Illustration: THE WHIZZER LOOKED PITIFUL OUT OF HIS EYES AT MRAR.
Who Ate the Pink Sweetmeat?
By SUSAN COOLIDGE
AND OTHER CHRISTMAS STORIES
WHO ATE THE PINK SWEETMEAT? ~Susan Coolidge~
THE WHIZZER, ~Mary Hartwell Catherwood~
THE PATRONCITO'S CHRISTMAS, ~F. L. Stealey~
CHERRY PIE, ~Kate Upson Clark~
BERTIE'S RIDE, ~Lady Dunboyne~
ASAPH SHEAFE'S CHRISTMAS, ~E. E. Hale~
Illustrations from Original Drawings by Smedley, Lungren, and other
artists
BOSTON
D LOTHROP COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
Copyright by
D. Lothrop and Company
1884
WHO ATE THE PINK SWEETMEAT?
Only three pairs of stockings were left in the shop. It was a very
little shop indeed, scarcely larger than a stall. Job Tuke, to whom it
belonged, was not rich enough to indulge in the buying of any
superfluous wares. Every spring he laid in a dozen dozen of thin
stockings, a bale of cheap handkerchiefs, a gross of black buttons, a
gross of white, a little stationery, and a few other small commodities.
In the autumn he added a dozen dozen of thick stockings, and a box full
of mittens and knitted comforters. Beside these he sold penny papers,
and home-made yeast made by Mrs. Tuke. If the stock of wearables grew
scant toward midwinter, Job rejoiced in his heart, but by no means made
haste to replenish it. He just laid aside the money needed for the
spring outfit, and lived on what remained. Thus it went year after
year. Trade was sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, but
whichever way it was, Job grew no richer. He and his old wife lived
along somehow without coming on the parish for support, and with this
very moderate amount of prosperity they were content.
This year of which I write, the supply of winter stockings had given out
earlier than usual. The weather had been uncommonly cold since October,
which may have been the reason. Certain it is, that here at Michaelmas,
with December not yet come in, only three pairs of stockings were left
in the little shop. Job Tuke had told his wife only the week before that
he almost thought he should be forced to lay in a few dozen more, folks
seemed so eager to get 'em. But since he said that, no one had asked for
stockings, as it happened, and Job thinking that trade was, after all,
pretty well over for the season, had given up the idea of replenishing
his stock.
One of the three pairs of stockings was a big pair of dark mixed gray.
One pair, a little smaller, was white, and the third, smaller still
and dark blue in color, was about the size for a child of seven or eight
years old.
Illustration: MAN DREAMING OF A CHALLENGE.
Job Tuke had put up the shutters for the night and had gone to bed. The
stockings were talking together in the quiet darkness, as stockings will
when left alone. One pair had been hung in the window.
It had got down from its nail, and was now straddling carelessly with
one leg on either side of the edge of the box in which the others lay,
as a boy might on the top of a stile. This was the big gray pair.
"Our chances seem to be getting slim," he said gloomily.
"That is more than you seem," replied the White Stockings, in a tart
voice. "Your ankles are as thick as ever, and your mesh looks to me
coarser than usual to-night."
"There are worse things in the world than thickness," retorted the Gray
Stockings angrily. "I'm useful, at any rate, I am, while you have no
wear in you. I should say that you would come to darning about the
second wash, if not sooner."
"Is that my fault?" said the White Pair, beginning to cry.
"No; it's your misfortune. But people as unfortunate as you are should
mind their P's and Q's, and not say disagreeable things to those who are
better off."
"Pray don't quarrel," put in the Little Blues, who were always
peacemakers. "Think of our situation, the last survivors of twelve
dozen! we ought to be friends. But, as you say, matters _are_ getting
serious with us. Of course we are all thinking about the same thing."
"Yes; about the Christmas, and the chimney corner," sighed the White
Pair. "What a dreadful thing it would be if we went to the rag-bag never
having held a Christmas gift. I could not get over such a disgrace. My
father, my grandfather--all my relations had their chance--some of them
were even hung a second time!"
"Yes; Christmas is woven into our very substance," said the Gray
Stockings. "The old skeins and the ravellings tell the story to the new
wool, the story of the Christmas time. The very sheep in the fields know
it. For my part," he added proudly, "I should blush to lie in the same
ash-heap even with an odd stocking who had died under the disgrace of
never being hung up for Christmas, and I will never believe that my
lifelong dream is to be disappointed!"
"Why will you use such inflated language?" snapped the White Pair. "You
were only woven last July. As late as May you were running round the
meadow on a sheep's back."
"Very well; I don't dispute it. I may not be as old as Methuselah, but
long or short, my life is my life, and my dream is my dream, and you
have no call to criticize my expressions, Miss!" thunders the Big Pair.
"There you are again," said the Little Blues. "I _do_ wish you wouldn't
dispute. Now let us talk about our chances. What day of the month is
it?"
"The twenty-seventh of November," said the Gray Stockings, who, because
they hung over the penny papers in the window, always knew the exact
date.
"Little more than four weeks to the holidays," said the White Pair
dolorously. "How I wish some one would come along and put us out of
suspense."
"Being bought mightn't do that," suggested the Little Blues. "You might
be taken by a person who had two pairs of stockings, and the others
might be chosen to be hung up. Such things do happen."
"Oh, they wouldn't happen to me, I think," said the White Pair
vain-gloriously.
