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This is the story of the Littlest Jingle Bell. Follow along with me, Gentle Reader, and when you hear the tiny tinkle of the jingle bell, thus: [sound of the most delicate tink-tink], you'll know to turn the page. Oh -- should this narrative become too saccharine, please feel free to throw up in the barf bag provided with this book.
Actually, if you're worried about that saccharine business, you can relax: I will be mixing vinegar in amongst the sugar through the use of an alternative narrator. I'll annotate this warm little tale with asides which will serve as a sort of cold douche to balance off its excesses.
Anyway, to begin our tale:
Once upon a time, there lived a jingle bell. He was the tiniest jingle bell in all the world, and for that reason he was called 'the Littlest Jingle Bell'. [tink-tink]
Well, there it is in the opening lines - can you sense it? It's called anthropomorphization - the endowment of a non-human object with human characteristics. There are all sorts of clues that leap out at us: the juxtaposition of 'jingle bell' with 'lived'; the 'he' (how do you tell the gender of a sleigh bell?); the words 'tiniest' and 'littlest' (rather than 'smallest'), which are hyper-precious terms used for living things to make them endearing; etc.
Actually, the anthropomorphizing began right at the start with those first four words. I'll show their power by juxtaposing them with the utterly prosaic - the blandest of scientific entities in the blandest prose:
'Once upon a time there was a hydrogen atom. It was the smallest atom in the Periodic Table. That is why...'
We can't escape its clutches - those words arouse our expectations: there will be a story connected to that woeful atom! (Most likely it will be picked on by the other atoms for being so small and puny. 'And then one day he met an oxygen atom. It was a match made in heaven, and when the match was lit...')
Ah well. I state all this to let the author know that they aren't getting away with anything here. Besides, an animate jingle bell will be the least of our problems!
He had one fervent wish: he wanted to be one of the bells on Santa's sleigh. [tink-tink]
A sleigh bell that has human characteristics? Why not! After all, he already has a mouth, a tongue, and a palate (a cleft one at that.) Why not go the rest of the way and, god-like, breathe life into this poor little entity. And by doing this we will endow him with some essential features of the human condition: a sense of identity, and a longing for meaning. The best thing about this little being is that it - er, he - is low maintenance: he doesn't need to be fed (so: no poop to clean up), and he can't complain aloud (thus, we don't have to console him.)
I'm not even going to bother getting into the question of Santa's existence here!
But can you tell where this story is headed? Is there any doubt in your mind?
The Littlest Jingle Bell lived in the quaint little village of Medford in Massachusetts. [tink-tink]
There are some errors in the above account. First off, Medford, Massachusetts is a city, not a village. Secondly, it is fairly large. And, most decidedly, it ain't quaint. (Barring these disclaimers, the passage is correct as written.) It's square is narrow and congested, with rough pavements that are either being repaired or in need of repair. And the parking problem for any thriving business like a Jingle Bell Shop would be horrendous!
What about the past? Well, in the 19th century Medford was noted for two industries: distilling rum, and building clipper ships. So it must have been a pretty rough place in James Pierpont's day.
Now, Medford is merely prosaic.
(Still, there are at least two pleasing vistas in Medford. One can be seen from the Winthrop Street bridge, with the Mystic River meandering through meadowland in the foreground, and the spires of St. Joseph's, Richardson's Grace Episcopal, and John Pierpont's Unitarian churches towering above the trees in the background (though, truth to tell, Pierpont's church was a different building on that site.) The other vista, the green ornate wrought-iron foot bridge reflected in the Mystic in the center of town, can be spotted from the Main Street bridge.
From either of these vantage points, one can pinch oneself and believe that Medford is, in fact, 'a quaint little village'.)
Medford is the place where 'Jingle Bells' was written many years ago by James Pierpont. [tink-tink]
That James Pierpont wrote 'Jingle Bells' (notice that I am confident that this ditty is universally known) is an undisputed fact. As to the Medford birth of that song, I shall let the reader decide from the following salient details of his life:
1822: James Pierpont born. His father was an abolitionist Unitarian minister in Boston.
1836: Runs away to sea at age 14.
1845: Returns. Marries, has two children.
1849: Father becomes minister at Medford Unitarian Church. James leaves wife and kids in the care of his father and ships off to California to cash in on Gold Rush.
