and it was all a mystery to poor Nibsy no longer. For, just as a
wild-eyed woman pushed her way through the crowd of nurses and doctors
to his bedside, crying for her boy, Nibsy gave up his soul to God.
* * * * *
It was very quiet in the alley. Christmas had come and gone. Upon the
last door a bow of soiled crape was nailed up with two tacks. It had
done duty there a dozen times before, that year.
Upstairs, Nibsy was at home, and for once the neighbors, one and all,
old and young, came to see him.
Even the father, ruffian that he was, offered no objection. Cowed and
silent, he sat in the corner by the window farthest from where the
plain little coffin stood, with the lid closed down.
A couple of the neighbor-women were talking in low tones by the stove,
when there came a timid knock at the door. Nobody answering, it was
pushed open, first a little, then far enough to admit the shrinking
form of a little ragamuffin, the smaller of the two who had stood
breathing peep-holes on the window pane of the delicatessen store the
night before when Nibsy came along.
He dragged with him a hemlock branch, the leavings from some Christmas
tree at the grocery.
"It's from Sante Claus," he said, laying it on the coffin. "Nibsy
knows." And he went out.
Santa Claus had come to Nibsy, after all, in his alley. And Nibsy knew.
THE LITTLE DOLLAR'S CHRISTMAS JOURNEY
"It is too bad," said Mrs. Lee, and she put down the magazine in which
she had been reading of the poor children in the tenements of the great
city that know little of Christmas joys; "no Christmas tree! One of
them shall have one, at any rate. I think this will buy it, and it
is so handy to send. Nobody would know that there was money in the
letter." And she enclosed a coupon in a letter to a professor, a friend
in the city, who, she knew, would have no trouble in finding the child,
and had it mailed at once. Mrs. Lee was a widow whose not too great
income was derived from the interest on some four per cent government
bonds which represented the savings of her husband's life of toil, that
was none the less hard because it was spent in a counting-room and
not with shovel and spade. The coupon looked for all the world like
a dollar bill, except that it was so small that a baby's hand could
easily cover it. The United States, the printing on it said, would pay
on demand to the bearer one dollar; and there was a number on it, just
as on a full-grown dollar, that was the number of the bond from which
it had been cut.
The letter travelled all night, and was tossed and sorted and bunched
at the end of its journey in the great gray beehive that never sleeps,
day or night, and where half the tears and joys of the land, including
this account of the little dollar, are checked off unceasingly as
first-class matter or second or third, as the case may be. In the
morning it was laid, none the worse for its journey, at the professor's
breakfast plate. The professor was a kindly man, and he smiled as he
read it. "To procure one small Christmas tree for a poor tenement," was
its errand.
"Little dollar," he said, "I think I know where you are needed." And
he made a note in his book. There were other notes there that made
him smile again as he saw them. They had names set opposite them. One
about a Noah's ark was marked "Vivi." That was the baby; and there was
one about a doll's carriage that had the words "Katie, sure," set over
against it. The professor eyed the list in mock dismay.
"How ever will I do it?" he sighed, as he put on his hat.
"Well, you will have to get Santa Claus to help you, John," said his
wife, buttoning his greatcoat about him. "And, mercy! the duckses'
babies! don't forget them, whatever you do. The baby has been talking
about nothing else since he saw them at the store, the old duck and
the two ducklings on wheels. You know them, John?"
But the professor was gone, repeating to himself as he went down the
garden walk, "The duckses' babies, indeed!" He chuckled as he said it,
why I cannot tell. He was very particular about his grammar, was the
professor, ordinarily. Perhaps it was because it was Christmas eve.
Down town went the professor; but instead of going with the crowd that
was setting toward Santa Claus's headquarters, in the big Broadway
store, he turned off into a quieter street, leading west. It took
him to a narrow thoroughfare, with five-story tenements frowning on
their side, where the people he met were not so well dressed as those
he had left behind, and did not seem to be in such a hurry of joyful
anticipation of the holiday. Into one of the tenements he went, and,
groping his way through a pitch-dark hall, came to a door way back, the
last one to the left, at which he knocked. An expectant voice said,
"Come in," and the professor pushed open the door.
