The Adventures of Nicholas (8 page)

The two boys went on their way, leaving Holly a small branch of shiny green leaves and bright-red berries. The cheery plant somehow reminded her of Nicholas, so bright and rosy. But the Black Forest!

Holly buried her face in her hands. “If only I dared to do it,” she sobbed. “But even the boys are afraid to go there alone. Nicholas said that to do a thing when you’re really afraid is braver than if you feel no fear at all. But I can’t go, I can’t!”

She sat there for a long time, trying to decide what to do. “I’ve got to do it… for Nicholas…I haven’t any flowers for him. But it’s a horrible place…something terrible will happen to me. No—Nicholas said nothing could harm a good child, and I’ve tried to be good. I think…yes, I’m going to do it!”

Holly ran for her cloak before she had a chance to change her mind and before her mother returned from the village.

Nicholas looked up from his work and saw a little girl running along the road, right past his cottage and into the woods. “That looks like Holly,” he thought in alarm. “No, it can’t be. She’s not well yet, and besides, she would never have the courage to go into the woods. It must be some other child.”

An hour later, however, Holly’s mother knocked anxiously on his door. “Oh, I thought she was

here,” she said worriedly. “Where has she gone? She’s lost, and it’s beginning to storm!”

Nicholas was quickly pulling on his bright-red coat and stocking cap. “I’ll find her, don’t you worry.” He looked out at the gray afternoon sky. The air was filled with millions of snowflakes blowing in every direction, striking fear in the hearts of the man and woman who knew that Holly had to be found before darkness closed off the woods.

“I know where to look,” said Nicholas. “I’ll take the small sled and Vixen. You sit down here and make yourself comfortable, and I’ll have your Holly back before the snow covers my front walk.”

Holly, meanwhile, had found the tree with the red berries, and had stayed longer than she intended, to gather a huge armful of the branches. By the time she started back, the snow had begun to fall.

“I can’t understand it,” she murmured, as she tried to find the narrow path. “It’s getting darker and darker.” She began to run, her head bent against the wind, her feet tripping over the rocks and stumps hidden in the snow.

“I can’t see anything,” she sobbed. “I can’t lift my feet any more.” Panic-stricken, she saw a huge shape coming at her through the clouds of snow. She closed her eyes and fell face down in front of Nicholas and Vixen.

When she awoke, she was in the woodcarver’s cottage. Her mother was holding her in her arms, and Nicholas’ kind face was bent over her.

“Where are the branches?” she asked. “I went into the Black Forest alone to get them for you. Where are they? “

Nicholas put the bright leaves and berries in her arms. “Here they are, my dear. Did you bring them for me? “

“Yes, Nicholas. I was afraid, but I never will be again. I know that now.” Nicholas wiped a tear from his eyes. “You shouldn’t have gone out so soon after you were sick. But I love the plant. What is it called?”

“I don’t know, but I like it because it reminded me of you. The berries are so round and red and shiny,” Holly said, beginning to smile.

“That’s funny,” answered Nicholas, “it reminds me of you. It’s so brave, growing out there in the cold, and the little berries have the blood-red of courage in them. So I know just what we should call your plant. From now on, we’ll call it ‘Holly.’”

The old head drooped drowsily.

THE LAST STOCKING
 

HE years went by, and Nicholas grew to be a prosperous old man. But as his good deeds increased, his strength and vitality ebbed slowly away. The villagers, who loved and respected him as they would a saint, grew sad when their children played happily with their toys on Christmas morning. The fearful thought in every parent’s heart was: “Maybe next Christmas he won’t be with us.”

One year a group of men and women called on Nicholas at his cottage with a suggestion. “We’ve been thinking,” said Otto, Nicholas’ old friend. “It’s too cold for you to stand and fill each stocking outside the door. Couldn’t the children leave their stockings inside, by the fireplace?”

“Then you could come in and get warm, and take your time,” said one woman kindly.

Nicholas raised his white head from the work he was always doing, and a smile spread all over his rosy face. “The idea of your coming here to tell me how to do my work,” he joked. “Why, I remember filling embroidered bags for some of you when you were younger than your own children are now. Then they started putting out stockings instead of bags, and now they’re going to put the stockings in by the fire. Well, times change, I suppose, and I must keep up with the times. So indoors I will go, and I thank you all for your warm fires.”

That Christmas Eve old Nicholas found it more and more difficult to leave each fireplace for the next house. The warm blaze made him drowsy, and his old bones ached as he pulled himself up wearily to be on with his work.

When he reached the last house, Nicholas found that the children had left a cup of warm chocolate and a few cookies for him beside their stockings on the fireplace. Nicholas chuckled and sat down to enjoy his snack. The old head drooped drowsily, and soon he was fast asleep.

