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MISS SANTA CLAUS OF THE PULLMAN
[Illustration: Miss Santa Claus]
MISS SANTA CLAUS OF THE PULLMAN
by
ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSON
Author of "The Little Colonel Series," etc.
With illustrations by Reginald B. Birch
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1913
Copyright, 1913, by
The Century Co.
Published, October, 1913
TO
MY SISTERS
LURA AND ALBION
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Miss Santa Claus _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"Oh, dear Santa Claus" 19
"Here!" he said 29
"Oh, rabbit _dravy_!" he cried 57
He pushed aside the red plush curtain and looked in 69
And ran after the boy as hard as she could go 77
It was about the Princess Ina 99
The shower of stars falling on the blanket made her
think of the star-flower 121
"Take it back!" 165
MISS SANTA CLAUS OF
THE PULLMAN
CHAPTER I
THE last half hour had seemed endless to Will'm, almost as long as the
whole four years of his life. With his stubby little shoes drawn up
under him, and his soft bobbed hair flapping over his ears every time
the rockers tilted forward, he sat all alone in the sitting-room behind
the shop, waiting and rocking.
It seemed as if everybody at the Junction wanted something that
afternoon; thread or buttons or yarn, or the home-made doughnuts which
helped out the slim stock of goods in the little notion store which had
once been the parlor. And it seemed as if Grandma Neal never would
finish waiting on the customers and come back to tell the rest of the
story about the Camels and the Star; for no sooner did one person go out
than another one came in. He knew by the tinkling of the bell over the
front door, every time it opened or shut.
The door between the shop and sitting-room being closed, Will'm could
not hear much that was said, but several times he caught the word
"Christmas," and once somebody said "_Santa Claus_," in such a loud
happy-sounding voice that he slipped down from the chair and ran across
the room to open the door a crack. It was only lately that he had begun
to hear much about Santa Claus. Not until Libby started to school that
fall did they know that there is such a wonderful person in the world.
Of course they had heard his name, as they had heard Jack Frost's, and
had seen his picture in story-books and advertisements, but they hadn't
known that he is really true till the other children told Libby. Now
nearly every day she came home with something new she had learned about
him.
Will'm must have known always about Christmas though, for he still had a
piece of a rubber dog which his father had sent him on his first one,
and--a Teddy Bear on his second. And while he couldn't recall anything
about those first two festivals except what Libby told him, he could
remember the last one perfectly. There had been a sled, and a
fire-engine that wound up with a key, and Grandma Neal had made him some
cooky soldiers with red cinnamon-drop buttons on their coats.
She wasn't his own grandmother, but she had taken the place of one to
Libby and him, all the years he had been in the world. Their father paid
their board, to be sure, and sent them presents and came to see them at
long intervals when he could get away from his work, but that was so
seldom that Will'm did not feel very well acquainted with him; not so
well as Libby did. She was three years older, and could even remember a
little bit about their mother before she went off to heaven to get well.
Mrs. Neal wasn't like a real grandmother in many ways. She was almost
too young, for one thing. She was always very brisk and very busy, and,
as she frequently remarked, she meant what she said and _she would be
minded_.
That is why Will'm turned the knob so softly that no one noticed for a
moment that the door was ajar. A black-bearded man in a rough overcoat
was examining a row of dolls which dangled by their necks from a line
above the show case. He was saying jokingly:
"Well, Mrs. Neal, I'll have to be buying some of these jimcracks before
long. If this mud keeps up, no reindeer living could get out to my
place, and it wouldn't do for the young'uns to be disappointed Christmas
morning."
Then he caught sight of a section of a small boy peeping through the
door, for all that showed of Will'm through the crack was a narrow
strip of blue overalls which covered him from neck to ankles, a round
pink cheek and one solemn eye peering out from under his thatch of
straight flaxen hair like a little Skye terrier's. When the man saw that
eye he hurried to say: "Of course mud oughtn't to make any difference to
_Santy's_ reindeer. They take the _Sky Road_, right over the house tops
and all."
The crack widened till two eyes peeped in, shining with interest, and
both stubby shoes ventured over the threshold. A familiar sniffle made
Grandma Neal turn around.
"Go back to the fire, William," she said briskly. "It isn't warm enough
in here for you with that cold of yours."
The order was obeyed as promptly as it was given, but with a bang of the
door so rebellious and unexpected that the man laughed. There was an
amused expression on the woman's face, too, as she glanced up from the
package she was tying, to explain with an indulgent smile.
"That wasn't all temper, Mr. Woods. It was part embarrassment that made
him slam the door. Usually he doesn't mind strangers, but he takes
spells like that sometimes."