The room was very small, very stuffy, and very dark, so dark that a
smoking kerosene lamp that burned on a table next the stove hardly
lighted it at all, though it was broad day. A big, unshaven man, who
sat on the bed, rose when he saw the visitor, and stood uncomfortably
shifting his feet and avoiding the professor's eye. The latter's
glance was serious, though not unkind, as he asked the woman with the
baby if he had found no work yet.
"No," she said, anxiously coming to the rescue, "not yet; he was
waitin' for a recommend." But Johnnie had earned two dollars running
errands, and, now there was a big fall of snow, his father might get
a job of shovelling. The woman's face was worried, yet there was a
cheerful note in her voice that somehow made the place seem less
discouraging than it was. The baby she nursed was not much larger than
a middle-sized doll. Its little face looked thin and wan. It had been
very sick, she explained, but the doctor said it was mending now. That
was good, said the professor, and patted one of the bigger children on
the head.
There were six of them, of all sizes, from Johnnie, who could run
errands, down. They were busy fixing up a Christmas tree that half
filled the room, though it was of the very smallest. Yet, it was a real
Christmas tree, left over from the Sunday-school stock, and it was
dressed up at that. Pictures from the colored supplement of a Sunday
newspaper hung and stood on every branch, and three pieces of colored
glass, suspended on threads that shone in the smoky lamplight, lent
color and real beauty to the show. The children were greatly tickled.
"John put it up," said the mother, by way of explanation, as the
professor eyed it approvingly. "There ain't nothing to eat on it.
If there was, it wouldn't be there a minute. The childer be always
a-searchin' in it."
"But there must be, or else it isn't a real Christmas tree," said
the professor, and brought out the little dollar. "This is a dollar
which a friend gave me for the children's Christmas, and she sends
her love with it. Now, you buy them some things and a few candles,
Mrs. Ferguson, and then a good supper for the rest of the family. Good
night, and a Merry Christmas to you. I think myself the baby is getting
better." It had just opened its eyes and laughed at the tree.
The professor was not very far on his way toward keeping his
appointment with Santa Claus before Mrs. Ferguson was at the grocery
laying in her dinner. A dollar goes a long way when it is the only one
in the house; and when she had everything, including two cents' worth
of flitter-gold, four apples, and five candles for the tree, the grocer
footed up her bill on the bag that held her potatoes--ninety-eight
cents. Mrs. Ferguson gave him the little dollar.
"What's this?" said the grocer, his fat smile turning cold as he laid a
restraining hand on the full basket. "That ain't no good."
"It's a dollar, ain't it?" said the woman, in alarm. "It's all right.
I know the man that give it to me."
"It ain't all right in this store," said the grocer, sternly. "Put them
things back. I want none o' that."
The woman's eyes filled with tears as she slowly took the lid off the
basket and lifted out the precious bag of potatoes. They were waiting
for that dinner at home. The children were even then camping on the
doorstep to take her in to the tree in triumph. And now----
For the second time a restraining hand was laid upon her basket; but
this time it was not the grocer's. A gentleman who had come in to order
a Christmas turkey had overheard the conversation, and had seen the
strange bill.
"It is all right," he said to the grocer. "Give it to me. Here is a
dollar bill for it of the kind you know. If all your groceries were as
honest as this bill, Mr. Schmidt, it would be a pleasure to trade with
you. Don't be afraid to trust Uncle Sam where you see his promise to
pay."
The gentleman held the door open for Mrs. Ferguson, and heard the shout
of the delegation awaiting her on the stoop as he went down the street.
"I wonder where that came from, now," he mused. "Coupons in Bedford
Street! I suppose somebody sent it to the woman for a Christmas gift.
Hello! Here are old Thomas and Snowflake. Now, wouldn't it surprise her
old stomach if I gave her a Christmas gift of oats? If only the shock
doesn't kill her! Thomas! Oh, Thomas!"
The old man thus hailed stopped and awaited the gentleman's coming. He
was a cartman who did odd jobs through the ward, so picking up a living
for himself and the white horse, which the boys had dubbed Snowflake
in a spirit of fun. They were a well-matched old pair, Thomas and his
horse. One was not more decrepit than the other.
There was a tradition along the docks, where Thomas found a job now and
then, and Snowflake an occasional straw to lunch on, that they were of
an age, but this was denied by Thomas.
"See here," said the gentleman, as he caught up with them; "I want
Snowflake to keep Christmas, Thomas. Take this and buy him a bag of
oats. And give it to him carefully, do you hear?--not all at once,
Thomas. He isn't used to it."