He awoke with a start an hour later when the anxious father gently shook him by the shoulder. “Are you all right, Nicholas? I got up to see if the fire had gone out and found you still here. Look, it’s almost dawn! “

Nicholas shook himself and stood up wearily. “Yes, it’s Christmas morning and I haven’t finished my work,” he said sorrowfully, looking at the empty stockings.

“I’ll do it for you,” answered the man. “You just leave the toys here and go home to bed. Go along now, before the children get up and see you.”

Nicholas smiled gratefully and went out into the gray dawn.

A few minutes later a little boy stood in the doorway of the living room. “Why are you filling the stockings, Father?” Christian asked, looking ready to cry. “I thought is was Nicholas who gave us the toys!”

His father tried to explain. “Nicholas is getting old, Chris,” he said. “Sometimes we parents have to help him. But don’t you forget it’s always Nicholas who leaves you the toys.”

“That’s all right then,” said the little fellow. “It isn’t so much fun if you think of Christmas without Nicholas.”

It was almost noon, and Holly, as she did every Christmas morning, was on her way to decorate Nicholas’ cottage with the bright leaves and berries that bore her name. She quickened her steps when she noticed there was no smoke coming from the chimney.

“Poor old dear,” she thought. “He’s probably all tired out from his trip last night. I’ll just go in and make his fire and put the holly around.”

She went into the cold, silent cottage and soon had a warm blaze crackling on the hearth. Quietly, not to disturb Nicholas’ sleep, she decked the walls and windows with gay branches. There was one sprig of holly left over. She couldn’t find a single bare spot left in the room, so she decided to take it into Nicholas and place it on his pillow.

Opening the bedroom door quietly, she saw him lying there, still dressed in the bright red suit with the white fur and the shiny black boots.

“Here’s your holly,” she whispered, bending over Nicholas. How still he was—too still. She dropped the holly and sprang back.

“Nicholas, Nicholas!” she screamed. She ran out into the snow, stumbled blindly down the road to the village, and with tears streaming down her face call loudly for the townsfolk.

They gathered in little groups to listen to her story. The bells tolled, and the village was in darkness that Christmas night. Vixen and his brothers whimpered in their stalls, and the bright holly lay beside the quiet figure in a red suit.

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
 

HE villagers tenderly put Nicholas to rest in the pine grove, close to the spot where the children came to play. The reindeer were no longer in the stalls behind the cottage; they had been taken up to the big stables on top of the hill by Kati Dinsler, who put them out to pasture and cared for them in loving remembrance of her old friend.

Many a time during the sad year that followed, a mother would pick up a little carved toy and, with tearful eyes, silently remember the generous heart that had given the gift.

But as time passed, Nicholas might very well have been forgotten if it had not been for the children. “Are we going to hang up our stockings this Christmas?” was asked in every household over and over again. The question was answered sadly, “No, child. Nicholas can’t come to fill your stockings any more.” But because they were children and because they had always believed in Nicholas, they had faith that somehow a big heart like his could never die.

A few weeks before Christmas, the villagers met to discuss the matter.

“My little boy, Christian,” said one mother sadly, “knows that Nicholas is buried in the pine grove, but he doesn’t seem to understand. He believes that Nicholas will come back, and he is determined to hang up his stocking on Christmas Eve, just as he always has.”

Kati Dinsler nodded her head. “I feel the same way,” she admitted. “It’s just that, having known Nicholas, it’s impossible to think of Christmas without him.”

“The children will have to learn,” one father advised, “that if they do hang up their stockings, they will find them empty on Christmas morning.” The villagers sat in silence. “Of course,” he added slowly, “it wouldn’t be fair to Nicholas to allow the children to be disappointed.” Each mother and father sat quietly, remembering the joyful Christmas mornings when they were children, and had waked up to find their stockings stuffed with toys and goodies.

“He was a fine, good man,” they all agreed. “We must not let the children lose faith in Nicholas.”

So that Christmas Eve each child was allowed to hang his stocking from the mantel above the fireplace, and a fire was kept burning warmly on each hearth, in memory of an old and beloved friend whom the children still believed in.

Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. The air was pure and fresh, and the snow lay glistening along the doorways. The little village lay peaceful in the early morning quiet.

Suddenly one door burst open, and with a wild shout little Christian dashed out into the snow. “Look at my stocking! It’s filled, just the same as always. Look, everybody, Nicholas did come! Wake up, wake up!”

The children leaped from their beds right into the largest piles of toys they had ever seen, all around the fireplaces and heaped up on the tables and chairs. The bells pealed out a joyful, merry sound. And the happy villagers called to one another in the clear, cold air, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to you! Merry Christmas!”