PLAYING SANTA CLAUS TO CHARLIE
The next morning Marjorie wrote a description of her pin. It was placed
at the end of the basement corridor above a small bulletin board, where
those who passed might read. She wondered if the loss of her talisman
would bring her bad luck. Before the day was over she gloomily decided
that it had, for during the last hour Miss Merton accused her of
whispering to the girl across the aisle, when she merely leaned forward
in her seat to pick up her handkerchief. Smarting with the teacher's
injustice, Marjorie politely but steadily contradicted the accusation,
and two minutes later found herself on the way to Miss Archer's office,
Miss Merton walking grimly beside her.
Miss Archer had been through a particularly trying day, and was
irritable, while Miss Merton was consumed with spiteful rage at
Marjorie's "impertinence," and did not hesitate to put her side of the
story forward in a most unpleasant fashion. The principal turned coldly
to Marjory with, "Apologize to Miss Merton at once, Miss Dean, for
disturbing her," and Marjorie said, with uplifted chin and resentful
eyes, "I am sorry you thought I whispered, Miss Merton, for I did not
open my lips." Something in the proud carriage of the girl's head caused
Miss Archer to divine the truth of the firm statement, and she said,
more gently, "Very well, you are excused, Miss Dean; but I do not wish
to hear again that you have failed in courtesy to your teachers. This is
not the first time I have received such reports of you."
With a steady, reproachful look at Miss Merton, whose shifting eyes
refused to meet hers, Marjorie walked from the room, ready to burst into
tears, and when the all but interminable afternoon was ended, hurried
home to the shelter of her faithful captain's arms and poured forth her
grief and wrongs.
But the notice of the lost pin posted on the bulletin board brought
forth no trace of the vanished butterfly. Marjorie made a valiant effort
to thrust aside her heavy sense of loss and allow the spirit of
Christmas to enter her heart. She had promised Constance her help in
arranging Santa Claus' visit to Charlie, and, when on Christmas eve, at
a little after seven o'clock she set out for the Stevens' weighed down
by numerous festively-wrapped, be-ribboned packages, she was filled with
that quiet exaltation that attends the performance of a good deed and
happier than she had been for several days.
"Shh!" Constance met her at the door, a warning finger on her lips.
"Hasn't he gone to sleep yet?" asked Marjorie, sliding into the house in
mouse-like fashion.
"Yes, but I thought he never would," returned Constance, with a relieved
sigh. "What do you think? Father is playing at the theatre to-night for
the first time. The pianist is ill. The leader of the orchestra was here
this afternoon to see if father would take his place. We can never be
grateful enough to you, Marjorie, for having father and Uncle John play
at your party."
"Let's talk about Charlie's little wagon," proposed Marjorie, quickly.
"Nora popped and strung a lot of corn for me. It's in this bag. Do tell
me where I can put the rest of this armful of things."
Constance made a place on one end of an old velvet couch for them.
"This is yours." Marjorie flourished a wide, flat package tied with
long, graceful loops of narrow pale blue ribbon. "I tied it with blue
because that's your color. Don't you dare peep at it until to-morrow
morning. These two little packages are for your father and Mr. Roland,
and all the rest is for Charlie."
"He will be the happiest boy in Sanford," said Constance, her own face
radiant. "He never dreamed of a Christmas like this."
"Can we begin now?" asked Marjorie. "I'm so impatient to see how this
wagon will look when we get it fixed."
"Wait a minute." Constance disappeared through the door leading into the
kitchen, returning with one arm piled high with evergreens, the other
wound around a small balsam tree.
"Lawrence Armitage brought me this yesterday," she explained. "A party
of boys went to the woods to cut down Christmas trees. He brought me
this cunning little tree and all this ground pine and holly. Wasn't it
nice in him?"
"Perfectly dear," agreed Marjorie. "I wonder if there is enough popcorn
for the tree, too. I have a lot of little ornaments and candles at home.
It won't take long to go there and back." She reached for her hat and
coat as she spoke and in spite of Constance's protests was soon speeding
home after the required decorations.