"Gee whizz!" said the old man, rubbing his eyes with his cap, as his
friend passed out of sight, "oats fer Christmas! G'lang, Snowflake; yer
in luck."
The feed-man put on his spectacles and looked Thomas over at the
strange order. Then he scanned the little dollar, first on one side,
then on the other.
"Never seed one like him," he said. "'Pears to me he is mighty short.
Wait till I send round to the hockshop. He'll know, if anybody."
The man at the pawnshop did not need a second look. "Why, of course,"
he said, and handed a dollar bill over the counter. "Old Thomas, did
you say? Well, I am blamed if the old man ain't got a stocking after
all. They're a sly pair, he and Snowflake."
Business was brisk that day at the pawnshop. The door-bell tinkled
early and late, and the stock on the shelves grew. Bundle was added
to bundle. It had been a hard winter so far. Among the callers in the
early afternoon was a young girl in a gingham dress and without other
covering, who stood timidly at the counter and asked for three dollars
on a watch, a keepsake evidently, which she was loath to part with.
Perhaps it was the last glimpse of brighter days. The pawnbroker was
doubtful; it was not worth so much. She pleaded hard, while he compared
the number of the movement with a list sent in from Police Headquarters.
"Two," he said decisively at last, snapping the case shut--"two or
nothing." The girl handed over the watch with a troubled sigh. He made
out a ticket and gave it to her with a handful of silver change.
Was it the sigh and her evident distress, or was it the little dollar?
As she turned to go, he called her back.
"Here, it is Christmas!" he said. "I'll run the risk." And he added the
coupon to the little heap.
The girl looked at it and at him questioningly.
"It is all right," he said; "you can take it; I'm running short of
change. Bring it back if they won't take it. I'm good for it." Uncle
Sam had achieved a backer.
In Grand Street the holiday crowds jammed every store in their eager
hunt for bargains. In one of them, at the knit-goods counter, stood the
girl from the pawnshop, picking out a thick, warm shawl. She hesitated
between a gray and a maroon-colored one, and held them up to the light.
"For you?" asked the salesgirl, thinking to aid her. She glanced at her
thin dress and shivering form as she said it.
"No," said the girl; "for mother; she is poorly and needs it." She
chose the gray, and gave the salesgirl her handful of money.
The girl gave back the coupon.
"They don't go," she said; "give me another, please."
"But I haven't got another," said the girl, looking apprehensively at
the shawl. "The--Mr. Feeney said it was all right. Take it to the desk,
please, and ask."
The salesgirl took the bill and the shawl, and went to the desk. She
came back, almost immediately, with the storekeeper, who looked sharply
at the customer and noted the number of the coupon.
"It is all right," he said, satisfied apparently by the inspection; "a
little unusual, only. We don't see many of them. Can I help you, miss?"
And he attended her to the door.
In the street there was even more of a Christmas show going on than in
the stores. Pedlers of toys, of mottoes, of candles, and of knickknacks
of every description stood in rows along the curb, and were driving a
lively trade. Their push-carts were decorated with fir branches--even
whole Christmas trees. One held a whole cargo of Santa Clauses in a
bower of green, each one with a cedar-bush in his folded arms, as a
soldier carries his gun. The lights were blazing out in the stores, and
the hucksters' torches were flaring at the corners. There was Christmas
in the very air and Christmas in the storekeeper's till. It had been
a very busy day. He thought of it with a satisfied nod as he stood a
moment breathing the brisk air of the winter day, absently fingering
the coupon the girl had paid for the shawl. A thin voice at his elbow
said: "Merry Christmas, Mr. Stein! Here's yer paper."
It was the newsboy who left the evening papers at the door every night.
The storekeeper knew him, and something about the struggle they had at
home to keep the roof over their heads. Mike was a kind of protégé of
his. He had helped to get him his route.
"Wait a bit, Mike," he said. "You'll be wanting your Christmas from me.
Here's a dollar. It's just like yourself: it is small, but it is all
right. You take it home and have a good time."
Was it the message with which it had been sent forth from far away in
the country, or what was it? Whatever it was, it was just impossible
for the little dollar to lie still in the pocket while there was want
to be relieved, mouths to be filled, or Christmas lights to be lit. It
just couldn't, and it didn't.
