CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
Sheila and Nancy were doing their Christmas shopping. The weather,
which had been like mid-May--even to betraying a bewildered Jersey
apple tree into unseasonable bloom that gave it considerable newspaper
notoriety,--had suddenly turned sharp and frosty. Sheila, all in gray
fur to the beginning of her gray gaiters, and Nancy in blue, a smart
blue tailor suit with black furs and a big black satin hat--she was
dressing better than she had ever dressed in her life--were in that
state of physical exhilaration that follows the spur of the frost.
"We mustn't dance down the avenue, Sheila," Nancy said, "it isn't
done, in the circles in which we move."
"It is you who are almost very nearly dancing, Miss Dear," Sheila
said, "I was only walking on my toetips."
"Oh! don't you feel good, Sheila?" Nancy cried.
"Don't you, Miss Dear?"
"I feel almost too good," Nancy said, "as if in another minute the top
of the world might come off."
"The top of the world is screwed on very tight, I think," said Sheila.
"I used to think when I was a little girl that it was made out of blue
plush, but now I know better than that."
"It might be," Nancy argued, "blue plush and bridal veils. There's a
great deal of filmy white about it, to-day."
"It's a long way off from Fifth Avenue," Sheila sighed, "too far. I am
not going to think about it any more. I am going to think hard about
what to give my father. Michael said to get a smoking set, but I don't
know what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand knit woolen
stockings, but I am afraid he would be scratched by them. Gaspard said
a big bottle of _Cointreau_, but I do not know what that is either."
"Couldn't we give him a beautiful brocaded dressing-gown and a Swiss
watch, thin as a wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine, and a
dozen bottles of _Cointreau_, and--then get the other things as we
think of them?"
"Are we rich enough to do _that_?" Sheila asked, her eyes sparkling
with excitement.
"Rich enough to buy anything we want, Sheila," Nancy cried. "I had no
idea it was going to be such a heavenly feeling. When you say your
prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you will ask God to bless somebody
you've never heard of before. _Elijah Peebles Martin_, do you think
you could remember that long name, Sheila?"
"Yes, Miss Dear,--do you remember him in your prayers every night?"
"Well, I haven't," Nancy said, "but I intend to from now on. Do you
think Collier--father--would like to have a new pipe?"
"I don't know," Shelia said; "wouldn't Uncle Dick like to have one?"
"I don't know whether Uncle Dick is going to want a Christmas present
from me or not, Sheila." Nancy answered seriously. "There may
be--reasons why he won't come to see us for a while when he knows
them."
"Oh, dear," Sheila said, "but I can buy him a Christmas present
myself, can't I? I don't want it to be Christmas if I can't."
"Of course, dear. What shall we buy Aunt Caroline and Uncle Billy?"
"Some pink and blue housekeeping dishes, I think."
"I'm going to have trouble buying Caroline _anything_," Nancy said.
"She's so sure I can't afford it. If I give a silver chest I'll have
to make Billy say it came from his maiden aunt."
"What shall we give Aunt Betty?"
"I don't know exactly why," Nancy said, "but someway I feel more like
giving her a good shaking than anything else."
"For a little surprise," Sheila said presently, "do you think we could
go down to see my father in his studio, after we have shopped? I feel
like seeing my father to-day. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I
think of Hitty and my breakfast, and the canary bird, and of you, Miss
Dear, fast asleep where I can hear you breathing in your room--if I
listen to it--and then other mornings I wake up thinking only of my
father, and how he looks in his shirt-sleeves and necktie. I was
thinking of him this morning like that. So now I should like to see
him."
"You shall, dear. I want him to see you in your new clothes. He'll
think you look like a little gray bird with a scarlet breast."
"Then I must open the front of my coat when I go in so he shall see my
vest at once, mustn't I?"
"Do you know how much I love you, Sheila?" Nancy cried suddenly.
"Is it a great deal, Miss Dear?"
"It's more than I've ever loved anybody in this world but one person,
and if I should ever be separated from you I think it would break my
heart--so that you could hear it crack with a loud report, Sheila."
The little girl slipped her gray gloved hand into Nancy's and held it
there silently for a moment.
"Then we won't ever be separated, Miss Dear," she said.
The shops were crowded with the usual conglomerate Christmas throng,
and their progress was somewhat retarded by Sheila's desire to make
the acquaintance of every department-store and Salvation Army Santa
Claus that they met in their peregrinations. In the toy department of
one of the Thirty-fourth Street shops there was a live Kris Kringle
with animated reindeers on rollers, who made a short trip across an
open space in one end of the department for a consideration, and
presented each child who rode with him a lovely present, tied up in
tissue and marked "Not to be opened until Christmas." Sheila refused a
second trip with him on the ground that it would not be polite to take
more than one turn.
Nancy was able to discover the little girl's preferences by a tactful
question here and there when they were making the rounds of the
different counters. She wanted, it developed, a golden-haired doll
with a white fur coat, a pair of roller skates, an Indian costume, a
beaded pocketbook, with a blue cat embroidered on it, a parchesi board
to play parchesi with her Uncle Dick, some doll's dinner dishes, a
boy's bicycle, some parlor golf sticks, a red leather writing set, a
doll's manicure set, a sailor-boy paper doll, a dozen small suede
animals in a box, a drawing book and crayon pencils and several other
trifles of a like nature. The things she did not want she rejected
unerringly. It pleased Nancy to realize that she knew exactly what she
did want, even though her range of taste was so extensive. Nancy had a
sheaf of her own cards with her address on them in her pocketbook, and
each time Sheila saw the thing her heart coveted Nancy nodded to the
saleswoman and whispered to her to send it to the address given and
charge to her account.
