1 Nephi 15:15 And
then at that day will they not rejoice and give praise unto their everlasting
God, their rock and their salvation?
Carol: O Holy Night
Story: When the
Wise Man Appeared
When the Wise Man Appeared
William
Ashley Anderson
It was a
bitterly cold night, vast and empty. Over Hallett's Hill a brilliant star
danced like tinsel on the tip of a Christmas tree. The still air was as
resonant as the inside of an iron bell; but within our snug farmhouse in the
Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania it was mellow with the warmth of our
cherry-red stoves.
The dinner
things had been cleared away, and 1 relaxed when Bruce came downstairs—an
apparition in a long white nightgown with a purple cloak of tintexed cotton
over his shoulders. In one hand he held a tall crown of yellow pasteboard and
tinsel. From the other swung an ornate censer. On his feet were thin flapping
sandals.
"What
in the world are you supposed to be?" I asked.
My wife
looked at the boy critically, but with concern and tenderness.
"He's
one of the Wise Men of the East!" she explained with some indignation.
The look she
gave me was an urgent reminder that I had promised to get him to the
schoolhouse in town in time for the Christmas pageant. I shuddered at the
thought of the cold and went out into the night, pulling on a heavy coat.
The batten'
in the old car had gone dead, but by one of those freaks of mechanical whimsy,
the engine caught at the first turn of the crank. That was a trick of the devil,
for the engine died before we got out to the main road. My heart sank. I
glanced at Bruce, with the crown and censer clasped in his arms, staring down
the endless lane that disappeared in the lonely hills. Hallett's place was more
than a mile and a half away, and the nearest turn of Route 90, with the thin
chance of a lift, was more than two miles away.
Well, I
thought, it's not tragically important. Bruce still said nothing, but his eyes
were staring now at the big star twinkling just over the ragged edge of the
mountain. Then an uneasy feeling stirred in me, because I knew the boy was
praying. He had made his promise, too, and he was praying that nothing would
keep him from being one of the Three Wise Men on this magic Christmas Eve.
I strained
and heaved at the crank, but it was useless. I thought it over. When I looked
up, Bruce was scuttling down the lane, one hand holding his skim, the other
swinging the censer, the high golden crown perched cockeyed on his head. I hesitated
between laughing at him and yelling for him to stop. Then I began once more to
crank.
Finally the
engine coughed throatily. I scrambled into the car. Just about where the road
enters town I overtook Bruce.
"You
shouldn't have gone off that way," I growled. "It's too cold."
"I made
a fire in the censer," he said. "I kept warm enough. I took a bearing
on the star, made a short cut across Basoine's farm, and came out right by the
new cottage." He shivered.
"But
look at your feet! You might have frozen them!"
"It
wasn't so bad."
We arrived
at the school on time. I stood in back and watched. When I saw Bruce appear,
walking stiff-legged on cut and chilblained feet, kneeling by the creche
declaiming his lines, I regretted my laughter at the dinner table. Then an
uneasy awe rose up within me. Something stronger than a promise, I knew, had
brought him through the bitter night to this sacred pageant.
Going home,
Bruce showed me where the shortcut came out. "That's where the Thompsons
live," he said, and added, "Harry Thompson died there."
As we passed
the Basoine farm there were lights burning. I thought this was strange. Since
George Basoine had gone off to war, the old grandmother, who had lost her
youngest son in the first war, had sort of shriveled up, and a gloom lay over
the house; but as I slowed down I could see Lou Basoine through the kitchen
window, smoking his pipe and talking with his wife and mother.
That was
about all there was to the evening. But on Christmas Day a friendly farmer's
wife came by with gifts of mincemeat, made from venison, and a jug of sassafras
cider. She went into the kitchen where my wife was supervising the Christmas
feast. I drifted toward the kitchen, too, when I heard laughter there, since I
have a weakness for the gossip of the countryside.
"You
must hear this!" said my wife. The farmer's wife looked at me with a
glittering but wary eye.
"You
hain't a-goin' to believe it either," she said. "Just the same I'm
tellin' you, folks up here in the hills see things and they do believe!"
"What
have you been seeing?"
"It was
old Mrs. Basoine. Last night when she was a-feelin' low she thought she heard
something back of the barn and she looked out. Now I'll say this for the old
lady—she's got good vision. There warn't no moonlight, but if you recollect it
was a bright, starry night. And there she saw, plain as day, one of the Wise
Men of the Bible come a-walkin' along the hill with a gold crown on his head,
a-swingjn' one of them pots with smoke in them—"
My wife and
I looked at each other, but before I could say anything our visitor hurried on:
"Now
don't you start a-laughin'. There's other testimony! Them Thompsons. You know
the ones whose oldest boy died? Well, the children heard him first—a singin'
'Come, All Ye Faithful' plain as day. They went runnin' to the window, and they
seen the Wise Man a-walkin' in the starlight across the lane, gold crown and
robes, and fire pot and all!"
The farmer's
wife looked defiantly at me. "Old folks and children see things that maybe
we can't. All I can say is this: Basoines and Thompsons don't even know each
other. But old lady Basoine was heartsick and lonely for her lost boy, and the
Thompsons was heartsick and lonely because this was the first Christmas without
Harry, and you dassent say they wasn't a-prayin' too! Maybe you don't believe
that amounts to anythin'—but I'm tellin' you it was a comfort to them to see
and believe!"
In the quiet
of the kitchen the eyes of the two women searched my face—for disbelief,
perhaps, since I'm not a very religious person. But whatever they expected,
they were surprised at what they got.
I hadn't
seen a vision that Christmas Eve, but what I had seen was to me far more
impressive than any apparition: a flesh-and-blood small boy with a promise to
keep, following over a trackless countryside the star which centuries ago led
the Wise Men to Bethlehem. And it was not for me to deny the courage and the
faith I saw in my son's eyes that night.
And so I
said, with a sincerity which must have startled those two good women as much as
it obviously pleased them:
"Yes, I
believe that God is very close to us at Christmas."
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