Mike stopped around the corner of Allen Street, and gave three
whoops expressive of his approval of Mr. Stein; having done which,
he sidled up to the first lighted window out of range to examine his
gift. His enthusiasm changed to open-mouthed astonishment as he saw
the little dollar. His jaw fell. Mike was not much of a scholar, and
could not make out the inscription on the coupon; but he had heard of
shinplasters as something they "had in the war," and he took this to be
some sort of a ten-cent piece. The policeman on the block might tell.
Just now he and Mike were hunk. They had made up a little difference
they'd had, and if any one would know, the cop surely would. And off he
went in search of him.
Mr. McCarthy pulled off his gloves, put his club under his arm, and
studied the little dollar with contracted brow. He shook his head as he
handed it back, and rendered the opinion that it was "some dom swindle
that's ag'in the law." He advised Mike to take it back to Mr. Stein,
and added, as he prodded him in an entirely friendly manner in the ribs
with his locust, that if it had been the week before he might have "run
him in" for having the thing in his possession. As it happened, Mr.
Stein was busy and not to be seen, and Mike went home between hope and
fear, with his doubtful prize.
There was a crowd at the door of the tenement, and Mike saw, before he
had reached it, running, that it clustered about an ambulance that was
backed up to the sidewalk. Just as he pushed his way through the throng
it drove off, its clanging gong scattering the people right and left.
A little girl sat weeping on the top step of the stoop. To her Mike
turned for information.
"Susie, what's up?" he asked, confronting her with his armful of
papers. "Who's got hurted?"
"It's papa," sobbed the girl. "He ain't hurted. He's sick, and he was
took that bad he had to go, an' to-morrer is Christmas, an'--oh, Mike!"
It is not the fashion of Essex Street to slop over. Mike didn't. He
just set his mouth to a whistle and took a turn down the hall to think.
Susie was his chum. There were seven in her flat; in his only four,
including two that made wages. He came back from his trip with his mind
made up.
"Suse," he said, "come on in. You take this, Suse, see! an' let the
kids have their Christmas. Mr. Stein give it to me. It's a little one,
but if it ain't all right I'll take it back and get one that is good.
Go on, now, Suse, you hear?" And he was gone.
There was a Christmas tree that night in Susie's flat, with candles
and apples and shining gold, but the little dollar did not pay for it.
That rested securely in the purse of the charity visitor who had come
that afternoon, just at the right time, as it proved. She had heard the
story of Mike and his sacrifice, and had herself given the children a
one-dollar bill for the coupon. They had their Christmas, and a joyful
one, too, for the lady went up to the hospital and brought back word
that Susie's father would be all right with rest and care, which he was
now getting. Mike came in and helped them "sack" the tree when the lady
was gone. He gave three more whoops for Mr. Stein, three for the lady,
and three for the hospital doctor to even things up. Essex Street was
all right that night.
"Do you know, professor," said that learned man's wife, when, after
supper, he had settled down in his easy-chair to admire the Noah's
ark and the duckses' babies and the rest, all of which had arrived
safely by express ahead of him and were waiting to be detailed to their
appropriate stockings while the children slept--"do you know, I heard
such a story of a little newsboy to-day. It was at the meeting of our
district charity committee this evening. Miss Linder, our visitor, came
right from the house." And she told the story of Mike and Susie.
"And I just got the little dollar bill to keep. Here it is." She took
the coupon out of her purse and passed it to her husband.
"Eh! what?" said the professor, adjusting his spectacles and reading
the number. "If here isn't my little dollar come back to me! Why, where
have you been, little one? I left you in Bedford Street this morning,
and here you come by way of Essex. Well, I declare!" And he told his
wife how he had received it in a letter in the morning.
"John," she said, with a sudden impulse,--she didn't know, and neither
did he, that it was the charm of the little dollar that was working
again,--"John, I guess it is a sin to stop it. Jones's children won't
have any Christmas tree, because they can't afford it. He told me so
this morning when he fixed the furnace. And the baby is sick. Let us
give them the little dollar. He is here in the kitchen now."
And they did; and the Joneses, and I don't know how many others, had
a Merry Christmas because of the blessed little dollar that carried
Christmas cheer and good luck wherever it went. For all I know, it may
be going yet. Certainly it is a sin to stop it, and if any one has
locked it up without knowing that he locked up the Christmas dollar,
let him start it right out again. He can tell it easily enough. If he
just looks at the number, that's the one.
