And at eight o’clock – at eight o’clock Dyhema’s daughter was to come here with her son. She married an artist, a musician, against my will. She is dead for me! If you were really the Christ Child you would know that ten years ago she married against my will. I ask for love! You said that you did everything you could? What about your daughter?” I cannot give all my money away, or anything like that. But as far as I was able I did what I could. “I know that I am a sinner before God,” said Dyhema. Sometimes it is a sick child, or a poor man, or a poor woman, waiting to be helped, by you. Somewhere every year a child is born, poor and without clothes, waiting to be helped, by you. I am the Christ Child! It was not long, long ago, in the days of Augustus. “Wrong?” Farmer Dyhema took the Bible which was lying near him. ‘In the days of the Emperor Augustus… ’” Oh, if you only knew the Christmas story!” And all these gifts were given, not out of love for others, but only out of love to yourself, so that you can sit here, content and satisfied with yourself. Yet how small these gifts are if you think of the thousands of guilders which you earned this year. “You are like a king on a throne who gives little presents to all his people. “I know it all,” said the Christ Child, and he sighed. “Yes,” said the farmer again, “and five hundred guilders for the poor people in the village and wherever there are sick people, I send my servants to bring them a parcel.” “I know,” said the Christ Child, “and two hundred and fifty guilders for the Sunday School celebration.” I gave five hundred guilders for the Christmas celebration in the church.” The Christ Child sat down on a chair, opposite Dyhema, near the fire. “Who are you, little boy, and how did you come in?” “Good evening, Dyhema,” he said, in his beautiful voice.ĭyhema looked, and looked again. Nobody had heard him coming nobody had seen him, but suddenly he was there. And so at once the Christ Child was in the room of the old farmer. What could he do? But when God says, “It is time,” then it is time. It is time now.”Īs the Christ Child was walking through the snow, he thought this over. It has been closed and hard for too long. When God had told him that, he had said, “But his heart is not at all open.” But God had only said, “Go. One thing had still to be done: to go to the old farmer, Dyhema. The whole day the Christ Child had been very busy. They think about their lives, and how things have turned out wrong. People think of their youth, how nice Christmas was at home. Christmas is his time, for then the hearts of people open, and that is what the Christ Child needs: open hearts. The snow is very deep.” Dyhema looked at the chessboard with longing eyes.īut somebody was coming! The Christ Child! When the servant had gone, Dyhema stood up and looked out of the window. How good the harvest had been this year! What an important man he was in the village! When he walked through the streets they took their hats off as he passed. He was always alone, thinking about himself. But this Christmas he was not thinking of his wife. He was the best farmer, the richest farmer, the best chess player and he was honest and righteous, too. There was nobody in the village who was as rich as he was. There was nobody in the village who could play as well as he could. Every Sunday evening the minister came to play chess with the old farmer, and also at Christmastime. All the chessmen stood in their right places, four rows on the white and black squares of the board. It will make a better harvest next year, he thought. He was sitting near the open fire in his easy chair. Old Farmer Dyhema had seen the snow coming down. They covered his fields, already plowed up for the next sowing they covered his huge barns, full of hay or corn they covered the yard, the big stable, and the house. Thousands – millions – of snowflakes came out of the sky and slowly covered the little village where Farmer Dyhema lived. The whole day a cold wind had been blowing and now it had started to snow.
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