There was a large, brilliant evening star in the early
twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen.
It was Christmas Eve. Also the War was over,
and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new
menace. A man felt the violence of the nightmare
released now into the general air. Also there
had been another wrangle among the men on the pit-bank
that evening.
Aaron Sisson was the last man on the little black
railway-line climbing the hill home from work.
He was late because he had attended a meeting of
the men on the bank. He was secretary to the
Miners Union for his colliery, and had heard a good
deal of silly wrangling that left him nettled.
He strode over a stile, crossed two fields, strode
another stile, and was in the long road of colliers’
dwellings. Just across was his own house:
he had built it himself. He went through the
little gate, up past the side of the house to the
back. There he hung a moment, glancing down
the dark, wintry garden.
“My father—my father’s come!”
cried a child’s excited voice, and two little
girls in white pinafores ran out in front of his legs.
“Father, shall you set the Christmas Tree?”
they cried. “We’ve got one!”
“Afore I have my dinner?” he answered
amiably.
“Set it now. Set it now.—We
got it through Fred Alton.”
The little girls were dragging a rough, dark object
out of a corner of the passage into the light of the
kitchen door.
“It’s a beauty!” exclaimed Millicent.
“Yes, it is,” said Marjory.
“I should think so,” he replied, striding
over the dark bough. He went to the back kitchen
to take off his coat.
“Set it now, Father. Set it now,”
clamoured the girls.
“You might as well. You’ve left
your dinner so long, you might as well do it now before
you have it,” came a woman’s plangent voice,
out of the brilliant light of the middle room.
Aaron Sisson had taken off his coat and waistcoat
and his cap. He stood bare-headed in his shirt
and braces, contemplating the tree.
“What am I to put it in?” he queried.
He picked up the tree, and held it erect by the topmost
twig. He felt the cold as he stood in the yard
coatless, and he twitched his shoulders.
“Isn’t it a beauty!” repeated Millicent.
“Put something on, you two!” came the
woman’s high imperative voice, from the kitchen.
“We aren’t cold,” protested the
girls from the yard.
“Come and put something on,” insisted
the voice. The man started off down the path,
the little girls ran grumbling indoors. The sky
was clear, there was still a crystalline, non-luminous
light in the under air.
Aaron rummaged in his shed at the bottom of the garden,
and found a spade and a box that was suitable.
Then he came out to his neat, bare, wintry garden.
The girls flew towards him, putting the elastic of
their hats under their chins as they ran. The
tree and the box lay on the frozen earth. The
air breathed dark, frosty, electric.
