We are still in the period of Christmastide, and it
seemed a good idea to post another short story from that delightful book ‘The
Seven Deadly Virtues and Other Stories’, written by Fr Bernard Basset S.J. in
or about the 1950s. ‘Mrs Peabody’s Present’, emphasises a
particular aspect of the Christmas story, which is recognised by all Christians, but which is
also so easy to overlook.
I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.
***************
Mrs
Peabody’s Present
The quickest and safest way to Mrs Peabody’s
sweet-shop was to cut down the little alley behind the grocer’s and then take
the second turning on the right. There
was another, more respectable route via Warwick Street, but this took longer
and carried with it the risk of being recognised.. Once in the alley one was safe from adult
observation and could study Mrs Peabody’s window at one’s ease.
` Mrs
Peabody’s display always deserved careful attention, for she crammed her window
with every sort of confectionary guaranteed to upset the stomach and satisfy
the taste. With our noses glued to the
glass we could count forty-three different kinds of sweets without squinting,
divided roughly into two classes, those which lasted a long time but tasted of
nothing, and those which went off with a bang and tasted of nothing on earth.
You could buy long strips of liquorice labelled
“Charlie Chaplin’s braces”, or nougat wafers which did in two minutes what a
dentist did in half an hour. Then there
were Sherbert Suckers which supplied a sudden and very satisfying sensation,
but ended in a sore mouth if you went on too long. Treacle toffees and boiled
sweets could be bought for fractions of a penny, and cannon balls, called by a less elegant name, cost only a farthing, though, with a certain sobriety in
sucking, they had been known to last for three hours and a half!
We boys loved Mrs Peabody’s shop. It stood in what the nurses called a
“disreputable district”, and when we were out in a convoy with nurses, prams,
sisters and other children, we were not allowed to loiter but had to zig-zag
by. Though no-one said so explicitly, yet we always felt that Mrs Peabody was
included in the “Lead us not into temptation” of our night prayers. Certainly
she was the personification of wickedness to our small intelligences, and some
of us hinted that she was a witch.
We reckoned her age was well over a hundred, though
Jimmy, who was cautious, plumped for ninety-nine and a bit. Whatever her age,
she was stout, florid and forbidding, for she had wrinkled hands, tin
spectacles and was short of breath.
Although we knew that she was a Catholic and had once seen her at Church
on Sunday, yet we thought that she must be very wicked, and no matter how kind
she was when we popped in with our pennies, we should not have been astonished
if suddenly, with a hideous cackle, she had flown away on a broom.
At Christmastide when all the shops were decorated
with tinsel and holly, Mrs Peabody also had a burst of window dressing; she
washed the glass and swept away the wasps which had fallen into temptation the
previous summer, and had been buried beneath a new consignment of boiled
sweets. New delicacies appeared beneath
lurid labels, and crackers also came if there was room. One Christmas a row of
cardboard cribs stood at the back of the window among the sweets. They were not
very elegant cribs, but you could see Joseph and Mary with the Infant Jesus in
the middle and a palm tree at the back.
I remember this occasion well, for we happened to be
passing while Mrs Peabody’s wrinkled hands were putting the cribs in place. As
luck would have it, the Parker baby, in the last pram but one, had come
unstrapped at that moment, and the whole convoy of children, prams and nurses
came to a halt outside Mrs Peabody’s door. We boys were walking on ahead, and
of course we blessed the Parker baby and began to rub our noses on Mrs
Peabody’s glass. There were the usual squeals of “Oo, look at that nougat” and
“Bet you couldn’t swallow three lumps without chewing”, and then one of the
girls noticed the cribs.
“Look, there’s Bethlehem,” she cried, “and there’s
another and another; see Jesus, Mary and Joseph with a palm tree.”
“There aren’t any shepherds and kings,” rejoined one
of the boys sulkily, “and I don’t want a crib without shepherds, do you?”
By now the Parker baby had been strapped into the
cockpit, and the various nurses were ready to move on.
“Elizabeth, I don’t want to have to tell you again not
to rub your face on that dirty window; Master Henry, it is bad manners to
point. Yes, yes, I can see the Child
Jesus, but we can’t stop any longer, we’re late as it is.”
Off we all moved, but the nurses and governesses, when
they thought we were busy talking nougat, had a few words together on the sly.
“I don’t hold with putting cribs in the window along
with dirty sweets, do you, Miss Philips?”
“No, my dear, I think it’s downright irreverent; what
are we coming to these days?”
That was that, and a few days before Christmas I was
out on some small commission at the grocer’s, and it was only one minute down
the alley and the second turning on the right to Mrs Peabody’s shop. Perhaps I
had persuaded myself that my father would like a nougat wafer for his present,
perhaps I had settled my doubts by an earnest glance at the cribs in the
window; all I can remember is that I was in the shop with my eyes on a box of
chocolates, and with four pennies in my hand. Heavy breathing off-stage
heralded the approach of Mrs Peabody, and I clasped my coppers as Casablanca
might have gripped a floating spar.