As it happened, the three pairs of stockings were all sold the very day
after this conversation, and all to one and the same person. This was
Mrs. Wendte, an Englishwoman married to a Dutch shipwright. She had
lived in Holland for some years after her marriage, but now she and her
husband lived in London. They had three children.
The stockings were very much pleased to be bought. When Job Tuke rolled
them up in paper and tied a stout packthread round them, they nestled
close, and squeezed each other with satisfaction. Besides the joy of
being sold, was the joy of keeping together and knowing about each
other's adventures.
The first of these adventures was not very exciting. It consisted in
being laid away in the back part of a bureau drawer, and carefully
locked in.
"Now what is this for?" questioned the White Stockings. "Are we to stay
here always?"
"Yes; that is just what I should like to know," grumbled the Big Gray
ones.
"Why, of course not! Who ever heard of stockings being put away for
always?" said the very wise Little Blues. "Wait patiently and we shall
see. I think it is some sort of a surprise."
But day after day passed and nothing happened, surprising or otherwise,
till even the philosophical Little Blue Stockings began to lose heart
and hope. At last, one evening they heard the key click in the lock of
the drawer, a stream of light flashed into their darkness, and they
were seized and drawn forth.
"Well, mother, let us see thy purchase. Truly fine hosen they are," said
Jacob Wendte, whose English was rather foreign.
"Yes," replied his wife. "Good, handsome stockings they are, and the
children will be glad, for their old ones are about worn out. The big
pair is for Wilhelm, as thou knowest. Those must hang to the right of
the stove."
The Big Gray Pair cast a triumphant glance at his companions as he found
himself suspended on a stout nail. This _was_ something like life!
"The white are for Greta, and these small ones for little Jan. Ah, they
are nice gifts indeed!" said Mrs. Wendte, rubbing her hands. "A fine
Christmas they will be for the children."
The stockings glowed with pleasure. Not only were they hung up to
contain presents, but they themselves were Christmas gifts! This was
promotion indeed.
"Hast thou naught else?" demanded Jacob Wendte of his wife.
"No great things; a kerchief for Greta, this comforter for Wilhelm, for
the little one, mittens. That is all."
But it was not quite all, for after her husband had gone to bed, Mrs.
Wendte, a tender look on her motherly face, sought out a small,
screwed-up paper, and with the air of one who is a little ashamed of
what she is doing, dropped into each stocking a something made of sugar.
They were not sugar almonds, they were not Salem Gibraltars--which
delightful confections are unfamiliar to London shops--but irregular
lumps of a nondescript character, which were crumbly and sweet, and
would be sure to please those who did not often get a taste of candy. It
was of little Jan that his mother had thought when she bought the
sweetmeats, and for his sake she had yielded to the temptation, though
she looked upon it as an extravagance. There were three of the
sweetmeats--two white, one pink--and the pink one went into Jan's
stockings. Mrs. Wendte had not said anything about them to her husband.
"Well, this is satisfactory," said the Gray Pair, when Mrs. Wendte had
left the room, and he was sure of not being overheard. "Here we are all
hanging together on Christmas Eve. My dream is accomplished."
"Mine isn't," said the White Pair plaintively. "I always hoped that I
should hold something valuable, like a watch, or a pair of earrings. It
is rather a come-down to have nothing but a bit of candy inside, and a
pocket handkerchief pinned to my leg. I don't half like it. It gives me
an uncomfortable pricking sensation, like a stitch in the side."
"It's just as well for you to get used to it," put in the Gray. "It
doesn't prick as much as a darning needle, I fancy, and you'll have to
get accustomed to that before long, as I've remarked before."
"I'm the only one who has a pink sweetmeat," said the Little Blues, who
couldn't help being pleased. "And I'm for a real child. Wilhelm and
Greta are more than half grown up."
"Real children are very hard on their stockings, I've always heard,"
retorted the White Pair, who never could resist the temptation to say a
disagreeable thing.
"That may be, but it is all in the future. This one night is my own, and
I mean to enjoy it," replied the contented Little Blue.
So the night went, and now it was the dawn of Christmas. With the first
light the door opened softly and a little boy crept into the room. This
was Jan. When he saw the three pairs of stockings hanging by the stove,
he clapped his hands together, but softly, lest the noise should wake
the others. Then he crossed the room on tiptoe and looked hard at the
stockings. He soon made sure which pair was for himself, but he did not
take them down immediately; only stood with his hands behind his back
and gazed at them with two large, pleased eyes.
At last he put his hand up and gently touched the three, felt the little
blue pair, gave it a pat, and finally unhooked it from its nail. Then he
sat down on the floor, and began to put them on. His toe encountering an
obstacle, he pulled the stocking off again, put his hand in, and
extracted the pink sweetmeat, with which he was so pleased that he
laughed aloud. That woke up the others, who presently came in.
"Ah, little rogue that thou art! Always the first to waken," said his
mother, pleased at his pleasure.
"See, mother! see what I found!" he cried. "It is good--sweet! I have
tasted a crumb already. Take some of it, mother."
But Mrs. Wendte shook her head.
"No," she said. "I do not care for sugar. That is for little folks like
thee. Eat it thyself, Jan."
It was her saying this, perhaps, which prevented Wilhelm and Greta from
making the same offer--at least, I hope so. Certain it is that neither
of them made it. Greta ate hers up on the spot, with the frank
greediness of a girl of twelve who does not often get candy. Wilhelm
buttoned his up in his trousers pocket. All three made haste to put on
the new stockings. The three pairs had only time to hastily whisper as
they were separated:
"To-night perhaps we may meet again."