"That's only natural," was the drawling answer. "But it isn't everybody
who knows how to manage children, Mrs. Neal. I hope now that his
stepmother when he gets her, will understand him as well as you do. My
wife tells me that the poor little kids are going to have one soon. How
do they take to the notion?"
Mrs. Neal stiffened a little at the question, although he was an old
friend, and his interest was natural under the circumstances. There was
a slight pause, then she said:
"I haven't mentioned the subject to them yet. No use to make them cross
their bridge before they get to it. I've no doubt Molly will be good to
them. She was a nice little thing when she used to go to school here at
the Junction."
"It's queer," mused the man, "how she and Bill Branfield used to think
so much of each other, from their First Reader days till both families
moved away from here, and then that they should come across each other
after all these years, from different states, too."
Instinctively they had lowered their voices, but Will'm on the other
side of the closed door was making too much noise of his own to hear
anything they were saying. Lying full length on the rug in front of the
fire, he battered his heels up and down on the floor and pouted. His
cold made him miserable, and being sent out of the shop made him cross.
If he had been allowed to stay there's no telling what he might have
heard about those reindeer to repeat to Libby when she came home from
school.
Suddenly Will'm remembered the last bit of information which she had
brought home to him, and, scrambling hastily up from the floor, he
climbed into the rocking chair as if something were after him:
"_Santa Claus is apt to be looking down the chimney any minute to see
how you're behaving. And no matter if your lips don't show it outside,
he knows when you're all puckered up with crossness and pouting on the
inside!_"
At that terrible thought Will'm began to rock violently back and forth
and sing. It was a choky, sniffling little tune that he sang. His voice
sounded thin and far away even to his own ears, because his cold was so
bad. But the thought that Santa might be listening, and would write him
down as a good little boy, kept him valiantly at it for several minutes.
Then because he had a way of chanting his thoughts out loud sometimes,
instead of thinking them to himself, he went on, half chanting, half
talking the story of the Camels and the Star, which he was waiting for
Grandma Neal to come back and finish. He knew it as well as she did,
because she had told it to him so often in the last week.
"An' the wise men rode through the night, an' they rode an' they rode,
an' the bells on the bridles went ting-a-ling! just like the bell on
Dranma's shop door. An' the drate big Star shined down on 'em and went
ahead to show 'em the way. An' the drate big reindeer runned along the
Sky Road"--he was mixing Grandma Neal's story now with what he had heard
through the crack in the door, and he found the mixture much more
thrilling than the original recital. "An' they runned an' they runned
an' the sleighbells went ting-a-ling! just like the bell on Dranma's
shop door. An' after a long time they all comed to the house where the
baby king was at. Nen the wise men jumped off their camels and knelt
down and opened all their boxes of pretty things for Him to play with.
An' the reindeer knelt down on the roof where the drate big shining star
stood still, so Santy could empty all his pack down the baby king's
chimney."
It was a queer procession which wandered through Will'm's sniffling,
sing-song account. To the camels, sages and herald angels, to the
shepherds and the little woolly white lambs of the Judean hills, were
added not only Bo Peep and her flock, but Baa the black sheep, and the
reindeer team of an unscriptural Saint Nicholas. But it was all Holy
Writ to Will'm. Presently the mere thought of angels and stars and
silver bells gave him such a big warm feeling inside, that he was
brimming over with good-will to everybody.
When Libby came home from school a few minutes later, he was in the
midst of his favorite game, one which he played at intervals all through
the day. The game was Railroad Train, suggested naturally enough by the
constant switching of cars and snorting of engines which went on all day
and night at this busy Junction. It was one in which he could be a star
performer in each part, as he personated fireman, engineer, conductor
and passenger in turn. At the moment Libby came in he was the engine
itself, backing, puffing and whistling, his arms going like piston-rods,
and his pursed up little mouth giving a very fair imitation of "letting
off steam."
"Look out!" he called warningly. "You'll get runned over."
But instead of heeding his warning, Libby planted herself directly in
the path of the oncoming engine, ignoring so completely the part he was
playing that he stopped short in surprise. Ordinarily she would have
fallen in with the game, but now she seemed blind and deaf to the fact
that he was playing anything at all. Usually, coming in the back way,
she left her muddy overshoes on the latticed porch, her lunch basket on
the kitchen table, her wraps on their particular hook in the entry. She
was an orderly little soul. But to-day she came in, her coat half off,
her hood trailing down her back by its strings, and her thin little
tails of tightly braided hair fuzzy and untied, from running bare-headed
all the way home to tell the exciting news. She told it in gasps.
"_You can write letters to Santa Claus--for whatever you want--and put
them up the chimney--and he gets them--and whatever you ask for he'll
bring you--if you're good!_"
Instantly the engine was a little boy again all a-tingle with this new
delicious mystery of Christmastide. He climbed up into the rocking chair
and listened, the rapt look on his face deepening. In proof of what she
told, Libby had a letter all written and addressed, ready to send. One
of the older girls had helped her with it at noon, and she had spent the
entire afternoon recess copying it. Because she was just learning to
write, she made so many mistakes that it had to be copied several times.
