up to the day that Is the day.
EbeneZer halted.
How old are yOu?" he abruptly de-,
manded Of Buff-whom he had known
from Bluffs boyhood.
'Thirty-three." said Bun. dun It."
.Y0u and Bruce about the same age,