Illustration: GRETA
The pink sweetmeat went into the pocket of Jan's jacket, and he carried
it about with him all the morning. He did not eat it, because once eaten
it would be gone, and it was a greater pleasure to have it to look
forward to, than to enjoy it at the moment. Jan was a thrifty little
boy, as you perceive.
Being Christmas, it was of course an idle day. Jacob Wendte never knew
what to do with such. There was his pipe, and there was beer to be had,
so in default of other occupation, he amused himself with these. Mrs.
Wendte had her hands full with the dinner, and was frying sausages and
mixing Yorkshire pudding all the morning. Only Greta went to church. She
belonged to a parish-school where they gave Christmas prizes, and by no
means intended to lose her chance; but, apart from that, she really
loved church-going, for she spoke English and understood it better than
either of the other children. Wilhelm went off on errands of his own.
Little Jan spent the morning in admiring his stockings, and in wrapping
and unwrapping his precious sweetmeat, and taking it out of his pocket
and putting it in again.
"Why dost thou not eat it, dear?" asked his mother, as she lifted the
frying-pan from the stove.
But he answered: "Oh! not yet. When once it is eaten, it is over. I will
wait."
"How long wilt thou wait?" she asked.
Jan said bashfully: "I don't know."
In truth, he had not made up his mind about the sweetmeat, only he felt
instinctively that he did not want to hurry and shorten his pleasure.
Dinner over, he went out for a walk. Every now and then, as he marched
along, his hand would steal into his pocket to finger his precious candy
and make sure that it was safe.
It was a gray afternoon, but not snowing or raining. Hyde Park was not
too far away for a walk, and Jan went there. The Serpentine was skimmed
over with ice just strong enough to bear boys, and quite a little crowd
was sliding or skating upon it. Jan could skate very well. He had
learned in Holland, but he made no attempt to join the crowd. He was
rather shy of English boys, for they sometimes laughed at his Hollander
clothes or his Dutch accent, and he did not like to be laughed at.
So he strolled away, past the Serpentine and the skaters, and watched
the riders in the Row for awhile. There were not a great many, for
people who ride are apt to be out of London at the Christmas time; but
there were some pretty horses, and one fair little girl on a pony who
took Jan's fancy very much. He stood for a long time watching her trot
up and down, and the idea occurred to him that he would like to give her
his sweetmeat. He even put his hand into his pocket and half pulled it
out, but the little girl did not look his way, and presently her father,
with whom she was riding, spoke to her, and she turned her horse's head
and trotted off through the marble arch. Jan dropped the sugar-plum
again into his pocket, and felt as if his sudden fancy had been absurd;
and indeed I think the little girl would have been surprised and puzzled
what to do had he carried out the intention.
After the pony and his little mistress had departed, Jan lost his
interest in the riders, and walked away across the park. Once he stopped
to look at a dear little dog with a blue collar, who seemed to have lost
his master, for he was wandering about by himself, and smelling
everybody and everything he met, as if to recover a lost trail. Jan
called him. He came up in a very friendly way and allowed himself to be
patted, and once more the sweetmeat was in danger, for Jan had taken it
out with the intention of dividing it with this new friend, when a
whistle was heard which the little dog evidently recognized, and he
darted off at once to join his master. So again the pink sweetmeat was
put back into Jan's pocket, and he walked on.
He had gone quite a distance when he saw a number of people collected
round the foot of a tree. A ladder was set against one of the lower
branches, and a man had climbed up nearly to the top of the tree. Jan,
like a true boy, lost no time in joining the crowd, but at first he
could not make out what was going on. The boughs were thick. All that he
could see was the man's back high up overhead, and what he was doing he
could not guess.
A benevolent-looking old gentleman stood near and Jan heard him exclaim
with great excitement:
"There, he's got him! No, he's not; but it was a close shave!"
"Got what, sir?" he ventured to ask.
"Why, the rook, to be sure."
Then, seeing that Jan still looked puzzled, he took the trouble to
explain.
"You see that rook up there, my lad, don't you?" Jan had not seen any
rook at all! "Well, it is caught in some way, how, I can't tell you, but
it can't get away from the tree. It has been there three days, they say,
and all that time the other rooks have brought food to it, and kept it
from starving. Now some one has gone up to see what is the difficulty,
and, if possible, to set the poor thing free."
"Thank you, sir," said Jan.
And the old gentleman looked at him kindly, and said to himself:
"A very civil, tidy little lad! I like his face."
Jan had now become deeply interested in what was going on. He stood on
tiptoe, and stretched his neck; but all he could see was the man's back
and one of his feet, and now and then the movement of a stick with which
the man seemed to be trying to hit something. At last there was a great
plunge and a rustling of branches, and people began to hurrah. Jan
hurrahed too, though he still saw nothing very clearly; but it is easier
to shout when other boys shout, if you happen to be a boy, than it is to
keep still.
Slowly the man in the tree began to come down. He had only one hand to
help himself with now, for the other held the heavy rook. We in America
do not know what rooks are like, but in England they are common enough.
They are large black birds, something like our crows, but they look
wiser, and are a good deal bigger.
