III.
To the list of things that the Belgians in Crashie Howe do not understand, along with oatmeal, honey in the comb, and tapioca, must now be added the Scottish climate. They do not complain, but they are puzzled, and after sixty-five consecutive hours of rain they wonder wistfully if it is always like this. We simply dare not tell them the truth.
By every post we are busy hunting for lost relatives who are scattered before the shattering fist of the Kaiser over Great Britain, Belgium, Holland and France. We have not been very successful so far, but one or two we have found, at points as far apart as York and Milford Haven, and, best of all, we have unearthed a great-grandmother, last seen in open coal boat off Ostend, who is now in comfortable quarters in a village in Ayrshire.
Our language difficulties have not been assisted by the arrival of a family from Antwerp who talk nothing but Walloon, but, on the other hand, the progress of the children is now beginning to afford certain frail lines of communication. The least of them, Elise, can already count up to twenty in English (with a strong Scoto-Flemish accent), and so it came about that when I took little nieces round to pay relations were at once established on a numerical basis.
"One, two, three," said Sheila, holding out her hand.
"Four," retorted Juliette, gurgling with delight.
"Five, six, seven," shouted Betty.
"Eight, nine?" enquired Juliette...
At the next cottage, where we were all rather shy, we began tentatively with "One?" But we finally gained so much confidence that by the time we reached our last visit we ran it up to ten at a single burst, and were consequently received with open arms.
One of our main concerns has been the Santa Claus question, and that is a matter which touches us closely, as we have among our number eleven children of Santa Claus age. There are a good many pitfalls here, and it is now unfortunately too late to warn other people of the chief of them. For the fact is—as we found to our amazement—that Santa Claus (you must, by the way, call him St. Nicholas; after all, it is his proper name) comes to Belgium and Russia, not on December 25th, but on December 6th. All our attempts to explain this phenomenon by the difference in the Russian calendar, though ingenious, have failed; it doesn't work out at all. Still, for some reason, that is how it is, and we cannot but we grateful to St. Nicholas for this delicate attention to our allies, by which no doubt they get the pick of the toys, even though we were nearly let in by him. Indeed Pierre had practically given up hope. He had told his mother that he was afraid St. Nicholas would never find his way to Scotland, it was too far.
Then there is another thing which might easily have been overlooked. It's no use putting out stockings, as wo prefer to do in our insular way; one must put out shoes. At first sight it looks as if we in this country have the pull over our allies here, for one pair of little shoes does not hold much stuff. But fortunately it is the happy custom in all lands to allow of overflow to any extent. And finally St. Nicholas never comes down the chimney; he pops in through the window (which should be left slightly open at the bottom so that he can get in his thumb and prize it up). Also he never drove a reindeer in his life. He rides a horse. And this is of the first importance, for the one condition attaching to his benevolence is that you must put out a good wisp of hay for the horse, along with your shoes, or else he will simply pass on and you will get nothing for it.
Having collected and considered all these facts we were fully prepared to meet the situation—even down to the small gingerbread animals which always grace the day—on December 6th, and to deal faithfully with the little rows of clogs, bulging with hay, which awaited us on St. Nicholas Eve.
Weary Variety Agent. "And what's your particular claim to originality?"
Artiste. "I'm the only Comedian who has so far refrained from addressing the Orchestra as 'you in the trench.'"
"It's perfectly simple," said the Reverend Henry, adopting his lofty style. "We must cut the whole lot. There is no other course."
"I don't consider that your opinion is of any value whatever," said Eileen. "In fact you ought not to be allowed to take part in this discussion. Every one knows that you have always tried to get out of Christmas presents, and now you are merely using a grave national emergency to further your private ends."
The Reverend Henry was squashed; but Mrs. Sidney had a perfect right to speak, for she has been without doubt the most persistent and painstaking Christmas provider in the family, and has never been known to miss a single relation even at the longest range.
"I quite agree with Henry," said she. "This is no time for Christmas presents—except to hospitals and Belgians and men at the Front."
"You mean that you would scratch the whole lot," said I, "even the pocket diary for 1915 that I send to Uncle William?"
"Yes, even that. You can send the diary to Sidney" (who is in Flanders). "I have always wanted him to keep a diary."
"What about the children?" said I.
"The children must realise," said the Reverend Henry solemnly, "what it means for the nation to at war."
"Oh, no," Laura broke in impetuously. "How can they realise? How can you expect Kathleen to realise?"
"Do you know," said the Reverend Henry, "that only last Sunday my niece Kathleen was marching all over the house singing at the top of her voice, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary: the Bible tells me so"? Obviously she realises."
"But what about———" Eileen was beginning.
