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The Tramp's Christmas Eve

By JEPPE AAKJAER

Translated from the Danish by MINNA WRESCHNER

AKOB-THE-SWEDE, as he was called, had no home that he could claim as his own. He had come from Vermland, Sweden, lured by adventures and the cheap Danish brandy. During the summer months he loaded sand on the tilt-carts together with other hobos, and fried bacon on a shovel which he held over a fire made of a handful of withered grass, beneath the open sky. In winter he would sit on the bench in a farmhouse, making scrubbing brushes, while the farmer's wife would dry his socks by the stove. Most frequently he would stay near the sea, but when the weather grew bad and the days short he would travel inland with the other sea-birds, and in the isolated farmhouses scattered among the barren hills, the inhabitants of which had but a meager knowledge of the great outside world, he was a welcome guest.

One day—it was the day of Christmas Eve-shortly before the sun had set behind the mountains, a man came walking over the snowclad heath. He was thinly dressed and apparently tried to avoid the farmhouses, like a man who has still a long journey to make. His coat seemed a strange mixture of all shades of color: across his angular back were faded streaks, as though the result of a wet lash. In his right hand he carried a bundle of canes, the end of which traced lines in the snow as he walked. Hanging on his left hip was a dogskin knapsack swinging from side to side. This was our Vagabond from Vermland, on his way to one of his eastward friends where a seat at the table and a place to sleep had never been denied him. He was crossing a snow-covered potato field when he was suddenly overtaken by a hailstorm which had followed in his wake for some time. Jakob

let his head sink deeper into his coat collar, while he stepped briskly forward in his worn-out shoes. As he felt the hail beating down on his back he started to run toward a stack of turf, in the friendly shelter of which he threw his bundles to the ground and commenced rubbing his hands that had become numb from the cold. On putting his heel to the ground and twisting the point of his shoe with his hand, he found that it had been taking in water like a sieve. The wind howled about the sunken stack, and hail and icicles beat down like projectiles. Suddenly there was a break in the clouds. Jakob knelt down on the snow, opened his knapsack, and took out a patched shirt which he stroked tenderly with his hand. Then he threw off his coat and vest, pulled the old rag of a shirt that he was wearing over his head, and for a moment stood absolutely naked beneath the evening sky. The hail danced merrily upon his bare back and rolled like tears down his skinny chest. He fumbled with his arms in the air, trying to get his numb hands into the obstinate sleeves, and finally succeeded while his teeth chattered. This act completed, things assumed a brighter aspect; he hummed and talked to himself while arranging his belongings. Yes, indeed, 'cleanliness is a blessing,' said the old woman, as she turned her shirt on Christmas Eve." And he was not the one to contradict her. But that inn-keeper who housed him last night was, by God, a dirty pig; his shirt carried sufficient witnesses to that effect. He could not bring such things to Anne Margrethe's house. She might shut her door on him for all time, should she discover it, he was sure of that. Now that he was beginning to get on his feet again, he could well afford to have a shirt or two washed in case of necessity, as for instance after an experience of this sort. He no longer drank up all his earnings; he could now boast of a clear conscience as well as a clean shirt. He had even begun to save up money. He chuckled to himself as he slapped his vest-pocket with his hand — and the silver jingled.

"That's the way when one has strength of character," he said, and his chest swelled with pride behind the loose vest. "Won't Anne Margrethe open her eyes wide when she sees all the money I have put aside since I began to forsake that foul brandy! Forsake, I say!But then, why did I buy this flask?" Jacob's hand had touched upon the neck of a bottle which peeped out from his knapsack as though listening. "Why did I buy you? To-to-to make you a present to Anne Margrethe and her old father, of course. Don't you tempt me," he pleaded. "Quite true, it is damnably cold; my limbs are shaking, and I have holes in one of my shoes-but if I take a drink now I shall go on drinking until I lie in the ditch like a drunken swine. No, no, I will not look at you; I would rather break your d-d neck under my heel. I'll smash you to smithereens if you

don't stop tempting me." With all his might he drove the cork farther into the neck of the bottle while resuming his journey across the snow-covered land.

The moon and stars were already shining, the moon casting a bright light on the clay walls of the lonely farmhouses scattered about the heathery hills, by the time Jakob reached the farm which was the end of his journey. After he had entered the farmyard he stopped suddenly and listened: the roof of the farmhouse was low and dripping; a cow knocked her horns against the trough in the cowbarn in reaching for her feed, and the rusty pump-wheel squeaked as the wind blew in gusts around the yard. No other sound was heard. In the room, no doubt, the folks had already gathered. Jakob could faintly see the shadows of the children's heads as they moved behind the small flower-pots in the window. With the glow from the lamp in his eyes he walked through the silent snow into the hallway, where a cat sat mewing in the cold and dark, waiting for an opportunity to slip into the warm room which was fragrant with Christmas cooking.

As the little tramp with swinging knapsack gaily stepped over the threshold, his eyes shining with mirth, the children gave him a noisy welcome, and the hot air from the kitchen laden with the fragrance of old lavender soon thawed the icicles on his beard. Anne Margrethe, a sedate little widow of about forty years, who had entered from the kitchen at the noise of the children, wiped her hands carefully before greeting the visitor.

"Well, well, didn't I hear a rooster crow in our parlor," she said. "Come and sit down. Such bad weather you have had! Hurry up, children, and call father so he can bid our guest welcome. Supper will soon be ready." And Anne Margrethe disappeared again into the kitchen to attend to the pot of boiling rice. A blue door in the paneled wall opened, and old Villads, Anne Margrethe's father, came in, neatly shaved, and in his white stocking feet walked across the freshly scoured floor, smiling kindly at his friend. "Well, see who is here!" he said. "So you have arrived after all. I began to fear that you weren't coming. It is such a pleasure to have you here, for us who live so much alone. Sit down at the table."

The children moved close together on the wooden bench, like ducklings: they all wanted to sit next to Jakob, except the youngest one, a fat-cheeked little shaver of three summers who, from a dark corner, with distrust in his eye, watched the tramp who filled the place with such unwonted noise and seemed surrounded by an air of the sea and strange adventures.

The boiled rice was carried in, steaming hot, in a large white dish, and, as is the custom, a hollow containing butter, shaped like a cross,