As the man neared the ground every one in the crowd could see what had
been the matter with the rook. A kite-string caught among the tree
branches, had tangled his legs and held him fast. He had pulled so hard
in his efforts to escape that the string had cut into one of his legs
and half broken it. It was stiff and bleeding, and the rook could
neither fly nor hop. People searched in their pockets, and one little
girl, who had a half biscuit, fed the rook, who, for all the kindly
efforts of his friends, seemed to be half-famished. The poor thing was
too weak to struggle or be frightened, and took the crumbs eagerly from
the girl's hand.
Jan thought of his sweetmeat, and took it out for the third time.
Everybody was crowding round the man who held the rook, and he could not
get near. A tall policeman stood in front of him. Jan pulled his arm,
and when he turned, handed him the sweetmeat, and said in his soft,
foreign English:
"For the bird, sir."
"Thank you my dear," said the policeman.
He had not understood what Jan said, and in an abstracted way, with his
eyes still fixed on the rook, he bit the pink sweetmeat in two, and
swallowed half of it at a mouthful. Fortunately Jan did not see this,
for the policeman's back was turned to him; but observing that the man
made no attempt to go forward, he pulled his sleeve for the second
time, and again said:
"For the bird, I said, sir."
Illustration: WILHELM
This time the policeman heard, and taking one step forward, he held the
remaining half of the sweetmeat out to the rook, who, having by this
time grown used to being fed, took the offered dainty greedily. Jan saw
the last pink crumb vanish into the long beak, but he felt no regret.
His heart had been touched by the suffering of the poor bird, and he was
glad to give what he could to make it forget those painful days in the
tree.
So that was the end of the pink sweetmeat, or not quite the end. The
kind old gentleman to whom Jan had spoken, had noticed the little
transaction with the policeman. He was shrewd as well as kind.
He guessed by Jan's clothes that he was a working-man's son, to whom
sweets were not an everyday affair, and the generous act pleased him. So
he put his hand into _his_ pocket, pulled out a half-crown, and watching
his opportunity, dropped it into Jan's pocket, quite empty now that the
sweetmeat was gone. Then, with a little chuckle, he walked away, and Jan
had no suspicion of what had been done to him.
Gradually the crowd dispersed, Jan among the rest walking briskly, for
he wanted to get home and tell his mother the story. It was not till
after supper that he discovered the half-crown, and then it seemed to
him like a sort of dream, as if fairies had been at work, and turned
the pink sweetmeat into a bit of silver.
That night the three pairs of stockings had another chance for
conversation. The blue ones and the green ones lay close together on the
floor of the room where Jan slept with his brother, and the white ones
which Greta had carelessly dropped as she jumped into bed, were near
enough the half-opened door to talk across the sill.
"It has been an exciting day," said the White Pair. "My girl got a
Keble's _Christian Year_ at her school. It was the second-best prize. It
is a good thing to belong to respectable people who take prizes. Only
one thing was painful to me, she wriggled her toes so with pleasure that
I feel as if I were coming to an end in one of my points."
"You probably are," remarked the Big Gray. "Yes, now that I examine, I
can see the place. One stitch has parted already, and there is quite a
thin spot. You know I always predicted that you would be in the rag-bag
before you knew it."
"Oh, don't say such dreadful things," pleaded the Little Blues. "Mrs.
Wendte will mend her, I am sure, and make her last. What did your girl
do with her sweetmeat?"
"Ate it up directly, of course. What else should one do with a
sweetmeat?" snapped the White Pair crossly. "Oh, dear! my toe feels
dreadfully ever since you said that; quite neuralgic!"
"My boy was not so foolish as to eat his sweetmeat," said the Big Gray
stockings. "Only girls act in that way, without regard to anything but
their greedy appetites. He traded his with another boy, and he got a
pocket-knife for it, three screws, and a harmonica. There!"
"Was the knife new?" asked the Blue.
"Could the harmonica play any music?" demanded the White.
"No; the harmonica is out of order inside somehow, but perhaps my boy
can mend it. And the knife isn't new--quite old, in fact--and its blade
is broken at the end; still it's a knife, and Wilhelm thinks he can
trade it off for something else. And now for your adventures. What did
_your_ boy do with his sweetmeat, Little Blues? Did he eat it, or trade
it?"
"It is eaten," replied the Blue Stockings cautiously.
"Eaten! Then of course he ate it. Why don't you speak out? If he ate it,
say so. If he didn't, who did?"
"Well, nobody ate the whole of it, and my boy didn't eat any. It was
divided between two persons--or rather, between one person and--and--a
thing that is not a person."
"Bless me! What are you talking about? I never heard anything so absurd
in my life. Persons, and things that are not persons," said the White
Pair, "what do you mean?"
"Yes; what _do_ you mean? What is the use of beating about the bush in
this way?" remonstrated the Big Gray Pair. "Who did eat the sweetmeat?
Say plainly."
"Half of it was eaten by a policeman, and the other half by a rook,"
replied the Little Blues, in a meek voice.
"Ho, ho!" roared the Gray Stockings, while the White Pair joined in with
a shrill giggle. "That beats all! Half by a policeman, and half by a
rook! A fine way to dispose of a Christmas sweetmeat! Your boy must be a
fool, Little Blues."
"Not a fool at all," said the Blue Pair indignantly. "Now just listen to
me. Your girl ate hers up at once, and forgot it. Your boy traded his
away; and what has he got? A broken knife, and a harmonica that can't
play music. I don't call those worth having. My boy enjoyed his
sweetmeat all day. He had more pleasure in giving it away than if he had
eaten it ten times over! Beside he got half a crown for it. An old
gentleman slipped it into his pocket because he was pleased with his
kind heart. I saw him do it."
