Herr Baumgaertner's first impulse, on finding out what had become of
his Christmas puddings, was to send at once to the Widow M'Carty's and
have them returned to him. Had it not been for the lateness of the
hour, doubtless this is what would have happened.
But the night brings counsel, even in the matter of plum puddings, and
by morning the baker had concluded that it was wiser to let the
unlucky gifts remain in their misfit quarters. Perhaps Katrina's
remark, that his customers would be wroth if they found they had eaten
puddings that had been stored for a night, even, in so well-inhabited
an abode, influenced his decision.
However that may be, the baker said to Katrina as he sat down to his
breakfast:
"Vell, Katrina, if we haf given somedings away in the wrong place, we
will not now take it back. But Katrina, dose beautiful puddings, and
dose M'Cartys! ach! ach!" and he shook his head sorrowfully at the
thought that these culinary triumphs should have fallen to those so
incapable of appreciating a wonderful Baumgaertner plum pudding.
In the eyes of the baker, to give twelve Christmas puddings to the
M'Cartys was indeed to cast one's pearls before swine.
Herr Baumgaertner could not remain out of sorts for any length of time,
and when he found by his plate a gift from his beloved Katrina of a
long meerschaum pipe from the Fatherland, he smiled and said:
"Ven I smokes dat pipe den I forget dose plum puddings."
The pipe, indeed, performed a placatory mission, for as the first
rings of its smoke curled upward, it became a veritable pipe of
peace.
Later the baker and Katrina attended church together, and at the close
of the service Herr Baumgaertner left his daughter and wended his way
to the bakery.
He tarried in front of the window occupied by the Christmas tree,
whose gaily trimmed branches recalled to him so vividly the years when
his little Fritz had furnished the joy and merriment of the holiday
season. How the wee baby had bounded,--almost out of his mother's
arms,--at sight of his first tree! Now the baker had only Katrina to
cheer him, while he, in turn, was devoted to his daughter. His
present errand to the bakery was to get some of her favorite Marzipan
for their Christmas dinner, it having slipped his mind the night
before in the distraction of the pudding calamity.
As he unlocked the door and entered the store, almost the first object
to claim his attention was the last Christmas pudding "left standing
alone; all its nut-brown companions labelled and gone." None of his
clerks had dared to risk his position by meddling with that package.
Herr Baumgaertner picked up the package, saying with a sigh, as he
unwrapped it:
"Oh, well, you might as well go in the window and make a good show.
Maybe I can sell you for New Year's day."
While the baker was busy arranging his wares to make room for the
pudding, a man came sauntering slowly up the street, pausing as he
came to the window. He was clad in a rough suit which here and there
showed the want of a prudent feminine stitch. The first glance showed
him to be simply an honest Hibernian laborer. Further scrutiny
disclosed the fact that he was a man who had passed through unusual
experiences, for his bronzed face told of hardship and exposure. At
each footfall he looked up imploringly at the passer-by, only to turn
away with a sigh of disappointment. As he looked at the good things in
the baker's window, he said to himself:
"Ah, my poor Bridget and the little ones are likely fasting, when they
ought to be having the fill of the table. And myself looking every
place for them till the feet of me is wore off entirely. The cottage
is empty, and the priest is a new one, and can't tell me nothing.
Mebbe they've gone to the old country, or mebbe they're all--" and
here he shuddered and shut his lips tightly, for he would not admit
the worst.
"Be jabers," his thoughts taking on a new turn, as he caught sight of
a pudding being placed in the window before him, "if I could just find
them, wouldn't I make the mouths of them water with that pudding. Like
enough Patsy and Maggie and Norah and Katy ain't had a bite to eat of
anything decent these six months. Heaven bless the spalpeens, how they
would fall on that pudding! And me darling Biddy, bedad, ain't tasted
one since she was living with the Church of Ireland minister in
Limerick. And here I be, with money enough to buy them everything
good, and not one out of them left to be buying for. Oh, well, I've no
mind in me to eat myself, but I might as well step in and buy them two
buns," and thereupon he entered the store.
