Dr. Brewster received a call from his young assistant that same
evening. He entered with a bored, blase air into the doctor's study,
and stood staring, and, slapping his gloves together as if he had not
one single idea in his noddle. Then he spoke.
"The old fellow--in Hitchen's Court, you know--beastly dirty hole,
by the way--he needs looking after, wants a sunny room and good
nourishment, and all that sort of thing. He'll get worse if he stays
there. I'm going to take him to our hospital, if you don't mind."
"Take him?" the doctor chuckled.
The young man flushed, "Yes. Bah Jove! I can't see an old fellow like
that, don't you know, dying for want of a little attention. Now,
doctor, I'm no charity fiend, but--I say, what are you chuckling about?"
"At your past record in the matter of pet charities, and your open
expressions regarding those who have them. Go on, Sig, my dear fellow.
You said you'd take him."
The young man flung off his overcoat, displaying his evening dress and
the flower in his button-hole. "Yes, I said _take_ him--in my carriage
to-morrow morning." He looked up, as if expecting protest.
"Bless you, man, I don't object if you don't," returned the older
man. "He's an old fraud, doubtless, has no 'bronicles' to speak of,
and wouldn't know 'yaller janders' from scarlet fever. Where do you
purpose placing him?"
"In the pay ward," said the young doctor, defiantly.
Dr. Brewster threw back his head and laughed.
"But, I say, doctor," continued the other, "you ought to see him, such
a pitiful-looking, white-haired, old chap, with those kids on his hands
for years. I say, he's been handicapped, you know. And--Bah Jove!
doctor, what did you send me there for?"
"To see how you liked Hitchen's Court."
The young man passed over the reply. "I say it's a beastly shame," he
went on. "That old chap is a better fellow than I am any day, I say,
there's something wrong."
"Desperately so, I grant you--with us."
The young man looked up quickly. "It's beastly," he repeated.
"Sig, you're a huge joke," laughed the doctor. "Go 'long with you and
your paupers. By the way, what about the children?"
The young man smiled broadly. "They are a pair. I believe that poor
little wretch of a red-headed snipe supports the family. Ah, doctor, I
say we're nowhere with my Lord William. Such airs; bluffed me off at
first."
He sat on the arm of the chair, swinging one foot thoughtfully.
Dr. Brewster looked at him. Young, good-looking, rich; what the
public called "a howling swell;" a dilettante in his profession, yet
possessing ability, if but the proper motive stirred his impulses.
He had been wont to maintain that half the world's poor were whining
impostors, and the other half incorrigible reprobates.
The elder man watched him with a half smile. "You'll take the old man,
then, and I'll see to the young ones," he remarked after a time.
Sigourney Hooper slipped on his overcoat again. "By the way," he said,
"they think Santa Claus sent me," and he gave a grin of amusement.
Dr. Brewster looked grave. "Who is Santa Claus, anyhow?" he returned.
"The embodiment of goodness, charity and kindly feeling."
"They were right, then," replied Sigourney, holding out his hand.
"We'll have to give them a Christmas, doctor, for I promised not to
keep grandfather from the bosom of his family on that festal day. Holy
Moses! Festivities in that hole! Ugh!"
Dr. Brewster sat smiling to himself long after his visitor had
departed. A wheel within a wheel, the ripples caused by the dropping
of the smallest of pebbles; the movings toward a broad humanity set
astir by the prattle of a child; by the instinctive appeal for warmth
and protection made by a little hunted animal; the breath of the spirit
on the face of the waters! He pondered over these mysterious forces,
while Kittyboy purred contentedly at his elbow.
Kittyboy fared well these days. He never failed to station himself by
the doctor's chair at meal time, and was so indulged in the matter of
tid-bits that his coat grew as sleek as satin; and if he had not been
of such a very volatile temperament, it is quite likely that he would
have become fat and lazy.
The housekeeper confided to Maggie that something had made the doctor
grow ten years younger, and the housemaid immediately attributed the
fact to the presence of Kittyboy. Certain it is that the doctor busied
himself with many things to which he had heretofore seemed indifferent,
and his sober establishment underwent all sorts of changes. "All on
account of the cat," said Maggie.
