Frenzied Fiction (17 page)

“Only too willingly,” I said. “How wet and torn they are!”

Father Christmas had risen from his chair and was fumbling among his tattered packages, taking from them his children's books, all limp and draggled from the rain and wind.

“All wet and torn!” he murmured, and his voice sank again into sadness. “I have carried them these three years past. Look! These were for little children in Belgium and in Serbia. Can I get them to them, think you?”

Time gently shook his head.

“But presently, perhaps,” said Father Christmas, “if I dry and mend them. Look, some of them were inscribed already! This one, see you, was written ‘
With father's love
.' Why has it never come to him? Is it rain or tears upon the page?”

He stood bowed over his little books, his hands trembling as he turned the pages. Then he looked up, the old fear upon his face again.

“That sound!” he said. “Listen! It is guns—I hear them.”

“No, no,” I said, “it is nothing. Only a car passing in the street below.”

“Listen,” he said. “Hear that again—voices crying!”

“No, no,” I answered, “not voices, only the night wind among the trees.”

“My children's voices!” he exclaimed. “I hear them everywhere—they come to me in every wind—and I see them as I wander in the night and storm—my children—torn and dying in the trenches—beaten into the ground—I hear them crying from the hospitals—each one to me, still as I knew him once, a little child. Time, Time,” he cried, reaching out his arms in appeal, “give me back my children!”

“They do not die in vain,” Time murmured gently.

But Christmas only moaned in answer:

“Give me back my children!”

Then he sank down upon his pile of books and toys, his head buried in his arms.

“You see,” said Time, “his heart is breaking, and will you not help him if you can?”

“Only too gladly,” I replied. “But what is there to do?”

“This,” said Father Time, “listen.”

He stood before me grave and solemn, a shadowy figure but half seen though he was close beside me. The fire-light had died down, and through the curtained windows there came already the first dim brightening of dawn.

“The world that once you knew,” said Father Time, “seems broken and destroyed about you. You must not let them know—the children. The cruelty and the horror and the hate that racks the world today—keep it from them. Some day
he
will know”—here Time pointed to the prostrate form of Father Christmas—“that his children, that once were, have not died in vain: that from their sacrifice shall come a nobler, better world for all to live in, a world where countless happy children shall hold bright their memory for ever. But for the children of Today, save and spare them all you can from the evil hate and horror of the war. Later they will know and understand. Not yet. Give them back their Merry Christmas and its kind thoughts, and its Christmas charity, till later on there shall be with it again Peace upon Earth Good Will towards Men.”

His voice ceased. It seemed to vanish, as it were, in the sighing of the wind.

I looked up. Father Time and Christmas had vanished from the room. The fire was low and the day was breaking visibly outside.

“Let us begin,” I murmured. “I will mend this broken horse.”

END

Award winning Canadian humorist and writer
Stephen Leacock
(1869-1944) was the author of more than 50 literary works, and between 1915 and 1925 was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world. Leacock's fictional works include classics like
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
,
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich
, and
Literary Lapses
. In addition to his humor writings, Leacock was an accomplished political theorist, publishing such works as
Elements of Political Science
and
My Discovery of the West: A Discussion of East and West in Canada
, for whi
ch he won the Governor General's Award for writing in 1937. Leacock's life continues to be commemorated through the awarding of the Leacock Medal for Humour and with an annual literary festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario.

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