1850: James's business burns in San Francisco. He returns to Medford (via Cape Horn, of course.)
1851 (We are now treading a thin line between fact and legend here. I quote here from a history online): 'James Pierpont goes to the boarding house of Mrs. Otis Waterman, who let him play a piano there belonging to William Webber, a Medford music teacher.' (We should be most suspicious when histories start getting this specific!) 'Mrs. Waterman owned the Seccomb Boardinghouse, which became better known as the Simpson tavern' (more James's sort of place?) 'and was eventually torn down. After he had played the piece for her, Mrs. Waterman declared that it was a very merry little jingle.' (Ha - the very word to inspire the lyrics!) 'James then wrote the lyrics about the one-horse open sleighs - also known as 'cutters' - that young men raced on the one-mile route from Medford to Malden squares.'
Does it not seem fairly clear that 'Jingle Bells' had its genesis in Medford? Do you have any doubt? What, you want proof - letters, diaries and the like? O ye of little faith!
1853: He goes with his brother John (also a Unitarian minister) to Savannah, Georgia, where James serves as organist and music director in John's church. His wife and children are again left behind with his father. James has his first songs published in Boston, including 'The Colored Coquette' (should we lament that it is lost?) and 'Wait, Lady, Wait' (no doubt dedicated to his wife.)
1856: Tired of waiting, his wife dies.
1857: James marries a woman with whom he had already had a child three years earlier. 'One Horse Open Sleigh' (the title is later changed to 'Jingle Bells, or The One Horse Open Sleigh') is published in Boston. It does not sell well in either edition.
1860: The Unitarian Church in Savannah closes due to its abolitionist leanings. James's brother returns to the North. James, however, stays in Savannah.
1861: James Pierpont volunteers in the Confederate Army (even as his father serves as a chaplain in the Union army.) But you need not fear for his life: he served as a company clerk. He also wrote music for the Confederacy, including 'Conquer or Die'. (Notice how easily certain composers, safe from the fray, can call on others to give up their lives!)
1866: 'James moves his family to Valdosta, Georgia, where he taught music and, we are told, was involved in a local scandal...'
...and so on. He is rather - interesting - isn't he (even Michael McGlynn, the present Mayor of Medford, called him 'a bit of a rogue.') And it seems that Savannah has sought to put forth a rival claim to Medford's as to the origin of 'Jingle Bells'. Lacking more concrete evidence, we will never know for sure which town to give the credit to - which doesn't stop us from trumpeting Medford. After all, it hath the virtue of convenience!
But here is a question each of us can answer individually: Which would you rather be, a successful man who is forgotten not long after he dies? Or a bit of a scoundrel who does a bunch of things not very well, but who is remembered forever after his death for a song everyone loves to sing? Would you not perhaps opt for a tiny bit of immortality?
He lived with lots of other jingle bells in the Jingle Bell Shop where he was born. [tink-tink]
As a resident of Medford I have long harbored a desire to open a so-called Jingle Bell Shop as near to the (supposed) site of the composition of 'Jingle Bells' as possible. It would be a family affair, I reasoned: my mother-in-law could write and illustrate books on 'Jingle Bells' and 'Over the River and Through the Woods' (another Medford ditty); my brother-in law could act as the maitre d' up front; while I would labor in the back forging (or is it casting?) the various jingle bells to be sold (including sterling silver ones for our high-end customers.) Items in this noble emporium (or would it be a tourist trap?) would be a bit on the expensive side; but the customer would be mollified by receiving with each purchase a Certificate of Authenticity which testified to the fact that the sleigh bells so bought were in fact acquired at that venerable Shop.
Well, my brainchild never reached fruition: there is no Jingle Bell Shop in Medford (a waste of a marvelous business opportunity, in my view.) But let us for a moment try to imagine bringing into existence such an entity.
The site (sorry - alleged site) of the composition of 'Jingle Bells' in Medford (marked by a plaque) is on High Street just a few doors away from the square. An office building fills up the whole block, and its individual stores have been renovated in the cold blandness of steel and tinted glass. So if we would want the Jingle Bell Shop on the very sacred site of composition (and of course authenticity is our goal whenever possible), all that steel and glass would have to be torn out. And in its place would be something that would appear to be as Old and Venerable as the famous ditty itself.