They took their lunch in a famous confectionary shop, full of candy
animals and alluring striped candy sticks and baskets. Here Sheila's
eye was taken by a basket of spun sugar flowers, which she insisted on
buying for Gaspard. By the time they were ready to resume their
shopping tour, Sheila began to show signs of fag, so they bought only
brooches for the waitresses, and the watch as thin and exquisite of
workmanship as a man's pocket watch could be, for Collier Pratt.
"I think we had better give it to him now, Miss Dear," Sheila decided.
"I don't see how he can wait till Christmas for it--it is so
beautiful. He has not had a gold watch since that time in Paris when
we had all that trouble."
"What trouble, Sheila dear?" Nancy said. She had tucked the child in a
hansom, and they were driving slowly through the lower end of Central
Park to restore Sheila's roses before she was exhibited to her
parent.
"When we lost all our money, and my father and some one I must not
speak of, had those dreadful quarrelings, and we ran away. I do not
like to think of it. My father does not like to think of it."
"Well, then, you mustn't, dear," Nancy said, "but just be glad it is
all over now. I don't like to realize that so many hard things
happened to you and him before I knew you, but I do like to think that
I can perhaps prevent them ever happening to you again."
She closed resolutely that department of her mind that had begun to
occupy itself with conjectures concerning the past of the man to whom
she had given her heart. The child's words conjured up nightmare
scenes of unknown panic and dread. It was terrible to her to know that
Collier Pratt had the memory of so much bitterness and distress of
mind and body locked away in the secret chambers of his soul. "Some
one of whom I must not speak," Sheila had said, "and some one of whom
I must not think," Nancy added to herself. It was probably some one
with whom he had quarreled and struggled passionately maybe, with
disastrous results. He could not have injured or killed anybody, else
how could he be free and honorably considered in a free and honorable
country? She laughed at her own melodramatic misgivings. It was only,
she realized, that she so detested the connotation of the words "ran
away." Nancy had never run away from anything or anybody in her life,
and she could not understand that any one who was close to her should
ever have the instinct of flight.
The most conscientious objector to New York's traffic regulations can
not claim that they fail to regulate. The progress of their cab down
the avenue was so scrupulously regulated by the benignant guardians of
the semaphores that twilight was deepening into early December evening
before they reached their objective point,--the ramshackle studio
building on the south side of Washington Square where the man she
loved lived, moved and had his being, with the gallant ease and grace
which made him so romantic a figure to Nancy's imagination.
She had never been to his studio before without an appointment, and
her heart beat a little harder as, Sheila's hand in hers, they tiptoed
up the worn and creaking stairs, through the ill-kept, airless
corridors of the dingy structure, till they reached the top, and stood
breathless from their impetuous ascent, within a few feet of Collier
Pratt's battered door.
"I feel a little scared, Miss Dear," Sheila whispered. "I thought it
was going to be so much fun and now I don't think so at all. Do you
think he will be very angry at my coming?"
"I don't think he will be angry at all," Nancy said. "I think he will
be very much surprised and pleased to see both of us. Turn around,
dear, and let me be sure that you're neat."
Sheila turned obediently. Nancy fumbled with her pocket mirror, and
then thought better of it, but passed a precautionary hand over the
back of her hair to reassure herself as to its arrangement, and
straightened her hat.
"Now we're ready," she said.
But Sheila put out her hand, and clutched at Nancy's sleeve.
"There's some one in there," she said, "somebody crying. Oh! don't
let's go in, Miss Dear."
From behind the closed door there issued suddenly the confused murmur
of voices, one--a woman's--rising and falling in the cadence of
distress, the other low pitched in exasperated expostulation.
"It's Collier," Nancy said mechanically, "and some woman with him."
Sheila shrank closer into the protecting shelter of her arms.
"Don't let's go in, Miss Dear," she repeated.
"It may be just some model," Nancy said. "We'll wait a minute here and
see if she doesn't come out."
"I--I don't want to see who comes out," the child said, her face
suddenly distorted.
There was a sharp sound of something falling within, then Collier
Pratt's voice raised loud in anger.
"You'd better go now," he said, "before you do any more damage. I
don't want you here. Once and for all I tell you that there is no
place for you in my life. Weeping and wailing won't do you any good.
The only thing for you to do is to get out and stay out."
This was answered by an indistinguishable outburst.
"I won't tell you where the child is," Collier Pratt said steadily.
"She's well taken care of. God knows you never took care of her.
There's nothing you can do, you know. You might sue for a restitution
of conjugal rights, I suppose, but if you drag this thing into the
courts I'll fight it out to the end. I swear I will."
"You brute,--you--"
At the first clear sound of the woman's voice the child at Nancy's
side broke into sobs of convulsive terror.
"Take me away, Miss Dear. Oh! take me away from here, quickly,
quickly, I'm so frightened. I'm so afraid she'll come out and get me.
It's my _mother_," she moaned.