THE UNLUCKY TALISMAN
There was a rapturous shriek of joy from Charlie as Constance opened the
door for Marjorie and their hands and lips met in Christmas greeting.
Marjorie stooped to embrace the excited little figure. "Santa Claus did
come to see Charlie, didn't he?" she exclaimed, in pretended surprise.
"And what did he bring?"
For answer the child limped to his Christmas corner. "Oh, a fiddle," he
said reverently, clasping the little violin to his heart. "Now I shall
play in the band soon. Johnny said so." He thrust the violin under his
sharp little chin, the thin fingers of his left hand reaching across the
fingerboard, his left wrist curving into position.
"Why, he holds it like a real violinist!" exclaimed Marjorie. "Can he
play?"
Charlie answered her question by dragging his triumphant bow across the
helpless strings, drawing forth a wailing discord of tortured sound.
"He thinks he can," giggled Constance. "I suppose those awful sounds
are the sweetest music to his ears. Luckily, we don't mind them. I hope
you don't. I hate to stop him, he is so delighted with himself."
"I don't mind in the least," assured Marjorie. "I wouldn't spoil his
pleasure for anything in the world."
Charlie had no intention of giving a concert that morning, however; he
had too many other things to distract his mind.
Marjorie sat on the floor beside the Christmas tree, her feet tucked
under her, and listened with becoming gravity and attention while he
told her about Santa Claus' visit, and one by one brought forth his
precious presents for her to see.
"He must have had enough presents to go around this year or he wouldn't
have left me so many," asserted the child with happy positiveness.
"Connie's going to write him a letter and say thank you for me. If I
don't say 'thank you' when someone gives me something, then I can never
play in the band. Johnny and father always say it. I'm sorry I didn't
write to Santa Claus before Christmas and ask him for a new leg. I can't
go fast on this one. It's been wearing out ever since I was a baby and
it keeps on getting shorter."
"Santa Claus can't give you a new leg, Charlie boy," answered Marjorie,
her bright face clouding momentarily, "but perhaps some day we can find
a good, kind man who will make this poor little leg over like a new
one."
"When you find him, you'll be sure to tell him all about me, won't you,
Marjorie?" he asked eagerly.
"As sure as anything," nodded Marjory, brushing his heavy black hair out
of his eyes and kissing him gently.
"Will you walk down to the drugstore with me, Marjorie?" put in
Constance, abruptly.
Marjorie glanced up to meet her friend's troubled gaze. In an instant
she was on her feet.
"It's a good thing I didn't take off my hat and coat. I'm ready to go,
you see."
"Charlie can watch for us at the window," suggested Constance, hugging
the child. "We won't be long."
Once outside the house there was an eloquent silence. "It's dreadful,
isn't it?" There was a catch in Constance's voice when finally she
spoke.
"Can't he be cured?" queried Marjorie, softly.
"Yes; so a specialist said, if only we had the money."
"He is such a quaint child, and he really and truly believes in Santa
Claus," mused Marjorie, aloud. "Most children of his age don't."
"He's different," was the quick reply. "He has been brought up away from
other children and in a world of his own. He believes in fairies, too,
good ones and bad ones. But he loves music better than anything else in
the world, and his highest ambition in life is to play in the band. If
only I had the money to make him well! I'd love to see him strong and
sturdy like other children."
"You mustn't talk about such sad things to-day, but just be happy,"
counseled Marjorie, slipping her arm through that of her friend.
"Charlie is cheerful and jolly in spite of his poor lame leg. Perhaps
the New Year will bring you something glorious."
"You are so comforting, Marjorie," sighed Constance. "I'll throw all my
cares to the winds and keep sunny all day if I can."
"I must go now." They entered the little gray house again, just in time
to hear remonstrative squeaks from the E string of the diminutive
violin, blended with disheartened moans from the A and growls of protest
from the G string.
"How did you like that?" inquired Charlie, calmly.
"It was very noisy," criticised Constance.
"It was a very hard passage to play," explained the embryo musician,
soberly.
"It seems to have been," laughed Marjorie.
"That is what Johnny says when he doesn't pay attention and makes a
mistake on the fiddle," confided Charlie.
Constance's sad look vanished at this naive assertion. "He imitates
father and Uncle John in everything," she explained. "He will have
played his way through all the music in the house before to-morrow
night--most of it upside down, too."
"I'd love to stay longer, but I promised to stop at Macy's and we have
our dinner at one o'clock. I wish you could come, too, but I know you'd
rather be at home. Thank you again for the hemstitched handkerchiefs. I
don't see how you found the time to make them."
"Thank you for the lovely hand-embroidered blouse and all Charlie's
things," reminded Constance. "I hope we'll spend many, many more
Christmases together."
"So do I," echoed Marjorie, as she kissed Charlie and held out her hand
to her friend.
Her call on the Macys lasted the better part of an hour, for Jerry was
the recipient of a host of gifts, and insisted upon displaying them,
while Hal refused to pose gracefully in the background and absorbed as
much of Marjorie's attention as she would give him, secretly wondering
if she would be pleased with the box of American Beauty roses he had
ordered the florist to deliver at the Deans' residence at noon that day.
What a blissful Christmas it was! From the moment of Marjorie's
awakening that morning until the day was done it was one long succession
of joyous surprises. And, oh, glorious thought! there were ten blessed
days of vacation stretching before her.
"I'll see if Constance will go to the matinee Saturday," she planned
drowsily that night as she prepared for sleep. "We will take Charlie. I
promised him long ago that I would. I'll run over there to-morrow. Too
bad I didn't think of it to-day."