The inside walls and shelves and floors would be built of old wood which had been left to weather outdoors for a long time. Worm holes could then be interpolated into the boards. Spiders would have to be imported, the better to spin their webs between ancient-looking beams. Dust would be blown into the back rooms. Mildew would be cultivated in special petri dishes and then introduced into the walls. In short, a sort of faux Old Curiosity Shop - totally contrived but then, paradoxically, genuine.
There would be paned windows on the front of the Jingle Bell Shop. Would these have fake ice crystals painted on them? Bite your tongue! The window casement would be constructed of refrigeration coils. So the ice on the windows would be real crystals all year round. The only bizarre thing about this would be that in the summer the ice would form on the (air conditioned) inside of the panes.
There would be, of course, only one Jingle Bell Shop: it would be irreproducible, utterly unique. (True, eventually we might have some vague plans to open a sister Jingle Bell Shop in Savannah, Georgia somewhere down the line. But that, too, would be unique, one-of-a-kind, irreproducible. And: it would double our revenue!)
At night, after the people had left, all the jingle bells would gather around James Pierpont's piano and sing 'Jingle Bells.' [tink-tink]
I have no doubts that this would make for a horrid tintinnabulation! For jingle bells have little resonance and no real pitch, although I assume they do have a slight relative pitch dependent on their size. (Let us hope they have a rhythmic sense!) So using the word 'sing' here is rather an excrescence on the normal understanding of the word. (Another thing: if bells shake and there is no one there to hear them...)
As for that piano:
Halfway into the Jingle Bell Shop would be the so-called Tunesmith's Corner. There would be a fireplace, of course, with a cheerful fire going. (NB: Why are fires in fireplaces always 'cheerful'? Why not 'abstracted' or 'moody' or even 'cantankerously spiteful'?) Near the fireside would be an old upright piano (Pierpont's? Who knows. But it would 'become' his by virtue of the 'Law of Juxtaposition'), upon which would sit a piece of manuscript paper (artificially aged, like the rest of the establishment.) And upon that manuscript paper would be inscribed (by me) the opening of the famous ditty. It would be as if the composer had just been there in the act of composition.
The first six notes, of course, are all the same. And what, pray, might be those opening words scrawled on that ancient-looking parchment? It seems a bit facile and obvious to put the actual finished words there. Why not show what very well might have been an initial inspiration:
'Jangle bells, jangle bells...'
It does grate a bit, doesn't it. But, it must be admitted, the germ of the central idea is there. Once that opening is corrected, he might have proceeded thus:
'Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all to bed!'
Do you see? No doubt his first impulse was to rhyme this with 'sled'. And so originally he sought to sing about the joys of sledding (and maybe bedding too!)
Well, whatever. The important thing is to have something on that damn piece of pseudo-old manuscript paper!
It would be insinuated that this was the very spot where 'Jingle Bells' was written. And who is to say it isn't? (This is an example of what I call 'seizing the historical perspective': state your own history first, thereby putting everyone else in the position of having to disprove it - usually an all-but-impossible enterprise.)
The Littlest Jingle Bell lived in the dusty back room of the Jingle Bell Shop with other jingle bells that were odd and all but forgotten.
The word 'odd' is intriguing, isn't it.
There would be two rooms in that venerable Shop. These correspond to the Ego and the Id in Freudian psychology.
The front room, well-lighted and cheerful (that fire!), would contain everything desirable relating to jingle bells. There would be beautifully bound books with handsome illustrations on vellum paper. There would be large glittering brass and silver jingle bells in cherry presentation cases lined with green felt; and other smaller ones arranged in careful size gradations on oiled leather harnesses. All the jingle bells would have 'JBS' elegantly engraved on them. Of course there would be the Tunesmith's Corner, subtlely sanctified by using deep cranberry-hued velvet ropes to set it apart (as Mozart's fortepiano is in Salzburg.)
The back room, by contrast, would be dark and hot and musty. On one side would be the furnace in which the various jingle bells are cast. There would be tables for finish work and the like. On the other side would be various shelves containing the widest variety of finished jingle bells to be found anywhere.
Now once it is established what exactly is to be produced, any business like this one reaches a steady state wherein one's activity is in the main devoted to the mere replenishment of what is sold. Is it conceivable, then, that this business might become a bit boring to its owner after awhile? This boredom would have front- and back-room implications.
