LITMIR.BIZ

      A BURNT CREEK YULETIDE

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      By day the scooped-out clearing that formed Burnt Creek seemed rather bleak. The surrounding jack pines were drooped under a niggardly coat of snow, and the ground was a streaked white across which the Bend-Klamath Road straggled, taking brief respite from the forest. In truth, the first inch of snow in the desert country makes the land resemble nothing so much as a molting hen minus all but tail feathers.

      As darkness closed down and Christmas Eve came, the snow drifted heavier and the kitchen lamp of the solitary crossroads store cast a mellow gleam through the window and upon the ground. Old man Budd, having attended to his night meal, stood on the front porch and watched the air grow dizzy with flakes—quite strange and quite beautiful to this lonesome storekeeper. He struck a match to his pipe and wrapped the Mackinaw tighter about him. The lamplight managed to push its rays through the white flurry and faintly illumine the snow-encrusted branches of the dwarf pines. They looked ever so much like Christmas trees, and Budd, drawing sharply on the pipe, was aware of an old, old memory that would not be brushed aside. It was the sweet and mellow thought of his far-away boyhood home in a Pennsylvania village. On just such an eve as this they would be sleigh riding, and the windows of the neighboring houses would be warm with light and silhouetted with tinseled and glittering trees—pleasant, cheery houses. And he would fall asleep with the utter relaxation of youth in his own feather bed, to wake on Christmas morn with the church bells sounding across the frosty air. He had never cared much for those bells as a boy. Middle age, somehow, made their chimes infinitely peaceful, infinitely poignant.

      He drew at the pipe with harsher strength. All day he had been plagued with depression, and now the night with its weird shadows and white silence caused him to move aimlessly up and down the porch. Emotion did not easily break through his strong, inscrutable face, so he stared at the drifting snow, at the dark outline of the pines, while the church bells of far-off Pennsylvania haunted his brain.

      "Christmas evenin'," he murmured. "Just like another night, only there's a difference. Somethin' wrong with you, old-timer. Too much of your own company, I guess."

      A flurry of snow obscured the pines entirely. Budd had the impression that someone was coming toward him from the Bend-Klamath Road. The impression was verified when horse and rider bulked through the white storm and approached the edge of the porch. Budd moved back. The rider slid from his saddle and under the roofs protection, beating the flakes from his coat and stamping heavy boots against the floor boards. It was entirely too dark to make out features, but the storekeeper, who knew every homesteader and cow hand for fifty miles around, welcomed this unknown visitor gladly. Here was companionship for Christmas Eve.

      "Bad time to be out," he said. "Lead your horse in back to the barn an' I'll throw up a little snack meanwhile. Who is it? My eyes ain't so good as they was once." He stared through the velvet shadows.

      The newcomer leaned against one of the two-by-fours which supported the porch roof. For a moment he said nothing at all. Then a grunt of amusement, which was half a whine and half an essay at contempt, issued from him. "Never could see very well. Dunno your own son, I reckon. Bad egg rolled back to smell up the place for a bit."

      Budd's head jerked up. "Dan?" he challenged.

      "The same. An' I'm in a powerful hurry. Got somethin' to eat?"

      The answer came as an explosion of temper. "Nothin' fer you, my lad! You wore out your welcome long ago! I told you to git away an' stay! You're no son of mine. Git off this porch!" He finished the declaration with a bellow, striding forward with a forbidding arm. The younger man was but a dwarf in front of the storekeeper's massive bulk and seemed even smaller when he huddled back against the two-by-four.

      "Aw, cut it out," he growled, and again a whine tinged his words. "I didn't come because I wanted. They're after me, an' I ain't had a bite of grub since mornin'. Gimme that an' I'll leave right off."

      "In trouble again, huh? Like a yellow dog you run for cover with your tail atween your legs. Well, I've given you my last boost. Ain't goin' to fish you out of any more scrapes. You made your bed. Now you sleep in it!"

      "It wasn't my fault this time," protested his son. "The gang did it an' framed me! Honest...I'm clean. They framed me, I tell you. Sheriffs on the way here, too! Lemme have a bite of something and a cup of hot coffee! Fer heaven's sake, don't let a man freeze out here!"

      Budd dropped his arm. Here was his wayward son come back to bring him sorrow on Christmas Eve. The boy had left five years before, choosing wilder company in spite of all that Budd might do to dissuade him. And so, after many bitter quarrels and much forgiveness, he had disowned him, had closed the last sober, belated chapter of what had once been—twenty-five years back—bright romance. No one ever mentioned Budd's son in his presence.

      The younger man shifted, whimpering. "Aw, lemme in. It wasn't my fault. And I ain't askin' for protection. Just gimme something to eat, and I'll beat it." The apparent hopelessness of his request turned him to childish rage. "Who wants your protection, anyhow!" he shouted. "I don't! Don't want a thing you can give me! It's your fault. Maybe if you'd handled me like a white man when I was a kid, I'd been decent!"

      All of a sudden those church bells began to ring again in the storekeeper's ear. Maybe the kid was right. Maybe it was partly his fault. It takes a mother to bring up children, and the kid had never had a mother but had grown piecemeal in the pines and on the desert while he, Budd, strove to make a living from the harsh land. This was Christmas. What was Christmas for but the giving of gifts? Not just packages wrapped in white tissue paper but other things. So the storekeeper, who knew his son to be worthless yet wished to believe there was in him a redeeming spark, moved aside.

      "All right, Danny," he said in a gentler tone. "Go in."

      The younger man brushed by, teeth chattering, and ran to the stove. "Shut the door!" he ordered sharply. "Don't be a fool! Sheriff might be lookin' from the road right now!"

      Budd did as requested and walked into the kitchen. When his son turned around and faced the lamplight, the store-keeper was startled by the change he saw. Once there had been a certain youthfulness on Danny's face, a certain handsomeness to hide the petulant mouth and the greedy eyes. It was no longer present. An unwholesome wisdom was imprinted on the face now, broken by lines of reckless living. The mouth which formerly had curved

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