But "to-morrow" brought its own deeds to be done, and so did the
following two days, and it was Friday afternoon before Marjorie found
time for her visit to the little gray house.
Ever since Christmas it had snowed at intervals and the snow-plow men
had been kept busy clearing the streets. It was just the kind of weather
to wear one's fur coat, and Marjorie gave a little shiver of delight as
she slipped into her Christmas treasure. And how warm it was! The
searching east wind that was abroad that day held no discomfort for her.
As she stepped briskly along over the hard-packed walk, hedged in by
high-piled snow, she thought rather soberly of her own good fortune and
wondered why so many beautiful things had been given to her while to
Constance life had grudged all but the barest necessities. With a rush
of generous impulse she resolved to do all in her power to smooth the
troubled way of her friend.
When within sight of the house Marjorie's eyes were fastened upon the
living-room windows for some sign of Charlie, who would sit contentedly
at one of them by the hour watching the passersby. Catching sight of
his pale little face pressed to the window pane she waved her hand gaily
to him. He disappeared from the window and an instant later stood in the
open door, shouting gleefully, "Oh, Connie, here's Marjorie! Here's
Marjorie!"
Marjorie bent and embraced the gleeful little boy. "How is Charlie
to-day?" she asked.
"Pretty well," nodded the child. "I wish I had asked for that leg,
though. Mine hurts to-day."
"You poor baby!" consoled Marjorie, tenderly. "But where is Connie,
dear?"
"She's upstairs. I'll call her."
He limped across the room to the stair door, which was situated at one
side of the living-room, and opened it. "Connie," he called, "Marjorie's
come to see us."
There was a sound of quick footsteps on the stairs and Constance
appeared. "I didn't know you were here," she apologized.
"Where were you on Thursday?" began Marjorie, laughingly. "You promised
to come over. Don't you remember?"
"Yes," returned Constance, briefly. Then with a swift return of the old,
chilling reserve, which of late she had seemed to lose, "It was
impossible for me to come."
Marjorie scrutinized her friend's face. The look of impassivity had come
back to it. "What is the matter, Constance?" she questioned anxiously.
"Has anything happened?"
An expression of intense pain leaped into Constance's blue eyes. "I've
something to tell you, Marjorie. It's dreadful. I----" With a muffled
sob she threw herself, face down, upon the old velvet couch, her slender
shoulders shaking with passionate grief.
"Why, Constance!" Marjorie regarded the sobbing girl in sympathetic
amazement.
Charlie went over to the couch and patted Constance's fair head. "Don't
cry, Connie," he pleaded. Then, limping to a dilapidated writing desk in
the corner, which Marjorie never remembered to have seen open before, he
took from one of the lower pigeonholes a small, glittering object.
"This is what makes Connie cry." He opened his hand and disclosed a
little object on his outstretched palm. "Shall I throw the old thing
into the fire, Connie?"
With a sharp ejaculation of dismay, Constance sprang from the couch. One
swift glance toward the desk, then she caught Charlie's tiny hand in
hers. "Give it to Connie, this minute," she commanded sternly. For the
instant Marjorie was forgotten.
Charlie's lips quivered with grieved surprise. Relinquishing his hold on
the object he wailed resentfully, "It is a horrid old thing. It made you
cry, and me, too."
"Charlie, dear," soothed Constance. Then she glanced up to meet the
horrified stare of two accusing brown eyes. "Why--Marjorie!" she
exclaimed.
"Where--where--did you get that pin?" Marjorie's soft voice sounded
harsh and unnatural.
"That's what I started to tell you," faltered Constance. "Oh, it's so
dreadful I can't bear to speak of it. Yet I must tell you. I--the
pin----" she broke down and throwing herself on the lounge again began
to cry disconsolately.
An appalling silence fell upon the shabby, music-littered room, broken
only by Constance's sobs. Marjorie stood rooted to the spot. Could it be
true that Constance, the girl she had fought for, the girl for whose
sake she had braved class ostracism, had deliberately stolen her pin?
Yet she must believe the evidence of her own eyes which had told her
that in Charlie's hand lay her cherished pin, her lost, much-mourned-for
butterfly!
If Constance had deliberately taken the pin, then she was a thief. If
she had found it, but purposely failed to return it, she was still a
thief. Marjorie opened her lips to pour forth a torrent of reproaches,
but the words would not come. She had a wild desire to pry open the hand
which held her precious butterfly and seize it, but her hands remained
limply at her sides. It was her pin, her very own, yet she could not
touch it unless Constance chose to hand it to her.
But Constance made no such proffer. Still clutching the precious
butterfly she continued to weep unrestrainedly.
Marjorie waited patiently.
Having failed hopelessly as a comforter, Charlie had hobbled to his
corner, where his Christmas tree still stood, and, with that blessed
forgetfulness of sorrow which childhood alone knows, had dragged forth
his violin and begun a dismal screeching and scraping, a nerve-racking
obligato to his foster sister's sobs.
Five endless minutes passed, but Constance made no sign.
"I'm--I'm going now," choked Marjorie. Hot tears lay thick on her
eyelashes. She stumbled blindly toward the door, her face averted from
the girl who had so misused and abused her friendship. "Good-bye,
Constance."
Something in the reproachful ring of that "Good-bye," startled Constance
out of her grief. She had been too greatly overcome with her own trouble
to note the effect of her tears and broken words upon Marjorie. Surely
Marjorie was not angry with her for crying.
"Wait a minute, Marjorie," she called. "Please don't be angry. I won't
cry any more. I want to tell you about the pin. It was----"
But only the sound of a closing door answered her. Marjorie was gone.