In the back room I would begin to experiment with size and shape. Could I turn out an oblong jingle bell? A double one with two jinglets? One with undulations? I would challenge myself to produce the largest jingle bell in the world; and the smallest (no doubt the latter would give 'birth' to the Littlest Jingle Bell.) In short, the back room would contain all the - extremes (I was tempted to say 'freaks', but desisted) - of the jingle bell world. (It also was a far more interesting place than the front room, which relied in the main on dazzle and glitter.)
In that front room, boredom might cause me to begin to stretch the truth a bit about what I purported to sell. I might, for example, feign the title of restless traveler (although in truth I hate traveling) in search of unusually engaging sleigh bells. In particular, I could pretend to seek those of unique importance in history: Bells from the sleigh Napoleon used as he fled Moscow! Bells from the horses of the hussars who rode the Charge of the Light Brigade! Hell, the original bells from that Medford One-Horse Open Sleigh immortalized by James PIerpont!
(What, you are skeptical that I could find such bells? So am I, frankly! Where potential fraud is involved, no matter how kindly one's intentions, one cannot be too careful. After all, a lawsuit against The Jingle Bell Shop would cast an unfavorable light over the venerable Certificate of Authenticity, and then where would we be? No -- better to undertake all this by allusion, as it were: we could speak of bells 'similar to' those used by Napoleon; bells 'of the sort' found in the famous Charge; and even (I realize I'm cutting it rather closely here) 'the very jingle bell sounds heard by James Pierpont as he was sitting down to write his famous ditty.')
(See how careful I am? Sleigh bells, of course, can be easily tested for their age. But how could the experts carbon-date a sound? They can't, of course!)
(Well, and why not nail down a connection by juxtaposition viz.: 'Napoleon Bells'? If someone questions this, I could reply indignantly as one whose honour has been impugned, “I didn't say 'Napoleon's Bells'!”)
Is boredom at the root of all creativity?
It is Christmas Eve night, and it is snowing in the village of Medford. The harness of brass sleigh bells on the door jangles merrily and Santa himself enters the Jingle Bell Shop. [tink-tink]
Yes, let's cut to the chase: it is snowing in Medford. The sleigh is sitting out in front of The Jingle Bell Shop (let us hope there is not a fire hydrant there!) The reindeer are pawing the snow (and the loose asphalt), impatient to be on their way. And Santa is fiddling around in a bell shop. (When the owner's wife rushes to the back room to tell her husband the exciting news as to their visitor, he replies irately, 'I don't care who it is, we should have closed half an hour ago!') Perhaps Santa had just had a double-cappuccino at the Bestsellers Bookstore Cafe (itself a Medford anomaly) across the street. Certainly he needs the caffeine; and he cannot start his deliveries until everyone is in bed fast asleep. So he has some time to kill.
But why that store in that town? Is he really just wasting time, or does he have a nobler motive for being there?
Unfortunately, the original manuscript of the children's story breaks off here, and so we will never know for sure what the author intended.
I can just feel the ire of my readers bearing down on me, accusing me of something like contrivance in all of this. So I would just like to reassure everyone on this point: I am merely the editor of this petit tome - don't shoot the messenger!
At the same time I feel an obligation to bring this story to a fitting resolution. But what is 'fitting?' (Are the ones that don't quite 'fit' the most interesting?)
Actually there are many possible endings for this tale, but most are anticlimactic. Santa stands at the door, gazes around for a few seconds, then leaves. Perhaps he is panicked as to the time. Maybe he's sick of jingle bells. Maybe he's just plain sick and throws up in the gutter.
If he does decide to enter the shop, he could be seduced by the glitter and extravagance of the front room, so that he never enters the back room at all. He could be bored (how many Christmas Eves has he taken this trip?) and have no interest in where he is or why. He could be drunk and boorish (it began as a warming against the cold night ahead and got out of hand.)
But of course none of those makes for a very compelling story. They seem irrelevant, we feel cheated – why? Because this tale is called 'The Littlest Jingle Bell'. No tale worth its salt would leave its title character out of the final climactic scene, would it? (Actually there are many such cases in literature, not least of which is Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', whose title character dies fairly early on. But the present story isn't a work of literature – is it?)