"Half a crown!" ejaculated the White Pair, with amazement.
"That _is_ something like," admitted the Big Gray Stockings. "Your boy
did the best of the three, I admit."
The Little Blues said no more.
Presently the others fell asleep, but she lay and watched Jan as he
rested peacefully beside his brother, with his wonderful treasure--the
silver coin--clasped tight in his hand. He smiled in his sleep as
though his dreams were pleasant.
"Even if he had no half-crown, still he would have done the best," she
whispered to herself at last.
Then the clock struck twelve, and the day after Christmas was begun.
THE WHIZZER.
That was a cold evening. The snow was just as dry as flour, and had been
beat down till the road looked slick as a ribbon far up and far down,
and squeaked every step. I pulled Mrar on our sled. All the boys went
home by the crick to skate, but I was 'fraid Mrar would get cold, she's
such a little thing. I like to play with the girls if the boys do laugh,
for some of the big ones might push Mrar down and hurt her. She misses
her mother so I babies her more than I used to.
We's almost out of sight of the schoolhouse, and just where the road
elbows by the Widow Briggs's place, when something passed us like whiz!
I'd been pulling along with the sled rope over my arm, and my hands in
my pockets, and didn't hear a team or anything, but it made me shy off
the side of the road, and pretty near upset Mrar. School lets out at
four o'clock, and dusk comes soon after that, but it was woolly gray
yet, so you could see plain except in the fence corners, and the thing
that passed us was a man riding on nothing but one big wheel.
"O, see there!" says Mrar, scared as could be. I felt glad on her
account we's close to Widow Briggs's place. It would be easy to hustle
her over Briggs's fence; but the thing run so still and fast it might
take fences as well as a straight road.
The man turned round after he passed us, and came rearing back, away up
on that wheel, and I stood as close before the sled as I could. He sat
high up in the air, and wiggled his feet on each side of the wheel, and
I never saw a camel or elephant, or any kind of wild thing at a show
that made me feel so funny. But just when I thought he's going to cut
through us, he turned short, and stopped. He had on an overcoat to his
ears, and a fur cap down to his nose, and hairy gloves on, and a little
satchel strapped over his shoulder, and I saw there was a real small
wheel behind the big one that balanced him up. He wasn't sitting on the
tire neither, but on a saddle place, and the big wheel had lots of
silver spokes crossing back and forward.
"Whose children are you?" says the man.
"Nobody's," says I.
"But who owns and switches you?" says he.
"The schoolmaster switches me," says I; "but we ain't owned since mother
died."
Mrar begun to cry.
"We live at uncle Mozy's," says she. "They don't want to give us away."
The man laughed, and says: "Are you right sure?" But I hated to have her
scared, so I told her the wheel couldn't hurt her, nor him neither.
"I've seen the cars many a time," I says, "and I've seen balloons, and
read in the paper about things that went on three wheels, but this"--
"It's a bicycle," says he. "I'm a wheel-man."
"That's what I thought," says I.
Then he wanted to know our names.
"Mine's Steele Pedicord," I says, "and this is my little sister Mrar."
His eyes looked sharp at us and he says:
"Your mother died about six weeks ago?"
"Yes, sir," says I.
"To-morrow won't be a very nice Christmas for you," says he.
"No, sir," says I, digging my heel in the snow, for he had no business
to talk that way, and make Mrar feel bad, when I had a little wagon all
whittled out in my pocket to give her, and she cried most every night,
anyhow, until aunt Ibby threatened to switch her if she waked the family
any more. I slept with the boys, but when I heard Mrar sniffling in the
big bed, a good many nights I slipped out and sat by her and whispered
stories to take her attention as long as my jaws worked limber; but when
they chattered too much with the cold, I'd lay down on the cover, with
my arm across her till she went to sleep. I like Mrar.
"They said we might go up to cousin Andy Sanders's to stay over," says
I. "We don't have to be at uncle Moze's a Christmas."
"That's some consolation, is it?" says he.
I was not going to let him know what the relations did, but I never
liked relations outside of our place. At aunt Ibby and uncle Moze's the
children fight like cats. And they always act poor at Christmas, and
make fun of hanging your stocking or setting your plate; for you'd only
get ashes or corn-cobs. Aunt Ibby keeps her sleeves rolled up so she can
slap real handy, and uncle Moze has yellow streaks in his eyes, and he
shivers over the stove, and keeps everybody else back. At cousin Andy
Sanders' they have no children, and don't want them. You durse hardly
come in out of the snow, and all the best things on the table will make
you sick. If there is a piece in the paper that is hard to read, and
ugly as it can be, they will make you sit still and read it; and if you
get done too quick, they will say you skipped, and you have to read it
out loud while they find fault. I knew cousin Andy Sanders never had any
candy or taffy for Christmas, but Mrar and me could be peaceable there,
for they don't push her around so bad.
"Well, hand me your rope," says the man, "and I'll give you a ride."
I liked that notion; so I handed him the rope, and he waited till I got
on the sled in front of Mrar.
"That's Widow Briggs's homestead; isn't it?" he said, just before he
started.
I told him it was, and asked if he ever lived down our way. He laughed,
and said he knew something about every place; and then he set the wheel
a-going. Mrar held tight to me, and I braced my heels against the front
round of the sled. The fence corners went faster and faster, and the
wind whistled through our ears, while you could not see one dry blade in
the fodder shocks move.
