The Candlesticks

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 72, 18 December 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Candlesticks

A Christmas story which shows that the love of “old things" is not confined to the old.

By

H.B.

Mrs. Lane was polishing the sixth all brass candlestick with ashes from the grate. “Maybe it’s the last Christmas they’ll be used,” she sighed. “For more than a hundred years they’ve been lit on Christmas eve and Christmas they’ll be used,” she sighed. “For on the mantelshelf, and two on the cupboards. Like as not there’ll be electric light in the old place next year. Nasty, dangerous contraption I Oh, maybe the world’s clever than when we was young, Joe. Maybe it is. Life seemed simpler then, didn’t it? So long as we knew our duties, an’ felt ashamed when we neglected ’em, we was happy enough. We didn’t always go seeking for things others had got an’ we hadn’t. We didn’t feel aggrieved an’ - cheated of our rights — 'cept when it rained on the day of the church bazaar, or a picnic, or when we were goin’ to a dance in somebody’s barn. All the talk to-day is of new things, an’ of the world’s owin’ us this, an’ that, an’ the other. Seems to me the world owes us just what we can get out of it by hard work. Settin’ back an’ screechin’ for our rights is mighty like plain loafin’.” Mr. Lane grunted. He puffed a dark cloud from his pipe and spat dexterously into a flat dish of sand set ready beside his chair. His blue eyes twinkled beneath an overhanging grey thatch of eyebrow. “Well, mother, so long as you was allowed a gossip now and agin, with a spicy bit o’ scandal for seasonin’—an’ so long’s you got a new frock an’ bonnet when you felt you needed ’em, you was never -ne to grumble. Maybe Jim’s wife’ll be the same. I reckon us folks got quite as much out o’ life makin’ do with what come natural to us as them' does that makes such a hullabaloo wantin’ things they can’t have, an’ maybe wouldn’t like if they got ’em. I used to enjoy a gallop on a good horse quite as much as they can enjoy careerin’ over the country raisin’ dust with their motor-cars. We got just as much fun but of our dances as they does with the glitter and flummery o’ their big balls. Maybe Jim’s wife’ll learn that from us. Recollec’ Bill Jones’s Chris’mas darnce, Mother?” She giggled girlishly. “Am I ever like to forget it while I keep me wits, Joe? Lor,’ what with bakin’ an’ helpin’ make creams an’ jellies, I was near run off me feet. Remember how we sat out dances on the wood ’eap, an’ talked love nonsense back of the cowhouse? I can see the babbies now, all wrapped in their blankets an’ sleepin’ snug as bugs in rugs in the straw while their mammies and daddies danced. Sneezin’ their little heads off, too, when the dust rose till you could scarce see the candles through the fog. I never heard as any of ’em was a mite the worse for it. Nowadays not a speck o’ dust must come anigh em’ I spect Jim’s wife’ll have fool ideas like that. Look here—these old sticks over a hundred years old, an’ never a speck nor scratch. They won’t be kep’ like that when she gets hold of 'em. She won’t need to touch ’em while I’ve got strength—or ib pewter jug, or the silver tea caddy that was sent from England to great-gran, or the green chaney’s great-gran’pa fetched from China, or any o’ the old rubbish. P’raps she’ll want to sell ’em to pay for havin’ the electric light fetched over from the main road. Oh, I can’t abear the thought o’ ’em goin’ out of this house, where they’ve been thought such a lot of. I feel as if I couldn’t lie quiet in me grave. The old cedar table, there, an‘ the desk that came from India so long ago that nobody can say for sure who fetched it.”

“Aren’t you lettin’ yourself get to idislike the girl 'fore you’ve seen her, mother? Recollec’ she’s our Jim's wife. Maybe she’ll want new things here. You can’t hold the world back. It’s got to keep spinnin’ on wherever it’s goin.’ Just you give the girl a hearty welcome, an’ your best Christmas cookin,’ an’ if I know anything about Jim, an’ the one he’s likely to choose, you wont need to bother. Jim’s wife! Lor’ it seems only a few months ago you jvas patchin’ his little pants.” She dusted a pair of tall vases with tinkling lustres, and replaced them beside a dainty china shepherd and shepherdess. “I’m downright scared of her,” she admitted. “Molly Burns would have liked our Jim, and she’s a rale nice young thing. She’d have looked after me things—because o’ me. not for any rale likin’ for them. Not like that Edna. You’d never take them two for sisters. Edna turns up her nose at our canvas ceilings, and had the cheek to ask me why we didn’t set fire to the old place an’ all that’s in it, an’ get new. I’d like to smack her—rale hard. Canvas ceilings was good enough for her folks back to a hundred years. She get them ideas in town, Joe —an’ she wasn’t there very long. Jim’s wife’s lived in town all her days. I reckon she’ll sneer at us, an’ our plain ways.” He shook his head. “Jim’d never choose one o’ that kind.” “Maybe Jim never had a say. Maybe she done the choosin’, seein’ him so fine and big, an’ knowin’ him not so badly off. Maybe he’ll take to seein’ us through her eyes, an’ be ashamed of us, too."

