Jake and Jake Frost

By Ray Lenarcic

The Evergreen Orphanage for Boys was a three-storied ramshackle eye-sore of a building located just outside the mountain village of Zugerand. Originally intended to accommodate 200 orphans, by the early 19th century, it was home to less than a hundred. The place was managed by two of the meanest men known to mankind, Jamous Bohnoh and Davood Rusel. Their idea of tending to the children’s needs included subjecting them to frequent beatings, long hours of bone-tiring work, and a diet consisting of two tasteless meals of gruel a day

Identical twin brothers Jack and Jake hated their existence. Abandoned at birth by parents who couldn’t afford to raise them, the boys had spent nearly all of their eleven years at Evergreen. Despite the fact that they looked alike, they couldn’t have been more different. Jack was sensitive and quiet. During those rare moments when he had free time, he loved to draw on scraps of paper he managed to find on the streets of town. He also enjoyed cold weather. It reminded him that his favorite holiday, Christmas, was approaching, and while he never received any presents, he loved the season’s colors and music and spent a lot of time in front of storefronts, imagining himself playing with the toys on display.

Brother Jake was his polar opposite. Loud and brash, he enjoyed playing practical jokes on everyone, including the headmasters. The time he placed tacks on their chairs in the dining room to the delight of the other boys resulted in severe punishment when one of the latter snitched on him. He was spanked with a paddle 25 times and given only one meal a day for a week. He also loved Christmas but for a different reason. The local bakery shop with its holiday specials was fair game for his uncanny ability to sneak in and make away with whatever he could get his hands on-in broad daylight! The time he was caught earned him 30 whacks and three days without gruel.

The late fall of their eleventh year would be life-changing. Fed up with the living conditions, bad food, bullying by other kids and the headmasters, and the dawn-to-dusk selling of matchsticks on street corners, Jack and Jake decided it was time to leave. Jack formulated a plan that included stuffing their extra clothing in their beds to make it look like they were sleeping, pulling socks over their shoes to allow them to avoid making noises while walking down the creaky stairs, and filling a couple of bags he had found with food from the kitchen pantry. Jake would put his special ability to pick locks to use by unlocking the front door. On the night of December 5th, they made their break.

Jack’s plan was to take them up the mountain into the black forest looming high above. He had heard that on the other side of the mountain was another town with another orphanage operated by a religious order whose abbot was renowned for his kindness and humanity. As they made their way up the steep hill, it began to snow. Because they used their extra clothes in the bedroom, all each had on was a shirt, pants, threadbare coat, knit hat, and shoes. They had no boots. When they reached the forest, the snow had intensified, the wind was howling, and the temperature was dropping.

They walked for what seemed like miles, but there was no end to the forest. Tired, cold, and with the storm not letting up, the boys decided to stop and crawled under the branches of a large fir tree for protection. Holding each other closely together for warmth, they soon fell asleep.

Jack was the first to awaken. He opened his eyes, rubbed them, looked about, and rubbed them again. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He shook his brother awake. Jake went through the same motions. The boys were in a large room featuring the biggest fireplace they’d ever seen. In one corner stood a Christmas tree covered with multi-colored ornaments. Lit candles appeared in each of the windows. A gigantic table was situated in the room’s center. On it were plates of cookies covered with frosting, a gingerbread house and a tray replete with cups of steaming hot chocolate. In the other corner sat a heavy-set man dressed in a red outfit with white trimming. His boots were black as was the shaggy-haired dog lying at his feet. His hair and full beard were snow white, while his nose and cheeks were nearly as red as his clothes.

Scared out of their wits, Jack and Jake stood up, looking for a way out of the room. Before they could move, the old man spoke. In a soothing voice that immediately calmed the boys, he regaled them with a story that they found difficult to comprehend.

He was Father Christmas-The Father Christmas-the man responsible for bringing gifts to children on Christmas Eve. They were in the living room of his house in the center of his village at the North Pole. He paused as two little men dressed in green with red hats and pointed red shoes entered. They had trimmed brown beards, large ears and noses and eyes that twinkled like the brightest stars. They brought two cups of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies over to the twins.

As if he could read their minds, the jolly ole soul told them that the little men were elves. There were hundreds of them living in the village, working at a variety of jobs including toy making, snow shoveling, lamp lighting and reindeer feeding; reindeer-the deer-like animals with the ability to fly thus enabling them to transport gifts all over the world. Father Christmas explained that the elves were originally orphans. He chose them from orphanages throughout the region. But he didn’t choose just any orphan-only those who suffered the most, complained the least and had good hearts. Once they were brought to Christmastown, they were sent to school to learn their ABCs and a trade. They would stay the same size as they were when they arrived and would live long, long, long lives. Their final years would be spent in a special house where they enjoyed anything their hearts desired; a reward for a lifetime of selfless sacrifice on behalf of the world’s children.

Father Christmas answered Jack’s question as to why the orphans at Evergreen never received presents. It was because the headmasters confiscated them to sell to parents in Zugerand. He indicated that periodically he sent out his most trusted elves to find replacements for the retirees, and that’s how the boys ended up where they were. Elf Ron S. was checking out Evergreen and noticed the boys sneaking away. He followed them and when they were asleep, carried them to the nearby sleigh where they were taken to the village.
It took Jack and Jake a while to process everything they had just heard. After eating a couple of the best cookies they’d ever tasted and sipping some of their hot chocolate, they asked what was going to happen to them. Father Christmas said that they had two choices. They could return to the orphanage. Or they could work for him, but not as elves. He had been considering for a long time sending a messenger throughout the northern world to remind people that the holidays were coming. He thought that with his love of art, Jack would be perfect for the job. He would quietly go about in late fall painting the leaves red, gold, orange and brown. Later, he would return to do his magic artwork on the frozen windows of the houses. Jack would also bring the cold north winds that nipped at people’s noses, along with the first snows that blanketed the earth with a confectionary sugar-like covering. Everyone would be forced to go inside and the camaraderie synonymous with Christmas would begin.

As for Jake, his life experiences qualified him to be able to judge good behavior from bad. Thus he was offered the job of following Jack as a messenger of another kind, going from house to house and making lists of children who were naughty and nice. Also, he had the power to remind those children who were naughty that they’d have another chance to change for the better before Christmas Eve.

It took Jack and Jake about, oh, a second to make their choices. They were fitted with special outfits, provided with a room with comfortable beds and a fireplace, and given a tour of the village. Each especially enjoyed two things: the dining room, where they’d receive three hot meals and a choice of desserts every day, and the recreational facility where they could play games and relax each day during their free time. Before they went to bed that night, Father Christmas had one more thing to give them. A last name. Something identifiable with the time of year the twins went to work; something Jack used as a medium for some of his artwork; something blanketing the earth in advance of the coming snow-Frost.

In the years since, the Frost twins have made their respective marks. Ironically, the quiet one, Jack, has become the better-known of the two. His name appears in songs and his character in numerous movies. Although there is far less hoopla surrounding Jake, he is no less important as far as the children of the world are concerned. The latter are reminded of Jack every time they play in a multicolored pile of leaves, or trace with their fingers the fern-like patterns on their frost-covered bedroom windows, or feel the tingling at the tip of their noses while walking home from school on a late November afternoon. As for Jake, well, they remember him every Christmas morning when to their everlasting delight, they find the gifts of their dreams underneath the tree; Jake’s reward to them for being so much more nice than they were naughty. Jack and Jake Frost – twin brothers who each year help make Christmas the most wonderful time of the year.