A MAN OF BIG HEART AND QUEER NOTIONS.
Christmas was a big event at Hollyhill. Hollyhill was well named.
Perhaps some old patriarch a century or two back conceived the
inspiration of the name while playing Santa Claus with the little tots
of the household and pretending to have slid down the chimney without
getting a speck of soot on his bulging vestments.
Perhaps he imagined, while mother woke the children and had them peek
through a "crack in the door" at the white whiskered visitor stuffing
their stockings full of presents, that he had tethered his prancing
team of reindeer to a holly tree outside. Certainly there seemed to
have been material for such imagination, for tradition said that the
hill on which the first houses of the first settlement were built had
at one time been richly adorned with a species of American Ilex, and
even now there remained here and there carefully preserved remnants of
that reported original wealth of the wilderness.
Whether or not this conjectural history of the settlement had anything
to do with the cheerful mid-winter holiday developments of the
community need not be argued at length. An argument would render the
truth flat and insipid if it should prove to be in accord with poetic
tradition. So what's the use?
In mid-winter everybody just knew that Hollyhill as a child had been
nursed in the snow trimmed evergreen lap of Christmas. Not that this
municipality had a corner on mid-winter holiday generosity to the
exclusion of all other communities. The chief outstanding fact in this
relation was that the inhabitants, or those so fortunate as to be in a
position to give and receive abundantly, believed Hollyhill to be the
most generous Christmas town on earth, and there was nobody
sufficiently interested to make a denial and follow it up with proof.
Much of the credit for this condition was due to the leading man of
the place, Richard P. Stanlock, president and controlling power of the
Hollyhill Coal Mining company, which owned a string of mines in the
mountain district near the divisional line of two states. Besides
being the leading citizen, Mr. Stanlock was the "biggest" man in town,
because of the position to which he had risen, his ability to hold it,
and the influence that went with it. What he said usually went, but
his hand was not always evident. He liked to see things done,
doubtless enjoyed the realization that his was the great moving power
that produced results, but didn't give a fig to have anybody else know
it. To his intimate friends, who were few, and to the many with whom
he would pass the time of day, he was as common in word and manner as
the average householder with nothing more pretentious in life than
the earning of his daily bread.
But in spite of all this simplicity and personal retirement Mr.
Stanlock was a good deal of a mystery to many citizens who knew really
little about him. Or perhaps he was a mystery to these fellow
townsfolk because of his modest qualities. Knowing little about him,
they imagined more. Leading citizens who knew his good qualities were
ever ready with a word of praise for him. But the trouble was, the
needed tangible evidence of his broad philanthropy was utterly
lacking. Seldom was there a visible connecting link between him and a
good deed. And so the praise of his work in pulpit, press and other
public and semi-public places fell as platitudes before a considerable
number of skeptics, whose favorite reply to this sort of thing was
something like--
"Bunk."
But Marion knew that it wasn't "bunk." She was one of the few
confidants that gained an intimate understanding of the wealthy mine
owner's character. She knew that he was the secret financial backer of
an organization of settlement workers which kept close watch on the
needs of the miners and their families, many of whom were so woefully
ignorant that about the only way to handle them was by appealing to
their appetites, their sympathies and their prejudices. She knew, too,
that he had strong connections constantly at work fostering and
promoting the best of activities for advancement of the civic welfare,
that Christmas was one of his secret hobbies and that it was
practically impossible for this city of 40,000 inhabitants to neglect
this opportunity for a revival of good fellowship and good cheer so
long as her father had his hand on the electric key of public
generosity.
Christmas was a blaze of glory every year in Hollyhill. Public halls,
churches, and theaters were the scenes of the liveliest activities for
several days and nights before and after this biggest event of the
winter season. Nor was the celebration confined to the more prosperous
sections of the town, but extended into the heart of the mining
settlement, where Christmas tinsel and lights were lavished without
consideration of cost and nobody was allowed to pass the season
without being impressively reminded as to just what turkey roast and
cranberry sauce tasted like.
So skilfully were these programs put into effect that seldom was a
hint dropped from any source that Richard Perry Stanlock was entitled
to the slightest credit for these magnificent doings. He spent
Christmas at home in a quiet unassuming way amid the family
decorations of holly and mistletoe, and a vast litter of presents,
oranges, apples, nuts, and candy.
Marion knew that her father's greatest vanity was his secret pride in
his ability to put over the biggest generosity of the year without
its being traceable to him. One day a girl acquaintance of her asked
her if she knew that her father spent $25,000 every year for
Christmas. Marion laughed; later she laughingly reported the query to
Mr. Stanlock. Next day this girl friend's uncle, one of the
philanthropist's agents, was called in on the carpet and given a
lecture on the wisdom of guarding his remarks such as he had never
before dreamed of receiving.
"Papa," the millionaire's older daughter said to him one day; "don't
you think it is foolish to keep secret all these generous things that
you are doing?"
"Why do you think it is foolish, my dear?" he replied with an
expression of shrewd amusement. He was certain that she would have
difficulty in answering his question.
"Well," she began slowly, then admitted: "I don't know."
"I'm very glad you don't know," said her father with evident
satisfaction. "If you had tried to give a reason, I should have been
greatly disappointed. No explanation of that suggestion could be based
on anything but family pride, which is one form of vanity."
"No," Marion differed thoughtfully. "There is one explanation based on
human caution and wisdom. I am afraid that you are misunderstood by
the very people whose confidence you should seek to cultivate, that is
the miners. Some of them don't like you very well. They think that
you personally are a hard taskmaster and that the attentions and
relief which really come from you in times of need, are bestowed on
them by persons who feel that they have to help them because of your
failure to do the right thing by them. Why don't you, papa, go right
among them and tell them that you are going to do everything you can
for them, raise their wages, maybe, and make them love you
personally?"
"It isn't my nature, Marion, to do it that way," Mr. Stanlock replied.
"There is nothing in the world that would be so distasteful to me as
assuming the role of a philanthropist or a hero. It spoils every man
to some extent who tries it. Personal vanity is the greatest enemy
that man has to guard against. I've guarded myself against it thus far
successfully, I think, and I'm not going to let it get me in the
future if I can help it."
Marion felt like saying that her father's fear of vanity might some
day get him into trouble with his men, but she refrained from so
expressing herself. On the occasion before us she recalled that
conversation, for she realized that the strike was a result, in part,
of the very misunderstanding that she had anticipated. Several clever
leaders among the miners had spread the report about that Mr. Stanlock
had become immensely wealthy by overworking and underpaying his men,
while he caused to be circulated through various channels numerous
undetailed reports of his generosity, philanthropy and public spirit.
When she invited the members of Flamingo Camp Fire to be her guests
and work with her among the poor and hunger-suffering families of the
strikers she did not realize the seriousness of the situation with
reference to the feeling of the miners toward her father. Now she felt
that the condition of affairs was more than she could cope with and
from the day of her arrival home she was constantly in fear lest some
dread catastrophe should befall the family because the "biggest man"
in Hollyhill kept himself severely fortified against the adulation of
his fellow townsmen and the character weakening influence of personal
vanity.
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