My Christmas present to you is
a story by Raymond MacDonald Alden. I previously printed it on my blog on
December 22, 2014.
Why the Chimes Rang
by
Raymond MacDonald Alden
There was once, in a faraway country where few people
have ever traveled, a wonderful church. It stood on a high hill in the midst of
a great city; and every Sunday, as well as sacred days like Christmas,
thousands of people climbed the hill to its great archways, looking like lines
of ants all moving in the same direction.
When you came to the building itself, you found stone
columns and dark passages, and a grand entrance leading to the main room of the
church. This room was so long that one standing in the doorway could scarecly
see the other end, where the choir stood by the marble altar. In the farthest
corner was the organ; and this organ was so loud, that sometimes when it
played, the people for miles around closed their shutters and prepared for a
great thunderstorm. Altogether, no such chuch as this was ever seen before,
especially when it was lighted up for some festival, and crowded with people,
young and old. But the strangest thing about the whole building was the
wonderful chime of bells.
At one corner of the church was a great gray tower, with
ivy growing over it as far as one could see. I say as far as one could see,
because the tower was quite great enough to fit the great church, and it rose
so far into the sky that it was only in very fair weather that any one claimed
to be able to see the top. Even then one could not be certain that it was in
sight. Up, and up, and up climbed the ivy; and, as the men who built the church
had been dead for hundreds of years, every one had forgotten how high the tower
was supposed to be.
Now all the people knew that at the top of the tower was
a chime of Christmas bells. They had hung there ever since the church had been
built, and were the most beautiful bells in the world. Some thought it was
because a great musician had cast them in their place; others said it was
because of the great height, which reached up where the air was clearest and
purest: however that might be, no one who had ever heard the chimes denied that
they were the sweetest in the world. Some described them as sounding like
angels far up in the sky; others, as sounding like strange winds singing
through the trees.
But the fact was that no one had heard them for years and
years. There was an old man living not far from the church, who said that his
mother had spoken of hearing them when she was a little girl, and he was the
only one who was sure of as much as that. They were Christmas chimes, you see,
and were not meant to be played by men or on common days. It was the custom on
Christmas Eve for all the people to bring to the church their offerings to the
Christ-child; and when the greatest and best offering was laid on the altar,
there used to come sounding through the music of the choir the Christmas chimes
far up in the tower. Some said that the wind rang them, and others that they
were so high that the angels could set them swinging. But for many long years
they had never been heard. It was said that people had been growing less
careful of their gifts for the Christ-child, and that no offering was brought,
great enough to deserve the music of the chimes.
Every Christmas Eve the rich people still crowded to the
altar, each one trying to bring some better gift than any other, without giving
anything that he wanted for himself, and the church was crowded with those who
thought that perhaps the wonderful bells might be heard again. But although the
service was splendid, and the offerings plenty, only the roar of the wind could
be heard, far up in the stone tower.
Now, a number of miles from the city, in a little country
village, where nothing could be seen of the great church but glimpses of the
tower when the weather was fine, lived a boy named Pedro, and his little
brother. They knew very little about the Christmas chimes, but they had heard
of the service in the church on Christmas Eve, and had a secret plan, which
they had often talked over when by themselves, to go see the beautiful
celebration.
“Nobody can guess, Little Brother,” Pedro would say, “all
the fine things there are to see and hear; and I have even heard it said that
the Christ-child sometimes comes down to bless the service. What if we could
see Him?”
The day before Christmas was bitterly cold, with a few
lonely snowflakes flying in the air, and a hard white crust on the ground. Sure
enough, Pedro and Little Brother were able to slip quietly away early in the
afternoon; and although the walking was hard in the frosty air, before
nightfall they had trudged so far, hand in hand, that they saw the lights of
the big city just ahead of them. Indeed, they were about to enter one of the
great gates in the wall that surrounded it, when they saw something dark on the
snow near their path, and stepped aside to look at it.
It was a poor woman, who had fallen just outside the
city, too sick and tired to get in where she might have found shelter. The soft
snow made of a drift a sort of a pillow for her, and she would soon be so sound
asleep, in the wintry air, that no one could ever waken her again. All this
Pedro saw in a moment, and he knelt down beside her and tried to rouse her,
even tugging at her arm a little, as though he would have tried to carry her
away. He turned her face toward him, so he could rub some of the snow on it,
and when he had looked at her silently for a moment he stood up again, and
said:
“It’s no use, Little Brother. You will have to go on
alone.”
“Alone?” cried little Brother. “And you not see the
festival?”
“No,” said Pedro, and he could not keep back a bit of a
choking sound in his throat. “See this poor woman? Her face looks like the
Madonna in the chapel window, and she will freeze to death if nobody cares for
her. Every one has gone to the church now, but when you come back you can bring
some one to help her. I will rub her to keep her from freezing, and perhaps get
her to eat the bun that is left in my pocket.”
“But I can not bear to leave you, and go on alone,” said
Little Brother.
“Both of us need not miss the service,” said Pedro, “and
it had better be I than you. You can easily find your way to the church; and
you must see and hear everything twice, Little Brother—once for you and once
for me. I am sure the Christ-child must know how I should love to come with you
and worship Him; and oh! if you get a chance, Little Brother, to slip up to the
altar without getting in any one’s way, take this little piece of silver of
mine, and lay it down for my offering, when no one is looking. Do not forget
where you have left me, and forgive me for not going with you.”
In this way he hurried Little Brother off to the city,
and winked hard to keep back the tears, as he heard the crunching footsteps
sounding farther and farther away in the twilight. It was pretty hard to lose
the music and splendor of the Christmas celebration that he had been planning
for so long, and spend the time instead in that lonely place in the snow.
The great church was a wonderful place that night. Every
one said that it had never looked so bright and beautiful before. When the
organ played and the thousands of people sang, the walls shook with the sound,
and little Pedro, away outside the city wall, felt the earth tremble around
him.
At the close of the service came the procession with the
offerings to be laid on the altar. Rich men and great men marched proudly up to
lay down their gifts to the Christ-child. Some brought wonderful jewels, some
baskets of gold so heavy they could scarcely carry them down the aisle. A great
writer laid down a book that he had been making for years and years. And last
of all walked the king of the country, hoping with all the rest to win for
himself the chime of the Christmas bells. There went a great murmur through the
church, as the people saw the king take from his head the royal crown, all set
with precious stones and lay it gleaming on the altar, as his offering to the
holy Child. “Surely,” everyone said, “we shall hear the bells now, for nothing
like this has ever happened before.”
But still only the cold old wind was heard in the tower,
and the people shook their heads; and some of them said, as they had before,
that they never really believed the story of the chimes, and doubted if they
ever rang at all.
The procession was over, and the choir began the closing
hymn. Suddenly the organist stopped playing as though he had been shot, and
every one looked at the old minister, who was standing by the altar, holding up
his hand for silence. Not a sound could be heard from any one in the church,
but as all the people strained their ears to listen, there came distinctly,
swinging through the air, the sound of the chimes in the tower. So far away,
and yet so clear the music seemed—so much sweeter were the notes than anything
that had ever been heard before, rising and falling away up there in the sky,
that the people in the church sat there for a moment as still as though
something held each of them by the shoulders. Then they all stood up together
and stared at the altar, to see what great gift had awakened the long-silent
bells.
But all that the nearest of them saw was the childish
figure of Little Brother, who had crept softly down the aisle when no one was
looking, and had laid Pedro’s little piece of silver on the altar.
__________
Why the Chimes Rang was first published in 1909, and the picture at
the top of this post is one of the original illustrations by Mayo Bunker. Both
the story and the illustration are in the public domain because of their age.