So we seek closure in this story. Santa must enter that back room! And so we concoct a more 'fitting' finale for this tale:
In this version of the story, Santa is all-wise and all-knowing. He is a connoisseur of everything for the sleigh which is good and noble. His musical sense is as finely attuned as that of the best conductors. And he's not one to endure the acoustical status-quo for very long - he's a restless man. So each year he is in search of that bell which will change the timbre of the sleigh sound ever so slightly. And he's an egalitarian, so that any bell has an equal chance of being chosen over any other.
When he pauses on the threshold of the Jingle Bell Shop, one contemptuous glance tells him of the glitz and glitter of the front room, the sham of the Tunesmith's Corner. He strides resolutely through all that nonsense to the back room. There he finds bells of the sort he has never seen before.
He begins trying them one by one, patiently picking them up and jingling them. And then what?
In one heartbreaking version, Santa doesn't see the Littlest Jingle Bell at all. (Why not? Because that bell is too small, there's too much dust, the room is too ill-lit - whatever.)
That doesn't seem like the sort of ending we wanted either. Santa must find the Littlest Jingle Bell. He must find him, pick him up, hold him up to his ear, and shake him gently.
This is the most important moment of that little entity's existence - it is the one thing he has dreamed about. He knows he must give the performance of his life! So (I'm winging it here, obviously, but I think I know the author's style by now): he closes his eyes as tightly as he can (though of course he has no eyes to close); he clenches his little fists as hard as he can (though he has no hands to clench); and he gives the best rendition of his 'tink-tink' that he can (though he has absolutely no control over his jinglet.)
And then what? We are at our last binary fork. Even now there is the possibility of two endings - one heartwarming, the other gut-wrenching.
In the heartwarming ending, Santa exclaims, 'The very bell I've been looking for – I never dreamed I'd find one so deliciously little!' and chooses the Littlest Jingle Bell for his sleigh. (As he pays the inflated price for the bell, he waves aside the bogus Certificate of Authenticity with a barely hidden look of disdain. For what is more authentic than Santa's imprimatur?) Outside he attaches the Littlest Jingle Bell to the harness on the reindeer nearest him, knowing that this is the location from which the bell's delicate 'tink-tink' can be heard to its best advantage. And then off they all go, flying into immortality. And they lived happily ever after.
As for the gut-wrenching version (which I hesitated to publish here: it is so cynical I am wont to weep out of pity): Santa picks up the Littlest Jingle Bell, holds him up to his ear, and, shaking him gently, listens closely. Almost imperceptibly, a frown steals over the ancient countenance. For a moment he regards him carefully. Then with the devastating words, 'Nope – much too small!' he tosses (in a rather perfunctory way, I'd say) the Littlest Jingle Bell back onto the dust heap of the shelf (and of history itself, I suspect) and leaves the shop forever.
Well! Which ending would you choose? Before you do, however, let me make a case for the second (gut-wrenching) ending:
A friend of mine who is a science teacher idolized Linus Pauling all his adult life. One day the friend found himself at a conference where the renowned chemist was to be the keynote speaker. After the speech he stood in a long line to meet Pauling. Eventually he reached the famous man. They shook hands, my friend told him how much he admired his work, and a picture was taken. All that lasted less than a minute. But for years afterwards my friend would talk in glowing terms about that moment of meeting his hero.
Just so our tale here: the Littlest Jingle Bell met the personage of his dreams. Admittedly the meeting did not give him what he most wanted. But in time it will be The Encounter itself that he will see as important. Over the subsequent years he will begin to change elements of the meeting in his mind: Santa did not toss him back onto the shelf, but rather laid him gently down. Perhaps he even caressed him. Then too, Santa's words would not be blunt and dismissive, but rather kind and hopeful. Perhaps he would praise him by telling him how beautiful he is. And he might say something like, 'I'm sorry I have no room for you now, but some day I will come back here and fetch you - I promise!'
This version of an ending for our tale is capable of generating many stories precisely due to its imperfections. That, in my view, makes it by far the more interesting, the more – human - of the two.
So will you choose the gut-wrenching ending? What - you still want the fairy-tale one? You are hopeless! Just remember – that bag is available should you ever need it!
By the way, I lived in Medford some 26 years and I have no recollection of it ever snowing on Christmas Eve.
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