She read it aloud to Will'm.
"Dear Santa Claus:--Please bring me a little shiny
gold ring like the one that Maudie Peters wears. Yours
truly, Libby Branfield."
"Now you watch, and you'll see me send it up the chimney when I get my
muddy overshoes off and my hands washed. This might be one of the times
when he'd be looking down, and it'd be better for me to be all clean
and tidy."
Breathlessly Will'm waited till she came back from the kitchen, her
hands and face shining from the scrubbing she had given them with yellow
laundry soap, her hair brushed primly back on each side of its parting
and her hair ribbons freshly tied. Then she knelt on the rug, the
fateful missive in her hand.
"Maudie is going to ask for 'most a dozen presents," she said. "But as
long as this will be Santy's first visit to this house I'm not going to
ask for more than one thing, and you mustn't either. It wouldn't be
polite."
"But we can ask him to bring a ring to Dranma," Will'm suggested, his
face beaming at the thought. The answer was positive and terrible out of
her wisdom newly gained at both church and school.
"No, we can't! He only brings things to people who _bleeve_ in him. It's
the same way it is about going to Heaven. Only those who _bleeve_ will
be saved and get in."
"Dranma and Uncle Neal will go to Heaven," insisted Will'm loyally, and
in a tone which suggested his willingness to hurt her if she
contradicted him. Uncle Neal was "Dranma's" husband.
"Oh, of course, they'll go to _Heaven_ all right," was Libby's impatient
answer. "They've got faith in the Bible and the minister and the heathen
and such things. But they won't get anything in their stockings because
they aren't sure about there even _being_ a Santa Claus! So there!"
"Well, if Santa Claus won't put anything in my Dranma Neal's stocking,
he's a mean old thing, and I don't want him to put anything in mine,"
began Will'm defiantly, but was silenced by the sight of Libby's
horrified face.
"Oh, brother! _Hush!_" she cried, darting a frightened glance over her
shoulder towards the chimney. Then in a shocked whisper which scared
Will'm worse than a loud yell would have done, she said impressively,
"Oh, I _hope_ he hasn't heard you! He never would come to this house as
long as he lives! And I couldn't _bear_ for us to find just empty
stockings Christmas morning."
There was a tense silence. And then, still on her knees, her hands still
clasped over the letter, she moved a few inches nearer the fireplace.
The next instant Will'm heard her call imploringly up the chimney, "Oh,
dear Santa Claus, if you're up there looking down, _please_ don't mind
what Will'm said. He's so little he doesn't know any better. _Please_
forgive him and send us what we ask for, for Jesus' sake, Amen!"
Fascinated, Will'm watched the letter flutter up past the flames, drawn
by the strong draught of the flue. Then suddenly shamed by the thought
that he had been publicly prayed for, _out loud and in the daytime_, he
ran to cast himself on the old lounge, face downward among the
cushions.
[Illustration: "Oh, dear Santa Claus"]
Libby herself felt a trifle constrained after her unusual performance,
and to cover her embarrassment seized the hearth broom and vigorously
swept up the scraps of half-dried mud which she had tracked in a little
while before. Then she stood and drummed on the window pane a long time,
looking out into the dusk which always came so surprisingly fast these
short winter days, almost the very moment after the sun dropped down
behind the cedar trees.
It was a relief to both children when Grandma Neal came in with a
lighted lamp. Her cheerful call to know who was going to help her set
the supper table, gave Will'm an excuse to spring up from the lounge
cushions and face his little world once more in a natural and
matter-of-course way. He felt safer out in the bright warm kitchen. No
stern displeased eye could possibly peer at him around the bend of that
black shining stove-pipe. There was comfort in the savory steam puffing
out from under the lid of the stew-pan on the stove. There was
reassurance in the clatter of the knives and forks and dishes which he
and Libby put noisily in place on the table. But when Grandma Neal
started where she had left off, to finish the story of the Camels and
the Star, he interrupted quickly to ask instead for the tale of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The Christmas Spirit had gone out of
him. He could not listen to the story of the Star. It lighted the way
not only of the camel caravan, but of the Sky Road too, and he didn't
want to be reminded of that Sky Road now. He was fearful that a cold
displeasure might be filling the throat of the sitting-room chimney. If
Santa Claus _had_ happened to be listening when he called him a mean old
thing, then had he ruined not only his own chances, but Libby's too.
That fear followed him all evening. It made him vaguely uncomfortable.
Even when they sat down to supper it did something to his appetite, for
the dumpling stew did not taste as good as usual.