He woke suddenly and completely. It was four o'clock, the hour   at  which his father had always called him to get up and help with the  milking.   Strange how the habits of his youth clung to him still! Fifty  years ago, and his   father had been dead for thirty years, and yet he  waked at four o'clock in the   morning. He had trained himself to turn  over and go to sleep, but this morning   it was Christmas, he did not  try to sleep.
Why did he feel so awake   tonight? He slipped back  in time, as he did so easily nowadays. He was fifteen   years old and  still on his father's farm. He loved his father. He had not known   it  until one day a few days before Christmas, when he had overheard what  his   father was saying to his mother.
"Mary, I hate to call Rob in the   mornings. He's growing so fast and he  needs his sleep. If you could see how he   sleeps when I go in to wake  him up! I wish I could manage alone."
"Well, you can't, Adam." His mother's voice was brisk. "Besides, he isn't a   child anymore. It's time he tok his turn."
"Yes," his father said slowly.   "But I sure do hate to wake him."
When he heard these words, something in   him spoke:  his father loved him! He had never thought of that before, taking for    granted the tie of their blood. Neither his father nor his mother  talked about   loving their children--they had no time for such things.  There was always so   much to do on the farm.
Now that he knew his father loved him, there   would  be no loitering in the mornings and having to be called again. He got  up   after that, stumbling blindly in his sleep, and pulled on his  clothes, his eyes   shut, but he got up.
And then on the night before Christmas, that year    when he was fifteen, he lay for a few minutes thinking about the next  day. They   were poor, and most of the excitement was in the turkey they  had raised   themselves and mince pies his mother made. His sisters  sewed presents and his   mother and father always bought him something  he needed, not only a warm jacket,   maybe, but something more, such as a  book. And he saved and bought them each   something, too.
He wished, that Christmas when he was fifteen, he had a better present  for his   father. As usual he had gone to the ten-cent store and bought a  tie. It had   semed nice enough until he lay thinking the night before  Christmas. He looked   out of his attic window, the stars were bright.
"Dad," he had once asked   when he was a little boy, "What is a stable?"
"It's just a barn," his   father had replied, "like ours."
Then Jesus had been born in a barn, and   to a barn the shepherds had come...
The thought struck him like a silver   dagger. Why  should he not give his father a special gift too, out there in the    barn? He could get up early, earlier than four o'clock, and he could  creep into   the barn and get all the milking done. He'd do it alone,  milk and clean up, and   then when his father went in to start the  milking he'd see it all done. And he   would know who had done it. He  laughed to himself as he gazed at the stars. It   was what he would do,  and he musn't sleep too sound.
He must have waked   twenty times, scratching a  match to look each time to look at his old watch --   midnight, and half  past one, and then two o'clock.
At a quarter to three   he got up and put on his  clothes. He crept downstairs, careful of the creaky   boards, and let  himself out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and surprised. It   was  early for them, too.
He had never milked all alone before, but it    seemed almost easy. He kept thinking about his father's surprise. His  father   would come in and get him, saying that he would get things  started while Rob was   getting dressed. He'd go to the barn, open the  door, and then he'd go get the   two big empty milk cans. But they  wouldn't be waiting or empty, they'd be   standing in the milk-house,  filled.
"What the--," he could hear his   father exclaiming.
He smiled and milked steadily, two strong streams   rushing into the pail, frothing and fragrant.
The task went more easily   than he had ever known  it to go before. Milking for once was not a chore. It was   something  else, a gift to his father who loved him. He finished, the two milk    cans were full, and he covered them and closed the milk-house door  carefully,   making sure of the latch.
Back in his room he had only a minute to pull   off  his clothes in the darkness and jump into bed, for he heard his father  up.   He put the covers over his head to silence his quick breathing.  The door   opened.
"Rob!" His father called. "We have to get up, son, even if it is   Christmas."
"Aw-right," he said sleepily.
The door closed and he   lay still, laughing to  himself. In just a few minutes his father would know. His   dancing  heart was ready to jump from his body.
The minutes were endless   -- ten, fifteen, he did  not know how many -- and he heard his father's footsteps   again. The  door opened and he lay still.
"Rob!"
"Yes,   Dad--"
His father was laughing, a queer sobbing sort of   laugh.
"Thought you'd fool me, did you?" His father was  standing by his   bed, feeling for him, pulling away the cover.
"It's for Christmas,   Dad!"
He found his father and clutched him in a great hug.  He felt his   father's arms go around him. It was dark and they could  not see each other's   faces.
"Son, I thank you. Nobody ever did a nicer thing--"
"Oh,   Dad, I want you to know -- I do want to be  god!" The words broke from him of   their own will. He did not know what  to say. His heart was bursting with   love.
He got up and pulled on his clothes again and they  went down to the   Christmas tree. Oh what a Christmas, and how his  heart had nearly burst again   with shyness and pride as his father told  his mother and made the younger   children listen about how he, Rob,  had got up all by himself.
"The best   Christmas gift I ever had, and I'll  remember it, son every year on Christmas   morning, so long as I live."
They had both remembered it, and now that   his  father was dead, he remembered it alone: that blessed Christmas dawn  when,   alone with the cows in the barn, he had made his first gift of  true   love.
This Christmas he wanted to write a card to his wife  and tell her   how much he loved her, it had been a long time since he  had really told her,   although he loved her in a very special way, much  more than he ever had when   they were young. He had been fortunate  that she had loved him. Ah, that was the   true joy of life, the ability  to love. Love was still alive in him, it still   was.
It occured to him suddenly that it was alive because  long ago it had   been born in him when he knew his father loved him.  That was it: Love alone   could awaken lovve. And he ccould give the  gift again and again.This morning,   this blessed Christmas morning, he  would give it to his beloved wife. He could   write it down in a letter  for her to read and keep forever. He went to his desk   and began his  love letter to his wife: My dearest love...
Such a happy,   happy Christmas!
                       THE END