A well-to-do physician who has retained just enough practice to keep
him contented is rather an enviable individual, and Dr. Brewster
looked the picture of genial content as he stepped into his carriage
on Christmas Eve. Just where he went was best known to his coachman,
who had long ago learned the value of keeping his own counsel. But the
faith in Santa Claus which that evening justified was felt in more
than one wretched dwelling. Especially did two anxious little souls,
who had staked their last hope on the letter they had sent, feel that
their mustard seed of belief had indeed grown to gigantic size when
hampers and bundles from Santa Claus were displayed to their glad and
astonished eyes.
"Oh, Bill, I said I believed he'd bring all I wanted, and more," cried
Gerty, laughing and crying at the same time. "And he did, he did. And
grandpop's gone to stay in that grand room and get well, and I'm goin'
to get well, and we've a whole turkey and fixins, Bill, fixins. I never
said nothin' about them. And gran'pop 'll be here an' help us eat it.
An', oh, Bill. They are a Sandy Claus, they are, ain't they?"
"Well, I should smile," replied Bill, surveying the bountiful supplies
before him.
"An' you'll tell that little gal first thing, won't you?" said Gerty.
"Won't I!" returned Bill, too happy for more speech.
The doctor paced the floor a long time that night. He thought of many
things; of the dreary dwellings he had that day seen; of the sorrowing
poor; of the little it had taken to make a few hearts glad, and most of
all he thought of little Elinor Temple and her mother. He remembered a
Christmas Eve which had promised him a great joy, but which had brought
him a great sorrow--the sorrow which he had kept locked in his heart
for fifteen long years. Not once had he faltered in his faith in the
girl who had turned from the young physician, just starting on his
career, and had married rollicking Captain Temple. Dr. Brewster smiled
sadly as he remembered how Mrs. Temple had said but the day before:
"We sometimes make errors of judgment, but if we err from a mistaken
motive of unselfishness, we suffer just the same." And that had told
the whole story. It was the only justification she had ever attempted,
the only reference to what he knew she must have endured; but he
had inadvertently heard many things during these past weeks. He had
re-read, with fresh delight, an old chapter in his life. He had opened
his heart to the love of an innocent child, and the door being open,
what else fair and beautiful might not find admittance.
There was a rare exultation in the doctor's smile, as the bells rang in
the midnight hour, and declared the promise of peace and good will.
On Christmas morning around Kittyboy's neck was fastened, by the
doctor's own hand, a bright red ribbon. Then he was placed in a basket
and deposited upon the cushions of the doctor's carriage.
With the basket in his hand, Dr. Brewster entered Mrs. Temple's cozy
sitting-room, where a hearty welcome awaited him.
"Elinor has such a host of pretty things," said the child's mother,
"and yet she seems a little disappointed. She tells me there are two
gifts she specially wanted, which Santa Claus did not bring her, but
she will not tell me what they are."
"I think I know," returned the doctor, smiling. "Come here, Dot, Santa
Claus asked me to bring your gifts to you, because he could not trust
any one else, and he knew I'd take better care of them than some
others."
Elinor looked at him gravely from under her long lashes, and watched
eagerly while he uncovered the basket, from out of which jumped a sleek
black little kitten, which stretched himself comfortably, looking up
with friendly eyes at the doctor.
"Oh, mine own Jollity!" cried Elinor. "Oh, mamma, see! Oh, isn't Santa
Claus good?" and she clasped Kittyboy rapturously in her arms. "And
the other present," she said, laughing, "you couldn't bring that in a
basket."
"It is here, if mamma will let you keep it," and the doctor took the
child on his knee, hiding his face in her curly locks. "Tell mamma what
it is," he whispered.
"Oh, mamma," cried the child, "I wrote to Santa Claus and asked him for
a new kitty and a new papa. That was the secret Lily and I had." For a
moment she looked puzzled, and then a light broke over her face, while
she let the kitten go, and clasped the doctor's neck closer, closer.
"And, oh mamma," she continued, "when Santa Claus has sent me such a
beautiful, 'spensive papa, you will let me keep him, won't you?" And
the mother, amid laughter and blushes, could not say her nay.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.