He muttered, “Don't talk nonsense, mother. Give me some hot water. Maybe I’d better go an’ shave.”

“You never shave on a Tuesday,” she snapped.

He eyed her. sternly. “Why shouldn’t I shave on Christmas Eve?” Her wrinkled lips quivered, tears filled her eyes. “I believe I’m jealous or her,” she said. “God forgive me for a wicked woman. Shall I put on me second best frock? It won’t get spotted dishin’ up if I roll me big apron round me.” He reflected. “No. It’ll make her feel like company if we dress up for her. She’s cornin’ home, mother. She’s our Jim’s wife, cornin’ home at Christmas.”

The girl shivered , as the car rushed along the bush roads. She closed her eyes that she might not see the trees, all ghostly in the twilight. She wanted to put her fingers in her ears to shut out the strange'sounds. The loneliness weighed her down. She felt that terror lurked behind the trees, and in the deep black gullies where little creeks tinkled after last night’s rain. The cry of a mopoke, the croaking of a dismal frog made her- catch her breath. The big young man beside her calmly smoked his pipe as he drove the car, for the road was as familiar

to him as Collins Street was to her. Once lie looked down at her and smiled. “Cold and tired, little girl?” “No, Jim—not very. But it's all so strange.” ••Strange?” “No people—no houses. The dark and the quiet.” “Oh, you’ll soon get used to that,” he assured her. “I expect mother’s thinking we’re lost. That blow-out has made us late. Cheer up, sweetheart. There'll be a Christmas eve tea waiting that’ll put fresh life into us.” Christmas eve. All the shops would be blazing with lights. People would be hurrying and scurrying and rushing and bustling. “Jim, what if your people don’t like me?” She was half afraid to break that heavy, brooding silence.

“They’ll like you, my dear.” “They’ll think me ignorant and stupid. Jim, you’ll not let them turn you against me, if I make lots of mistakes?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, dear,” he laughed. She moved restlessly. What lay before her there in the darkness? She had lived all her life in a cramped suburban villa, and sometimes her mother and father did not see eye to eve in certain matters. The house was intolerable then. When Jim had come, and Jim had loved her, she had hoped to get away from people —to be alone with Jim. But Jim’s mother and father owned the farm, not Jim, and she must share it with them. What was their home like? She had passed so many farm houses to-day—little weatherboard places, shabby, and needing paint. She could imagine the cheapness within the doors. She would not have cared so much but for Jim’s mother. She could have made her own home pretty, and dainty. She felt that she hated Jim’s mother—that

she must come between them. “I'm jolly glad I put on my prettiest frock,” she told herself. “It’ll show the old tiling I’m not to be sat upon.” The lamps blazed the track before them. A dog barked afar off—a solitary, mournful note. It came nearer, ami Jim cried, “Sandy! Sandy, boy!” and the bark changed its tone to one of gay welcome. An open kitchen doorway, with firelight streaming out, a glimpse of a table spread with a redbordered white cloth, the glitter of brass amid the tea things. They stopped before the door, and Jim lifted her-out, “Here she is, dad!” he cried. “Why, where’s mum?”

Dad was grizzled and sunburnt, but his eyes had a merry twinkle. He kissed his son’s wife —she was clinging very close to Jim. “Welcome home, my dear,” he said. “Where’s mother? Well, she was here a minute, ago—l reckon she’s hidin’ in some corner, too shy to come an’ see her new daughter. Come along in, my dear, Mo-ther!” Nell stood in the doorway entranced. “Oh, what a lovely kitchen! Jim, why didn’t you tell me what home was like? Those brass candlesticks! they’re treasures ! And a real pewter jug!” “Nell's as keen on old stuff as mum is,” Jim laughed. “Ah, here’s mum! See wh’at a pretty Christmas gift I’ve brought home to you, mum. Here’s Nell going daft over your-candle sticks.”

The mother was staring at the girl. She held out both hands and drew her close and kissed her. “You like old things?” she whispered. "I’m glad—oh, I’m glad! Why, what a slip of a thing you’ve married, son! And she likes my old candlesticks! Maybe, in time, she’ll like old dad and me, too. I’ve lots more old things to show you, my dear. There’s a desk, and a table. They’ll be yours and Jim’s some day.

Come and see the parlour, quick, while Jim carries in the luggage.” The girl’s arm was about the woman’s shoulders when they left the room together.—“ Manchester Guar-