"Ain't he a Whizzer?" says I to Mrar.
We turned another jog, and the spokes in the wheel looked all smeared
together. It did beat horse-racing. I got excited, and hollered for him
to "Go it, old Whizzer!" and he went it till we's past cousin Andy
Sanders's before I knew the place was nigh.
"Cast loose, now, Mister, we're much obliged," says I.
But he kept right on like he never heard me. So I yelled up louder and
told him we's there, and he turned around his head a minute, and
laughed.
"Please let go, Mister," I says. "That's cousin Andy Sanders's away back
there. We're obliged, but we'll have to go back."
The Whizzer never let on. He whizzed ahead as fast as ever. I thought it
was a mean trick for him to play on Mrar, and wished I could trip up his
wheel. It would be dark long before I got her back to cousin Andy
Sanders's; and the Whizzer whizzed ahead like he was running off with
us.
I had a notion to cut the rope, but there was no telling when I'd get
another, and it was new. I made up my mind to do it, though, when we
come along by our old place; but there the Whizzer turned round and
jumped off in the road.
I picked up the end of my rope, and shook my head, because I was mad.
"Why didn't you let go?" says I.
"Haven't I brought you home?" he says.
I looked at the shut-up house, and felt a good deal worse than when I
thought he was running off with us.
"O Steeley," says Mrar, "le's go in and stay. I want to come home so
bad!"
"Now you see what you done!" says I to the Whizzer. He was man grown,
and I's only ten years old, but he ought to knowed better than to made
Mrar cry till the tears run down her chin.
I'd been to look at the house myself, but never said a word to her about
it. Once at noon I slipped up there by the cornfields roundabout, and
sat on the fence and thought about mother till I could hardly stand it.
The house looked lonesomer than an old cabin about to fall; because an
old cabin about to fall has forgot its folks, but all our things were
locked up here, except what aunt Ibby and cousin Andy Sanders had
carried off. Our sale was to be in January. The snow was knee-deep in
the yard, and drifted even on the porch, but tracks showed where aunt
Ibby walked when she got out a load of provisions and bedclothes. She
had the front door key, and took even the blue-and-white coverlid with
birds wove in, that I heard mother say was to be Mrar's, and the canned
fruit for fear it would freeze, when our cellar is warmer than their
stove. She said to uncle Moze, when I was by unbeknown, that Mrar and me
would have ten times as much property as her children, anyhow, and she
ought to be paid more for keeping us. She might had our money, for all I
cared, but I did not know how to stand her robbing things out of
mother's house, and wished the sale would come quick, and scatter them
all.
The Whizzer leant his chin on his breast and looked pitiful out of his
eyes at Mrar, for seemed like the tears had a notion to freeze on her
face, only she kept them running down too fast; and he says:
"Let's go into the house."
"Oh, do, Steeley!" says Mrar, hugging my knee, for I was alongside the
sled. "And I'll cook all your dinners. And we'll hang up our Christmas
stockings every Sunday," says she, "and aunt Ibby's boys won't durse to
take away my lead pencil mother give me, and if you see them coming
here, you'll set Bounce on them."
"Mrar," says I, "we will go in and make a fire and act like mother's
just gone out to a neighbor's."
Then she begun to laugh, and one of her tears stuck to an in-spot that
comes and goes in her face like it was dented with your finger.
"But now you mind," I says, "if aunt Ibby or uncle Moze goes to whip us
for this, you tell them I put you up to it and made you go along with
me."
Mrar looked scared.
"And you tell them," says the Whizzer, lifting his wheel across the snow
toward the gate, "that I put you both up to it and made you go along
with me."
I pulled Mrar over the drifts, and we went to the side door.
"Aunt Ibby's got the big key," I says, "and I'll have to raise a window
while you wait here."
The windows were all locked down, but we went round and round till the
one in the shed give way, and I crawled through and bursted the latch
off the kitchen door. I breathed so fast it made my heart thump when I
unlocked the side door and let the Whizzer and Mrar into the
sitting-room. I noticed then he'd hung his wheel on the limb of a tree,
for it glittered.
"Bounce ain't here to jump on us, is he, Mrar?" says I.
"No; and he hates to stay at cousin Andy Sanders's," says she.
Bounce would come to the schoolhouse and kind of cry till I asked the
master, "Please may I go out?" And then Bounce and me'd have a talk
behind the schoolhouse, and I'd tell him I could not help it, and he'd
own that he might live at aunt Ibby's with us if he could only keep from
chawing up their miserable yellow dogs; and we'd both feel better.
But I did miss him that minute I opened the door, when here he come like
a house a-fire, and lit down on the floor panting and pounding his tail
and laughing; and then he jumped up and pawed us in the dark till Mrar
had to hold him round the neck to keep him still while I got a light. He
must snuffed our tracks when we whizzed past cousin Andy Sanders's.
I felt to the pantry and put my hand in the candle box, but aunt Ibby
never left one. I knew there's a piece in a candlestick in the shed
cupboard, though. It burnt half out the night mother died. So I got it,
and the Whizzer scraped a match, and lit the wick. The Whizzer and me
set to, then, and brought in loads from the woodhouse. We built a fire
clear up into the chimney, and Mrar took the broom, and swept all the
dust into it. Bounce laid on the carpet and licked at us, and whacked
his tail till we's in a broad laugh.
The fire got me warmer than I'd been since mother died. The Whizzer took
out a thick gold watch, and wound our clock and set it. Then he says:
"Let's go over the house."