“One of these, please,” said I in a faint whisper,
keeping my eyes averted lest Mrs Peabody should cast a spell.
She shuffled across the shop to survey the window,
then looked at my quaking finger to see which way it led.
“One of which, my dear?” she queried, breathing over
the bon-bons, then all at once she smiled and pounced upon a crib.
“There you are, dearie,” said she, “the cave of
Bethlehem for four-pence, and you are a good, pious well-instructed boy to want
a crib with all them sweets about.”
A good, pious, well-instructed boy I may have been,
but I was also greedy, and the sudden danger of losing the chocolates and my
four-pence brought panic to my head.
“Excuse me, please,” said I, “but I wanted a box of
chocolates. I don’t want a crib, because
there aren’t any shepherds, and I don’t hold with putting cribs in the window
along with the sweets. I think it’s downright irreverence.”
Mrs Peabody looked at me and blinked behind her
spectacles, and then she paused and gazed at the crib in her hands. Next she
peeped at the row of cribs in the window as though making up her mind. Slowly,
and perhaps sadly, she reached down for a packet of chocolates, and stood it on
the counter with the rejected crib by its side. I knew now that I had hurt her,
and being kind-hearted like most children, I was anxious to make amends
“Excuse me,” said I, “But I hope that you are not
offended, I only told you what Nurse
Parker said.”.
Mrs Peabody looked at me again and made a clicking
noise with her teeth to denote disapproval of Nurse Parker, and then she picked
up the crib.
“See here, my dear,” said she, pointing to the Child
in the manger, “Who is this?”
“Jesus,” said I promptly, bowing my head in the
approved manner and feeling less afraid.
“What is He doing in the manger?” asked Mrs Peabody
kindly, to which I answered with some hesitation:
“He’s not doing nothing; He’s just waiting for the
shepherds to arrive. You haven’t got any shepherds in your crib, but we’ve got
ever so many on the mantelpiece at home.”
Mrs Peabody smiled.
“Well, dearie,” she replied, “You can’t expect
shepherds and sheep for four-pence, and besides, they don’t matter so very much
anyway. All those shepherds who went to
the cave on the first Christmas, they died hundreds of years ago, didn’t they,
and they are all now enjoying themselves in heaven, as they deserve.”
“Suppose so,” said I, though I’d never before thought
of the lot of the first shepherds, but Mrs Peabody obviously wanted me to
agree,
Mrs Peabody was pleased
“They are all dead,” she continued, “but the Holy
Child is still in the manger, isn’t He? He’s still alive, the same yesterday,
today and for ever, because He’s God.”
She had been bending over the counter, holding the
crib before her, but now she suddenly stood up.
“Run home, dear,” she said, “and take your chocolates,
four-pence, thank you, and you can have the crib without the shepherds as Mrs
Peabody’s Christmas present. There ain’t no shepherds now, they’re all dead and
buried, but He’s still alive and He’s waiting for you. That is why I put a
whole row of cribs in my window, so that all you children, when you peep
through the window, can take the shepherds’ place. There ain’t no shepherds
now, and don’t you forget it, because it now rests with you and me. If we don’t remember Him at Christmas then He
lies alone in the manger just as much as if the first shepherds had not
bothered to come. He’s always the same, He always wants the same love and
affection, but the shepherds change. Each Christmas the chance and the choice
comes to a new crowd of people, and this Christmas, if you and I don’t bother
about Him, then there ain’t no shepherds at all. Now you run home, there’s a
good boy, and enjoy your chocolates; maybe you’re a bit young to twig what old
Mrs Peabody is trying to say. Just take a peek now and again, at old Mrs
Peabody’s present, and remember that if you can’t be bothered, then He’s one
shepherd short. There ain’t no shepherds now, they are all dead and buried, but
He is still living and waiting for me.”
Perhaps Mrs Peabody did cast a spell, for I cannot
otherwise explain how a boy of ten stood so still for seven minutes in a sweet
shop, nor is it usual to remember a lesson or sermon after more than twenty
years. Her shop has gone, her sweets are now sold at double the price in
hygienic wrappers, and Mrs Peabody is with the other shepherds on the eternal
hills. But her point remains and deserves a thought each Christmas, for the
shepherds are gone, but the Child remains and it is our choice now.
“There ain’t no shepherds now and He’s waiting for me,”
is Mrs Peabody’s message, to which the governess replied:
“You wicked boy, you’ve been playing in that
disreputable district: how many times have I told you not to say ‘ain’t’?”
(Ack. ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues and Other Stories’ by
Rev. Bernard Basset S.J.)