"I made good time, didn't I?" she observed, as half an hour later she
burst into the Stevens' living-room without knocking.
Then the work of making one small boy's Christmas merry was begun in
earnest. An hour later the sturdy baby balsam stood loaded with its crop
of strange fruit, and the faithful, rickety wagon, whose imperfections
were quite hidden beneath trails of thick, fragrant ground pine and
sprays of flame-berried holly, looked as though it had received a
visitation from the fairies. A diminutive black leather violin case,
encircled with a wreath of ground pine and tied with a huge red bow,
leaned against one wheel of the magic vehicle, and the cunning chair
with its absurd little arms and leather cushion was also twined with
green.
"It's too lovely for words," breathed Constance, her admiring gaze
fastened upon the once dingy corner now bright with the flowers of love
and generosity, which had bloomed in all shapes and sizes of packages to
gladden one youngster's heart.
"I wish I could be here when first he sees it," commented Marjorie.
"I'll be fast asleep then, for he told me that Mr. Roland promised to
call him very early."
"He proposed staying up all night, but I was not enthusiastic over that
plan," laughed Constance.
"I must go," decided Marjorie. "The hands of that clock fairly fly
around the dial. I'm sure I just came and yet they point to a quarter to
eleven." She reached reluctantly for her hat and her wraps.
"How can I ever thank you, Marjorie," began Constance, but Marjorie put
a soft hand over her friend's lips.
"Please don't," she implored. "I've loved to do it." She held out both
hands to Constance. "I wish you the merriest sort of a merry Christmas."
"I hope you will have a perfectly wonderful day," was the earnest
response. "You'll come over to-morrow and see how happy you've made
Charlie and all of us, won't you?"
"I'll come," promised Marjorie. "You couldn't keep me away."
She reached home just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of her father
disappearing up the stairs with a huge box in his arms, while her mother
hastily dropped some thing into the drawer of the library table.
"There, I caught both of you," she cried in triumph. "Confess you were
hiding things from me, weren't you?"
"I'll answer your questions to-morrow," beamed her father.
"I forgive you both as long as the things are for me," was her calm
declaration.
"What is she talking about?" solemnly asked Mr. Dean, with an air of
complete mystification.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about!" exclaimed Marjorie,
making a rush for him.
"Help, help!" he called feebly. "The battalion has been ambushed and the
general captured."
"And held prisoner," added Marjorie, severely. "Unless he informs the
second lieutenant what is in a certain big, white box with which he
escaped upstairs, he shall be court-martialed."
"Put off the court-martial until to-morrow and perhaps I'll tell,"
compromised the captured general, throwing his free arm across his
lieutenant's shoulder in a most unmilitary manner.
"All right, I'll let you go on parole," returned his daughter. "I'm too
sleepy to do guard duty to-night. How I wish you might have seen
Charlie's little wagon when we finished it! We had a tree, too."
Forgetting that she was sleepy, Marjorie poured forth the story of her
evening's work to her sympathetic listeners and it was ten minutes to
twelve before she said good-night and went yawning to bed.
Eight o'clock Christmas morning found her awake and stirring. Wrapped in
her bathrobe, she pattered downstairs to the living-room, her arms full
of bundles, but her father and mother were already there before her, and
their packages greatly outnumbered hers. After the kisses and greetings
of the day had been given her father handed the big white box into her
outstretched arms. "Shall I tell you----" he began.
"Don't you dare! I'm going to see for myself. Oh-h-h!" She had the lid
off, and was clasping to her breast a mass of soft brown fur. "Oh,
General, you dear thing! You sha'n't ever go to prison again." She
smothered her father in the coat and a rapturous embrace, causing him to
protest mildly. Her mother's gift of a bracelet watch also evoked
another burst of reckless enthusiasm.
What a happy hour it was, to be sure, and how beautifully all her
friends had remembered her! Marjorie could hardly bear to leave her
presents long enough to eat breakfast, and when after breakfast she left
home for her Christmas call on the Stevens, she felt as though she must
sing "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men," at the top of her voice as
she walked.