And we did. I carried the candle, and Mrar and the dog went along.
The Whizzer looked in all the up-stairs presses, and opened the bureau
drawers. I staid outside of the parlor, and Mrar and Bounce did too. I
did not want to think of the sheet stretched in the corner, for it was
not like mother under the sheet. But her picture hung up in there, and
so did my father's.
The Whizzer staid in with the candle a good while. I heard him going
from one thing to another, and wondered what he was about. I'd rather
gone out to the graveyard, though, and set on the fence watching
mother's and father's graves, and heard the dry sumac bushes scrape
together, than to stepped into the parlor. Father died a year before
mother, but I didn't like him the same as I did her.
Then we looked down cellar; and I thought I ought to tell the Whizzer
about the provisions and bedclothes being taken out of the house, or
he'd suppose mother never kept us nice. He smiled under his cap; and I
found one jar of cand'ed honey behind some bar'ls where aunt Ibby
overlooked it. We carried that up to the sitting-room. Mrar likes
cand'ed honey better than anything.
Just as we come into the sitting-room, I heard somebody pound on the
front door.
"They're after us!" says Mrar.
"Let me see to it," says the Whizzer.
So he stepped around the house, and came back with his wheel on his arm,
and held the door open. The snow made out-doors light; and we saw a
little fellow lead a horse and buggy through the yard into the barn lot,
and he came right in, carrying a couple of baskets.
"All right, Sam," says the Whizzer. "Put your horse in the stable, and
then build a fire in the kitchen stove."
The man he called Sam stopped to warm himself at our hearth, and I never
saw such a looking creature before. He had a cap with a button on top of
his head, and his hair was braided in a long tail behind. He laughed,
and his eyes glittered; and they sloped up like a ladder set against the
house. He was just as yellow as brass, and wore a cloth circular with
big sleeves, but the rest of him looked like other folks. Mrar went back
into the corner, and I noticed the Whizzer set his wheel against the
wall, and I wondered if he'd left it out for a sign so the little yellow
man would know where to stop.
The yellow man went out to his horse, and the Whizzer took off his cap
and gloves and coat, and hung them in the sitting-room closet. He looked
nice. His eyes snapped, and his hair was cut off close, except a brush
right along the middle of his head. We set our chairs up to the fire,
and I watched him and watched him.
"If you and that fellow travel together," I says, "what makes him go in
a buggy, and you on a wheel?"
"Oh, I like the bicycle," says he. "I've run thousands of miles on it. I
sent Sam out from San Francisco by the railroad, but I came through on
the wheel. It took me three months."
I thought he was a funny man, but I liked him, too.
When Sam came in from the stable, Mrar and I went to the kitchen and saw
him cook supper. For one of the baskets was jam-full of vittles. He
heated a roasted turkey, and made oyster soup and mashed potatoes and
chopped cabbage. There were preserves the Whizzer called Scotch, and hot
rolls, and jelly, and cold chicken, and little round cakes that melted
in your mouth, and pickles, and nuts, and oranges; and we put the
cand'ed honey on the table. The coffee smelt like Thanksgiving. Sam
waited on us, and I eat till I's ashamed. We never expected to have such
a dinner in mother's house any more.
When Mrar and I got down and begun to toss our oranges, the Whizzer told
Sam to clear the things away and have his supper in the kitchen, and
then to fix the beds as comfortable as he could. I'd made up my mind
even if the Whizzer did travel ahead that Mrar and m'd stay there all
night. Aunt Ibby's would think we were at cousin Andy Sanders's, and
cousin Andy Sanders's would think we were at aunt Ibby's.
He sat in mother's big chair before the fire and I felt willing. If it
had been uncle Moze in the chair I wouldn't felt willing. When a stick
broke on the dog-irons we piled on more wood, and the clock ticked and
struck nine, and I wished we's never going away from there again. Mrar
and I played and jumped, and he was blind man, and we had solid fun till
we's tired out. I showed him my books, for I never took one to uncle
Moze's. The boys there make you give up everything, and they lick their
dirty thumbs to turn leaves.
Mrar and I stood and looked into the glass doors of the bookcase like we
used to when the fire made them like a looking-glass, and there were our
faces, hers round and wide between the eyes, and curly-headed; and mine
long, and narrow between the eyes, and my hair in a black roach.
I told the Whizzer she better have a bed made down by the fire,
considering the blankets and comforts were most all out a-visiting, and
he guessed so, too; and Sam helped me bring lots of quilts and a feather
tick from my old room to fix up the lounge with. Sam went into the
kitchen and slept by the stove.
Then I undressed Mrar, and heard her prayers after I tucked her in.
She's six years old, and dressed herself before mother died, all but
hooking up. I hooked her up, and sometimes she'd swell out for mischief
when she ought to swell in. But now I tended to her entirely because she
missed her mother. The Whizzer acted like he saw something in the fire,
but when Mrar was asleep and I sat down by him, he pushed up my roach,
and he says:
"You're a very fatherly little fellow, Steele Pedicord."
It put me in mind to ask him if he's Sam's father, but he laughed out
loud at the notion.
"Sam's smaller than you and he minds so well," says I. "And I never saw
a man that was so handy at girl's work."
"Sam is an excellent fellow," says the Whizzer, "but I don't deserve to
have a Chinaman called my son."
"Oh!" I says. "Is he a Chinaman? Well, I've read about them, but I never
saw one before."