The new customer did not look especially promising; still, the baker
had known far shabbier individuals to invest a dollar, even, on a
holiday, so he advanced with a smile and said:
[Illustration: "HIS GLANCE FELL UPON SOMETHING WHITE THAT LAY ON THE
COUNTER"]
"Vat can I do for you, my friend?"
Pointing to the large, well-sugared buns, the man began, "Give me
two--" when his glance fell upon something white that lay on the
counter,--that ubiquitous card that had wrought so much mischief; the
card bearing the name and address of Mrs. Michael M'Carty.
"Vat's the matter mit you?" said the baker impatiently, anxious for
him to complete his order.
"Oh, my God, what's this?" cried the man, snatching up the card.
"Dot? Vy, dat is one card to go mit one cake to the Widow M'Carty."
"Widdy, widdy, is it?" cried the man, angrily. "Sure the man that
calls her that will answer to me for it. Why would she be a widdy, and
me working and saving as a respectable husband should for her?"
"Wait awhile,--tell me,--was you Mr. Widow M'Carty?"
"Who would I be then, but Michael M'Carty? It's some of them
blathering Barneys that's after calling me Bridget a widdy. Their
lying tongues are all the time wagging with some scandal on a woman
that hasn't a good strong man to protect her and the childers. But
tell me quick, where are they, and are they alive, all alive?"
"I hear my Katrina speak about dem. But vere haf you been this long
time? I t'ought you was drownded, already."
"Sure, 'twas meself thought so too, the whole of the night, and I
wished I'd never stepped me foot on that old tub of a _Go-Between_,
for it was the devil's own. When we got in Lake Superior, a storm came
after us sudden, and we all went down together. I was in a hole of a
place I had to slape in,--sure a dog couldn't close his eye in that
corner,--and in the middle of the night, down they came hustling every
one of us out. 'Say yer prayers,' says they, 'for we're a-goin' to
the bottom, and the Lord help us. There's not one of yez will see yer
darlints again.' The water was terrible boisterous, and grabbed
everythin' off the decks. Faith, it wouldn't have been so bad if we'd
a place left for the sole of our foot, but she was gone entirely. A
board hit me and I hung on to it, and Pat Sweeny came up from down in
the water and hung on with me, and the noises of that night I'll never
be getting out of me head. When it come daylight we see the
pilot-house a-floating, and we got on that, and Pat Sweeny waved his
red handkerchief, and I tried to push us along with the board, to the
land we see a long way off. In the middle of the morning, we spied a
little boat coming to us, and may the blessed Virgin spare them two
men in it as long as they live. It was a bare enough place we come to,
but 'twas the land, and may I be struck dead if ever I take me two
feet off it, for it's not the likes of me will set foot on one of
them traps of the devil again."
"Ach, Gott, das war wundervoll, wundervoll," said the baker, "but tell
me vy you stayed so long away?"
"And what would the likes of me be doing with everything gone, but to
be getting some money to come with? There were some copper mines
there, and Pat and me went digging in the mines, and the engineer
dying sudden-like with a fall down the shaft, it was me was there to
be getting his job. I wrote Bridget as soon as ever I thought she
would be looking for me coming home, and told her I wouldn't be there
till I could earn some money to come by land, and what with the fine
engineer wages I was getting, she needn't be expecting me till the end
of the season. When I came home with me pile of money to give them all
a grand Christmas, I found 'em lost on me, and I've looked every place
these three days, and never a sound of them have I heard till now,
and God bless ye for the good words you're giving me this day.--Troth,
now that I'm after finding them, I ought to be buying that grand
pudding in the windy," and diving into his pocket, he produced a roll
of bills.
"Nein, nein," said the baker, waving the money away, "dat pudding was
not made to sell, it was made to gif away. You takes dat pudding to
Mrs. M'Carty mit the gompliments of Herr Baumgaertner."
With a hearty Merry Christmas, Michael M'Carty hurried away with the
pudding in one hand, and the card in the other. Herr Baumgaertner,
taking his Marzipan, went home to tell Katrina the news, laughing over
his Christmas joke, and chuckling to himself:
"Dat is vere dat pudding seems to belong!"
_Tenth Episode_