JACK RUSSELL was five years old and ten days over; therefore, it
is plain that he was now a big boy. He had left off kilts, and his
trousers had as many buttons as it is possible for trousers to have,
and his boots had a noble squeak in them. What would you have more?
This being the case, of course Jack could go down town with his Mamma
when she went shopping, a thing that little boys cannot do, as a rule.
One day in Christmas week, when all the shops were full of pretty
things, Jack and his Mamma found themselves in the gay street, with
crowds of people hurrying to and fro, all carrying parcels of every
imaginable shape.
The air was crisp and tingling, the sleigh-bells made a merry din, and
everybody looked cheerful and smiling, as if they knew that Christmas
was only five days off.
_Almost_ everybody, for as Jack stopped to look in at a shop window, he
saw some one who did not look cheerful. It was a poor woman, thinly and
miserably clad, and holding a little boy by the hand.
The boy was _little_, because he wore petticoats (oh, such poor, ragged
petticoats)! but he was taller than Jack. He was looking longingly at
the toys in the window.
“Oh, mother!” he cried, “see that little horse! Oh, I wish I had a
little horse!”
“My dear,” said the poor woman, sighing, “if I can give you an apple to
eat with your bread on Christmas Day, you must be thankful, for I can
do no more. Poor people can’t have pretty things like those.”
“Come, Jack!” said Mrs. Russell, drawing him on hastily. “What are you
stopping for, child?”
“Mamma,” asked Jack, trudging along stoutly, but looking grave and
perplexed, “why can’t poor people have nice things?”
“Why? Oh!” said Mrs. Russell, who had not noticed the poor woman and
her boy, “because they have no money to buy them. Pretty things cost
money, you know.”
Jack thought this over a little in his own way; then, “But, Mamma,” he
said, “why don’t they buy some money at the money shop?”
Mrs. Russell only laughed at this, and patted Jack’s head and called
him a “little goose,” and then they went into a large shop and bought a
beautiful wax doll for Sissy.
But Jack’s mind was still at work, and while they were waiting for the
flaxen-haired beauty to be wrapped in white tissue paper and put in a
box, he pursued his inquiries.
“Where do you get your money, Mamma dear?”
“Why, your dear Papa gives me my money, Jacky boy. Didn’t you see him
give me all those nice crisp bills this morning?”
“And where does my Papa get _his_ money?”
“Oh, child, how you _do_ ask questions! He gets it at the bank.”
“Then is the bank the money shop, Mamma?”
Mrs. Russell laughed absent-mindedly, for, in truth, her thoughts were
on other things, and she was only half-listening to the child, which
was a pity. “Yes, dear,” she said, “it is the only money shop I know
of. Now you must not ask me any more questions, Jack. You distract me!”
But Jack had no more questions to ask.
The next day, as the cashier at the National Bank was busily adding up
an endless column of figures, he was startled by hearing a voice which
apparently came from nowhere.
No face appeared at the little window in the gilded grating, and yet a
sweet, silvery voice was certainly saying, with great distinctness, “If
you please, I should like to buy some money.”
He looked through the window and saw a small boy, carrying a bundle
almost as big as himself.
“What can I do for you, my little man?” asked the cashier kindly.
“I should like to buy some money, please,” repeated Jack, very politely.
“Oh, indeed!” said the cashier, with a twinkle in his eye. “And how
much money would you like, sir?”
“About a fousand dollars, I fink,” said Jack, promptly. (It does
sometimes happen that big boys cannot pronounce “th” distinctly, but
they are none the less big for that.)
“A thousand dollars!” repeated the cashier. “That’s a good deal of
money, young gentleman!”
“I know it,” said Jack. “I wants a good deal. I have brought some
fings to pay for it,” he added, confidentially; and opening the big
bundle with great pride, he displayed to the astonished official a
hobby-horse, a drum (nearly new), a set of building blocks and a
paint-box.
“It’s a _very_ good hobby-horse,” he said, proudly. “It has real hair,
and he will go _just_ as fast as—as you can _make_ him go.”
Here the cashier turned red in the face, coughed and disappeared.
“Perhaps he is having a fit, like the yellow kitten,” said Jack to
himself, calmly; and he waited with cheerful patience till he should
get his money.
In a few moments the cashier returned, and taking him by the hand, led
him kindly into a back room, where three gentlemen were sitting.
They all had gray hair, and two of them wore gold-bowed spectacles; but
they looked kind, and one of them beckoned Jack to come to him.
“What is all this, my little lad?” he asked. “Did any one send you here
to get money?”
Jack shook his head stoutly. “No,” he said, “I comed myself; but I am
not little. I stopped being little when I had trousers.”
“I see!” said the gentleman. “Of course. But what made you think you
could get money here?”
The blue eyes opened wide.
“Mamma said that Papa got his money here; and I asked her if this was a
money shop, and she said it was the only money shop she knowed of. So I
comed.”
“Just so,” said the kind gentleman, stroking the curly head before him.
“And you brought these things to pay for the money?”
“Yes,” said Jack, cheerfully. “’Cause you buy fings with money, you
see, so I s’pose you buy money with fings.”
“And what did you mean to do with a thousand dollars?” asked the
gentleman. “Buy candy, eh?”
Then Jack looked up into the gentle gray eyes and told his little story
about the poor woman whom he had seen the day before. “She was so
poor,” he said, “her little boy could not have any Christmas _at all_,
only an apple and some bread, and I’m sure _that_ isn’t Christmas. And
she hadn’t _any_ money, not any at all. So I fought I would buy her
some, and then she could get _everything_ she wanted.”
By this time the two other gentlemen had their hands in their pockets;
but the first one motioned them to wait, and taking the little boy on
his knee, he told him in a few simple words what a bank really was, and
why one could not buy money there.
“But you see, dear,” he added, seeing the disappointment in the child’s
face, “you have here in your hands the very things that poor woman
would like to buy for her little boy. Give her the fine hobby-horse and
the drum and the paint-box, too, if you like, and she can give him the
finest Christmas that ever a poor boy had.”
Jack’s face lighted up again, and a smile flashed through the tears
that stood in his sweet blue eyes. “I never fought of that!” he cried,
joyfully.
“And,” continued the old gentleman, drawing a gold piece from his
pocket and putting it in the little chubby hand, “you may give that to
the poor woman to buy a turkey with.”
“And that,” cried the second old gentleman, putting another gold piece
on top of it, “to buy mince-pies with.”
“And that,” cried the third old gentleman, while a third gold piece
clinked on the other two, “to buy a plum-pudding with.”
“And God bless you, my dear little boy!” said the first gentleman, “and
may you always keep your loving heart, and never want a piece of money
to make Christmas for the poor.”
Little Jack looked from one to the other with radiant eyes. “You are
_very_ good shopkeepers,” he said. “I love you all _very_ much. I
should like to kiss you all, please.”
And none of those three old gentlemen had ever had so sweet a kiss in
his life.