Then I concluded to ask the Whizzer what his own name was. But just then
he got up from his chair and brought the other basket to the fire.
"Do you know who Santa Claus is?" he says, talking low.
"I found that out two years ago," says I.
"Well, get her little stockings, then," he says.
"I thought you'd like to do this yourself," says the Whizzer. He acted
just like mother.
We took the things out of the basket. There were toy sheep and dogs, and
dolls and tubs and dishes, and underneath them all kinds of candies,
enough to treat a school. I felt like the Whizzer was Santa Claus. We
stuffed her little stockings till they stood alone, like kegs, and tied
bundles to them, and fastened them together and hung them on the
mantel-piece. Bounce'd wake up and watch us, and then he'd doze off, for
Bounce was fuller of turkey-bones than he ever expected to be again; and
Mrar slept away, looking like a doll in the fireshine.
But all at once Bounce gave a jump and a bark. Back went the door like
the wind had tore it open, and there stood uncle Moze, and aunt Ibby,
and cousin Andy Sanders, and the Widow Briggs's grown son, and two or
three men behind them. They all looked scared or mad, and aunt Ibby's
face was so white that her moles all bristled.
"This is a pretty how-to-do," says she, speaking up loud like she did on
wash-days, or times she took a stick and drove the boys to the
wood-pile. "What's going on in this house to-night? fires, and candles
burning, and travellers putting up, and children running away when
they're let go some place else to stay all night! You little sneak,"
says she, "you'll get one such a whipping as you ached for when your
mother was alive."
"Stop, stop," says the Whizzer peaceably.
"What are you doing in this house?" says cousin Andy Sanders. "Are you
the man I saw go past my place to-night on that wheel, pulling the
children?"
"I am," says the Whizzer, "and I've been making notes of the personal
property that has been carried out of the house."
"Well," says uncle Moze, "I'm the constable and this is my posse."
The Whizzer laughed, and he says, "This thornbush is my thornbush, and
this dog my dog."
I did not know what he meant and they acted as if they did not either.
"I arrest you," says uncle Moze, "for breaking into a house and
disturbing the peace."
"You can't do it," says the Whizzer.
"Go in and take him," says uncle Moze to the other men.
"Because this is my house," says the Whizzer.
I swallowed my breath when he said that.
"I wish you'd shut the door," he says; "and since to-morrow is
Christmas, and I don't want to harbor any ill-will, you can shut it
behind instead of in front of you. I'm Steele Pedicord, this boy's
father as you might all know by looking at me."
Even cousin Andy Sanders didn't jump any more than I did, but I jumped
for gladness, and seemed like he jumped for something else.
"I'm appointed guerdeen to the children," he says, "and I don't want any
impudent talk from a stranger."
"You pretend you don't know me, Andy Sanders," says the Whizzer, "but I
always knew you. You expected to settle on their land, while Moze and
his wife pillaged their goods. I didn't grow up with you for nothing."
"Steele Pedicord died when that boy was a year old," says aunt Ibby, and
she looked so awful and so big I could hardly bear to watch her. "He was
killed by the Indians on his way from Californy, after he sent his money
home."
"He was only kept prisoner by the Indians," says my father, "and sick
and ill-used. But he had no notion he was dead till he got away after a
few years, and heard his widow was married again, and even mother to
another child."
"It's a likely story," says cousin Andy Sanders, "that a man wouldn't
come forward and claim his own in such a case."
"Your notion of a man and mine never did agree, Andy Sanders," says my
father. "She wasn't to blame, and her second husband was my best friend.
The boy and girl are mine now."
"It's some robbing scheme," says aunt Ibby, but she looked as if she
knew him well enough.
"I've more to give them than you could have taken from them," he says,
"and you may begin to investigate to-night. Is that the Widow Briggs's
boy?" he says.
The Briggs boy came up and shook hands with him, and the other men
stepped in and shook hands, too. They all begun to talk. But uncle Moze,
and aunt Ibby, and cousin Andy Sanders left the door, and I heard them
slam the gate.
Mrar slept right along, though the neighbors talked so loud and fast;
and I sat down on the lounge at her feet, wondering what she would say
Christmas morning when she found out the Whizzer was my own father, that
mother thought was dead since I's a year old!
I felt so queer and glad that something in me whizzed like the wheel,
and while my father was not looking, and everybody sat up to the fire
asking questions, I slipped over and tried to hug it around the cranks
that he wiggled with his feet.
You can read pieces about Santa Claus coming on a sledge, but that's
nothing to having your own father--that you think is dead and gone--ride
up like a regular Whizzer and open the house for Christmas!
THE PATRONCITO'S CHRISTMAS.
Driven downwards by the storm which had raged incessantly for two days
about the lofty red ramparts of the Sierra Roja, the black-tail deer, in
broken bands, sought refuge in the lower foot hills. Here, also, a light
"tracking snow" had fallen, and their trails lay fresh for hunters'
following.
Cherokee Sam had been early abroad, long rifle on shoulder, and lank
deer hound at heels. Not all for pleasure did the gaunt half-breed slip
like a shadow in his hunting moccasons through the cañons clad in pine.
Meat was needed in the dirt-roofed cabin in the gulch. And for that
matter, bread also, and this, too, despite the fact that the stubble
sticking up through the snow in the bottom, marked the site of a
harvested corn patch.
The swarthy hunter had indeed planted there; but other hands had
gathered the harvest.