LITTLE WILL'S MESSAGE
"It is that or starve, Captain. I can't get a job. God knows I've
tried, but without a recommend, it's no use. I ain't no good at
beggin'. And--and--there's the childer."
There was a desperate note in the man's voice that made the Captain
turn and look sharply at him. A swarthy, strongly built man in a rough
coat, and with that in his dark face which told that he had lived
longer than his years, stood at the door of the Detective Office. His
hand that gripped the door handle shook so that the knob rattled in
his grasp, but not with fear. He was no stranger to that place. Black
Bill's face had looked out from the Rogues' Gallery longer than most of
those now there could remember. The Captain looked him over in silence.
"You had better not, Bill," he said. "You know what will come of it.
When you go up again it will be the last time. And up you go, sure."
The man started to say something, but choked it down and went out
without a word. The Captain got up and rang his bell.
"Bill, who was here just now, is off again," he said to the officer who
came to the door. "He says it is steal or starve, and he can't get a
job. I guess he is right. Who wants a thief in his pay? And how can I
recommend him? And still I think he would keep straight if he had the
chance. Tell Murphy to look after him and see what he is up to."
The Captain went out, tugging viciously at his gloves. He was in very
bad humor. The policeman at the Mulberry Street door got hardly a nod
for his cheery "Merry Christmas" as he passed.
"Wonder what's crossed him," he said, looking down the street after him.
The green lamps were lighted and shone upon the hurrying six o'clock
crowds from the Broadway shops. In the great business buildings the
iron shutters were pulled down and the lights put out, and in a little
while the reporters' boys that carried slips from Headquarters to the
newspaper offices across the street were the only tenants of the block.
A stray policeman stopped now and then on the corner and tapped the
lamp-post reflectively with his club as he looked down the deserted
street and wondered, as his glance rested upon the Chief's darkened
windows, how it felt to have six thousand dollars a year and every
night off. In the Detective Office the Sergeant who had come in at
roll-call stretched himself behind the desk and thought of home. The
lights of a Christmas tree in the abutting Mott Street tenement shone
through his window, and the laughter of children mingled with the tap
of the toy drum. He pulled down the sash in order to hear better. As
he did so, a strong draught swept his desk. The outer door slammed.
Two detectives came in bringing a prisoner between them. A woman
accompanied them.
The Sergeant pulled the blotter toward him mechanically and dipped his
pen.
"What's the charge?" he asked.
"Picking pockets in Fourteenth Street. This lady is the complainant,
Mrs. ----"
The name was that of a well-known police magistrate. The Sergeant
looked up and bowed. His glance took in the prisoner, and a look of
recognition came into his face.
"What, Bill! So soon?" he said.
The prisoner was sullenly silent. He answered the questions put to
him briefly, and was searched. The stolen pocket-book, a small paper
package, and a crumpled letter were laid upon the desk. The Sergeant
saw only the pocket-book.
"Looks bad," he said with wrinkled brow.
"We caught him at it," explained the officer. "Guess Bill has lost
heart. He didn't seem to care. Didn't even try to get away."
The prisoner was taken to a cell. Silence fell once more upon the
office. The Sergeant made a few red lines in the blotter and resumed
his reveries. He was not in a mood for work. He hitched his chair
nearer the window and looked across the yard. But the lights there
were put out, the children's laughter had died away. Out of sorts at he
hardly knew what, he leaned back in his chair, with his hands under the
back of his head. Here it was Christmas Eve, and he at the desk instead
of being out with the old woman buying things for the children. He
thought with a sudden pang of conscience of the sled he had promised to
get for Johnnie and had forgotten. That was hard luck. And what would
Katie say when----
He had got that far when his eye, roaming idly over the desk, rested
upon the little package taken from the thief's pocket. Something about
it seemed to move him with sudden interest. He sat up and reached for
it. He felt it carefully all over. Then he undid the package slowly and
drew forth a woolly sheep. It had a blue ribbon about its neck, with a
tiny bell hung on it.
The Sergeant set the sheep upon the desk and looked at it fixedly for
better than a minute. Having apparently studied out its mechanism, he
pulled its head and it baa-ed. He pulled it once more, and nodded. Then
he took up the crumpled letter and opened it.
This was what he read, scrawled in a child's uncertain hand:--